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The Ledge
Once there was an island in the sky, not so much an island, but a platform. The people there had never seen our world below and didn’t care to due to the surreptitious efforts by the Bell family. The Bell family inherited the ‘land’ over many generations; they lived by strict rules to uphold the family name and did so astonishingly well, they married within their class, they didn’t ask questions and traditions were never broken, that is, if you don’t include the Bells’ youngest daughter, Anna Bell. Everyone on the platform hated Anna; she was obnoxious, boisterous, and worst of all, smart. Anna asked questions they couldn’t answer; questions, about the world beyond their precious platform. “But don’t you want to know where we get those plants you sell?” She asked the vendor one evening. “Anna, for the hundredth time, it’s not a place you want to go, there is a reason why we’re on this platform and you of all people should know!” “Yeah, yeah. Shoot, I’m late for my father’s meeting with Mr. Dee! See ya!” Anna ran down the metal street thinking about the meeting she was missing, it wasn’t much. Anna was missing wedding plans with one Travis Dee, her groom to be, and the epitome of her hatred. She’d tried getting out of it but that’s not how the Bell’s did things, so she had to suffer. “Lord Bell!” she said scrabbling into the town hall, “I see Mr. Dee has left already, what a pity!” She held back a smile. “Anna I’m going home” Her father said “I’m disappointed, I don’t know what to do with you” Anna shrunk “I don’t know either” she said quietly.
A young man named Justin walked in the room. Justin knew Anna perhaps better than anyone, and unlike everyone else on the platform, he loved Anna. Love is a strange thing and Justin knew that better than anyone, it’s such a strange thing that two people who are irreversibly in love can pass by each other without saying a word; that is precisely what happened. Justin passed by Anna, Anna by Justin and that was it. Anna remembered when they were kids, naïve enough to believe that they would be married, they would leave the platform together and the rest would be discovered along the way. She knew now how silly a notion that was; she would be married to Mr. Dee in less than a week and nothing she could do would change that. She was so absorbed in her thoughts, the tragedy she was facing that she didn’t quite take in her surrounding for if she had, she would’ve realized that she had stopped walking due to some unknown restraint holding her back. That restraint was named Justin. She glanced down to see his hand holding her back. “Justin!” she was caught off guard, “Anna, don’t Marry Mr. Dee” “I don’t really have a choice” she was still looking at her arm puzzled “Leave” He said, “you always wanted to” What a crazy notion, “I’ll go with you", it didn’t seem so crazy anymore.
Weeks had passed since Anna told her father she was not marrying Travis Dee. After many hours of fighting, screaming, and even being imprisoned in her room she finally sat on the ledge of the large metal platform she had called home. With Justin by her side off they leaped the rest to be discovered along the way.
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