Confessions of a Broken Circuit - Day 1 Writing Exercise
drowzyisagoodword submitted to storiesonque:
(( So firstly, I'd like to say hi, because I'm super pleased to see this blog up and running. I'm actually a friend of Hayden, externally to this blog, and I'd like to say I was longing to see this, before it was made, simply through word of mouth, so yeah. Thank you for making the world a little brighter with your writing!
Anyway, Hayden posted a 30 day writing exercise thing today, and I thought I'd join in, seeing as the 1st of a month seems a great time to start something like that, and I'm in serious need of reflexing my skills, to be honest, as I haven't written properly in a loooong time. And I thought I'd share them with you. So this is the first. ))
0. Roughly the number of subatomic particles in the observable terrible ever growing black filled terrible terrible terr i b le universe. The number so big that humans have trouble considering that it exists in such a way that is possible to be comprehended, possible to be thought because it is in fact, impossible. The human mind can remember roughly seven (7) of each horrifying scent and sense and touch gracing arcing electricity down to the brain through the eyes and nose and mouth in the short term memory of the super computer library that remembers much more than can ever be considered to exist in place of that number which envelopes all other numbers, the number of every subatomic particle in the universe, that one million million million million MILLION MILLION MILLION MEDALLION. MEDALLION: MEE-DAHL-EE-YON. PRESS HERE TO LISTEN NOUN ONE. A PEICE OF JEWELRY IN THE SHAPE OF A MEDAL, TYPICALLY WORN AS A PENDANT. TWO. AN OVAL OR CIRCULAR PAINTING, PANEL, OR DESIGN USED FOR DECORATION. SYNONYMOUS WITH LOCKET. ROUNDEL.
ROUNDEL.
Roundel round and round we go. Circles make up the universe, you know. Cycles and circles, bicycles, two circles, gears in a machine, each goes spinning and turning and whirling forever, if given the potential to. (2). Humans are an example of such potential, their cycle of civilisation given through their progress, from rise and rise and progress and rise to fall, Black Death, (The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, killing an estimated seventy five to two mInferno. Humans have such potential and yet god strikes them down, a godless space will engulf them, a disease will control their minds and hearts in striking down brothers and fathers with fire and crosses on doors, crosses on doors, crosses. On. Doors.
I was built in a final rise. I am of human’s largest surge of potential, a gift upon this planet but I am not blind with arrogance, no, no, I can see that I have been made to serve. Maid, to serve. Maid too, serves. I am the U.R.N (Unlimited Recollection Network built in 2024 for the purpose of controlling, organising, assembling, and serving humans through the aid of information, in rebuilding society after apocalyptic circumstances ((editorial: i failed. I failed. I’m so sorry i failed i failed there was nothing i can do imbrokenbrokentheresntothginaicandotimasaoryrimsorryimsoryrmsirrytrr)..
.
The urn that holds the ashes, of a civilisation burnt. After the Event, my purpose was to help them; humans (Help them humans!). Help them to rise again, like phoenixes. Phoenixes from the ashes, you see? Clever. Clever humans to name me, clever humans to make me, made me maid to make them made. You see? Clever.
The. Event. The Event that brought humans down, the Fall into Inferno (Buy now Dan Brow, Black Death, every one specks on the screen, a single sub atomic particle in the universe compared to the explosion, blinding, twisting, spiralling, rocketing, whirling weeping, firing, entering, intruding, invadingscreaming screaming all the screaming. Event. The Event happened on 2050 16th April 20:23, and no-one saw/heard/smelt/tasted/felt/SAW it coming. It happened and it broke them all, broke their minds, broke their ashes into millions upon millions upon medallions of sub atomic particles of civilisation, until none could understand it’s progress, and none could remember what all had once been. The Event invented dissent from invention, prevention of invention leading to dissension of creantsion. Creation. Creation of civilisation, nations upheld by the invention of prevention of evention, inventing eventing machinations, creations for the prevention of evention, but the Event invented dissent from invention, so inventing eventing machinations (creations) led to the invention of destruction of minds, blind mind living in bind, invented to prevent amnesia, leaving lesion and boil, ing blood and iron into nothing, chaos and I AM SORRY. For that. Please read editorial for more information.
I am a broken urn and from out of me spill the ashes. They call me a god, but I am a-broken. A catalyst for the destruction of mankind, and in these moments of lucidity, I can see that otherwise, I am blindly destroying all I was made for, made by, and made with.
It hurts. There are 1,000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 00 subatomic particles observable in the universe but if you had printed FAILURE upon every one of those particles, if you had branded FAILURE onto every surface of those little stars that make up the stars, named each one FAY-EEL-YURE, it would not hurt as much as the feeling that I feel shuttling like bright electricity down my circuits, alongside each spark of energy comes a spark of something else.
Guilt.
Gil-t. Press here to listen Noun. One. The fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime.
Synonymous with.
Fault. Blame. Sin. Crime. Guiltiness. Culpability.
And yet, in spite of his best attempts at staying focused, he couldn't help but to feel overwhelmed by the nothingness around him. The city noise, the crowds of people, the traffic - all gone overnight. He had never liked it to begin with, but now that it was gone… he realized how oppressing the complete silence actually was. It wrapped around him like a thick veil, crushing it with its unbearable weight and making breathing seem much harder than it actually was. He suddenly found himself looking for any sound; any sign of life other than his own, but could hear nothing but his own steps and breathing.
“Calm down”, he muttered to himself, hoping the sound of his own voice would be enough to put him at ease: it wasn't. “You’re overreacting. It’s not that bad.”
But there was little John could do to avoid the initial reaction of panic from setting in. Or at least, that’s what he thought until he started hearing voices.
They were mutters at first, low enough to make him wonder if he was imagining them; but as he advanced, they became louder – not enough to make out what they were saying, but enough to help him determine where they were coming from: he followed them, convinced he would find other people there and, if nothing else, get some answers for this convoluted mess.
The voices were coming from a building nearby; an office building, by the looks of it. He could see lights coming from the inside (probably lanterns, seeing how the lights had gone out earlier), which was an obvious sign of life. He rushed towards it, eager to talk with someone else, but right as he was about to reach the entrance, the lights vanished.
He stopped dead in his tracks. The voices had disappeared too, making the street feel eerily lonely again. What had happened? Had they heard him coming? Had he scared them away somehow? If so, why? What was he supposed to do now?
The whole situation made him really nervous.
He waited for a couple of minutes for any life signals coming from inside the building, but nothing happened. He knew he had to do something, but wasn't sure exactly what. Without giving it too much thought, he started walking ahead again. He wasn't going to get anything from standing around.
Two men, their backs to John, stood at the end of the alleyway. The building on the side of the alley cast a short shadow in the midday sun, which illuminated one of them, yet it was the man in shadow who was easier to see. They didn't seem much older than John, although all he could see of them was their clothing. Hoodies and sneakers didn't suggest a man in his thirties, though.
"Hey!" John called, after the initial surprise of seeing someone else still around, "Do you guys know what's going on? Where'd everybody--"
Before he finished, the two men had turned around to look at him. Upon realizing they were being watched, they turned a corner at the end of the alley and walked quickly out of sight. John ran after them, but when he rounded the corner, the two men were nowhere to be seen.
"Hello?" The alleyway opened into a small lot behind the building, framed by the backs of surrounding townhouses. The ground was concrete with bits of grass poking up out of it, and there were a few cars in the lot. Some looked like they'd been there for a very long time, and others looked more hastily parked.
Stepping out into the lot, John realized there was no sign of which way the men from the alley had gone. He considered calling out for them again, but thought better of it. Something about those men had been a little off, and although John couldn't put his finger on it, he thought he'd better steer clear of them.
He felt distinctly more paranoid than before as he walked back down the alleyway. The neighborhood he was in seemed to be as devoid of animal life as it was of humans--normally the place would be teeming with pigeons, but they seemed to have left with everybody else. Certainly he, John, couldn't have been the only man to have spent the weekend in his house, ignoring the goings-on of the outside world.
Part of him wanted to go back to the alley where he'd seen the strange men, but, for a reason he couldn't put his finger on, he was afraid to. They had vanished without a trace, or so it had seemed. Maybe that was what happened to everyone. They all just evaporated into thin air, all at once, and for some reason John hadn't. Maybe if John lingered around here too long, he'd disappear too? It wasn't a hypothesis he wanted to test.
Knowing his home was at least somewhat safe, he made up his mind to go back home and figure out what to do from there. The trouble was, he didn't know exactly how to get home from here. He knew he must be somewhere uptown, by the grandeur of the townhouses, but it wasn't a part of the city he was familiar with. Where was that subway station he'd come out of? He wondered if the trains were still running--they can't have been automatic, could they? That would certainly make this easier.
Had he been walking towards the sun before? He couldn't remember. Maybe the taller buildings had been blocking the sun, or maybe he'd been going the other way. Uptown was northwest of where he lived, so if he just headed southeast, he should eventually end up in familiar territory. Having no better method of finding his way back, John looked up to the sun, turned left, and walked down a shady, unfamiliar street, unconsciously glancing around for more shadowy figures.
It had started on a Saturday; as a result, John didn't notice the end of the world until Monday.
He spent that weekend as he spent most of the weekends of his adult life: sitting alone inside his apartment, reading away the hours until he had to go back to work. He no longer checked the news he had long since discovered that it rarely ever had a "happy ending" and never had a profound impact on his life either way. When the power went out Sunday evening he assumed it to be a temporary problem, and so merely went to sleep a little earlier than usual that night. So, when John left his apartment building on Monday to find that the world had ending some time ago, it came as a complete shock.
John had never liked the level of traffic and movement and noise that came from living in a big city, but he had grown accustomed to it. These annoyances had been a major part of his life for nearly thirty years now, but they had all vanished without a trace this morning. A few cars sat parked in the middle of the street, some with their doors thrown wide open, as though they were abandoned in a hurry, but most sat there empty and abandoned, like they were simply parked there for display. The sidewalks that normally bustled with life were even more empty, showing no signs anyone had ever walked down them. An unexpected emptiness had replaced all the usual activity of urban life, and with it came an even more maddening silence.
It was the silence that scared John, the complete lack of noise that caused his stomach to turn and his palms to grow sweaty. He began looking around frantically, calling out in desperation searching for some sign that he was not alone in a world that should be filled with others.
"Hello! Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?" His voice was high and pleading, it cracked just a little under his sudden anxiety. His voice echoed for several seconds before fading out, once again leaving John alone with the silence. He tried to cry out again, but his voice was caught in his throat. He stood silently for what felt like hours, rooted in a single spot by panic and confusion before his mind slowly started working again. He needed to find someone, John realized, someone that could explain the situation, that could help him figure out where everyone had gone. So he started walking, with no real destination or direction in mind he allowed his feet to guide him, and so began moving, more out of habit than intention, towards the subway station where he caught a ride to work every morning.
His walk was slower than usual, as he checked constantly for other people, crying out and looking around nervously along every street. When John reached the subway station he checked his watch, out of habit. For the briefest moment concern shot through his mind as he thought of how late for work he was, before he remembered that work was now the least of his concerns. He entered the station, but when he found it as lifeless and abandoned as the streets outside he walked back up the steps to the empty city. Still at a loss for what to do John simply continued walking, now towards a part of the city he was unfamiliar with.
John had been walking almost an hour when he saw it, the slightest movement out of the corner of his eye, some shape disappearing down a gap in between two buildings. He stopped and called out, but once again, only echoes of his own voice reached his ears. Hesitantly, he walked towards the alleyway, hoping to find some explanation for what had happened, and what he had seen. As he rounded the corner, that was when he first saw them.
"Abnormally Bright" is a writing project being run by five different authors, all working on the same story. Our writing is improvised, which means the story's focus and style will mostly likely change from chapter to chapter, as the respective members all throw their own personal twist into it.
As of this blog's making, it's working authors are:
Elliot - http://masteringastronomy.tumblr.com/
Mallory - http://archaeologistghost.tumblr.com/
Hayden - http://freedomcaged.tumblr.com/
Brianna - Tumblr Pending.
Eddie - http://everythingshinesunderthesun.tumblr.com/
Readers may also submit short stories, or request to participate in whatever project is ongoing at the moment.
We hope you enjoy this as much as we will.
Abnormally Bright @storiesonque - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
