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"SSC13:- Mind-Set and Match"

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Mon 08/11/04 at 23:06
"period drama"
Posts: 19,792
A wide, rich, black void. Cluttered up with grief cast hastily about, stacks of despair dripping slowly to themselves - the blood from infinite broken hearts clotting out some kind of path among the pain. Winding, of course, and (of course) pointless - a circle, no less.
Carved around the knots and tumours, skirting the suicide with practised grace.

And around we walk - though the void reels out endlessly on either side, sign-posted by the concentrate of hate, and the stolen holes. The nit-pick, snuck, and clichéd taste - secreted away to bloom, rot and bloom again: fabric of the night - so, so terribly far from the light. To think, to hope that they just might re-snuck, re-sneak back to the black and haul us from this total lack.

Musn’t slip back into that again. One time, after one time again, prelude, prequel, present, sequel; then right into the lewd. Sit, tuck tight, and hope they never find you out.

A hundred thousand, thousand million, treading the path trod by ageless boots. Before creation, through strife, sunk clean through in the Civil War - until the whole, red-rimmed path is jammed four-feet down into the void. Sunk by tonnes and tonnes of wandering, tentative, noble souls - scouring in and out, screening the pile for scraps of death, straining to express second-hand emotion.

Each one of the swell as alone as the last - maybe we wouldn’t be so bloody lonely if we stopped being so bloody self-centred. And all you can focus on is the bloody.
Stumble around the ring-road of bleak - we are original, yes, yes we are. He’d never known pain like this - but the thing is, everyone else has; known it far too well.

Extreme exaggeration is the air, is the soul, is the night. It’s a staple, a stable atmosphere so enticing to the timid heart - go on, let it rip. We’ll never know pain like that, I’m sure.

So swaddled by the darkness - so whole-swallowed, so wreathed in languid suffocation - that the shadow darkens into itself, congeales into a single, sickly mass of collective thought. A case, a sheath ... a .... wait, wait. A shell.
And so pitch, so jet, that the void seems like spring, and the pain outside like the light within - a longing, gentle longing for release, for love and freedom. For a breeze, for brash palettes and simple brush-stroke purity.

We hatch.
It’s not pretty.

Out of the cloying, rotting, heaving mass we slither - wet strings of lacing angst in hair, clinging to shards of new-world doubt. The darkness heaves and spits - in a fury of limb and quickly-shattered sin we are out. Out, dripping darkness, stunned and slick, into the fresh, warm sunlight.

And we lie - of stillness, not untruths - just lie, softly, in the tender grass and let the golden rays burn away the pain - burn it all away with a gentle, healing flame. Such colour - blue and true, pure white - green and yellow, shade upon shade. Not the tiers of sodden grey, the tears of washed-out brown. This is clean-cut and new, happy, calm, bliss through the underplayed air.

It’s much closer here, no wasted space, no throwaway void - neat, compact, untouched. The sky bends round to meet the grass - a tight cylinder stretching wonderfully away. Another circle, now mapped out with trees and shoots, gentle-blossom falls and unfearing fauns - and tilted into white, so now we can walk through it, not around, into even fresher land.

Ah.

It’s so normal - you see, words are fewer. Not because they lack, but because they’re not needed.
We all know this, this crisp slice of bliss.
Pure. Real
Love rests in the branches, hope in the soil, life in the gentle light.
And along we walk, alive again under vibrant skies. The simple world joy to black-gauzed eyes.

But out of the void sneaks a nasty surprise. Behind us, the trees cast painful shadows, the birds cry mocking calls, and the wind blows bitter ice. Into this world the darkness creeps - so, so easily the darkness regains - the infinite void as quickly explained, and the holes not stolen but shattered havens, strung out and captured along the way.

Run, we run. Away from the shell that hatched us, that now tears at our new home. We run, as far into the colour as we can, and try to sustain the fragile world - the beauty so delicate against such stark, biting, renting dark.

We flee, and hope as the hope withers around, that somehow the light will stay close, stay strong against the shadow. But even as we run we know, we cannot run forever. Eventually - and soon, far, far too soon - we’ll stop, exhausted, and turn around.
The void wants us back. The easy way out.
Sun 21/11/04 at 10:09
Regular
"WhaleOilBeefHooked"
Posts: 12,425
Apoligies for the late read.

I quite enjoyed it. I like this kind of style.

"To think, to hope that they just might re-snuck, re-sneak back to the black and haul us from this total lack."

Great line and poetic too. Nice.
Mon 15/11/04 at 12:47
Regular
"not dead"
Posts: 11,145
It's a well written piece, and the use of language very good, but for some reason it left me feeling a little empty.
Sat 13/11/04 at 21:52
Regular
Posts: 13,611
FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> I don't quite know what you mean, though, because I can't think of a
> single thing I've written in the last year or so that isn't shot
> through with the abstract.

Hmm... all I mean is, the kind of story I enjoy is one with actions, events and - as I say - stuff that actually happens. Recently, a lot of what has been posted on the forums has been rooted within a singular character's psyche, for example.

> And I'm not going back to depressed man / death / dark house / lonely
> / used to be happy / waiting to die blah-blah-blah if that's what
> you're after.

Oh no - what we don't need is another depressive suicide story.
Sat 13/11/04 at 20:23
Regular
"Going nowhere fast"
Posts: 6,574
Sorry :)
Sat 13/11/04 at 20:18
Regular
Posts: 10,437
Ineedsleep wrote:
> I agree with Rickoss (what happened to the other r?).

It was never actually there. :(
Sat 13/11/04 at 20:16
"period drama"
Posts: 19,792
I've got a half-finished thing kicking around that I've been waiting to fit into with whatever SSC topic there is, no luck yet. That's probably more up your street.

I don't quite know what you mean, though, because I can't think of a single thing I've written in the last year or so that isn't shot through with the abstract.

And I'm not going back to depressed man / death / dark house / lonely / used to be happy / waiting to die blah-blah-blah if that's what you're after.
Sat 13/11/04 at 01:27
Regular
Posts: 13,611
FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> Proper ... ?
> Ah well, at least I tried. Sorry to have dissapointed you all so
> much.

As in none of this abstract malarky.

It's nice once in a while (although really not my thing), but just plain dull when it gets to the point that it's all we read. I like stories where things actually happen.

And you can write them damn well.
Fri 12/11/04 at 20:27
"period drama"
Posts: 19,792
Meh, where's to get lost?
Seems all pretty straightforward to me.

Ah well - I'll just leave it now.
Don't want to end up sounding like Kyz.
Fri 12/11/04 at 19:28
Regular
"Going nowhere fast"
Posts: 6,574
Disappointed a bit strong. I enjoyed it, in an odd way, but just kept getting lost...

There's no other way to describe how I felt while reading it.
Fri 12/11/04 at 19:19
"period drama"
Posts: 19,792
Mav wrote:
> Get back to proper story writing.

Proper ... ?
Ah well, at least I tried. Sorry to have dissapointed you all so much.

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