found this thing

first things first, the thing's not transferring to the post correctly. maybe because i'm writing in txt edit. meh, apologies for the poor formatting. struggle through, please!

I was looking back through my old documents from my first semester, and I found this opening I had started a little while ago. I figured I'd add some more to it, and, if memory serves, rate it properly this go around.

Basically just working on my ability to describe.

There's a fair amount of profanity, as the age-group I'm portraying, in my experience, interjects a fairly excessive amount of, well, profanity. This goes hand-in-hand with the enjoyment of the newfound indulging in the illicit/dangerous side of life.

Looking to see if my descriptive skills are coming across to others like they do to me.

The mother thing introduced in the first part comes/will come back in, I promise. It's not just a toss up.

What I have here is, I think, the first chapter and the first line of the second chapter (i think it adds a certain humor to the whole thing). I kind of plan on using the Anastasia character to awaken the oh so dead and depressed Stone character. All the while, working towards capturing a hopefully very vital portrayal of that fleeting love emotion that's so damn hard to transfer to paper. It's fun to come at it from this angle. At love, that is. It's like Stone's struggle to admit to being in love/coming to grasps with the ordeal, and my slaving over finding a way to possibly express what i see to be the most complex emotion on paper, are one in the same.

i suppose the whole 'awakening' thing will become more apparent soon. i'm going to have stone run through the day of classes/etc. all the while having moments of the last night come back to him in pieces. should be fun to write.

and hopefully some of the complexities of stone are beginning to surface by the end of the chapter, and you don't see him simply as a downer.

so, here it is, again with an addition:

A kid in the mire. Words and questions, phrases and comments, clauses and sentences. Shuh-man and his lover. A light drawl. That's what he needed. A soft, sultry, southern syntax in his ear. A pair of friendly lips in this desolate town. Sinking deeper in the bog, his mind relaxed. Ankles, knees, waist, belly-button, nipples, neck. Inch by inch the thick, murky film coated every inch of his body, traveling towards his dome like death's cold chill. Sadly satisfying, it was. Neck arched, eyes closed, nose up, life was kicking the door open, and the end was trudging in like an inspired, gaseous haze. Panting his last wisps of mortality like Mr. Ilych, it was leaving him.

'IIIIIIIt's fucking Friday mi amigo! Who's ready to get laid? Oh, I know, Stone! Stone! Oh, pick him! He's a fucking mess! Pick Stone! Fuck him! Fuck him, ladies! That poor sap in the corner with his eyes closed! For God's sake! Somebody fuck this boy! Fuck him into the real world!'

A white hand grabbed him. He was off the edge, horizontal, peering into the abyss of salvation. What would take him from his hideous existence. And a white hand grabbed his scalp and ripped him back onto this putrid land.

'Fuck off Jack.'

'Just pumping a little vitality into your hollow frame.'

'Hmph.'

'Smoke?'

'Hmm.'

Grabbing their coats, the pair made way out.

'Fucking biting, eh? Need a light?'

'Nah.'

He dragged long and hard, pulling to excess.

'...And this fuckin' prick has the nerve to say...'

Puff one, puff two. The wind was gone. The smoke was making a barrier. The sound could hardly get through it. He couldn't hear.

'...So I tell the ass that I shit better words then he could come up with...'

Arrogant fuck.

'...I mean, right?...'

Where was this even going? He didn't know, and he wagered neither did Jack. The kid fucking rambled, that's for sure.

'Right?'

'Yeah. What a fuckin' asshole, man.'

'That's what I'm saying! He thinks he's some divinely sanctioned prophet of words. He thinks he can tear anything up because he's better then anything. Fuckin' self-righteous prick.'

'Yeah.'

'Done?'

'Nah.'

'Well, I'm headin' in. Grabbed a bottle earlier, gotta get goin'.'

'Hmm.'

Ahh, peace. He looked down. Unlaced. His glasses rested on his nose, crooked. The wind picked up, whipping around his ears, consuming his hair with frenzied energy, pulling each strand in opposite directions to the edges of the world.

But it wasn't there. The wind, the chill, the snow, the bitter taste of afternoon waking and cigarettes. He couldn't feel it. He was numb. All was silent. He could hear a sound mounting in the distance, racing out of the depths of his memory like a chariot in the Coliseum. He heard his mother, walking through the back door, barefoot, with a wicker basket of line-dried linen. He heard her calling, but not what she said. Her soothing voice, drenching his senses like a warm falls. He didn't notice the snow covered auto on his left. He was walking across the road, arms extended, reaching towards the escaping voice of his mother, receding into the shade of his senses like a setting sun.

The car swerved, honking loudly. His mother shattered into a thousands of little fragments, falling through the ground below him, untraceable and irrecoverable, even as he dragged his bare hands across the snow, bringing all the pink hue to the surface. Spitting on the ground, his warm mucus burning through the thick powder like acid, he rose, stepping lightly back to his building, so as to maybe catch one more noise from his mother. But nothing came except a brush of cold wind.

'And if I had a million dollars...'

Jack was already lifted. There was an inch of Overholt missing. Maybe two. A sack of Drum was out on the desk, and Jack was already rolling up another cigarette.

'Another?'

'I'm good.'

'Help yourself to the liquor. It goes down maahvelously.'

The thought of scotch was in a far off land.

'Grab a glass, mate. You'll need confidence tonight!'

'Why?' What had Jack lined up for him tonight? Another hollow pair of floozies at JtB?

'I'm meeting Alice up at John's tonight. She's got a friend for you.'

'Great.' Another cold-hearted, pseudo-intellectual who will drunkenly ramble about ethics while Jack works through Alice's feigned shrieks of disapproval. 'What time?'

'Eleven. They're bringing champagne! Try to brighten yourself up.'

'Sounds fun.' Like smiling at your father's funeral.

He grabbed the roll from behind Jack's ear.

'Hey! I just finished that!'

'The Drum is mine, anyway.'

He walked out of Washington, racing towards the edge of its noble shadow, cast across the snow covered grass. When he got to the tower's peak, he turned around, letting the meek sun coat half of his body, melting him away with the snow.

Between Washington and Jefferson there was a small corner surrounded by high brick walls, encased from all wind. He hopped from the elevated plane down to the nook's level, and walked to the conjoining corner. Sitting down slowly on the wet, white dirt, he struck a match and lit his cigarette. It was nice when you didn't have you rush your match to your smoke, when you could just let it sit in your hand, burning down its tiny lifeline, not flinching or flickering to the wind, but standing steadfastly, insurmountably in its fifteen second blaze of glory.

The heat crept up his fingertips, and was soon affecting his palm. He pulled it close, lighting the tip of his cigarette. Dragging deeply, he exhaled to the side and watched the end of the cigarette. The smoke was pouring out and up. And every few inches it would bend to the left, giving way to the new smoke coming out, making a small staircase up to the clouds.

He wished he could travel up the smoke. He wished he could step up to heaven. He wished he could talk to the passed. See if it was this bad for them. See if it was all worth it in the end, or if he should cash in early. The ash was lengthening. See if they were happy. The ember was gone. See.

'STONE! You in your disgusting nook again?'

'Ugh.'

'Will you please, for Christ's personal sake, come upstairs with me and begin the night?'

'Okay.'

'That's the damn spirit, mate!'

After several glasses each, he and Jack decided to start walking to John's. A big church a couple of blocks up from the hall, named after John the Baptist, the thing had been abandoned since a fire in the 80's. The entire outside, being stone, hadn't been harmed. But the inside was completely destroyed. Jack knocked the front door in, it creaked closely to the floor, knocked off its hinges years ago. He'd heard there were efforts to restore the church, and some planks running through the arches like rafters were present, but no real changes had been made since the fire. The effects of the fire were still apparent. The walls were blackened, the floors brittle, holed in some places. All of the benches had been absorbed in the flames, and piles of ash were still slightly rowed in some places that the kids hadn't kicked through yet.

'--gonna happen, kid.'

'Huh?'

'It's gonna happen tonight.' Jack attempted a crude gesture, with his hands, but fumbled at the climax.

'What is?'

'Do you ever listen to me, Stone? I'm gonna get with Alice tonight. I can feel it. And I know she can feel it.'

'Could it be the five inches of scotch you've consumed?'

'What? Shut the fuck up, kid.'

'Pff.' He flicked his tongue. It stuck to his lips clumsily. He was a little drunk, too.

The tall tower of the church was magnificent, he had to admit. Still brilliant in a sea of bottles, butts, and ashes, the thing rose and swirled with a certain majesty all the way to a perfect point. He stood at the center of the bottom, gazing up, taking it all in, as he had, time and time again on Jack's many botched pussy hunts.

'--I say: "Stone, can I get a roll?" it means you fuckin vacate.'

'Huh?'

'Listen the fuck up! I'm trying to plan this out, and you're staring at god knows what with nothing apparent in mind.'

'Yeah, yeah. I got it. When you ask, I split.'

'At least something gets-- Ladies! Ladies, welcome. Welcome to my humble abode.'

Apparently through all of Jack's woman-driven fury, he'd managed to hear the unmistakable creak of John's front doors.

'Jack? Is that you? Why the hell do we still come here, anyway?'

'Because I love it, baby. You know that.'

'It never ceases to amaze me. And don't call me that.' Jack ooh'd, feigning ego injury.

Alice daintily stepped through John's trash strewn floors. She had quickly learned not to wear heals to these events, as she slammed her not-very-ladylike boating shoes on the black floor.

'And who is this?'

Amidst all of the inevitable flirtation, pleasantries had been forgone.

'Oh, Jack, Sto-- err Sam, this is Anastasia. She's my new roomie. She's a blessing after Cameron.'

'Ahh, bless that lesbian warrior. Too bad she's gone, she knew how to make conversation! Well, anyway-- charmed, madame. Elegantly charmed.'

Jack reached for her hand, intending to plop his lips on the thing. Anastasia rebuffed him nicely, opting to wave, instead.

'Hey.' He was never good with introductions.

'So, how was the summer boys?'

'Magnificent! Spectacular! I stayed in New York with my uncle. What a wash up. Never without a bottle and some, that one.'

'And you, Stone? Did you go south to visit your mother?'

It stung with each syllable, each letter as it rolled off her insensitive tongue.

'Nah, I stuck around here. My dad put me up in a one-room on the North-side.'

'Sounds fun.'

Alice reached, with both hands, into the oversized, bulging purse on her right hip.

'I brought something...'

'Don't keep us waiting, honey.'

'I told you.'

'I'm just messing, Alice! Christ, where's the bond we once shared?'

'Long gone behind a haze of mistakes.'

'Ssuuurrre.' Jack never was good with sarcasm, elongating the word to the point where the emphasis lost its direction, and it became downright annoying.

After hasty suspense, she revealed two bottles of Ballatore.

'Voila!'

'Alice! My god! You've outdone yourself! They're magnificent!' Jack grabbed the pair of them in one hand, cradling them marveling like a father to his newborn son, letting his inner-alcoholic surface.

He lit up a cigarette. Breaking the tension, he reached down and dusted off a spot on the bottom step, sitting on the marginally clean wood. As Alice stepped forward to grab the bottles from Jack, Anastasia moved out of the weak shadows into the moonlight. She was soft. Fair, rather. Brown hair to the shoulder, splitting over her back and front, but laying flat, not curling in, not done up or teased. She was slender, with a decent bust in the front. He could feel his eyebrows curling and contorting as he studied the girl. But he didn't care. He stopped caring a while ago.

She was decent, he supposed. Not out of his league, but not below him. His female counterpart. An upturned nose, naturally colored lips. He let his eyes move further up her face, studying each square inch intently. She was watching Jack play with Alice anyway, putting on a crooked smile. Her eyes. Her eyes. Dark brown. Not just Mediterranean brown. Dark, dark brown. Like the deepest, most intense part of a teardrop of amber; like the blackest part of an old English Oak's bark. And they didn't float or wander, but stared intently.

He kept looking, puffing playfully on his smoke. A ring here, a French there, never breaking the gaze. Maybe amusing himself, maybe hoping to catch a reciprocating, fleeting glance.

'Jack!'

'Fine, fine. Just, let me and Stone pop 'em off.'

'Really? Jack? Let your lady do it.'

'Stone!'

'Kidding...'

'Oh come on, Stone. Be a man! Be a man with me!'

He rose with a load on his back, grabbing one fiercely. He couldn't help but let the corner of his lip upturn as he and Jack lined up to give the girls a show.

'Annnnd, GO!'

With a loud explosion, the corks shot up into the air. His arched high, hitting the ceiling with tremendous force. Jack's barely made it three feet ahead of him. He smiled, raising his arms in his head, his own little Liston-Clay.

'Ahhh!'

'See, now. Wasn't that fun? This kid, Ala-- Aba--, Anastasia was it? He never has fun.'

She smiled. Only lips.

'Fuck off.' He slumped back on his spot, still with an inch or so left on his cigarette.

----------------------------------------

'She fuckin' hit you, kid! She slapped you!'

if you made it, thoughts?