29.03.15 :: 04.04.15

1.
I think I'm developing an addiction to spearmint.
Cheaper than cigarettes, at least.

2.
I had to banish my computer to an entirely different room to actually get any work done.
So sad.

3.
I have the whole story in my head, but I keep putting off writing anything down because I'm afraid of making the wrong decisions. I don't feel like I know enough to pull it off. I wish I could write like I did in my early twenties. I wish I could a lot of things like I could then. I think I was a better person than I am now. I think I've made all the wrong choices.

4.
I don't think the meds are working anymore, but no one's keeping track, so...

5.
Week 2 of this not smoking thing. Ish. Not smoking-ish. I've realized something interesting about myself. If I get a craving for a cigarette, the stubbornness kicks in and it's no big deal. I'm easily distracted.

If Brain decides I should have a cigarette (it does, whether I actually want one or not) because... Well, who knows what little formulas it uses to decide what has to happen and when. But if that happens, I can't shake it. It's the completion loop thing. I just go around with it nagging at me; you haven't done this yet.

I spent all day yesterday trying to go against it only to give in just so I could go to sleep. So when Brain started up today, my first reaction is to give it whatever it wants so I can get on with things.

It makes me wonder how many other things I just do because Brain has conditioned me to appease it.

Also: I severely underestimated how hard coercing an obsessive mind to give up something would be.

I know, right? How dumb was that?

I live with this thing all the time, and still think it's just going to let go of something because I want it to? I mean. If I could accomplish that... Well, that's kind of the central problem, isn't it?

6.
And yeah. I'm going to give it what it wants because I can't be bothered trying to keep it occupied all day.

7.
I can't even describe the amount of joy I get from being wrapped up in a duvet with all my pillows. If I could just stay there forever I'd be happy all the time. It's like being in a marshmallow. Except not sticky.

8.
I have a genuine fear that I'll get stuck in England after an apocalyptic event. I also worry about getting to my parents. And Bast. Pets usually don't survive apocalypses. Especially stubborn, toothless, brain-damaged elderly cats who don't realise their measly 7 lb selves can't take down any foe.

9.
Back to square one. No reason. Just here. Fed up with how many times I get lost in the NHS (like it's practically standard protocol) and not having the energy to badger them into caring for me. I really don't think Therapy Lady put my referral in (she is a liar, after all, and a little incompetent). I'm probably never going to get my stupid tooth taken care of. I need to follow up about the plastics referral, meds, toe... I need to write my fucking novel. Clean my room. Post last week's blog. Probably other things I'm forgetting about.

I just want to sleep.
I want to hit the reset button.
I want to not exist (not die, there's a difference). I'm just so fucking tired. Physically, mentally.

I feel bad about talking to my friends because how honesty do they want me to be? I'm not okay, but no, I don't want to talk about it with you because 1. there's nothing to fix and 2. I can tell you what you're going to say 3. I know you mean well but your attempts to cheer me up are a little pathetic. Sorry.

I don't even need cheered up. I'm not sad. Just so very unbelievably tired of doing.

10.
I suck at follow-through. I start things, get all excited about them. Run around getting everything I need for it. I get almost obsessive about it. And for a little while, I stick to it. Then it's like a switch goes. I suddenly just don't have any interest in it anymore. Sometimes even overnight. Yesterday I'm all excited about X and today it's just... meh. I can't even force myself to do it. There are about 4 things I can think just off the top of my head I started this week and lost interest in by the end.

I don't have anything that I've consistently been passionate about. There's the frequent commonality of all my passions being creative in some way, or involve making something. I really like making things.

Sometimes I feel like an Etch-A-Sketch that's been shaken. There's nothing there but the faint lines of what's been erased and the potential of new lines to be drawn.

11.
Caleb needs to go to Atlanta. Towards Atlanta, anyway; whether he'll actually get there is still up for debate.

Ben and Carys go with him because they need more airtime and you need to care when Ben dies (spoiler. not really. he has the look of someone created to have a significant death) and Carys needs to teach Caleb about being... whatever they are that doesn't have a name yet (seriously, suggestions for what to name a telesthetic race needed) -- they have to run out of time because the encounter with Roland freaks him out - maybe he knows they can't be killed? Anyway, later. That's way in the future.

Atlanta. Carys drives because she's magic and mysterious so we don't ask many questions, like how she has money or a car.

#1: Their mission is successful. I don't want them to find Derek, though. I don't know where he is yet, but he'll complicate things if he comes in now. For some reason, they also don't/can't go home. Which leaves Justin and Ren at loose ends. Unfortunate for Justin, but Ren is a main guy. Or. Maybe he's better in cameos... So. Option 1 they make it to Derek's dorm. He's not there and something (what?) stops them from going home.

+ what problems would 3 people who can control other people run into? They need a flaw. Besides that two of them don't really know what they're doing.

#2: They don't even make it to Atlanta. Someone wrecks their car or it breaks or they just can't get through with a vehicle. So they're wandering and... Who knows.

They can either join the army willingly or they get coerced. Baz dies around this time. Ben would be motivated to fight, or at least follow a sense of duty and responsibility. Caleb will do whatever Ben wants.

Carys leaves them at this point. Maybe after not finding Derek and not being about to get back to SAV (something with the military?), she convinces the twins to go back to her home (need another name, or find where I wrote down the name) but Baz dies, Ben decides to join the army and Carys goes her own way.

I really like the hurricane scene but I don't think there's a home for it anymore. Oh well.

So then it's whether Carys comes back when Ben dies, or after Caleb kills Roland. I can't see her being okay with a killing spree so that leaves after Roland. (Having her in earlier would mess with whatever I'm doing with Joshua which I haven't decided yet.)

Alternatively, the three of them try to survive on their own, and Ben gets killed while they're doing something. Caleb runs off and Carys has to find him, which leaves a gap for Joshua to make an appearance.

For any of these to work, things have to go from not-so-great to really shitty very quickly. Like overnight. Which is much harder to do in fictional reality than real reality.

I don't know. This boy needs to hurry up and tell his story. I'm tired of moving around puzzle pieces.

12.
I've been carrying around three pens for days because I keep not throwing it away when I find the one that doesn't work, so I foret which one it is so instead of finding out, I take 2 backup. It's safer having three pens anyway. You never know what might happen. Those could be the last three pens you have in an apocalypse. And one of them doesn't even work. Good planning.

13.
If I have the car just break down (flat tire, overheating, etc.), is that too deus ex machina?

14.
I moved my bed 2' closer to the window and before I always felt I had total privacy. I know for a fact how much can be seen of my room from various angles (yes, I did that) but since I moved the furniture I've felt really, really exposed, even in the far part of the room (which definitely cannot be seen from outside unless someone is standing on the train tracks with binoculars (there might be). It still feels like someone's watching. I'm hoping I just get used to it because I really like this arrangement.

(This is me not working.)

22.03.15 :: 28.03.15

1.
My dreams are my own again, only to have you strolling through them now. I don't know who you are, or where you'll come from, but I'm looking forward to meeting you. Though if history is anything to go by, it'll be weeks or months before we cross paths.

2.
The universe is not big on pats on the head, but every so often it does toss me a bone and say, Look. See? You were entirely right.

The destructive impulse in me wants to cause trouble out of spite, but I won't.

3.
I've always been fixated with duality. It's the single constant in my writing from the stories I concocted at 6 to the novel I'm working on now. Always two. Mirrors. Opposing. Complimentary.

It makes me wonder.

4.
Today is a restless day. I'm seeking something, but I don't know what it is. None of my usual distractions are working. I want gummy bears, but if I go to Morrison's I'll get cigarettes.

Still. One cigarette in three days. That's not bad. And getting them doesn't mean smoking them. Sometimes I just need to have things. Like diazepam. I haven't taken it in months, but I like having it. I know I can take it, if I want to, and that's the essential part right there. As long as I'm able to do something, I may or may not. More than likely I'll probably get around to it eventually. Maybe. But tell me it can't happen and all of my energy will be put into making sure it does.

See what I said about giving myself an inch?

But I really want gummy bears...

5.
I never remember that things close early on Sunday.

I never remember that it's Sunday.

6.
People want so badly to belong somewhere. A majority of the people who follow my interests are like that. That specific type of person who wants in so bad they go way overboard. Everything becomes about that one thing - a belief, a lifestyle, whatever. There's a fakeness to it that immediately turns me off, and I end up avoiding resources for things I'm otherwise inclined to just because I can't handle being around that type of person. Well. Being civil around that type of person.

Logically I can say they have some deficit in their life/identity that pushes them to over-identify with any group or organisation that offers them a sense of fulfillment and purpose, and that this is a normal human drive, and really I should take pity on them and just let them get on with whatever makes them happy because, ultimately, they aren't hurting anyone.

But they get in my way I have no patience for that.

7.

8.
I read it as fake because they whitewash the shadows. Not a hint of darkness. Everyone is good. Everyone is benevolent. Everyone is positive.

It's all bullshit. At the very least, there is an equal balance. More realistically, there's a constant state of flux because the universe isn't stagnant.

Everyone has darkness. Everyone has negativity. Everyone can and has/will be selfish. If you ignore your monsters, they will eat you.

9.
"Speaking to Ren is decoding a language no one else speaks."

10.
There is a brief moment when I first wake up when I can think clearly - one thought without the cacophony of all the other processes in full gear. If I lie quietly enough, I can drag this out for minutes, and this is when I do most of my writing. It's amazing how much you can do in five minutes when nothing else is jostling for attention.

I use sleep and sound to escape the noise in my head. Sleep is best - quietest - my dream self only ever thinks clearly, but I can't spend my life asleep so instead I surround myself with films, TV, music, anything so I don't have to focus on how much is happening inside my head.

11.
Dream: It's raining and I'm in Pittsburgh, but the bus station looks like Montparnasse. It's late so I can't call anyone, and I don't have anywhere to go. I think of S., but I can't remember the address.

(I think: it's on my driver's license. look at my driver's license but it doesn't change the plot.)

Riding in a cab after too long trying to remember which bus to take to vaguely where I think the house is, I realise I could text N, and wouldn't that be a surprise? But I know I'm not really in Pittsburgh, and I can't just go see him. I keep having the thought, though, because I see the city, I feel it. I try to get the address for S. again but to no effect and that's how I know dream me isn't me. I'm just a bystander here, watching the scene unfold.

I wake up still wanting to text N. and say: I'm here! Let's go play! and I have to remind myself I'm not home.

12.
What compels someone to open a curtain shop? Obviously, people buy curtains, but the individual who decides that is what their life's work will be. How does that thought process go?

From an early age, Garrett always had a passion for curtains...

13.
Some days I have to remind myself I don't have to answer to anyone. I can lay on my bed all day if I want. I can read a book. I can go out or stay in. It's all up to me. No one's going to come along and tell me to stop or that I should be doing something else, or whatever. I don't know who I actually think would do that, but very often I have the sense that any minute someone is going to come in and yell at me for being lazy or self-indulgent or too slow or just something.

I feel guilty for using my time the way I want.

I don't know where that comes from.

14.
I've been asked to write an afterword for "Between Universes".

What do I say about a story I wrote for(about) someone I no longer speak to? 

Crawling Out of the Cave

I have been incredibly lax about keeping up with this. It happens. I get into a routine, and all goes well, and then something comes along to side-swipe me (good or bad, usually a mix of both) and writing a new post gets pushed back to tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Before you know it, it's been six months of tomorrows and a mound of good intentions you couldn't dig your way out of with a backhoe.

That's just part of it. There's the self-consciousness of writing in a public forum. The two-pronged attack of who gives a shit what I have to say about x? and what are the people I know going to think?

It took me a long time to be comfortable admitting to other people that I'm a writer. There were mixed feelings about it, usually some sort of guilt and almost shame. Shame isn't the right word, but I don't know that there is one. I was embarrassed to admit it, mostly because I felt like I was pretending to something and would eventually be found out.

That's kind of been a theme with me. This fear that the nameless They will identify me as a fake.

Back to the two questions. They're both questions that anyone who makes anything carries around with them, probably forever. Yeah, sure, we're all good at throwing out this external projection of confidence. We put together our little spiels to justify our projects and passions and convince others they're worthwhile and significant. But beneath all that, those two questions are still there. Who cares, and what are they going to think? 

I would say that a good portion of the creative process is learning to ignore those questions, or at the very least, to push through them. Otherwise, you just stop. There's no output.

The Who cares? question really only trips me up when it comes to this blog. For my fictional adventures, the answer is easy: I care, and yes, I'm self-centred enough to be satisfied with that. The other question doesn't usually trip me up so much (again, outside the blog; knowing your little eyes are scurrying over every word makes me cringe until I have to pretend you aren't out there); my fictional adventures are generally far enough removed from any semblance of real life I don't worry about people trying to place me (or themselves) into any of the characters or events.

Recently, though, I started working on a project that had a lot of similarities to real life. No alternate timelines or made up histories or fantasy elements. Suddenly, what other people would think about it became the most prominent thought every time I sat down to work on it. I worried that they would recast my characters with real people, real thoughts, real events. And that did happen. I lost count of the number of times I had to say Maks is not me.

I guess it can be confusing for those who aren't used to spending a decent amount of time with someone else in their head.

Writing is something I do, and something I do quite haphazardly at that. A majority of the people around me are writers of one thing or another, and they work at. Daily. They plot out time, and create charts, plot arcs, character sheets. Sometimes I get around to doing all that, but mostly every few weeks or so I just sit down and throw out a thousand words or so. Sometimes I edit them, usually if someone else is going to grade them, but I rarely have to make major changes.

And I feel guilty about that. Because in the end, this is something that is quite easy for me that I more or less take for granted.

Shedding your skin is one of the hardest things you'll ever do. It's graceless. Uncomfortable. Potentially embarrassing. I've done it enough times to be intimately familiar with the process, and yet I just can't seem to help myself. The minute I get comfortable with one identity, it's on to the next. A little like places.

It took me a long time to be comfortable calling myself a writer. And I am, for the most part. I'm comfortable in my abilities to do plot and characterisation and meet deadlines (when I don't set them myself). So with that conquest down, over the past few years I've started falling back into photography, and with that shift comes all the old doubts and questions I used to have with writing. The difference being that at this stage in my life, I've learned that walking into what makes me uncomfortable is usually the best way to go.

But the whole process has gotten me thinking back, to what it took to be confident as a writer, to what it means to do either, to the similarities. Both, in a way, are a socially acceptable reason to watch people. Aside from all the other reasons - entertaining myself, affinity for shiny things, really liking to push buttons - that's probably the biggest motivation. People.

Writing, for me, has always just been a way of documenting the pictures I have in my head. (And maybe that's why I can sit down and throw out a thousand words or so, because it's all just pictures.) Visual and written are just parts of the same thing: a way to try to pin down all the little moments that make life what it is. 

Fuck Up Your Life.

I have a system for making decisions: if I'm not terrified, I'm doing something wrong.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not running around cliff jumping or swimming with sharks or sky-diving (despite the delusion of a friend that this will, actually, happen one day), but I do maintain a certain discomfort in my life. Accumulating 17 addresses in 15 years is part of that. 

This past week the topic was general advice from some of the literary greats. In the process of going around this, the familiar vision of the long-suffering and depressed artiste came up. The lecturer didn't really advocate that you have to be this tortured soul to produce great work; instead it was more along the lines of: usually the moments that leave the longest impact involve some sort of loss. 

Years and years ago, I had a drama teacher that claimed all (good) actors had a void inside themselves. It was this void, this lacking of something substantial, that allowed them to become other people. At the time it made complete sense to me, and it's been an idea that's floated around my head ever since, except expanded to all artists. If you're going to create universes, you have to have space for them to live in. You have to be missing something.

A bit more recently, I was speaking with a friend (not the one bent on pushing me out of a plane) who was concerned about not living in the moment at hand enough. My response was that no writer ever exists totally in the moment, even when they're in the moment. There's always some bit hanging back and taking notes. The Observer.

I think it's an incredibly difficult thing for writers to balance: experiencing life and creating fictitious experiences. Everything, in a way, just becomes research. Meanwhile your life carries on as if you're actually living it.

Making decisions. Quite a few of those choices I opted for because they terrified me were absolutely disastrous choices to make. They complicated my life. Things were lost or broken. People were lost or broken. But even in the worst moments, the Observer was back there taking notes. For every awful thing, I can remember of distinct moment of thinking, so this is what that feels like. Now I know. And the moments when things were going well, the moments I was content and comfortable, are always associated with an intense boredom and restlessness. A need to break away from that and turn things upside down again.

And there are consequences. I've reached a point in my life where I start saying goodbye as soon as I meet someone new, because I know I won't stay very long. I've filled my holes faster than I can possibly make them, and my life, that thing I own, most times feels a million miles away because I'm always looking through someone else's eyes.

Another friend of mine suggested once that the self-destruction most artists seem to carry with them comes from a certain over-saturation. Of living too many lives not your own and needing, at some point, to feel something that is you and outside of you and so dramatic the Observer is forced into silence, even if just for a second. And that, too, when she said it, made complete sense and started pacing around my head. I've had my own dalliances with self-destruction, with that nihilistic perspective that it doesn't really matter what happens, even, a few times, this conviction that, because I kept making it through various situations, I always would. So why try to avoid them?

At the moment, I'm putting a lot of time, effort and money into something that, ultimately, has a very slim chance of yielding the exact results I want. I've also put myself in a situation where I have to perform on demand, which is good practice but also carries that ever-present what if I run out of words?

It absolutely terrifies me.

I must be doing something right.

Seeking a Little Less Authenticity

I spent most of today rolling around a concept for a blog that was somewhat (very) introspective and self-indulgent... and then I stepped into the wonderful world of the internet and promptly changed my mind.

A long time ago, I had a discussion-bordering-heated argument with a former collaborator on the topic of authenticity in relation to writing. He claimed, first, that to be a good writer you have to experience life. Fair enough. If nothing else, getting out in the world and seeing what happens in it is pretty good at triggering those what if questions. He went on from there, though, and asserted that writing could only be worthwhile if it was authentic, meaning if the person writing had actual first-hand experience of the thing s/he was writing on. His assertion was that authenticity always trumped talent, and the only way a writer could evoke the proper response, could convey something accurately enough, was if it had actually happened to them.

I respectfully and quite adamantly disagreed.

Much of my time is spent reading, critiquing and, yes, judging the work of amateur writers. There's quite a lot of talent in the amateur sect; what I'm about to say is by no means to imply there isn't.

But.

Yes, but. Among that wide and motley assortment of individuals penning their works between jobs and classes and families, and maybe even at the occasional stoplight, there is a particular strand that latches onto this idea of writing the authentic experience (we're talking fiction here, by the way, non-fiction is a different kettle of fish entirely). Most of the time, this centres around emotion in an equation that looks something like this:

words + strong emotion = talent/something worth reading

No. Sorry. It does not. Your angst is not art. The ability to experience emotion does not make you an artist; it makes you human. The ability to evoke emotion in someone else with something you create makes you an artist. 

Most of the time, when it comes to this subject, I keep my mouth shut. Surprisingly, on occasion, apparently I come across as not quite so soft and fluffy, or very coddling of sensitive egos. I'll openly admit I don't have much patience for baby writers, and I'm more likely to say please never write anything but a grocery list again than sugarcoat the garish flaws with noncommittal statements. So, being aware of this aspect in myself, I stay well away from the "emotional" writers. They tend to be sensitive and, well, emotional. I don't take them seriously as writers because they don't take their writing seriously. 

This evening in my traipsing about the internet as my "reward" for being so very studious all weekend (this is what I'm going with; I dare you to prove otherwise), I came across this question:

Does a person's creativity go hand in hand with emotional, mental, or physical turmoil? 

Disappointingly, but expectedly, the yeses had the vote. This pretty much epitomises the issue I have with "authentic" writing, "emotional" poets writers, and that very troublesome stock phrase "write what you know".

One person cited, in support of the pro argument, the sheer volume of love poetry written (so much so, in my opinion, that finding a love poem these days that doesn't make you want to slit your wrists with a Hallmark card is a bit like waking up to a unicorn in your living room), because it's a universal experience (I'm paraphrasing). The same person went on to say: "Why is there so much "emo" poetry written? Because it is an intense feeling that is felt so completely that it is easy to describe in words." Someone else claimed that one could truly write about the feeling of grief without experiencing it first; anything else is just speculation.

Oddly no one mentioned how the experience of losing a thumb or an ear really boosted their creative output.

Character or Plot?

So. There are a few things floating around about this now (see end), and honestly, I think the attitude in some of them is just downright counterproductive.

It's a chicken and egg question.

Personally, I go with character. It's just what happens. The idea for a particular character comes to mind, and then the setting forms around that, and then the situation (or several situations) materialise out of that. I have conversations with my characters. I yell at them when things aren't going the way I want. I praise them when they are. I also do all three with computers, printers, cars, phones, and pretty much any other inanimate object that performs a function.

Do I think my characters are real, three-dimensional beings capable of sentient thought? No. (The computers, cars, phones and other inanimate objects I'm not so sure about, though.) I have favourites among my characters. I get fond of them. I get fond of characters I read about, too. That is kind of the point, darlings.

A majority of the things I write are character-driven. Hell, in the shorter things, quite frequently plot only makes the briefest cameo appearance, if it shows up at all. But it works.* I would also say that a good 90% of the time I only have a very loose idea of what is actually going to happen, and those rare cases I start out with a more solid plan, I am usually surprised by where it goes at some point. Flannery O'Connor wrote a whole essay on how she got surprised by what her characters did. 

Example 1 : "Detox"

I had a character (Magpie), the idea of sin eaters (if you don't know what they are, look it up) and 1500 words to play with. I actually started with the idea that Magpie was going to die, and it would have some sort of repercussion on the narrator, blah blah etc. I didn't have any clue the narrator was going to kill Charley until I got to that point in the story. I could just be dense or a little slow, but I didn't. Looking back at everything leading to that point, I realised I'd been setting it up all along, and that, really, it was the only thing that could happen. But I didn't expect it.

Did my characters take over and dictate how the story would go? No. They're little voices in my head; they'd have a rather difficult time forcing me to do anything. Then again, they're little voices in my head, so by extension, they're little versions of my own thought processes, so even if they did stage a revolt, it would be one part of my consciousness rebelling against another. That's another little tangent, though.

Example 2 : The Great Never-Ending Epic Novel

Somewhere along the pile of drafts, I found myself stuck because there wasn't sufficient motivation for the protagonist to do what he needed to do. Gradually after I came to that conclusion, I realised the solution was the kill off the universal favourite character. 

I was not happy about this. In fact, I was quite sickened by the idea of doing it, so much so that I wasted a lot of time scrabbling around for some alternative just so I wouldn't have to kill that one character. In the end, I accepted it. He has to die to get to point X. And yeah, that scene was fucking hard as hell to write. Most emotionally intense things are because I'm a kinesthetic writer, so I have to feel what's happening to write it. Method acting for the wallflower, so to speak. But again, this was not something I planned from the beginning. In fact, the theme of these two examples is that I always think the wrong person is going to die. 

I know there are people out there who plan out every little detail before they start writing. They have an outline and little summaries and everything all figured out before Once upon a time even graces the page. Fantastic. It doesn't work for me. I don't plan a damn thing out. The plans I do make, I never write, and for my long projects, it's only about halfway through that I start making notes about things just so I have a reminder without having to sift through thousands of words to find a particular description or spelling or whatever. I also, generally, don't go through a lot of physical drafts; I do an awful lot of writing in my head. There are certain pieces that I have done entirely in my head and only written down the final product. But I know other writers who go through draft after draft after draft because that's part of their process. 

And that's the thing I find a little disturbing about the things being said around this realness of characters/importance of plot (my word; 'story' is the one being used, but 'story' is character + plot + themes/subtext so I'm going to be more correct). 

Your experience does not entitle you to dictate another writer's process.

Sorry, but it just doesn't. So you start with a plot and build characters around that.  Or you have a setting and work up. Or you do some other combination. Great. Cool. If that works for you, go with it. That doesn't mean every writer has to write the way you do. It doesn't mean that people who choose a different method should be condescended to, or are less valid for whatever reason. It's just different. 

So, come on, grown up writers - start acting like it. You know a lot, but you don't know everything. I don't know everything. We only know what works from our personal experiences, so stop making it sound like there's this big mandate of the One and Only Way. 

Oh, don't going smirking yet, kids, 'cause you're not off the hook, either. One thing that is definitely true: when you talk about your characters the same way you talk about your friends or, y'know, any other corporeal entity, you sound like an idiot. And for every grumpy grown up writer ready to flay you for that, there's a good number who are just too polite to say anything, but do silently roll their eyes and sigh, 'Oh, children...' 

Linksies: How Real Are Your Characters? (SilverInkBlot) | i'm totally convinced (raspil) | Your characters aren't real. (neurotype)

* I'm not saying it works when everyone does it. I'm not even recommending that beginning writers going playing without a net. I took the time to learn the rules before I started breaking them.

The Unremarkable Confessions of a Drunken Lover

Give me another -
one part Jack, six parts truth.
Make mine a double,
'cause I'm still standing.

I measure my day in moments of you.
Clutching talismans of unacknowledged import.
My skin nags its ache for you -
nothing quite so sordid, I promise -
just your hand in mine.
Your Self occupying that
so conspicuously empty space
next to mine.
Oh, it's such a cliche...

I cast us as Romantic period lovers
forbidden ever to touch -
Romeo and Romeo,
sans suicide.
I'll use words to immortalise you-me-us
so Someday When
university students can pour over my lines
with apathetic glances
and giggle-whisper over hidden references
I never meant to put.
How many adjectives will it take to contain you
in rhyme and meter?
Vespertilian.
Ethereal.
Magnetic.
Addictive.
(My personal favourite.)

I'll pen epics in your honour.
Become that quintessential knight
questing for his lady's -
sorry. lord's
affection.
Will I ever win his hand?
This poor Pinocchio with naught but dreams and hope on offer.
And his heart.
His heart not once wholly given to any other.
Is that sacred enough to sway your favour?
They've killed all the dragons, love,
but there are monsters still to find.
Just name your price, I'll pay it.

I admit:
all those soppy sentiments and angst-ridden poets
waxing on love lost and not quite grasped,
I looked on with contempt and derision because
how could I -
that ever changing and unchained creature that is me -
how could I ever need another for completion?

But you.
With your quiet looks and unassuming ways.
You with your strength, your honesty,
your untamed muchness bucking to be free.
Have captivated every part of me
and pushed me toward the ranks of all those desperate
to personify and dignify and legitimise their love's desire.

So drown me.
Consume me.
Absorb me.
Transform me into that thing I crave.
Let me join the queue
of tricked out boys all saying:
oh, baby
let me fuck u hard
let me make u cum
let me swallow u
possess u
but just for tonite
but just if u can get me off

Okay.
I'd say those things, too,
given half a chance.
But it wouldn't sound right;
I'm working with higher ideals.
And proper grammar.
Usually.

So let's give this a whirl:
Oh, baby,
let me slip inside your soul,
that tricksy, shining thing you are.
Let me have all those dreams
you're too afraid to wish for,
and hold them still for you to see.
Sink sink sink into me.
But just if it's forever.
But just if you get off on that.
Let me keep you safe every tonight.

But damn, boy.
It's hard work trying to differentiate
from all those faceless names
spouting off all those selfsame words
until I love you is just code for
Hey, babe, I wanna fuck you.
And I won't deny - I can't compete.
But what I lack I make up in sincerity.

And damn, boy.
I spend so much time
trying to be pure and true,
for fear of you just hit-and-running
while denying all the ways
I want you
until all my atoms are just chanting your name.

Okay. Okay.
Just one more round,
and then we'll go.
I promise.
Same again?
I know the shape size weight of your fear
and all it's holding back.
But I'm wondering how many more times
I'm going to make jack o'lanterns in my chest
before you believe
I won't leave you damaged and lost.
I'm in it for the long haul,
and I'll carve up yet another toothy smile
if that's what you need.
Because the shape size weight of my heart -
as ever -

is you.

Day 19: Dedication

When the only thing you have to give is words...

---

The summer moon kissed his sun-dark skin and the air lifted the scent of honeysuckle from the ground. He still smelled of fire and earth and last night’s rain and places men’s feet had never been.

          He pressed his face against the cool glass and tiptoed his soot-smeared fingers across the surface. The room inside looked snug and inviting, but too clean, too constrained, too civilised for him.

The shape on the bed shifted under the tangled blankets and a slim, bare foot peeked out.

Just that single sheet of glass dividing them – no thicker than a flower stem but it might as well be thousands of miles with the latch firmly set.

What he wouldn’t give to be on the other side of that glass.

‘Think happy thoughts, Wendy-cat,’ he whispered to the window, ‘and I will leave pixie dust for you in your dreams.’

With one last parting look into the room, he let the night carry him away.

          

Day 17

Y’aalreetmarra? Wossacrack?

He knew, on some level, that they were speaking the same language, but he couldn’t quite work out exactly how. He was equally aware that an appropriate response was expected from him and hadn’t the vaguest idea what that might be.

          Still. It wasn’t like he could just keep walking and pretend he hadn’t heard. Damn tiny sidewalks. Silence not an option, he took a deep breath and ventured, ‘Yes.’ 

Day 16

Everything was still the same. The couch with its usual pile of pillows and blankets. The kitchenette that was more of a work space than a cooking space scattered with pens and brushes and tins of paint with the occasional vodka bottle and coffee mug thrown in for good measure. What few books from his grandmother’s that hadn’t been sold. The mostly demolished cake from the night before still on the kitchen table.

          Jesus. It was hard to believe that was only the night before.

          Everything was still the same, but it looked different. He knew they were his things, his home, his life. But it felt like looking into a stranger’s world.

          His bones hummed until his skin felt like it would jump off just to get away from the feeling. He imagined he could claw it off with his fingers and stand there exposed muscle and nerve endings if he tried, but the effort seemed like more than he could manage at the moment.

          He was so. damn. tired. The kind of tired that went straight to the bottom of your soul and no amount of sleep could ever fix.

          There was blood on his shirt. His hands. He could feel it dried to his face and in his hair, but he wasn’t sure if it was his, or Troy’s, or both. A voice in his head insisted it was Remy’s, but Zev knew that couldn’t be true. That was far too long ago for Remy’s blood to still be on his hands.

          ‘You don’t look very cleaned up, Mr. Saint Cyr,’ Shain said.

          ‘Mhm.’ That had been why he’d come in here at all, hadn’t it? Wash off the blood and grit. Assault his raw skin and sore muscles with hot water. Change into something that didn’t look like it’d been dragged through a slaughterhouse and pretend for five seconds his life was still normal.

          ‘How’s Troy?’ he asked.

          ‘Sleeping. He grabbed some book from my shelf and curled up on the couch hugging it like a toy and he was out.’ Shain moved forward to stand beside him. ‘He’s almost cute when he’s asleep. Like a cat.’

          Zev closed his eyes and tried to ride out the vibration in his bones. ‘We can’t stay here, can we?’ It was a thought that had been rolling around in his mind since the conversation with Mr. Grey that morning.

          Shain shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. It’s a place.’

          ‘What’s the point?’ Zev looked around the apartment again. He thought of his paintings in the studio-nee-bedroom. He liked his life. He liked being an artist. He liked being Prince of the Protégés. ‘This isn’t my life anymore.’ His chest sucked down the weight of that loss and welded it in his abdomen. He’d never been anywhere else. He’d never been anything else.

          ‘I thought the whole point was that things could go back to the way they were,’ Shain said. ‘That’s what you wanted.’

          ‘It was,’ Zev said. ‘But there’ll be others. They’ll come. Last night was just the first.’

          ‘What do you think Troy’s going to say?’

          ‘He knows.’ Like Zev, Troy wouldn’t have wanted to know. He would have told himself all along they could all just pick up their old lives where they left off. Like Zev, Troy would have known this path couldn’t be backtracked. ‘Is it hard?’

          Shain met his gaze for a moment before looking away. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But you learn to… forget to miss what isn’t there.’

          ‘That works?’

          ‘Not really.’ Shain offered him a weak smile. ‘But it’s something.’

          ‘I know how a cathedral was built in 1175, and sixty-two ways to make the colour yellow. I know how to tie six different tie knots without looking at a mirror, and I can do a damn good rendition of a zombified werewolf, but I don’t know how to do anything else.’ He rubbed the palm of his hand with his thumb and watched the dried blood fall to the floor in flakes. ‘I don’t know how to be anywhere else.’

          ‘I guess… We figure out what we’re going to do about whoever else comes after us. You.’

          ‘Me,’ Zev confirmed. Mr. Grey had made that clear enough. Zev was the threat; the others were just collateral. The humming reached a pitch beyond feeling, but he still heard it. He understood what it was trying to tell him.

          ‘What do we do?’

          ‘We find them first.’ 

Day 15: Challenge

Challenge #7

Write a story that includes a magical girl* and a magnificent bastard**. One is to be inverted and one is to be played straight. 

*gifted with magical powers that both assist and complicate her life but she manages to persevere. 

**charismatic, incredibly intelligent master of manipulation, usually the villain who tries to take over the world with overly complex plans

---

A burst of rainbows and unicorns shot at the spot where Lorenzo stood – or it would have if the impact of his laser hadn’t ruined her aim. As she fell to the ground, she watched the rainbows and unicorns dissolve into a useless mess against the far wall.

          ‘Celestina! Hurry! Please!’

          Pain ripped through her body. This was the 283^rd time Layla had been kidnapped by Lorenzo in the last year. The 283^rd time Celestina had been beaten, shot at, incinerated, nearly sliced in half and blown up.

          ‘You can do it, Celestina! I believe in you!’

          All in all, it was starting to get to be a bit much.

          Lorenzo cackled. ‘You’re too late, Celestina! You’ll never stop me now!’

          Celestina rolled onto her back and felt her shoulder where the laser had hit. The skin would heal quickly enough, but it still hurt like a motherfucker. From this position, she could see Layla standing on the scaffolding, hands clutched to her chest as she hopped from foot to foot. Standing. Not bound. Not guarded. Just wandering around free as you please waiting for Celestina to do all the heavy lifting.

          283 times.

          ‘Oh, oh, it looks like you’re champion has had enough, little girl!’ Lorenzo cackled again.

          ‘No, Celestina! Don’t give up! I’m here for you!’

          Celestina pushed herself up and looked around the warehouse. Aside from the three of them, some rusty, forgotten equipment and maybe a few rats, it was empty. ‘Fuck this,’ she said. ‘I quit.’

          ‘What?!’ Lorenzo and Layla exclaimed in unison.

          ‘I quit,’ she repeated. ‘You want to take over the world or repopulate with hybrid penguins or whatever lunatic idea’s popped into your head this week, be my guest. I’m out. Don’t forget to feed the unicorns.’

Day 14

Visual Prompt:

Pencil Vs Camera by Ben Heine

---

Their wings rustle through the sky as night falls, just a shadow barely seen in the corner of your eye as they sleep beneath door cracks and through opened windows. Even the light can’t catch their sleek bodies, quick eyes, sharp beaks.

          They only go to the ones who have been marked. They only take the ones that have been completed.

          He sits in his window and watches the murder fragment as each of its pieces drops to its destination. The only one in the world who sees. The only one who knows.

          He holds out his hand as one swoops close and it perches on his arm, watching him with its inky, clever eyes. A thick, brass key hangs on a dark ribbon from its beak.

          He touches the teeth still warm from the life it held. That one would have taken half a century or more to make. He wonders what his will look like when it’s all said and done.

          The crow flaps its wings and jerks its head.

          ‘I know,’ he says. ‘Not yet.’ 

Day 13: Challenge

Challenge #6


Incorporate the themes of failure, conformity and a character that is a cloudcuckoolander*.


*someone who is strangely oblivious to things that everyone else takes for granted such as social conventions like wearing clothing, being polite or obeying the law. However, cloudcukoolanders are very rarely malicious.

---

He looks like a kaleidoscope in watercolour. Blue, purple, pink, green sliding and bleeding into snowflake patterns. It’s beautiful. The words press against the back of my teeth but he wouldn’t understand.

          Tonight I have to be different. Tonight I have to be like Them so he takes me seriously.

          My clothes feel strange and stiff and they smell Not Like Me, but the store-lady said it was Just The Thing. He gave me A Look when he saw them, but he didn’t say anything, so I guess she was right.

          I am a spy deep undercover about the infiltrate enemy lines.

          Thinking it makes me feel better.

          I just need to control my hands. They feel naked without something in them. A brush. A pen. A crayon. Anything would do. I would be a happier spy if I could draw but They don’t walk around drawing kaleidoscope boys so tonight I can’t either.

          He glides into the restaurant like he owns the world. The hostess smiles and flirts. Everyone stares. I wonder if They know I’m a spy, but he ignores Them so I do, too. He would know if They were suspicious; these are his people. His minions. His acolytes.

          I don’t understand the menu, but I think if I stare at it long enough it might make sense. He pretends he’s reading his, but he’s watching me over the top. This is a different Look and I don’t know what it means.

          ‘This doesn’t seem like a very you place,’ he says.

          It’s glass and metal and soft light and money money money. Even my skin feels uncomfortable here and I have to clench the menu to keep my hands from dancing across the table. I could sculpt his face in the cream candle between us. I probably shouldn’t.

          ‘I thought you’d like it.’

          ‘I’ve been here before.’

          That should be a good thing, but I have a sinking feeling that this was not the Right Decision and he’s trying to be nice. He’s never really nice, so that should make me feel better, but it really doesn’t.

          I try to talk about things They talk about but the subjects flounder on half-formed wings. I rode the bus twenty times yesterday to listen to the things They say but I must have got it wrong somehow.

          The glass and the metal and the soft light make his kaleidoscope colours brighter and I don’t know how They don’t see that he isn’t one of Them. But maybe they just get blinded by the shine and the smile and All The Right Words at Exactly the Right Time and don’t notice.

          I wonder if he knows he’s not a They.

          I wonder if maybe he’s a secret spy, too.

          The walk home takes forever, and he keeps giving me Looks – I think they want something but it’s not a him-look so I’m not sure – until we get Almost There and then he just smokes his cigarettes. By the time we get back he has the Just Getting Off Work Look which is Not Good.

          He smiles, but his smiles can’t be trusted. He only smiles when he doesn’t mean it.

          I wonder if I’m allowed to draw him now since none of Them are watching, but I keep my hands in my pockets where they can twitch away unseen. I’m dying to escape upstairs and rip every inch of Not Like Me from my skin. Then I’ll smear my body in all the colours, and keep inventing new ones until I become a kaleidoscope, too.

          His cigarette is burnt down to the end, but he isn’t paying attention.

          ‘I did something wrong.’

          ‘No, no.’ The Lying Smile. The Them Smile. ‘You did everything just… right.’

          I wish he wouldn’t make me connect things on my own. I want to tell him I don’t know the Rules yet and I don’t understand, but that would be a Not Them thing to do and tonight I have to be just like Them. I have to. ‘You’re not happy.’

          He flicks the butt into the yard and lights another cigarette. After two exhales, he goes into the yard and picks it back up again. ‘I guess I was expecting a little more slightly skewed,’ he says. He looks at me. Right at me, but only for a moment. He doesn’t like other people’s eyes. He explained it to me once, the science of counting seconds of eye contact before he could break away to get the right effect. ‘I get enough of Just Right at work. I think I might like slightly skewed better.’ He gets the Frowny-Thinky Look. I’m used to that one. I see it a lot. That and the Dealing-With-The-Loony-Bird Look. ‘Didn’t see that one coming.’

          He puts out his cigarette and goes upstairs to his Just Right apartment filled with Just Right furniture and Just Right pictures and Just Right clothes.

          I should have told him he looked like a kaleidoscope.  

Day 12

Beauty crowds me until I die.

          There are moments I can’t even open my eyes for fear the strength of it will consume my bones and burn my soul. My guitar hugs my lap and my fingers spin the strings. I can’t see the people gathering around me, but I can feel the way their hearts turn into butterflies between the chords.

          I play until my finger bleed, and I keep playing. I play until after the children have been tucked into their beds, and long after the lovers have escaped into their own. I play until I am the only one left in the park because I need the music to keep the world at bay.

          When my entire body aches beyond relief, Caspar comes. He never makes a sound and I never see him coming, but he feels different than the day people and I know it’s finally okay to stop.

          But tonight I’m wary. He’s been away longer than usual and I still haven’t answered his question.

          ‘Why do you always come at night?’ I ask.

          ‘“I see thee better in the dark; I do not need a light.”’

          I smile, and wonder how many others he quotes poetry to at night. I imagine him in a room filled with nothing but stacks of books. Dickinson, Yeats, Elliot, Whitman, Keats. Hours and hours spent absorbing every page so he will have just the right line from just the right poem should the need arise.

          ‘Did you bring my present?’

          ‘I admit, you had me stumped,’ he says, producing a cup the size of a small bowl from his peacoat. ‘But then I had an epiphany.’

          The last time we met, I told him to bring me the sunset in a cup and I would give him my answer.

          He places the cup on the pavement at my feet, and wriggles a well-used plastic water bottle from his pocket. ‘No judgement,’ he warns, filling the cup, but I’m too curious for mockery. He cups his hand and dips it into the water, resting it against the hollow of the cup. And then he stares. And stares. Like nothing in the world exists besides that cup.

          The water trembles and glitters with a light that doesn’t exist, and then a warm yellow blossoms in his palm, darkening with reds and oranges until the cup is filled with shimmering rays lighting the night between us.

          It is so beautiful I cannot breathe, but it doesn’t kill me. I can look right through it and not be singed. I reach to touch it but he pulls the light back in and the sunset disappears inside his palm.

          ‘It’s hotter than it looks,’ he says, drying his hand on his jeans. He looks at me, waiting. He will not ask his question again.

          This is my only chance to answer.   

Day 11: Challenge

Challege #5


Incorporate the themes of gender roles and power.

---

He’d started following her over a block ago. She’d felt his eyes crawling over her as she crossed the street by the market. She tightened her grip on her bag, raised her chin and walked faster.

          There were plenty of shadowy alcoves for someone to conceal themselves in. Even more buildings left empty and abandoned. The few streetlights that still worked flickered ambivalently against the night. Anything could be waiting in over a hundred different places.

          He wasn’t in a rush, but he was gaining on her. And the motel was still six blocks away. She had to make a decision.

          At the next corner, she ducked down the side street, her hand already feeling around her bag. Just as her fingers brushed the silver hilt, a hand clamped over her mouth while an arm wrapped around her waist. Her squirmed and clawed at the arms pinning her.

          ‘Don’t,’ hissed into her ear. The sound of her native tongue was enough to stun her. ‘Be still.’

          She hadn’t heard her own language since they’d come to this place. Her brother had happily abandoned all their customs in favour of assimilation. He either didn’t care or didn’t notice how much she still needed the old ways.

          A few moments later, the man who had been following her came into view, and she realised how stupid she’d been. Her captor had pinned her arm with her hand still in her bag. Still holding the knife. She would show them their mistake.

          The man stopped at the corner and turned in a slow circle. He looked right at her and his eyes slid away again. Shrugging, he jogged across the street and went back the way he came.

          She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she didn’t need to find out. The muscles were tensed and ready for the slightest give in her captor’s grip. It’d been so long since she’d had a good fight; she was almost excited.

          And then her back was slammed against the wall, knocking her bag to the ground. Her lungs seized, but she swung her knife through the air anyway. There would be time to breathe later.

          His hand locked around her wrist. The knife fell to the sidewalk. He stood with his face centimetres away from hers. Heat radiated from his skin, fuelled by the dark fires in his eyes.

          He shouldn’t be able to move that fast. He shouldn’t be able to sneak up on her. His eyes shouldn’t burn like that.

          ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ he asked, his voice low in his throat.

          She looked up at him, defiant. Forced herself to meet those eyes. To see him and not just the target points. As his features worked themselves into a familiar pattern, anger surged through her. An attack could have been forgotten; this was unforgivable. ‘I don’t answer to you,’ she said.

          ‘The fuck you don’t.’ He stepped back, pushing a hand through his shaggy hair. ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he muttered, lighting a cigarette. ‘Look. I’m responsible for keeping you safe, so when I tell you something, you damn well better do it.’

          ‘I don’t need a man to defend me,’ she said. ‘Men are weak.’

          ‘Oh, yeah?’ He grinned at her. She hated that look. He was too damn cocky. ‘You didn’t do so well against me, did you?’

          ‘You’re not a man,’ she said tensely. Her face flushed, but she forced herself to stay in control. A queen never lost her composure.

          ‘And you’re no queen,’ he countered. ‘Not anymore.’ He took a drag from his cigarette, then used it to gesture around the street. ‘Here you’re just another dumb little girl in a short skirt about to get herself killed wandering around shitty neighbourhoods after dark.’

          She had personally led her army to victory in thirteen battles by the time of her coronation. She had been the only undefeated champion in the sparring circle. There wasn’t a warrior, alive or dead, who matched her skill. ‘I could have handled him.’

          ‘And made an even bigger mess for me to clean up.’ A few more drags on the cigarette, and he sighed. ‘Look, I get it. And it sucks, but you can’t be you anymore. Not if you want to make it here.’

          ‘And “making it” here is letting men push me around?’

          His smile verged on a laugh that didn’t quite form. ‘Not exactly, but you can’t slit their throats just because they piss you off, either,’ he said. ‘And you do what I tell you.’

          ‘In my kingdom, I could have you killed for even speaking to me. I could even kill you myself, if I chose.’

          ‘Next time we’re in your kingdom, you can kill me as many times as you want,’ he said. ‘Just make my life easy while we’re here.’ He looked up at the derelict buildings and a grin snaked across his mouth. ‘In my kingdom.’

          She crossed her arms over her chest and stared him down. Even for a man, he made a pathetic warrior. He relied too much on tricks and gimmicks. But he knew this place and she didn’t. ‘Why is it that the women in your kingdom let the men just do as they please?’

          This time, he did laugh. ‘When someone figures that out, I’ll let you know.’

          

Day 10

Sometimes I wish I could just keep my mouth shut and not say every stupid thought I have. 

---

My first breath bound me into service.

          My feet carry the dust of every land beneath the sun, a few that have never seen the light of day, and more than I can count whose names are nothing but a whisper in the trees. It’s not my place to stay, to linger. To remind them of the service I perform when they are at their most vulnerable or the burden that grows heavier with every soul in need.

          But still for every soul in need, my body opens and welcomes home their wrongs. It’s not my place to complain, to refuse. To judge them for actions that are only in their nature.

          So I keep travelling, searching for those only I can absolve so just once in their brief existences they may know peace. I add to my burden. I gather dust and names and lives and years. I carry their stories in the pockets of my coat.

          When at last they take their final breath, the world will take hers.

          And then I will rest. 

Day 9

‘So what was it this time?’

‘You’re the psychic; you tell me.’

‘I see how people die, not how they almost kill themselves pulling asinine stunts. Immortal is not the same as indestructible, you know.’

‘I’m not immortal; you said so yourself.’

‘Don’t be a smartass.’

‘Don’t disrespect your elders.’

‘When my elders aren’t dripping blood all over my new carpet, they’ll get some respect.’

‘You should have more sympathy for the injured.’

‘You brought it on yourself.’

‘That shouldn’t be held against me.’

‘So what did we learn tonight?’

‘Don’t poke the Cerberus. It bites.’ 

Day 8: Challenge

Challenge #4

Write a story that incorporates the themes of change and forgiveness.

Note: This ties into the Never-Ending Epic of Woe that's consumed the past few years of my life. I never knew how these two first encountered each other, or what the connection between them was, until now, but it makes sense. 


A few points that probably aren't clear in this excerpt: 

• Destiny can predict people's deaths, and later becomes a fortune-teller.
• Caleb is the name of the mystery man who comes to fetch her. 
• He's a little bit immortal (but not completely). 
• He's also her great-uncle and his grandfather was an angel of death.
• The man she sees in her premonition of Caleb's death is his grandson.
• He's trying to absolve his guilt for letting his family die, hence the reference to an act of contrition.
  

---

Destiny was preoccupied with the future. Lately it was this constant drone in the back of her mind, like a mosquito she just couldn’t hit.

          She picked at the frayed cuff of her jeans and glared at thrown-together buildings that were never meant to house anyone for more than a few months, let alone a few generations. It wasn’t even like the future was worth thinking about. The fact that she didn’t have at least one screaming brat attached to her at sixteen was considered damn near a miracle around here.

          But she couldn’t shake it. The future wanted her to see something and Destiny knew, sooner or later, she was going to have to take a look.

          A commotion started up down the way, and kids started flocking out of corners to hang off porches, all staring down the little dirt road. Destiny craned her neck trying to see; she was too old to just run down with the other kids, but not old enough she wasn’t curious about the low rumble surrounded in plumes of dust.

          Then she saw it, crunching over loose stones and dried mud. Even the dirt didn’t do much to dull its shine. It was painted a deep, dark red that was almost black with sparkling silver on the wheels and around the windows. Destiny felt her spine straighten and her ears twitch.

          No one drove down here. No one who lived there, first of all, ever dreamt of having a car, and anyone else took one look at the road and the gaggle of grubby children staring at them and turned right back around again.

          She knew before it even started to slow that whoever was in that car was there for her. Her skin tingled and heat rushed through her scalp. The buzzing mosquito droned so loud she nearly couldn’t hear anything else.

          The car stopped and everyone waited while the dust drifted in slow clouds back to the ground. Whether they knew exactly why or not, the others all kept their distance from whatever the car represented. Destiny wanted to, as well, but she couldn’t seem to make herself move from her spot. More than that, she was excited.

          Finally, he stepped out. Slow and sure of himself, like nothing in this world could touch him. And God, he was like no one she’d ever seen before. Even the air around him couldn’t keep itself still. He was so clean. Skin a deep honey-brown with just that hint of gold, and straight, fine hair like wet ink. His clothes looked like they’d been made just for him, and hadn’t ever been worn more than once. He was magic personified, and he was here for her.

          He took his time looking her over, and she couldn’t help thinking his eyes were the same colour as his car, only alive. Like the last coals in a fire. ‘I knew your mother,’ he said, his voice just as silky and sweet as his skin looked. He cocked his head to one side and looked at her harder. No, in her. She could feel his eyes reaching right through to the deepest parts of her. ‘Your grandmother,’ he corrected. ‘Time gets away from me sometimes. I need to find her.’

          ‘They’re both dead,’ she said, not even pausing to consider how someone who looked barely older than her could know a woman who’d died well before she’d been born.

          ‘That tends to be the case with people I need to find.’ He nodded. ‘I was looking for her a long time ago, but… Something happened.’ He looked confused for a moment, as if trying to chase down something in his own mind. ‘I don’t remember why I stopped, and time just… Went. So I found you instead.’

          ‘Why were you looking for her?’

          ‘A feeble attempt at contrition,’ he said. Those eyes ran over her again and she felt a rush of warmth skip through her. ‘I guess you’ll have to be my mea culpa instead.’

          ‘I’ll be your what?’

          ‘It’s a long story.’ He ran a hand back through his hair, leaving one lone strand sticking straight out. ‘How did your mother die?’

          ‘Fire.’ She watched the hair, wondering how long before it fell in line with the others.

          ‘I didn’t see that coming.’

          ‘I did.’

          ‘I bet.’ He grinned, a crookedly mischievous expression. ‘I need you.’

          For the first time in longer than she could remember, the buzzing in her mind stopped. ‘For what?’

          ‘I have a house that needs looking after.’

          ‘Why me?’

          ‘It’s a special house,’ he said. He looked around the street for the first time. ‘Would you rather stay here?’

          ‘No, but…’ She tried to pinpoint the question she needed to ask. ‘They don’t have house-sitters where you come from?’

          ‘Oh, not like you, little girl.’ He gave her that grin again, and she decided she liked the imperfection on him. ‘Let’s just say I prefer to keep things in the family.’ He held out his hand. ‘What do you say?’

          There were a million reasons to say no to a stranger with an offer too good to be true, but in all honesty, what did she really have to lose? ‘What about my brother?’

          ‘Does he matter?’

          ‘Yes.’

          ‘I can work with that.’

          She slid her hand into his, and almost pulled it back it was so hot. Then she saw fire – no, just light – white, hot light consuming everything, and faces swarming out of it, then nothing but a dark street and a tired, bloody man staring back. A twin of the one actually in front of her, if the eyes weren’t so different. ‘I know how you die,’ she said before she had the sense to stop herself. She hadn’t slipped like that since… Well, since her mother.

          ‘That’s reassuring,’ he said, and he sounded like he meant it. 

Day 7

He was her special boy, her darling boy. She ran her fingers through his fine, sandy hair and watched it fall back perfectly in place as it always did. No one would ever love him the way she did. No one would appreciate that smooth, flawless skin. Those bright, shiny blue eyes. Like glass. No. No one could ever know him the way she did.

          ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t let anyone take you away from me.’

          She straightened his small body on the bed. Smoothed the creases of his shirt and retied the laces of his shoes. He was so handsome, her precious boy. Just like his father.

          Franny! Franny, open this door!

          Irritation flickered across her features, but she pushed it away. Only smiles and happy faces were good enough for her little man. She hated that name, though. He knew she hated it. He was always doing little things like that, trying to undermine her. Why she had ever thought she could live with a man like that… He was nothing like Edward’s father.

          ‘Your father was one in a million,’ she said, rocking slowly in the chair beside Edward’s bed. ‘So smart and strong. A good man.’ She sighed and fondled the locket around her neck. If only things had been just a little different. Then she wouldn’t have to put up with That Man and his Filth.

          The way he looked at her.

          The way he touched her.

          It was horrifying. She’d had to lock herself in the bathroom on their wedding night just to get away from him, and there he was, pounding on the bathroom door, telling her to come back out.

          That Man was always pounding on doors.

          Franny, just be reasonable and let’s talk about this. Franny!

          If only he would just leave her alone with her Edward for a moment so she could have some peace… Even her Magic Pills weren’t enough to block him out anymore.

          ‘It’s alright, darling,’ she murmured, patting the stiff hand on the bed. ‘He can’t do anything to us in here.’

          He was so perfect, her Edward. The other mothers were all jealous. She saw their looks when she went out with Edward. Averting their eyes and whispering to each other. The way their children would point and stare. Some people just had no manners.

          Franny, please. Just open the door. I’m trying to help you.

          Well, that was fine. She didn’t need them, and neither did Edward. They didn’t need anyone but each other. She smiled as she settled back in the chair and began to hum. He would stay with her forever. 

Day 6: Challenge

Challenge #3


Incorporate elements of detective fiction and speculative fiction where the protagonist is a Byronic hero.

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It wasn’t that bodies never went missing, it was just damn inconvenient when they did. Crowley popped another handful of aspirin and glowered at the blank form sitting in his typewriter. Like he needed another Missing Corpse case weighing down his load. Even the brown-nosers never managed to close those. Plus it meant another trip down to interview that pale, creepy fuck of a coroner.

          That was the whole problem, if you asked him. Too many damn foreigners coming in with their weird customs and unpronounceable names. Of course, you couldn’t say that within earshot of anyone in the head office if you wanted to keep your pension. The company line was that the influx of foreign refugees was good, meant to boost the economy or some bullshit like that, but the only boost Crowley had seen was the stack of unsolved cases piling on his desk.

          What he needed was a drink.

          And then a few more after that.

         

Crowley shifted his bulk in the narrow metal folding chair placed in what served as the coroner’s office but probably started life as a broom closet. Dented filing cabinets took up most of the space, and the only light was a single, low-watt bulb in the ceiling that had been dimmed even further with a swath of fabric. Music – or what he guessed was supposed to pass for music – drifted through the walls from the exam room. To Crowley it just sounded like that garbled New Age hippie shit they played down at Crystal Earth.

          He squinted at his notebook and tried to turn the jumble of consonants that supposedly made up the coroner’s name into something pronounceable.

          ‘Sorry about that.’ The coroner glided into the room and squeezed past Crowley to perch on the only other chair in the room.

          Crowley got a strong whiff of that scent. He could never place exactly what it was, just that it was dry and sweet and familiar, and stayed lodged in the back of his throat for hours afterward.

          ‘My assistant forgot to turn the stereo on.’ He folded his hands in his lap and smiled a smile that wasn’t exactly a smile. ‘We’ve found it relaxes them.’

          ‘Your assistants?’

          ‘The dead. Personally, I prefer a little Chopin, myself, but to each his own. What can I do for you, Detective?’

          ‘Look, Mr. –’

          ‘Just call me Çyn.’ He gave Crowley that… Whatever it was. It looked more like his mouth didn’t have the faintest association with what a cheerful expression ought to be. ‘It’ll be easier on both of us.’

          ‘I’m here about that body you managed to misplace this afternoon.’

          ‘Oh?’ Çyn frowned slightly. That expression his face seemed to have no problem with. ‘Oh, you must mean Miss Landry. Lovely girl. Very gregarious. I have to admit several of the boys were a little broken-hearted to learn she’d gone.’

          ‘Ah… Right.’ Crowley wasn’t sure if Çyn meant his assistants or the other corpses, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know, either. ‘It just so happens I wasn’t done investigating her murder so I’d like to track her down, if you don’t mind.’

          ‘Oh, dear. That does create a problem, doesn’t it?’ Çyn tapped the hollow of his cheek slowly. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you, of course, Detective. The problem is most of our clientele don’t really leave their contact information with us when they go.’

          Crowley felt the headache returning around his temples. ‘Just tell me when the body went missing.’

          ‘Let’s see… She came in this morning with Mr. Jenkins and Mrs. Talloway, so that would have been around nine or so. After that, we had quite a little rush – that traffic accident downtown, you know – so I’m afraid she was left to her own devices for most of the day. I think it wasn’t until four that James noticed she’d decided to leave. Tell me, Detective, you’re sure she’s actually missing?’

          Deep breaths, old man. ‘What do you mean, she decided to leave?’

          ‘We can’t just keep them here like prisoners, Detective. They haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not their fault they’re dead. Most of them, anyway.’ A look of concern suddenly came over Çyn’s features.  ‘You don’t think someone’s hurt her, do you?’

          ‘Do I think someone hurt the girl who was murdered last night?’ Crowley repeated. ‘No, I think that ship’s sailed.’

          ‘Oh, good. That’s a relief. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I’m sure she’ll find her way back here when she’s ready. She probably just stepped out for a bit of air.’

          ‘The dead girl stepped out for air.’ 

          ‘Oh, yes. It’s actually very important for them to get their exercise. The joints have a tendency to seize up after death and they get horribly stiff if they aren’t stretched regularly.’

          ‘So you just have corpses wandering in and out of here whenever they please?’

          ‘We prefer if they let us know first. It prevents confusion.’

          Crowley thought of the stack of Missing Corpse cases on his desk dating back years. It couldn’t be that simple. ‘I suppose you expect me to believe they just walk out on their own?’

          ‘How else would they do it?’

          A tray clattered to the floor outside the office, followed by several repeated thumps.

          ‘Oh, dear. You’ll excuse me a moment.’ Çyn glided out of the room just as he’d come in. ‘Oh, you poor thing. Come here, darling, let me help you.’ A moment later, he reappeared in the doorway, propping up a young girl with blood-matted hair and empty eye sockets. ‘Speak of the devil, Detective, look who we have here. I told you she just popped out for a minute.’