deleted

5 posts
User avatar
Gender Male
Points 1040
Reviews 117
deleted
Last edited by napalmerski on Sat Nov 06, 2010 5:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
she got a dazed impression of a whirling chaos in which steel flashed and hacked, arms tossed, snarling faces appeared and vanished, and straining bodies collided, rebounded, locked and mingled in a devil's dance of madness.
Robert Howard




User avatar
Gender None specified
Points 1618
Reviews 155




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 4343
Reviews 51
This is more of a hallucination than a story. A bunch of images thrown together. There's no narrative throughout it and it just leaves me feeling a bit cold. It sounds like you're either trying to work some hidden meaning into this, which is entirely lost, or are just writing it for the sake of being random.
Saying that, i do like it. It's not as bad as all the nonsensical 'Bizarro' rubbish out there. But it's no 'The Atrocity Exhibition'.
I think if you work this into a normal story it could be really funny. Start with an average guy going about his day doing mundane things, then the next paragraph is this. Or start normally, then gradually the guys actions and thoughts become more and more surreal; a result of an accident he's been in, or a suppressed traumatic experience or he's just snapped after another snide comment at work. Then you could work that into the surreal commentary, so the reader works it out for themselves. Or not. Just an idea.


napalmerski wrote:As I read my Tolstoy with one eye, I keep my other eye on the flickering TV screen and my third eye on the rat noses which are sniffing the air through the opening of the kitchen door. Above the little noses and whiskers are set black beady eyes, and behind them - nervous ears which move around like tiny radars. I pretend not to notice the rats, as not to encourage them.

But then the portrait of Ronald Reagan as a young artist fills the TV screen dangerously. His broad shoulders seem on the verge of slipping through the plazma #FF4080 ">(plasma)and into my room. I think briefly of slapping him with the Tolstoy, but that seems somehow unfitting. Instead I slowly get up from the couch, pretending to be looking at my magazines. I roll one and then turn and swat Reagan on the forehead, "git back, git back you critter!"
He fliches #FF4080 ">(flinches)and draws back, looking hurt, as if trying to show that he had never intended to invade my privacy. I hate these celebrity stalkers.

"And you too!" I shout at the rats and for them I save the heavier prose - I throw the Tolstoy at the door. Opening during its flight, pages fluttering like thoughts, the book reaches the door and freezes a foot from its target. The rats are impressed, their leader, a fat brown one with grey whiskers, scuttles forward and prostrates itself in front of me.

"That's better," I mutter and walk over to the book. It is still suspended in the air and refuses to budge even as I press it with one hand, then with two hands. Finally I decide to sit cross-legged on it, appearing to be a levitating yoga, meditating a floor above the floor.

The rats bring me a dead cat, but I know that this is their idea of a gift. I nod with royal absentmindedness and look at the TV. I don't trust it. The last time I was having wild sex with my girlfriend on the couch, a penis appeared on the screen and a hairy male hand proceeded to jerk it off. Almost made me lose my concentration, I tell you. Good thing there's Tolstoy to keep me up.




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 1040
Reviews 117
Prokaryote, thank you for reading,
Leebass, thank you for reviewing.
Ballard is Ballard, insane sci-fi brits are insane sci-fi brits (brilliant as they are), in this case I was trying for something in the vein Daniil Kharms meets Donald Barthelme; pre-WWII soviet absurdism - post WWII US absurdism crossover. A weak early attempt but in years! When they make my anthologies! And!

Have some Kharms:
***
Andrey Semyonovich spat into a cup of water. The water immediately turned black. Andrey Semyonovich screwed up his eyes and looked attentively into the cup. The water was very black. Andrey Semyonovich's heart began to throb.

At that moment Andrey Semyonovich's dog woke up. Andrey Semyonovich went over to the window and began ruminating.

Suddenly something big and dark shot past Andrey Semyonovich's face and flew out of the window. This was Andrey Semyonovich's dog flying out and it zoomed like a crow on to the roof of the building opposite. Andrey Semyonovich sat down on his haunches and began to howl.

Into the room ran Comrade Popugayev.

- What's up with you? Are you ill? - asked Comrade Popugayev.

Andrey Semyonovich quieted down and rubbed his eyes with his hands.

Comrade Popugayev took a look into the cup which was standing on the table. - What's this you've poured into here? - he asked Andrey Semyonovich.

- I don't know - said Andrey Semyonovich.

Popugayev instantly disappeared. The dog flew in through the window again, lay down in its former place and went to sleep.

Andrey Semyonovich went over to the table and took a drink from the cup of blackened water. And Andrey Semyonovich's soul turned lucid.

***
The thing

A mom, a dad, and the maid named Natasha, were sitting at the table, drinking.

The dad was undoubtedly an alcoholic. Furthermore, even the mom looked down on him. But that didn't prevent the dad from being a good man. He was smiling honestly while rocking in a chair. The maid Natasha had a lace apron and was very extremely shy. The dad was playing with his beard, but maid Natasha was lowering her eyes shyly, showing, in that way, that she was ashamed.

The mom, a tall woman with a big hairdo, spoke with a horse­like voice. Her voice spread around the dining room and echoed back from the yard and other rooms.

After the first drink, everyone was quiet for a moment while they ate a sausage. A moment later, they all started talking again.

Suddenly, completely unexpected, someone knocked at the front door. Neither the dad, nor the mom, nor the maid, Natasha, could guess who was knocking on the front door.

- How strange? - said the dad. - Who could that be?

The mom looked at him with compassion and, even if it was not her turn, poured another glass, chugged it down and said:

- Strange.

The dad did not swear, but also poured a glass, chugged it down and got up from the table.

The dad was a short man. Completely opposite from the mom. The mom was a tall, plump woman with a voice like a horse, and the dad was simply her husband. And above all that, the dad had freckles.

He approached the door in one step and said:

- Who is it?

- Me - said the voice behind the door.

The door opened immediately, and in the room entered a maid, Natasha, all confused and blushing. Like a flower. Like a flower.

The dad sat down.

The mom had another drink.

The maid Natasha, and the other one, the "flower-like" one, got very shy and blushed. The dad looked at them but he did not swear, instead he had another drink and so did the mom.

The dad opened a can of crab paté to get the bad taste out of his mouth. Everyone was happy and they ate until morning. But the mom was quiet and she did not move from the chair. That was very impolite.

When the dad was about to sing a song, something hit the window. The mom jumped up terrified and yelled that she could clearly see someone looking through the window from the street. The others tried to convince the mom that that was impossible, because they were on the third floor and nobody from the street could possibly look through the window, as he would have to be a giant or Goliath.

But the mom would not change her mind. Nothing in the world could convince her that nobody could have been looking through the window.

In order to calm her down, they gave her another drink. The mom chugged it down. The dad also poured a glass and drank it.

Natasha and the maid, the "flower-like" one, were sitting, looking down in confusion.

- I cannot be happy when someone is looking at us through the window - said the mom.

The dad was desperate; he did not know how to calm the mom down. So he went down in the yard and tried to look through the window on the first floor. Of course, that was impossible. But that did not convince the mom. She did not even see that he couldn't reach the first floor window.

Finally, confused by the situation, the dad ran into the dining room and had two drinks in a row, giving one of them to the mom. The mom had her drink, and said that she was drinking solely because someone was looking at them through the window.

The dad spread his hands.

- Here - he said to the mom, and opened the window.

A man with a dirty coat and a big knife in his hands tried to get in through the window. When the dad noticed him, he closed the window and said:

- There is nobody.

But, the man with a dirty coat was outside looking into the room through the window, and furthermore, he opened the window and got in.

The mom was extremely disturbed by this. She started acting hysterically, and, after she had a drink that the dad gave her and ate a little mushroom, she calmed down.

Soon the dad calmed down, too. Again everybody sat at the table and continued to drink.

The dad took the papers and spent a long time flipping them up and down trying to determine what comes up and what comes down. But no matter how long he tried he couldn't sort it out so he put the papers aside and had a drink.

- Nice - said the dad - but we're out of pickles.

The mom made a sound like a horse, which was pretty inappropriate, and made the maids look at the table cloth and laugh silently.

The dad had another drink and suddenly grabbed the mom and put her on the cupboard.

The mom's gray, big, light hair was shaking, she got red spots all over her face, and, generally speaking, she was pretty upset.

The dad adjusted his trousers and started on a speech.

But at this point a secret hatch opened down on the floor and out from it crawled a monk.

The maids were so confused that one of them started to vomit. Natasha was holding her forehead and tried to hide what was going on.

The monk, the one that got out of the floor, aimed at the dad's ear and hit him so hard that everybody could hear the bells ringing in the dad's head!

The dad just sat down without even finishing his speech.

Then the monk approached the mom and with his hand, or leg, somehow from below, he kicked her.

The mom started to scream and cry for help.

Then the monk grabbed both maids by their aprons and, after swinging them through the air, let them hit the wall.

Then, unnoticed, the monk crawled back into the floor and closed the hatch behind him.

For a long time neither the dad, nor the mom, nor the maid Natasha could get their compoure again. But later, when they got some fresh air, they had another drink while adjusting their appearance, they sat down at the table, and started to eat salad.

After another drink everyone was talking quietly.

Suddenly the dad got red in the face and started to yell:

- What! What! - the dad was yelling. - You think that Iøm anal! You look at me like at a devil! I do not ask for your love! You are the devils!

The mom and the maid Natasha ran out of the room and locked themselves in the kitchen.

- Go away you drunk! Go, you son of a devil! - whispered the mom and the totally confused maid Natasha, behind the door.

And the dad stayed in the dining room until the morning when he took his bag, put on a white hat and quietly went to work.

***
Symphony no. 2

Anton Mikhailovich spat, said "yuck", spat again, said "yuck" again, spat again, said "yuck" again and left. To Hell with him. Instead, let me tell about Ilya Pavlovich.

Ilya Pavlovich was born in 1893 in Constantinople. When he was still a boy, they moved to St. Petersburg, and there he graduated from the German School on Kirchnaya Street. Then he worked in some shop; then he did something else; and when the Revolution began, he emigrated. Well, to Hell with him. Instead, let me tell about Anna Ignatievna.

But it is not so easy to tell about Anna Ignatievna. Firstly, I know almost nothing about her, and secondly, I have just fallen of my chair, and have forgotten what I was about to say. So let me instead tell about myself.

I am tall, fairly intelligent; I dress prudently and tastefully; I don't drink, I don't bet on horses, but I like ladies. And ladies don't mind me. They like when I go out with them. Serafima Izmaylovna have invited me home several times, and Zinaida Yakovlevna also said that she was always glad to see me. But I was involved in a funny incident with Marina Petrovna, which I would like to tell about. A quite ordinary thing, but rather amusing. Because of me, Marina Petrovna lost all her hair - got bald like a baby's bottom. It happened like this: Once I went over to visit Marina Petrovna, and bang! she lost all her hair. And that was that.
***
Last edited by napalmerski on Tue Nov 02, 2010 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
she got a dazed impression of a whirling chaos in which steel flashed and hacked, arms tossed, snarling faces appeared and vanished, and straining bodies collided, rebounded, locked and mingled in a devil's dance of madness.
Robert Howard




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 4343
Reviews 51
Thanks for that, i hadn't heard of Daniil Kharms before. It's strange; i like it but it leaves me cold. I'll have to look into some more of his work.



The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
— Mark Twain