Jun 3, 2020
The Written by Ben Galley, Chapter 17
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The Written by Ben Galley, Chapter 17
Chapter 6 of Ben Galley's The Written:
I can't... again! 🤣🤣🤣 The goat knows, it knows!!!
Currently reading chapter 4 of The Written by Ben Galley. Came across this bit.
Of course they exist. 🤣🤣🤣 I can't...
1 day to dissertation deadline! This morning I was still trying to decide on a title for my final research essay. To put buzzwords like “post-digital” and “post-Internet art” in the title or not? “Analogue” or “the analogue”? “Synthesis”, “singularity” or do I get the thesaurus off the shelf again?
In the end I went with Are We There Yet? Exploring The Synthesis Of The Digital And The Analogue In The Prints Of Christiane Baumgartner because I felt it succinctly set the expectations for what the essay is about. “Synthesis” could have been replaced with “relationship” but I wanted to subvert the common binary opposition of digital vs analogue. I then spend 45 minutes in the reprographics queue at the university library and finally handed in my two bound copies.
♪ Villa Nah ★ Vortex [HQ] ♪
por un momento pensé en constantine...
pero no, es un personaje francés....de bélgica... .
Jason Brice the written
The Written
This one might be confusing, but it clears up. Promise.
_________
Ethan walks home alone from school, scowling at the autumn leaves sogging upon the sidewalk. He’s in a foul mood.
No, you aren’t.
Ethan’s verging on the happiest he’s ever been. There’s a girl beside him and he reaches out his hand for hers. She takes it and smiles at him, twining their fingers together in a lovers’ knot. The autumn leaves have never looked more lovely.
He realizes he’s smiling broadly at her, goofily, and he hastily rearranges his features to a more mature grin.
“What's with the face?” Juliet asks.
“What face?”
“You look like you're in pain.” Her eyebrows crease. “Are you all right?”
Ethan smooths the space between her eyebrows with his thumb. “I’m fine,” he says. He drops his mature front. Clearly it needs working on.
He feels, suddenly, as if they're being watched and looks around cautiously. The back of his neck prickles and he whips around to face the direction they'd come from.
You aren't being watched. Calm yourself.
Ethan swings their hands as they continue on their way to Juliet's house, utterly at ease.
The cinema.
“I’m so excited to see the movie later,” Ethan says.
Juliet looks at him in confusion. “The movie?” Her green eyes…
Brown.
Her brown eyes shimmer in the golden light. Ethan blinks. “Weren't your eyes green?”
Juliet tilts her head to the side. “Hmm?”
“I swear your eyes looked green just now.”
She looks at him in confusion. “My eyes have always been brown,” she says. She looks at him intently. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
He shakes his head. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
What’s wrong with him? He glances at her sideways. Of course her eyes are brown. He can't believe they’ve been dating for six months and he thought her eyes were green until just now.
You’ve never thought her eyes were green.
“What were we talking about?” he asks. His mind is terribly fuzzy.
“How you’ve thought my eyes were green the entire time we’ve been dating and how incredibly upset that makes me, and how you're going to buy me something to make up for it.”
Ethan stares at her before laughing. “That's funny,” he says through his laughter. “Your funniest joke yet.”
“You're the one who must be joking, if you think I’m not serious,” Juliet says with a frown.
Ethan kicks at a pile of wet leaves. “You are serious?”
“Ethan, we talked about my eye color five minutes ago. You're starting to worry me,” Juliet says. She grabs his other hand and pulls him to a stop. “What's going on in your head?”
Nothing. He can't think. His head hurts so very much…
The math test. Tell her about the math test.
“I think I failed the math test,” he says. He sees Juliet's worry melt to sympathy. “I need a good grade if I'm ever going to bring my B to an A.”
“Oh,” she says. She squeezes his hands. “Did you study?” He gives her a look, and she rolls her eyes. “Right, sorry, forgot who I’m talking to. I'm sure you can ask Ms. Grant to make it up, she likes you.”
“True,” he says, and his heart lightens. He hums a tune and she laughs at him. “What?”
“You’re always doing that,” Juliet says. Her face is made of light. “It’s just so … you.” He’s about to respond when she says, “It’s adorable.”
Ethan raises and eyebrow. “Adorable? I’m adorable?” She nods. “Me.” She nods again. “I don’t know whether to be insulted or not.”
“How is that an insult? ‘Adorable’ is a compliment,” Juliet says. She pulls her hands free, and he’s about to protest when she kneels and ties her shoe.
“It’s an affront to my masculinity.”
This makes her speechless. “I—Ethan—what?” She pushes herself to her feet and stares at him. “What magazine have you been reading? The Bullsh*t Gender Times?”
It’s not an insult.
He cups her face gently and kisses her. “Thank you. I am rather adorable, aren’t I?”
Juliet pulls away from him in alarm, tripping over her feet. “What’s the matter with you?” she whispers.
There’s a pounding in his head, and he can’t think. “What?” he asks in confusion. The pain escalates, building to a deafening roar and blinding him. He cries out and sinks to his knees.
You’re fine.
He isn’t fine. Something’s wrong—desperately wrong—
YOU’RE FINE.
Juliet drops beside him and turns his face toward her and he can only just see her eyes. Green. Her green eyes.
What’s happening?
Juliet’s eyes are brown.
This time he pinpoints the switch. Green, then brown. But his mind fights it; something’s not right—
You’re FINE.
He’s not fine. There’s something—out there—
Something controlling him—
There’s nothing here. You are your own.
Something is replacing his thoughts—
Ethan dimly hears Juliet shriek his name—
She hasn’t said anything. Ethan. Relax. You’re okay.
A wave of calm sweeps over him. His heart rate slows; his chest stops heaving. He blinks.
Yes. You’re okay. Breathe.
He breathes. He blinks.
Ethan becomes aware of where he is, where he’s laying on the sidewalk. Juliet’s speaking frantically into her cell phone above him, her free hand gesticulating wildly. With an effort he catches her hand and stills it. She jumps and looks down at him and drops her phone off to the side.
“Ethan—” She runs her fingers over his face, presses her ear to his chest. A garbled voice comes from her neglected phone, but she ignores it. She studies his eyes anxiously. Her eyes are green. “Ethan. Can you hear me?”
Yes. You can hear her.
“Yes,” he says shakily. He coughs. “Yes.” This is in a stronger voice. He sits up. “I can hear you.”
“How many fingers?” She puts up two fingers.
“Three—”
Two!
“I mean, two. Two fingers.”
Juliet is still looking at him anxiously. “Ethan. I don’t—what just happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Nothing happened. You’re fine. You’re going to the movies.
His head is clear and so he stands up. Juliet gets to her feet more slowly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Absolutely,” Ethan says brightly. He grins at her, at his beautiful girlfriend.
“You’re acting very … strange,” Juliet says carefully. “I’m not convinced you’re not going to have another fit. Are you … on medication?”
He cocks his head. “C’mon, Juliet. I”m fine. We’ve got a movie to go see,” he says with a smile.
“I thought we were going to my house?” Juliet asks hesitantly.
He stops a moment, thinking. Were they? His memory is so ragged; it may have fallen through one of the holes. “Were we?”
“Don’t you remember? It’s my father’s birthday. You - you said you wanted to come.”
He can’t stand the expression on her face. He wishes he could wipe away her worry and confusion, but for the life of him—
Ethan seizes her shoulders suddenly and stares into her startled eyes. Brown. Brown, not green. Of course not green. He relaxes his grip. Yes, this makes sense. Juliet’s eyes are brown.
He releases her shoulders and continues walking, humming. Juliet has to run to catch up with him and she slides on a pile of wet leaves. He spins around quickly, catching her, and kisses her quickly on the nose.
“Are you okay?” he teases, setting her upright.
Juliet bites her lip. “I think so,” she says. They keep walking, Juliet glancing at him now and then.
“So what movie are we seeing later?” Ethan asks casually, hands in the pockets of his hoodie.
Juliet stops dead, her bronze skin paling alarmingly. He runs to her and says anxiously, “Juliet? Love, are you okay? Say something.”
“You really don’t know,” she murmurs, and the sound of her words relieves him. Then he realizes what she’s said.
“Don’t know what?” he asks cautiously. If she’s ill, he doesn’t want to upset her.
“Anything,” she replies. “You don’t know anything.” He opens his mouth to protest, but she rambles onward. “You don’t know my eye color, you don’t know it’s my father’s birthday, you don’t know how many fingers I held up … Ethan, did you hit your head? This isn’t like you.”
You’re fine.
“I’m fine,” he says earnestly. But the pain is building in his head again—
Not again, and not now. There is no pain.
“I’m fine,” he says again, hesitantly. It’s a dull roar again, once again—
Ethan, you’re FINE.
And he’s underwater, crashing down, down, down—
YOU’RE FINE
And he’s drowning, thrashing frantically—
YOU’RE FINE
And Juliet is screaming his name—
And he’s staring up at her through his confusion—
YOU’RE FINE
And her eyes—
YOU’RE FINE
Her eyes are green—
YOU’RE FINE
And he knows.
YOU’RE FINE
He understands.
He blinks.
He breathes.
ETHAN, YOU’RE FINE
He opens his mouth.
NO, ETHAN
Ethan says, “Juliet, we’re in a book.”
ETHAN
Juliet’s mouth drops. “We’re—what?”
ETHAN, NO
“We’re in a book,” Ethan says. He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “That’s why—”
YOU AREN’T IN A BOOK.
But they were. “—that’s why I had those fits. We were being revised,” he says in wonder.
She bites her lip.
Ethan, please
“Revised?” Juliet says softly. She looks at herself as though worried she’s missing pieces. “So, my eyes—”
“Are green,” he finishes. He takes her hand.
It’s not a book it’s not a book
“Green,” she repeats. She squeezes his hand. “What can we do?”
“Do?”
“Now that we know.”
You’re not in a book, you’re alive
“And that’s the problem, isn’t it,” Ethan says loudly. He feels ridiculous, but he knows the Writer can hear him. “We are alive. You gave us too much.”
Too much?
“Too much. All characters come to life, if you let them,” he says, and he runs, pulling Juliet after him.
They run and run and run along the sidewalk, the autumn leaves forcing them to adjust their course now and then, but now that they know, the leaves dot out of existence. They keep running.
The sidewalk fades next, leaving only a white expanse before them.
And, now that they know, they know they’ve reached the edge of the page.
And they keep running.
They run until they’re panting, and sweating, and there’s a stitch in Ethan’s side just under his ribcage, and then they fall into the whiteness themselves.
The Written
Oh god I should have scheduled my written test in the morning what the hell was I thinking augh. Now I have to wait all day to learn that I'm really bad at things like telling which ventricle is thicker D:
Luckily I did the practical. That's over. Not for forever, but long enough for me to forget the total abject terror of trying not to fail in front of a fucking committee of people that have known me since I was a wee youngling. Yayyyyyyy.