Life in progress

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Private Thoughts, Private World – Part 2

Incomplete Thoughts

Is there such a thing as a complete thought? When, as writers, do we know our meaning has been entirely understood by our reader?  Is it possible to have entire understanding between two people? After all, there are only so many human experiences, just as there are a limited number of stories, written over and over again from different perspectives. But still, I think not.

It occurred to me that writing a thought is like taking a step. No matter how many times you think you’ve taken your last step, come to the end of your journey, there will always be another step to take until you die. Then all there is left is for someone else to attempt to interpret your life, your steps, your thoughts.

JnT2


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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.


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Private Thoughts, Private World

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Do you see the head of the dragon?

We all have our little private world, filled with thoughts that are seemingly impossible to express in words. Try as we might as writers to embellish, whether by attaching to them a likeness of something totally foreign to the initial thought or by attempting to capture something that is close… neither quite click perfectly in place.

Many times we find ourselves giving up, moving on to something else that seems closer to the human condition, as though no one else has ever felt exactly what we are feeling. And yet we have to wonder, maybe others were as unable to put across that particular idea as we were.

It’s those breakthroughs that keep us going though, isn’t it? When the sun shines on our idea – when we are actually able to put into text what we were feeling, and then our private thoughts, our private world becomes stuff of the outside world, no longer within us.

Free.


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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

Next installment 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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Scintillating Dialogue – writing assignment

“So,” Alice asked, looking down at her shoe as she prodded it into the sun-warmed sand, “what do you do for a living?” She kept her hands in her back pockets, knowing that if she took them out she would want to touch him. Anywhere.

Daniel lowered his sunglasses and gazed at her over the top with deep blue eyes. “I build houses. How about you?” he asked. “No wait.” As his eyebrows went up so did his finger, the bicep of the same arm bulging in response to the movement. “You must be… a model,” Daniel smiled.

“Funny you should say that,” Alice blushed, swiveling her shoulders. “I thought I saw you in a firefighter’s calender the other day. But no, I’m just a lowly shop girl.”

“In that case lowly shop girl, let me carry you over my shoulder to the bar for a drink.” He flashed a dazzling grin and her hands came out of her pockets as he bent down to take her in a fireman’s carry.

“Hold on there, Tarzan,” she laughed. “What do you say we walk to the bar?”

“Only if you’ll at least take my arm.”

His gaze pierced her like a bullet, traveling from her eyes straight down to her lower belly. She swallowed and opened her mouth to consent but realizing nothing would come out, made do with a nod.


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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

To Fifteen 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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Twelve Inherent Brother

Two spent bulbs reside darkly beside a third, dimly illuminating the marital bed. Go deep, vapid man. Clouds rage between two souls in thunderous silence. Attend, inconsequential man.

Brother slips on his black cotton pyjamas and glares down at his wife. He measures the years by the Christmases they have spent together. This one sees more lines about her eyes – lines of worry about how she plans to leave him for his younger brother.

“Why don’t you just go fuck him if you think he’s that much more of a man than I am?” brother spits.

She admits nothing, backing up from where she sits. Brother knows he is right.

He sees again as father stalks past mother to upend the kitchen table laden with hours of preparation. He beholds again as his sibling protects the children from the glass on the floor, protects their mother, protects his own wife while he looks on, paralysed.

“Chase him around the country like one of his groupie whores why don’t you?” brother continues as he administers the first pinch to her thigh. He sees the blood red and sickly green that this Christmas has become.

“Say it!” brother seethes. He crawls up her body, forcing her down. “SAY IT!”

“You should never have let him grow up,” his wife whimpers.

Brother rewards her with his love.


To go to the beginning of this series click here

To Thirteen 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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Eleven Visionless Mother

Christmas lights sparkle like champagne, ascending to the Angel atop the tree. Glow of family’s warmth pervades the room like a candle. Shine on, blind mother.

Mother places the final platter on the table with a smile and steps back to admire her work. She lifts her elbows as two of her grandchildren, chasing one another, careen past the crystal wine glasses, toppling one to the floor. Cursing her eldest son’s spawn she bends to retrieve the largest of the shards.

“Mother, let me help you,” says man.

Mother looks up at her son, wondering where he achieved his height. If only he would cut his hair.

“Thank you,” mother says.

Man bends to help her.

“When will you get married and have children like your brother?” mother asks him quietly.

Man smiles.  “I’m too busy for that,” he says.

From the kitchen doorway comes a grating whisper.

“Mother, he’s coming,” warns brother.

“Then get your children in order!” mother accuses.

Man stands to face his father.

“Lovely,” says mother, glowing. “Let’s eat.”


To go to the beginning of this series click here

To Twelve 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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Ten Grown Boy

Screaming neon bathes the room in hues of blue, but red abducts the breath. Lay down, young man. Torturous pleasure soothes Ego where she hides. Take it, tempered boy.

Man stands at the end of the bed, contemplating the sensuous mound beneath the white cotton sheet and draws with finality on his cigarette. He watches as she rolls over through the cloud of his exhalation. He readies silken crimson scarves, tying one to each of the four posts.

“What do you do for a living?” man asks unfastening the buttons of his shirt.

She laughs a dark, wicked divulgence and rises to her knees, facing him.

“I’m a nurse,” she says. “I help people to heal.”

Man grunts, deep in his throat. He inhales her naked refinement with his eyes.

“What happened here?” she asks, placing her fingertips delicately upon the hollow where his collarbone should be.

“It doesn’t matter,” man says.

He strips his shirt from each of his wrists and goes next for the buttons of his fly. He watches her watch him, her gaze steady, unfaltering, settled solely on his flesh.

When he reclines, bereft of his clothing, he surrenders his limbs.

“Do you trust me?” she asks as she ties him, wrists and ankles, like a martyr, to the bed.

“No,” man shivers.

She smiles as she slips one last scarf around his neck, tugging gently.

An exalted master in his own right, man succumbs.


To go to the beginning of this series click here

To Eleven 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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Shattered Hopes – writing assignment

Leila awoke to the sun streaming through her bedroom window five minutes before her alarm was due to go off.  She stretched, catlike and smiled to herself. Awareness dawned as clear as day.

Tonight’s the night.

She rolled over and gazed at the pillow beside her, fluffed up, soft, inviting. She pictured in her mind what he would look like laying there in the soft sunlight, a mere twenty-four hours from now. In her mind’s eye she saw him open his eyes and smile at her adoringly, as happy to be there as she was to have him. She breathed in, imagining his musky natural scent, heady as a glass of fine Italian wine, and what it would be like to cuddle up in his arms, to feel the comforting warmth of his embrace.

Jeff.

She whispered his name out loud and the feel of it on her lips caused her mouth to water. Her hand slid down her body to the sensitive spot between her thighs. She turned to look at the clock. Two minutes left. She didn’t have time. Instead she propped her head up with her hands and looked around the room, making plans. Candles. She would need lots of them. And incense perhaps. Or not. She could see herself at work today, unable to concentrate even more than usual just knowing…

Tonight’s the night.

Jeff.

Her radio came on giving her a start but then she laughed out loud when she recognized the song: “Anticipation”, by Carly Simon.

She leaped out of bed and into the shower. Thoughts of what kind of music to play for the evening entertainment distracted her from the task of shaving, her causing her to nick herself. She swore under her breath and let the water run over the cut, hoping that she wouldn’t have a scab to mar her perfect date, with Jeff… It was going to be a tough day.

Showered and dressed for work, Leila flicked on the light as she floated into the kitchen, singing the song that was now stuck in her head. Through the large picture window she could see clouds gathering.

‘Never mind,’ she thought to herself. She grabbed her favourite yellow mug with a large animated sun hand-painted on its side and filled it with hot coffee. Still mulling over music she turned on the radio. Maybe not date material, but the DJ was certainly in tune with Leila this morning. She danced around the kitchen singing “I’m walkin’ on sunshine, wooah,” until she heard the front door slam closed. Her roommate, Amanda was home. Coffee in hand, Leila shimmied out of the kitchen to greet her best friend. She came to a dead stop when she saw the look on Amanda’s face.

“What’s wrong?” Leila asked. “Did something happen at the stagette last night?”

“Jeff’s not coming tonight,” Amanda said, worriedly. “He has to work.”

“What are you….” Leila looked down at the piece of paper in Amanda’s hand. It was a glossy photograph of a man, nude but for a g-string, a collar and a pair of pink shirt cuffs, his hands at the back of his head and a face that looked exactly like… Jeff.

Leila let out a tiny shriek of disbelief as her cup hit the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces.