Note: If you're looking for a story that is drama filled, emotionally-laden, and covers heavy aspects of life – then this is seriously not the story for you. But if you’re looking for a good ol’ lighthearted story created with very little thought put into it, made purely for shits and giggles, with a little bit of drama here and there because every good story needs a dash of that, then hey, maybe you can stick around. ;)

In other words, don’t expect any literary breakthroughs, folks. ;)

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A SIMPLE SONG FOR LORI

MILK AND CEREAL
(by G. Love and Special Sauce)

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“Cheerios.”

Loretta Finney looked up from her breakfast, which didn’t have any Cheerios. In fact, it was composed of two slices of toast, both with a thick layer of Nutella spread on top, and a glass of milk. “Whmmff?” she asked through a mouthful of bread and hazelnut spread.

Sitting across the island counter was one of her flat mates, Speedy, in his boxers and baby blue bathrobe.

There wasn’t a lot Lori knew about Speedy. In fact, in the four months she and her best friend Dawn had been living with him, they still didn’t know his real name. The only reason why they called him Speedy was because the first time they saw him, he was posting ‘I NEED A PLACE TO LIVE’ flyers on a university bulletin board, and he was wearing yellow Speedy Gonzales pajama bottoms.

Based on his physical appearance, Speedy was a normal looking, tall, skinny, Asian guy. At first they assumed he was Korean because whenever he took them to a small Korean restaurant a couple blocks away, he could easily talk to the waitresses to get them what they wanted without even looking at the menu. But then they wondered if he was part Filipino because he quickly made friends with the Filipino lady two floors below them who now baked and gave them a bag of warm pan de sal once every week. Then just last week, he was lying down on the couch, reading one of his Japanese comic books – without English translations. From the way he roared in laughter at some parts and started tearing up at the next, he must have had some idea of what he was reading.

“I had a dream last night,” he said, scratching his head. Speedy kept his black hair very closely shaved to his head because he told them he didn’t like his hair poking his eyes.

“Oh.” Lori’s eyes widened as she set her slice of toast down.

Often times, Speedy had one of his ‘dreams’ where glimpses of the future slipped in. The first time he had one of his dreams, it involved Dawn and the number ‘forty-nine.’ They didn’t pay attention to him at first, they had simply laughed it off and put it into their ever-growing ‘Things Speedy Said’ list, and went on to their usual activities that day. But when Dawn returned home that day, holding her Physics 45 test, sure enough – there was a big, fat, red ‘forty-nine’ stamped on the upper right corner.

“Yeah.”

She waited a couple more seconds. “… Is that it?”

Speedy shrugged. “Uhuh.”

Lori looked around the kitchen. “We’ve only got Cap’n Crunch and Trix,” she said, looking back at him to see if that helped. Okay, so it wasn’t like they took Speedy’s dreams seriously… but they made sure not to ignore them anymore. “Should I buy some at the grocery later?”

“How am I supposed to know?” he asked innocently, raising his hands in the air.

Lori sighed as her shoulders dropped. If it were any other person, the question would have come off as sarcastic, but Speedy was an exception to most cases – he really didn’t know. “Thanks,” she muttered, picking up her slice of bread. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Speedy shrugged once more as he slid off his stool. He picked up his glass of juice and started heading for his room, but he stopped and turned around all of a sudden. “Oh, there’s one more thing,” he said, lifting a finger in the air.

Lori sat up, her eyebrows rising expectantly. “What?”

“Could you get me some shampoo?”

She nearly toppled backwards. “Speedy, you barely have hair.”

“Okay, but I’ve been using yours and it’s almost finished.”

Lori gave him an unamused expression as he slipped back inside his room. She knew she was bound to meet some pretty weird people in college. She just hadn’t expected to be living with the weirdest one.

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“Milk… orange juice… mayonnaise…”

The supermarket was only a bus ride away from their apartment, so it didn’t take long for Lori to get there after her last class. She had been doing the grocery shopping on her own for a couple of weeks now and that was something she was proud of because she always got that ‘accomplished-independent-university-student’ feelingover a carton of eggs she bought by herself.

The university dormitories were all reserved by the time Lori and Dawn had started looking for a place to live, so they were lucky they found an apartment complex that was often occupied by students and just a few minutes’ walk away from campus. The original plan was that Lori, Dawn, and the daughter of one of her mother’s friends would be living together. What they hadn’t planned was for the other girl to get pregnant after her senior prom… so that meant they needed one more person to make rent.

And that was when Speedy came into the picture.

Usually they would have been against living with a guy – but Speedy was harmless. Dawn could easily knock him out with her lacrosse stick. Also, they had a feeling Speedy was super rich and probably had offshore bank accounts in Montserrat or the Cayman Islands if he could remember them. When they agreed to have him live with them, he had paid them in cash straight out of his pocket. Also, despite the haphazard appearance, Speedy Gonzales pajama bottoms and all, they had noticed he often wore a pair of those thousand dollar Louis Vuitton sneakers.

It took Lori a while to settle into university life. Unlike most people, she was fortunate enough to have her best friend with her, but the homesickness was bad. She got to their apartment a day before Dawn did, and she remembered being all excited when she and her mom set up her room, when her dad helped install the television and the microwaves and all that, and when her parents left she was hit with the euphoric, ‘Oh man, I’m really in college’ feeling.

But when her mother called that night to check up on her she suddenly found herself bawling her eyes out and randomly saying how she missed her mom’s bread pudding and their cranky neighbor who’d throw his banana peels over his fence and onto their backyard, therefore making her mom start bawling too, to the point she wanted to go through the six hour drive back to the university with a freshly baked tray of bread pudding in her bag, but was stopped when Lori overheard her dad protest, ‘But we just got here!’ in the background.

It got better after the next couple of weeks and when school started, but she still missed her parents from time to time, especially during the times they couldn’t decide what they wanted for dinner and ended up having Nissin cup noodles. Shiver.

“Alright, so we have something new for you guys today,” the radio DJ’s obnoxious voice announced on the supermarket speakers.

Lori turned her cart for the breakfast aisle to grab some of the Quaker Oats peaches and cream oatmeal Dawn liked.

“It’s our artist’s first single, released only last July, and after only a few days, the song started climbing – no, racing up the Billboard Hot 100,” the radio DJ continued. “It’s still in the number one spot, for the fourth week in a row.”

Lori didn’t really keep up with the whole music scene, well, except for the N’Sync-JC Chasez obsession she had a long, long time ago – and that was something she desperately wanted to erase from her memories. She remembered having a long debate with a girl from her class about who was better, N’Sync or the Backstreet Boys. Whenever she thought about those times, she still shivered. But basically, she wasn’t like Dawn, who had thousands of songs in her iPod and actually took time to discover new bands that no one has heard about.

“Alright, folks, here’s what you’ve been waiting for! A Simple Song for Lori!”

Lori paused at the song’s name. It was so cool to share a name in a famous song. Like, out of a thousand female names around the world – it was her name. She wondered what all Aubreys around the world must have felt when David Gates wrote his song, Aubrey. But then again, Janies around the world probably weren’t too pleased when Aerosmith wrote Janie’s Got a Gun. Anyway, Lori reminded herself to look up the song on Google once she got back to the apartment.

There was short silence until a guitar started to play a soft, simple melody, then it was joined by a slow piano riff and an easy drum beat. Seconds later, a boy’s mellow, rich voice joined the song, perfectly blending with the piano’s light notes… a voice she found strangely familiar, yet at the same time, so distant.

It didn’t take all that long,
a mere three minutes and twenty-four seconds,
for me to write this song.
But it took a long time until I finally realized,
somewhere between all the lame jokes and boring afternoons,
after the Bunsen burner and the sugar you caramelized,
that I had it written all along.

But I realized that perhaps it wasn’t meant to be,
perhaps you’re meant for someone else,
and perhaps I’m meant to stand at the sidelines,
to watch you fall in love with someone who isn’t me.

Lori smiled to herself, listening to the song as that warm, gushy feeling started blossoming in her empty stomach. She wondered why she never met any guys who could express themselves like that. Hell, sometimes Speedy expressed himself through grunts.

Now we’re out to get it all,
she has her dreams and I have a guitar and a song,
and perhaps I’m a little bit foolish,
for holding onto this for so long,
but I have a simple song for Lori,
and although she may not feel the way I feel,
and understand all the things I want to say,
I’d still like for her to hear it,
and hope to take her breath away.

The song ended with the piano’s final notes and slowly faded away until the radio DJ was back. “Now, wasn’t that a sweet song? Not only do I have a ton of messages asking me to play it again, but I hear this song has gotten a Grammy nod! Mad props to the young artist, Nicholas Arden!”

SCREEEEEEECCH!

Seconds after, there was the unmistakable noise of Lori’s shopping cart crashing right into a stack of Honey Nut Cheerios.

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A/N: Alright, so some of you may be thinking, ‘Hmm, I think I’ve read a story like this before with the same name, same summary, and same main character’. Well, this is that same story! Now before you start saying, “LE GASP! PLAGIARIST! AVADA KEDAVRA!” you should all check out a bitter kiss.’s announcement. She’s currently preparing for a term abroad either in Korea or Germany so she’ll be pretty busy in the near future… and yeah, read it. Personally, I say she should go to Germany because Technische Universität München is one of my own options, haha! I guess I’m biased. Yes, this story was partly inspired by the song Hey There Delilah. I’ll admit, even I had that that song as my ringtone for a while. It’s stuck in my head at the moment because I’ve been listening to it while writing this.

The general craziness of this is due to the fact it was my friend Nash's (who helped inspire Speedy!) birthday yesterday, so he took us all out for dinner – and the dessert was amazing. I came home all sugar high and jittery from the tarte tartin and the crème brûlée. So, yes, comments would be great! Thanks for reading!

And here's a nifty idea you should try out. If for some reason, you read a story and you really, really want to drop a line, but you just don't know what to say, just copy and paste this:

To the milk bottle,

To be honest, I never really liked Cheerios. They're too... grandma-flavored. Wait! Not that I eat grandmas or anything! Eew! I mean... yeah.

Your calcium deficient friend,

Your name.

... or something in a similiar format, haha! In all honesty though, I kinda like Cheerios. :)