Story Board of Ordinary Lives

Opus 122308: Witness The Fall

2008-12-22T23:02:00.001-08:00

When James Stewart pursued the ascent
Only to witness
the fall
And to wrestle with his demons
Did he suspect it would usher him to cognizance
And madness?

I climbed a thousand feet to nestle within the clouds
And saw the wreckage of fire on
the firewatcher
Rattled
I firmly held the rail.

Whence is the ascendancy?
Am I Jacob
bested?

Opus 010708: Termination Dust

2008-01-07T21:30:00.001-08:00

Music accompaniment: "What You'll Miss" by The Lucksmiths.

Mary arrived at work, much to the surprise of her coworkers. Granted, it had been six months, but so much had happened in that half-year. And it wasn’t as though there was anything preventing her from working, she had her health. More or less. That was about all she could claim, she would sometimes think. Today was no exception.

Her coworkers were gathered around the bubbler, as usual. It was a poor substitute for a water cooler, but they dolled it up as nicely as they could to make it as true to a gossip corner as they could. Her friend Drew had even come up with an idea to bring one of the office phones out so that they could parry the occasional nuisances of a lab representative with minimal detriment to the finest hearsay of the day. Some of her colleagues were so bold as to dub it a work-related activity because of that phone. Mary saw little humor in that any more, though she had previously heralded it in her jovial manner that had once delighted so many that she no longer felt considered themselves her friend.

The Bubbler Talk became subdued upon her entry. Maybe she had been the topic on this occasion. Or maybe they thought it inappropriate to engage in crudities and merriment in her presence. She couldn’t tell by their trained gazes, a mixture of pity, guilt, and disgust sweeping torrentially through every pair of eyes. All the same, she hated every one of them at that instance.

Mary tried to work, but in the end maybe she wasn’t quite ready for it. Everything was a reminder. Her hands would tremble at the sight of the chemical shelf, the balances looked at her coldly and menacingly. Even her chemical hood served as a bitter image. To think anybody would need to live in a box under that eerie bluish glow to do…what was it the doctors said…conjoining? No, conjugation. And to what end, what would come after that?

She kept reassuring herself that she made the right decision. It took her six months to accept that decision, albeit in a limited capacity. But she thought she missed some sort of memo, because nobody else seemed to agree. Could she be the only one who saw this situation with any clarity? Doubt constantly crept into her like a thief in the night, staved off only by a diminishing will.

It had snowed all day, and she was cold walking home. No longer equipped with her usual adipose cushion, the cold felt even more penetrating than before. She walked by a playground and shuddered. It struck her how quiet and desolate it appeared blanketed under the snow, as though the shrill laughter of the children had been forever muffled by this great, white blanket of ice. How sinister a peaceful image such as this could be when cast under the appropriate shadow.

She toyed absently with the ring on her finger, and she just as absently walked over to the nearby park bench. She had always imagined herself sitting on that bench, watching, maybe chatting with other mothers and fathers. Despite the frigidity of the elements, she sat on it anyway, imagining the water soaking through into her stretch marks, thinking maybe they could reinflate her to the size she was supposed to be. That it could maybe give her one more chance to get past five months, and that the cleansing power of the water and ice could purify the impurity she refused to bring to fruition and cleanse her of the dirtiness that she still felt covered her to her core.

She spotted a nearby tree, trembling at its familiarity and sensing that it was mocking her. He had once been her pillar, had supported her, and she he, had promised it was forever, through good times and bad times. She once loved him more than anything, and she prided herself on remembering in vivid detail both the public and the intimate rituals they had gone through during courtship and in marriage. Now all she could remember was he as a tree in the distance, looking on her aloofly and full of disappointment. During her most devastating and compromising moment, her tree looked leafless and frail and absent.

Slowly she extracted herself from her seat and, trying her best to ignore the cold of her jeans against her butt as she shuffled along, moved toward her house. She felt the weight of the world crashing down upon her at that moment, the grayness, the cold, the desolation, the absence of life. Companionship seemed completely out of reach; judgment was now her new best friend. These winter scenes, which she once found so soothing, now only called forth death and lifelessness. What had she heard her friend from Alaska call it when it would blanket the mountains? Termination dust? And here she was, surrounded by the dust of termination.

Moving toward her door, Mary fumbled for her keys and dropped them in the snow. She bent to retrieve them, sifting through the slush, and sent a sigh so despairing that it scared off a nearby hare concealed in the bushes. The movement of the bush flashed in her eyes, and she caught a passing glimpse of red. Mary’s eyes focused on a cloud of scarlet buds shaking on the bush from its occupant’s rapid departure: leafless buds, glowing with such radiance, that she almost believed that they had melted through the snow of their own accord. She half expected the snow around the bush to be melted through and through. And as she dusted off the snow from her house key and let herself in, feeling the heat of her furnace warm her cheeks, she allowed herself to smile at the thought of the flaming red leaves she would come to enjoy in only a few short months.

Mission Statement

2007-12-27T23:16:00.000-08:00

Well, if you're reading this right now, it's probably because you saw it cross-posted on my other site in which I merely vent about whatever the hell happens to be annoying me at the time. The real reason I started my other blog, initially, was to give me a chance to practice writing. However, it has become apparent to me that while bitch sessions are fine and dandy for getting in the habit of writing, it is in the end a very poor substitute for creative writing.

Furthermore, not only is my dabbling into writing suffering but the life of a graduate student in the natural sciences takes its toll on one's ability to have much of an outside life in which to explore new and interesting phenomena. This will hopefully give me a reason to do more exploration or, at the very least, to make experiences seem a little more interesting than they actually are.

I have thus opened up this space to attempt a new creative project, one that will hopefully shake me from the block that has kept me from finishing the four plays and two screenplays that have been mildewing in the dark recesses of my mind for the past year. I will spell out what it is I intend to do, not only to remind myself in the future, but also to allow you, the reader (if you choose), to contribute in your own way.

1. With my brand spanking new digital camera, I will try to take at least one photograph every day and submit a total of 7 photographs per week on every Sunday. This part is inspired largely by my friend Michelle, who for a while was doing a weekly photojournal on her own blogspot page and was something I always thought was really neat (although she has not kept up with this for a very long time, which is a shame).

2. The Sunday after I post the 7-picture series, I will then update the post with a short story that uses the pictures as a storyboard, as though writing an extended outline for a short film. I am not sure what direction any of this will take, so chances are the stories will be disparate from week to week. However, if I end up enjoying a certain persona or storyline, I will indicate that it's a continuation within the labels once the story is submitted. It might be fun afterwards to see what kind of larger story materializes over the weeks, if any does at all.

Note: I invite other people who are inclined to writing to submit their own storyline in the "comments" section. I promise that I will not steal anybody's ideas, at least not without proper credit, and I expect others to extend me the same courtesy if for some reason any of these stories seem the least bit interesting or marketable (which I seriously doubt).

3. (optional) If I am left with any time, I will also try to post a musical selection that fits the ambience of the piece. Ideally I will include an actual audio file, if I can figure out how to do that, or at worst a youtube clip that can be played while reading through the story. However I am sure that on many occasions I will only be able to post the artist and song title, but I will try to figure out a legal way of posting actual songs.

I don't know if I'll be able to continue this with any regularity, and I'm definitely not sure if any of this will be the least bit pleasurable to read. But if any readers out there see any merit or enjoyment in this, I would love your feedback, particularly if it's more than just "I liked it" or "I hated it."

That's all I've got. I await with bated breath to see what the first week's installment brings.