Deanna Brown

A hero can be anyone… They can be someone who’s always been striving for greatness, someone who tore apart someone’s world then came back to pick up the pieces and gingerly put them back in place. Careful not to shatter the fragile world encasing, and embracing, this individual. They can be the shining stars in our life that everybody knows the world round. Or someone in a small home town, that very few people have the pleasure of meeting, or able to say with pride they really know….

I’m sure everyone knows one of those special people, the ones who can make you smile, even if you are simply seeing them after a long absence of their presence. Or perhaps a phone call, you can’t see them, that face you know so well, but just the familiar voice is a soothing caress against the shell of your ear. I wasn’t always quite as bright as I am nowadays, though her contribution to this was great.. I used to be quite hard to reach, though she managed. I’d compare it to that of an artist with a chisel in one loosely coiled hand and a hammer grasped in the other. I’ve been told stone work is really difficult, though she wasn’t working upon stone, her tablet was of ice. Her challenge, to create a heart.

Whether it was the scruff of your neck or a lock of hair.. Maybe you were just unfortunate enough to have me snatch your arm and anchor on with sharpened razor nails, sinking into the flesh I kept hold of and therefore keeping you in place and I bellowed my demands in a near demonic hiss of tone. This was something many of my school mates from earlier on remember. My poor friend Jordie, I used to hoist him up off the ground by the hem of his boxers, till they were up around his shoulders and he was a good 4 inches from the tiled floor his feet once walked upon.. though they now dangled in the air much like that of a helpless rabbit encased between the jaws of a rabid wolverine, slowly having the life squeezed from it. He didn’t fight back, because he knew I’d win… Many of my friends still possess some sort of a scar from me. Needless to say I wasn’t a very nice child. And I honestly feel horrible thinking I used to be like this, what some children’s nightmares we’re made of, and not just any children.. these people were my friends.

She’s their hero.. My hero, best friend, and counterpart for ever more. My better half if you will.

P.S I still laugh.. When attempting to peel a grapefruit in the morning just the way she taught me.. when it lashes out and spits its juices at me.. Unless it manages to get its aim just right and target my eye.. They I scream bloody marry to it and wake the rest of my household…

Now in the furious typhoon that used to be me something began to calm, counteracting the harsh winds and releasing those I used to have a hold on… I was distracted now, by someone that had always been there, actually one of my opponents in my senseless battles and the other reining tallest. ( Me and her were the two tallest in our grade 5 and 6 class ) I had never realized until one day, after trying to disarm one of the smaller boys of something he had. Be it a stick or a book I can’t remember. SHE came out of nowhere ( alright not really, she was sitting under the shade tree) and stepping in front of him, she was opposing me. Though later, we grew to be the best of friends. How interesting this girl was, she was smart beyond what I had previously realized was possible for a 6th grader, let alone a human being. The most gorgeous creature, tall and elegant. Not to mention a sheer genius and someone who was ready to defend those around her, even at the cost of her own injuries. Had slipped under my radar, I simply hadn’t noticed and had seen her as an obstacle to what I wanted. And that was control.

Though soon she turned my own desire upon me, it would seem she had attached strings to each of my limbs by the use a silent, gentle and unwavering voice. As the months and years began to stack on the clock I became ensnared by her, everything about her, the way she knew how to solve every problem thrown at her on a mathematic paper, her artistic abilities.. oh did they make me jealous! Green with envy really. ( Though I still am) The way she was always so concerned if I forgot or simply didn’t have a lunch, offering some of hers to me. And when I was to refuse attempting to force it down my throat, by means of grinding a cracker against the gums of my clenched jaw. Making me admit defeat after mere moments of her tactics. It was funny. As a child I hated grapefruits, they were horribly sour, bitter really. Though she taught me it was only the skin that contained the citrus’ bite, showing me that if you peeled away the skin of it to reveal the small beaded pouches inside they we’re really quite sweet. Though I soon learned after trying that you had to be ginger and careful removing the thin skin, or the beads beneath it would burst and shoot upwards in a vicious onslaught for your feeble, uncaring attempts, and of course right into ones eyes.

It was really much like what she had done with me. Hesitantly walking into my life and tearing down all the walls in an instant with just a simple glance of chocolate brown, without even so much as meaning to. Of course, as things like these go my feelings of simple friendship soon evolved into that of a much stronger bond, a little four letter word that soon wreaked havoc on my life for the following two years. Of course she didn’t feel the same way, she really was perfect in every way, completely oblivious to the fact that her caring, unselfish acts had ensnared the beast…Which was ( And is) about as ‘demonic’ as a wet puppy.

Well, that puppy continued to tail her, though she never kicked at it or shooed it away, even though she knew of its obvious infatuation. ( As I had told her this on numerous such occasions ) Even though she didn’t feel the same at the time, she never pushed me away. Because we were best friends. Were and are. Though nowadays, we’re a little something more. (She says at the time she just wasn’t ready for something like that, we WERE only in the 6th grade I mean what did I expect, though she says as time went on she began to feel the same way. She had grown up and didn’t think relationships we’re ‘icky’ anymore ^^;;)

As for my tormented victims.. They’re all still around. And they accept me. I tell them all the time I’m sorry for all the horrid things I did to them. They tell me that that was the old me and not to worry too much about it, that I’ve changed since then. She changed me…