Ashley Dotson [Finding Justus The Beacon (epub)

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.Having been in the car for so long it felt good to move with a purpose.I passed one house after another.They looked so similar, varying slightly in color and size - some beige, brown, yellow, white, and even blue.The front doors were always a shade of red, which some consider to be a vibrant welcome, but red doors always felt ominous, like they were portals, as if walking through them would take me somewhere evil.Some of my friends had red front doors on their houses back in Alexandria and I always found some excuse not to go into their homes.I usually made the excuse that no one was home at my house, and we could just hang out there.That usually worked.All the red doors in this neighborhood bothered me just as much as it had then.I was like a cat, whose body went rigid when it was pushed too close to water, inching backward knowing it wasn’t meant to swim.I didn’t consider myself superstitious, but in my mind this wasn’t a fear or irrational feeling, it was a fact - red doors were not to be entered.But nevertheless, the houses were fun to discover, each with its own small front yard and lush looming trees.It was as if trees were a little mask, and you had to wait until you were at the right angle for the house to come into view and say, “surprise!” I liked them.I was comforted in knowing the neighborhood was homey and well cared for - despite their choice of color for doors.I became so enamored of my surroundings I forgot all about my coffee run.“Did I miss the turn? I wondered aloud.I stopped midstride and looked around myself.I had taken a few twists and followed the meandering sidewalk, more interested in the houses around me, and less in finding the minimart I had seen the day before.There were people darting in and out of their houses picking up newspapers, some getting in their cars and headed for work.I must have been walking for quite a while - half and hour or so.Surely the little store wasn’t that far away.At this rate I would find coffee by lunch time.“I guess I can wait a little while longer.” I whispered under my breath.I wiggled my toes which were beginning to ache from my morning jaunt.I did a one-eighty and decided to head back the way I came.Maybe I could get home quickly and I could ask dad for borrow the car.I could tell him that I needed to do some grocery shopping.He didn’t approve of my coffee habit much, but I didn’t care much.The view behind me looked just as foreign.A giggle escaped my lips as I realized, “I’m lost!” As if admitting the obvious would make it less absurd.Who gets lost in their own neighborhood - new or not?That fact that I was lost was no one’s fault but my own.I wasn’t someone who got lost easily.That happened to people in scary movies or toddlers who let go of their mommy’s hand, not me.But there I was - too caught up in scenery that I didn’t know where I was going.I blamed it on my lack of sleep and lack of coffee.At least if I headed back in this direction I knew I would be closer to my house than I was right now.I was becoming angry with myself for being such a dreamer.The broken cement pieces crunched on the cracked sidewalk.I moved with my head down watching my feet instead of the places around me, worried that if I did look at one of houses it would peek through its mask of trees to laugh and point its finger at me.Instead of smiling down at me with their cheerful windows and jolly waving trees, the windows appeared mockingly vacant and the dark red of their doors became disapproving frowns.“Shut up,” I said to a white house as it sneered at me behind an oak tree.I had wandered into a cluster of houses that were older and far more grandiose than our little house on Campbell.These tall square structures reminded me of the Southern plantation homes and the large family mansions from Louisiana.I knew these weren’t mansions, and the styles were completely different, but what they did have in common was a commanding presence, alive with a history much longer than my own.These homes were set farther back away from the street and farther apart from each other, everything about them from their yards, to the picture windows, moldings, and flowerbeds were just a little prettier, a little better than what surrounded other houses in my neighborhood.I decided they were snobby.After walking by a few I decided my favorite was a three-story square house with buttercream paint and navy blue shutters, no red on this house either [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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