I wrote this earlier today. 🙂 Check out ALL the great works of fiction and poetry at The Community Storyboard!
Category Archives: stories
Lunchtime!
I’m going to eat my last avocado. Wish me luck!
Private Thoughts, Private World Part 5 – Bring me to life
I was having a discussion with a friend on Facebook this morning about why a real human being can feel sadness over a fictional character. Another of his friends stated that it’s because the writer has done a good job. But is it really only that?
When I create a character, the first thing I come up with is a mental image. With that image comes nuances in dress, movement and speech patterns. From there, especially from the speech patterns, I begin to see where they live, how they grew up and what brought them to the place where I insert them into a story. With all this information they take on a life of their own and from there on in, I become more of a spectator in their world than the person directing them. I may know where they will eventually end up, but how they get there depends entirely on how their life has evolved to put them in my story in the first place.
I wish I could remember where I read it, (and if you know or even better if someone reading this was the one who said it first PLEASE take credit for it!) but something that affected me profoundly was the statement that, (paraphrasing) “if the characters I create become real, then I feel very bad for what I put them through in my story.” I do think the characters I create have an existence somewhere in the world. Call me crazy. But this very thing is what makes it possible to relate to them, and why a reader can be happy for them or grieve for them.
Getting back to my original point, I don’t entirely take credit for having done a good job when my readers feel for my characters. They tell my stories – I’m just along for the ride. They have, as I do, their own private thoughts, and their own private world.
Bored?
For anyone disentranced with content (or lack thereof) of my blog lately (I’m busy finishing up a couple of courses and haven’t had the gray matter for much else) I’d like to remind you that I have a fiction blog here on which I have expended a few spare brain cells to write some amusing and/or dramatic short scenes.
Many of them are unrelated, so they need not be read in order. For your convenience however, I have put the names of the characters in the tags so you can find scenes containing them, should find one or two characters you connect with. My personal favourite is Drommen, a polite pervert who can’t seem to catch a break.
Enjoy. 🙂
Epilogue Rich Boy
Spotlights shine down like mother’s sun. Father’s love comes after in the form of drugs and liquor. Relive, rich man.
On stage, man raises his hand to the shrieking crowd, awed with humility at his fans’ adoration. Grasping the microphone, he thinks of father rolling in his grave.
He sips water from a bottle and shakes the rest over his head, a momentary reprieve from the lights’ insulating heat. Layers of clothing hide scars he openly speaks of yet never reveals. He laments mother’s death with his lyrics and thousands cry for his loss.
Father’s legacy follows him doggedly. Later, alone, man will consume that for which he distances himself from his own offspring. Let the child have his mother.
The boy within bows, singing of the love engraved in his heart.
To go to the beginning of this series click here
Disclaimer: This series is an unauthorized, semi-fictional story, based in part on the author’s imagination.
… One Man
Stale air fills sunlit kitchen of childhood’s end. Choking on father’s love fills the coming void. Look back, poor boy. Closed eyes reveal crystalline crimson sparks, drowning in tears of years gone by. Look forward, young man.
Man sits across from father at the kitchen table. Turning and turning a crystal tumbler tinted with two fingers of scotch in a puddle of its own condensation he listens to father’s wheezing breath.
“Give me some,” demands father.
Man regards father. It is the first time man has been alone with him indeed since he was a young child. Man recalls that setting with its backdrop of violence and self-consciously man touches his chest.
“Give me some,” father repeats. He stretches across the table for the bottle but man moves it out of reach. Father begins to cough with exertion.
In the refracted sunlight from the crystal glass man envisions his future, reflected in father’s dull eyes.
Man swallows the remainder of the scotch in his tumbler and stands.
“Give me some,” father chokes.
“Fuck you,” man answers.
Man carries the bottle to the sink. He considers emptying it but instead places it on top of the high cupboard, inches from the ceiling. For the last time man studies father’s dying face.
“I love you father,” man says.
To go to the beginning of this series click here
Disclaimer: This story (and series) is semi-fictional, and is in no way connected to persons alive nor dead. Apart from certain facts, it is a product of the author’s imagination.
…One Mother
Odd shapes shine on linoleum, on table. Wind outside splays triangles of leaves displaced on again, off again, the clouds whisk like milk boiling on the stove. Struggle, dear mother. Coffee dreams drown bourbon breath bathing father’s last wish. Struggle no more, precious mother.
Mother retrieves a crystal cut tumbler from the kitchen cupboard at father’s behest. Into it she pours the golden liquid until it brims.
Mother and father are alone, as they usually are since the children moved on, brother with his family, boy… mother thinks of boy’s wanderings as something that will certainly bore him eventually.
“Where’s my drink?” father demands.
“I’m coming!” mother cries with cheer.
(to be continued)
To go to the beginning of this series click here
Disclaimer: This story (and series) is semi-fictional, and is in no way connected to persons alive nor dead. Apart from certain facts, it is a product of the author’s imagination.
… One Brother
White quiet halls, scuffs covering walls, nurses pad by in soft shoes. Whisper, obedient brother. Crumpled sheets on vacated gurney, heart leaps then falls as toilet flushes. Bow down, father’s son.
Brother, standing in the doorway of father’s hospital room, steps aside when an orderly arrives pushing a wheelchair.
“You takin’ him home?” the orderly asks.
“That’s what I’m here for,” brother answers.
The orderly leaves without comment. Father exits the washroom and torments brother with yellow eyes.
“Are you ready to leave father?” brother squirms, offering the chair.
Father turns, sits and waits for brother to gather his belongings. Brother wheels him to the car.
The two drive through rapidly emptying streets into the setting sun. Brother squints and glances at father’s hands in his lap. Old and sallow, liver failure tinctures his skin.
“Stop at the liquor store,” father commands, his first utterance of the journey.
“Yes, sir,” brother concedes, relieved to turn away from the blazing, bloody beam of the sunset.
(to be continued)
To go to the beginning of this series click here
Disclaimer: This story (and series) is semi-fictional, and is in no way connected to persons alive nor dead. Apart from certain facts, it is a product of the author’s imagination.
Fifteen Attending Brother
Oppressive darkness shrouds the vast black hallway while spotlights scream energy out on stage where there is air. Wait, raging son. Shrill electric pandemonium resounds from mile-high boxes, drowning out sickly shrieking adoration. Unclench, trembling brother.
Brother waits, impatient for his younger sibling to leave the stage. Fists at his sides he scrutinizes the singer as he wails and thrashes for his audience. Brother’s fury lies in the frustration that the little shit would never mutter a sound while taking his beatings.
Brother ducks into the cover of the darkness as the song ends and the band begins to leave the stage.
“Sir!” calls a staff member, addressing man as he finally arrives in the wings. “This guy says he’s your brother…”
Man squints into the shadows. When brother steps forward he waves off his employee and approaches.
Brother cranes his neck to sneer at man’s effeminate make-up, his long hair, his slim body in tight clothing. He wonders how so many women can desire such a sissy.
“It’s father,” brother hisses. “He’s in the hospital.”
“Why should I care?” man asks, turning to leave.
Brother grasps his sleeve. “Mother wants you there.”
“Fine, I’m almost done,” man says. He walks back onstage to thunderous applause.
Brother seethes, biding the time until his next opportunity to shine in father’s eyes.
To go to the beginning of this series click here
Disclaimer: This story (and series) is semi-fictional, and is in no way connected to persons alive nor dead. Apart from certain facts, it is a product of the author’s imagination.
Fourteen Stirring Mother
Home breathes, love pours comfort into cups of fine gleaming china. Catch the scent, dear woman. Steam rises in clouds of humidity, obscuring the impenetrable essence of life. Smell the coffee, tiresome bitch.
Mother smiles, watching her men at the kitchen table. Father and son laugh and drink to the joys of life and the trials of marriage. The aroma of bread baking in the oven turns her attention to the clock. Father senses her concentration.
“Where is the little shit now?” asks father.
“He should be here soon,” replies mother.
Man opens the front door as though on cue. The cat yowls as man trips over it.
Brother stands, knocking over his chair. He charges out of the kitchen, mother in his wake.
“I’mm sorry, mmother,” slurs man.
“He’s fucked up on drugs!” brother jeers.
Mother extends a hand to help man rise to his feet. Brother leers and kicks man’s unsteady legs from beneath him. Man slips back to the floor.
Father staggers from the kitchen to assist and mother stands back. Hands at her face she incredulously attends the thrashing of her youngest child. She jumps as the bell in the kitchen signals the readiness of the bread.
Emancipated, mother concerns herself with the rising of the bread and her concern over the immeasurable appetite of the three men near the front door.
To go to the beginning of this series click here
Disclaimer: This story (and series) is semi-fictional, and is in no way connected to persons alive nor dead. Apart from certain facts, it is a product of the author’s imagination.
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