Second Fortunate!

Writing alone is boring || Both they/them

[secondfortunate]

What is this?

This entire page is a writing experiment between two people. The rules are simple: one person writes an entry into the ongoing story (or writes the beginning of the next story) and then hands off the last few lines of their work to the other. Then, the other person has to write a continuation to the story only given those last few lines.

[secondfortunate]

The end.

[secondfortunate]

3.5

H. took his first lungful of air above the surface and basked in the sense of newness and cozy unfamiliarity that seemed to hold him weightless in the water. He was aware of the water droplets beading and running down his face, the cooling of the wind, and the warmth of the sun all at once, and suddenly, aware of the absence on his finger. He felt around him, but the once-comforting embrace of water became suffocating, immeasurable pressure surrounding him from all sides. Finally he looked down, and saw a small spot shining in the deep dark depths of the pond.

He began to swim down, down, down, deeper and deeper into the dark water of the pond at the glimmer of light that seemed to call for him, but the more he swam the tighter the water got. His lungs crushed against his spine as he clawed deeper into the darkness towards the shimmering hope that he was certain he could see, and yet once he wrapped his boney fingers around his ring, he felt nothing but fine silt slip through as if it was never there before. He began to cry; angry, frustrated tears seemed to be squeezed out of him by the pressure, and yet under the water no tears seemed to be shed at all.

He once again felt a hand grab him and pull him above the water, and was once again greeted to the face of Micheal in the sun. "Did you find what you were looking for?" he asked H. earnestly, though H. felt mocked by this. "No," H. said, "it's the same as it's always been." Micheal blinked, and for the first time something other than youthful joy was see on his face. "My ring," H. finally croaked out and began to look down at the disturbed spot of sediment at the bottom of the pond. "My wedding ring. It was given to me by my grandfather, and his father before him, and his father before him."

When H. looked up, he was shocked to see Micheal climbing out of the pond, facing away from him for the first time. "I just wanted to make you happy," Micheal said. With that, he began to walk away from H. despite H.'s shouts and protests. H. found himself swimming faster than he ever had to get to Micheal, but by the time H. got out of the water he was nowhere to be seen. H. turned to face the pond, now blurred to him, and as the hot summer sun set under the shimmering water, H. could hardly find it in him to care that his ring wasn't catching the light on his hand, as it had done dutifully for lifetimes.

[secondfortunate]

3.4

Bony hands. Those of a skeleton with a silk sheet draped over. Bony hands of inconsistent pigment and fragile health. H. undoes the single button of his polyester blazer. Trees whistle weakly as if they have only now learned.

Michael prances ahead. His tapered slacks cling to his thin yet solid build as his coat floats behind, eventually gliding off into an indiscernible distance. Michael rolls up the sleeves of his white shirt, sitting along the rim of an empty, dead-still green pond. 

“What’s in there?” H. yells from a distance.

“Come here, take a look at this!”

H. drags his feet along the overgrown field, his eyes scan his surroundings yet find, other than Michael and his pond, nothing but  seemingly impenetrable sheets of foliage. He stoops over Michael, crouches and places a hand on his shoulder. Michael winces for a second but stops himself to savor this delicate moment. 

Michael points to the far end of the foggy waters. “See?” Unsure what he is meant to be seeing, H. nods along. Matted, knotted cotton clouds sheath the sun and a vaguely glowing golden orb reveals itself. Michael scoops off and tosses away his shoes, tugs off his socks and vainly pulls up the hem of his pants. 

Michael dives into the glistening abyss. H. stands distraught at the rim of the pond. A gull caws its final goodbye; H. chases after Michael, tosses himself into the water, sinks, calls for bubbling help, the orb grows brighter. Michael kicks down his foot, H. grabs it and slithers up his thigh. Michael grabs H. by the collar and pulls him above the surface.

[secondfortunate]

3.3

H.'s mind spun flashes of hope and youth mixed with the flickering incandesce the subway lights cast upon him and Micheal as they moved around the subway, away from the platform in which H.'s train home had been left, completely forgotten. Micheal then grabbed onto H.'s hand and pulled him into the bright sun.

H. winced at the bright light, and felt himself stumble backwards towards the long cascade of stairs leading back down to the dark, flickering subway station. H. tensed in preparation of the fall, but soon felt something soft placed at the base of his spine"Easy, old man," Micheal said cooly, with his usual effortless smile always on his lips, "I wouldn't want to see you hurt." H. used Micheal's hand to awkwardly steady himself, as his stiff body groaned in retaliation against his acceptance.

"It's bright," H. said curtly, blinking his unadjusted eyes in an almost futile attempt to see. "Well it's summer," Micheal joked. "It would be a real shame if it wasn't."

[secondfortunate]

3.2

H. stood with the stoicism of an innocently vulgar child above the corpse of his past life. Without his ring, H. was reduced to a loose paste slithering atop the tracks of a now-departed train. Failing to notice the staggering absence however, he looks to the sky, his cackle dragged along with him. The man’s words faded into mere footnotes to his laughter as H. marched about the station, seeping into every one of its crevices and fixing his sight on the unattainable above.

As H. grew to become intrinsically inside of, as well as inextricably enveloping the train station, smothering its brick as well as suffocating the innocent passersby, he felt a dull pressure along his arms and back, as well as yet another smoke beginning to inhabit the abyss within his chest cavity. Another train flutters by and daintily farts, into the arms of H., a cloud of opaque yellow steam. The smoke extends to a thin band around his left ring finger, coincidentally the same point where the lingering pressure stops.

H.’s gaze glides like a snail across his own body, he corrects the cufflinks hanging barely from his gray sleeves, readjusts his tie to a gaunt bulb at the center of his chest, and finally tugs haphazardly at the silk of his pants. His eyes scan every material possession strewn on his frame before he even considers his actual body. The snail lands, almost drifting past but only just catching, on the hazy band around his ring finger where its namesake used to be.

With the determination of a newborn sea-slug, he drifts deeper into the recesses of the train station, the unacknowledged routes and diversions from material happiness; true, unadulterated happiness.

[secondfortunate]

3.1 His ring glistened angrily against his tanned skin, a constant reminder of the mistake he'd made. H. hated it. The red thread that had managed to ensnare both H. and the woman had tangled them uncomfortably close, wrapped in a bastardised embrace barely able to breathe. H. drummed his fingers against the table at which he sat, watching as the ring preformed an insouciant dance with the light, completely oblivious to all it has caused.

H. relaxed in this brief moment of solitude before his train arrived and he had to begin his long commute back to his living quarters. He checked the clock flickering above him: "17:34". Four minutes late. He closed his eyes and tossed his head back, exhaling deeply and allowing the white noise of the subway lull him into a state of near-meditation.

The train screamed to a holt, and H. let his eyes slowly flutter open as he winced at the light staring straight at him. As he straightened, he was suddenly made aware of the man straight ahead of him. The man was young, incredibly so, and left H. completely breathless. The young man smiled, baring all of his teeth at H., and introduced himself simply as Micheal. H. rose uncomfortably while staring at the man, at Micheal, and carefully asked why Micheal had decided to sit right across from him. "Simple," Micheal said, his smile still wide, "you looked lonely." H.'s laugh was obscured by the roar of the train's departure, yet only the man's words rang through his ears. So much so that H. hadn't felt his ring vanish at all.

[secondfortunate]

2.5

Both she and he were now sticky with pearls. The boy was excited to uncover this newfound tactile sensation, yet he was equally eager to, once and for all, cleanse himself of pearl and daisy.

She pranced about the field as the boy followed closely behind, a sort of intentional meandering that led them both to a cacophonous waterfall at the base of a moss-stricken mountain of basalt and loam. The trees sang songs of wind as she whistled along, the boy resting his aching back on a gentle indentation along the side of the mountain. She gestures to a steaming pool enclosed by volcanic rock at the base of the waterfall, he looks up and promptly back down; the sun, pain and all, was calling his attention and ensnaring his gaze. Standing at the base of the pool, she strips naked, a blunt signal which immediately invites the boy to her side. He strips as well. 

Above the boy, she dips her toes into the water, her calf follows suit before her one foot planted on the rock slides along the rim of the pool and she is submerged. The boy watches curiously before, almost like a caricature, mimicking her movement and plummeting into the unflinchingly transparent liquid. He could see all that there was to see through the water, yet he was embarrassed that she could see as well.

As they embrace, their feet kicking desperately to keep each other afloat, a discordant rumbling radiates from the depths of the mountain. The rumbling seems to swell and transfer upwards along the mountain’s central canal until it reaches the peak in a flurry of sparks and pearls. 

She is doing a graceful backstroke along the water’s surface. He is inspecting the dried clump of white below his bellybutton.

An onslaught of ash, coals and infernal heat descends upon them. Frozen in time, they sit patiently in their stone home.

[secondfortunate]

2.4 She ran through the field and let the pearls of laughter fall from her mouth and adorn her skirt until it waved like the ocean in the sun, and continued to run forward as the pearls continued to flow, suffocating her until she couldn’t breathe. Only when she turned around did they stop.

Behind her stood the boy. He caught up to her in the middle of the field, the red tie flowing from his neck and dripping down his back. She raised a single eyebrow at him, expecting him say something to her, and yet he remained motionless as the blades of grass beneath their feet swayed as if trying to coax them together. He stood there, eyeing her skirt and watching the fallen pearls glisten and dance in the wind, completely ignoring her while entirely aware she was still there.

He handed her the daisy shakily and watched as she took it in her fingers and twirled it around, watching as its head formed blurred white streaks as it flowed. He grasped her skilled, slender hand in both of his and croaked “gently, please. It’s delicate.” She smiled at him softly, and more pearls cascaded down her mouth.

[secondfortunate]

2.3

She plowed through the absent masses, the screech of the bell lingering in her mind well past the point in which it ceased to yell.

She found the one empty desk in the bursting room and settled, for once, seeking the unattainable peace of being surrounded by indistinguishable noise. Until, that is, the man spoke.

He stood behind a lectern at the front of the room, in front of a white chalkboard- not to be confused with a whiteboard- with wildly irreverent ruminations on daily life sprawled across it: “She Looked At Me!” “He Smiled the Ocean!” “Will They Ever Cry?”

The man stood astonishingly erect, like the phallus of some ancient creature only now awakened beneath us. His shoulders were narrow, made narrower yet by his insistence to pin them to each other along his scapula. His eyes looked to the ceiling fan and his chin addressed the children with contempt.

The boy looked at her through a gap in the floorboards. Yet again, he was invariably below her. “Best view in the house!” as he was known to say.

The man stomped and moaned yet his words were flaccid by the time they reached her ears. The children cried to their parents as the man stampeded through their imaginations.

After her brief stint in the room, she and her peers forced themselves out through the transparent glass barrier. In spirit, she soared yet she knew she was still hanging.

After a while, her body joined her in the sprawling field as the boy chased her with a daisy in hand.

[secondfortunate]

2.2

She quickly stood from her position, jolted back to reality with the nauseating ring of a bell, and began her march towards class. Her footsteps were quick. Purposeful. She blocked out the faces as the throng of students began to engulf her within the claustrophobic school building. They were a blur of skin and fabric, and the white noise of their voices and footsteps and breathing plugged her ears and their heads loomed over hers and yet she kept her head up so high one could almost imagine her being higher than her surroundings. She knew where she was going. She was sure of it. That was, until she felt a jolt pulling her backwards, back down to below the heads of others, and she suddenly became aware of the boy. She watched his blazer rise and fall with slightly laboured breath as he stared into hers with bewilderment. “What?” She hissed. She wasn’t in the mood for this. She didn’t have time for this. When he simply continued to stare into her eyes she spun on her heels and began to walk away.  “Wait,” he choked out, “please!” Yet she continued on, losing herself in the drone of bodies and slipping into the class as the bell rang again. 

[secondfortunate]

2.1

She hung by her confidence above her peers; due to the placement of the rope and her neck she was unable to look down at them, yet she was sure she hung far above. Her feet dangled and her arms threw themselves as far as they could go before being pulled back by the weight of her torso. Her skeleton writhed beneath her skin; it was desperate to leave its sinewy carrying case yet it was sure it would be free soon enough. 

One boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, with a tweed blazer and red-checkered tie, looked directly upwards from beneath her feet. She could not see him yet he could very much see her. Her box pleated skirt flapped in the wind, its fabric clapping and whooshing to the beat of her voice.

“I am loved!” Her voice was like that of a tropical bird desperate to mate

“I am free and I am loved and I am dying to be reborn!”

Her neck was tilted so that her running red hair splashed along her left shoulder like a faulty fountain. Her pearl blue eyes were indistinguishable due to the overwhelming winter sunlight; she tried desperately to make out the clouds but could only discern the black-green spots in her vision implanted by her overwhelmed mind.

[secondfortunate]

1.5

She takes a breath. Her last. She feels her limbs twitch yet she remains locked in a tight ball on the smooth granite floor sticky with red. The tall, writhing cancer of flesh towers over her for just a second longer, as if giving her a chance to bask in Their sheer awesomeness.

And yet, she couldn’t see. She couldn’t revel in Their glory. Her gaze remained fixated on the ground. The small, twitching ball beneath them. They stared at her. She remained motionless.  They stared into her. She remained motionless. They stared straight through her. She remained motionless. And then, They descended upon her. The horrific, cavernous crevice of their mouth enveloped her and she remained motionless. 

~END~

[secondfortunate]

1.4: Red

She began tapping again. It was a simple pleasure she had all but forgotten. This time, however, her tapping was not a controlled prodding of the growing mass both facing her and within her; she tapped because she had no other choice. 

The cancer continued to envelop her as her eyes grew downturned and her back was tugged at, curving it upwards at its center, giving her the appearance of a lifelong hunchback. 

Her view was clouded by the almost opaque steam of her own wrath, at once she knew her fate. 

Their grins became hammocks for the vulgar display of unabashed hatred which also happened to lay taut on their upturned back. It was a relaxed hatred, a premeditated one, a carefully constructed and intentionally conveyed hatred of all that is to be hated.

She saw red. It permeated the corners of her vision. It swelled as menacingly as they did; it taunted her with its false promises. The redness of her cheeks diffused into her head and was refocused in her eyes. A brief distraction from her present situation, the chronic agony of being seen as truth.

The pain controlled her like a needle too thick to puncture the skin; This was an adamant nurse. She took the needle and plunged it deeper into her body, leaving a cavernous dent in her torso where her flesh refused to tear. She tore away the needle yet the cavern remained, colors faded as red gained an unprecedented authority over her mind.

She saw red. She kept tapping as she shifted her right foot ever-so-slightly ahead of her left. Now her left foot tapped. With her distorted expression, she and her hunch hobbled along the stage. With no particular direction in mind, the red guides her through a series of perverse sashays and degenerate pirouettes as she finds herself bent, knee to armpit and shoulder to toe, beneath their singular mouth.

[secondfortunate]

1.3 She watched in an unblinking trance as the… thing continued to grow. She could see its surface pulsating as if it were completely alive, and watched as the skin stretched until it ripped. She watched as from the wound deep, dark blood was cried out and  dripped  onto  the  floor.  She winced, and for a second the tapping stopped. And for a second, the thing stopped. Frozen. She looked down at the pool of blood staining her feet and skin and floor, and she looked up at Them. This wasn’t fair. She was better than Them. She was smarter than Them. She wasn’t Them. Yet, this disfiguring, cancerous Them was on her. It was her.  She continued looking at Them for any type of reaction, but They seemed ever calm. Unwavering. Completely apathetic to the humiliation occurring beneath Them. How dare They? How dare They. How dare they. Anger grew inside of her as she stared up at Them. At them. they were nothing. they were unthinking. She felt the anger fester inside of her. Pulsating. Crawling. Rising. Festering in the innermost parts of her. The hot white of wrath clouded her view of them and a ringing in her ears grew louder and louder and then suddenly, she gasped for air. 

A choked, ugly noise. She wasn’t even aware she was holding he breath, though that was the least of her worries at the moment. Pain. Deep, hot, agonising pain engulfed her entire body except for the cancer. The hot white wrath clouding her view was cooled with her tears as she looked up at them with deep, pleading eyes. She silently begged Them for forgiveness as the pain grew hotter and hotter on everything except the Them that was on her. 

[secondfortunate]

1.2: Transformations & Realizations

They did not have bodies. Rather, they assembled, accumulated and eventually agglomerated into a fluid mass of ridicule. The mass coagulated into various distinct parcels, each one going on to specialize in a new variety of contempt.

She was not yet aware of the crime she commited; at least not of its scale. Her eyes calmly grazed the mass before her as the dull ache in her calf grew. Due to pure circumstance, she refused to move. She insisted that it was solely circumstance.

She remained motionless, yet she became promptly aware that her motionlessness could transform into paralysis, and subtly tapped her satin red slippers against the granite. With each tap however, she noticed the mass slowly converging on one particularly scornful lump. The rest of the mass jeered and hooted, yet her focus remained on the quietly exponential surge happening before her eyes. 

She stopped tapping. The cancer, the polyp, the mold, the thickening fibrous tissue; it stopped growing. She began tapping again and the tumor made a staggering comeback. For once, she at least felt in control of her ridicule.

Unsure whether or not this convergence was inherently harmful, she kept tapping.

[secondfortunate]

1.1 Her muscles screamed against the movement, but she knew it must be done. As she took her first steps forward she was aware of the eyes staring at her. Unblinking. Unfazed. Completely aware of the horrors about to pour from her mouth and yet They remained completely still. Calm. She could hear Their heartbeats. Slow. Quiet. Rhythmic. Almost lulling her into a trance as she continued her slow walk up to The Stand. Her body sagged under the weight of Their judgement, and yet she persisted. Them. Those misshapen piles of flesh and eyes that seemed almost indifferent to the proceedings before them. They watched her limp forward, They watched her feet drag across the polished floor, They listened to her wheeze with each heavy step forward, They watched her make her way to The Stage. And as a reward for Their everlasting patience, she was there. Standing exactly centerstage for all of Them to judge her. And the trial commenced.