Concrete Jungle

Chapter 21

    Thus began the nearly six month long writing project. Sasha took the week she preplanned off in the beginning and during that time, she spent some time on herself both emotionally and psychologically. She told her family that once she began writing she wouldn't be sure how often she could visit so she essentially moved back home for that week. Her brothers had no problem giving her, her old room back for the duration.

     As it was November when she started writing, she couldn't be outdoors and write. Therefore most of the time she was either in one of her favorite coffee shops, at home, in the library in midtown, or in the office though the latter was less frequent as it wasn't an easy environment to write something this difficult in. As her job was different then regular 9-5s, she didn't clock in nor need to every day. She had office hours, writing hours, and expedition hours. When she was doing the latter two, as long as she kept track of approximately how many hours she wrote a month, she would get paid handsomely. If she was traveling, expeditions were treated differently and therefore paid as thus.

    She had decided that the issue would have three parts; the main story including Ben's scientific experiments, the paranormal investigators interviews which Ben had already gotten, and everything else they had done. Then she would write the prose poem of the "Room 30 Years in Time" along with the photographs, and lastly would be Vasya's Story. Rahel's photos would have their own section in there somewhere and they would figure out the layout as Sasha moved through writing each section. Ben would also do a piece on just his scientific experiments which neither Sasha nor Rahel understood and teased him about.

   Their company being as large as it was had its own instant messaging system so employees from around the world who worked together on projects could communicate easier. Sasha set up a group chat for the 3 of them to exchange notes, information, and just communicate during this process. She actually went into the office one day and told them that she decided to write the before and after room as a prose poem.

"Really? I didn't know you wrote poetry too. Is there a genre you can't write on?" Rahel asked in the chat, impressed. Sasha smiled to herself.
"Hmm, let me think. Probably horror; I'm not a fan of gore or zombies. Which is ironic.....considering."

    They all knew what she meant by that last phrase. She wasn't a fan of gore but she was about to write one of the goriest horror stories in history. That was different and Ben said as much.

"Can't even compare; some fiction with blood and guts and whatnot with the beyond traumatic experience of a 6 year old little girl."

    They were all silent for a while, than they went back to their respective work. It was in that moment of brief contemplation that the words to the poem started to pour out of Sasha and she let them. When it came to poetry, she just let the words flow the way they wanted to; no need for actual sentence structure or real grammar. So the poem ended up being the first thing written. After she was done with it, she looked it over a couple of times and was satisfied with it.

    The largest piece took the longest time to write and yet she knew she still had to leave plenty of time for Vasya's story. As November turned into December and then into January, Sasha just kept writing. At times it was like she was possessed, she had to remind herself to eat and sleep as well as stretch. Thankfully, because it was the holiday season, she was able to take breaks for Thanksgiving, Chanukah, the Christmas party at work, and New Years that she was able to go back to her family for large, happy meals. For New Years that year, her parents gathered their friends as well and had a large floor party as most of their neighbors were their actual close friends. Sasha enjoyed the time with her family and the much needed break from writing.

    Every time her parents would see her, she looked like there was a battle going on in her brain. Her mother's 6th sense told her that Sasha hadn't told them everything that happened during this trip, that whatever she was holding back was big and probably would come out in the stories she wrote. Never one to push or nag, she just silently prayed for her daughter each night before she went to bed.