The Smoking Typewriter

This is where I post my creative writing assignments and if I ever find the time to write anything else I am likely to post that here too.

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Quick piece. Short story.

Sunday. I am often reminded that some things are not worth worrying about. You just have to do them. Most often I think that applies to things outside of my control. As positive as I am I find it hard not to give up when things don't go right. I was born like that. The best I can do is try not to run away or fix my mistakes. Fuck apologies.  I woke that morning feeling uneasy. This in itself means nothing more than it ever did. I was dissatisfied with my life in a general wakes up every day feeling wary sort of way. This is largely why I avoided the ringing telephone in favor of solitude. It rang out over and over again and soon whatever was at the end of it seemed less invasive. I picked it up and Cameron’s voice spilt from the receiver. “Maria is dead last night oh it... she fell and there was no one.” We talked for a little while but the conversation came to an abrupt end. There are only so many things you can say to comfort someone. I returned the phone to its place. It seemed heavier and when it go the weight stuck to my hand. It continued to spread up my arm for a while after. I went for a nap and it spread throughout my body. Fuck.

I hadn't thought about Maria for a while. She took it upon herself to keep an eye on Cameron and that was great. I hadn't thought about him either. I never really liked the big sister stuff.  I was sad she was dead but I wasn't sure if it was supposed to mean anything to me. She was his family, not mine. They had stacked up the years together, I came and went. He didn't ask me to visit and when he hit 18 I stopped. He didn't ask me to visit. My head throbbed and I thought about life before we were in care. Having to stay outside all the time. Only owning one pair of socks each. Giving Cameron mine, him complaining anyway. I fucking hated him but he was just a kid, I knew that. I read stories where the kids stuck together I wanted him to be on my side but he cried all the time. I hated Maria too. She never smiled unless she was engaging in small talk. She could stop Cameron crying though. No matter what I did he would still cry I forgot how inadequate that had made me feel. I wanted to cry but I didn't, I hated being the only one smart enough not to cry.  The phone rang again and I ripped the cord out of the wall. I didn’t want to think about any of it.  I sat down at my desk and opened my address book. I ripped out the page with Maria’s address in it. I’d never understood why she expected me to look after him. I was never any good at it.  The noise from the street cut clean through the walls. I searched for any noise to replace the absent ringing. There was always something making a noise outside in the city. Traffic and drunks, the odd car crash, all made for tragic views. So many people walked past every day. Most didn't make much noise though, they were on their way somewhere, waiting to be there. A woman laughed loudly outside. I wished I was her and pressed the cord back into it’s socket. Within a minute Cameron called again and I answered it. When the call ended I found some spare boxes under the sink and I cleared out the spare bedroom. 

[yeahstripsearch]

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Lexxy - "He says he loves me" Maki - "Spoilers, it means nothing. IT MEANS NOTHING!" I'm with Maki on this one.  

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Memoir

Just a quick homework piece. This was my creative non-fiction assignment for uni. It’s written about an experience I had at a festival. 

We stopped and our gaze was drawn upwards. The sky was lit with no less than 200 Chinese lanterns drifting high overhead, slowly separating out over the blanket sky like petals on water. Below these bloated stars, on the other side of a dense tree line, a great glowing smoke was in labour. We looked at each other then ran, leaping over tent pegs and keeping an even speed. The noise we had been casually unaware of was now unavoidable and our feet pounded on the earth towards it. Shortly after reaching the festival gates my friends and I became part of a glorious hoard. Other festival goers obviously had the same desire as us. Find it. We sailed as one towards the glow, laughing and cheering like it had been the last day of school, continuing to grow in number as we picked up strays fed by curiosity. There was no reliable source of light on the earthy paths but we didn’t need light to reach what had now become a beckoning inferno.  My heart was pumping and I felt nothing but primal joy. An undiluted form of happiness from being part of something so simple, physical and pure. That moment was nothing but itself. There was no thought or fear. No one lost their breath or fell behind, it was perfect and supernatural. Looking back on it now, it’s moments like this that I live for.  Eventually we began to part in different directions in search of answers. The few of us that remained pushing forwards slowed when bearded man in a huge hat wildly waved us over. He was standing outside a tent which we now saw was one of many in a row, we were in the market.   “The ships on fire!” Though new to our frenzy and rebelliously static he recognized our want and ushered us into his shop which backed onto the great lake. We scrambled into the light, past boxes and shocked staff through to open air and reunited with night. Flames walked the ship and struck the air unable to reach us. We watched the familiar wood blacken and crack for some time. I looked away briefly to search for faces on the opposite side of the lake. I could hear it was surrounded with thousands of people but it was still impossible to see anyone in the natural cover of midnight. The mast crumbled spectacularly and disappeared into the fire below. An orange blaze ripped the sky in jagged licks and though the water continued to rest the beast was unrelenting, violently devouring what must have been days of craftsmanship. A shop hand complained about our presence but the awkward implications of trespassing were meaningless whilst our eyes were lit with destruction. The entire floor of the deck was now covered in dancing flame and then there was a familiar sizzle. A continuous stream of explosive light flew into the air and screaming red fireworks flew like arrows into the sky and the lake, finally disturbing the water.  I fell out of the moment and saw myself. I was happy. I questioned my sanity. It had been years since I had smiled. I had never entertained the idea of being happy again but now it seemed there was no alternative.

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Excerpt from my final piece last year. Re-editing it. Early stages.

Morning entered the woods in the same way that necessity dragged him back to consciousness. Welcoming golden light bounced off the yellow leaves surrounding the cabin and warmed frosted air. He slipped into sense gently but once there pain returned with heavy ease. Eyes wide, Peter rolled onto the floor and grappled for the painkillers he kept under his camp bed. He had given up trying not to make noise and gasped loudly as he unbound the dressing and squinted at last nights handy work. The only positive was that he had done a good job cleaning it. The mess surrounding him was worth mentioning but not worth thinking about. Not yet. He would come back to it later. The blood had dried well enough anyway.  Peter had become defensive of the cabin, he had left his former home without looking back but this cabin was stained with him and he would defend it to the grave.  A familiar howl sounded close by.

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You woke me.

I woke up to waves  a beatiful fixture in thought, I walked around them They froze. They do not move. They will not go.

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Week 6 homework.

As far as this one goes I wrote it in a rush but I did get to edit it a few times so it is a little better. The limit was 700 words +/- 10% and I did 770 exactly. If I could expand on it I think it would be much improved but word limits are there for a reason...and without them I wouldn't have a social life. 

Colony.

The sea around him was tame but the sky had finally seeped through the horizon and made it black. There was no telling how deep the water was now, without light. Silence persisted. Above and below him darkness shimmered. The fading lights of Richard’s boat produced just enough illumination to be visible but not enough to fulfil their purpose. There was nothing in view above the water but the boat and its inhabitant. When he left the shore Richard had been wearing red overalls but the darkness had since washed over them. Although it was comforting not to stand out against the bare landscape, the sound of him pacing the deck still travelled across the sea and made him feel uneasy. His heart beat like prey's and continued to throb in his ears as he paced the boat. He soon decided there was no danger in making any noise, he was truly alone. It felt natural to respect silence but there was really no need for that here. The sea was never calm, beneath it creatures fought for survival, ships full of bones picked clean disintegrated.  

His thoughts drifted below the surface. With a shiver he awoke and did some maintenance to distract himself, trying not to look at the empty horizon surrounding him on all sides. When Richard could conjure nothing new to pass the time he tried to imagine what awaited him on the shores of the new world. There was very little news reaching the homeland but many had talked about it’s dramatic weather. Some called it biblical, biblical weather. The earth shook and mountains burnt. Nothing the priest had ever mentioned in his sermons back home. “Who else but god could shake land?” Standing on his boat, under heaven with nothing but water below him, he felt it his duty to fill the emptiness. He created colourless cliffs growing from the water around him, burning as they pierced the sky, spitting spirits that circled him and burnt the air. Ash made a skin on the sea, ripped and blistered by the tide.  A freezing wind blew by then was gone again. He woke again. The scenery was blank and silent once more. Richard had no way of knowing how the time was passing but he'd expected to see his saviours by now. Perhaps no one was coming. The boat rocked and Richard stumbled into brief sense. They were coming for him. The cargo was too important loose. They were coming for it. He lay on the cold deck so his view was more universal and pictured the search party, their eyes scanning the shores, the horizon and the black, for him. A gentle chatter and purr from their engine, the smell of home still on their clothes. They would not be looking at the sky but they were sharing the same sky as him. He smiled, perhaps too widely. That was comfort enough for a while but he dropped his guard and began to think of home. A fire, his walls, Helena, Cinnamon and beer. The hands that had built his boat were back home, close to her, unaware of the new world he was sent to see. It seemed none of his time past or future mattered out in the black, there was the promise of a powerful and strange world ahead of him but where he was now was so empty it drained all sense of reality or humanity.He assumed as always time was passing but he had no way to tell. He felt as though he has left the world. The black pressing in on him became a vicious purgatory. He rose to his knees and looked over the side of the boat. He was not alone. The sea beneath him was bulging with life. He saw the scale of the unknown he was hopelessly resting on, hundreds demons  twisting, neon fluid spines grinding, teeth designed to rip through the flesh of those tempted into the water by the swirling colours. Like lost Jewels from arcane voyages glittering on the seabed never within reach. The water called dehydrated men to fall into the deep rather than entertain hope any longer. Of course there is no proof or sign of it! No sound can escape from water, the hell beneath invisible and preserved. Richard saw the ocean as a mask, behind which men were falling to their doom. Spinning down the pit of vibrant razor thin teeth or thrown between the mouths of great beasts. There was no escape. He took a knife by the handle ready to face the abyss below, ready to take out as many of them as he could before... The colour of his overalls had returned. The horizon on his left had begun to glow and three ships were visible on it. He stared at their familiar shape, mesmerised by memory.