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It's 21:15PM.
I'm sitting here, thinking of something to write about.
No real reason. I just need to write.
-------------
It was a lonely night upon the hills of a lonely town. The children slept, only the thoughtful and the working would stay awake. Once more at the top of the hill sat the man, the man who didn't sleep.
He watched the world with sad eyes, wondering eyes. The sort of eyes that could tell you much about the world, if only you took the time to just sit, and watch them.
Eyes that have seen so much but tell so little, they flipped through the books and notes, they flew through the skies and the birds and the lands and the wars and landed back in his head with a bang. They snapped into position, and he was no longer here, but there.
He ran his fingers across the surface of the keys of the piano, which stood outside in the rain. The man placed down a few high notes, and made himself comfortable on the chair.
At the top of the hill sat the man, with his piano, and began to play. The man who didn't sleep. There was no need.
And so he played, notes echoing from the depths of the man's mind, and then dancing from the black piano that stood at the top of the hill.
He's playing again, he's playing. The man at the top of the hill that never sleeps, he's playing.
The children woke and smiled, the parents calmed them, told them the man was old, the man wasn't right, don't go near the man.
But the man at the top of the hill, the man that never sleeps, the man that played his piano outside in the rain at the height of darkness. We want to hear the man play we want we want.
You can't hear the man play, cover your ears, cover your ears. And so the children spoke softly to each other, and pretended they couldn't hear the music through their hands over their ears, protected from the insane man at the top of the hill.
But there was one that wouldn't listen to anything but the sweet music that echoed from the man's head and through the keys of the piano. The little girl, and she walked calmly up the hill dressed in no more than her pyjamas.
The man who didn't sleep watched her with his sad, knowing eyes. She walked before him, and he continued to play.
The eyes that have seen the world, eyes that have flown through skies and swam to the depths of life... and the girl watched them, and she listened to them. And the man stopped playing, and watched her.
And upon doing so, she simply stared, opened her mouth, and asked the man a question he didn't expect to hear, of all the questions in the world. Are you cold?
It is raining, so perhaps I am. The man looked back down at his notes, the ink that began to run. Worried parents ran up the hill, and collected the girl. The mother grabbed the pyjama wearing girl, and walked away. Not once did she look into the eyes of the man, the eyes that never slept. The eyes that played the piano in the rain at the top of the hill.
What do you think she asked him? The children grew excited and waited longer and longer until he began to play again, which of course, he did.
The notes that echoed through his mind and out into the keys of the piano. Should we go see him too? Our parents will be upset.
The eyes that have seen so much closed, and opened. The man played the piano, and let the notes bounce through his soul and out into the open air.
Parents grew more fearful, and checked their children to find them with their ears uncovered. The children were told once more, with shaken voices and blurred vision.
And the man who never slept played.
In the pouring rain another child appeared, and ran up towards the piano, but was quickly caught by the stronger parent, who ran to save his child.
We can't just sit here. The rain poured faster and faster, and the man simply played. The children opened the window and fled, running towards the man, towards the piano.
And they stood before him, and they watched him, and they saw his eyes. They sat, and listened.
The children sat around the man who never slept, who played his piano at the top of the hill in the pouring rain.
A boy looked deep into the eyes of the man who never slept, and when he stopped playing for the second time, he asked him a question. Something that perhaps would explain it all, a question that would set them straight. The man waited, and smiled at the question. The question that was asked by the child to the man who's eyes have seen the world, and although he did expect a question, it wasn't the one he felt he was to be asked. Instead of being asked Why, he was asked Why not.
The man contiuned to smile, blinked, and said he couldn't answer. He didn't know himself.
And the parents came and picked up their children. They didn't look into his eyes.
So the man stopped playing. He placed his face on the cold wood of the piano, and went to sleep.
I'm sitting here, thinking of something to write about.
No real reason. I just need to write.
-------------
It was a lonely night upon the hills of a lonely town. The children slept, only the thoughtful and the working would stay awake. Once more at the top of the hill sat the man, the man who didn't sleep.
He watched the world with sad eyes, wondering eyes. The sort of eyes that could tell you much about the world, if only you took the time to just sit, and watch them.
Eyes that have seen so much but tell so little, they flipped through the books and notes, they flew through the skies and the birds and the lands and the wars and landed back in his head with a bang. They snapped into position, and he was no longer here, but there.
He ran his fingers across the surface of the keys of the piano, which stood outside in the rain. The man placed down a few high notes, and made himself comfortable on the chair.
At the top of the hill sat the man, with his piano, and began to play. The man who didn't sleep. There was no need.
And so he played, notes echoing from the depths of the man's mind, and then dancing from the black piano that stood at the top of the hill.
He's playing again, he's playing. The man at the top of the hill that never sleeps, he's playing.
The children woke and smiled, the parents calmed them, told them the man was old, the man wasn't right, don't go near the man.
But the man at the top of the hill, the man that never sleeps, the man that played his piano outside in the rain at the height of darkness. We want to hear the man play we want we want.
You can't hear the man play, cover your ears, cover your ears. And so the children spoke softly to each other, and pretended they couldn't hear the music through their hands over their ears, protected from the insane man at the top of the hill.
But there was one that wouldn't listen to anything but the sweet music that echoed from the man's head and through the keys of the piano. The little girl, and she walked calmly up the hill dressed in no more than her pyjamas.
The man who didn't sleep watched her with his sad, knowing eyes. She walked before him, and he continued to play.
The eyes that have seen the world, eyes that have flown through skies and swam to the depths of life... and the girl watched them, and she listened to them. And the man stopped playing, and watched her.
And upon doing so, she simply stared, opened her mouth, and asked the man a question he didn't expect to hear, of all the questions in the world. Are you cold?
It is raining, so perhaps I am. The man looked back down at his notes, the ink that began to run. Worried parents ran up the hill, and collected the girl. The mother grabbed the pyjama wearing girl, and walked away. Not once did she look into the eyes of the man, the eyes that never slept. The eyes that played the piano in the rain at the top of the hill.
What do you think she asked him? The children grew excited and waited longer and longer until he began to play again, which of course, he did.
The notes that echoed through his mind and out into the keys of the piano. Should we go see him too? Our parents will be upset.
The eyes that have seen so much closed, and opened. The man played the piano, and let the notes bounce through his soul and out into the open air.
Parents grew more fearful, and checked their children to find them with their ears uncovered. The children were told once more, with shaken voices and blurred vision.
And the man who never slept played.
In the pouring rain another child appeared, and ran up towards the piano, but was quickly caught by the stronger parent, who ran to save his child.
We can't just sit here. The rain poured faster and faster, and the man simply played. The children opened the window and fled, running towards the man, towards the piano.
And they stood before him, and they watched him, and they saw his eyes. They sat, and listened.
The children sat around the man who never slept, who played his piano at the top of the hill in the pouring rain.
A boy looked deep into the eyes of the man who never slept, and when he stopped playing for the second time, he asked him a question. Something that perhaps would explain it all, a question that would set them straight. The man waited, and smiled at the question. The question that was asked by the child to the man who's eyes have seen the world, and although he did expect a question, it wasn't the one he felt he was to be asked. Instead of being asked Why, he was asked Why not.
The man contiuned to smile, blinked, and said he couldn't answer. He didn't know himself.
And the parents came and picked up their children. They didn't look into his eyes.
So the man stopped playing. He placed his face on the cold wood of the piano, and went to sleep.
Page:
Grix, that was fantastic.
You just seemed to have come up with a normal idea but its the way you wrote it that counts. You managed to put feelings into thats story and as was said below, you are a very talented person. Most stories I read anywhere are pretty lifeless. They may make me laugh or make me sad or frustrated but this is the first one that actually made so much sense. Its just kinda eye-opening in a sense.
The simplicity of the idea and the calmness you have passed on in this story is a mark of genius.
You should write a book some day..
Again well done mate..
You just seemed to have come up with a normal idea but its the way you wrote it that counts. You managed to put feelings into thats story and as was said below, you are a very talented person. Most stories I read anywhere are pretty lifeless. They may make me laugh or make me sad or frustrated but this is the first one that actually made so much sense. Its just kinda eye-opening in a sense.
The simplicity of the idea and the calmness you have passed on in this story is a mark of genius.
You should write a book some day..
Again well done mate..
You like talking to yourself don't you :)
good story any-who. I've already said what I've wanted to say lower down.
good story any-who. I've already said what I've wanted to say lower down.
Oh yeah. I'm not sure who the man is, but the town is my mind.
Oh yeah, forgot about the meaning.
Sleep represents giving up hope, the kids are me, the piano is my life, and parents are anything and everything that is nagging me in the back of my mind.
I just related to that, and wrote a story about it. It's not meant to be seen as having a meaning, but I find writing like that helps a lot.
Sleep represents giving up hope, the kids are me, the piano is my life, and parents are anything and everything that is nagging me in the back of my mind.
I just related to that, and wrote a story about it. It's not meant to be seen as having a meaning, but I find writing like that helps a lot.
Thanks for that, both of you. I'll buy those books you mentioned. I should read more.
Sweet jesus Christ. That's was the best thing I've seen on these damn forums.
So inspirational, this is what makes these forums unique and a joy to come on.
I knew that i would like this because as soon as I started reading it, I found it entertaining to read, not a chore as other stories usually do.
Danke Grixy baby
So inspirational, this is what makes these forums unique and a joy to come on.
I knew that i would like this because as soon as I started reading it, I found it entertaining to read, not a chore as other stories usually do.
Danke Grixy baby
Grix Thraves wrote:
The only thing I started out with when I went to write
> this was the image of a piano in the middle of a field, it was something I just
> kinda pictured. I'm writing a story at the moment, and one of the scenes I was
> going to write was a man, shot, bleeding and dying, runs from somewhere, through
> bushes, and into a field. Pulling himself along with his arms, he comes across a
> piano in a field, and without even blinking, pulls himself up to the piano,
> plays for a while, and then shoots himself in the head. I took it out, because I
> couldn't write it properly.
You may have noticed that I write a lot about that type of thing too. Dying that is and disillusionment. I liked your story though more than most of the things I've written because it was uplifting. I think I read too much depressing stuff, the damn 20th Century American literature module forces me to. I was reading 100 years of solitude today and that had such a depressing bit in it that I stopped reading it and came to post stuff on here instead. Basically there are two sisters who both fall in love with Pietro Crespi, a blonde Italian who comes to put a piano in their house, and one, Rebeca, ends up engaged to him after ages and the other, Amaranta, says that she would rather kill her sister than let her marry him. And so Amaranta does loads of things to postpone the wedding, and the courtship between Pietro and Rebeca goes on and on, until by chance Amaranta's half brother returns and Rebeca falls in love with him and ditches Pietro. He's disillusioned and eventually starts getting closer to Amaranta, and he discovers that all he had ever felt for Rebeca was lust and that what he feels for Amaranta is love and so he proposes to her. But she rejects him. And what follows is so beautifully described as he does the most wonderful things to try and convince her to marry him and she still refuses. I'll type out what he finally does because it's sad and beautiful at the same time:
"One Night he sang. Macondo woke up in a kind of angelic stupor that was caused by a zither that deserved more than this world and a voice that led one to believe that no other person could feel such love. Pietro Crespi then saw the lights go on in every window in town except that of Amaranta. On November second, All Souls' Day, his brother opened the store and found all the lamps lighted, all the music boxes opened, and all the clocks striking an indeterminable hour, and in the midst of that mad concert he found Pietro Crespi at the desk in the rear with his wrists cut by a razor and his hands thrust into a basin of benzoin."
and that's from the translated copy of what was originally in Spanish, and thus would inevitably have lost something in translation, which I find amazing because it is brilliantly written even in English. It's so sad though. And things like this shape my style of writing.
I don't really have a talent for writing, as
> such, Meka. I enjoy writing, but I believe my talent lies in telling a story. I
> love things that make little sense if seen in the outside world, as here. This
> strange place where this man plays a piano every now and again at the top of the
> hill, and the parents won't let their children listen to him. It's bizzare on
> it's own, but it's not too far from reality, and that's the sort of thing I
> enjoy.
Grix you do have a talent for writing. You've arranged a thousand or so words into something that has affected all the people who have posted in this thread and almost certainly some that didn't. That's talent in writing and then you have the plot as well. If you love weird things like that then try reading the Swimmer by John Cheever, it's only a short story but it rules. A guy decides to swim home across Maine suburbia from the house he's at using only the swimming pools of each person. On top of the surreal idea it also has a wrong timeline. That is to say, his actions that should take place over several hours, end up taking place over a decade. It's hard to explain but if you read it you'll know what I mean. It's meant to be an indictment of the American dream but it's first and foremost a damn good story.
I do seem to find myself writing about death a lot, though. It
> intrigues me, because so many people seem to take it for granted, especially in
> film and so on. It just seems so naive.
I write about death a lot too. I think it's because I'm morbid at times. But then there are so many books in the cannon of world literature where people have to die at the endof the book/play/film. In Death of a Salesman committing suicide is the only positive action Willy Loman ever takes himself, which is desperately tragic. But there are also some books where the author doesn't let the characters die or commit suicide because they have to suffer some more, and by the end you actually wish that the characters could die because what's happening to them is so horrendous.
Try reading something by Hubert Selby Jr. "Last Exit to Brooklyn" is particularly good. He's the guy who inspired me to write the last two stories I posted in this forum. The man who writes 20 page sentences and uses capitals and inserts speech without quotation marks, and he doesn't even use apostrophes. But it works devastatingly well. There are so many images in that book that will stay with you forever. And all the people in books just want to be loved, but they get lied to, cheated on, and used for being idealists. It's a series of vignettes of different characters, each of whom has their own chapter, and passes through other chapters, but essentially it's almost like a compilation of short stories. The first one's about a transvestite called Georgette and here's an excerpt from that.. the background is that Georgette has gone out to see the man she loves, Vinnie, but he and his friend Harry thought it would be fun to throw a knife at her feet to make her skip about, but eventually they hit her leg and she has to be taken home. But she doesn't want to go because her brother will kill her if he finds out that his brother has been going out dressed as a woman again. Eventually she gets dragged back home where she is confined to her room and at the same time coming down off some drugs. I love this bit because it completely captures the tedium of being trapped in the room and coming down. It's very stilted and yet you can sense how desperate she is for one of her friends to come through the front door with some drugs for her. And the final bit of the excerpt is brilliant because Selby mucks around with the he's and she's depending on whose perspective Gergette is seen from. I'm writing the background in hindsight, having realised that the bit I've just typed out might not make much sense without some details... anyway here it is:
"The door closed. A hundred times. Closed. Even as it swung open she heard it bang shut. Closed. Closed. Dozens of doors like many pictures jerkily animated by a thumb, tumbling mistily like shadows... and the click, click, the goddamn click click click of the latch and it banged shut. SHUT. Again and again and again it BANGED SHUT. A thousand miserbale times. BANG BANG. BANG. Always banging shut. Never a knock. Think it. Force it. A knock. A knock. Please, please. O Jesus a knock. Make it knock. Make it someone knocking. To come in. Why cant it be a knock. Goldie with bennie. Anything. Anybody. Closed. Closed. bang. BANG. BANG! SHUT!!! O Jesus SHUT! And I cant get out. Only roll in bed. This dirty freak of a bed (VINNIE!!!)and that rotten fairy of a doctor wouldnt give me anything. Not even a little codeine. And it throbs. It does. It does. It throbs and pains. I can feel it squeezing up my leg and it hurts. It hurts dreadfully. It does. It really does. I need something for the pain. O Jesus I cant stay down. And I cant get out. Not even Soakie. She might have *something*. Let her in. I cant get out. Out. Up - (the door banged and her Mother looked up and noticed first the strange look on her sons face, the staring eyes; then the blood on his slacks and as she ran to him she collapsed on Mothers shoulder, crying, wanting to cry on Mothers shoulder and have her listen and stroke her hair (I love him mother. I love him and I want him.)"
I've rambled on long enough now. And your story was brilliant Grix.
The only thing I started out with when I went to write
> this was the image of a piano in the middle of a field, it was something I just
> kinda pictured. I'm writing a story at the moment, and one of the scenes I was
> going to write was a man, shot, bleeding and dying, runs from somewhere, through
> bushes, and into a field. Pulling himself along with his arms, he comes across a
> piano in a field, and without even blinking, pulls himself up to the piano,
> plays for a while, and then shoots himself in the head. I took it out, because I
> couldn't write it properly.
You may have noticed that I write a lot about that type of thing too. Dying that is and disillusionment. I liked your story though more than most of the things I've written because it was uplifting. I think I read too much depressing stuff, the damn 20th Century American literature module forces me to. I was reading 100 years of solitude today and that had such a depressing bit in it that I stopped reading it and came to post stuff on here instead. Basically there are two sisters who both fall in love with Pietro Crespi, a blonde Italian who comes to put a piano in their house, and one, Rebeca, ends up engaged to him after ages and the other, Amaranta, says that she would rather kill her sister than let her marry him. And so Amaranta does loads of things to postpone the wedding, and the courtship between Pietro and Rebeca goes on and on, until by chance Amaranta's half brother returns and Rebeca falls in love with him and ditches Pietro. He's disillusioned and eventually starts getting closer to Amaranta, and he discovers that all he had ever felt for Rebeca was lust and that what he feels for Amaranta is love and so he proposes to her. But she rejects him. And what follows is so beautifully described as he does the most wonderful things to try and convince her to marry him and she still refuses. I'll type out what he finally does because it's sad and beautiful at the same time:
"One Night he sang. Macondo woke up in a kind of angelic stupor that was caused by a zither that deserved more than this world and a voice that led one to believe that no other person could feel such love. Pietro Crespi then saw the lights go on in every window in town except that of Amaranta. On November second, All Souls' Day, his brother opened the store and found all the lamps lighted, all the music boxes opened, and all the clocks striking an indeterminable hour, and in the midst of that mad concert he found Pietro Crespi at the desk in the rear with his wrists cut by a razor and his hands thrust into a basin of benzoin."
and that's from the translated copy of what was originally in Spanish, and thus would inevitably have lost something in translation, which I find amazing because it is brilliantly written even in English. It's so sad though. And things like this shape my style of writing.
I don't really have a talent for writing, as
> such, Meka. I enjoy writing, but I believe my talent lies in telling a story. I
> love things that make little sense if seen in the outside world, as here. This
> strange place where this man plays a piano every now and again at the top of the
> hill, and the parents won't let their children listen to him. It's bizzare on
> it's own, but it's not too far from reality, and that's the sort of thing I
> enjoy.
Grix you do have a talent for writing. You've arranged a thousand or so words into something that has affected all the people who have posted in this thread and almost certainly some that didn't. That's talent in writing and then you have the plot as well. If you love weird things like that then try reading the Swimmer by John Cheever, it's only a short story but it rules. A guy decides to swim home across Maine suburbia from the house he's at using only the swimming pools of each person. On top of the surreal idea it also has a wrong timeline. That is to say, his actions that should take place over several hours, end up taking place over a decade. It's hard to explain but if you read it you'll know what I mean. It's meant to be an indictment of the American dream but it's first and foremost a damn good story.
I do seem to find myself writing about death a lot, though. It
> intrigues me, because so many people seem to take it for granted, especially in
> film and so on. It just seems so naive.
I write about death a lot too. I think it's because I'm morbid at times. But then there are so many books in the cannon of world literature where people have to die at the endof the book/play/film. In Death of a Salesman committing suicide is the only positive action Willy Loman ever takes himself, which is desperately tragic. But there are also some books where the author doesn't let the characters die or commit suicide because they have to suffer some more, and by the end you actually wish that the characters could die because what's happening to them is so horrendous.
Try reading something by Hubert Selby Jr. "Last Exit to Brooklyn" is particularly good. He's the guy who inspired me to write the last two stories I posted in this forum. The man who writes 20 page sentences and uses capitals and inserts speech without quotation marks, and he doesn't even use apostrophes. But it works devastatingly well. There are so many images in that book that will stay with you forever. And all the people in books just want to be loved, but they get lied to, cheated on, and used for being idealists. It's a series of vignettes of different characters, each of whom has their own chapter, and passes through other chapters, but essentially it's almost like a compilation of short stories. The first one's about a transvestite called Georgette and here's an excerpt from that.. the background is that Georgette has gone out to see the man she loves, Vinnie, but he and his friend Harry thought it would be fun to throw a knife at her feet to make her skip about, but eventually they hit her leg and she has to be taken home. But she doesn't want to go because her brother will kill her if he finds out that his brother has been going out dressed as a woman again. Eventually she gets dragged back home where she is confined to her room and at the same time coming down off some drugs. I love this bit because it completely captures the tedium of being trapped in the room and coming down. It's very stilted and yet you can sense how desperate she is for one of her friends to come through the front door with some drugs for her. And the final bit of the excerpt is brilliant because Selby mucks around with the he's and she's depending on whose perspective Gergette is seen from. I'm writing the background in hindsight, having realised that the bit I've just typed out might not make much sense without some details... anyway here it is:
"The door closed. A hundred times. Closed. Even as it swung open she heard it bang shut. Closed. Closed. Dozens of doors like many pictures jerkily animated by a thumb, tumbling mistily like shadows... and the click, click, the goddamn click click click of the latch and it banged shut. SHUT. Again and again and again it BANGED SHUT. A thousand miserbale times. BANG BANG. BANG. Always banging shut. Never a knock. Think it. Force it. A knock. A knock. Please, please. O Jesus a knock. Make it knock. Make it someone knocking. To come in. Why cant it be a knock. Goldie with bennie. Anything. Anybody. Closed. Closed. bang. BANG. BANG! SHUT!!! O Jesus SHUT! And I cant get out. Only roll in bed. This dirty freak of a bed (VINNIE!!!)and that rotten fairy of a doctor wouldnt give me anything. Not even a little codeine. And it throbs. It does. It does. It throbs and pains. I can feel it squeezing up my leg and it hurts. It hurts dreadfully. It does. It really does. I need something for the pain. O Jesus I cant stay down. And I cant get out. Not even Soakie. She might have *something*. Let her in. I cant get out. Out. Up - (the door banged and her Mother looked up and noticed first the strange look on her sons face, the staring eyes; then the blood on his slacks and as she ran to him she collapsed on Mothers shoulder, crying, wanting to cry on Mothers shoulder and have her listen and stroke her hair (I love him mother. I love him and I want him.)"
I've rambled on long enough now. And your story was brilliant Grix.
Thanks everyone.
The only thing I started out with when I went to write this was the image of a piano in the middle of a field, it was something I just kinda pictured. I'm writing a story at the moment, and one of the scenes I was going to write was a man, shot, bleeding and dying, runs from somewhere, through bushes, and into a field. Pulling himself along with his arms, he comes across a piano in a field, and without even blinking, pulls himself up to the piano, plays for a while, and then shoots himself in the head. I took it out, because I couldn't write it properly.
I don't really have a talent for writing, as such, Meka. I enjoy writing, but I believe my talent lies in telling a story. I love things that make little sense if seen in the outside world, as here. This strange place where this man plays a piano every now and again at the top of the hill, and the parents won't let their children listen to him. It's bizzare on it's own, but it's not too far from reality, and that's the sort of thing I enjoy.
I do seem to find myself writing about death a lot, though. It intrigues me, because so many people seem to take it for granted, especially in film and so on. It just seems so naive.
The only thing I started out with when I went to write this was the image of a piano in the middle of a field, it was something I just kinda pictured. I'm writing a story at the moment, and one of the scenes I was going to write was a man, shot, bleeding and dying, runs from somewhere, through bushes, and into a field. Pulling himself along with his arms, he comes across a piano in a field, and without even blinking, pulls himself up to the piano, plays for a while, and then shoots himself in the head. I took it out, because I couldn't write it properly.
I don't really have a talent for writing, as such, Meka. I enjoy writing, but I believe my talent lies in telling a story. I love things that make little sense if seen in the outside world, as here. This strange place where this man plays a piano every now and again at the top of the hill, and the parents won't let their children listen to him. It's bizzare on it's own, but it's not too far from reality, and that's the sort of thing I enjoy.
I do seem to find myself writing about death a lot, though. It intrigues me, because so many people seem to take it for granted, especially in film and so on. It just seems so naive.
I really do think you have a talent for writing you know Grix.
Nice imagery, I like it.
I think you've inspired me to write about that man now, the images will stay in my mind for a long time.
I think you've inspired me to write about that man now, the images will stay in my mind for a long time.
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