My short fiction/prose thread. Yay. - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

HiThereDear · 05-29-2003, 11:37 AM

Hi all,

These are from when I was 17-19 y.o. (I'm 24 now), so in case they blow I can fall back on that excuse at least. I don't mind criticism at all, so no need to be overly kind. Particularly I would like some input on the narrative voice (minus all the youthful melodrama and sentimentality) - too conventional, too stuffy, repetitive, etc.

I'll post more recent stuff when I find it.

Thanks!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INFINITE CONFINEMENT

I was standing at the window to the infinite. Turning around, I suddenly realized the deep contrast between the two sides of that single, spotted piece of glass. The room before me could only be described as painfully finite. The adulterated white of the walls cast an intimidating look over its prisoners. The walls themselves seemed to push for space. And as every year brought a new layer of paint, they seemed to have less. The paint, meant to hide those prophetic statements of existence – “John Woo ’95”, “Eugene was here” -, eroded the shape of the individual bricks into a dangerously rough textured monolith. The hum of the heating system screamed back from those jagged blocks, while the heat itself seemed reluctant to leave the vent. The entire room conspired to keep its odor of times that still exist only in a few memories. It was a rich smell, saturated with loneliness and friendship, goals achieved and dreams lost, that would outlive the rebelliousness of every schoolboy. My roommate and I, in our idealistic childishness, tried to upset the frozen order of this frozen universe. For our every effort at comfort, we were punished with an unmanageable closeness. Yet, stubbornly, we left everything the way it was. The 14th floor lounge couch was to remain there, facing the window, climbed over to cross the room. Our beds too would remain perpendicular to each other, defying all logic. The finite allows only so much change.
I turned back around for my own well being. And there she was, knocking at my window. Her body embraced tightly by that deep, silencing cover. She lay there by the side of the Charles River. The river reflected from its venerable but befouled depths an arcadian vision of the city, the shimmering surface erasing all human nature, leaving only a mirage of the galaxies running down the buildings. These buildings surrounded her, in a protective, paternal stance. Turning off the lights in my room, I gazed down the 14 floors to see the cars running up her side. I knew her balm of exhaust, melting dirty snow, and the release of the early evening. I knew it in a coalition of my senses, a partnership between sight and smell. And as I moved my gaze up her lengths, past the lights, past the New England landscape I came to call home, to the edge of resolution, all my senses told me I was heading towards infinity.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Canyon

The group’s excitement is slowly being replaced by fear and regret as each cell in our bodies is voicing its concern, combining to produce the massive roar we feel in our stomachs. The image of the Grand Canyon we see is stripped of its laminated coating, enlarged to full size, and conspicuously missing the softened, magical aura given it by the airbrush. Looking down from the lip of the canyon, we can see the Colorado River reduced to an inconsequential stream. Surrounded by its sons, who, growing since the river chose a resting-place, protect their creator. These walls stare back at us as yellow, orange, red, and shades between wash over their intimidating faces. And we know the power of the river in its old age, so what will we face in its children? But the eighty of us are placated by the thought that this crack in the earth has been tamed by so many others. Also, we falsely believe that the school could never place us in danger for fear of being sued by countless parents. Most importantly though, we have the armor of a youthful mind and the arrogance of masculinity.
Mr. McNear and Mr. Ball, our Guides/Teachers from school, try to quiet down the mass of boys in their usual condescending voice. When their shouts and threats have lowered the noise to a reasonable level they begin their lecture on the dangers of this and that and how we should do this or not do that, all of it passing right through us and plummeting to its death down the canyon. What we do know, is that this is our last time together with the people we have shared most of the last four years with. Our last days as high school students, soon we’ll be shattered apart, each of us going to university in a different part of the country, some even in another part of the world. We are determined to go down and up the Grand Canyon in one day, and somewhere in between find a way to thank our friends and reconcile with our enemies.
At ground level we’re surrounded by tourists carrying their cameras and little children running around, painfully oblivious to the drop a few feet from them past the metal barriers. Our group begins its downward journey with a last reminder to fill our gallon jugs with water and keep drinking. The temperature has reached 110 degrees F, and with no water sources on the way down, everyone is closely guarding their supply. A few hundred feet down the trail we quickly leave behind the families and the cars and everything man-made, except for the trail of course. The eighty of us travel in single-file line; we only have a four or five foot path to walk down. On our right hand side is the wall of the canyon, deprived of its rainbow of yellow and oranges over such a small section, so it sits in a dull pastel brown. We can see the opposite side of the canyon on our left, judging our position on it. We move from light orange to yellow. Looking directly down we lose the canyon in its sloping switchbacks and determined bushes. Mostly though, we keep our heads down, away from the sun and on the path. The trail is strewn with little boulders, the colors of the canyon. Carved from the walls, it still remains jagged and uneven. The canyon crowds onto the path, like school children sticking their feet out, always looking to trip us up. As the time moves on, we move across the switchbacks, the image in front of our eyes remaining constant. Eventually, our group of eighty begins to dissolve into the fit and the rest. Being a soccer player for four years, but naturally lazy, I stay in the middle, occasionally slowing down or hurrying to catch up with another group I feel like talking with. All of our bantering and discussions about women and life are slowly replaced by steady breathing and a wipe of the brow.
Around midday we stop at a plateau and allow the entire group to congregate. We’ve traveled near a mile vertically down and at least seven or eight across the switchbacks, pissing on the rocks every hour or so. Sitting on a rock a few yards from the rest, I can hear the conversations of the students and the teachers. I hear John saying “McQueer and Ball are faggots, lets drop ‘em over the edge.” And I see Pasqual on the edge of a circle of friends, hoping that in these last days years of rejection and ridicule will have faded into friendship. Me, I just sit there wishing I could have a smoke. McNear and Ball rise to tell us we only have a couple of hours to go and to keep drinking our water. So we set off again.
Conversation precluded by panting, my mind races over the meaning of this milestone. What bonds have we developed with each other over these last four years? I remember what one of the kids in my dormitory said to me one night over a cigarette, “You can’t be fake 24 hours a day.” So everything between me and these kids I lived with must be true. And at that moment I feel this deep camaraderie for these eighty people develop within me. Even with my enemies. And then I think about Pasqual and Jeff and the others like them. Being neither a bully nor a pushover, I’ve alternately put them down and stood up for them, in other words being neither a good friend nor a good enemy.
Having reached the bottom of the canyon, we make our way to a secluded rest site. After taking a head count, the guides/teachers leave us to our own designs. After eating my bread and cheese and swatting at the flies, I jump in the miniature stream with the others. The water has enough force to push us along over the pebbles, but our progress is habitually impeded by the larger rocks. A few students set about to clear a water slide like path down the stream. Afterwards they start at the top and allow the water to nudge them to the bottom, mostly though they push themselves along in an attempt to give some justification to their labor.
The students, unwilling to deal with the heat and exertion again, refill their gallon jugs with annoyed expressions. And we set off once more, making sure we have enough time to reach the top before the dangerous heat turns into the more dangerous wind and freezing temperatures.
Heading back up, I decide to take it much slower and fall back to the end. An occasional loner, I forego the bonding and contemplate my life in privacy. Every student passes me and I settle in a few hundred yards in front of Mr. Ball. The canyon provides me solitude from everything 50 yards in front and behind me. I glide my watch over my sweat-covered wrist to see how long it has been since we left the bottom. It’s four in the afternoon now, so I’ve been walking for an hour. The fatigue and muscle pain I hoped would have left during the break have regrouped and attacked me already. After walking alone for a while I finally see a few other people. About 50 yards from me sit two people, not from my group. Getting closer I can see that they’re having some problems. Being somewhat shy and antisocial, an unfortunate combination, I wait until Mr. Ball catches up with me and let him deal with the situation. It turns out that one of the hikers is suffering from heat exhaustion and is passing in and out of consciousness. Mr. Ball, in keeping with our school motto, “Principes Non Homines” (Leaders Not Men), decides to wait with the two until one of the State Rangers arrives. He tells me to go on ahead and notify the others when I see them. I leave him with some of my water and a windbreaker since the temperature will drop quite low before he makes it up. Continuing up the canyon walls, I realize I am quite far from the rest of the group and speed up, hoping to be somewhere near them by the halfway mark. As my feet keep their rhythmic, yet increasingly sluggish, beat I let my mind fall from thought to thought. The rays of light finding their way down the canyon are steadily decreasing, and I know I must increase my pace since I am without a windbreaker. Having reached the halfway mark, I rest on the tabletop formation. From here I can see the canyon walls; most of the students have already reached the top. Ironically, the two people nearest me are John and Pasqual, the matador and the bull that keeps coming back for more. Sitting there, I let my mind dissolve into the wind while I watch their progress. I notice them stop their sluggish movements to take a piss. And I see what has happened so many times in the showers in the morning, John turns to the side and pisses on Pasqual. I’ve seen it over and over, and no longer wait to see if Pasqual will do anything. I glance away, my brain running on a minimal setting. When I turn back, I see Pasqual turn to John. Suddenly my mind erupts from under the rubble. Is Pasqual actually going to stand up and piss on John? I see him moving towards John, then suddenly grabbing him by the shoulders. Pasqual turns John towards the cliff, and gently and carefully pushes him down the canyon. Running slow, like an amateur cameraman trying to follow the path of a baseball, I follow John past the switchbacks, flowing through the spectrum of yellows and oranges. At the moment I lose him past the bushes, I realize there is nothing to stop his fall, the canyon walls are vertical. My eyes, on their upward journey, pass a falling Pasqual. And not wanting to see colors change again, they come to rest on the trail where the two stood pissing together.

jaker · 06-01-2003, 08:20 AM

dis here seems like ta me one o' those stories dat ya knid o' gots ta be in da mood fo'...canyon dat iz. other than dat, pimp-tight writing, an' ya said ya wrote iz 5 years ago? keep up da werk. slap mah fro!

bobdobbs8056135 · 06-14-2003, 05:33 PM

i suggest you look into some raymond carver
also richard ford...masters at simpy saying the complex

05-29-2003, 11:37 AM	#1 (permalink)
HiThereDear Insane	My short fiction/prose thread. Yay. Hi all, These are from when I was 17-19 y.o. (I'm 24 now), so in case they blow I can fall back on that excuse at least. I don't mind criticism at all, so no need to be overly kind. Particularly I would like some input on the narrative voice (minus all the youthful melodrama and sentimentality) - too conventional, too stuffy, repetitive, etc. I'll post more recent stuff when I find it. Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INFINITE CONFINEMENT I was standing at the window to the infinite. Turning around, I suddenly realized the deep contrast between the two sides of that single, spotted piece of glass. The room before me could only be described as painfully finite. The adulterated white of the walls cast an intimidating look over its prisoners. The walls themselves seemed to push for space. And as every year brought a new layer of paint, they seemed to have less. The paint, meant to hide those prophetic statements of existence – “John Woo ’95”, “Eugene was here” -, eroded the shape of the individual bricks into a dangerously rough textured monolith. The hum of the heating system screamed back from those jagged blocks, while the heat itself seemed reluctant to leave the vent. The entire room conspired to keep its odor of times that still exist only in a few memories. It was a rich smell, saturated with loneliness and friendship, goals achieved and dreams lost, that would outlive the rebelliousness of every schoolboy. My roommate and I, in our idealistic childishness, tried to upset the frozen order of this frozen universe. For our every effort at comfort, we were punished with an unmanageable closeness. Yet, stubbornly, we left everything the way it was. The 14th floor lounge couch was to remain there, facing the window, climbed over to cross the room. Our beds too would remain perpendicular to each other, defying all logic. The finite allows only so much change. I turned back around for my own well being. And there she was, knocking at my window. Her body embraced tightly by that deep, silencing cover. She lay there by the side of the Charles River. The river reflected from its venerable but befouled depths an arcadian vision of the city, the shimmering surface erasing all human nature, leaving only a mirage of the galaxies running down the buildings. These buildings surrounded her, in a protective, paternal stance. Turning off the lights in my room, I gazed down the 14 floors to see the cars running up her side. I knew her balm of exhaust, melting dirty snow, and the release of the early evening. I knew it in a coalition of my senses, a partnership between sight and smell. And as I moved my gaze up her lengths, past the lights, past the New England landscape I came to call home, to the edge of resolution, all my senses told me I was heading towards infinity. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Canyon The group’s excitement is slowly being replaced by fear and regret as each cell in our bodies is voicing its concern, combining to produce the massive roar we feel in our stomachs. The image of the Grand Canyon we see is stripped of its laminated coating, enlarged to full size, and conspicuously missing the softened, magical aura given it by the airbrush. Looking down from the lip of the canyon, we can see the Colorado River reduced to an inconsequential stream. Surrounded by its sons, who, growing since the river chose a resting-place, protect their creator. These walls stare back at us as yellow, orange, red, and shades between wash over their intimidating faces. And we know the power of the river in its old age, so what will we face in its children? But the eighty of us are placated by the thought that this crack in the earth has been tamed by so many others. Also, we falsely believe that the school could never place us in danger for fear of being sued by countless parents. Most importantly though, we have the armor of a youthful mind and the arrogance of masculinity. Mr. McNear and Mr. Ball, our Guides/Teachers from school, try to quiet down the mass of boys in their usual condescending voice. When their shouts and threats have lowered the noise to a reasonable level they begin their lecture on the dangers of this and that and how we should do this or not do that, all of it passing right through us and plummeting to its death down the canyon. What we do know, is that this is our last time together with the people we have shared most of the last four years with. Our last days as high school students, soon we’ll be shattered apart, each of us going to university in a different part of the country, some even in another part of the world. We are determined to go down and up the Grand Canyon in one day, and somewhere in between find a way to thank our friends and reconcile with our enemies. At ground level we’re surrounded by tourists carrying their cameras and little children running around, painfully oblivious to the drop a few feet from them past the metal barriers. Our group begins its downward journey with a last reminder to fill our gallon jugs with water and keep drinking. The temperature has reached 110 degrees F, and with no water sources on the way down, everyone is closely guarding their supply. A few hundred feet down the trail we quickly leave behind the families and the cars and everything man-made, except for the trail of course. The eighty of us travel in single-file line; we only have a four or five foot path to walk down. On our right hand side is the wall of the canyon, deprived of its rainbow of yellow and oranges over such a small section, so it sits in a dull pastel brown. We can see the opposite side of the canyon on our left, judging our position on it. We move from light orange to yellow. Looking directly down we lose the canyon in its sloping switchbacks and determined bushes. Mostly though, we keep our heads down, away from the sun and on the path. The trail is strewn with little boulders, the colors of the canyon. Carved from the walls, it still remains jagged and uneven. The canyon crowds onto the path, like school children sticking their feet out, always looking to trip us up. As the time moves on, we move across the switchbacks, the image in front of our eyes remaining constant. Eventually, our group of eighty begins to dissolve into the fit and the rest. Being a soccer player for four years, but naturally lazy, I stay in the middle, occasionally slowing down or hurrying to catch up with another group I feel like talking with. All of our bantering and discussions about women and life are slowly replaced by steady breathing and a wipe of the brow. Around midday we stop at a plateau and allow the entire group to congregate. We’ve traveled near a mile vertically down and at least seven or eight across the switchbacks, pissing on the rocks every hour or so. Sitting on a rock a few yards from the rest, I can hear the conversations of the students and the teachers. I hear John saying “McQueer and Ball are faggots, lets drop ‘em over the edge.” And I see Pasqual on the edge of a circle of friends, hoping that in these last days years of rejection and ridicule will have faded into friendship. Me, I just sit there wishing I could have a smoke. McNear and Ball rise to tell us we only have a couple of hours to go and to keep drinking our water. So we set off again. Conversation precluded by panting, my mind races over the meaning of this milestone. What bonds have we developed with each other over these last four years? I remember what one of the kids in my dormitory said to me one night over a cigarette, “You can’t be fake 24 hours a day.” So everything between me and these kids I lived with must be true. And at that moment I feel this deep camaraderie for these eighty people develop within me. Even with my enemies. And then I think about Pasqual and Jeff and the others like them. Being neither a bully nor a pushover, I’ve alternately put them down and stood up for them, in other words being neither a good friend nor a good enemy. Having reached the bottom of the canyon, we make our way to a secluded rest site. After taking a head count, the guides/teachers leave us to our own designs. After eating my bread and cheese and swatting at the flies, I jump in the miniature stream with the others. The water has enough force to push us along over the pebbles, but our progress is habitually impeded by the larger rocks. A few students set about to clear a water slide like path down the stream. Afterwards they start at the top and allow the water to nudge them to the bottom, mostly though they push themselves along in an attempt to give some justification to their labor. The students, unwilling to deal with the heat and exertion again, refill their gallon jugs with annoyed expressions. And we set off once more, making sure we have enough time to reach the top before the dangerous heat turns into the more dangerous wind and freezing temperatures. Heading back up, I decide to take it much slower and fall back to the end. An occasional loner, I forego the bonding and contemplate my life in privacy. Every student passes me and I settle in a few hundred yards in front of Mr. Ball. The canyon provides me solitude from everything 50 yards in front and behind me. I glide my watch over my sweat-covered wrist to see how long it has been since we left the bottom. It’s four in the afternoon now, so I’ve been walking for an hour. The fatigue and muscle pain I hoped would have left during the break have regrouped and attacked me already. After walking alone for a while I finally see a few other people. About 50 yards from me sit two people, not from my group. Getting closer I can see that they’re having some problems. Being somewhat shy and antisocial, an unfortunate combination, I wait until Mr. Ball catches up with me and let him deal with the situation. It turns out that one of the hikers is suffering from heat exhaustion and is passing in and out of consciousness. Mr. Ball, in keeping with our school motto, “Principes Non Homines” (Leaders Not Men), decides to wait with the two until one of the State Rangers arrives. He tells me to go on ahead and notify the others when I see them. I leave him with some of my water and a windbreaker since the temperature will drop quite low before he makes it up. Continuing up the canyon walls, I realize I am quite far from the rest of the group and speed up, hoping to be somewhere near them by the halfway mark. As my feet keep their rhythmic, yet increasingly sluggish, beat I let my mind fall from thought to thought. The rays of light finding their way down the canyon are steadily decreasing, and I know I must increase my pace since I am without a windbreaker. Having reached the halfway mark, I rest on the tabletop formation. From here I can see the canyon walls; most of the students have already reached the top. Ironically, the two people nearest me are John and Pasqual, the matador and the bull that keeps coming back for more. Sitting there, I let my mind dissolve into the wind while I watch their progress. I notice them stop their sluggish movements to take a piss. And I see what has happened so many times in the showers in the morning, John turns to the side and pisses on Pasqual. I’ve seen it over and over, and no longer wait to see if Pasqual will do anything. I glance away, my brain running on a minimal setting. When I turn back, I see Pasqual turn to John. Suddenly my mind erupts from under the rubble. Is Pasqual actually going to stand up and piss on John? I see him moving towards John, then suddenly grabbing him by the shoulders. Pasqual turns John towards the cliff, and gently and carefully pushes him down the canyon. Running slow, like an amateur cameraman trying to follow the path of a baseball, I follow John past the switchbacks, flowing through the spectrum of yellows and oranges. At the moment I lose him past the bushes, I realize there is nothing to stop his fall, the canyon walls are vertical. My eyes, on their upward journey, pass a falling Pasqual. And not wanting to see colors change again, they come to rest on the trail where the two stood pissing together.

06-14-2003, 05:33 PM	#3 (permalink)
bobdobbs8056135 Upright Location: in the woods	i suggest you look into some raymond carver also richard ford...masters at simpy saying the complex __________________ the days run over the hills like wild horses...-Bukowsky- i am the flying rodeo clown of death in qpids liberation army... lending my strange services in the noble cause of taking over the world before microsoft enslaves us all.

06-01-2003, 08:20 AM	#2 (permalink)
jaker Crazy	dis here seems like ta me one o' those stories dat ya knid o' gots ta be in da mood fo'...canyon dat iz. other than dat, pimp-tight writing, an' ya said ya wrote iz 5 years ago? keep up da werk. slap mah fro!