Epitomes In Pretend

Here will I place my five stories for Cals contest. I don't want to make FIVE NEW threads for these sillly stories. It would be silly of someone silly like me to do something silly like that.

The first one is 'accident'. (Next one will hopefully be added by tomorrow.)

Hollow Waking

The glass is smeared; overlapping handprints, distorted hearts, indecipherable initials.

‘I can’t see you.’

‘My side of the damn glass is clean. Why is yours so filthy?’

‘I come every day…when you aren’t there to touch, I touch the glass.’

Her hair is smudged like the glass, the color completely hidden by itself. Skin tinged in gray, lips white, obscuring what color might have existed. Its her eyes that have taken it all. Her eyes are every color we have ever dreamed of; her sight has stolen everything.

‘You can’t touch me anyway. That doesn’t make sense.’ His voice is low, a withdrawn, despairing note hidden beneath its bitterness. If she hadn’t made the glass a wall she would see the brown skin and dark eyes that she loves so frightfully. She might see a half-grin, she might see a bruise, but she would never see the truth. He keeps that to himself.

‘I - I pretend, okay?’ He knows she can’t see his expression so he smiles wider than he ever has before. He must be sure she can’t see for if she perceives him to be even in the least bit comfortable or happy she will be distraught. He wonders if twenty-eight is old enough to be sure of something. Being sixteen, he isn’t sure.

‘How ‘bout you pretend you can see me, babe? Would that make you feel better?’

She stands, knocking over her chair violently. His laugh is smothered in his cupped hand and he guesses she is crying. ‘Break it! I have to - I have to -’ She pulls at her hair, a dark pitch to her scratched voice. The guard approaches and she sees him, immediately dropping her hands and trying to look complacent. Picking the chair up off its back she sits down and leans closer. ‘Why did you do this? It’s your fault we’re apart. I’m going bloody crazy.’

He can’t see her clearly but her eyes are lucid in his mind: the swirling, wild color that drains everything of its passion, holding red above all else and laughing as tears roll in rainbows down pale cheeks. But he’s angry. He doesn’t say anything but childish frustration begins to surface in his mind, causing his hands to tremble imperceptibly. How could she blame him? Was it his fault that his Freshman English teacher fell in love with him? Was it his fault that his best friend framed him in a crime he didn’t commit to keep him away from the crazy woman? Was it his fault that the crazy woman was what he thought might be the end of the world? What of this situation was his fault? And yet she blames him; she blames him for her feral pain and being kept away from the desire she falsely calls ‘love’.

‘A few more months. I’ve been damn good and all the guards love me - I make them love me. I’ll get out…soon.’ He can’t address her accusation, aware that she wants him to get mad, she wants him to break the glass to prove that he loves her. But no, that would only prove he is stupid - stupid, he is not.

‘We’re an accident.’

‘What?’

‘Remember two years ago when I -’

‘Sorry, ma’am, your time’s up.’

She stands, her ambiguous eyes cold. ‘My time? It’s his time I’m worried about. Do you want to tell me when that’s up?’

The guard seems slightly taken aback. His black eyes suddenly acquire some words; some meaning. He looks at her and then furrows his brow, trying to remember who this woman has been talking to through the glass.

‘Wait, how - is he your…You’re his girlfriend?’

‘I love him. He loves me. And yes, I am twenty-eight, since that is what you were going to ask next.’

‘Isn’t that…illegal?’

‘I said I loved him. Not that we were sleeping together.’ She giggles.

‘But you are.’

‘Grace!’ He hit the glass. ‘Stop talking to him.’

The light is fading and she turns away from the guard, some amount of perverted triumph in her eyes. The handsome Mexican boy behind the glass leans back in his chair, letting out a sigh of pure relief mixed with pure desperation.

That was good. I mean, there are a couple of things I would change, but overall it's a good little piece. The idea you had about the glass being filthy and them not being able to look at each other is inspired. I like how he pictures how she looks and imagines this idealized version of her face, of her eyes. She is blue-eyes or green-eyes, her eyes are every color we have ever dreamed of. I liked that. It's also a good way of showing he loves her, in a way, too. Throughout the piece he seems colder, a bit less melodramatic perhaps, distant. He's in jail after all. And showing those little glimpses of his mind really shows us he loves her too, no matter how hard she makes it for him to do so. The dialogue is nice too. Sometimes it sounds a bit, you know, written but overall you handle the escalation from "I can't see you" to "Break it!" quite nicely.

But, alright, let's see. You should take the whole teacher humps student aspect of your story out. I know, that's kinda the whole thing, but I actually think it distracts from what's really interesting-- which is the way people in a relationship struggle to keep it going when one of them is jail, how it is so hard to be so far apart, to not be able to touch each other. That's what you excel at, and that should really be the focus. The whole paragraph, that "blame" paragraph, is just distracting. It just doesn't fit. And if you don't want to change that, which I would understand, at least take the part of the framing away. It just sounds silly. Seriously. That's the kinda thing that can ruin a story for some readers. I loved your story and it still bothered me a lot.

The ending, because it's built around those things, doesn't really do much for me. I like how the kid bangs on the glass, tells her to stop talking to him. But the other things... I don't know. That's just me though. Maybe you could have her speak to the guard, and the kid be a bit jealous or something like that? He bangs on the glass, can't really do much, because in the end she walks out and he goes back to get fucked in the ass by other inmates.

Also: how are they talking? Don't they use those phone things they use in movies? I guess not. If anything you should include them. It would add the idea of being so far apart even though they are in the same room even more effective.

Good job.

Ah, now to the next. And it is late, yes. 'Bleach' is the word.


Holy Folly


The woods were thin. Trees tilted and broken stood at unnatural angles and the grass around them was crushed, dying. Two pretty children who went by the names of Hera and Lucifer watched the listless trees, impudent in their wondering. As the sun dipped lower in the sky, its heat remained damp and lingering.

Hera glanced in growing uncertainty at Luce and bit her lip, his short, orange-red hair and his dull, dark skin were still there. She clenched her teeth. The dead grass hurt her feet and the sun hurt her eyes and if he existed, he hurt her thoughts.

'Have you ever gotten drunk in a dream?' An irritating question, she was sure.

‘Perhaps I have but I don’t think its possible.’

‘Why?’

‘It doesn’t fit. Dreams are true lucidity while intoxication is…the opposite.’ He sighed, tired of the subject, but she loved to make him expound on things he was sick of.

‘I don’t get -’

‘Alright, think about it this way: When you’re dreaming you think you are lost and incoherent when really you are much more conscious than when awake. But when you’re drunk you believe yourself to be perfectly coherent and rational when you have never been farther from both.’ Groaning in an exaggerated fashion he kicked over an anthill, relishing the tiny insects panic.

‘Maybe.’ She wasn’t looking at him.

'Why does it always have to be maybe? You must know by now that I'm always right.' He giggled to himself and his eyes flicked to Hera. She never wore make-up but her eye-lashes were so dark and her skin so flawless that there was no need. It was that feeling again but he didn’t know what it was called.

'A few more times and I'm sure I'll remember it.' She stared at her feet, not paying him all the attention he wanted. He knew what would make her pay attention. He always knew.

‘How about we go -’

‘No. I told you -’

‘I’ll cover your eyes. And then when the werewolf jumps from behind the broken refrigerator you won’t see it before it rips out your stomach.’ He paused and grinned, his eyes alight. ‘Last time it was me -’

‘No! I don’t want to talk about it!’ She glared at him for a moment and then ran ahead; her palms sweating and her wild hair sticking to her forehead. He didn’t run after her and she slumped down under a rotting sycamore, head on her knees.

When he reached her he began to circle her, frenetic energy touching her head as he spun; now he remembered what it was called. ‘I love you.’

‘No.’ Why had he stayed? Could you only be what he was if you stayed?

‘I love you, remember?’

'Stop it...' She tilted her head back and let the tears run ragged lines down her pale face. He leaned over her, his head resting on the tree a little above her. Eyes still glowing, he wiped the tears away; the dirt on his hands leaving gray streaks where freckles had been.

'I still love you,' he whispered. But she pushed his hands away and got to her feet.

'I told you, no.'

'But -' His apprehension suddenly hit him cruelly in the stomach and he doubled over, waiting for what he knew she would do.

Abruptly, she turned away and ran, voices that she had tried to forget pounding in her ears. Back towards the white house she ran, the sweat of a century never drying on her back. When she reached the porch steps she stopped. The windows gaped stupidly and the doorknob was hanging off. It was bright: all earnestly bleached by the incessant sun; burnt to a thin stripe of nothingness. The air didn’t move as she stepped over the threshold.

She wished he would follow.

‘Hera -’ His voice lilted, a melody under his tongue. He had to. Of course he had to.

‘Don’t - Demons don’t know how -’ But she didn’t finish, a sudden cold filling her veins. The rooms yawned in tired bleakness and the walls stayed white despite the shadow that surrounded them. Rectangular memories of discarded art stared from the walls, their pure whiteness like colorless eyes. The sun had bleached everything. She felt his hand in her hair and she shut her eyes.

‘Luce, lets go. Please, lets go.’

He had ignored her.

A writhing shadow stumbled from behind the whirling staircase.

It had hurt her.

Luce fought the hands around his neck but he fought too late. She watched the sun tear it all apart and he laughed for what might have been the last time.

And then it ended.

Tears leaked from her eyes and she turned around slowly. Of course there was no one there. Just because she saw something, talked to it, didn't mean it was there.

‘Luce!’ Her strangled scream echoed enchantingly through the dead house and she fell. Fingers in her hair, dancing light before her eyes and a knife in her ribs. Luce wanted her to go where he couldn't love her anymore; he wanted her to go where his love couldn't reach before it turned into what it really was.

‘You need to go where you’re safe from me. Better to be touched by an angel than loved by a devil.’ His voice was the last thing she remembered before the house grew forever silent.

Ha, oy...very brieftly, my impressions. Or perhaps I began that backwards...

'Lo Chernobyl. And on to brief impressions, specifically tied to pacing, sentence structure and character.


To begin something short is to catch an attention, or lose it in a damnation-sort of way. With that said, you have surroundings, characters--seemingly intriguing.

And bloody long sentences.

A girl who called herself Hera and a boy who Hera called Lucifer were wandering in a broken manner through the beaten forest; both were neglecting the common practice of wearing shoes. The sun was low in the sky but the air ignored this fact and stayed persistently damp in a terribly warm way; some called it humidity.

And somewhat circuitous. There seems to be a drifting towards passivity--intentionally, or impassivity. Noticeably, it shows in the semi-colon'ed 'some called it humidity'.

'Tis an apt idea, if you want show the story as through glazed glass. (They are dead afterall, da?) But it drags as an introduction. Be impassive actively. Begin with a short sentence, and then lead into the next, longer. Or perhaps, begin with one long sentence; and lead to an abrupt short one.

In the end, as far as structure, it sounds like an untuned instrument--the notes it hits are duller, off-key or longer.

The woods were thin: trees scattered and knocked down, grass golden and prickly.

That begins with the concrete. Treat your characters and history with the same sense of description, even within the impassivity, if you'd like to hold to that

Oy, I know you said you had some difficulty going from end to beginning, beginning and back again. It still shows somewhat, and you might want to re-organise for the umpteenth time.

Er, I'll be more helpful if you ask.




IMP

I don't know what to do with this stupid story! Thanks for the feedback. And I know what you're talking about but I can't seem to fix it. Whenever I start working on it I feel lethargic and bored. It's stupid.

But yes, I will go over it again when I feel less burnt out.

Do you know, part of its pacing--especially the oddity in sentence length, or added adverbs--sounds like you're trying too hard.

Let it be. If you go back to it, start it like it's a new story.












IMP

There's still something frayed in the finish--as if it doesn't quite set its feet down again, after the flashback/recurrence of what happened.

And yet what precedes it is definitely more deft. There's still something vaguely inconstant about the two--as if they haven't an age, but are terribly young. How young are they then? Er, I'm not entirely certain of Luce's affect either. Young, and yet he speaks in latin-derivative, polysyllabic words. But Hera has the neatest, almost blase, laconic attitude. ^_^

There's also the interjection about demons... another vagary. Is Luce a demon? They're ghosts, yes? Why can't he love? If it is a question of 'no', as Hera repeats, it ought to be rooted in the past, with the trauma and death. But as it is, it seems as if the inability to love--or Hera's refusal to take it--is rooted in a current aspect of one their natures, yes?

Anyhow, 'tis much smoother, as I said. And the exchange in which Luce is light, and Hera falls apart, ragged, is taut--lovely and rather painful.




IMP

Third one! This is actually a small excerpt from another story. But it works fine for this. The word is 'dishes'. It's a little short so if anyone has any ideas on how to make it longer I would appreciate it.


Red and Grey


I am sitting in a distantly lit café; I can’t seem to locate the light. Outside it is damp, headlights throwing gaps in the glistening dark. The music buzzes crudely around my head and I deplore the emotions it attempts to evoke - manipulative in a much too simple way. I believe the chair I have sunk into is frightfully broken and pain pushes itself into my consciousness - or perhaps only rusty springs.

The vague thought that others might be present is quite suddenly made concrete as an icy wind is let in through the open door. I wonder why there was no tinkling bell, but I refuse to look at who has entered.

‘Trey?’ I smile to myself and stare at the ceiling, ignoring the voice. ‘Trey, I’m sick of -’

‘I’m sick of you.’ Looking up, I let the amused smile fall from my face and the thin figure of a pretty girl sits uncomfortably in my eyes. ‘Sick - of - you.’

The girl in the paisley t-shirt stares at me for a moment, her eyes damp like the street outside and her red lipstick smeared across her mouth. Waiting for a good comeback is a hopeless venture but I continue to stare at her. I can’t seem to decide on my emotions; they seem to be deciding on me. Her eyes are dark and I feel like I’m looking out the back of her head to the street. Before I can figure out what I’m looking at she turns around and stomps out of the café.

When the door slams behind her I sit up, groaning in an exaggerated fashion. I must shake off the confusion.

‘Claire! Will this agony ever end?’ I double over, a flippant laugh on my tongue. The joke doesn‘t seem as funny as I would like - where are the others for me to scare into laughing along?

After a moment Claire trips out of the back, her sleeves rolled up and soap to her elbows. Her face is thinner now, but the shadow is something I will not acknowledge. I don’t even attempt to find out what she thinks anymore. My mind is bared for the world to see and they think it’s good because they see gold where dirt has been swept away. But they don’t see gold because it’s there, they see it because they expect it to be there. But it isn’t there and I wonder. I understood them too well and now I’m just a virus with nothing to fight it.

‘What is it?’ Her freckles are darker but it is her eyes I have lost. I search for the sparkle. But, no, I am not really seeking its existence. I know it’s gone and I hate myself for knowing it.

‘I want to go home.’

‘Who was that girl who just came in?’ She looks at me in an accusing fashion and I wonder what I would have to do to make her shout. It was such an easy thing so long ago. How long is five years?

‘Oh, you know, just another broken heart. You should have seen her lipstick, it was -’

‘You’re a terrible brother.‘ She doesn’t yell it like before but only turns away, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve and getting bubbles in her limp, yellow hair. I glance at her, prepared to say something merciless to match her cruelty but she turns around and marches back into the kitchen. I feel like she didn’t always think me so horrid but cannot seem to recall when that was. Something must have happened to change her mind and I must be avoiding it. Forgetting is always a good idea.

‘You’re scared just like the rest of them!’ I shout. It goes out like a flickering candle before I can truly mean it - I don‘t care if she hears anyway.

Sometimes I wish they weren’t scared. But more often I just wish that their fear would manifest in different ways; I grow terribly sick of subservience. They don’t fight me because they’re too sure they’ll lose. But that isn’t fair because I lost and I still fight. Perhaps I don’t. I lean back in the chair and let its broken springs dig into my already bruised back.

There’s a girl in the corner and she’s staring at me. Her eyes are round and terribly dark and her hair might as well be grey for how light it is; I don’t know the color. I sigh, hoping she didn’t hear Claire refer to me as her brother - perhaps if she thinks I have a girlfriend she’ll leave me alone.

Sinking lower in the chair, I remember.

‘Tell me that you -’

I have to cut her off before she says it. I have to stop her before it’s too late. ‘Don’t say it.’ I squeeze my eyes shut, clutching her thin body closer to mine. I don’t want to trick her into saying something else, I just don’t want her to say it.

‘What’s wrong?’ I think she can tell I’m afraid; I don’t want her to. My head aches because I don’t know what I am or what I’m doing. There is a draft in my mind, letting things in that I hate, things that I deny.

We are curled up on a stiff sofa in an office lobby and it’s cold. We’ve been staying here at night since I ran out of money. Claire is angry with me. So angry that I must hide from her to stop myself from being apologetic. But I have distractions.

The consistent, green flash of a sleeping computer causes me to wonder if my heart is still beating.

I grab her hands and hold them to my chest. ‘My heart, is it beating?‘ She nods, fear sparkling in her golden eyes. Abruptly, I push my silliness away, letting her hands fall.

This doesn’t mean anything - none of it does. I laugh, pulling her roughly up to my face and kissing her. It doesn’t matter.

I realize I’m laughing and I look around. The café is dark and the girl in the corner is gone. I can hear water running and I stand. ‘Claire?’ I look out the window and all I see is my face: hair ragged, eyes ringed in grey, smirking grin.

Should I see something else? My stomach knots and I stare harder into the glass, trying to see through. A dark smile taints the smeared glass and I shout, letting my head fall against the cold mirror. Sticky dreams slip between memories and I see the girl again. I see myself letting her demand that terrifying thing and I see myself complying. A burst of agonizing energy that is only disgust throws away my vision and I fall to the floor.

‘Trey!’

How could I even consider it? how dare I. A demon in my head laughs and I try to open my eyes, squinting in the dark.

‘I imagined it differently…Claire?’ But she isn‘t there. Everything is silent and I am alone.

Hello again.

And you begin with characters you've already developed. Yet, dashing forward into the future, you've dropped something, I think. In both the prose and the characterisation, it skips--like a heart on the fritz, da?

I am sitting in a partially deserted Café. The street outside is damp and headlights spit gaps into the glistening dark. The chair I’ve thrown myself into is odd and uncomfortable; I try to tune out the manipulative melody in my mind. I will be nineteen tomorrow.

Deft description of the street. It doesn't quite touch the cafe, though, or Trey. There is the street. Then, there is Trey in the cafe. Is the light in his eyes? How is the chair uncomfortable?

Oy, it also hits a repetitive and passive note, somewhat. You've the same sentence structure--subject-verb. I am sitting... The street outside is... I will be nineteen... Though you use a semi-colon, 'tis only breaking the same thing into a slightly different rhythm.

Try this, yes?

:
I sit in a nearly deserted cafe. [lower case 'cafe'] Outside, the street is damp and headlights spit gaps into the glistening dark. It hurts, the chair I've thrown myself into--oddly shaped and short-legged. And the music buzzing over the dim-lit place is manipulative. I try to tune it out.

Naturally, that probably sounds a bit too impish. But you see how it's changed up in structure?

You're writing in present-tense, which is bloody hard in general. 'Tis much too easy to fall into 'I am...' 'The...is...' 'The...breaks...' etc.

Last night something happened that I should be sorry [s]for[/s]. Of course[comma], I am not.

Rather awkward to end on a preposition. Though to end on the double syllable 'about' might be more apt. And perhaps paragraph the 'Of course, I...'. It will be more emphatic.

‘Trey?’ I smile to myself and stare at the ceiling, ignoring the voice. ‘Trey, I’m sick of -’

‘I’m sick of you.’ Looking up, I run a hand through my tangled hair lazily. ‘Sick - of - you.’

Looking up...at what then? The dialogue drops out of the wild blue yonder. But more than the dialogue, the fact that there's another character sitting there--with Trey? is both vague and bewildering.

I haven't quite gotten a picture of the cafe--through Trey's eyes or otherwise. And Trey seems neither to have been ignoring someone nor noticing someone.

The girl in the paisley t-shirt stares at me for a moment, her eyes damp like the street outside and her red lipstick smeared across her mouth. I wait for a good comeback, but only to mock her for I know she can think of nothing to say. I have fallen from grace and more pay for it than I had originally imagined. She walks away.

Ah, each sentence hits about the same length. Which, in light of pace and rhythm, is bloody bleary--things run together. 'Tis apt at times, as it reflects Trey's impassive resignation.

Yet in this, Trey is somewhat disturbed--he seems to be weaving in and out of his old complete confidence in naughts and meaninglessness. He isn't simply static. Let it show in how the narrative flows.

When the door slams behind her I sit up, groaning at the pain in my back.

‘Claire! Will this agony [s]every[/s] end?’ My eyes hurt and I laugh at my own joke because there is no one else around to be frightened into laughing along. After a moment Claire trips out of the back, her sleeves rolled up and soap up to her elbows. What is it like for her? Does she get afraid? Or is she just a virus like me?

Er, the joke bit is not quite apparent. Somehow, the 'groaning' preceding it makes it seems serious. Use paragraphs, yes?

Perhaps if it looked a bit more like so--

...groaning.

'Claire! Will this agony ever end?' I laugh at my own joke.

But my eyes hurt, and there is no one else around to be frightened into laughing along. [...]

What is it like for her? I can't see it in her face any longer... [description here, perhaps, of her countenance]. Does she get afraid? Or is she really just another virus like me?

As an aside: Trey seems to be struggling with feeling a sort of blindness. He's gotten to the point where all his interior monologuing is tangled with the endpoint of his ideas--nothing matters. Nothing is there, then? Does it need to be seen? Can one even see it?

And that might be something you could make a conscious theme.

What is it?’ Her freckles are darker but her eyes [s]are what[/s] have changed the most. I search for the sparkle. No. [s] but look away before I must realize it isn’t there.[/s] Before I realize that it's not, I look away. It is.

Or something a bit more like that. What I've struck out is simply a matter of extra words, stumbling up the sentence.

‘Oh, you know, just another broken heart. You should have seen her lipstick, it was -’

‘You’re a terrible brother,’ she murmurs, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve and getting bubbles in her limp, yellow hair.

Try striking out 'murmurs'. It would be more emphatic, more descriptive sans dialogue tag. Let her simply turn away, rubbing her eyes.

‘You’re scared just like the rest of them!’ I shout it feebly, not really caring if she can hear me. Sometimes I wish they weren’t scared. But more often I just wish that their fear would manifest in different ways; I grow terribly sick of subservience. They don’t fight me because they’re too sure they’ll lose.

Ah...a bit too much of inward-turning-Trey. Again, Trey does talk oddly. And yet--he seems to be flirting with breaking, with seeing he's not, or that around him is something. Not quite bloody sure of it.

But let the verbs at least, the action, be direct. It needs to be beside Trey's meandering intellectual uncertainty

Thus--

"You're scared just like the rest of them!" I shout. My voice is feeble though--and I don't really care if she can hear me.

[paragraph] Sometimes, I wish they weren't scared. [...]

And into the finish--

I realize I’m laughing and I look around. The café is dark and the girl in the corner is gone. I can hear water running and I stand. ‘Claire?’ I look out the window and all I see is my face: hair ragged, eyes ringed in grey, smirking grin. I like it okay.

'Tis too abrupt. And somehow, it seems off--as if he couldn't drop into that immediately. As if there's more than 'okay'. Is there meant to be? Why?

Whatever the answers--or their lack--may be, I think the 'okay' needs to drop to its own paragraph again.

I look out the window--and all I see is my face: hair ragged, eyes ringed in grey, smirking grin. All I see. [perhaps repetition there]

[Maybe] I like it okay.

I very much like the having him look into a window--meant to see out at others--and all he see is himself.

Still, 'I like it okay' seems distinctly unlike Trey. His diction is archaic or superior. And yet, if he did drop into the dead vernacular, I think it would be in being earnest, broken. Yet he seems to be letting himself be.

Anyhow, that would the finish of my critique--technically speaking.

There's a bloody lot here. And yet, in the presentation--in present-tense and caught between inconsistent description and Trey's confused, cruel, dead thoughts, it's fragmented.





IMP

Honestly, (in an un-Ethan fashion) I couldn't find a better critique under the Misty Mountains with Gollum lording over it like a little advertisement for modern warfare.

This is the first time I have thrown something out there that wasn't finished the way I liked it but I don't know if I really could have finished it without your help. It isn't finished yet, of course, but it is late and tomorrow there should be more time. Hopefully space to go along with that time but perhaps I'll just have to squeeze into nowhere to finish it.

I like it better now. But tomorrow I should be able to implement more. I'm repeating myself because it's late. G'nite, Smi. And don't you worry, no bad night for you, only for Trey.

I have nothing to edit technical-wise, only I see a certain symbolism in this text.
Nuuuu. I thought you were over it all. And now you're falling in all over again?! This can't be HAPPENING. You've gotta stop before the glow-sticks come back, and the split hairs. C'mon. For me?
It really isn't fair to the rest of us, you keeping him locked up in some dark corridor of your mind. Poor, hungry little boy that he is. And he's more of a ------ than you are. So get over IT. Yes I said it. FOR ME!

A fourth? They've all been angry and sad and lonely. I believe this one may be less so. At least I hope it is.

The word is, 'odd'.


Bastards



‘I can breath under water.’

‘No.’ Raymond said it with finality, but with a touch of annoyance and sarcasm mixed in. ‘You really, really can’t.’ The sarcasm turned into something resembling a laugh; it was slightly infectious.

‘Yes, actually, I can. I fell asleep in the bathtub yesterday and I dreamed that I couldn’t drown. When I woke up I was under water, but still breathing. See, I told you I could.’ Grey and orange light mixed in Hellie’s smile; infinity settled in her voice.

‘You dreamt you couldn’t drown. All a dream, stupid.’

‘I can breath under water.’

Raymond gritted his teeth and ran hand through her odd hair a little rougher than was necessary. How could someone who had, technically, lived fifteen entire years still be so silly?

Light didn’t fall gently on the children sharing a park bench. It took shadows and imperfections and made them resemble dirt and nastiness; stuff that wasn’t there at all. It added something foreign to something dirty.

Raymond was imposing in a subtle way; his chin always thrust out and his eyes never bothering to open all the way. That is, unless they saw something truly extraordinary: Hellie, for instance. His clothes were tasteless and yet, on him, tasteless meant something surprising and unusual rather than just stupid. There was something decidedly gregarious about him and yet he never acknowledged it as a part of himself. He thought of it as a separate entity entirely and called it ‘the presence’. He supposed it was someone else’s sociability that followed him. At least that’s what he let on. Hellie suspected that he had stolen it to get her.

Hellie was blasphemous. Her head rested in Raymond’s lap and her eyes focused intently on the small amount of his face that she could see; neither of these things were wrong or even out of the ordinary, and yet when she did them, they seemed absolutely inappropriate. Perhaps it came from having parents that named her after a place of torment and eternal suffering, but that cannot be confirmed. She never wore much and yet what she did wear always seemed like too much. Her t-shirts were always too small, revealing her white stomach, and her skirts were always too short, revealing legs covered in orange-spotted tights. Somehow, despite the fact that she really was not wearing enough, she ended up looking like a snake in pantaloons.

‘I rode a snake once.’

‘You‘re kind of a pathetic freak that looks a little like a snake.’ He groaned and seemed bored; Hellie greatly enjoyed provoking him.

‘So?’

‘God! That‘s disgusting and you need to shut up - right now.’ Raymond took a deep breath, forcing away the mirth that threatened to become known.

‘You’re going to laugh. I can tell; even from down here.’ Hellie brought her hands up to her mouth and waited in suspense.

‘There‘s nothing to laugh at because you‘re stupid.’

‘You might. You definitely would if you weren’t trying so damn hard not to.’ Before Hellie was able to annoy Raymond into giving up his fight against conviviality a car turned onto the nearly deserted street and ruined all the fun. Cars did not make a habit of gracing this particular asphalt and that is one of the many reasons that Hellie and Raymond graced it instead.

‘Look, a car.’ Raymond leaned back and ignored her completely. ‘What do you think it wants?’

‘Shut up.’ He pulled a gray bouncy ball from behind his ear and threw it over his head in an infuriating fashion; who he meant to infuriate was beyond Hellie; she was entirely impervious to attempt.

‘Maybe it wants a snake.’

This time Hellie did get the better of the strange boy - albeit entirely accidentally - and he burst out laughing, his angular features becoming almost soft. She sat up abruptly and kissed him on his laughing mouth. His body continued to shake as he kissed her and, without warning, she cuffed him on the side of the head and hopped off the bench to get a better look at the car.

‘What the hell? Dammit, Hellie! What is the point of kissing me if you’re going to hit me right in the middle of it?’ He jumped off the bench, licking her taste off his mouth.

‘I don’t know. Why would you think I would know?’ Raymond wasn’t always too fond of her irregularities but this time he was too distracted by the odd car to do much.

The car was rolling very slowly down the street and Hellie stood on the curb, her small hands clasped behind her back. Its paint was a chipped red and on its wheels seemed to spin faster than it moved. Them being at the very end of the dead-end street, it seemed natural to assume themselves to be the end the car was searching for. Some things are averted to assumptions, and this car was one of them. Raymond came up behind her and pulled on her miniscule shirt, trying to force it down over her back. When he realized how fruitless this attempt was he began going in the opposite direction.

‘Stupid, silly, Raymond. Stop it. Look, the car wants us.’ She grabbed his hands from behind and wrapped them around her waist.

‘We aren‘t the only thing -.’

‘But we’re at the end of the street.’

‘God…there are loads of other things -’

‘No, there isn’t anything else for it to want - ‘cept the trees, I suppose. But I’m the only one that likes them.’ She stared up, catching dying leaves and silver scraps of sunlight in her eyes.

‘It needs directions.’

‘Well, it is driving very slowly down a dead-end street. That must mean that it needs directions. I always have problems when I try to turn around and go in another direction. It must be having the same problem.’ Anyone who didn’t know Hellie would have thought she was kidding, or mocking Raymond. But no, she was entirely genuine; quite a sacrilege nowadays.

‘Changed your mind again…’ He sighed loudly in her ear and played with the hem of her skirt.

‘No, you changed my mind. God, you are such a dunce all the time. You act like me changing my own mind is something normal; but since its never happened before it couldn’t possibly be normal.’ Contentiously, she broke from his arms and hopped back onto the bench, her ridiculous hair mingling with the hair of the trees.

‘Oh, I thought your mind was one of the things I could never change. ‘Spose since it‘s so easy I‘ll do it more often.’ He spun around and grinned at her; his smile said that he was kidding but he definitely was not.

‘Easy?…that is terribly stupid…’ But she wasn’t listening. The car was now only yards away and she craned her neck - making an attempt that seemed to carry no luck - to see into the car. The windows were impossibly tinted. Neither of them found it curious that even the windshield was tinted; something that is completely against the law. Perhaps that is why they didn’t notice it.

There was actually something fantastically eerie in the slow progression of the mysterious car. A car that betrayed no driver and wheels that feigned another speed and no destination that was possible to deduce. If the two extremely odd children would have been even in the least bit more ordinary they might have been terrified. But the sometimes unnerving thing about strange people is that they quite often are unable to judge the possibly dangerous strangeness in another. The good part of this oddity is that they do not judge other people based only on their strangeness. It can sometimes be very amusing how quickly people connect odd with bad and normal with good; dangerously amusing in itself.

It was only when the car was feet from being directly in front of them that they felt some vague amount of sinister apprehension. Raymond turned to look at the car; a flicker of confusion in his eyes. Without realizing it, he backed behind the bench and shoved his hands into his pockets.

Things grew still and a hesitant breeze slipped under Hellie’s shirt. The dilapidated houses that lined the street seemed to lean over, wanting to get a better look at the scene. When the door didn’t open and the cars engine quite obviously switched off Raymond let out a breath and grabbed Hellie, pulling her off the bench and then farther into the wooded park.

‘What are you doing? I want to see who it is!’ Hellie struggled but Raymond held her tightly.

‘No. You really don‘t.’ Raymond’s eyes were slightly glassy; a memory floating in a grey abyss. What had he remembered that had so suddenly turned his curiosity into fear?

‘What’s wrong with you? Of course I do!’ She paused and stopped struggling. ‘Oh, I get it. You’re practicing trying to change my mind. Well, if you would have been listening I laughed at you when you said it was easy. It isn’t easy and I shan’t allow you to ruin my fun. Now, before I turn into the snake that the weird car is looking for, let me go.’ She started to pry his fingers off her arm like a child untying a shoe.

‘No, Hellie. We need to run until - until it's too late.'

‘When do you think that might be? I’m hungry and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to sprint.’ Hellie was looking up at the boy holding her, a sparkle of mischief in her eyes.

Raymond swallowed and shook the memory out of his eyes. ‘I think this is actually a really serious situation.’ He laughed nervously. ‘And I think it’s laughing at how un-seriously you are taking it. But for some reason I have this… feeling it’s enjoying our stupidity.’ With a certain amount of reckless idiocy, Raymond was absolutely sure of himself.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Probably that running won‘t help much. Unless we can run in a funny way and not move out of its sight while we’re escaping. Which, of course, would totally destroy the point of running.’ Apparently, Raymond was deciding it was all a game. The monster definitely considered it a game; but it is doubtful as to whether or not Raymond was wise in agreeing.

Hellie began to laugh but was suddenly cut short; her laugh died an awful death. She blinked a few times before the tears started to come. ‘R - Raymond…this isn’t a - a game.’ Before her terror was strong enough to root her to the spot she spun around and started to drag Raymond further into the park.

‘Dammit, Ray! We need to go now! Right now, right now, right now! C’mon, run!’ She never called him Ray and, however inadvertently it might have been, she hoped that the nickname would shock him into following her directions.

It was only pure terror that guided them. Trees snatched at their dreams of escape as they raced to the back of the park. Hellie and Raymond were not accustomed to being afraid and yet their reaction ended up being more prudent than seemed natural. Only a wall stood in their way when they reached the back of the park.

‘My - my tears got my hands wet.’ Hellie stared at her hands.

‘Dammit, Hellie! Climb the -’ But he didn’t finish and grabbed her arm, yanking her roughly over the wall and out of sight. It was at this same moment that the door to the car opened quite slowly.

Not sure what this. Used it for another contest but changed it around a little for this. I think the one above is in competition with this one but since I haven't gotten any feedback on it I am unsure.

The word is, 'bugs'.


Salt and Silliness


‘Always loved bugs…’

‘You always loved everything.’

‘Bugs, then everything else.’

Sleep can be held in poisons, in magic, in eyes. What pain or price will one pay to get a glimpse of the light that exists only in that odd place we call a dream? They say love is a dream that one need not wake from; all dreams end with waking, love cannot be an exception.

A bridge stretched itself across a salty stream and the bitter scent of the ocean licked the skin of the drowsy children. Deep, sleepless dreams were laced haphazardly into their eyes; the rotting bridge giving them the possibility of being thrown into the river below - a thrill worth the pain. Their feet dangled; bare legs browned by the sun and feet caked in stories yet to be named.

‘They don’t much like to be watched, so I’ve heard.’ His voice cracked in imitation of the volcano he might never visit. Playful scars danced on his arms and legs; scratches etched on cheeks; hair tangled in chaos and disarray.

‘They make me sleep - I like sleeping okay.’ Words drifted; a disjointed melody in her voice tracing a line she couldn't see. Mock melancholy settled in her grey eyes and dirt was smeared under them tastefully. She didn’t take to looking in mirrors and her hair, bleached in streaks from the sun, stood out around her head in an indolent halo.

'Sleeping forever? You could be my sleeping beauty.' He was paying little attention to what he was saying, the story of Sleeping Beauty slipping into his consciousness and soothing his restless mind.

'Anything that is forever isn't worth much. We like to skip, remember? Nothing lasts long, only impatience.'

'Than you do hate it when they speak of things lasting forever? They say love lasts forever. But then they sleep; wake up; cannot remember who they loved the night before.'

'Oh yes, eternity is nothing but a nightmare - a sleepy one too.' Glancing over at him she missed his eyes, her gaze flitting across his face and over his head into something he might never see. He leaned back, his dark eyes attempting to catch hers in a flickering show of haughtiness. ‘Blaise, what if they don’t wake up? Does that mean the love can last? It’s the waking that chases away the dream…That’s why I want to sleep.’

‘Want to sleep, silly? Of course you do. You know that when you wake at tomorrows sweet sunrise it won’t be my eyes that make all the danger worth it. You’ll have to find something new, won’t you? Odd that you can race through fire in fearless idiocy but when you don‘t understand why you - you grow ridiculously terrified.’ He giggled at this, finding something absurd in her fear.

‘I guess. But I guess too much, no?’ A laugh tickled her throat but she only grinned in a slightly uneasy way.

‘Ah, maybe. It’s the guessing right that matters - you do that okay.’

‘Only okay.’ She said it to the sky. There were lights in her eyes that he couldn’t put out; the only lights he couldn’t put out. ‘I dreamt of fire last night. But it wasn’t the fire that warms and lights - you know that kind well - it was the other kind.’

Like the kind in her eyes. How badly he wanted to extinguish it, just to prove that he could. ‘Did it win?’

‘Got close. Or maybe it did. I don’t remember it too well. Last night was awfully long ago.’ He scratched a word into the soft wood of the bridge, the dying sun casting its last light into his dark eyes.

‘I bet you didn’t even fight it. Couldn’t remember again, right?’

‘I suppose that might have been it. Sometimes - sometimes you aren’t there. Then there isn’t no one to fight for.’ Resting her chin on the splintered rail, she gazed absentmindedly into the grey shadows. What couldn’t she remember that he was talking about? She couldn’t ask now.

A listless sunset threw contorted gold light onto the children's bronzed skin and shadows grew deeper until they were no longer separated from reality. As the world began to close, the distant suspicion of sky and shadow touching dripped into their meandering thoughts.

'I suppose we have a beginning now.'

'Nah… darkness isn't a beginning.'

'An end then?'

He shook his head, arrogant amusement in his eyes. 'Darkness is in the middle. If it were a beginning or an end than it would have to exist on its own. It needs us, and we never end.'

She smiled - a distorted sort of smile. 'I still say we need bugs. Sleep is the only thing worth protecting.'

Very briefly--


I rather like what you have, if I push myself to read past all the idea, the [i]theme[/] of it. But it's rather difficult to see past all of it.

It sounds more as if you're writing an idea, than people--an argument than a story; and naturally, you know a story ought to argue without ever raising its voice.

Ah, but specifically... Neither character has an obvious voice, nor do they quite rise above the narration and the ubiquitous 'question' that's in the narration. The narration talks over the characters, and the point gets lost in it. And with both the latter in context, the story never quite gets it feet--sans beginning, it's caught in its own nebulous sort of darkness, middle-ground that denies it beginning and end.

Write it over with its characters the main focus, and the idea will be voiced by them. Oy, but don't make them mere vehicles for an idea. 'Tis the death of stories--and we both rather hate allegory and pointed tales, yes?




IMP

I knew I was doing that. I could tell. I just didn't know how acute it was.

I might just throw that one out - of the contest, I mean - and put something else in for the fourth. I think I like the fifth okay.