The Life and Death of Alistair Grout - Part 3
*Again this is a little short but it is pretty well contained so it seemed silly to keep on going past where I ended up cutting it off.*
The sun is low on the horizon by the time that Alistair stumbles back to his apartment door, cold sweat drenching his clothes and causing his skin prickle and burn. He searches for his keys, fumbles and swears before slotting the right on in the lock. He twists – his palms itch and his mouth feels dry – the lock is slow to give and once it does he is forced to shoulder the door open as it catches on the jamb. Relieved he pulls the chain across the door and throws himself down upon the bed. Every part of his body aches, as if something vital deep inside him were broken or suddenly missing. Unable to bring himself to move he surrenders himself to sleep and the myriad of twisted imagery that nightmares bring.
The sky is a long time dark by the time he finally comes to and for a brief moment he has trouble determining where he is. Anxiously he gropes in the darkness for the reading light beside the bed and is rewarded with a stabbing pain in the back of his eyes when he eventually finds it and flicks it on. He coughs and tries to cover them, only to retch at the horrible sour taste that has pooled in the back of his throat while he slept. He rises slowly, still shielding his eyes, and moves toward the sink for a glass of water – he makes it half way before he realises that his apartment is not how he had left it.
All about him is chaos: his suitcase has been ripped open and the contents tipped out and then rummaged through; kitchen drawers hang half open, a dirty plate is shattered upon the floor. Frantically he checks through everything and then breathes a sigh of relief when it becomes clear that nothing seems to be missing, although, he now admits to himself, it is not as if he really owns anything worth stealing any more. Nothing valuable... he sits amongst his scattered possessions and thinks for a moment and then his gaze is slowly drawn to where he had left the silver flask the day before: The kitchen bench is bare.
He trembles despite himself, looking towards the door, still shut, still locked and yet someone has been here while he slept. A liquid chill seem to roll down his back and he shivers involuntarily and suddenly the room seems very small and very dark; the light by his bed almost struggling to keep the shadows at bay. He no longer feels safe. He has to leave.
Frantically he jams everything back into his suitcase and pulls on his jacket and moves to go. Something bumps against his chest. He freezes. Slowly his hand goes to his pocket and quickly darts inside. There is a sloshing and a shifting of weight. The flask, except now half full. He stares at it like he would have a venomous snake.
His mind races and he begins to shake. Nothings wrong. Nothings wrong. Someone is just playing a prank. Someone is just messing with me. Having a bit of fun...
He breathes deeply and tries to push the thought away. The flask glints dully in his hand and completely illogically he begins to remember how thirsty he is. The flask seem to call to him. It warms in his hand, first pleasantly and then as he resists, with enough heat to burn skin.
He yelps in alarm and hurls it across the room where it clangs against a wall and comes unstopped, splashing dark fluid all about before it drops and vanishes behind the bed.
The pain is slow to fade and for a long moment he simply stands there twitching and wondering if he is beginning to lose his mind. How can it have done that? How could it have gotten hot? Blankly he stares down at his hand, at skin burnt pink. He swallows, his throat grinding on itself as if it were made of sandpaper. Somewhere in the back of his mind it occurs to him that if he were to leap across the bed now he might be able to save whatever was left before it all spilled out onto the carpet. At the thought his muscles snap taught and it is all he can do to stop himself from doing so.
Something is very wrong here.
He tries to move towards the door instead, his body fights him for a moment and then surrenders, a mournful cry bubbling up unbidden from deep within.
As if released he bolts and runs. Out the door and down the stairs.
He does not look back.
Outside the sun has now well and truly set, but Alistair pays no mind and pulls himself out into the night. He passes people, he passes bars, he does not stop; all distractions driven from his head and his mind burning with with apprehension and paranoia. He watches everyone, watches how they move, how they act, half expecting one to come at him at any moment.
From far behind he is watched as well. Studied. Observed. The watcher follows and decides to wait.
The start of this last part gave me a little bit of trouble, namely because although I felt it was necessary, the skipping of most a day still seemed a little jarring - I have had an idea for a transitional scene that I think would make it less so but strangely I I can only see it working if the story were a film or a television show - as I have yet to find a way to translate something purely visual into writing in a way that I am satisfied with.
Different ideas and pacing work better for different mediums I guess.
For the moment this may have to go unresolved however as although I am enjoying writing this story and I have rather a large amount of it already plotted out I need to work on other stuff as well, seeing as I do still have a number of other decent other story ideas rattling around in the old birdcage that I want to test out as well as a desire to revisit some of my earlier stuff (edits, re-dos etc.) just to see what happens.
I will, hopefully, come back to it eventually - especially if there is a request to do so - but for the moment WATCH THIS SPACE - there be new stuff on the horizon and I am feeling more confident about my writing (for no real apparent reason) so it might actually be readable.
Stay tuned,
M.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The deep breath before the plunge
Okay boys and girls I think it is high time for me to kick this shit up a notch.
As has been pointed out to me several people now, I have a decent amount of time on my hands seeing as I have finished my under-grad (my actual possession of a physical diploma being beside the point) and so if I really want to take this whole writing thing seriously (which I do) then I need to start:
a) writing as much as I possibly can.
and,
b) submitting work to anyone and anything that will take it in an attempt to get feedback from people who are both in the know and not people that I know.
With this in mind - and with this* helpful list in hand I am going to do just that.
*http://www.austwriters.com/AWRfiles/competitions.htm
At this point my expectations are not overly high - I am not going to win anything straight off the bat, and, if and when I start getting feedback it will most likely tear into whatever it is that I have put out there - still this is a necessary process - If my writing is going to develop past what it is now I need to practice, I need to have stuff torn to pieces so that I can sift through the remains and gather up the good bits (if indeed there are any).
Anyway, current story will be updated tomorrow, then it is my birthday this weekend (22 - how the fuck did that happen) and then once that is done with updates will resume - but, to quote a phrase, "faster and more intense."
Also advice on entries for competitions will be extremely welcome (that especially goes for you my dear lurkers and people who have forgotten that they should be reading this).
Till tomorrow,
M.
As has been pointed out to me several people now, I have a decent amount of time on my hands seeing as I have finished my under-grad (my actual possession of a physical diploma being beside the point) and so if I really want to take this whole writing thing seriously (which I do) then I need to start:
a) writing as much as I possibly can.
and,
b) submitting work to anyone and anything that will take it in an attempt to get feedback from people who are both in the know and not people that I know.
With this in mind - and with this* helpful list in hand I am going to do just that.
*http://www.austwriters.com/AWRfiles/competitions.htm
At this point my expectations are not overly high - I am not going to win anything straight off the bat, and, if and when I start getting feedback it will most likely tear into whatever it is that I have put out there - still this is a necessary process - If my writing is going to develop past what it is now I need to practice, I need to have stuff torn to pieces so that I can sift through the remains and gather up the good bits (if indeed there are any).
Anyway, current story will be updated tomorrow, then it is my birthday this weekend (22 - how the fuck did that happen) and then once that is done with updates will resume - but, to quote a phrase, "faster and more intense."
Also advice on entries for competitions will be extremely welcome (that especially goes for you my dear lurkers and people who have forgotten that they should be reading this).
Till tomorrow,
M.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Red Sea
Over the last few weeks I've been making a conscious effort to get more reading done, and, rather than just letting my self slip into the escapism that a good (or sometimes bad) book will offer, I've also been trying to pay more attention to writing style, flow, forms of expression etc...
*On a side note I think this shows on of the major issues with growing up reading from a selective pool of literature (especially if that pool is fantasy or something similar) in that most of the works that you will read will be written on what can only be described as a middling quality - in that while they are not, for the most part, horribly written, they are, also for the most part, nothing overwhelmingly fantastic either - something which causes the physical writing aspects to take a bit of a back seat to world building and ideas, making it difficult to learn anything, about writing, beyond a certain point*
Anyway, I think it is helping. Though strangely, while I am attempting to read more broadly than I have in the past - it seems that I am getting just as much out of reading works (both excerpts from novels and short stories) that I know to have been written early of a writer - as they are, while showing promise, often more clunky than the works that will come after - something that, firstly, forces you to pay attention to the writing and, secondly, forces you to ask yourself "If I have a problem with this small excerpt - how would I alter it to make it better if I was the author?"
Anyway, it has been a little bit since my last story update, so here is the next bit from the story I put up last
The Life and Death of Alistair Grout: Part 2
The sun was slow in coming and once it arrived it remained long hidden behind a blanket of thick fog that had rolled in off the ocean during the night, only to become caught, like thick cobwebs, between the buildings where it now flitted and flickered in the morning breeze.
Slowly light began to fall upon the city and down below the inhabitants emerged as if ants, shivering in winter clothes and then scurrying this way and that, which each breath trailing behind them in the cold air. The smell of coffee drifts out from alleyway cafés and the people yawn, rub their eyes and drink, resigning themselves to another start of a working week.
From his apartment Alistair tries not to notice and instead pulls a pillow over his head and attempts to burrow further down below his blankets where it is warm.
He is expecting a hangover and he is expecting it to be bad and although he know that it will not work he hopes that if he keeps himself away from the piercing light of the morning sun for long enough he will be able to avoid, or at least delay the onset of the splitting headache that he knew would eventually sneak up behind him and hit him over the head like a hammer.
The sun, however, has other ideas and even as he retreats further under his blankets it begins a probing advance through the window and into the room where it ever so gradually begins to climb up the side of the bed and onto the sheets. He groans and tries to roll over and face away from the window but knocks the pillow from the bed in the process and in doing so catches a face full of sunlight. He clutches his hands to his head, expecting the worst...
... Nothing. No ache, no pain. Slowly he removes his hands and then sits there blinking in the morning light.
No hangover.
He stifles a yawn and then stretches.
He feels good. Really good.
Confused he pulls himself from the bed cautiously. Pale walls stare back at him, unadorned except for splotches of sunlight. The room is empty and largely unadorned, at the other end of the room plain green carpet gives way to tiles and a small kitchen. Had he wanted to he could have made it over from the bed to the microwave and the fridge (there is no oven) in half a dozen steps and would have only had to avoid the large brown suitcase that sat in the centre of the room and was overflowing with essentially everything that he owned.
He sighed: “Home sweet home.”
At least he had ended up here and not dozing on some park bench:- something that had happened before.
He tries to cover another yawn and moves over the suitcase. He had been living out of it for more than a week now and, he acknowledged, it was possible that he would be living out of it in the many weeks to come. He grabbed a towel and moved towards the shower, glancing at something that caught his eye on the kitchen bench as he passed. He stopped.
The flask.
He picked it up and looked at it, turning it over in his hand. Simple silver, no engravings, no marks. He shakes it. Empty.
Slowly he begins to remember the details of the previous night and he then looks around the room alarmed, as it suddenly occurs to him that he might not be alone. After a few seconds he chuckles to himself, and slaps his face lightly with his hand in a mild form of self-abasement: If he hadn't noticed anyone in the apartment yet it was unlikely that there was anyone here. After all there were not exactly too many places that that anyone could hide.
Though, it occurred to him strangely, he would not have been too surprised if the he had found the woman from last night hiding somewhere, there had been something odd about her.
He moved into the bathroom, looking around unconsciously before stripping off and climbing in to the shower. The water was cold and it stayed cold so he quickly towelled of and pulled on some relatively fresh clothes.
Back in the main room the sun has risen considerably in the sky and so everything is now bathed in light. He stands there for a moment, drinking it all in. He feels fantastic, he realises again and for the first time in what seems like forever he contemplates going out during the day.
It seemed clear now that he would not be going home again, for even if everything was forgiven, he knew that he would not be able to live with the guilt. He runs his hand through thinning hair and tries to push the feeling to the back of his mind, though in a way he was already feeling better for having made the decision.
Still, if he was going to be staying in the city from now on he knew he had to do something new, at the moment he felt so full of energy that just the idea of staying in the apartment all day was enough to drive him stir-crazy.
Grinning he pulls on his jacket and makes his way toward the door, feeling something he thought he had long ago lost - a curiosity for what the day might bring.
Little short, but it seems like as good a place as any to cut it off - the next bit is well and truly done, but the tone is quite different so it seems like a good idea to save it until later.
Next post will be up soon - and I may also be taking part in a play by post adventure at some point in the near future which I may link to on here.
M
*On a side note I think this shows on of the major issues with growing up reading from a selective pool of literature (especially if that pool is fantasy or something similar) in that most of the works that you will read will be written on what can only be described as a middling quality - in that while they are not, for the most part, horribly written, they are, also for the most part, nothing overwhelmingly fantastic either - something which causes the physical writing aspects to take a bit of a back seat to world building and ideas, making it difficult to learn anything, about writing, beyond a certain point*
Anyway, I think it is helping. Though strangely, while I am attempting to read more broadly than I have in the past - it seems that I am getting just as much out of reading works (both excerpts from novels and short stories) that I know to have been written early of a writer - as they are, while showing promise, often more clunky than the works that will come after - something that, firstly, forces you to pay attention to the writing and, secondly, forces you to ask yourself "If I have a problem with this small excerpt - how would I alter it to make it better if I was the author?"
Anyway, it has been a little bit since my last story update, so here is the next bit from the story I put up last
The Life and Death of Alistair Grout: Part 2
The sun was slow in coming and once it arrived it remained long hidden behind a blanket of thick fog that had rolled in off the ocean during the night, only to become caught, like thick cobwebs, between the buildings where it now flitted and flickered in the morning breeze.
Slowly light began to fall upon the city and down below the inhabitants emerged as if ants, shivering in winter clothes and then scurrying this way and that, which each breath trailing behind them in the cold air. The smell of coffee drifts out from alleyway cafés and the people yawn, rub their eyes and drink, resigning themselves to another start of a working week.
From his apartment Alistair tries not to notice and instead pulls a pillow over his head and attempts to burrow further down below his blankets where it is warm.
He is expecting a hangover and he is expecting it to be bad and although he know that it will not work he hopes that if he keeps himself away from the piercing light of the morning sun for long enough he will be able to avoid, or at least delay the onset of the splitting headache that he knew would eventually sneak up behind him and hit him over the head like a hammer.
The sun, however, has other ideas and even as he retreats further under his blankets it begins a probing advance through the window and into the room where it ever so gradually begins to climb up the side of the bed and onto the sheets. He groans and tries to roll over and face away from the window but knocks the pillow from the bed in the process and in doing so catches a face full of sunlight. He clutches his hands to his head, expecting the worst...
... Nothing. No ache, no pain. Slowly he removes his hands and then sits there blinking in the morning light.
No hangover.
He stifles a yawn and then stretches.
He feels good. Really good.
Confused he pulls himself from the bed cautiously. Pale walls stare back at him, unadorned except for splotches of sunlight. The room is empty and largely unadorned, at the other end of the room plain green carpet gives way to tiles and a small kitchen. Had he wanted to he could have made it over from the bed to the microwave and the fridge (there is no oven) in half a dozen steps and would have only had to avoid the large brown suitcase that sat in the centre of the room and was overflowing with essentially everything that he owned.
He sighed: “Home sweet home.”
At least he had ended up here and not dozing on some park bench:- something that had happened before.
He tries to cover another yawn and moves over the suitcase. He had been living out of it for more than a week now and, he acknowledged, it was possible that he would be living out of it in the many weeks to come. He grabbed a towel and moved towards the shower, glancing at something that caught his eye on the kitchen bench as he passed. He stopped.
The flask.
He picked it up and looked at it, turning it over in his hand. Simple silver, no engravings, no marks. He shakes it. Empty.
Slowly he begins to remember the details of the previous night and he then looks around the room alarmed, as it suddenly occurs to him that he might not be alone. After a few seconds he chuckles to himself, and slaps his face lightly with his hand in a mild form of self-abasement: If he hadn't noticed anyone in the apartment yet it was unlikely that there was anyone here. After all there were not exactly too many places that that anyone could hide.
Though, it occurred to him strangely, he would not have been too surprised if the he had found the woman from last night hiding somewhere, there had been something odd about her.
He moved into the bathroom, looking around unconsciously before stripping off and climbing in to the shower. The water was cold and it stayed cold so he quickly towelled of and pulled on some relatively fresh clothes.
Back in the main room the sun has risen considerably in the sky and so everything is now bathed in light. He stands there for a moment, drinking it all in. He feels fantastic, he realises again and for the first time in what seems like forever he contemplates going out during the day.
It seemed clear now that he would not be going home again, for even if everything was forgiven, he knew that he would not be able to live with the guilt. He runs his hand through thinning hair and tries to push the feeling to the back of his mind, though in a way he was already feeling better for having made the decision.
Still, if he was going to be staying in the city from now on he knew he had to do something new, at the moment he felt so full of energy that just the idea of staying in the apartment all day was enough to drive him stir-crazy.
Grinning he pulls on his jacket and makes his way toward the door, feeling something he thought he had long ago lost - a curiosity for what the day might bring.
Little short, but it seems like as good a place as any to cut it off - the next bit is well and truly done, but the tone is quite different so it seems like a good idea to save it until later.
Next post will be up soon - and I may also be taking part in a play by post adventure at some point in the near future which I may link to on here.
M
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Fly me to the Moon
I am a massive science-fiction and fantasy geek
This is something that, while probably rather obvious by now, is not something that I think I have said in so many words before here on the blog.
Fantasy and SF (particularly SF these days) is the one thing that pulls me in and excites me more than anything else, to the point where I will read and watch pretty much anything from within the genre if you put in front of me (there are some notable exceptions - I have issues with some fantasy such as Terry Pratchett and with most Sword and Sorcery stuff and I generally try and avoid some of the earlier 'pulp' SF which is, for the most part horrendous), so inevitably I have read and watched my fair share of crap - as the genre can be fairly up and down when it comes to quality.
With that in mind I always get rather excited when I stumble on to something really good, whether it be a book, TV series, Movie or whatever.
Such is the case with Moon:
Moon is set on a mining base located on the far-side of the moon and it deals with last few days of Sam Bell's solitary term of employment upon the station as he comes to terms with with the culmination of three years of loneliness and isolation.
This is a film that I had heard about for a while (it came out in 2009), and had been meaning to pick up for a while as well. Well I did the other day and I loved it.
I don't want to give anything more away - you can do that yourself if you want - but I think that it is an example of the very best of speculative SF - a sub-genre which generally does not get much appreciation or attention from the main-stream movie goer.
This is not some grandiose space opera - with a few vaguely philosophical (and often preachy) concepts tacked on to a series of action sequences. Instead, Moon is a film with a simple (though not simplistic) plot that is based around the exposition of a single idea and of a single question: that of the meaning of one's identity - and it is explored in a thoroughly thought provoking, moving, and most importantly, new way.
I have to say that (apart from the various references to 2001) it reminded me of some of the better speculative short stories that I have read over the last few years (i.e. selective works by J.G. Ballard, Clarke, Asimov and to some extent Niven) and, I think, can be taken as a display of one of the major strengths of SF: which is that, as a genre, SF is inherently without limitations - as it allows you to ask questions/or address concepts and alternate possibilities in ways that are beyond the capability and scope of other forms of literature or entertainment - simply because reality within SF is an entirely flexible thing - and that if this is done well (which it is in Moon, but it is not in many other examples) then there is the potential for the reader or viewer to feel something, or think about something, in a way that they have not felt or thought about before.
Anywho, that's enough prattle for the moment - next story will be up shortly, i'm just tweaking it at the moment and trying to find a good cut off point to end it on for a post.
M
This is something that, while probably rather obvious by now, is not something that I think I have said in so many words before here on the blog.
Fantasy and SF (particularly SF these days) is the one thing that pulls me in and excites me more than anything else, to the point where I will read and watch pretty much anything from within the genre if you put in front of me (there are some notable exceptions - I have issues with some fantasy such as Terry Pratchett and with most Sword and Sorcery stuff and I generally try and avoid some of the earlier 'pulp' SF which is, for the most part horrendous), so inevitably I have read and watched my fair share of crap - as the genre can be fairly up and down when it comes to quality.
With that in mind I always get rather excited when I stumble on to something really good, whether it be a book, TV series, Movie or whatever.
Such is the case with Moon:
Moon is set on a mining base located on the far-side of the moon and it deals with last few days of Sam Bell's solitary term of employment upon the station as he comes to terms with with the culmination of three years of loneliness and isolation.
This is a film that I had heard about for a while (it came out in 2009), and had been meaning to pick up for a while as well. Well I did the other day and I loved it.
I don't want to give anything more away - you can do that yourself if you want - but I think that it is an example of the very best of speculative SF - a sub-genre which generally does not get much appreciation or attention from the main-stream movie goer.
This is not some grandiose space opera - with a few vaguely philosophical (and often preachy) concepts tacked on to a series of action sequences. Instead, Moon is a film with a simple (though not simplistic) plot that is based around the exposition of a single idea and of a single question: that of the meaning of one's identity - and it is explored in a thoroughly thought provoking, moving, and most importantly, new way.
I have to say that (apart from the various references to 2001) it reminded me of some of the better speculative short stories that I have read over the last few years (i.e. selective works by J.G. Ballard, Clarke, Asimov and to some extent Niven) and, I think, can be taken as a display of one of the major strengths of SF: which is that, as a genre, SF is inherently without limitations - as it allows you to ask questions/or address concepts and alternate possibilities in ways that are beyond the capability and scope of other forms of literature or entertainment - simply because reality within SF is an entirely flexible thing - and that if this is done well (which it is in Moon, but it is not in many other examples) then there is the potential for the reader or viewer to feel something, or think about something, in a way that they have not felt or thought about before.
Anywho, that's enough prattle for the moment - next story will be up shortly, i'm just tweaking it at the moment and trying to find a good cut off point to end it on for a post.
M
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Revenant
I've always found it fascinating on how attached people get to inanimate objects. For example: my old laptop, which is currently sitting next to on my bed, refuses to display any colours other than fluro pink and green and it will usually lock me out or freeze after about half an hour of use. In other words: It no longer works as it is supposed to. Yet even though I now have a perfectly good new laptop and it now has everything that was on my old laptop on it I know that it will be a while before I can bring myself to get rid of it.
Pretty much every post that has been written for this blog so far was written on it. Pretty much every story. I watched the little 'writing' folder on my desktop go from a small smattering of stuff to a collection several hundred documents that contain completed stories, attempted stories, edits, ideas, outlines, ideas, words I liked the sound of, sentences I liked the look of and even a few attempts at drawing up physical quasi-geographical maps for some of my earliest story ideas.
Ultimately, it's not all that much compared to what it might become if I want to take this seriously, but its a start and its a hell of a lot more than what I started off with - and browsing through it, even if a lot of it isn't very good, makes me feel something that borders on pride. As I associated all that work with my old laptop I get that feeling when I look at it now, even though it is broken, so I very well might keep it.
Weird.
Anyway, as you may have noticed, OBLOGOTORY, is back and I am happy to say that I have several stories on the go at the moment (not to mention a decent amount of free time on my hands) so updates should be both varied and plentiful (Also there will be no more poetry for the foreseeable future as I feel as if I've subjected you to enough).
To start us of I thought I might trot out the first bit of something new, which I am going to tell you nothing about until the plot reaches a certain point for reasons that will hopefully become clear.
The Life and death of Alistair Grout
The sun rises. The sun sets.
For Alistair Grout it is all the same and each day the whole world passes him by in a haze.
He doesn't care.
He doesn't even notice.
But sometimes things change.
For the third time in a week he finds himself in a bar: one that he has been to many times before. He sits. He drinks. He ignores the people around him and those that pass him by and for the most part they ignore him right back.
He likes it that way. It lets him wallow without having to remember exactly what it is that he is wallowing about. Lets him feel like he is surrounded by people when he really feels alone.
Light pulses and people dance. The heavy roll of the bass washes over him and dulls his already drunken mind. It keeps him distracted, keeps him occupied. Helps him forget. Each night it is the same, and each night it is just enough: The world becomes a dizzy smear as he drinks until he no longer has any idea where he is, who he is, and what he has done.
Each night is an escape, and each he prays that the next one will see one of the more wretched parts of the city swallow him up and then never spit him out and that will be the end of everything.
He knows that he does not have the courage to do it himself.
But each night it is the same. He he sits, he drinks, he forgets and then in the morning he wakes, in the gutter, or his hotel room, but still here, exhausted and feeling worse than he did before. Eventually he will sober up completely and the whole world will come rushing back in.
He knows that it can't go on forever: Sooner or later his money will run and and he will have to stop. He wonders how much damaged he will be able to do to himself before that happens. Wonders if he can numb himself completely to everyone and everything before he has to go home to face up to what he has done.
He shudders at the thought each time and then quickly downs another drink.
Things normally have a habit of progressing from there.
Normally.
Tonight something is different.
He sits at the bar. He drinks. All around him people writhe to the pounding music. He finds it hard to dislocate from it all and the drink sits heavy in his belly and does nothing.
He can feel someone watching him. A cold fire slithers down his fire and then tweaks at his ribs as he slowly shifts so that he is facing the other way.
Gradually he begins to feel warm again and the drink hits him all at once. After a while he finds himself chuckling to no-one in particular. The bartender gives him an odd look – pours another, takes his money – and then moves on, his face returning to his earlier look of quiet despair. Probably just another young person drawn to all the glitz and glamour. Thinking to try their hand at acting, hoping that they can break into fame and fortune. Ending up tending bar, for others like him, just so he can pay the bills. He snorts – more odd looks – he wonders drunkenly if he should give the whole acting thing ago? After all, he doesn't really need to go home. Not really. Maybe he could see the world, just like he had wanted to when he was young. He wonders and twists the wedding band around his finger as he wonders. He could just disappear. Take a different name. Find something new. He would miss the girls of course – but, he realised, not enough to justify going back home. Not that he would get to see them much once what he had done got out. Their mother would see to that.
From somewhere within him something seems to come loose and starts to rattle around around, the sound erupts from his mouth as another strained laugh that, louder this time, draws still more looks from the people around him, looks that largely spoke of disgust and disdain – a curl to the lip and a slanted brow that seem to say: “What the fuck is a guy like this doing here”.
He motions for another drink, swaying in his stool. The bartender looks at him as if he has just crawled out from one of the bar stools and tells him what Alistair can only assume is something along the lines of “You've had enough. You're disturbing the other customers. Fuck off.”
He grins at the barman and holds what is left of his drink up to the light - he isn't even sure what it is – he throws it back and then tosses the empty glass casually over his shoulder. The bartender roars at him noiselessly, his words lost amongst the music and making his movements seem exaggerated and almost comical. Alistair laughs, it's like a pantomime show. Obviously the bartenders gestures attract some attention however as seconds later a hand clamps down on his shoulder and he is unceremoniously dragged from the bar by one of the more ugly bouncers he has ever seen and then thrown out onto the street, where the bouncer delivers a sharp blow to Alistair's stomach that leaves him him on his knees, coughing and retching.
The bouncer pulls him to his feet and looks him over hard eyes, only slightly dulled by boredom, his voice rolls grates like gravel being rubbed together, “Be smart mate. Don't come back here again”, he punches Alistair again for good measure, his stomach heaves. The bouncer spits and turns to go.
It takes him a while to catch his breath and for the cloud of alcohol to seep back over his mind. Eventually he stumbles down the street and into a looks ridiculously similar to the one in which he had just been. He slips into a booth near the door and orders another drink.
The night wears on.
Much later he finds himself staring blankly at his watch as he slowly begins to sober up, then again and again. Each time he finds himself unsure if he has progressed from being curious about the time, to actually reading the thing, or if he has and just keeps forgetting what it said after he looked away. Around him things are beginning to wind down. The crowd has grown sparser and the dancing more awkward as people slowly begin to sober up and realise either that they can't dance in the first place, or that they are absolutely exhausted. Mostly of the time it is both.
Someone laughs in the booth behind him. A woman. He almost finds himself laughing with her, before he catches himself. Someone else says something to her and she laughs again. He suddenly is struck by something in her voice. Something familiar. He swaps from one side of the booth to the other and surreptitiously glances over the seat in which he had been sitting . The woman, talking with one of the bar staff as he refills her drink, laughs again. He looks at her puzzled, he has never seen her before. She looks up at him, as he shrugs and switches back to his original seat. He waves for another drink as another staff member moves away from the bar.
Behind him the woman is talking now and unconsciously he finds himself trying to hear what she is saying. Maybe she was just in bars all the time? Maybe she had been in the one he had been thrown out of? He snorts and tries to push her voice out of his mind. He doesn't want to think about women. He was done thinking about women. He grimaces at that and then a wave of self disgust rises in his throat like bile. He must be sobering up. He looks at his glass, empty – he doesn't even remember drinking it. He moves to order another only to find someone holding one out to him.
“Here”
He looks up. The woman has moved from her table and is now standing in front of him with a glass in each hand. Again she offers one to him. He looks at her, slightly confused, and is taken aback by how young she is. Gorgeous, but very young. He feels old just looking at her.
“You're supposed to take one.” Her grin touches her eyes, the light from the bar makes them look much paler than they should be. He apologises and takes the glass with a sweaty hand, all the while wondering to himself how long it had been since a woman bought him a drink. He honestly couldn't remember.
She smiles again and motions towards the drink. Lost in thought he has not touched it yet.
“Try it” she says, and takes a sip of her own “see if you like it”. He raises the glass to his mouth and she place her hand on his leg and whispers in his ear, “it's my favourite. I get it all the time.”
He nods dumbly and drinks and then world disappears into darkness with a dull roar.
He tries to pull his mind back together. There is touch and sound but they are somehow muffled and distant. He tastes something in the back of his throat and a hammer of ecstasy beats down upon him and turns him inside out. He feels as if a fire has been kindled in his mouth. It burns at him, hollows him out. The fog of the earlier alcohol is slowly leached out of him and he feels shockingly alive but somehow ill at the same time. A hot weight presses down upon his chest and he struggles to breathe as the feeling suddenly quickens and becomes even more profound. It spreads through out his body. Burning hotter and faster. Each second seems to drag by both pleasure and pain in equal measure until he feels as if he cannot take it for a second longer.
He feels her hand on his arm and he comes crashing back to reality. She looks at him coolly, as if studying him. He finds himself suddenly afraid, “what did you put in this?” His voice stumbles over each word. He tries to stand, fails and looks at her confused.
In response she sits down opposite him and leans towards him.
Her voice purrs and she gives him a wicked smile, “Why? Did you like it?”
Alistair swallows and looks back down at the glass, he feels a need growing deep down inside him, stronger than anything he was ever felt in his life. She moves closer. As if hypnotised he moves closer to her as well. Her lips press against his ear again,
“You looked sad.” She croons, “I thought it would cheer you up.” He can feel her smile again. “Have another taste.”
He tries to move away, but again nothing happens. His hand moves toward the glass of its own accord. Picks it up. She whispers something he cannot understand and his brain feels like it has begun to boil. His hand shakes and then in an instant he downs the entire glass and then the whole world seems to fall away again, bit by bit, piece by piece, until only her face and a searing emptiness is his veins remained.
Too be continued.
All right, that's it for the moment, feedback and stuff are appreciated as per usual. The next part should be up within a few days as it's mostly done, but just needs some tweaking and maybe some additions.
Until then.
M
Pretty much every post that has been written for this blog so far was written on it. Pretty much every story. I watched the little 'writing' folder on my desktop go from a small smattering of stuff to a collection several hundred documents that contain completed stories, attempted stories, edits, ideas, outlines, ideas, words I liked the sound of, sentences I liked the look of and even a few attempts at drawing up physical quasi-geographical maps for some of my earliest story ideas.
Ultimately, it's not all that much compared to what it might become if I want to take this seriously, but its a start and its a hell of a lot more than what I started off with - and browsing through it, even if a lot of it isn't very good, makes me feel something that borders on pride. As I associated all that work with my old laptop I get that feeling when I look at it now, even though it is broken, so I very well might keep it.
Weird.
Anyway, as you may have noticed, OBLOGOTORY, is back and I am happy to say that I have several stories on the go at the moment (not to mention a decent amount of free time on my hands) so updates should be both varied and plentiful (Also there will be no more poetry for the foreseeable future as I feel as if I've subjected you to enough).
To start us of I thought I might trot out the first bit of something new, which I am going to tell you nothing about until the plot reaches a certain point for reasons that will hopefully become clear.
The Life and death of Alistair Grout
The sun rises. The sun sets.
For Alistair Grout it is all the same and each day the whole world passes him by in a haze.
He doesn't care.
He doesn't even notice.
But sometimes things change.
For the third time in a week he finds himself in a bar: one that he has been to many times before. He sits. He drinks. He ignores the people around him and those that pass him by and for the most part they ignore him right back.
He likes it that way. It lets him wallow without having to remember exactly what it is that he is wallowing about. Lets him feel like he is surrounded by people when he really feels alone.
Light pulses and people dance. The heavy roll of the bass washes over him and dulls his already drunken mind. It keeps him distracted, keeps him occupied. Helps him forget. Each night it is the same, and each night it is just enough: The world becomes a dizzy smear as he drinks until he no longer has any idea where he is, who he is, and what he has done.
Each night is an escape, and each he prays that the next one will see one of the more wretched parts of the city swallow him up and then never spit him out and that will be the end of everything.
He knows that he does not have the courage to do it himself.
But each night it is the same. He he sits, he drinks, he forgets and then in the morning he wakes, in the gutter, or his hotel room, but still here, exhausted and feeling worse than he did before. Eventually he will sober up completely and the whole world will come rushing back in.
He knows that it can't go on forever: Sooner or later his money will run and and he will have to stop. He wonders how much damaged he will be able to do to himself before that happens. Wonders if he can numb himself completely to everyone and everything before he has to go home to face up to what he has done.
He shudders at the thought each time and then quickly downs another drink.
Things normally have a habit of progressing from there.
Normally.
Tonight something is different.
He sits at the bar. He drinks. All around him people writhe to the pounding music. He finds it hard to dislocate from it all and the drink sits heavy in his belly and does nothing.
He can feel someone watching him. A cold fire slithers down his fire and then tweaks at his ribs as he slowly shifts so that he is facing the other way.
Gradually he begins to feel warm again and the drink hits him all at once. After a while he finds himself chuckling to no-one in particular. The bartender gives him an odd look – pours another, takes his money – and then moves on, his face returning to his earlier look of quiet despair. Probably just another young person drawn to all the glitz and glamour. Thinking to try their hand at acting, hoping that they can break into fame and fortune. Ending up tending bar, for others like him, just so he can pay the bills. He snorts – more odd looks – he wonders drunkenly if he should give the whole acting thing ago? After all, he doesn't really need to go home. Not really. Maybe he could see the world, just like he had wanted to when he was young. He wonders and twists the wedding band around his finger as he wonders. He could just disappear. Take a different name. Find something new. He would miss the girls of course – but, he realised, not enough to justify going back home. Not that he would get to see them much once what he had done got out. Their mother would see to that.
From somewhere within him something seems to come loose and starts to rattle around around, the sound erupts from his mouth as another strained laugh that, louder this time, draws still more looks from the people around him, looks that largely spoke of disgust and disdain – a curl to the lip and a slanted brow that seem to say: “What the fuck is a guy like this doing here”.
He motions for another drink, swaying in his stool. The bartender looks at him as if he has just crawled out from one of the bar stools and tells him what Alistair can only assume is something along the lines of “You've had enough. You're disturbing the other customers. Fuck off.”
He grins at the barman and holds what is left of his drink up to the light - he isn't even sure what it is – he throws it back and then tosses the empty glass casually over his shoulder. The bartender roars at him noiselessly, his words lost amongst the music and making his movements seem exaggerated and almost comical. Alistair laughs, it's like a pantomime show. Obviously the bartenders gestures attract some attention however as seconds later a hand clamps down on his shoulder and he is unceremoniously dragged from the bar by one of the more ugly bouncers he has ever seen and then thrown out onto the street, where the bouncer delivers a sharp blow to Alistair's stomach that leaves him him on his knees, coughing and retching.
The bouncer pulls him to his feet and looks him over hard eyes, only slightly dulled by boredom, his voice rolls grates like gravel being rubbed together, “Be smart mate. Don't come back here again”, he punches Alistair again for good measure, his stomach heaves. The bouncer spits and turns to go.
It takes him a while to catch his breath and for the cloud of alcohol to seep back over his mind. Eventually he stumbles down the street and into a looks ridiculously similar to the one in which he had just been. He slips into a booth near the door and orders another drink.
The night wears on.
Much later he finds himself staring blankly at his watch as he slowly begins to sober up, then again and again. Each time he finds himself unsure if he has progressed from being curious about the time, to actually reading the thing, or if he has and just keeps forgetting what it said after he looked away. Around him things are beginning to wind down. The crowd has grown sparser and the dancing more awkward as people slowly begin to sober up and realise either that they can't dance in the first place, or that they are absolutely exhausted. Mostly of the time it is both.
Someone laughs in the booth behind him. A woman. He almost finds himself laughing with her, before he catches himself. Someone else says something to her and she laughs again. He suddenly is struck by something in her voice. Something familiar. He swaps from one side of the booth to the other and surreptitiously glances over the seat in which he had been sitting . The woman, talking with one of the bar staff as he refills her drink, laughs again. He looks at her puzzled, he has never seen her before. She looks up at him, as he shrugs and switches back to his original seat. He waves for another drink as another staff member moves away from the bar.
Behind him the woman is talking now and unconsciously he finds himself trying to hear what she is saying. Maybe she was just in bars all the time? Maybe she had been in the one he had been thrown out of? He snorts and tries to push her voice out of his mind. He doesn't want to think about women. He was done thinking about women. He grimaces at that and then a wave of self disgust rises in his throat like bile. He must be sobering up. He looks at his glass, empty – he doesn't even remember drinking it. He moves to order another only to find someone holding one out to him.
“Here”
He looks up. The woman has moved from her table and is now standing in front of him with a glass in each hand. Again she offers one to him. He looks at her, slightly confused, and is taken aback by how young she is. Gorgeous, but very young. He feels old just looking at her.
“You're supposed to take one.” Her grin touches her eyes, the light from the bar makes them look much paler than they should be. He apologises and takes the glass with a sweaty hand, all the while wondering to himself how long it had been since a woman bought him a drink. He honestly couldn't remember.
She smiles again and motions towards the drink. Lost in thought he has not touched it yet.
“Try it” she says, and takes a sip of her own “see if you like it”. He raises the glass to his mouth and she place her hand on his leg and whispers in his ear, “it's my favourite. I get it all the time.”
He nods dumbly and drinks and then world disappears into darkness with a dull roar.
He tries to pull his mind back together. There is touch and sound but they are somehow muffled and distant. He tastes something in the back of his throat and a hammer of ecstasy beats down upon him and turns him inside out. He feels as if a fire has been kindled in his mouth. It burns at him, hollows him out. The fog of the earlier alcohol is slowly leached out of him and he feels shockingly alive but somehow ill at the same time. A hot weight presses down upon his chest and he struggles to breathe as the feeling suddenly quickens and becomes even more profound. It spreads through out his body. Burning hotter and faster. Each second seems to drag by both pleasure and pain in equal measure until he feels as if he cannot take it for a second longer.
He feels her hand on his arm and he comes crashing back to reality. She looks at him coolly, as if studying him. He finds himself suddenly afraid, “what did you put in this?” His voice stumbles over each word. He tries to stand, fails and looks at her confused.
In response she sits down opposite him and leans towards him.
Her voice purrs and she gives him a wicked smile, “Why? Did you like it?”
Alistair swallows and looks back down at the glass, he feels a need growing deep down inside him, stronger than anything he was ever felt in his life. She moves closer. As if hypnotised he moves closer to her as well. Her lips press against his ear again,
“You looked sad.” She croons, “I thought it would cheer you up.” He can feel her smile again. “Have another taste.”
He tries to move away, but again nothing happens. His hand moves toward the glass of its own accord. Picks it up. She whispers something he cannot understand and his brain feels like it has begun to boil. His hand shakes and then in an instant he downs the entire glass and then the whole world seems to fall away again, bit by bit, piece by piece, until only her face and a searing emptiness is his veins remained.
Too be continued.
All right, that's it for the moment, feedback and stuff are appreciated as per usual. The next part should be up within a few days as it's mostly done, but just needs some tweaking and maybe some additions.
Until then.
M
Monday, July 4, 2011
Brief Hiatus
Well I've been absent for a while, which kinda sucks, and it looks like I'll be absent for a little while longer, which sucks even more.
The primary (and really only) reason for this is that my laptop is completely fucked and it's rather hard to get any decent writing done without it.
So, long story short, it looks like the I won't be posting anything for a little while longer - or at least until I get my hands on a new computer thingy (which hopefully should be soonish - money being the major issue).
On the positive side, however, I will have plenty of material to run with once I do get everything up and running again as I've been working on several things lately that I would very much like to finish and put up.
Until next time,
M
The primary (and really only) reason for this is that my laptop is completely fucked and it's rather hard to get any decent writing done without it.
So, long story short, it looks like the I won't be posting anything for a little while longer - or at least until I get my hands on a new computer thingy (which hopefully should be soonish - money being the major issue).
On the positive side, however, I will have plenty of material to run with once I do get everything up and running again as I've been working on several things lately that I would very much like to finish and put up.
Until next time,
M
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Up against the wall
Damn I hate writers block.
I've been trying to ease myself back into writing non-poetic stuff over the last little bit and it's taken a little while for things to jell properly so I'm afraid you will have to wait a little bit for a new short story. For the moment however I still have some unused poetry sitting around so you can have a read of that while you're waiting.
Freyja
Dear Freyja,
old Edda told of thee
of withered hand
and feathered cloak
long moulted
and throne away.
Do you shiver,
dear Freyja?
With shoulders bare
and alters empty?
With hair cast off,
to wither in the soil?
Do you hate,
dear Freyja?
at the lovely maid,
or the virgin thief?
Who took from you,
all once you had?
Or are you proud,
dear Freyja?
A queen amongst
a special few?
Who still holds court,
clipped wings or no?
My dear Freya,
old Edda told of thee.
Of healing touch,
of red and gold.
a midnight queen,
a pretty lass.
A missing god,
long gone,
made new,
and people ask,
with open arms:
who now holds you?
Not really sure what I think of this one now that I'm reading it a bit after writing. The original idea came about while I was poking through an old essay I wrote on the archetype of the trickster in ancient mythology (one of the examples I used was Loki, which led to reading up on some mythological Norse poetry, which somehow lead to Freyja) and I seem to have got the idea I was aiming at across, but I think it still needs one or two alterations.
Anywho, have a read and comment etc etc.
Will have a short story up in a bit. Maybe even a nice little picture to go with it.
M.
I've been trying to ease myself back into writing non-poetic stuff over the last little bit and it's taken a little while for things to jell properly so I'm afraid you will have to wait a little bit for a new short story. For the moment however I still have some unused poetry sitting around so you can have a read of that while you're waiting.
Freyja
Dear Freyja,
old Edda told of thee
of withered hand
and feathered cloak
long moulted
and throne away.
Do you shiver,
dear Freyja?
With shoulders bare
and alters empty?
With hair cast off,
to wither in the soil?
Do you hate,
dear Freyja?
at the lovely maid,
or the virgin thief?
Who took from you,
all once you had?
Or are you proud,
dear Freyja?
A queen amongst
a special few?
Who still holds court,
clipped wings or no?
My dear Freya,
old Edda told of thee.
Of healing touch,
of red and gold.
a midnight queen,
a pretty lass.
A missing god,
long gone,
made new,
and people ask,
with open arms:
who now holds you?
Not really sure what I think of this one now that I'm reading it a bit after writing. The original idea came about while I was poking through an old essay I wrote on the archetype of the trickster in ancient mythology (one of the examples I used was Loki, which led to reading up on some mythological Norse poetry, which somehow lead to Freyja) and I seem to have got the idea I was aiming at across, but I think it still needs one or two alterations.
Anywho, have a read and comment etc etc.
Will have a short story up in a bit. Maybe even a nice little picture to go with it.
M.
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