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Write for the world....
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Categorize >> Fiction/Literary
Like an abandoned dog, he waits outside her apartment still as stone, until the rain falling in lopsided clips, forces him to seek shelter in a doorway across the street. All by his lonesome, he stands and watches, scanning for any sign that his ex, “the heart thief” might be home and with the patients of a saint he waits and waits. He passes the time by burning cigarette after cigarette right down to the filter, letting the toxins seep in through his lungs and slither throughout his veins. Silently he begs for cancer. He begs for death. He begs for a reprieve from the agony that pours out of the hole she tore in him when she left.
Finally a light from within her apartment sparks on projecting her sole silhouette against the drawn curtain like a film strip. Without his permission, hope seizes him. His blood begins to seethe and boil for he knows hope has no home with him. Hope has no business and no right to toy with him. If he could he would get a restraining order so that hope couldn’t come within a thousand feet of him and as if to prove his point her sole silhouette which danced before the closed curtain like a candle’s flame, was joined by that of man. A man who was not him… A new man finding warmth where he had once found it… The pain strikes him like a back alley abortion, like being penetrated and scrapped raw by a rusty coat hanger.
Sullen and broken he heads for home. He trudges along the sopping sidewalks no longer concerned with keeping dry. Silently he begs for phenomena or some type of fatal strain of influenza…
Arriving home he enters into the still and dark of his apartment, where the silence is crushing and as thick as smoke. It engulfs him like flames. It consumes him like waves. Together they once shared this space but now you’d be hard pressed to find any evidence to support that. All that remained were a few remnants. A hairbrush, an old lipstick… Nothing much to speak of really. She did however leave one article of clothing. A worn and battered tee-shirt she use to sleep in. Like a reflex he picks it up and searches it for her scent, catching but only the faintest essence of her. The damn thing had been washed and worn so many times that it felt more like tissue paper then it did cloth. It felt vulnerable… It felt fragile…
Intellectually he knew the truth. He knew that he should move on. He knew that he should let go but when, in the history of man, has intellect ever won out over emotion? Still, the facts stayed true and unburdened. She was never coming back. She was gone and gone for good leaving only these few remnants. These remnants which meant nothing to her, which went unmissed and forgotten were all that remained of her presence in his life. These remnants… this hairbrush, this old lipstick, this worn tee-shirt and him were all that was left now. Buried in the past of someone who was not looking back.
(Another old poem I'm working on: To see if it works as well (or, hopefully, better) as a prose poem. Again, I'll put the original in the comment space. Like the other poem this was written in the time that I centered every poem, started each line with a capital and didn't use punctuation. Later I decided all of that just got needlessly in the way of presenting the poems. I'm not saying this would be true for others but I did recognize that for me these 'trappings' of poetry were merely affectations and distractions. I don't believe there is one right way of doing poetry but I do think that everyone must discover his or her own distinctive way of writing poems; one voice, if you will. I learned that messing about with capitals & lack-of-punctuation & centering each and every bloody poem was for me not MY true voice. I lay no more claims than that. )
(I wrote this more than 20 years ago. Then it was a poem. I never really liked it as it was – and today I read it again and decided to try and make it into a prose poem (or flowery piece of prose, if you want.) I'm still not sure about it but I like it better than the original format. I will put the original poem in the first comment below. Those who have the time and the stamina and the will I would ask their opinion about this bloody thing...)
Right now I'm (taking a short break from) listening to an interview with David Mitchell - writer of 'Cloud Atlas' and other highly interesting books.
Three years ago, the car had come round the corner. Three years ago, it had been a Wednesday afternoon. All the children had gone to the park; most of them with their parents, or in the company of friends. She had been at work though and her daughter, who was six years’ old at the time, had to cross the street on her own. The car had rounded the corner at approximately ten miles an hour. It had been fast enough. All the girl’s schoolmates had come to the funeral. The first of the dreams came two days later: The car is turning the corner. Her daughter is crossing the street. She herself is now floating up in the air. She tries to swim or crawl downward but remains in the same position, whatever she tries to do. She is forced to watch what will now unfold. The front of the car becomes a glittering of knives. Her daughter looks up, reaches for her, says something, screams. Even before the car hits her daughter, blood comes pouring from the child’s mouth. In the two, three heartbeats before the collision, the girl looks straight at the driver. She, the woman, the mother, the dreamer, watches through the girl’s eyes. She is watching herself: She is the one behind the wheel, the one who is killing her daughter. (She wakes up to the sound of her own screaming. She is cold and sweaty.) That was the first time she had the dream – and more followed: Each time, the same dream. At first, she dreamt three or four times a week, then once a week, then once a month. Now, three years later, she had the dream, about once in every three months. Time forgets at times but never forgives – and once in every three months was still enough. She and her husband finalised their divorce, one year after the accident. He did not dream but he could not forget either. She walked alone, through a cathedral of guilt and hate. She hated herself, hated the car, her work, her husband, at times. Sometimes, in the bleeding of night, she even hated her dead daughter, who still visited her in these dreams and who kept accusing her mother of causing her death. The divorce had almost come as a relief. She moved to a small apartment, at the edge of town. It was an ugly place, but functional and anonymous. She didn’t work for the fashion magazine anymore, where she’d been a senior editor, and where she’d once held hopes to become the editor-in-chief. Through a friend who worked there, she had gotten a part-time job at a daily newspaper. People there knew of the accident and they’d been happy to be of some assistance. So, now, from time to time, she travelled to places where the other journalists didn’t care to go; sometimes, because pursuing a particular story was deemed to be boring; sometimes, because it was seen as dangerous. She had watched the Pope, from great distance, eight times already. She had gone to Brussels and the UN headquarters, for more times than could be borne by most people. She had been to the Kongo, and to Ruanda. She had seen the wars, the famines and the fugitives of too many nations. She had talked to politicians and NATO generals. She had interviewed war lords and nuns, Red Cross doctors and the mothers of children who were dying of AIDS. She had listened to all, she had seen it all and she had written the stories she was sent to cover – and she still dreamed of the car, of her daughter. Now, she was in Cairo, to cover yet another international conference: Something to do with the Middle-East peace process. The paper wanted the story and wanted some pictures, so she had gone. It was summer and Cairo was a swirling sea of stone and stench and an all-permeating heat. It was chaos: The gates of Hell, come tumbling down. It didn’t touch her, though. She just had a job to do. She walked everywhere she needed to go to. She didn’t travel by car, if she could in any way avoid it. Roads knew too many curves and corners. There were too many children, forever crossing the street – and the cabs of Cairo took these corners with much more speed than the comparably sedate, ten miles an hour that had been enough to kill her daughter. So, she walked and was accosted by men, women and children. Everything was for sale; all was on offer but she didn’t buy anything. She didn’t want anything. She just walked on. She walked to the congress centre, in the morning; she walked back to the hotel, in the evening. She drank tea on her balcony and she prayed to a God she had stopped believing in, three years ago: 'No more dreams, please, God. No more dreams.' It was a Friday morning, now. The streets were relatively quiet but the heat and the stench still ruled. She walked to the congress centre, as if deep in contemplation, dreaming up the usual, uselessly whirling scenes and scenarios: 'What if; if then; if only…' She walked but without real purpose. She observed, without really seeing anything. She wanted nothing. She was nothing. She was a walking noise, a hurtful shadow, that could not escape its bounds. Then, she heard a child laugh. She knew that laughter. For the first time in years, she felt her stomach clench with something that resembled hope, that felt like life. She heard the ringing and pounding of her own blood. She felt the sweat on her body. She felt the heat. She felt a change. She had been in Japan, after a big earthquake had hit Tokyo. She had been forced to take a taxi from the airport: It had been the only way to get to her hotel. When she got out of the car, there had been a furious aftershock: One last ripple, running, almost bolting, through the skin of the earth. It had been an awesome experience. This, however, was altogether more miraculous and all-encompassing. The child laughed, once more. The woman didn’t know anything any longer but felt all. The street, the city, the whole world was now a strange music, an unknown dance. She walked – she couldn’t walk. In the next minute, she died ten times but each time her heart resumed its beating, like an old, stubborn clock, in a haunted house. She felt time, like some insane river, running back, up the mountain. The child laughed. The crooked stones beneath her feet carried her forwards. The laughter was much closer now. She was carried around the corner. She saw the child. It was a girl of three or four years’ old. The child was dragging a plastic spoon through a small pile of sand. She was sitting, with her legs spread in front of her. She was wearing a short and dirty dress. It looked as if the girl was playing on some invisible beach, as if she could feel the cooling wind on her face, could hear the seagulls, could see the fishing boats returning safely home. The child looked intensely happy, and thoroughly at home. The woman looked at the girl, who played in the dirt. After a while, the child looked up and smiled at the woman: Self-assured and trusting. The smile was the smile of another girl. The eyes were the eyes, before that corner, before the car. The woman sat down. She started to cry. The girl laid a small hand on the woman’s arm and kept smiling at her. Then, she said something soothing, in Egyptian. The woman shook her head. Then, she smiled back at the girl. She felt everything, everything... The girl laughed. The woman now lives in Cairo. From time to time, she writes an article in a local, English language newspaper but she doesn’t travel anymore. She has enough money to get by. Her parents, who were moderately well-to-do, are dead. She was their only child and inherited all. Her ex-husband pays some alimony. The sale of her old flat generated more than enough money to buy her an old but large apartment, here, in the centre of Cairo. She has enough to live on. She doesn’t need much anyway. The girl lives across the road, with her mother and two other children. Each month, the woman gives the mother some money: The amount an Egyptian worker would earn in four weeks. The girl wears new clothes now but she’s still the same child that can hear the waves and the gulls and the fishing ships, deep in the hot and dusty, stone heart of Cairo. She still plays in the street. Sometimes, a cab screams by but the woman is no longer afraid of such things. The girl is safe. The woman almost never leaves her old apartment, that has a small balcony. For hours and hours, she stands there and looks down upon the street, where the girl is playing. Sometimes, the little girl looks up at the woman, and waves. The woman is learning Egyptian now, and she has long and hesitating but all-encompassing conversations with the child. She hasn’t dreamed of her dead daughter, for months now. She is happy.
lovers at the fast Only the eyes can be seen above the windowsill, and only the man seems to care. “How long do you think they’re going to watch?” he asks.
(This is my way of expressing the difficulties I'm having trying to get my first book published. Think the cannibalistic children represent literary agents. The rest is up for interpretation.) getting published
Buck stands with his back against the wall while staring nervously out the window. He holds the revolver with both hands. He is sweating profusely. His hands shake constantly and I worry that his finger might slip. “We’re never going to get out of here alive,” he is saying.
the last time Move along the stairs. Feel the cool banister as it slides within your hand. Understand that life is simply the time it takes to get where you’re going. And listen to men moan as you go. “Where are we?” he asks the man standing a step above him.
a boy named Pornography Hidden in the shadow of a conveniently placed bush, masked by the gauze of a white lace curtain, the boy watches the woman from the window while standing on his backpack. He is with Freud who is his only friend, and since he is the only one who can actually see Freud, there is only one forehead that succeeds the sill.
"No, you can't."
The morning mist rose slowly and softly over the fields and the hills, as the sound of the gong called all of us to assemble for class. Being late, of course, was never an option for novices. It would be dishonoring the Master to be late to listen to him and to learn the Bushido. Without learning and training, we would bring dishonor on our families, but even more importantly on our respective Lords, who had chosen us to go to the Master for our training, to become bushi, a true warrior, hagakure, the samurai.
(I wrote this one some time ago but I can't remember when exactly. So, I've no idea if I already posted this on TIBU or not.)The elders were inside, deep down in their bunkers. They couldn’t bear to watch the sky during this week. However broad and deep this new sky was, all eyes would always travel to that one small pinpoint of bright light: the latest star to join the endless, silent choir of night’s bright passengers. The children called this new arrival ‘The Cradle’. The elders couldn’t bear to watch it, or think about it, or call it by its older name. Those who had survived the Days of Reckoning and had survived the journey, stayed deep under the ground and tried not to remember. Outside, a new and fearless generation watched the sky. They smiled. They remembered. Not the days of old. None of them had lived through those days. A few of them had been born on board of the handful of ships that had made it to this new home - but most of them had never known another place, another environment. None of them shared the grief of the elders. “Almost” one of the children whispered; “Almost time now.” Inside their bunkers, the elders did their slow and grievous dying, second by second, hour by hour, day by day. None of them had truly survived the Days of Reckoning - not in any real sense of the word. They only seemed to go forward in time but they did not. The past’s strong gravity was slowly claiming them as its last victims. They were dying - and they knew that they were dying, and they did not care. Outside, the children were waiting impatiently for the dance to begin. “Why are they so sad?’ one of the youngest asked. “Because they’re stupid.” another child answered. The rest of them laughed at this. Most shook their heads in quiet bemusement. It was stupid. It was a beautiful day, on a beautiful world. A world not touched by old wars, old hunger, old evils. “But they gave us these!” one of the older children said, stretching her arms and raising them as high as she could. The others followed her example. “Yes!” “Yes!” “Yes!” Inside their bunkers, deep under the ground, the elders sat in silence. They didn’t need to see that bright new star to feel its weight, its incredible, intolerable weight upon their shoulders. They were slowly dying and if they still could have felt any of the normal, old emotions, they would have felt glad to do so. This was not their world and they had no future here. So, they were returning to a past, however dark it may have been. The past was theirs and they would reclaim it in the only way left to them - by dying slowly, second by second, hour by hour, day by day. Outside, the children had begun to dance. A solemn dance: a dance of mourning. Even if they didn’t feel the grief, they did feel the need to honour the dead, and the dying: The elders, who had given these wings to the children; wings that now grew from their shoulders – forever part of them, who were forever part of this new world. While the elders hid inside their bunkers, their children flew and danced upon the air of this new, and forgiving, much lighter world. They flew; they danced; they sang their solemn songs - and they ignored the newest star, that burnt so brightly: The place the elders, before the Days of Reckoning, had called Earth.
Even now, what seems like a hundred years ago, I'm still haunted by the last time I saw Lilly Ryan. She was a shade of beautiful that the painted pallet of life rarely duplicates. She had long lushes red hair, Kelly green eyes, and skin like creamy lenox. Till the day I die, I will always remember when she was mine, in that brief period of the summer of '99. It was the year that we had all graduated high school. It was a wild summer that followed that school year. I did things that I never thought I would do and I met people that would shape and change me for the rest of my years. Lilly Ryan was one of those people. She was like no one I'd ever met before. Sure she was pretty, hell, she was drop dead gorgeous, but there was more to her then that. She was smart and well spoken, she could make you laugh, and she could steal your breath like a thief with a single look. I never thought that I would have a shot with here. I guess I was right and wrong at the same time.
“Once upon a time,” or “there once was,” or “once I knew a girl,” called Ruby, who wanted to be a hero. She didn’t say it like that, at least not when she was young, but she dreamed of saving the world from terrible sea monsters, Cyclops and chimeras. She imagined that her floor was an ocean seething with piranhas that were going to eat her parents. She dreamed of bloody battles in the way only coddled children who have seen no violence can. Sometimes, she took a snack and some juice and waited in the back yard for Han Solo to come pick her up in the Millennium Falcon, where she could protect the entire universe.
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