Ella and Emma are two peas in a pod.

They’re friends. They’re family.

Ella is Emma’s young cousin. Emma is Ella’s idol.

Ella wants to grow up to be like Emma. A chuffed Emma is only too happy to show her the way.

Through these short short stories the sisters navigate love, life, travel, pasta, higher education, boyfriend troubles and more.

These are The Ella and Emma Chronicles. Enjoy!

Hustling

by the messy optimist

At the ripe old age of 28 – Emma felt like she was already a has-been.

She was mentally and physically wiped-out.

Physically, because she had two stressful jobs. Unlike her colleagues at the high school she taught – she did not take her winter and summer breaks off. Every cliché about teaching ungrateful high-school students was true. When she presented well-analyzed lectures on how power corrupts a nobleman in Macbeth, understanding racism, gender roles in Toni Morrison’s Sula, connecting modern-day big-brother tendencies from governments all over the world by reading Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451...they chewed, blew and popped chewing gum.

Then, when she tried to switch up lectures and arranged for debates by dividing the class into multiple groups and have them argue whether Hamlet was a hero or a coward…they didn’t even pretend interest. The majority of them nodded their heads when they shouldn’t and posted status updates on their ‘psycho teacher’ on Instagram with pictures they clicked of her frazzled self.

And that wasn’t even the end of it.

All of her free time and energy went towards creating lesson plans even as she lectured all day, which meant she had a scratchy throat all the time. Then there were papers to mark and grade before she grabbed some dinner and fell asleep asleep dead to the world.

And then…rinse and repeat.

Her crazy schedule would make sense and feel worthwhile if only she could actually inspire some…any kid in her class. But…that almost never happened.

During the initial years she yearned to get away and recuperate from the stress of teaching and just get out and go somewhere. But given what she made as a high school teacher barely filled the gas tank in her car – the dream of seeing the actual birthplace of her literature God, AKA Shakespeare, were just feverish wistful dreams over mugs of hot chocolate.

But, finally, her luck changed. A local branch of a national travel agency advertised for a tour manager. And Emma wasted no time and jumped on it. All she knew was that she would get to travel. She refused to think beyond that. Beyond that meant she would have to travel during her summer and winter breaks – when she typically worked on her own manuscripts.

Being a tour manager meant leading a group of people who fussed, yelled, were dismissive of her and made faces…and they were the good ones. They also showed up late every morning when they were on a strict schedule, wanted to take a ‘quick bathroom break’ om literally seconds before their tour bus HAD to make tracks and leave Paris for Brussels, walked on bicycle tracks in Amsterdam even after being warned by her about the speed with which many cyclists rode their bikes there and then fighting with the local Dutch people when they almost got run down because of their own fault.

Sigh. What Emma did in her quest to ‘see the world’ was go from one high school…to another.

And neither paid well.

But the traveling and seeing the world made up for it during the first year. But after making her way around Europe, South and South East Asia and Latin America over 30 times in the past four years…Emma was done traveling the way she did.

And made this startling discovery that neither of the two jobs that she had – one that combined her love for literature and writing and the other for traveling – really was what she wanted to do.

What she really wanted was to be a writer. That was her life’s purpose. But having a life purpose did not feed anyone and so she she continued teaching and taking people sightseeing and hoped to write on the side.

As a plan – it was solid, well-thought out and smart. In reality – it sucked. She barely had time to breathe, much less be inspired to come up with even a halfway decent anecdote to write about, much less worry about whether she would ever write the most definitive American novel.

What also did not help was her beat-up, seven-year old Toshiba laptop with whom she now had a love-hate relationship. And that afternoon – it was hate, hate and more hate with her hitherto trusted ally. After a particularly rough Sunday morning when it hanged after every ten minutes and needed rebooting and reading yet another rejection letter from a publisher (who said her ‘writing was cliched’ and her subject material ‘trite, commonplace and overdone’) for her latest manuscript (number 17 in a period of seven months) Emma was spoiling for a fight.

So, when her kid cousin sister Ella walked in looking very casually stylish and effortless in her black crop top, denim shorts and multi-colored hand-painted trainers and a silver-color backpack – a very frazzled Emma still dressed in her crumpled PJs just lost it. Poor Ella had no chance when she walked in to see if ‘Em wanted to hang out.’

“What’s wrong, Em? You look beat! and it’s only three in the afternoon. Had an eventful night?” And she winked at Emma. Poor Ella. For someone who prided herself on ‘reading’ a room and ‘getting’ people by just looking at them – Ella missed ‘reading’ Emma by a mile-and-a-half.

“You know what’s wrong with your generation?” Emma said pointing her index finger at Ella.

Ella was a little taken aback. Em pointing fingers at her and everything? Very belligerent, no? But Ella was in a great mood. And when adults acted childishly it was her job to bring them to heel. “Oh, I don’t know, Em. The fact that we are the smartest generation that ever existed? That we are facing the worst economic crisis that any generation has ever faced, even more than you millennials but we are kicking ass and taking names? We are doing more for gender equality and climate change than any other generation? But, oh wait! None of that is bad. All that is great about our generation!” Ella schooled her older sister.

Emma took a deep breath and then released it slowly. It made a screechy sound as she exhaled.

Ella opened her mouth to say something flippant but changed her mind. Why poke the bear? She sighed. “OK, Em. Tell me. What’s wrong with our generation?” Ella grimaced, shuffled her feet and dropped her backpack on the floor and got her invisible shield on – ready to deflect the verbal diarrhea that was on its way from her older cousin.

“You guys – your generation has had it waaayyy too easy. I’ve spent years honing my skills as a writer and despite that I can’t get a publisher to even look at my manuscript. But you guys? Just because you can blog something you think the rest of us actually give a shit about your opinions on the pressing crappola that life is. So you write and post utter crap and those of you who cannot string two words together believe they’re Philip Roth, Chekov and Wordsworth combined and self-publish your work on Amazon.”

“Well…,” interjected Ella.

“I am NOT finished!” Emma enunciated. “The Paint software that comes free with Windows makes even the color-blind think they’re the 21st century incarnations of Da Vinci. And the worst is Instagram. With all its filters and cropping and shading and coloring – it makes every half-twit with a smart phone think they’re artists.” Emma ended her diatribe with a bang.

Phew! That felt good, Emma thought. She needed to shut someone up that day and she was glad she did. Even if it was her beloved young sister.

“Uhhh…Em?” Ella piped up slowly. “Sorry. But…given I’ve heard you accept imaginary Oscars in your bathroom and a few Pulitzers and the Nobel Peace Prize in your bedroom…maybe…”

“Oh, SHUT UP!”