Sleepless Stories

Where Do We Go From Here?

2009-12-07T01:44:00.000-06:00

My five favorite writer's sites (in no particular order):

Writer's Digest.

Fringe Magazine.

Writer's Cafe.

The Writing Journey.

The Compulsive Reader.

Chapters 2-6 of Hostility - unrevised version.

2009-11-30T06:00:00.003-06:00

--I'm just throwing this up here for people outside of Fiction Writing to read. An early, unrevised and incorrect version of chapter one can be found here.

A lanky gray-haired man entered the room wearing a grin decked with gray and black bristles. “Mr. Gorman?”

“What?” Jack answered with a definite tone of resentment.

“Hello, I’m your doctor.” Dr. Plaust’s grin widened to show a set of shiny metal-grayed teeth as he drew forth a bulbous, weathered hand. Jack remained as still as a pile of rocks and stared at the palm of his hand, noting every crack where the skin had broken apart and formed what he decided would be a spectacular setting for a tiny, melodramatic desert scene in an awful, histrionic farce.

“John– May I call you John? Well, I hope that your stay here has been as comfortable as possible. I trust Sarah has filled you in on the details of this situation. The surgeon sh–”

No, you may not call me John. No one calls me John, you asshole. “Fuck you.”

“I’m sorry?” The light bounced off Dr. Plaust’s balding head and formed a glowing ring around the room as he lowered his head and his smile faded along with the compassionate glint in his eyes.

“No, I’m not comfortable. I have better things to do right now. What kind of jackass feels comfortable with a broken neck and a purple face?”

Dr. Plaust’s voice transformed into a monotonous lull. “Ah, I can see why you would be upset. I don’t know how much you know right now, but we’re going to have to keep you here a little longer, so I advise that you make yourself comfortable. A very skilled surgeon, Dr. Cypers, will be with you shortly to disc–”

“No, I’m getting out of here.” The muscles in Jack’s face tightened and his jaw snapped shut while he readied himself for an altercation.

“–the operation with you. You will be transferred to a different wing of the hospital after your surgery. Although I can’t say for certain how long you’ll be staying here, you needn’t worry about a thing. If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to notify Casey or Sarah. If you need to speak with me, just let them know.” With that, the doctor turned on his immaculately shiny heel to leave.

“Hey! I said I’m going to get out of here soon. So I don’t want to talk to your surgeon. Send him back. I’m not fucking staying here forever.” Jack glared at the doctor through his bulging, purpled eye sockets.

Dr. Plaust stopped in the doorway and turned to face Jack with a look of worriment across his face. “Mr. Gorman…”

He’s a terrible fucking doctor. They always put me with the most God-awful sons of bitches in the whole place, Jack thought, clenching his fists and chewing on the insides of his cheeks. “GET OUT.”

Dr. Plaust sighed heavily and stepped out of the room. Jack laid still, fists trembling, and listened to the doctor’s footsteps leading away from him. The footsteps grew too distant to be audible and Jack became aware of the beeping and lulled mumbling of the hospital. He frowned and sunk his fists into the bed. This Goddamned place! Why here? Fuck!

His temper subsided momentarily as Anna’s soft, smiling face appeared in Jack’s mind. He imagined her there, shoving him playfully and gazing at him with her soft rosy skin shining in the fluorescent lights. His eyes sank and wandered around the room as he dropped his fists. “You always have to have the last word, don’t you? You’re such a selfish ass,” she would have said.

She’s not gonna fucking visit me, he thought, gnawing at his cheeks with more vigor. She hates me. With a furrowed brow and a spinning head, Jack fell back into his bed and closed his eyes.

It was warm. San Francisco was always ten degrees too warm for Jack. The seagulls called out to each other in their jumbled, worried caws. Salt and fog filled Jack’s nostrils as his feet sank into the soft, forgiving sand and he paced across the beach, trudging along some distance behind Anna.

Anna turned and trotted backwards for a minute. “Hey, what are you doing back there? I thought you wanted to go for a run, not a crawl!”

“I never agreed to this!” said Jack, hanging his head and pushing his body forward.

“I’m lonely up here!”

“Jesus, could you just slow down? …I need a cigarette.”

Jack looked up as Anna flung her head back in a fit of laughter and turned to face forward once more. He quietly sighed and gazed at her from his distance. He admired the flecks of copper in her hair as they glowed in the sunlight. The wind grasped her chocolate hair and pulled it behind her in a long, wavy shadow, as fleeting and as delicate as a trail of smoke rising up from a shallow creek in a foggy forest’s morning air. He knew he would never be as happy, as beautiful or as quick as she was in that moment.

“We’ve only got ten more minutes. Don’t puss out on me now.” Jack recognized genuine resentment in Anna’s voice now, and he attempted to push himself forward one last time, his entire body rebelling and weighing him down.

“You know…you can hurt yourself if–…if you keep going like that!”

“Only if you’re not in shape!” Anna seemed only to grow farther away from Jack with each of his pleads.

Oh God, why do I try? Jack wondered as he gave in to his body and threw it against a browning, grassy hill. Jack gasped and the sand and salty ocean air filled his lungs again. He drew a collapsed paper package from his khaki cargo pants and his trembling fingers lunged for a cigarette. He heard the delicate sound of Anna’s voice again as he shakily lit it and took a drag. His thoughts slowed and his mind began functioning properly.

“HEY, where’d you go?! We’re not done yet!” Jack could hear Anna turn in the sand and begin to jog back.

Jack dropped his arms to his sides. Ugh. He doubted that his muscles would allow him to run another inch. “Not now, I’m tired. You go ah–” Jack’s voice exploded into a long, raspy cough. His eyes watered and his face turned a vibrant magenta. The cough continued on while he listened to Anna’s footsteps slow as she approached the hill.

“Jack? Are you okay?”

With that, Jack snuffed his coughing, mashed out his cigarette and steadied himself on all fours, slowly crawling to the opposite side of the knoll like a huge red spider preparing for assault.

“Jack? Jack?! God damnit, I keep telling you you’re going to kill yourself with all those fucking cigarettes… Jack, come on, what the hell!”

Not now, wait, wait a minute…

“Jack!” Anna began to panic as she paced around the hill. In his mind, Jack could see her lowering her brow and forming a cute little frown.

“BAAAH.” Jack emerged from above and blew a puff of ashy smoke into Anna’s worried, glistening face. He immediately erupted with laughter.

“You son of a bitch!” Anna pushed him down onto the grass and left him there writhing on the sand-coated grass, alternating smoky coughs with unceasing laughter.

A tightening feeling took hold of Jack’s chest. Pressure, pressure, pressure was everywhere. Jack’s breathing quickened. His head spun. He felt tiny pinpricks pulse up and down his spine. He felt fluid rushing from his skull. Pressure, pressure. Horrified, his eyes snapped open. He examined the room. It was glossy, gray and empty. He lifted his fingers and ran them against the sheets, hoping desperately that they didn’t exist.

Here. Still here. Another Goddamned failure. Jack watched the white lab coats drape down across his body as they poked and prodded with their little lights and needles. He watched the nurse’s floral yellow scrubs brush against his cheek. Damnit. Anywhere but here. It’s supposed to be fucking over right now.

“Mr. Gorman, we need you to stay awake. Just keep your eyes open – it’s going to be okay.” Jack recognized a look of feigned compassion as one of the lab coats peered into his eyes, prodding his own skull with cold blue eyes.

Jack felt wires pinch at his skin. He had failed himself. His eyes moved across every corner of the room, searching. For sharp objects; knives, pins, anything. Jack needed to know that this was not reality – he needed to test it. He imagined the feeling of the pain, the aching. He required it. Every cell in his body burned for it. His eyes widened. His breathing slowed. Everything continued in slow motion. He continued searching. Nothing. Nothing.

“Mr. Gorman…?”

“Mr. Gorman, can you hear us…?”

They were gone. His body ached for the adrenaline and the endorphin rush he craved so strongly at that moment. Desire pulsed through his veins like sap. His mouth dropped open. His body sank deeper and deeper into the starchy white sheets. His mind sank deeper and deeper into his body. He absorbed himself. Deeper and deeper. He wished all of it away. Deeper and deeper. He wished himself out of his drained body. Deeper and deeper. He closed his eyes and hoped.

“Did you ever write that research paper?” Paul’s voice was muffled and distant in the phone.

“Yeah…Why?” It was unusual for Jack’s father to be concerned about his class work. Jack tilted his head and squinted into a distant corner of the room with the phone pressed tightly against his ear. The sunset pierced into the room and grasped Jack’s face, shading it a brilliant orange and further agitating him. He sensed something was awry.

“I just want to know. Can’t I ask questions like that?”

“No, Dad, you can’t. What do you want?”

Paul sighed on the other end and the phone cracked. There was a long and uncomfortable pause.

“Did Mom have you call me?” Jack’s face grew hot and red at the thought of his mother. He felt his skin tighten. He wanted to leave the room, leave his body. He hated his father in that moment.

Jack could tell that Paul was trying to sound calm. Instead, his words came out anxious and uncertain. “No, just listen, Jack… Alana called us the other day…She’s worried about you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Your mother didn’t put me up to this. She’s not even here right n–”

“Alana? You talked to Alana? Why? Why, Dad? You know we’re through. Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Jack, just wait. Calm down. We barely talked. She just told me you were acting a little funny lately, and I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help you.” “Oh, yeah, yeah I’m sure. How are you gonna help me? All you and Mom ever say about me is how much I’ve ruined this Goddamn family. When will you just leave me alone? How the fuck would she know if I’m–”

“That is not all what we say about you, John, and I’ll hear nothing of the sort.” Jack could hear his dad’s voice assume the authoritative tone he always took up when beginning one of his long-winded history lectures. His bitter son froze in rage as he remembered why he had chosen to move so far away in the first place.

“Oh, bullshit. Don’t fucking talk to old girlfriends of mine. And next time you think I fucked something up, maybe you could ask yourself why fucking I hate you so much before you call me up like this. Just leave me the fuck alone.”

“Come on, Ja–”

Click. Jack slammed the phone down onto the receiver and whirled around to face the kitchen door as footsteps approached the kitchen. Anna casually stepped in with a smile hidden behind her feigned look of concern.

“Woah, what was that about?” Her eyes smiled at Jack and his fierce scowl began to fade in the reddening sunlight.

Jack collapsed forward and released a sigh, grabbing her in a firm embrace and sniffling, eyes watering, fingers trembling. “I’m just so sick of them. I don’t wanna have to deal with them anymore.”

Anna returned the embrace and looked into the sunset over Jack’s back from their rotting wooden windows. “I know…” She held Jack for a moment and Jack could feel her soft, warm breath against his shoulders. “Look, you’re gonna be okay though, alright?” She nudged him forward enough to look into Jack’s face. “We’ve got finals coming up, so you’ve gotta focus. Don’t let them win and slack because of their bullshit. You can get through this. I fucking know you can.”

Jack slumped against Anna’s rigid but comfortable body. “I can’t.”

Anna pulled him up, staring deep into his eyes once more with a stern but understanding expression. “You will.”

“Jack, get up.”

Anna?

“Jack.”

No.

“Jack!”

No.

“JACK.”

The woman at the side of Jack’s stale white bed grabbed Jack and shook his frail, bruised shoulders.

“Ma’am, I don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” a timid voice warned from a distant corner of the room.

The woman paid no attention and continued shaking Jack’s skeletal frame. “JOHN DAVID GORMAN, get up right this instant.”

No, it wasn’t Anna. It wasn’t her at all. Jack reluctantly forced his exhausted, wet eyes open and gazed at the ceiling. The ceiling spun and swooned as the woman continued shaking him. She peered over him and Jack caught a glimpse of her thin, pale face. Her thick black hair hung in spirals from her face, consuming it, cloaking it in darkness.

“Jack, you’re scaring your mother. Come on now, get up.” The shaking persisted.

Tears welled in the corner of Jack’s eyes and formed straight little streams down his face. He laid still and stared at the ceiling, waiting for her incessant shaking to come to an end.

“Mrs. Gorman! I’d like to have a word with you out in the hallway.” This time, it wasn’t the timid voice that beckoned Jack’s mother away; it was the happy, gray voice of Dr. Plaust.

Jack heard the woman burst into hysterical tears as she slid out of the doorway and into the hall. Tears streamed down his face and flattened the unruly blonde hair at the sides of his face as he forced back a slew of memories. He strained his body into rigid stillness and attempted to become invisible; attempted to leave the shiny gray hospital; tried to get out of his own brain. He felt like a child toying with existence on a lazy summer day. He was weightless, powerless. He was destructible.

Super-Automatic Again. (Cloud exercise.)

2009-11-30T00:53:00.000-06:00

We were supposed to take out an old story for this, correct? I don't know, that's what I did at least.

Sarah gazed at the incessantly ringing phone, trembling, her tears dripping down onto his letter. The sound pierced her spinning skull and bore into her brain. She felt the familiar taste of vinegar and vodka lunging at the back of her throat. In a haze, she reached for the phone and collapsed onto the table in the blackened kitchen.

"Hey, what's up?" It was Jessica. Sarah's head began to throb as she collected what little cognition remained.

"Mmhey, Jess..." There was a pause. Sarah's head fell against the phone and she dropped the letter to the floor.

"Is something wrong?"

Silence.

"You weren't at work today. Terri's fucking pissed. We had to call in Clark and everything. ...I'm sure Patrick missed you too." Jessica produced a short, nervous laugh.

"Fuck that. Just tell her to fire me...fucking bitch..." Sarah's mumbling was hardly audible, but Jessica had gotten used to it. She had mastered the art of unscrambling Sarah's drunken slurs.

"Come on. What happened? Can you just tell me?"

"Whathefuck does it matter?" Her speech grew less and less coherent as Sarah drifted farther away.

"Did Bill try and fuck with you again? Is it your dad? What's happening?"

"It's the fucking letter. You should read what that bastard said to me. 'S fucking atrocious."

"Hey, come on. He's an asshole. You gotta stop doing this to yourself."

Sarah erupted into hysterical tears "I know but I just can't stop and it hurts so badly and I fucking hate him but I can't stop with this what am I supposed to do?" Her words came out suddenly and delicately like the string of saliva dripping from her mouth to the table. "He fucking told me he wants Sadie back. She's my dog, you bastard."

Jessica listened to Sarah sob uncontrollably into the phone until she couldn't handle it anymore. "Stop it. I'm coming over. Just unlock the door right now."

Hostility - All Chopped Up

2009-11-23T00:31:00.000-06:00

“Well God damn it, you have me. Why would I be sitting here right now if I didn't care deeply about you? You have Toby. There are other people who love you and want to help. Don't be difficult. Just get through this. You know you're stronger than this. Stop being-”

“You don’t understand. You don't know how much it hurts. Physically. How much it aches and burns. You don't realize what it’s like to be taking all of these pills. All I see here is white. Everywhere. Every time I open my eyes. Everywhere I go. Nothing has meaning or depth or light. Everything is empty. Even the faces here are blank. You don't know how hard it is to push myself to stay in reality.”

"You haven't been living in reality for the past five years of your life, Jack! If you could somehow push yourself through that, you can get through this place. Your problem is that you always want to act tough, but it’s not what you need right now. You're just making yourself out to be a stubborn sunofabitch."

“No, don’t fucking say that, Anna. You don't know what this is like. People don't like suicidal maniacs, even if they've gone through ‘recovery’. I don’t have a job, I don’t have a home. My family won’t even fucking talk to me. I swear to God…

“Well, you have no other options. If you keep doing this to yourself, you'll likely die. Do you really want that? That’s not the person I’ve called my best friend for the last fifteen years.”

“Why should I push through this if there's nothing on the other side? What good am I, dead or alive?”

“You matter to me. That's what I'm telling you. Arguments or no, I've fucking been there for you. For as long as I've known you, I've been there. And up until five years ago, you had always been there for me. I intend to keep doing this until the end.”

“Yeah, whatever. Why are you really here? What is this going to do? Give me hope that I'll push through all of this? I don't want to fucking be here.”

To this day, he was convinced that she had no idea. So he had made compromises. For years, they were best friends. She was under the impression that this was still the case. Jack didn't admit it to himself, but Anna was still the most important person in his life. It was just so hard to think about her. So many memories of his former self appeared when he remembered Anna’s long brown hair, her bold blue eyes, or the sharpness of her gracefully contoured jaw. When he remembered her, he remembered all of his friends. All of the times they had laughed together. All of the times he had smiled at her. He missed the laughter and the shouting and all their snide, sarcastic remarks. Nowadays, when he spoke to her, he was never really there. Long ago, Jack had decided that he couldn't be – that it would hurt too much otherwise.

Jack watched his eyes moisten in his reflection on the floor. That day, he was forced to be there when they spoke. The moment he looked into Anna’s eyes and recognized her compassion, he had almost lost the ability to keep up his guard. It was a miracle that he hadn’t broken down and cried in front of her. He didn’t dare tell her all he felt in those moments, but she knew. Everything else was blank and lifeless, and his passions were thus magnified against the bleakness of their situation. Before she trotted away in her pressed business suit and spiky shoes, he remembered the day that he and Anna had skipped school together and spent the afternoon in the empty wilderness of Pennsylvania. He remembered all of the colors of that day.

It was all the way back in the fall of their Sophomore year of high school. They found a valley in the middle of a dense forest and laid there for hours, lazily staring up at the sky and laughing with one another, letting the greens and browns and blues completely absorb their flesh, chasing each other through the poplar trees and singing…

“Fuck.”

“What's wrong?”

“I don't know if I can keep doing this. It's killing me.” Jack’s eyes wandered across the linoleum-tiled floor until they rested on a dusty corner of the room.

“You can get over it.”

“It's broken. All of it.”

“What is?”

“My life. I can't fix this. Everywhere I go, this’ll follow me. …It’s God damn freezing in this place.”

“Don't say that. Please don't say that. You can get through this,” said Anna, leaning closer to Jack and struggling to make eye contact with the disfigured shell of her friend. Without detracting his gaze from his corner, Jack could feel her hovering over his pale face. He felt the cool breeze of her breath and the delicate essence of cherry blossoms at her neck. Hypnotized by the memory of better years, Jack looked up for a moment to meet Anna’s ocean-blue eyes. Immediately, he recognized a now-unfamiliar look of genuine compassion. Anger boiled up from his soul and colored his face a vibrant pink. She spoke again, “I can help you as soon as you get back on your feet. You'll never be without-”

“There’s just no way out. I’m going right back to the bruises and the scars as soon as I get out of here. I know it, because that’s how this happened. I don’t have anything left to enjoy.”

“You can stay with me and Toby. You still have friends. We love you and we’re just waiting for a chance to help you.” Anna tilted her head in the way Jack’s therapist always did when she attempted to fool him into “opening his heart chakra”. When he saw someone tilt their head in that manner, he almost never opened up. For Jack, there was nothing more insincere and alienating than that simple tilt of the chin.

“No, that's not how it is. You know it isn't. The friends I had before this stopped hanging out with me the minute I started doing all this bullshit, and I'm not-”

Nothing had a taste or a smell. The doctors told Jack that he had ruined a large portion of his sensory capabilities in the accident. He thought they were full of shit. They wanted everything to be fucking neutral, no tastes or sounds or enjoyment or pleasure. Not here. Here, you waited. You waited for comfort and love and light. And sometimes, you waited for darkness.

Once Anna left, Jack dragged his pale, meek body into the bathroom. He gazed at his reflection in the metal sheet that functioned as a mirror. Open wounds and bruises engulfed his flesh. His skin was yellowed and fell from his bones. His eyes were blackened and hung from folds of skin attached to his skull. His perception of his semblance was, like so many other things in his life, indecipherable.

Some days, he was proud of it; some days, he looked into that obscured mirror and smiled, laughed with his reflection. To him, these were reminders of who he was and where he had been – they were battle scars. He had waged a war against the universe.

Anna stood, flattened her blouse and turned to leave. In an instant, Jack’s hard metal door slammed behind her and he was alone again. With a fixed composure, she walked the length of the hall without wincing even once. Jack stood to watch her slip from his grasp once more. She’ll be in tears before she starts the car. He knew it.

It was cold in that place. Most of the time, Jack curled up in his thin, stale bed and shivered, closing his eyes to block out all of the white. White sheets, white walls, white floors, white lights. No windows. Here, everything was dull and baseless.

“And there’s just about nothing you can do to stop me. I care about you more than most people I know.”

“Mm. Yeah, that's nice. It’s just that guilt won't see me through this. I’m sorry.”

“You're going to get through this.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’re going to do it, and you’re going to do it for me.”

“I’d rather die.” Unable to allow himself to sympathize with Anna, Jack shouted back at her with more passion than he had let on.

“You don’t mean that.” Anna slowly tilted her chin and attempted a softer tone with Jack once more.

“I do. You can hate me for it if you want, but death is better than this. I’d rather have sheer darkness than these blank white walls.”

“Fuck you.”

“Two minutes, guys. Let's wrap it up.” The guard tapped on Jack’s door and peered in on the pair for a moment. His voice had retained its unsubstantiated tone of authority through the muffling effect of the thick glass window to Jack’s room.

Anna glared at the guard. After a brief, discomforting moment, she returned her gaze to meet Jack’s tired brown eyes. “I'm going to call you every day, and you're going to tell me how much it fucking hurts. How cold it is. How alone you are. If you don’t pick up, I’m coming here myself. If you refuse to see me, I’ll wait here until you get your shit together.”

“Jesus. Good luck.”

“Same to you. Get some sleep tonight, you need it.”

“You do the same. Don't stay up all night with Toby, like I know you kids do.”

“This is why you're going to get through this. My best friend shouldn't be this much of a prick.”

On other days, which occurred more frequently, it was simply what he had become. That horrible reflection was who he was, and none of it made any difference. In his mind, no one who he cared to justify would scrutinize his behavior, and it was all a matter of time until his existence came to a close.

On those days, he forgot about Anna. He forgot about how madly he had loved her so many years ago. How she had completely overlooked that fact on so many occasions.

horribly out-of-tune melodies. On that day, it was hard for them to go their separate ways, even once the horizon began to engulf the sun and fear crept over the dusty woodlands.

The sheer vividness of the memory forced the moistness in Jack’s eyes to condense and form eager little droplets of pain. He hated the hall monitors. He hated the time constraints. He wanted time to stay with Anna for hours and tell her everything. He wanted to share his memories and his feelings at a time when it was hard to feel. He wanted to play hide-and-seek in the Pennsylvania thickets again.

He remembered how this had happened as the tiny droplets in his eyes broke from his skin and fell silently onto the icy rotting sink.

Everyone was in limbo. Jack came to understand that this was intentional. They wanted all of their patients to experience birth once more. They wanted nothing to influence their state of being until somehow, miraculously, they pulled through – or otherwise walked away to pick up where they left off. The latter was more likely the case.

In this setting, troubled little Jack learned to make friends quickly, and as soon as age allowed, he spent most of his nights away at friends' houses, dreading his return to his miserable and confusing life.

Jack’s gaze grew foreign and distant in his distorted, metallic reflection. He removed his shirt and ran his eyes over his flesh like a doctor over a morgue-bound patient’s body; never acknowledging the disturbing nature of his appearance; never acknowledging his identity as a human. Jack ran his cold, bony fingers over the swollen, gaping scars on his arms. Today, these were battle scars. Today, he chose to remember who he was.

He wanted her to hold him and tell him he would be okay as he wept on her shoulders. But this was prevented by all the fucking nurses and guards and doctors swarming about in the halls – more reminders of the horrible nature of his character. More reminders of how deeply he had proven himself a fuck-up.

Every day of his life, he blamed his parents for his failures. He accepted his shortcomings as such, but they were never his burden. For this, his family resented him. But it was true that they were never loving or supporting of him.

His mother was schizophrenic. All of his early memories of home involved his mother and her screams. Sometimes, knives were involved. At other times, demons were imagined. Back then, no one helped. Nothing made it better. His father didn't care – or at least Jack thought that he didn’t care, on account of the fact that he was always gone. On most days, Jack was left with his mother, scared and sad. When his father came home, Jack would shut himself off in his room and refuse to speak to his dad. And aside from her frantic screams, his mother never really spoke to him.

The beginning of The Matrix' "call to adventure." (Trip to the movies exercise.)

2009-11-09T00:37:00.003-06:00

The darkness of the Neo's basement apartment sunk in to every crevice on every shelf and every stack of dusty CDs. The light from his computer screen cast a greenish sci-fi hue upon his sleeping eyes. His pale face rested against a dusty white keyboard, and large puffy headphones encapsulated most of his head. The screen turned black and Neo's eyes shifted beneath his eyelids. Wake up, Neo... His eyes snapped open. He lifted his clamy stubble-covered face from his lanky arms and gazed up into the computer screen. Plain white letters against a plain black background read, "Wake up, Neo..." MS-DOS? he thought, his pale green eyes squinting from beneath their sleepy vail.

"What?" he uttered to himself, pulling the headphones from his head.

The screen responded, "The Matrix has you..."

"What the hell?"

"Follow the white rabbit," Neo's head began to spin. "Knock knock, Neo..."

A fist pounded against his chipped wooden door. He sprang back, his lingering state of cognitive dissonance looming over him and weighing down his body.

I chose to write this passage using The Matrix because it's one of the few movies that doesn't obviously and cheesily use mythic structure in its storytelling - at least in the case of the first movie. And even when the story's structure shows through, it doesn't seem to be so unattractive, just because the tone of the whole thing is so different from that of other movies that follow the mythic storytelling pattern. I also think it teaches us how tone and the details can really make a story believable and interesting, especially when it's a plotted story.

And I found it intriguing that all parts of the mythic structure are satisfied within this story, even though it's only the first part of a multiple-part story.

"The Date of Our Lives"

2009-11-01T13:23:00.006-06:00

God, I'm SO BAD at writing in the first person. This isn't supposed to come off as some weird, self-conscious, crappy garble...

That girl burst through the door and I recognized her right away. She seemed so much more normal on her profile, but in that restaurant in the candlelight...God, she was hideous. I remember thinking, What does she think she's doing, showing up to a date with someone like me? I remember sizing her up. She was unbalanced, unsure of herself, uncomfortable, but she tried desperately to look calm and at-ease. She probably had never been on a yacht. She probably went to a public university. Or worse - a community college... Dear God, what if her parents were poor? That's probably why she went to community college. She probably hated businesspeople - and probably just because she resented us for making more money than her. Ugh, she was probably a writer or something. Just pitiful.

I decided right there that the date would not be happening. I couldn't be seen in the restaurant with that awkward, dark, creepy girl. What would the guys think if they saw me there with her? There were probably people from work. We were probably the only people in this town with the class to be able to dine here. I opened the menu and buried my face in it. This girl wasn't even worth the prices on that menu. She'll think I stood her up. It'll be fine, I thought. And it would have worked. She wouldn't have seen me if I hadn't looked up for a second to make sure she wasn't watching me.

Oh god, don't recognize me. Don't take one step closer to me. I could feel her disgusting presence. It felt like she made the floor shake. She was fat, not even shapely, and she lacked grace entirely. The silverware even began to tremble as she approached me.

"Hi.." She said, trying to get my attention. She came closer, staring right at me. I didn't respond.

"You're Evan, right?" God, even her voice was disgusting. She was from some Midwestern town. Probably not even a city. She's probably some blank, mindless organic-farm-type liberal.

"I think you're mistaken," I glanced up at her, annoyed, and promptly buried my face deeper into the menu. God, I hoped no one saw her with me.

"Hahaha..don't be silly. I remember you! From your profile picture. I'm Kat," she was loud too. People could totally hear her. She jerked her wrist forward at me, expecting a handshake. I stared blankly at her, making clear that I did not care for her presence. This girl was not worth my time. She wasn't worth the fresh polish on my shoes. She wasn't worth my clean shave, my navy blue suit coat, my perfect hair cut. I wanted her to just get away from me.

She sat down anyway. Just like that. I didn't even ask for it, didn't even say it was okay. She just did it. That's when I knew that would become the worst night of my life.

An Hero Exercise.

2009-10-25T17:15:00.005-05:00

Rrring.

Rrrring.

Sarah clutched the phone in her hand and sat up, staring at Joel's picture on the vibrant little screen.

Rrrrrring.

He was wearing a bright pink safety vest and posing with a cardboard cutout of a cop.

Rrrrrrrring.

She didn't want to answer. She didn't feel like she could endure it. But she knew she needed to hear his voice. Without that, nothing would get better.

Rrrrrrrrrring.

Joel's breath quickened and his head throbbed. Each moment became heavier and heavier. With each moment, every somber, static ring on his end of the phone grew longer and louder. He waited. He couldn't let his mind produce thoughts. He just waited.

"Hey..." Sarah's voice was muffled. Had he not known any better, Joel would have assumed the sniffling and the rustling of bedsheets on Sarah's end were just static. As tears broke to the surface of his rich, hazel eyes, he wished he could assume it was static.

"Why weren't you at school today?"

"..You didn't have to call. I'm fine."

"Yeah but, why were you gone?"

"I'm usually gone now. You know that." Sarah faked a light-hearted laugh.

"...Can you just tell me why?"

Sarah broke out in tears again. He could hear her pushing the phone under her pillow and burying her face in the warmth of her crisp red bedsheets. Her cries grew muffled and even more distant. Joel knew a lot about Sarah. He knew more than he had ever wanted to know. He knew she had been lying in her bed and sobbing for most of the day. He knew that Sarah wouldn't have let him ear her cry if she could have helped it. And he also knew that Sarah had probably hurt herself again, and that it was probably getting worse. He let Sarah sob into her pillow for a while. There wasn't anything else for him to do. But he was there.

Sarah gritted her teeth. Stop crying. Please stop crying. She tried desperately to stamp down all of her tears and terrible thoughts. She knew Joel could hear her. She knew he wouldn't hang up, no matter how much it hurt him. She knew that he had probably gone into his room immediately and buried his face into his old orange bedsheets, and she knew that now he was waiting to hear her speak again. She also knew that she wasn't ready to ask for his help, so she stalled. She kept telling herself to be quieter, to stop hurting.

"Did you ask Sam about Precalc?" Sarah produced at last, sniffling and sobbing the whole way through.

"Yeah, he said they'd let me drop it. I just have to have Karlbiner write a thing about it.." Joel knew he was being distant. He didn't want to talk about math classes or school or other friends. Sarah was hurting, and he didn't know how to help. The essence of rosemary and grilled chicken drifted up from the kitchen and found its way into this nostrils. His stomach churned, and he wished he could vomit. He didn't want to go downstairs and live his happy life. He didn't want to eat dinner with his brothers and tell his parents about school. He wanted to stay right where he was, nestled in his worn old sheets, listening to his best friend sobbing and trying to breathe for the rest of eternity.

"You're smart. I should've dropped it. Mr. V was right in not recommending it for me." Sarah successfully averted her attention to math for a while. She remembered screaming into her pillow and throwing her phone to the ground when her esoteric, sweater-vested Trig teacher had calmly denied her request for a Precalculus recommendation. Instead, he recommended she enroll in Jr. Review, a remedial course for only the most dim-minded of North High.

"Dude, Mr. V is not the authority on math abilities. He has no sen-"

"Yeah but, come on, I've failed all three of his tests so far. He must've had a point."

"He couldn't have seen that this would happen. You'll do fine, you're fucking smart."

"Not psychopharmacological engineering smart."

"...Yeah y'are."

Sarah smiled slightly and warm, heavy tears rolled down her cheeks again.

"I overslept. I don't know what happened."

Joel stayed as quiet as possible. He tried not to breathe as he listened to the gentle hum of the static.

Sarah's breathing grew heavier as she restrained herself. She couldn't start sobbing again. She just had to do this.

Failure ("Explosion" from Making Shapely Fiction)

2009-10-25T12:39:00.006-05:00

Justin shivered in his bed, staring off at some point in the distance. She should have known. A breeze swept into his room and wrapped its icy fingers around his neck, shaking him and choking him. She should have known.

He's gone. He's really gone. Cara's breaths quickened. Her eyes widened. She stared at the mirror and fear crept into her throat and filled every crevice of her organs. She missed him. She loved him. She wanted her life back.

"I don't care if you have somewhere to go! I need the car!" Justin stared daggers into his mother's calm, forgiving eyes. I wonder how long this will last, she thought, prepared to play the game she had always played with her little boy.

"This is it, then. We're done?" Asked Cara, a snide smile hiding in her face. Justin's eyes welled with tears. Temper tantrums were always his specialty. He could cry for hours and hours as a child, and even if he got what he wanted, he might not stop. Cara left before Justin had the chance to begin his melodramatic, sob-filled tantrum.

Justin stood outside the art museum wringing his hands and, with tears in his eyes, searched desperately for a familiar face somewhere. She was never there on time. He was always the last one there after class. She doesn't love me. She never loved me.

"Justin, this is too much for me. I can't always listen to you cry like this. I need there to be happiness in this too. I need to feel like I'm not always taking care of you."

"No! I don't wanna go! No! No!" Justin hated doctors. He hated being pushed around. He just wanted the freedom of choice. He wanted to feel like he could do this on his own. He wanted to feel loved enough to be given those choices.

The Tide (just for fun)

2009-10-20T00:14:00.011-05:00

Cecilia stood at the edge of San Francisco's foamy ocean waves. Her soft, peach-colored lips parted slightly as she closed her eyes, drew forth her delicately freckled hands, and absorbed the cold, clean, salty air. California's burning orange sun grew heavy with sleeplessness and fell slowly from the sky, leaving broad, pink ribbons in its wake. Its lingering rays grasped her hair as it fluttered through the wind, kissing its metallic golden hues. Her thoughts ebbed and flowed with the motion of the water, and she felt whole. Here, everything was sacred. Life took hold of meaning. Existence was beautiful.

She tried to remember a time in the past during which everything had so much weight. Everything was so vague and lost lately. Nothing was substantial. Cecilia's glistening brown eyes snapped open to their own accord. She stared out at the sunset. Perched at the very edge of the water, she saw nothing but ocean from all angles of vision. There are too many tests, she thought. Indeed, there were too many ways in which the universe allowed itself to determine the meaning of her life. The water responded to the sun's glorious submission and buried her pudgy little toes deeper into the sand with each of its broadening waves.

Lately, the tests had become the only way to prove her life was worth living. Her ability, or lack thereof, to find the limits of a function's graph determined her place in the world. The extent of her love for Amelia determined her future happiness. Her level of commitment to whole foods and jogging determined the timeline of her existence. Her toes sank deeper and deeper into the sticky, viscous sand. The waves slowly climbed up her calves, engulfing her weightless linen pants. She closed her eyes once more and drew in a deeper breath. The denim fabric of her jacket wavered in the breeze and flew open with the insistent crash of each wave. Enraptured with her own thoughts, it seemed as though the universe, in all its intricate workings, had written out the course of life at conception, and once borne into it, one was not allowed an escape from the plan. The tests only revealed the workings of the universe.

"Fucking existence..." she muttered aloud, as seagulls sounded their harmonious mess call and took up the laborious task of dropping unsuspecting clams onto looming black cliffs and rocks from high above. She wondered if it was all worth it. She wondered how the universe could be so predictable; how so many people could live with the knowledge that their lives were already decided for them.

The waves buried her thighs momentarily as she remembered that she did not believe in destiny. Destiny is an archaic design of the Church, she reminded herself. It was an emboldening thought, but it lacked substance. Her only evidence of the world's workings was that she was perpetually being tested, and she had grown weary from it. She couldn't escape it. It was all too much. My only option is to wait it out and watch the tests, she had thought on so many occasions previous to that evening. Tonight, that was not sufficient. Tonight, watching the sun set over the unchanging ocean horizon, she had to know that life had more meaning.

Cecilia stared down at her legs. Her pants were floating in the water high above her calves as the sea embraced her and pulled her farther under. The water beckoned to her. It felt limitless and weightless against her skin. She felt so at home in the ocean's grasp. A clam shell drifted past her ankle, brushing gently against her with its mossy exterior. A thin smile graced her freckled face. There's just so much more beauty in simplicity. If there was a way to escape the inescapable workings of society, Cecilia would have jumped at the opportunity. This is the only way, she thought, as she watched waves pulse against her midsection and move up her spine as they continued in their brilliantly impending path. Flecks of water splashed against her cheeks. She closed her eyes once more. Here, at least, she was at home.

Chai Tea ("Character On A Mission" Exercise)

2009-10-16T16:54:00.018-05:00

It was cold outside. Snow began to condense atop the cracked brown grass of Wisconson's dairy pastures. Kathy smiled over at the site of it. Her fingers warmed at the thought of childhood memories while she sped east down the dusty gravel road.

Watching snow fall gently onto her windshield, Kathy was eventually seized with an intense desire for a warm, creamy, spicy drink. A chai tea latte would be so perfect right now. She looked at the clock on her dashboard. 12:17. I still have some time! Caron said there'd be a nice little coffee shop just outside Madison. I think I'll try and find it.

A half-hour had passed. After a frenzied search along the gravel roads of the countryside, Kathy finally found the little nook Caron had spoken of. A weathered whitewashed sign outside read Coffee & Pastries. She could smell the sweet, spicy aroma of her beloved tea as she shakily arose from the driver's seat of her car. Her mouth was salivating at the thought of the drink, making her thin red lips glossy and her bright green eyes rabid.

Like a zombie, she wearily approached the counter of the little shop. "Hi! It's chilly, isn't it? I think I'll take a medium soy chai." She said, feigning perkiness.

The teenager behind the register looked at Kathy with a crinkled expression of disapproval. "Yeah, we don't have chai tea. Or soymilk. Sorry."

Kathy blushed and lowered her eyes to the counter. She fidgeted with her purse for a moment, embarrassed by the whole ordeal. "Okay..thanks. I'll go somewhere else."

Back in the chilly leather interior of Kathy's Sudan, her desire for chai grew more intense. She waited in the car for a moment, deep in thought. She considered walking back into that place and asking where the nearest Starbucks was. The thought was choking. The stare of the hopelessly acne-ridden kid burned into her mind, hanging over her as she started up her car and went off on another search. 1:02...Caron won't mind if I'm a little late...

The Scholar (Snapshot, from Making Shapely Fiction)

2009-10-15T23:51:00.003-05:00

Kayleigh was on the verge of tears as she paged through her Kaplan books for the third time that day. She pressed the palms of her hands against her face and breathed deeply for a moment. Her hands felt worn against her smooth, pale skin. She was horrified. There was no way to get out of this; everything depended upon it. The words stared back at her mercilessly. Tears were forming in the recesses of her sinuses. She really didn't care about the slope-intercept form of an equation, or the meaning of the word "quizzical". But she sighed and got back to work. Her sister Marla was counting on this. Now that she had paid for all of her testing materials and workbooks, Kayleigh couldn't let her down.

Two years later, in a small, cluttered apartment, Kayleigh pored over her Calculus II textbook with a similar expression of fear and hopelessness. The class had seemed so important in September. Now, it was a barrier. Now, she started to feel fragile, like she could break at any moment. She wrestled with the four-inch-thick text, searching for a nonexistent meaning. Then, the memory of the disappointment and melancholy in Marla's face drifted into her consciousness. She couldn't stand to see that expression once more. The way Marla looked after she had announced her SAT scores was the only thing keeping her up late into the night.

On graduation day, she stood slumped over, a shell of her old self, unable to comprehend the weight of her accomplishment. Marla was in the audience, smiling up at her with wide eyes, cheering her on. Kayleigh felt herself drifting farther and farther away from the world as she watched herself grab her stage diploma and float across the platform with a blank, lifeless expression.

Marla approached her afterwards, with Kayleigh still dressed in her cap-and-gown. "I'm so proud of you. I'm so happy you made it this far." Kayleigh looked at her with an almost-empty expression as weightless tears welled up in her pale blue eyes. What do I do now? She thought to herself, unable to produce any words from her trembling lips.

Third-Level Dialogue

2009-10-14T01:46:00.004-05:00

"Hey, what do you think that is, buddy?" asked Brian, signaling to the large gray clouds which began condensing in the east.

"Looks like rain, maybe. Is a little water gonna kill you, Brian?" asked Adam.

"Could. What if it does?"

"Then you'll melt like the Wicked Witch of the West and we'll all rejoice in freedom."

"Man, I can't remember...whose idea was this to go walking through the cornfields? Who decided it couldn't wait another moment?"

"Yeah, I dunno man. Because he definitely should've known that the summer sky would turn gray in a matter of minutes. We should probably turn back, huh? Man, it sucks we'll be walking towards the rain. Who's the sad bastard here who chose the wrong direction?"

As quickly as the clouds had condensed, water burst forth from them and poured down on the pair. "Oh awesome! Looks like it's clearing up already! Aren't you glad we went on this walk?!"

"Yeah, man! Truly liberating experience. Wanna run home to mommy or do you want to wait till it passes and stop being a dick?"

"Oooh I dunno. Hanging out in this seems enticing, but man..."

Autumn's Wind (Visitation, from Making Shapely Fiction)

2009-10-08T11:03:00.007-05:00

Her silky black hair blew wildly in autumn's wind as she paced through the frigid rain. Her eyes burned against the cold, crisp morning, but she pressed forth while the glassy, looming office building stretched farther and farther from her grasp with each step and each freezing burst of wind. The city was still sleeping. She was alone on the ancient pavement, determined to make it to work an hour early as usual. Her pressed business suit and designer pea coat fluttered in the wind and the darkness of early morning.

"HEY. It's cold, don't you want a ride?"

Startled, Amy whirled around in a panic, her eyes staring daggers, only to find Paul's charming face gleaming back at her. Oh god. Not now. Not today. I have a presentation in two hours. If only he knew. "Jesus! Don't scare me like that. No, it's only another block or two. Thanks though."

"Well I'm not gonna let you walk through this. It's goddamn freezing."

She started out again without another word, the heels of her delicate brown boots tapping at the sidewalk with more persistence than before. Paul's car followed her, slowly puffing along through the cold, leaving a trail of fluffy grayish clouds in his wake. Why in God's name does he have to do this to me? Amy felt a lump forming in her throat and moving up towards her face. As she wondered how much farther the building really was, she became more painfully aware of the daringly short length of her skirt that morning.

After a good number of quickening footsteps, Paul spoke again. "I don't know what's wrong with you. It's fucking cold. If this has something to do with your birthday, you've gotta get over that. Why don't you just get in the car?"

Why won't you just leave me alone? "Really, I'm fine. It's nice of you to offer, but don't worry about it." Dusty brown leaves crunched beneath Amy's leather boots.

An awkward pause ensued as Amy looked off into the distance, wondering if Paul could see the tears welling up in her eyes, hoping he couldn't see her fingers trembling as they clutched her briefcase tighter and tighter. She knew there were volumes of things she had kept deep inside her for too long. She knew she had to speak to Paul at some point, if for no other reason than to tell him how much she loathed him. But it was so hard. It was so hard to think of him, to look at him, after what he did to her. After what he subjected her to.

Paul's minty breath floated in puffy white clouds down Amy's spine. "I didn't want that to happen to you. They weren't my friends... God, I didn't bring you to Jimmy's that ni-"

Tears streamed down her face as she turned to face Paul. "Goddamnit, can't you just shut up? I can't take this anymore. I can't have you following me to work. I can't, I just can't do this. I don't want to see you anymore. I don't want to be around you. Why don't you get that? I can't even-"

"But it wasn't my fault! Jesus, I love you sweetie. Why would I do that to you?"

"Oh don't give me that bullshit right now. ...You..knew..they were...waiting there for me. You goddamn knew it!" Amy's chest heaved as she spoke through rivers of tears and broke out in sobs.

"Even if I did - and I didn't - does it really matter right now? It's cold. You're walking. You need a ride." Paul was still smiling out at Amy with his charming brown eyes and tousled blonde hair, pretending nothing was the matter; that the love of his life wasn't sobbing in front of him at that very moment; that everything would work out between them, even after she rejected his phone calls for months on end; that the horrible events of Amy's 27th birthday couldn't really change things between them.

"That night was awful! You're...such...a jerk" She said between sniffs and sobs, her cheeks burning red. "You..used me..."

The bells atop a mossy green cathedral chimed 7am somewhere off in the distance. Amy knew she was late, but she stood frozen on the pavement, bursting with tears as the wind whipped her white-hot cheeks and tore away at her coat.

"Baby, shh..it's gonna be okay. Shhh..don't say that. Look, you have some time before work. Let's warm up and get some coffee. Does that sound-"

"I want you gone. I want you out of my life. I don't want to see your tacky hairdo, or your faked smile, or your crappy, beat-up car, or your J-Crew sweaters. Never again." She spoke at a barely audible pace as she moved closer, her tears dripping down onto the rusted white paint of Paul's old Geo.

Paul stared at her with shining eyes, admiring her for her watery blue eyes and her wind-worn hair. She was beautiful to him. He could never see her as anything else. No longer watching the road, he leaned closer and closer to her, admiring the warmth of her pale body as his face nearly nestled into her rough, worn coat.

Fully aware of Paul's obliviousness, Amy leaned down. "Do you hear me? Don't you get it?! You hurt me! I hate-!"

Seizing the opportunity of Amy's face so close to his, he stole a final kiss from her, reaching out to firmly clutch her angled hips and pull her tightly against the car door. He could feel her writhing against his grasp, but he couldn't release her. Entirely oblivious to the livening setting around him, he turned in his seat to face his Amy more closely, unbuckling as he did so.

Paul felt Amy scream into his lungs as he ruthlessly dug his tongue into her mouth. He felt her hands grasping the window and pushing against the car. Had he opened his eyes for even a moment, he would have understood this. He pulled her closer, sucking her face into the window just as he felt her freeing from his grasp. Feeling his impassioned kiss come to a close, he stopped for a moment, holding her there as he gazed up into Amy's terrified expression. Vexation overcame him and, out of frustration, he turned to face forward.

The clouds had just begun to turn a pale pink as the sun's rays penetrated through clouds and fell against the tall buildings surrounding them. A scream sounded through the crisp morning air. A large, sinister SUV collided with the unhappy couple.

It was Paul's scream. Amy was already too far gone. Her neck collided with the edge of Paul's window on impact and her body dragged across the sidewalk for a distance before the disks in her spine slipped and snapped her weakened body into a million little pieces, rendering her lifeless. Paul, at least, had a moment left in which to scream before he dissolved into oblivion.

(Wow. I think I might actually hate this story. If only it was good enough to even be considered for massive editing...)

Super-Automatic ("A Day In The Life", from Making Shapely Fiction)

2009-09-28T01:33:00.007-05:00

On Saturdays, Caribou was always the busiest store in Southdale. Every truly sophisticated Edina shopper needed a designer latte to sip whilst perusing through their beloved department stores. Naturally, the place was abuzz behind the counter. Steel on steel chimed and clanked as milk steamed and coffee brewed into huge metal carafes. Laughs sounded through the open kiosk and into the mall as eccentric Baristas attempted to create a lively workplace.
Then, suddenly and as if by instinct, every twenty-something worker-bee grew silent and looked to the floor. Patrick had arrived.

"Two large double-moosed iced lattes, no ice in the drink, ice to the side." And the order was up. He didn't need to say it; didn't need to add his pretentious stress on the second syllable of latte. They knew.

In her corporate-standardized polo shirt and ponytail, Sarah watched nervously as rich brown espresso poured down into little steel pitchers. They always seemed to take ages longer than necessary. Often, the shots were what slowed her down; what kept the suburbanite customers anxious to get back to their endless shopping; what made them judgemental of her character. Fuck! They don't get it. I can't make this many drinks with two machines, she often thought to herself, wondering how it could be that one of their three glorious machines was perpetually broken. The order screen flashed bright green as Sarah attempted to speed up Caribou's sub-par, barely-functioning "super-automatic!" espresso-creators through telekinesis. This was not an artful career. To give this job the title of "Barista", Sarah thought to herself as she grew more and more impatient with each of the machines, was, by far, an unjustifiable glorification. Twelve shots - push the button six times. Pour milk. Espresso. Cap drink. This was a wage-slave's life.

"Make sure to add the milk first. I don't want a melted cup." Patrick snapped with a tone of authority.

"Mhm!" Sarah replied, forcing a smile as she turned to stare at the middle-aged regular. Even with all the required smiles, she knew he would never forgive her for her first shot at those damned lattes over a year ago.

Long ago, Sarah dreamed of a life far more successful than this. Scholar. Artist. English major. Ivy Leagues. Now, at 22, she was struggling to finish her generals in community college without help or sympathy from loved ones.

Most days, she made her job mindless and shut herself off from the terrible corporate-ness of the job. She arrived, tied on her apron, punched in and started timing the shots. She had become super-automatic herself. She did what she was programmed to do, went home, abandoned study, drank herself to sleep and started the cycle over once more in the morning. At this point, Sarah no longer cared about the pursuit of happiness. Now, those sluggish espresso shots seemed to stand in her way more than anything else.

The Menu

2009-09-28T00:51:00.014-05:00

What makes you angry?

Careless grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes.

Nagging.

Misunderstanding.

Inability to explain on my part.

Inability to articulate.

Malevolence.

Irrational behavior.

Incompetence.

My mom.

What are you afraid of?

~~The future.~~ My future.

A life in poverty.

Pain.

Stress.

Romantic relationships.

My dad.

My brother, for becoming my dad.

What hurts?

Memories of living with my dad.

Memories involving my family.

Memories of past relationships.

The past in general.

Careless mistakes.

A loss of hope.

What really changed you?

First, working 30 hours a week during last year, my Junior year (of high school), while living with my father - a careless, detached, malevolent, abusive, newly-unemployed, newly-un-medicated bipolar fiend. Coming home at 11pm most weeknights to desolation and recklessness. Being terrified of him - being terrified of the future - for not having a job. Becoming completely financially independent against my will. Hating every piece of my life more and more as the days dragged on. Having less and less power over my situation. Falling farther and farther behind in school. Slowly losing all hope for the distant future. Losing hope for getting into a good school. Losing hope for a decent career. Losing hope for happiness. Once a straight-A student with high hopes for Berkeley, Carleton, Boston University, I became a hopeless, sorry, self-pitying wage slave at the age of sixteen.

On top of that, being arrested the spring of that year (that is, spring 2009) after assault on my father's part and his consequent delirious lies. Spending five hours in an detached iron-walled cell in a Juvenile Intake Center in downtown Minneapolis. Not knowing where I was going next. Not knowing how long I had been there. Crying, bawling for hours and hours with no answers, no compassion. There was dried, caked blood smeared on the walls. I became temporarily insane. I reasoned for a long time and came to the conclusion that suicide would soon be my only reasonable option for an end to the madness. I forced myself to envision my best friend, Ben, as vividly as possible, with his rough, black beard and bright pink mohawk, hugging me tightly and telling me it was going to be okay, that I was loved. I cried. I cried. I cried.

Later, I was handcuffed again and taken to a Juvenile Detention Center. I spent a tearful, sleepless, shameful night there, hating myself between the tears and beginning to believe my dad's horrible, horrible lies. I thought I was a monster. The entire time I was there, I forgot I was the victim. My entire life changed very quickly after this.

(Yuck. I'm sorry. Dramatic stuff.)

The Art of Oblivion ("Iceberg" from Making Shapely Fiction)

2009-09-24T01:44:00.012-05:00

So, I realize that both characters are probably supposed to be argumentative/angry, but I enjoyed how this strategy panned out, so I'm keeping it this way.

"You know, I think it's impeccable. Her eyes never move, yet she's always watching you." Hubert commented slyly as he strolled through The Musée du Louvre, Anne-Marie dutifully following at his side. "Back when I was in Harvard, my art history teacher used to tell us how..."

Anne-Marie anxiously fiddled with her necklace, trying to decipher his words as they floated through space and made attempts to register in her consciousness. Her icy blue eyes filled with white hot tears. He's a fool. A damn fool. "Yes, she's beautiful... Mhm, you're right... Oh, I didn't notice that before..." Somehow she managed not to scream these words in his face. I don't want to be here with him. I don't ever want to be anywhere with him.

After the fifth lackluster night in Paris with Hubert, Anne-Marie had decided that she'd had enough. She was beginning to realize that her simple adolescent fantasy had suddenly revealed itself as a sham right before her eyes, and all five years too late. Hubert was one of those "culturally-enriched" intellectuals who always had something more intriguing to talk about than your topic of conversation. Long ago, this was charming. Many years previous to that night, Anne-Marie visualized running away with Hubert and spending their life together in a little dwelling in the south of France. Now, he was hideous. Everything about his personality wreaked of pretension and baselessness. As the days progressed, he became more and more visually disgusting to her, and it was a constant struggle for Anne-Marie to stay passive and submissive.

Oh, she's intrigued. She loves me, I know she does. And she's so lucky to have met me. Such a simple girl. We'll make a beautifully contrasting couple. Hubert mused as he fingered the massive diamond fastened to the ring he kept in his pocket that night. And what of her parents? They'll be so proud. Their son-in-law. A Harvard Law graduate. "Oh and oh my! The Death of Sardanapalus! Such an interesting historical value to this, don't you think, dear? And look at the detail!"

Hubert's words sounded like lines from a terrible, cheesy movie. Anne-Marie's stomach began to churn. How does he not see how livid I am with him right now? I must be completely flushed. Has he even so much as glanced at me all night? Her face was flushed, as a matter of fact. So flushed, in fact, that other tourists began to eye Anne-Marie in what appeared to be fear. Still, Hubert didn't notice. "Hubert, I don't feel well." She managed to produce as she began to perspire with rage. There must be a way out of here. I can't take another second of this.

Well, she'd better get better. Hubert thought selfishly as he gazed at the intricacies of the frame to a piece of history. He anxiously tapped the marble floors with his freshly-polished wing-tips and began to resent Anne-Marie for jeopardizing the plans. "Hm? Oh, you'll get better, darling. Maybe it's jet-lag. Or maybe you're just swooning over me," he added with genuine satisfaction. Charming and funny. How could she say no?

Anne-Marie was now entirely certain that she was finally through with Hubert. "I think you should feel my forehead. Do I have a temperature?" Turn around and look at me, you egotistical pig! Her eyes burned with fury as she stared fervently at the back of Hubert's hideous olive-tinted suit.

Oh, God. Can't you handle just five more minutes? Are you really that uncultured? "You know, we're almost all the way through. We came a long way for this." Hubert smiled as he turned to meet Anne-Marie's gaze. He looked her in the eyes a moment and turned around once more without noticing a thing. What a child! She thinks she can just ruin our night at The Louvre because she's feeling under the weather? Hah! Oh, if Jemaine was here to see this! Such a beautiful sight. Yet such a pity to be wasting the night with a child. That's just how women are, I suppose. Always wanting attention and power and little presents...

Completely absorbed in his own thoughts, Hubert had failed to recognize the swift slither of Anne-Marie's silk dress and the serious tap-tap-tap of her Italian designer pumps as she briskly and pointedly walked away from him. I'll go back to the hotel and I'll get all of my belongings. He probably won't even bother to catch up to me. I'll find another place to stay and I'll trade in my plane ticket. He'll never look for me again. He doesn't have to.

A few minutes later, once Hubert distracted himself from his thoughts and resumed commenting on all his favorite paintings, he realized that there were no reassuring remarks or little praises coming from behind him. He turned, horrified and shocked, to find a cluster of tourists staring back at him with confusion. He dug his hands into his pockets and turned around, unable to think. He pushed past the crowd and felt for the ring in his pocket. His pride and joy. It's here. They're just deep pockets. ...Well, I can't lose both in one night. But he had lost his girl and his glory that night. They were gone.

Hostility (A Story in Under An Hour)

2009-09-20T23:47:00.004-05:00

"Fuck."

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know if I can keep doing this. It's killing me."

"You can get over it."

"It's broken. All of it."

"What is?"

"My life. I can't fix this. Everywhere I go, this will follow me... It's God damn freezing in this place."

"Don't say that. Please don't say that. You can get through this. I can help you as soon as you get back on your feet. You'll never be without-"

"No, don't fucking say that, Anna. You don't know what the future will hold. People don't like drug addicts, even if they've gone through "recovery". I won't have a job, I won't have a house, my family won't fucking talk to me. I swear to God, there's just no way out. I'm going to start using as soon as I get out. I know it, because that's how I got into all of this. I don't have anything else to enjoy."

"You can stay with me and Thom. You still have friends. We love you and we're just waiting for a chance to help you."

"No, that's not how it is. You know it isn't. The friends I had when I checked in here just talked to me because they wanted crystal meth. The friends I had before that stopped hanging out with me the minute I started doing all this bullshit, and I'm not-"

"Well God damn it, you have me. Why would I be sitting here right now if I didn't care deeply about you? You have Thom. You have your sister. Don't be difficult. Just get through this. You know you're stronger than this. Stop being such an ass."

"You don't understand. You don't understand how much it hurts. Physically. How much it aches and burns. You don't understand what its like to be taking all of those pills. All I see here is white. Everywhere. When I wake up. Everywhere I go. Nothing has meaning or depth or light. Everything is empty. Even the faces here are blank. You don't know how hard it is to push myself to stay in reality."

"You haven't been living in reality for the past five years of your life, Jack! If you could somehow push yourself through that, you can get through rehab. Your problem is that you want to act tough, but you're just making yourself out to be a stubborn sunofabitch."

"Yeah, that's me. Why are you here? What is this going to do? Give me hope that I'll push through all of this? I don't want to fucking be here."

"You have no other options. If you use any drugs one more time, you'll likely die. Is that what you want?"

"Why should I push through this if there's nothing on the other side?! What good am I, dead or alive?"

"You matter to me. That's what I'm telling you. Arguments or no, I've fucking been here for you. For as long as I've known you, I've been there. And up until five years ago, you've been there for me. I intend to keep doing this until the end. There's just about nothing you can do to stop me. I care about you more than most people I know."

"Mm. Yeah, that's nice. Guilt won't see me through this though. Sorry."

"You're going to get through this."

"Bullshit."

"You're going to do it, and you're going to do it for me."

"I'd rather die."

"You don't mean that."

"I do. You can cry if you want, but death is better than this. I'd rather have sheer darkness than blank white walls everywhere."

"Fuck you."

Two minutes, guys. Let's wrap it up.

"I'm going to call you every day, and you're going to tell me how much it fucking hurts. How cold it is. How alone you are. If you don't pick up, I'm going to come here myself. If you refuse to see me, I'll wait here until you get your shit together."

"Jesus. Good luck."

"Same to you. Get some sleep tonight, you need it."

"You do the same. Don't stay up all night underneath Tommy, like I know you kids do."

"This is why you're going to get through this. My best friend shouldn't be this much of an asshole."

Anna turned and left in an instant, Jack's metal door slamming behind her. She walked briskly all the way down the hall without wincing once. She'd be in tears before she started the car. He knew it.

It was cold in that place. Most of the time, Jack curled up in bed and shivered, closing his eyes to block out all of the white. White sheets, white walls, white floors, white lights. No windows. Here, everything was neutral. Everyone was in limbo. This was intentional. It was like they wanted all of their patients to experience birth once more. They wanted nothing to influence their state of being until somehow, miraculously, they came through. Or otherwise walked away to pick up where they left off. The latter was more likely the case.

Nothing had a taste or a smell. The doctors told Jack that he ruined a large portion of his sensory capabilities. He thought they were full of shit. They wanted everything to be fucking neutral, no tastes or sounds or enjoyment or pleasure. Not here. Here, you waited. You waited for comfort and love and light. And sometimes, you waited for darkness.

When Anna left, Jack dragged his pale, meek body into the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror. Open wounds and bruises engulfed his flesh. His skin yellowed and fell from his bones. His eyes were dark and sunken in. His perception of this was, like so many other things in his life at the moment, indecipherable. Some days, he was proud of this. Some days, he looked into that mirror and smiled, laughed with his reflection. These were battle scars. He had fought and had won. Against what, he really didn't know. Other days, which occurred more frequently, this was simply what he had become. This was who he was, and none of it made any difference. No one who he cared to justify would be scrutinizing his behavior in the future.

On those days, he forgot about Anna. He forgot about how he had loved her madly so many years ago. How she had completely overlooked that fact. To this day, he was convinced that she had no idea. But he made compromises. For years, they were best friends. She was under the impression that this was still the case. Jack didn't admit it to himself, but Anna was the most important person in his life.

It was just so hard to think about Anna. So many memories of who he used to be appeared when he remembered Anna. All of his friends. All of the times they laughed together. When he spoke to her, he was never really there. He couldn't be. It hurt so badly.

That day, he was forced to be there when they spoke. The minute he looked into her eyes and saw compassion, he lost all ability to keep his guard up. It was a miracle that he didn't break down and cry in front of her. Everything in that room was stiff and unforgiving. There was no room for him to truly feel as he had expressed, and she knew it. Everything else was blank and lifeless, and his passions were thus magnified against the bleakness of their situation. Before she stormed out in her business suit and Prada shoes, he remembered the day that he and Anna skipped school together and spent the afternoon in the empty wilderness of Pennsylvania. That was all the way back in the fall of their Sophomore year of high school. They found a valley in the middle a dense forest and laid there for hours, lazily staring up at the sky and laughing with each other, chasing each other through the poplar trees, singing horribly out-of-tune melodies. It was hard to leave when the sun began to set.

He hated the monitors. He hated the time constraints. He wanted the time to stay with Anna for hours and tell her everything. He wanted to share his memories and his feelings at a time when it was hard to feel. He wanted her to hold him and tell him he would be okay as he wept on her shoulders. But he was pulled away from this by the fucking rehab guards. Another reminder of what a horrible person he was.

Every day of his life, he blamed his parents for his failures. He accepted his shortcomings as such, but they were never his burden. For this, his family resented him. They weren't loving or supportive parents. This was true. His mother was Schizophrenic. All of his early memories of home involved his mother and screaming. Sometimes knives were involved. Other times, demons were imagined. Nothing helped. Nothing made it better. His father didn't care. Jack thought he didn't care, because he was always gone. Jack would be left with his mother, scared and sad. When his father came home, Jack would shut himself off in his room and refuse to speak to Ralph. He never really spoke to his mother. Without siblings, troubled little Jack learned to make friends quickly. As soon as age allowed, he'd spend most of his nights away at friends' houses. When Jack was nine, his mother gave birth to another child. Somehow, this child survived. Somehow, she led a normal life. But this and an age gap kept Jack and his sister Mary in a perpetual state of fear of one another. Jack couldn't comprehend how she lived through his mother's insanity, how she still loved her. He sensed there was something horrible brewing deep inside Mary, but he kept it to himself.

Juggling Tears ("Juggling", from Making Shapely Fiction)

2009-09-14T00:34:00.002-05:00

A single, icy tear began to fall from her warm brown eyes. She kept her gaze focused on the glistening December snow clinging to the road and becoming liquid beneath the tires while she tried to find a way out. I can't do this anymore. Her lips froze shut from the cold and out of faked stability, her unsmoked cigarette leaving a trail of sad, blue smoke through the window and into the freezing winter air. It hurts. Suddenly, everything leading up to this moment became incomprehensible. Why didn't I run? She tried not to think about all the times he backed her into corners, breathing down her neck madly as he screamed incoherently into her face. A chill that ran deeper than December's cold crept up her spine. Being home for Christmas always did this to her. Still, she failed to turn on the heating. She tried to think of far more beautiful things. Tried to keep herself from allowing tragedy to become her own personal failure. Her fingers began to turn blue. She stared coldly through the frozen windshield.

I shouldn't feel this way. Pain meant that she wasn't strong enough. She should have been able to tolerate more, should have been more considerate. Her heart rate increased and blood rushed through her body. Her single, stubborn tear crept down her pale cheeks. Her eyes glazed over.

When she was little, he carried her through the snow when she was too cold. Once, when she forgot her boots at home, he carried her all the way home from school through a snowfall.Things were different now. There was only screaming and disconcert. He wouldn't listen when she asked for him for help. He became irritated when she begged for it. Somehow, when she was little and he cared for her, it was less noticeable when he yelled and pounded his fists and hurt people.

There was no whimpering. No heavy breathing. She at least could appear stronger. Her head pulsed and the skin on her knuckles cracked as she clutched the steering wheel, never turning or swerving. Every time things went wrong, she remained stoic. She faked strong.

Today, she fought back. He's right, I'm fucking stupid. At that moment, she had doomed herself. There was no reason to turn back.

Red and blue lights flashed brilliantly. A sound more beautiful than she could comprehend broke, and suddenly there was stillness. Peace. Blackness.

With her eyes closed and desolation surrounding her, that single, glorious teardrop fell from her face and landed on the ground beneath her.

Hoax Photos

2009-09-06T23:34:00.003-05:00

The most convincing photos were those that were not too out-of-the-ordinary, but had subtle yet dramatic differences from the pictures that were real. The reason that photos like these exist is that photographers are required to have powerful images in order for their photographs to be published. Often times, reality does not provide enough intrigue on its own, and the photographers are obligated to shift things to make their pictures more eye-catching.

Writers are obliged to embellish their stories in very much the same way. Because reading is a considerably more involved practice, the most successful authors will attempt to create the same eccentricities in their stories at every chance they get in order to keep the reader interested. It's also important to stay within the realm of the reality. For example, the photographs where things were blown way out of proportion were not very believable to me, and a story with a ridiculous setting might have the same effect. The writer has to play with what he knows to be true and turn reality into something more extravagant, rather than just going off in wild tangents and describing impossible events.

It was a bright cold day in April and all the clocks were striking thirteen. (Story Based on a First Sentence)

2009-08-30T13:04:00.007-05:00

We knew we were doomed. All around us was the implication that we were no longer free. It was in the advertisements on the subways, in the monotonous voice that boomed from the speakers in Time's Square and in the way that no one's eyes seemed to speak anymore.

She was beautiful when we met, but now how her eyes too had clouded over with gray. A hint of lemon zest tickled my tongue as the sweet nectar of my last bottle of wine trickled into my throat, and I tried to remember how we as a race had doomed ourselves. She was asleep now, and I could almost hear her empty, lustful breathing through the thick concrete walls of our quickly deteriorating apartment. Years ago, this was different. She was different. Before all of this, I could see beauty in her eyes and in every muscle of her body when she smiled at me. Her gently floral smell and sweet, delicate form used to burn into my mind, and I would savor the feeling of her hands touching mine days after her departure. But that was all before the television came into our lives.

It started with the radio. We knew not to listen to the advertisements, and we rarely ever listened to the music or news. Then it became a requirement. Then, even on publicly funded stations, we were being sold a world of things. We avoided television as long as we could, but it quickly engulfed us into its world of consumerism, just as it had with everyone else. As the days went on, we were robbed of free will more and more. We weren't just told what to buy, we were told when and where to buy it. We were given hints and tips on what would be cheaper, and before we knew it, we believed we were saving money by spending more. Then came the dresses and the suits, followed by an array of shiny appliances and uniquely stylized furnishings. Every year, we acquired more and more. We tried to fill our lives with as many material belongings as we could.

And every time I looked into her eyes, I could see her falling away from me. I could feel her slipping through my grasp, and I began to resent everything we had become. The cold air flooded into the den through our broken window and began to nip at my face and burn into my eyes as a single tear fell from my face and froze on our neatly waxed hardwood floor.

Boston (One Hundred and One Words)

2009-08-26T02:14:00.001-05:00

It's 4am and silence surrounds us. At 4am, the world is stagnant. There are no concerns or judgments. At 4am, when all the world is calm, I gaze down from hundreds of miles above. We are falling rapidly. Pressure engulfs us. We are told to remain seated, to fasten our seatbelts. Each inch becomes a mile, each second a test. I have never felt such apprehension. In minutes, I will be in Boston. There, my sister waits. Fear is everywhere. In Boston, there will be no peace or silence. I will smile. I will attempt graciousness. I will anxiously await acceptance.