Illicit · Quill
Think. Ink. Wink.
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Ruin my flesh. Ruin my flesh. Those carnal inconsistencies -- Hunger thwarted, desire humbled. Scrape me raw to bare foul devotee... Of lust that wants and haunts and crawls Within the craven eyes of thieves Who steal and wreck with shuddered gasp My degenerate and final plea, "Oh gods, ye gods, ruin me, ruin me..." |
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When experiencing a desert of the soul, it is better to be parched, and want for inspiration and imagination, than to run from mirage to mirage. When experiencing a desert of the soul, it is better to write about dry sand than to regale your companion with tales of rain that never comes. Yes. I think someone could get lost in here. In this wasteland. And I wonder, sometimes, if I am still walking the dunes, or if I have long since given up on the journey, and resigned myself to death. |
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"Lucinda?" "No. Lucida. Like the font." That's how I knew I had to have her. Something about words and flesh and the way she kept sucking on the end of a pair of chopsticks -- even though we were in a fucking coffee shop someplace close to the Rio Grande. Nothing Asian around here for a good hundred miles. Maybe it was the contrived way she did everything. Stacked her books just so. Just enough that I could see she was reading Kerouac and Thoreau like any other obedient progressive-liberal dipshit. When she wasn't fucking with the chopsticks, she stirred something noxious and brown, with bits of crap floating in it. Herbal tea. Badly strained. I noticed she never actually sipped it, only stirred. Somehow, I took this as a brilliant metaphor for her entire life. Always stirring, never drinking. All preparation, no experience. "I'll pay you twenty bucks," I said. "For what?" "To model for me. It's art. I'm a student." I show her my student ID, which is real, unlike most of my other IDs. Sure, I'm a student, but not an art student. I'm a student of people. And, of course she says yes. And of course she comes with me to my crappy flat. She's not looking forward to the money. It's the experience she wants. So she can tell her friends that -now- she is a paid art model. She's gorgeous and real and someone appreciates her for what she really is. |
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I trudge out into the snow, carrying all those things necessary for the journey to the lake. It’s not bad, the winter. Just cold. Cold and long. Maybe not so long, but it always seems like it never ends. So many of the trees are skinny and nude, but because of it, I can see so much more of the sky. Always so grey during these times, like ash mixed into snow. Why is the sky grey, but the snow that falls from it white? Maybe cinders from the Moon Maiden’s hearth have scorched the backside of the clouds. My red cloak drags behind me, and I must be careful not to let it catch on any errant sticks or rocks. Perhaps I should cut it down to size, but I’ve had to, on more than one occasion, use it as a makeshift tent. Well, I’ll grow into it. I think. I’m not quite full grown yet, surely. Or the mens’ clothes I find in the castle would probably fit me better. |
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This morning, I was flipping through the channels on television. I saw a televised broadcast of the Sunday morning sermon from local First Baptist Church. Now, this was the church I attended when I was a little girl. And, as I was watching this sermon, and I couldn't believe how much my writing style is influenced by those sermons I heard in my youth. Not so much philosophically, but structurally. The inflection, the tone, the way the preacher mixed humor, and fire and brimstone, and down-home wisdom to get his point across. And I thought to myself, "My goodness, the way this man talks to his congregation is often the same way I talk to the reader." I attempt to rile their passions, mildly horrify them, but always leave them with hope and a chance inner comfort by the end. How strange that I should have been so affected by something I so abhored. But, did I really abhor it? I don't think I did. I disliked the people. I found their beliefs to either be too simplistic, too exclusionist, or too contrary to the way they -actually- behaved in life. But, I always liked the sermons. The sermons were just storytelling, and I love a well-told story. I always liked a preacher who could find ways to reach -everyone- with what he was saying. Old people, young people, single people, married people... People who had just entered their church, and people who had been there for 50 years. A good preacher knows how to capture the attention of everyone in that room and speak to -them-. Just as a good writer can do the same. And, of course, I love the Texan tall-tale aspect of the sermon. Adding little side-stories that are in no way true, but get a point across. Speaking with an unmistakable accent. Sometimes saying things that make absolutely no sense, but sound pretty good when said correctly. Boy, oh boy, it brings me back. Being a little girl. Sitting on that pew next to my sister, coloring some page from our Sunday School homework as we listened to the sermon. Sunday morning was an -event- that started at 6:30 in the morning, and lasted until around 2:00 in the afternoon. (Longer if you went to evening services, as well. We did, on occasion.) So, yes. You get up at 6:30, and everyone eats breakfast, bathes and puts on their Sunday best, so that by 7:30 you're out the door. Sunday school (which is not just for children) starts at 8:00, and lasts until around 9:30, when the sermon begins. The sermon goes to around 11:45-12:00, and then you either eat at the church luncheon, or go out to eat. But, this is no ordinary lunch. This is a Sunday lunch, which involves discussion about Sunday school and the sermon, and often times requires you and your siblings to recite the Bible verses you were supposed to have learned. Once you came home from lunch, you had to change out of your Sunday best, read your Bible, do your Sunday school homework, and -then- you were released to go play. As long as you were quiet. Jesus abhored roughhousing, apparently. But, only on Sunday. So, anyway, as I was listening to the sermon, I transcribed some of what the preacher was saying. Just so others could have a taste of what it is like to listen to a Southern Baptist preacher speak. You have to imagine that this is all being said by a rather normal looking man in a suit. He's wearing glasses, and is balding, but otherwise looks like a high-school history teacher. |
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It’s cold, he thinks. Cold as a witch’s tit. Not that he had ever touched a witch, or any tits at all. But he knew what they were – the fine round globes that peeked through the lace-topped bodices of the court ladies in the portraits lining the Grand Hall. Not that any of those ladies were necessarily witches, but surely one or two of them might be. Vilewood Castle had a long history of magics, and at the very least, the original owner, Mistress Sianfyr, was said to have been so bewitching to men that her ladies-in-waiting burned stacks of love poems in the wintertime hearth to keep warm. So enchantingly beautiful was Mistress Sianfyr that married men who looked upon her forgot the names of their wives, or that they even had wives, and vowed instantly to love only Mistress Sianfyr forever and ever -- until Time, itself, died of old age . Needless to say, this was quite off-putting to the King, who happened to be Mistress Sianfyr’s regular (if not powerful) lover. So, the King bade his most brilliant men to construct a palace that would rival Sianfyr’s own beauty. They built this architectural wonder deep within Vilewood Forest, one of the most remote, most lush, and most dangerous areas in Obsidia. The vast greenery would hide Sianfyr from the world. And the forest’s magic would keep the world from Sianfyr. Unfortunately, the King became so wrapped up in a sudden war, he did not venture back to Vilewood for several decades. And, by the time he did, he found its mistress huddled in an old shawl, her face wrinkled and weathered from sorrow, her hair graying, her beauty gone. She had not, however, wasted her beauty. She’d given it to the forest, and all the creatures of that vast land repaid her with their loyalty and their bounty. Right now, however, the half-frozen boy doesn’t really care about Sianfyr, or how pretty she may or may not have once been. He cares about heat, warmth, being able to move his hands without the prickles and tingles of icy veins. He digs deep into the hearth to find any coals still aglow, and those which he does find are ready to bleed out the last vestiges of heat, and be done with their fiery lives. He can’t imagine this entire palace being heated for the winter. Who cut the wood? Sianfyr must have had others with her, surely. Or maybe she ran the entire place with her inner magic, the sane magic that bewitched men and engendered the loyalty of an entire forest. It certainly seemed possible, considering… But, such idle thoughts are for another time, perhaps a time when there isn’t quite so much to do. The young man, being the current master (and only resident) of Vilewood Castle, must get moving. The fire must be stoked, and then he has to board up the window that came loose during last night’s snowstorm. That’s certainly the source of all this cold. If he wishes to bathe at all this week, he must manage to dump the old water from the largest washing bucket, bring it back into the kitchens, and refill it with snow that will melt and eventually become lukewarm – provided that the kitchen doesn’t freeze again. After these chores, he eats a fantastically round apple and becomes more appropriately dressed for the outdoors. The thickest boots he found in the castle are still a little too big, so he stuffs them with fur hacked from the collars of noblewomen’s dresses, and straps them onto his legs with girdle laces. Those things never break. His clothes, too, are oversized, so much so that he can easily pull the trousers on over the boots, and the fancy, ruffled undershirt hangs to his knees. But, if the boy has learned anything from his six year solitary stay at Vilewood, it is that rope, while ugly, makes a very good belt. Then he dons the long, white, rabbit-fur coat -- a lucky find, as it almost fits him. It must have once belonged to a young woman, and even now he can still occasionally catch small hints of her bold perfume when he moves the right way. Over this, a cloak – red, hooded, and exceedingly heavy. The bottom third of it has turned almost black from dragging through the forest over the years, despite the fact that he tries to wash it twice a winter in the warmest water he can manage. Once dressed, the sole resident of Vilewood Castle grabs his bucket of tools, and heads out into the snowy morning. It takes two hours to walk to Niniane Lake, but the trek must be made, as he’s run completely out of meat. If he’s lucky, one of the traps will have a rabbit, or perhaps even something larger, like a small boar. But, if he’s not lucky, they’ll all be empty, and he’ll spend many hours trying to catch lethargic fish out of the lake, only to trek back in the biting cold of twilight, to finish any remaining chores, burn his dinner, and pay a visit to the final resting place of Mistress Sianfyr before dragging himself wearily to bed. If he’s lucky. But luck is a strange bedfellow. And by nightfall, Vilewood Castle will have its first new visitor in six years. |
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"Such-and-such-romantic-notion causes your heart to stop". Unless the next sentence talks about going to the hospital for the heart-stoppage in question. Actually, any references to the "heart" in romantic settings should be stricken. For me... Romance goes with gut. Unrequited love goes with the skin. Anguish/grief goes better with the heart. Longing with the mouth, sorrow goes with the throat. Anger and malice should be associated with the hands. Jealousy and envy with the lungs, and breathing. These can be changed, depending on the character, situation, or tone of the emotion... But people who depict emotion only through the eyes, mouth, and heart have either never experienced emotion, or truly noticed other people who do. |
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1) Current xenophobic, anti-immigrant tendancies within the USA cause the country to shut down it's borders and close itself off to all outside contact. (Think historical Japan for reference.) Story takes place 200 years in the future, from several views. A middle-class family within the USA. A criminal fleeing from Canada to the USA. A diplomatic party heading to the USA to attempt to negotiate trade. -- Another possibility is to set the story in the past, with the shut-down of borders taking place before Ellis Island influx. 2) Modern day Simbionese Liberation Army type cult abducts a teenager. Basically the story of Patty Hearst re-told for the age of anti-terrorism? |
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Fantastically dull. Dreadfully, horribly, inexaustibly dull. At three a.m., you have a great deal of time to come up with extra adjectives, but in essence, it is just dull. Dull is dull. Eli Brown's life is magestically dull. It's so dull that right now, to escape this interminable boredom, Eli Brown is sitting on the floor of the expansive computer room, using bottled water from the downstairs vending machine (pure, natural, zero calories) to clean a butterfly knife. She plans on using this knife to slit her belly in a ritual act of suicide, seppuku, if you will. She's worried, at this moment, about the blood splatter and seepage across and into the raised floor. There's a lot of wiring under the floor, and Eli is concerned that if she doesn't die from the wound to her gut, she might linger and then have to suffer from electocution. And, really, where's the dignity in electrocution? It spanks of burly, sweaty criminals being fried to death in some backwater Southern prison. You just really don't hear about a lot of suicides via electrocution. To catch the water after it slides down the blade, Eli has thoughtfully placed a vase on the ground. Unfortunately, the mouth at the top of the vase is rather small, so every time Eli spills a bit, she has to stop and use some gritty brown industrial paper towels to clean it the floor. Electrocution worries, you understand. The plastic flowers which previously inhabited the vase have been spread decoratively across Eli's nearby desk. Arranged carefully, they form a ring around her meticulously typed suicide note. Unfortunately, Eli could only think of the following words at 2:37 am: Sorry for the mess. If anything, Eli likes to keep things tidy. Oh, she isn't obsessive about it. Not at all. But, a tidy desk, a tidy car, a tidy apartment, all of these things help her to run a fastidious life. A dull life. A life of driftwood stranded on the beach. After too long, the driftwood forgets the sea, even though it is right there. The sparkling ocean, tumultuous and filled with excitement, it forgets the driftwood it helped to polish. And the driftwood...the driftwood can see no further than the sand. Sand, and sand, and sand. Like sands through the hourglass, one day is indistinguishable from the next, as we slowly forget everything which remains in our view. Eli Brown is surrounded by monolithic computer servers, rack-mounted shelves of routers, switches, modems. Ethernet and fiber cables are strung from one to the next, connecting data to application, transferring packets, the veins of the network. Eli Brown sits inside an organism whose heartbeat can be seen in the twinkling of LEDs, whose breathing can be heard in the whirring of fans. Within a womb of wires, Eli waits for the moment when she might be delivered from monotony. Typically, one does not commit seppuku with a butterfly knife. Then again, typically, unmarried thirty year old women do not commit seppuku at all. During the Edo period and before, a samurai might slit their belly in order to regain honor, protest injustice, or merely show contempt. Women of noble birth generally did not cut across the stomach, but instead slit their own throats or stabbed themselves in the heart. However, Eli is neither a samurai, nor a woman of noble birth. The only injustice she could possibly think to protest, at the moment, is the location of her parking space. Damn grackles. At least Eli's car was white. Covered in bird excrement, it merely looked like it was developing some sort of automobile leprosy. This amused Eli enough to make having to wash the car several times a week tolerable. Fortunately, the parking space had nothing to do with Eli's current predilection towards the macabre. No, this attempt at self-abasement stemmed only from Eli's wish to break the ceaseless tedium of her day, her job, and her life. At 2:56am, Eli Brown plunged the knife into her gut, and dragged it to the side as her blood spilled endlessly onto the white tiles of the server-room floor. Or, rather, she would have... If the knife's gleaming blade hadn't been imaginary. For it was, in all actuality, only a ball-point pen. Eli Brown flopped dramatically to the side, allowing her shoulder-length brown hair to splay out like splashed paint. She'd play it back on the security camera later, edit it, and maybe add a sound track. This was definitely going into her blog. |
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