The "Creative Writing" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
I’m lying on my back and facing the ceiling when I wake. Feet on the floor, fingers on eyelids, stumbling to the window in drowsy stupor.
They’ve gone home.
The flaps of the tent rustle on the broken concrete. A growling city, an empty road, a nightlight on the corner.
I don’t lock the door.
The café is all but deserted for three construction workers, Marion and myself. She tells me to sit up at the counter and I drag my hands down my face. Smiles.
“Trouble sleeping again, hun?”
The fluorescent jackets argue loudly among themselves at a table near the front. I look back and nod.
“Best make it a decaf, then.” She pours me a cup of the dark stuff and I let it stew a little. “Noise keeping you up?”
I half turn towards them. Then quietly, talking into the cup: “Yeah.”
“You think too much, that’s your trouble” she says, running a cloth over the counter. “You need to find a way to switch your brain off.”
I pour some down my throat and grit my teeth as it scorches through. Marion drags a chair over but I continue to stare into the cup. The murky black shines a vague reflection of the light above me.
“You still thinking about it?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
Finally I meet her gaze. She’s looking at me with genuine concern, eyebrows obtuse, eyes widened. She’ll always be here to pull up a chair, I think to myself. Even when I should be sitting alone.
“But it’s all finished now. You were cleared.” Her words are lamenting, pleading even, until, firmly: “I think you should lay the whole thing to rest.”
A smile and a sigh is all I permit myself to answer. She could never understand because I could never tell her. Such distance is that which keeps relationships forever superficial, though still more than I should have and she endure.
Her eyes flick over to movement by the window. Chairs scraping on ceramic, limbs heaving upwards, “cheers, love” and the jackets are gone.
She turns to me, “Al-”, I cut her off:
“No, look, you’re right. Put it behind me. Move on.” I force myself up, trying to look decisive. But that expression haunts her features still – the loneliness of her ignorance. It lasts until I lay some coins on the counter and thank her.
She almost wakes up from it.
“See you tomorrow, then” she says, brightly.
“Bye.”
I scurry across the road, through the cold, the dark, the damp. The workers are back at the tent, their jackets flicking accusing shards of light at me from underneath the streetlamp. Escaping through double doors I enter the deserted lobby.
The silence of the building rings in my ears and it’s terrifying. I navigate the stairs at pace but every passing second and every quickened step does nothing but jolt my heart and shorten my breathing. I get to my door and thank f*** I didn’t lock it.
Now in the room and I’m poised on tiptoes, holding my breath, my heart catching up, waiting, waiting for that cacophony of sound, that orchestra of noise, waiting to let myself go.
It kicks up again and smothers my mind as I’m released. Whirring machinery, screaming metal, filling my ears as they fall onto feathers.
If I sit at my keyboard with the idea of writing some "nice English" then I'm being completely ignorant of my audience.
This is a story. Stylistically it may seem rather abstract near the beginning but that's deliberate.
The only possible hidden meaning is why this man is tormented by his own thoughts, which shouldn't be too hard to get. It's not even really meant to be hidden, just inferred rather than stated.
Sometimes you will get fantasy tales, and other times you will get stories anchored around the people and the setting. This is the latter, and what you will usually find in shorter stories.
I appreciate that it has little to do with the topic set, and for that I apologise, but can you try to judge it on its own merits for now?
Yes, nothing much to do with school there, and not much really happens.
Thats why I want some sort of series, because its really hard not to make it an "art" story as I call it.
What I mean is, "art" stories are more good english and hidden meaning. I don't like them.
I’m lying on my back and facing the ceiling when I wake. Feet on the floor, fingers on eyelids, stumbling to the window in drowsy stupor.
They’ve gone home.
The flaps of the tent rustle on the broken concrete. A growling city, an empty road, a nightlight on the corner.
I don’t lock the door.
The café is all but deserted for three construction workers, Marion and myself. She tells me to sit up at the counter and I drag my hands down my face. Smiles.
“Trouble sleeping again, hun?”
The fluorescent jackets argue loudly among themselves at a table near the front. I look back and nod.
“Best make it a decaf, then.” She pours me a cup of the dark stuff and I let it stew a little. “Noise keeping you up?”
I half turn towards them. Then quietly, talking into the cup: “Yeah.”
“You think too much, that’s your trouble” she says, running a cloth over the counter. “You need to find a way to switch your brain off.”
I pour some down my throat and grit my teeth as it scorches through. Marion drags a chair over but I continue to stare into the cup. The murky black shines a vague reflection of the light above me.
“You still thinking about it?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
Finally I meet her gaze. She’s looking at me with genuine concern, eyebrows obtuse, eyes widened. She’ll always be here to pull up a chair, I think to myself. Even when I should be sitting alone.
“But it’s all finished now. You were cleared.” Her words are lamenting, pleading even, until, firmly: “I think you should lay the whole thing to rest.”
A smile and a sigh is all I permit myself to answer. She could never understand because I could never tell her. Such distance is that which keeps relationships forever superficial, though still more than I should have and she endure.
Her eyes flick over to movement by the window. Chairs scraping on ceramic, limbs heaving upwards, “cheers, love” and the jackets are gone.
She turns to me, “Al-”, I cut her off:
“No, look, you’re right. Put it behind me. Move on.” I force myself up, trying to look decisive. But that expression haunts her features still – the loneliness of her ignorance. It lasts until I lay some coins on the counter and thank her.
She almost wakes up from it.
“See you tomorrow, then” she says, brightly.
“Bye.”
I scurry across the road, through the cold, the dark, the damp. The workers are back at the tent, their jackets flicking accusing shards of light at me from underneath the streetlamp. Escaping through double doors I enter the deserted lobby.
The silence of the building rings in my ears and it’s terrifying. I navigate the stairs at pace but every passing second and every quickened step does nothing but jolt my heart and shorten my breathing. I get to my door and thank f*** I didn’t lock it.
Now in the room and I’m poised on tiptoes, holding my breath, my heart catching up, waiting, waiting for that cacophony of sound, that orchestra of noise, waiting to let myself go.
It kicks up again and smothers my mind as I’m released. Whirring machinery, screaming metal, filling my ears as they fall onto feathers.