The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only.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.
It's my hardest, but it still doesn't quite work. I suck.
----
1. Rain runs in a bead down the window, briefly lit in gold and orange as it passes the streetlight outside. It collides with another raindrop, and together, with twice the force, they speed out of the light, onto the dark part of the window, where, reflected darkly in his youth, a boy stands staring at himself, looking into his own eyes.
His eyes are brown and deep the way oceans are deep. The colours change imperceptibly and with fragility, the way colour is in flowers and sunsets. Thick black strands of hair fall into them like curtains. He’s looking at this, looking into his own eyes, trying to make a decision, probably the most important decision he’s had to make so far. Out of the window, currently clad in black, lies leafy middle class England, and it’s this he wants to run away from.
His reasons to stay here at home are numerous. It would be far easier – here he has free food, somewhere to live, and all his friends. He’s spent his whole life here, he is very very comfortable. Everything is provided for him, he just has to go to collage and learn things.
But they’re precisely the reasons he wants to leave. Humans are at a strange point in their history. In any other time period, this boy would be working on a farm, or down a mine, or he’d be struggling to find his own food. Now, for the first time ever, people are trying to adapt to the idea of having free time. ‘Leisure time’. The idea of choice is a new concept, in the grand scheme of things, and it is confusing many people. Including this boy, who is now drawing the curtains, leaving them slightly open so just a slim blade of light cuts across the room.
Tearing himself away from his reflection, he picks up his rucksack from his bed and swings it over his shoulder. He walks out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him, and creeps down the stairs, leaving his room suddenly empty, a monument to the son that was lost. The single sliver of light hits the opposite wall and, we see, illuminates a letter blu-tacked to the wall, scrawled in a girls hand.
2.
Because this is about a girl. It always is. We might be able to veil our thoughts in white, build up all these layers of pink and green and black, but at their core they’re always the red red red of love. Of sex. It’s all about these disguises, all these fake mustaches and false teeth and wigs that we throw over our natural thoughts so that we can accept them within the teaching that society forces upon us. And that, dear reader, is where we begin. With a girl.
She sits at her piano playing a light, happy melody, which sneaks up like plants from the ground and grows like vines, twisting around you until you’re trapped and bound. The piano is in a spotless, shadowless room, with with a bookcase filled with an entire set of ‘classic’ books, the ones with the orange spines, so few of which have been read.
Maria wants to be a ballet dancer. You can see it in the way her fingers move across the keys. It just looks natural, as though this is a movement that she was born doing. This isn’t because she’s a talented pianist – she’s just as good as anyone would be with 8 years of lessons – it’s just how she moves all the time. It’s effortless and graceful. The world just seems to move with her, at her beck and call. She’s one of the beautiful people.
She gets sad these days. It will hit her suddenly but softly, a fully formed depression that she can’t always fight off. It hits her now, triggered by a lull in the music that she doesn’t like much, but she always plays anyway. She thinks back to what she just played, and she realizes that she isn’t very good. Or at least, she is good, but not good enough to play professionally. This thought triggers off another, waiting there like a landmine – then what’s the point? If she can’t actually achieve anything from this, then why does she bother spending her precious, precious time on it?
These thoughts distract her, so she messes a few chords up and stops playing. Getting up from the piano, she thinks, in a blurred half-formed way, that the reason she plays is for applause. She knows that, when she’s at a piano, she can press the right keys and release canned flattery from anyone around. It’s an instant boost to her self esteem. But she doesn’t let this right into her conscious mind, her memory. And so it doesn’t hurt her ever again.
She doesn’t care about the human mind. She doesn’t care about the nature of human conciousness. She doesn’t care about existentialism, or Marxism, or politics, or gay rights, or global warming. She cares about what’s on TV tonight. She cares about clothes. She cares about food. She cares about things that affect her, tangible, real things.
She doesn’t dwell on that niggling feeling at the back of her mind, the one that is always there, that something is wrong with the world. And if she doesn’t think about it, then it does not worry her.
Her name is Maria.
Outside, it’s a rainy early evening in summer. It’s been one of those summers that never really existed, where the sun would come out for a few days then receed, leaving the average weather behind. Maria wonders why everybody gets so worked up about summer. It’s just the same. She likes it (or, at least, pretends to) because there’s no school.
3.
The beautiful people. I hate them.
They told me I was the best. The teachers, the parents. Everyone. They all said that I was the best. The smartest. They all lied.
I was never the best. I was just the strangest. I was the weirdo. And I always have been, no matter how much I’ve tried to fight it.
I just enjoyed Maths, so I worked hard at it. And they all told me I was special, and I liked that. Because I never felt special.
So I worked harder so I could be more special. So that I could pretend for just a bit. And I started to believe it, that I was special. But then everyone else overtook me.
The beautiful people are the best.
Goddamit, just tell me I’m clever and artistic and special and just good, and I’ll love you forever. Please please please fall for my disguise, because I need to be liked. It’s the depression at the back of my mind that is always there, always triggered.
I can cover it up sometimes, but it’s always there. My happiness is always false.
I try and try and try but still lose.
----
1. Rain runs in a bead down the window, briefly lit in gold and orange as it passes the streetlight outside. It collides with another raindrop, and together, with twice the force, they speed out of the light, onto the dark part of the window, where, reflected darkly in his youth, a boy stands staring at himself, looking into his own eyes.
His eyes are brown and deep the way oceans are deep. The colours change imperceptibly and with fragility, the way colour is in flowers and sunsets. Thick black strands of hair fall into them like curtains. He’s looking at this, looking into his own eyes, trying to make a decision, probably the most important decision he’s had to make so far. Out of the window, currently clad in black, lies leafy middle class England, and it’s this he wants to run away from.
His reasons to stay here at home are numerous. It would be far easier – here he has free food, somewhere to live, and all his friends. He’s spent his whole life here, he is very very comfortable. Everything is provided for him, he just has to go to collage and learn things.
But they’re precisely the reasons he wants to leave. Humans are at a strange point in their history. In any other time period, this boy would be working on a farm, or down a mine, or he’d be struggling to find his own food. Now, for the first time ever, people are trying to adapt to the idea of having free time. ‘Leisure time’. The idea of choice is a new concept, in the grand scheme of things, and it is confusing many people. Including this boy, who is now drawing the curtains, leaving them slightly open so just a slim blade of light cuts across the room.
Tearing himself away from his reflection, he picks up his rucksack from his bed and swings it over his shoulder. He walks out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him, and creeps down the stairs, leaving his room suddenly empty, a monument to the son that was lost. The single sliver of light hits the opposite wall and, we see, illuminates a letter blu-tacked to the wall, scrawled in a girls hand.
2.
Because this is about a girl. It always is. We might be able to veil our thoughts in white, build up all these layers of pink and green and black, but at their core they’re always the red red red of love. Of sex. It’s all about these disguises, all these fake mustaches and false teeth and wigs that we throw over our natural thoughts so that we can accept them within the teaching that society forces upon us. And that, dear reader, is where we begin. With a girl.
She sits at her piano playing a light, happy melody, which sneaks up like plants from the ground and grows like vines, twisting around you until you’re trapped and bound. The piano is in a spotless, shadowless room, with with a bookcase filled with an entire set of ‘classic’ books, the ones with the orange spines, so few of which have been read.
Maria wants to be a ballet dancer. You can see it in the way her fingers move across the keys. It just looks natural, as though this is a movement that she was born doing. This isn’t because she’s a talented pianist – she’s just as good as anyone would be with 8 years of lessons – it’s just how she moves all the time. It’s effortless and graceful. The world just seems to move with her, at her beck and call. She’s one of the beautiful people.
She gets sad these days. It will hit her suddenly but softly, a fully formed depression that she can’t always fight off. It hits her now, triggered by a lull in the music that she doesn’t like much, but she always plays anyway. She thinks back to what she just played, and she realizes that she isn’t very good. Or at least, she is good, but not good enough to play professionally. This thought triggers off another, waiting there like a landmine – then what’s the point? If she can’t actually achieve anything from this, then why does she bother spending her precious, precious time on it?
These thoughts distract her, so she messes a few chords up and stops playing. Getting up from the piano, she thinks, in a blurred half-formed way, that the reason she plays is for applause. She knows that, when she’s at a piano, she can press the right keys and release canned flattery from anyone around. It’s an instant boost to her self esteem. But she doesn’t let this right into her conscious mind, her memory. And so it doesn’t hurt her ever again.
She doesn’t care about the human mind. She doesn’t care about the nature of human conciousness. She doesn’t care about existentialism, or Marxism, or politics, or gay rights, or global warming. She cares about what’s on TV tonight. She cares about clothes. She cares about food. She cares about things that affect her, tangible, real things.
She doesn’t dwell on that niggling feeling at the back of her mind, the one that is always there, that something is wrong with the world. And if she doesn’t think about it, then it does not worry her.
Her name is Maria.
Outside, it’s a rainy early evening in summer. It’s been one of those summers that never really existed, where the sun would come out for a few days then receed, leaving the average weather behind. Maria wonders why everybody gets so worked up about summer. It’s just the same. She likes it (or, at least, pretends to) because there’s no school.
3.
The beautiful people. I hate them.
They told me I was the best. The teachers, the parents. Everyone. They all said that I was the best. The smartest. They all lied.
I was never the best. I was just the strangest. I was the weirdo. And I always have been, no matter how much I’ve tried to fight it.
I just enjoyed Maths, so I worked hard at it. And they all told me I was special, and I liked that. Because I never felt special.
So I worked harder so I could be more special. So that I could pretend for just a bit. And I started to believe it, that I was special. But then everyone else overtook me.
The beautiful people are the best.
Goddamit, just tell me I’m clever and artistic and special and just good, and I’ll love you forever. Please please please fall for my disguise, because I need to be liked. It’s the depression at the back of my mind that is always there, always triggered.
I can cover it up sometimes, but it’s always there. My happiness is always false.
I try and try and try but still lose.
Page:
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
It's my hardest, but it still doesn't quite work. I suck.
----
1. Rain runs in a bead down the window, briefly lit in gold and orange as it passes the streetlight outside. It collides with another raindrop, and together, with twice the force, they speed out of the light, onto the dark part of the window, where, reflected darkly in his youth, a boy stands staring at himself, looking into his own eyes.
His eyes are brown and deep the way oceans are deep. The colours change imperceptibly and with fragility, the way colour is in flowers and sunsets. Thick black strands of hair fall into them like curtains. He’s looking at this, looking into his own eyes, trying to make a decision, probably the most important decision he’s had to make so far. Out of the window, currently clad in black, lies leafy middle class England, and it’s this he wants to run away from.
His reasons to stay here at home are numerous. It would be far easier – here he has free food, somewhere to live, and all his friends. He’s spent his whole life here, he is very very comfortable. Everything is provided for him, he just has to go to collage and learn things.
But they’re precisely the reasons he wants to leave. Humans are at a strange point in their history. In any other time period, this boy would be working on a farm, or down a mine, or he’d be struggling to find his own food. Now, for the first time ever, people are trying to adapt to the idea of having free time. ‘Leisure time’. The idea of choice is a new concept, in the grand scheme of things, and it is confusing many people. Including this boy, who is now drawing the curtains, leaving them slightly open so just a slim blade of light cuts across the room.
Tearing himself away from his reflection, he picks up his rucksack from his bed and swings it over his shoulder. He walks out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him, and creeps down the stairs, leaving his room suddenly empty, a monument to the son that was lost. The single sliver of light hits the opposite wall and, we see, illuminates a letter blu-tacked to the wall, scrawled in a girls hand.
2.
Because this is about a girl. It always is. We might be able to veil our thoughts in white, build up all these layers of pink and green and black, but at their core they’re always the red red red of love. Of sex. It’s all about these disguises, all these fake mustaches and false teeth and wigs that we throw over our natural thoughts so that we can accept them within the teaching that society forces upon us. And that, dear reader, is where we begin. With a girl.
She sits at her piano playing a light, happy melody, which sneaks up like plants from the ground and grows like vines, twisting around you until you’re trapped and bound. The piano is in a spotless, shadowless room, with with a bookcase filled with an entire set of ‘classic’ books, the ones with the orange spines, so few of which have been read.
Maria wants to be a ballet dancer. You can see it in the way her fingers move across the keys. It just looks natural, as though this is a movement that she was born doing. This isn’t because she’s a talented pianist – she’s just as good as anyone would be with 8 years of lessons – it’s just how she moves all the time. It’s effortless and graceful. The world just seems to move with her, at her beck and call. She’s one of the beautiful people.
She gets sad these days. It will hit her suddenly but softly, a fully formed depression that she can’t always fight off. It hits her now, triggered by a lull in the music that she doesn’t like much, but she always plays anyway. She thinks back to what she just played, and she realizes that she isn’t very good. Or at least, she is good, but not good enough to play professionally. This thought triggers off another, waiting there like a landmine – then what’s the point? If she can’t actually achieve anything from this, then why does she bother spending her precious, precious time on it?
These thoughts distract her, so she messes a few chords up and stops playing. Getting up from the piano, she thinks, in a blurred half-formed way, that the reason she plays is for applause. She knows that, when she’s at a piano, she can press the right keys and release canned flattery from anyone around. It’s an instant boost to her self esteem. But she doesn’t let this right into her conscious mind, her memory. And so it doesn’t hurt her ever again.
She doesn’t care about the human mind. She doesn’t care about the nature of human conciousness. She doesn’t care about existentialism, or Marxism, or politics, or gay rights, or global warming. She cares about what’s on TV tonight. She cares about clothes. She cares about food. She cares about things that affect her, tangible, real things.
She doesn’t dwell on that niggling feeling at the back of her mind, the one that is always there, that something is wrong with the world. And if she doesn’t think about it, then it does not worry her.
Her name is Maria.
Outside, it’s a rainy early evening in summer. It’s been one of those summers that never really existed, where the sun would come out for a few days then receed, leaving the average weather behind. Maria wonders why everybody gets so worked up about summer. It’s just the same. She likes it (or, at least, pretends to) because there’s no school.
3.
The beautiful people. I hate them.
They told me I was the best. The teachers, the parents. Everyone. They all said that I was the best. The smartest. They all lied.
I was never the best. I was just the strangest. I was the weirdo. And I always have been, no matter how much I’ve tried to fight it.
I just enjoyed Maths, so I worked hard at it. And they all told me I was special, and I liked that. Because I never felt special.
So I worked harder so I could be more special. So that I could pretend for just a bit. And I started to believe it, that I was special. But then everyone else overtook me.
The beautiful people are the best.
Goddamit, just tell me I’m clever and artistic and special and just good, and I’ll love you forever. Please please please fall for my disguise, because I need to be liked. It’s the depression at the back of my mind that is always there, always triggered.
I can cover it up sometimes, but it’s always there. My happiness is always false.
I try and try and try but still lose.
----
1. Rain runs in a bead down the window, briefly lit in gold and orange as it passes the streetlight outside. It collides with another raindrop, and together, with twice the force, they speed out of the light, onto the dark part of the window, where, reflected darkly in his youth, a boy stands staring at himself, looking into his own eyes.
His eyes are brown and deep the way oceans are deep. The colours change imperceptibly and with fragility, the way colour is in flowers and sunsets. Thick black strands of hair fall into them like curtains. He’s looking at this, looking into his own eyes, trying to make a decision, probably the most important decision he’s had to make so far. Out of the window, currently clad in black, lies leafy middle class England, and it’s this he wants to run away from.
His reasons to stay here at home are numerous. It would be far easier – here he has free food, somewhere to live, and all his friends. He’s spent his whole life here, he is very very comfortable. Everything is provided for him, he just has to go to collage and learn things.
But they’re precisely the reasons he wants to leave. Humans are at a strange point in their history. In any other time period, this boy would be working on a farm, or down a mine, or he’d be struggling to find his own food. Now, for the first time ever, people are trying to adapt to the idea of having free time. ‘Leisure time’. The idea of choice is a new concept, in the grand scheme of things, and it is confusing many people. Including this boy, who is now drawing the curtains, leaving them slightly open so just a slim blade of light cuts across the room.
Tearing himself away from his reflection, he picks up his rucksack from his bed and swings it over his shoulder. He walks out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him, and creeps down the stairs, leaving his room suddenly empty, a monument to the son that was lost. The single sliver of light hits the opposite wall and, we see, illuminates a letter blu-tacked to the wall, scrawled in a girls hand.
2.
Because this is about a girl. It always is. We might be able to veil our thoughts in white, build up all these layers of pink and green and black, but at their core they’re always the red red red of love. Of sex. It’s all about these disguises, all these fake mustaches and false teeth and wigs that we throw over our natural thoughts so that we can accept them within the teaching that society forces upon us. And that, dear reader, is where we begin. With a girl.
She sits at her piano playing a light, happy melody, which sneaks up like plants from the ground and grows like vines, twisting around you until you’re trapped and bound. The piano is in a spotless, shadowless room, with with a bookcase filled with an entire set of ‘classic’ books, the ones with the orange spines, so few of which have been read.
Maria wants to be a ballet dancer. You can see it in the way her fingers move across the keys. It just looks natural, as though this is a movement that she was born doing. This isn’t because she’s a talented pianist – she’s just as good as anyone would be with 8 years of lessons – it’s just how she moves all the time. It’s effortless and graceful. The world just seems to move with her, at her beck and call. She’s one of the beautiful people.
She gets sad these days. It will hit her suddenly but softly, a fully formed depression that she can’t always fight off. It hits her now, triggered by a lull in the music that she doesn’t like much, but she always plays anyway. She thinks back to what she just played, and she realizes that she isn’t very good. Or at least, she is good, but not good enough to play professionally. This thought triggers off another, waiting there like a landmine – then what’s the point? If she can’t actually achieve anything from this, then why does she bother spending her precious, precious time on it?
These thoughts distract her, so she messes a few chords up and stops playing. Getting up from the piano, she thinks, in a blurred half-formed way, that the reason she plays is for applause. She knows that, when she’s at a piano, she can press the right keys and release canned flattery from anyone around. It’s an instant boost to her self esteem. But she doesn’t let this right into her conscious mind, her memory. And so it doesn’t hurt her ever again.
She doesn’t care about the human mind. She doesn’t care about the nature of human conciousness. She doesn’t care about existentialism, or Marxism, or politics, or gay rights, or global warming. She cares about what’s on TV tonight. She cares about clothes. She cares about food. She cares about things that affect her, tangible, real things.
She doesn’t dwell on that niggling feeling at the back of her mind, the one that is always there, that something is wrong with the world. And if she doesn’t think about it, then it does not worry her.
Her name is Maria.
Outside, it’s a rainy early evening in summer. It’s been one of those summers that never really existed, where the sun would come out for a few days then receed, leaving the average weather behind. Maria wonders why everybody gets so worked up about summer. It’s just the same. She likes it (or, at least, pretends to) because there’s no school.
3.
The beautiful people. I hate them.
They told me I was the best. The teachers, the parents. Everyone. They all said that I was the best. The smartest. They all lied.
I was never the best. I was just the strangest. I was the weirdo. And I always have been, no matter how much I’ve tried to fight it.
I just enjoyed Maths, so I worked hard at it. And they all told me I was special, and I liked that. Because I never felt special.
So I worked harder so I could be more special. So that I could pretend for just a bit. And I started to believe it, that I was special. But then everyone else overtook me.
The beautiful people are the best.
Goddamit, just tell me I’m clever and artistic and special and just good, and I’ll love you forever. Please please please fall for my disguise, because I need to be liked. It’s the depression at the back of my mind that is always there, always triggered.
I can cover it up sometimes, but it’s always there. My happiness is always false.
I try and try and try but still lose.
Page: