Sitting Here, Listening

Here I sit, listening.  It is night and quiet.  With everything off, no television, no music or radio I can hear the buried sounds that have been masqued until now.  The continuous, but gentle whir of the fan on the laptop, a distant dog barking once or twice, the tick of the clock - that timeless sound that could easily be in a Victorian parlour as in my front room.  The indescribable sound of your own fingers running through your hair: a scratching echo that must only happen internally, resonating in the cavities in your skull. 

Then the unwelcome, vulgar sound of the door opening, a voice asking a question.  It seems intrusive and alien in the peace that has cocooned you for what has only been minutes but felt undefinable as if centuries could have passed in a moment.  Because peace brings its own timelessness.



Time up.
Inspiration: The Write Practice: Focus on your breathing while you create and listen for sounds that you may not usually notice: Pen noise against the paper, the sound of the keys as you type, birds chirping outside, quiet hum of the heater, etc.

Predator

There's a flash of blurred colour; it hovers for the briefest moment and then, in an instant, it is perched and probing jerkily into the feeder outside the window.  It is a goldfinch.  I don't think they are rare, there's plenty in it garden, at any rate, but they are very exotic- a really out of place bird amongst the gentle pastel colours of an English country garden.

It's head is constantly moving like a piston, in and out of the feeder, out to either side, twisting round to look behind, on constant lookout for predators and they are always about: Cats.  Domesticated predators; savages. Mauling their victims, toying with them,  dismembering them, as if for sport, rarely for food.  I don't often see them as they slink through then along the hedgerow, undulating in and out of the foliage, at the hint of detection creating a lean statuette and then moving on placing their paws gingerly and neatly keeping their eyes riveted on the vulnerable creature fluting from branch to branch.  It might dip and lunge ending in a fluffy of feathers and a corpse on the ground but, today, the goldfinch is lucky, I am there to stand guard against our common enemy.




Time up.
Inspiration: my garden. 

Golden bubbles.

"Alright, Hels? How's the heart today?"
That's her nick-name, Hels.  Her real name is Helen.  So, I suppose it's not really a nick-name, just an abbreviation.  She is my sister.  We both know, too, that there's nothing wrong with her heart; it's a euphemism for her mind.  She's always been quite a ebullient person but there has always been the slight hint that the effervescence is the tiniest bit forced and that the golden bubbles on the surface are an attempt to hide a certain cloudiness below, even from herself.

For few months she has not acknowledged problems, she has surrounded herself with people that don't discuss important things with her or challenge her opinion, at all.  There have been massive family issues that we've all been trying the cope with and she just won't talk, just cuts the conversation off or leaves the room or cries so that we are forced to change the subject.  So much burying.

It didn't come to any good, avoiding things.  She had a panic attack at work, thought she was having some kind of seizure and now she can't stop shaking.  I know there is a clawing in the pit of her stomach, night and day, and the fear will not give her a moment's peace.  That is how it works, the fear: the feeling that she has lost control and can't see a way out of the void.



Time up.
Inspiration: I forgot to post this yesterday.  So this is my instalment for yesterday.  I hoped to capture the idea that bottling up problems is not good and the effect it can have on the mind.

Dormant

The North wind blew.  It blew so hard that the dew froze on the leaves of the trees making them like lace.  It froze the water on the stream at the edges leaving only a turgid and slothful movement in the centre.  It quieted the tiny song birds in the trees who were now intent only on finding enough food to see them through the day and night to come.  It whipped across the faces of people desperate enough to venture outside like razor blades until they scurried back into the warmth of their homes, shriven. It threw crows like missiles through the grey, bleakness of the sky.  It was a day to be dormant.



Time up.
Inspiration: none tonight.  I just needed to write and that's what came out. Clearly not as much as usual. 

Chekhov's Gun

Ellis wasn't an unattractive kid, he was just awkward and quiet.  Like so many teenagers, he spent too much time thinking, his black thoughts turning inwards, constantly tormenting himself over trivial inadequacies.  As a consequence, he was sullen and avoided the other students at school as much as possible.  All apart from one.  She was a golden girl, popular and beautiful but gentle and 

open, completely the opposite of himself: Jessica.  It was as if she existed for him in a permanent halo.  When she walked past, along the buzzing corridor, his gaze, although covert, devoured every single fragment of her.  He had been watching her like this for years and he was exhausted by the hollowness of his adoration.  He needed recognition.  He felt compelled to make some sort of connexion, he didn't care how small, he just wanted her to notice him, to witness in his eyes the awe in which he held her.  Ultimately, he wanted her to love him like he did her. 

He hadn't planned it exactly but he took his chance.  As she walked past on her pilgrimage to class, he allowed his books to tumble from his hand.  They slid like a wave breaking at her feet.  She looked at him and down at the floor, looked back, cocked her eyebrow at him, without the the hint of the gentle smile she used so readily for others, nearly everyone, he thought, and walked on. 

Time up.

Inspiration:  from The Write Practice, they suggest: Practice foreshadowing by writing a scene, early in the first act of a story, and slip in Chekhov’s gun. Don’t fire it yet.  Just make it present somehow.

Beautiful People

Vincent Peters Photography

"Oh, God, yeah, completely.  I know exactly what you mean."

"He really gets it, you know?  He really capture what's going on in the mind.  You know?"

"Oh, yeah, totally.  He really gets that." Christina had completely forgotten who or what they were talking about.  It didn't matter though, she'd worked with Javier on a couple of shoots now and he was always the same: completely focused on himself and the jobs he'd been on, who he'd worked with and for, and how he really wanted to break into acting.  Reflecting on the echoes of his last sentence she concluded that he must have been speaking about a photographer but she couldn't remember which one.

She was so unbelievably bored.  She was hungry too and the stench of the cigarettes they'd been using as props had started to turn her stomach.  It felt like the tar was permeating her every pore.  Her neck was sore from the ridiculously hackneyed position she'd been asked to hold, a rip-off of the 1950s Hollywood publicity shots - done a million times before - and she was freezing cold.  What was worse, Javier, the self-centred idiot, didn't seem to notice or mind the inconveniences of the shoot, he just kept on taking regardless.  She really just wanted to yell at him to shut up but satisfied herself with the mental image of stubbing the lit end of her cigarette out in his eye.



Time up.
Inspiration:  The photo.  I wanted to image an interaction from a given image and imagine what was going on beneath the gloss.

The Desperate Man

                        
'Tempt not a desperate man'

With a mind quivering like the tender leaves of the birch in a spring gale, he writhes there in his agony.  She cannot be his.  She will not be his.  He will never possess her.  His dreams and fantasies, tender and dramatic, domestic and passionate, that have supported his body and soul for so long, have been ripped away.  A huge cavern has appeared at his feet and now his mind turns to the temptation of flinging himself into the abyss.  His expressions of longing, of the justice of his claim over her, of the deep connexion that he could never break, now or ever, are as useless to her as the empty leaves of the memoir next to the corpse.

He cannot conceive the future, he flings his mind to the past, reliving the promises made and given, the two souls entwining to become one.  His incredulity that is was possible for one soul to break free from the commixture of the two.  How could it be possible that her vision of their future could possibly differ from his?

Who would he spend eternity with now?




Time Up.
Inspiration:  I saw this picture and the title reminded me of Romeo.  Naturally, it made me wonder why a man might become desperate and, like Romeo, my mind lead its way to love.

Change

There is a change coming, I can feel it.  It is the lightness off the air, the glow that lingers a fraction longer in the darkening sky.  Perhaps it started with the song of the robin in the hedge.  Perhaps it started when I felt suddenly overburdened with the layers of clothing I wore for the ritual Sunday walk.  I feel sure, though, that it was some internal kind of clock.  The same one that tells us when it is time to wake or sleep; the same that tells us that something is not quite as it should be and we need to be on our guard; the same that tells us that we have found someone that will make our life more comfortable than it has every been before.

Change is not always for the good, but more often than not it is.  In any case, we can't stop it, not this change, being in the hands of Nature and this change is always for the better, long anticipated and wished for, longed for, in fact, and when it starts to arrive it is like a deep sigh, a knowingness that everything will be alright. 



Time up.
Inspiration: was a bit lacking tonight.  I just wrote about how I felt about the change of the season.

Clock watching

Do you ever have that feeling that the clock beating inside you is permanently telling you that you're late for something? Well, that's me. Right now.

My skin is alive to every sensation but heightened to a ridiculous degree. Sounds, especially are abhorrent; loud sounds unbearable.  If there was a door that opened into my body you wouldn't find pulsing red organs, oh no.  There would be a sheen of metal and the black ooze of the oil needed to drive cogs, which would be grinding away relentlessly like some Victorian treadmill.

If my mind were personified it would resemble some snarling beast backed into a corner, froth hanging in ribbons from its yellow fangs, one front paw poised in front of it's body as defence or leaverage for it's next pounce.  The one thing that can barely be seen in the eyes of the creature there, muscles taught like spun steel, is not the rage but the fear.


Time up.
Inspiration: the anger at obliging myself to write every day.  I'm stressed and angry. I don't want to write this but I want to keep my promise to myself.

Void

Then, he felt the shattering inside and then the void.  There was nothing left.  He had no more inside him.  He didn't cry, those tears of bitterness and pain had dried up a long time ago.  And the nights spent embryoed, the nausea and the pain of the spasming stomach, the constant fear, had all melted away.  Now he lay in blank dryness.  At the bottom of everything he stared up at nothing.

He glanced at the laptop screen that had brought nothing into his world except agony, and wrenched the plug out of the wall by the lead.  He stared at his school books, the posters on the wall, the curtains.  His home; his prison.  He picked up his rucksack and stuffed the laptop lead inside it.  Without another backwards glance he walked out of the quiet house as silently as he could and into the night.

The pathway was familiar to him and he found his way without the need for much light.  There a small slice of moon, not enough to illuminated but enough to send a cold glow onto the trees.  He might have tripped, but if he had it wouldn't have hurt, his body was a numb as his mind.

When he reached the place, he squatted and wrenched open his rucksack.  He lifted the lead of his laptop out, thin and coiled, the moon allowing it the thinest blue sheen.  He slung the end of it over the sturdiest of the branches above him and looked at the free end hanging loosely in his hand.  He gave it a tender smile.  It was the only message he wanted to leave:  his torture and his relief.



Time up.
Inspiration: I heard a sad message on Twitter tonight.  I'm hoping it's clear what the topic of the tweet was.  I hope i dealt with the issue sensitively.

She Wants

She passed him everyday.  He had exactly what she wanted. 

Anne had long felt a hollowness inside her; it had been growing for many months now until she almost felt that the core of nothingness had taken up nearly all of her being.  She felt too light: light enough to float away. She had begun to think more about things too.  What did she really want?  Did this new path she was taking really fulfil her?  Was it going to take away the feelings of self-loathing that she had been living with for so long and re-ignite the exhuberence of her youth? 

The determination that she had had at the beginning of the new epocha that she had envisaged for herself, and was trying to implement, had slowly started to seep away like a leaking pipe.  She had felt herself faltering many times only to catch a brief snap-shot of herself in the mirror and, with the stark reminder of the disgust with which she held herself, she had managed to crawl through those times when she felt like breaking the promise she had made to herself.

Now, however, watching him, she stopped and boldly peered at him through the glass.  Would he notice her? Would he be as disgusted with her as she was of herself?  Frankly, she no longer cared, her desire had reached such a pitch that her mind screamed her greatest need.  She pushed through the door screening him from her and holding his face in her gaze she marched up to the counter. "How much for that Raspberry Mille Feuille?" she purred.


Time up.

Inspiration: 
The Write Practice suggestion tonight was: Take fifteen minutes and come up with a MacGuffin scenario. You can either make your characters play the MacGuffin straight, or turn it on its head and have them start questioning what the significance of the MacGuffin is.
I chose the former without exactly playing it straight.

Not of Woman Born

Your tiny head nestles into the crook of my neck, my arm supports the bend of your spine and we share our warmth.  My spare hand strokes your front. I allow my fingers to trace paths down your chest, meandering along the length of your body, white, patches of black and brown and faintest glimpse of pink beneath sparser hairs.  Your eyes gaze directly into mine, you do not flinch or turn away, those deep, black pools reflecting my face, distorted.

What would you tell me, if you could? Would you repeat the loving words I murmur to you?  Would you chuckle when I bury my face into your chest and rub my nose against your cheek, whispering simple nothingsof love? Your look conveys nothing except your trust, binding.  A contract, everlasting between us.

You are more my child than anything I could produce with another of my species and when your paws fan the air near my lips, begging for more tangible affection, I would deny you nothing.



Time up
Inspiration: I wanted to write about my dog tonight.  So I did.

Heal

  Jessica had always felt embattled.  The stresses of work had got so much that she had taken far too many days off sick and her family had begun to shove as many of her concerns under the carpet as possible.  They said dismissive things, such as: she should go and see someone, she needed to take the pills that the doctor prescribed, perhaps she should think about a retreat to really relax her mind, she should take up yoga; it would really help her mind and body.  The fact is, Jessica would have gladly taken on any of this advice if she felt that it had been even remotely well meant, but she knew that everyone just wanted her to be normal again.  They didn't want her to cause them any problems or embarrass them or make them have to do anything outside of their routines. 

She didn't want to follow any of their advice because she knew it would just be plastering over the cracks that were far too deep rooted.  She didn't understand where the cracks had started or how deep they actually went but she knew doctors couldn't help her.  Luckily, she had her own treatment.  It was secret as no-one would believe her.  It had begun when she had started to take walks during her time off sick.  At first it was a way of relaxing and exercising, but mostly just to get out of the four walls that oppressed her so.  It was on such a walk on a bitterly cold and blustery day that she heard them first.  Merely whispers.  She thought at first it was her imagination, but then they became more distinct.  When she recognised certain words she was petrified; she thought she had gone completely mad but, when her heart had stopped roaring in her chest and she had taken her hands from her ears, the voices were so calm and relaxing she had listened. 

Now she went out everyday onto the hill.  Whether the rain beat down or the sun burned, she would stride into the midst of the weather, because she knew they were there, waiting for her, to heal her.  They were far too shy yet to show themselves but she knew if she was patient and followed their advice they would reveal themselves to her.  Although, whether they showed themselves or not she was already reaping the rewards of their ancient wisdom.  She was getting better, she knew it.



Time was well up but I wanted to finish the section.

Inspiration:  The Write Practice site suggested thinking about how to 'incorporate magic, or fantasy elements into your fiction'.  As this is something I haven't really done  thought I'd give it a go.

The Walrus

Jutting belly, under a glossy nylon shirt, his profile like an enormous D, he watched the screen with one hand gripping an amber brew. His hair was shorn (what was left of it) and speckled the rolls of fat with clustered where the nape of his neck should have been.  There was clear pitting on his cheeks: the result of acne as a youth - hormonal, or was it the result of poor nutrition self-indulged or otherwise indulged?  Probably the latter.

His clothes looked clean but there was a distinct smell of fermentation.  I could say cheese but that would not account for the squalid sourness of the sweat which must have oozed from between crevices despite the top notes of deodorant and a musky cologne. 

When he moved, witnesses might be hypnotised by the undulation.  there was a sinuosity to the flesh which moved independently to his core structure which was almost balletic.  But was female could possibly be drawn to this?

Time up:
Inspiration: I happened to be looking at the title of one of Lewis Carroll's poems, 'The Walrus and The Carpenter' and I used the title to start me off.

Beyond the Window

It was so dark outside that the massive windows merely reflected his own face back at him.  He wasn't really looking at anything other than himself, in any case. He took in the pale complexion and the slight movement of the skin under his right eye.  It had been twitching on and off for the last few hours.  He pinched his cheeks and rubbed them to give himself an artificial healthy glow.  He looked at his hair for the hundredth time and moved a strand a minuscule amount higher on his forehead.  Better.  Only his fringe was showing under his beanie hat and the peak of dark hair was slicked with grooming product.   He flicked open his mobile again but the unwelcome sight of an empty screen made the knot in his stomach more apparent.

He lent forward and cupped a hand around his eye and pressed his hand onto the cold glass.  Nothing but the orange glow bouncing off the slicks of water pooled on the Tarmac of the car park.  He looked back at the Formica table and the coated cardboard cup, beads of water still clustered on the straw which was poking up.  He daren't eat before she arrived, that would spoil the date.  The faint tap on the window startled him slightly and he twisted round to see splats of rain starting once again to smear the windows. His fists had made a ball.  Now she wouldn't want him to walk her home, she'd definitely just phone for her dad to pick her up, no chance of a hasty kiss.

Then the buzz.  He fumbled with the phone case.  Finally, she'd be on her way.  The knot in his stomach blossomed and burned and his throat went dry.  He fought back tears of anger and humiliation as he snapped back the phone case and stared out through his own warped reflection into the wet bleakness of the night beyond the windows.


Time up.
Inspiration: I wanted to have a go at pathetic fallacy.   Connecting the emotions of the character to their surroundings.

Through his eyes

He watched her chestnut hair lay smooth on the pillow next to his. He let his lips drift over the apricot flesh.  He listened to her breathe and allowed his soul to wallow in it.  For a moment he was at peace. 
Her eyes flicked open and she flipped herself over like a fish on a hook. 
"What?" she barked.  Her eyes narrowed.  "You woke me up.  So, what is it?"
He began to stutter; mumbled something about just wanting to be as close to her as he could; enjoying watching her sleep.  It was the wrong thing to say.  It always was.
"Jesus, John," she hissed.  She swung her legs over the side of the bed.  Her dressing gown was hastily wrapped around her shoulders.  Then, with a glance which spat venom, she yanked the light in the bathroom and slammed the door.



Time Up.

Inspiration:  The Write Practice website provided the inspiration today.  They suggested trying beige prose.  They instructed to base it on the aftermath of Valentine's day.

Pain

The silence was all around her like a fog.  He had gone.

A few moments only had past or perhaps hours, perhaps days, it didn't matter.  She sat with her hands cupped in front of her, on her lap, her eyes staring but seeing nothing, her mind was nothing, nothing at all, just burst, disabled, all in a moment.  Her breath had stopped with her heart and she was inanimate, devoid of all, except the burn in her throat. A mere portrait of loss.

There must slowly have built a roar from somewhere, from her very toes perhaps, but she was aware of the grip it had only when it was within her stomach.  The sound of crashing waves, the tearing heat of fire inside her, moving to her arms and into her head and her mouth opened to scream.  No scream came.  Just a silent rush of air.  The exhalation of her dreams  and hopes, the very essence of her life, all out, all in one long breath.

He had betrayed her and her mind had fractured at that moment, a shattered mirror, distorting what she saw from then on.

Rain

Streaming down in ribbons it was, the rain. Gushing and spraying like someone suddenly amused whilst drinking. It blistered on the ground for a millisecond and then pooled creating a tiny mirrors for the nettles and long fronds of fern.

It fell, not from a dark sky, but one that was a uniform light grey; a librarian's cardigan, a collared dove's wing, a pulped newspaper. It was drab but encouraged the green of the grass to glow, the brown of the trees to darkened in paths down its trunk like the skin of a snake and made the noises of man recede whilst the drips turned into a roar from above.

Wayward spray clung to windows in little balls only releasing when they encouraged themselves on each other to tear down the pane, recklessly exhausting themselves on the ground beneath, their destination reached at last.

Time up.
My inspiration today came from the weather outside yesterday evening and was meant as a descriptive piece only.

N.B. I couldn't post this yesterday as my Internet was down. How reliant we are...