Post by Gabriel on Feb 5, 2006 11:00:54 GMT
Er, well, I didn't want Rose to feel like a gooseberry, so here's two stories I wrote one time back when life used to mean something. They're both stupid and pointless.
Simon's bane
Simon looked down at his knees and regarded them critically. “They do rather stick out”, he said, thinking aloud. “They do rather stick out and look ugly.”
The boy was sixteen years of age and currently stood naked before a bath full of steaming water. His eyes slowly wondered up his thinly constructed body, surveying its terrain and passing harsh judgement upon it.
“I think”, he said, “that this body was not built for a sane human mind”.
Outside it had begun to rain and night was sweeping in from the east. A lone figure moved up the street stealthily wearing a long black coat. It was an old man, though exactly how old he was none can say, nor can we know where he came from or what his name was. He was simply in the street, and walking, and then stopping, there, outside somebody’s house, and then ringing the doorbell, and glancing around nervously as the rain battered his worn face.
Simon cursed to himself. With an effort he pulled himself out from the bath and grabbed a towel, wiping himself dry with sharp urgent motions, whilst beneath his feet the doorbell was ringing over the sound of the pattering rain. He was still damp but there was no time, no time. He’d simply have to throw some clothes on and then return to his bath later. No time for pants, no time for socks. Just stick to trousers and a shirt. Keep it basic. Saves time.
Simon was not in a good mood, incidentally. He felt left behind, somehow. “What was this thing”, he thought as he put clothes on, “that we call life?” It seemed to him that people existed in parallel lines from his being. Everyone was content to arrange and socialise and drink. It was simply what people did. He didn’t understand it, though. It all seemed just so... silly.
Never mind that, though. There was a door to answer.
Like all self-respecting members of the feline family, Mongle hated getting wet. A nearby bush was hardly the most efficient shelter, but it would have to suffice for now. The cat leapt up the wall with graceful ease, and perched there, underneath green branches that smelt of birds and of summer and many other natural things. From her vantage point she could see an old human man waiting outside a house. At length the door opened and an awkward looking boy looked out quizzically. Mongle amused herself by thinking that he looked like a baby bird after they first hatch out of an egg. It was indeed a witty analogy, but the cat would not tell anyone about it! The joke would be her little secret, and no-one would be able to take that away.
The old man glanced at Simon briefly before relaxing into a warm smile. It was a nice smile; it felt natural, like gliding into a lake on a hot day. Simon felt a comforting sense of familiarity with the man, though he had never met him before in his life.
“Hello”, said the man. He had a rich deep voice. It sounded like thunder when it is very far away and echoes across green rolling valleys.
Simon wiped his damp hair with one hand and smiled back at the stranger.
“I have come to give you a mission”, said the old man.
“A mission?” asked Simon, letting his hand drop from his brow.
“Yes”, answered the old man, “a mission. And a very important one too, if I may say so myself.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. You have always felt different, haven’t you? Sort of as if”
“I didn’t fit in”.
“Yes”, said the old man. “As if you didn’t fit in”.
The rain was falling more heavily now.
“You are too different to continue living in this world”, said the old man. “So I will fake your death and take you into a parallel universe”.
Simon answered as if in a dream: “I understand”.
“Oh, and we’ll take the cat outside along with us too”.
Mongles jumped off the wall and rubbed herself against the old man’s leg. Everything felt strange all of a sudden. As if she was under some kind of delightful spell. The two humans were walking off now, and she was following them. Soon they were no longer in the universe. They had fallen out of time and space but everything felt beautifully simple. Everything was just fine, the cat decided. Everything was just fine.
Jacob's Shadow
I.
Jacob moved through the trees like a ghost. The light streamed in through the leaves in long lazy arcs as he made his way deep into the forest. This was the old part of the land, where the various spirits still dwelt, where magic was still strong upon the patched ground. It was a beautiful afternoon. The animals were out and playing as Jacob’s feet thudded gently across the floor. A squirrel ran off, leaping athletically from branch to branch. The sun was beginning her descent and her skewed rays created a filter of yellow against the red and green tree leaves.
Jacob was only 17 years old yet had visited the earth before he had been born, and he could remember it too. He could remember every detail and every microbe of his being. His fibre was formed from the dust of aged old pages, of truths long forgotten and of people long since rested in graves. He could sense every animal in his presence. There was the badger deep beneath his feet. There was the sparrow flying far above his head. Life continued in a spectrum of diversity amidst the boy’s presence. It continued around him and went on continuing, long after Jacob had passed through, until the end of time and the demise of ages.
Far off in the distance the church bells ran out, varying in speed and volume, sending a torrent of birds flittering in the crisp air.
It had begun.
Jacob quickened his pace towards the heart of the wood. Trees and creatures and light flashed passed him, blurring into shadows and silhouettes against the slowly dying sun.
The boy turned a corner in the beaten path and met a cat, whom he exchanged looks of recognition with, before continuing his speedy plod onwards. The cat began to follow him, sprinting after the boy in sharp leaps from her mighty paws.
The next corner of the path held more animals still; birds, beasts, creatures large and small, lethal and meek. They stood in perfect stillness watching the boy and his cat approach. He made towards them, nodded his head, and then turned around back to the path, resuming his journey. The other animals, like the cat, began to follow him. Now Jacob was running in the forest tailed by a conglomeration of life. They would follow him to his death, and he knew it.
At length the boy and his troupe rounded yet another corner, and around this one sat a great many creatures who had long since passed into myth and legend. There was the hippogriff, her body a hose, her head an eagle, screeching in the wind. There the Ceberus, a three headed dog with a snake for a tail. There the Bonnacon, the Marlet, the Salamander, the Unicorn; and many more besides. The host of fable regarded the boy and his animals for a second before joining him on his journey.
The last corner of the path came by, and was filled with humans, but they did not follow him, and instead regarded him with suspicion and dislike. Jacob did not act surprised; he began marching off into the deep shadows of the wood with his followers with a grim determinism leaving the humans behind and alone in the murk.
II.
Twilight was falling and the moon was rising. The darkness grew from the heart of the forest and spread out across the trees and the burrows until the tendrils of darkness at last reached a series of old cracked graves that protruded from a grassless mound. The inky void clutched the vestiges of the dead and wrapped itself around the cold stone.
The bells were tolling and the wind was howling and somewhere deep beneath the ground there came a sudden rumbling. The dead were moving again.
III.
Jacob came to a long stretch of river shaded by the trees. He slowly bent down and tickled the water playfully with one extended finger before looking up sharply northwards. The creatures and beasts flittered around him impatiently.
Jacob flicked up a few droplets of water onto his brow, wiping them out from his brown fringe seconds later with the back of his hand. He then turned to his followers and said, “they are coming”.
IV.
A thin gangly hand, ridden with disease and decay, broke through the ashen earth with a terrible thrust of unholy power. The skeletal digits groped around for a while before being joined with an arm of ghastly white. Then a great mound appeared on the grave that was swiftly broken through by a grinning skull. It positioned itself up towards the moon whereupon a sanguine glow ignited itself in the depths of the dead man’s eye sockets. Soon the rest of the body followed, having been pulled out by arms of enormous power, until there, stood underneath the moonlight, stood a skeleton in tattered rags.
It suddenly became very cold. The skeleton looked around and saw that many of his brothers and sisters were joining him. It strode awkwardly over to the rusty cemetery railings and deftly snapped a shard of metal out from the icy ground. It waved it around like a sword and laughed manically into the night.
V.
“There’s not much time”, said Jacob seriously. “I sense that the dead have already begun to walk the earth again”.
“I sense it too, master”, said a--
Both unfinished, obviously (especially the last one), but I never really had any grand plan for continuing them anyway. It's just a bit of fun.
Simon's bane
Simon looked down at his knees and regarded them critically. “They do rather stick out”, he said, thinking aloud. “They do rather stick out and look ugly.”
The boy was sixteen years of age and currently stood naked before a bath full of steaming water. His eyes slowly wondered up his thinly constructed body, surveying its terrain and passing harsh judgement upon it.
“I think”, he said, “that this body was not built for a sane human mind”.
* * *
Outside it had begun to rain and night was sweeping in from the east. A lone figure moved up the street stealthily wearing a long black coat. It was an old man, though exactly how old he was none can say, nor can we know where he came from or what his name was. He was simply in the street, and walking, and then stopping, there, outside somebody’s house, and then ringing the doorbell, and glancing around nervously as the rain battered his worn face.
* * *
Simon cursed to himself. With an effort he pulled himself out from the bath and grabbed a towel, wiping himself dry with sharp urgent motions, whilst beneath his feet the doorbell was ringing over the sound of the pattering rain. He was still damp but there was no time, no time. He’d simply have to throw some clothes on and then return to his bath later. No time for pants, no time for socks. Just stick to trousers and a shirt. Keep it basic. Saves time.
Simon was not in a good mood, incidentally. He felt left behind, somehow. “What was this thing”, he thought as he put clothes on, “that we call life?” It seemed to him that people existed in parallel lines from his being. Everyone was content to arrange and socialise and drink. It was simply what people did. He didn’t understand it, though. It all seemed just so... silly.
Never mind that, though. There was a door to answer.
* * *
Like all self-respecting members of the feline family, Mongle hated getting wet. A nearby bush was hardly the most efficient shelter, but it would have to suffice for now. The cat leapt up the wall with graceful ease, and perched there, underneath green branches that smelt of birds and of summer and many other natural things. From her vantage point she could see an old human man waiting outside a house. At length the door opened and an awkward looking boy looked out quizzically. Mongle amused herself by thinking that he looked like a baby bird after they first hatch out of an egg. It was indeed a witty analogy, but the cat would not tell anyone about it! The joke would be her little secret, and no-one would be able to take that away.
* * *
The old man glanced at Simon briefly before relaxing into a warm smile. It was a nice smile; it felt natural, like gliding into a lake on a hot day. Simon felt a comforting sense of familiarity with the man, though he had never met him before in his life.
“Hello”, said the man. He had a rich deep voice. It sounded like thunder when it is very far away and echoes across green rolling valleys.
* * *
Simon wiped his damp hair with one hand and smiled back at the stranger.
“I have come to give you a mission”, said the old man.
“A mission?” asked Simon, letting his hand drop from his brow.
“Yes”, answered the old man, “a mission. And a very important one too, if I may say so myself.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. You have always felt different, haven’t you? Sort of as if”
“I didn’t fit in”.
“Yes”, said the old man. “As if you didn’t fit in”.
The rain was falling more heavily now.
“You are too different to continue living in this world”, said the old man. “So I will fake your death and take you into a parallel universe”.
Simon answered as if in a dream: “I understand”.
“Oh, and we’ll take the cat outside along with us too”.
* * *
Mongles jumped off the wall and rubbed herself against the old man’s leg. Everything felt strange all of a sudden. As if she was under some kind of delightful spell. The two humans were walking off now, and she was following them. Soon they were no longer in the universe. They had fallen out of time and space but everything felt beautifully simple. Everything was just fine, the cat decided. Everything was just fine.
Jacob's Shadow
I.
Jacob moved through the trees like a ghost. The light streamed in through the leaves in long lazy arcs as he made his way deep into the forest. This was the old part of the land, where the various spirits still dwelt, where magic was still strong upon the patched ground. It was a beautiful afternoon. The animals were out and playing as Jacob’s feet thudded gently across the floor. A squirrel ran off, leaping athletically from branch to branch. The sun was beginning her descent and her skewed rays created a filter of yellow against the red and green tree leaves.
Jacob was only 17 years old yet had visited the earth before he had been born, and he could remember it too. He could remember every detail and every microbe of his being. His fibre was formed from the dust of aged old pages, of truths long forgotten and of people long since rested in graves. He could sense every animal in his presence. There was the badger deep beneath his feet. There was the sparrow flying far above his head. Life continued in a spectrum of diversity amidst the boy’s presence. It continued around him and went on continuing, long after Jacob had passed through, until the end of time and the demise of ages.
Far off in the distance the church bells ran out, varying in speed and volume, sending a torrent of birds flittering in the crisp air.
It had begun.
Jacob quickened his pace towards the heart of the wood. Trees and creatures and light flashed passed him, blurring into shadows and silhouettes against the slowly dying sun.
The boy turned a corner in the beaten path and met a cat, whom he exchanged looks of recognition with, before continuing his speedy plod onwards. The cat began to follow him, sprinting after the boy in sharp leaps from her mighty paws.
The next corner of the path held more animals still; birds, beasts, creatures large and small, lethal and meek. They stood in perfect stillness watching the boy and his cat approach. He made towards them, nodded his head, and then turned around back to the path, resuming his journey. The other animals, like the cat, began to follow him. Now Jacob was running in the forest tailed by a conglomeration of life. They would follow him to his death, and he knew it.
At length the boy and his troupe rounded yet another corner, and around this one sat a great many creatures who had long since passed into myth and legend. There was the hippogriff, her body a hose, her head an eagle, screeching in the wind. There the Ceberus, a three headed dog with a snake for a tail. There the Bonnacon, the Marlet, the Salamander, the Unicorn; and many more besides. The host of fable regarded the boy and his animals for a second before joining him on his journey.
The last corner of the path came by, and was filled with humans, but they did not follow him, and instead regarded him with suspicion and dislike. Jacob did not act surprised; he began marching off into the deep shadows of the wood with his followers with a grim determinism leaving the humans behind and alone in the murk.
II.
Twilight was falling and the moon was rising. The darkness grew from the heart of the forest and spread out across the trees and the burrows until the tendrils of darkness at last reached a series of old cracked graves that protruded from a grassless mound. The inky void clutched the vestiges of the dead and wrapped itself around the cold stone.
The bells were tolling and the wind was howling and somewhere deep beneath the ground there came a sudden rumbling. The dead were moving again.
III.
Jacob came to a long stretch of river shaded by the trees. He slowly bent down and tickled the water playfully with one extended finger before looking up sharply northwards. The creatures and beasts flittered around him impatiently.
Jacob flicked up a few droplets of water onto his brow, wiping them out from his brown fringe seconds later with the back of his hand. He then turned to his followers and said, “they are coming”.
IV.
A thin gangly hand, ridden with disease and decay, broke through the ashen earth with a terrible thrust of unholy power. The skeletal digits groped around for a while before being joined with an arm of ghastly white. Then a great mound appeared on the grave that was swiftly broken through by a grinning skull. It positioned itself up towards the moon whereupon a sanguine glow ignited itself in the depths of the dead man’s eye sockets. Soon the rest of the body followed, having been pulled out by arms of enormous power, until there, stood underneath the moonlight, stood a skeleton in tattered rags.
It suddenly became very cold. The skeleton looked around and saw that many of his brothers and sisters were joining him. It strode awkwardly over to the rusty cemetery railings and deftly snapped a shard of metal out from the icy ground. It waved it around like a sword and laughed manically into the night.
V.
“There’s not much time”, said Jacob seriously. “I sense that the dead have already begun to walk the earth again”.
“I sense it too, master”, said a--
Both unfinished, obviously (especially the last one), but I never really had any grand plan for continuing them anyway. It's just a bit of fun.