yoey writes

writing my way out of the forest

[yoey-writes]

PROLOGUE

This was written a while ago.

A WARNING

This is going to hurt.

Not just me. This story will hurt all those who even so much as brush the spine of it – that includes you. Or, at least, it should hurt. It’s supposed to, after all.  

Something I’ve learnt about humans in my time here, is that you rarely make effort towards anything unless Hurt is involved. Unless you’re forced to diverge from ‘the path of least resistance’, as your scientists so eloquently put it. You may think you’re driven by a positive force. Love trumps Hate, right? Well, I’m here to prove you wrong.  

Every time you’ve seemingly acted from the Good in your heart, your body is simply reacting to the Hurt it knows you’ll feel when your happiness is taken away. You’ll be nice to someone, not because you’re a good person, but because you don’t want to feel the pain of them being mean back to you.  

I know what you’re thinking, and this isn’t just me being a cynic. I never was. Not even when I was alive on your Earth. At least, not mostly. But I can still tell you with absolute certainty, that Hurt fuels your world, makes your trees grow, carries you to work in the morning, and home in the evening. You may still not believe me, but I will convince you. Can you tell me, in all honesty, that it’s Happiness that makes you do what you do? Or is it the wish to no longer Hurt?

Right now, you’re probably thinking over every important decision in your life and wondering if it really was for a positive reason. Even you philanthropists out there. Giving to charity makes people feel good. You do it because it makes you feel good, to make yourself hurt less, or you do it to make others hurt less. Either way, even your most charitable men; or should I say, especially your most charitable men, are fuelled by Hurt. It is how it is.

PART 1

Never in my not-life.

WHO AM I?

Who are you?

Now, I won’t tell you exactly how long ago I wrote that first chapter, however, I will now tell you what this book is really about. It’s about a girl. It’s that simple. You want to know what she did?

She changed my mind.  

Hundreds of years I believed the world was fuelled by Hurt and Hatred, but I’m writing this novel now to assure you it’s not, and to tell you exactly how this revelation of mine came about.  

There is a reason for my telling this now, and not, say, fifty years ago, or fifty hence. That reason is your world. I admit, it’s always been somewhat like this. Someone is always in charge, and that someone always hates certain groups of people, and then a bunch of other people start to hate that certain group of people. Then you fight for a while. Then things go back to normal, with another someone in charge, who hates another group of people.

That’s how it is.

It’s how it was for me.  

Oh. Me.

You don’t know who I am. Do you?

Except for the simple fact that you do.

Everyone does. Well, anyone old enough to comprehend me.

Some of you even claim to have seen me. And I hesitate to say some of you have. Some of you have looked me straight in the eyes and begged me; mostly to stay, sometimes to leave. Sometimes to take you with me.

I don’t think you have a name for me, but I’m the closest thing you have to Death, or the Grim Reaper. Such a colourful language is yours. This all sounds very dramatic, I know, but true nonetheless.

And noteworthy, might I add. For, now, you may start to see the true weight of what that girl did to me in changing my mind.  

A SIMPLE FACT

Jocelyn didn’t have a surname.

And she didn’t want one. Not many people like their names exactly how they are, but Jocelyn was quite content with hers. She didn’t like the finality that came with having a surname, because she couldn’t change it as and when she pleased. As it stood, she could ask someone to call her Joyce or Jo or Lynn, and claim it to be her nickname, and she liked it that way, assuming different identities for each name.

As Joyce, she was a schoolgirl from the South who would buckle up her Mary Janes and braid her hair into pigtails before leaving her family’s three-bedroom house, and heading to catch the school bus, which arrived promptly at eight in the morning every morning and deposited her in the same place at four in the afternoon every afternoon. She’d never miss a day of school and she’d always be top of her class and have the prettiest stationary, and the neatest class notes.

As Jo, she was an athlete. She would have her hair tucked up to the nape of her neck so it could be short and wouldn’t get in her way as she ran laps of the track and practised her long jump. Her sweat-soaked shorts and t-shirt would stick to her body as she ran through the crowds after winning the finals of the sprint.

As Lynn, she was a businesswoman, with her hair up in a sleek bun at the back of her head, and a pencil skirt, like she’d seen some women wearing. A blazer, too. She’d walk around all prim and proper in her best attire, on her way to her boss’s office for a meeting, where she’d hope for a promotion.

She didn’t like to be Jocelyn.

Jocelyn was the little girl whose parents never came home from the supermarket. She didn’t know if they’d ever made it to the supermarket. I’ll tell you now that they had. I picked them up on their way home.

As humans are expected to do, especially the young ones, she didn’t react well to the news that her only remaining family wouldn’t be coming home. And she ran. And as of yet, no one had found her. Again, I’ll tell you now, no one ever would, or at least, not anyone who was actually looking for her.

[yoey-writes]

sandcastles

i can see the beach from where i’m sat. some children are making sandcastles while their parents pretend to care. it hurts that i can see their detachment from all the way over here. just for one minute they can’t find the energy to be proud. their kids are artists, how can’t they see that? they’re taking some flat sand and turning it into a kingdom where each and every shell guardsman has a backstory they know off by heart. how can’t they see the beauty of it?

[yoey-writes]

a sleepless night by the sea

sat on hotel balcony waiting for sun to rise. just started to be able to tell the difference between the sky and the sea. street lights turn off all at once. last few people stumble home as the first few go out for morning air. one seagull stands for hours on the ledge below me. i think he hurt his wing. slight waves crashing and one ship lit up on the horizon just to the right of where i know the sun will rise. a new book sat next to me waiting to be read but i can’t bring myself to pick it up, to look away from the slowly changing colours in the sky. skyline. my stomach aches for food but i can’t leave the view. it’s so rare nowadays to be able to witness nature as it is. a stray cat wanders along the beach. i want to be that cat. feel the cool sand beneath my feet and the even cooler water just inches from lapping at them. outlines getting sharper. i can see the whites of the gently crashing waves. a break in the moment as i light a cigarette. the flame of the lighter is brighter than i expected and i get smoke in my eye. no matter how many years i’ve been doing this i’ve never quite managed to avoid that. my seagull flew off. maybe he was just appreciating nature too. i hope he comes back to watch the sun continue to rise. i’d hate for him to miss it. compared with the ocean the sky just to the left of straight on looks green. i could rack my brain and tell you why but you never were one for science, were you? my cigarette went out. i was distracted. the sea is getting lighter over there too. just turning my head makes a palette of light to dark. i can see another ship on the horizon. i hope they don’t fall of the edge of the world. i relight my cigarette and the flame doesn’t shock me so much this time. one of the ships is moving faster than the other. the one on the left. at least he’ll know not to keep going if the other does fall off the edge. i wonder what would be down there if there was an edge. there’s not. but if there was. there’s a strip at the horizon where the sea is darker. i only know it’s the sea and not the sky because of the ships. the sea seems lighter than the sand now and there’s a hint of pink in the sky. you wouldn’t pick it up on a colour match as pink. but i can see it. i know it’s there.

[yoey-writes]

I’m sitting outside right now, under a canopy. The rain is crashing so hard over my head it’s all I can hear.

I can hear it hitting each and every item in my garden: the greenhouse roof, the bushes, the soft soil. It surrounds me and I feel at peace.

[yoey-writes]

i love to place myself in a different time and place, it makes me feel something i can’t explain

pretty please someone suggest some more classics for me? <3

[yoey-writes]

Anyone ever just want to move to Sorrento, Italy; work in that one quiet vintage bookshop on the bustling street, in your own little world inside a little book while the world keeps turning outside? maybe a nice cup of coffee, too?

[yoey-writes]

over the last 10 hours my cat has slowly turned into a ball

[yoey-writes]

The Library

The full chatter of this new library surrounds me.

The library itself isn’t new, I’ve been going here for years and I’ll never forget my table. It sat against a wall under the point of two connecting brick arches that line the room. The low ceiling at this particular place in the room made me feel safe and comfortable and, better yet, the library was silent.

They’ve redecorated. Now my table with its old polished wood finish and my chair with its frayed seat cover are gone. I debate with myself over asking where the old furniture went but decide against it. The chairs here now are all new and sit upto too-high tables coated in plastic. Talk surrounds me. I hate it.

I’ll have to find another quiet spot to read (perhaps by the river, but it’s winter) but no where will be quite the same as my secluded wall beneath the arches.

[booksquotelife]

Do more for the world than it does for you.

[eerin-deactivated-deactivated20]

look, if I could sit in a cafe drinking coffee and reading my books all day while completely ignoring my surroundings, I would.

[yoey-writes]

PROLOGUE

This was written a while ago.

A WARNING

This is going to hurt.

Not just me. This story will hurt all those who even so much as brush the spine of it – that includes you. Or, at least, it should hurt. It’s supposed to, after all.  

Something I’ve learnt about humans in my time here, is that you rarely make effort towards anything unless Hurt is involved. Unless you’re forced to diverge from ‘the path of least resistance’, as your scientists so eloquently put it. You may think you’re driven by a positive force. Love trumps Hate, right? Well, I’m here to prove you wrong.  

Every time you’ve seemingly acted from the Good in your heart, your body is simply reacting to the Hurt it knows you’ll feel when your happiness is taken away. You’ll be nice to someone, not because you’re a good person, but because you don’t want to feel the pain of them being mean back to you.  

I know what you’re thinking, and this isn’t just me being a cynic. I never was. Not even when I was alive on your Earth. At least, not mostly. But I can still tell you with absolute certainty, that Hurt fuels your world, makes your trees grow, carries you to work in the morning, and home in the evening. You may still not believe me, but I will convince you. Can you tell me, in all honesty, that it’s Happiness that makes you do what you do? Or is it the wish to no longer Hurt?

Right now, you’re probably thinking over every important decision in your life and wondering if it really was for a positive reason. Even you philanthropists out there. Giving to charity makes people feel good. You do it because it makes you feel good, to make yourself hurt less, or you do it to make others hurt less. Either way, even your most charitable men; or should I say, especially your most charitable men, are fuelled by Hurt. It is how it is.

PART 1

Never in my not-life.

WHO AM I?

Who are you?

Now, I won’t tell you exactly how long ago I wrote that first chapter, however, I will now tell you what this book is really about. It’s about a girl. It’s that simple. You want to know what she did?

She changed my mind.  

Hundreds of years I believed the world was fuelled by Hurt and Hatred, but I’m writing this novel now to assure you it’s not, and to tell you exactly how this revelation of mine came about.  

There is a reason for my telling this now, and not, say, fifty years ago, or fifty hence. That reason is your world. I admit, it’s always been somewhat like this. Someone is always in charge, and that someone always hates certain groups of people, and then a bunch of other people start to hate that certain group of people. Then you fight for a while. Then things go back to normal, with another someone in charge, who hates another group of people.

That’s how it is.

It’s how it was for me.  

Oh. Me.

You don’t know who I am. Do you?

Except for the simple fact that you do.

Everyone does. Well, anyone old enough to comprehend me.

Some of you even claim to have seen me. And I hesitate to say some of you have. Some of you have looked me straight in the eyes and begged me; mostly to stay, sometimes to leave. Sometimes to take you with me.

I don’t think you have a name for me, but I’m the closest thing you have to Death, or the Grim Reaper. Such a colourful language is yours. This all sounds very dramatic, I know, but true nonetheless.

And noteworthy, might I add. For, now, you may start to see the true weight of what that girl did to me in changing my mind.  

A SIMPLE FACT

Jocelyn didn’t have a surname.

And she didn’t want one. Not many people like their names exactly how they are, but Jocelyn was quite content with hers. She didn’t like the finality that came with having a surname, because she couldn’t change it as and when she pleased. As it stood, she could ask someone to call her Joyce or Jo or Lynn, and claim it to be her nickname, and she liked it that way, assuming different identities for each name.

As Joyce, she was a schoolgirl from the South who would buckle up her Mary Janes and braid her hair into pigtails before leaving her family’s three-bedroom house, and heading to catch the school bus, which arrived promptly at eight in the morning every morning and deposited her in the same place at four in the afternoon every afternoon. She’d never miss a day of school and she’d always be top of her class and have the prettiest stationary, and the neatest class notes.

As Jo, she was an athlete. She would have her hair tucked up to the nape of her neck so it could be short and wouldn’t get in her way as she ran laps of the track and practised her long jump. Her sweat-soaked shorts and t-shirt would stick to her body as she ran through the crowds after winning the finals of the sprint.

As Lynn, she was a businesswoman, with her hair up in a sleek bun at the back of her head, and a pencil skirt, like she’d seen some women wearing. A blazer, too. She’d walk around all prim and proper in her best attire, on her way to her boss’s office for a meeting, where she’d hope for a promotion.

She didn’t like to be Jocelyn.

Jocelyn was the little girl whose parents never came home from the supermarket. She didn’t know if they’d ever made it to the supermarket. I’ll tell you now that they had. I picked them up on their way home.

As humans are expected to do, especially the young ones, she didn’t react well to the news that her only remaining family wouldn’t be coming home. And she ran. And as of yet, no one had found her. Again, I’ll tell you now, no one ever would, or at least, not anyone who was actually looking for her.

[yoey-writes]

Clockwork

That clock must have seen everything. There’s no date anywhere on it; it doesn’t correlate with any architectural trends; no one knows when it was built. Even the oldest townsfolk say it was there when they were kids.

It sticks out from an old building in the centre of town no one uses anymore, its windows boarded up and not a single brick without a dent. The clock itself hasn’t a single speck of rust on it anywhere and looks brand new. It always has, though no one’s ever seen anyone clean it. Its face is stark white against its black body and its black numbers and its black hands. There’s no second hand.

As I sit here in the market square, I can’t help but wonder what sights have passed beneath it. It’s watched children grow up, make families, maybe even watched them die. Maybe it’s seen relationships through hard times, or maybe it’s seen them fall at the last hurdle. What if it doesn’t see any of this; if it only catches a glimpse of the daily goings on of those who walk below it; each snapshot confusing it more as it tries to work out what it’s missed?

It’s seen every different shop front there’s ever been on this street, possibly from when the town was first built, and knew their owners and regular customers and their regular orders. I’m working off the basis that clocks don’t forget anything, and if that’s true, in a hundred or so years' time when the next person comes along who questions all this clock has seen, will they ask about me? Will the clock remember me? I hope so. Now I’m starting to feel a little sorry for the clock. Has anyone asked its name? I suppose I probably should.

Obviously, a clock won’t speak to me, at least not in English, so for the sake of courtesy I’ll name it after the man who told me it existed. Ray. My father. I’ll admit, he was a strange man and in his will, he asked for his ashes to be spread in this town I didn’t know he had a connection to. I’ve never been here, or even heard of it for that matter. But he specifically requested I sit on this bench and look at this clock, notebook in hand, and write whatever comes to mind.  

I suppose this is my way of talking to you again, Dad, since I never quite got to say goodbye. Somehow you knew the end was near and prepared a will, but I don’t know how you could predict a heart attack. It always was your way though, wasn’t it? Always the pessimist. Searching for the worst in any situation and being disappointed with a happy ending. A joy to watch a kids’ film with. Happy endings are overrated, I hear you say in the back of my head, the real world doesn’t work that way and the sooner you kids learn that the better. Mum wasn’t a big fan. I know I turned into the optimist she wanted us kids to be, but then again Stace turned into the pessimist you wanted us to be so it’s a fair share. I do wish I’d turned out a bit more like you, though. Maybe then I’d know why you sent me here.

This town looks like it hasn’t changed since you would’ve been a boy. Maybe that’s it. You wanted me to feel how you felt as a kid, so I’d know you a little better. Or maybe you wanted me to enjoy the countryside for a while, I know my love for cities always disappointed you.  

Maybe you just wanted me to stop questioning everything for once. There doesn’t have to be a motive; you might’ve just liked this clock. It is beautiful, I suppose. The sun rising overtop the buildings to my right make a perfect reflection in the curved glass covering the face. It’s almost as if you could climb straight through and be in another world where all that matters is picturesque beauty. You would’ve loved a world like that. None of this politics bullshit. Even though you were the most pessimistic man I ever met, somehow you could still find beauty in the most mundane things; albeit tragic beauty, but beauty, nonetheless. In your mind, a mug was a slave, forced to carry scalding drinks until either thrown away, broken, or simply left to collect dust. Of course, Mum would always tell us the mug liked to do that and it wouldn’t be a mug if it didn’t. I believed her and Stace believed you.

Us kids were left to clear out all your old stuff while Mum grieved, and we found some old photos of you and her when you were young. It was only then that I realised I’m the spitting image of you, and the same goes for Stace and Mum. How did we grow so far apart when in likeness we were a perfect fit? Perhaps I reminded you too much of yourself.

Looking towards the clock again, I’m reminded I need to stop questioning everything. Just sit back and enjoy the tranquillity while I can before the hustle and bustle of the day disturb it. Just breathe. Let the breeze roll over me. I am one with the bench. Okay, you’re right, I’m just taking the piss now, like I always did when you talked about ‘the serenity of solitude’. I’ll try harder this time.

I can actually see the colours changing in the sky. The first lights of sunrise change so much so quickly. I can’t look away. The camera on my phone doesn’t quite capture the beauty of it. As each colour appears, it seems to disappear in an instant and forgotten just as fast; gone without a trace. I sound like you.  

Coming back to my surroundings, I realise I wasn’t watching the sunrise itself, but its reflection in the clock. How many sunrises have you seen, Ray? 

I don’t know if I’m asking you or the clock at this point, but I don’t think it matters anymore. You’re one and the same to me.  

[yoey-writes]

the last bus

I’m on the last bus running tonight, though I don’t usually stay so late. It’s going in different path than usual. One of the roads is closed. Why didn’t I notice that this morning? There’s a few elderly couples in front of me and a small child behind me shouting nonsense but it’s sweet. I know the feeling of just wanting to shout, even if the words mean nothing.

I’m about halfway home, if you can call it that. It’s my childhood bedroom. Of course I ended up back here after my stint as an author in London ended but I tell myself I’m still optimistic. I’ll go back one day and try again. I struggle to believe myself. Maybe, though, maybe...