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The blank face of the infinite black expanse is a frame, the unblinking eyes it displays holding no expression. A large empty box, unfillable. And yet, light attempts the impossible task, leaping into the blackness, suspended by waning momentum. For a brief moment, the blank face stares back. Then, as if to proove all wrong, the light bursts forth in a frantic display of hues. A paste of glitter clouds the frame. Golden, red, and purple sparks dance on the edge of emptiness, as if there is no end, as if they will continue to exist in mid-air and forever shine their fervent light upon the world. Echos boom, telling all what is happening, telling all to look. And then, exhausted, the fragments slide down in a cascade, wiped off of the lifeless background by the cruel hand of gravity. The ghost remaining is quickly swept aside by another invisible force, never again to challenge fate. This moment, this infinitely small fraction of infinity, leaves not a trace to be remebered by. The face continues to stare, oblivious to all it has witnessed. Never again will this arragement of elements occur in the exact way it was just shown. Noone will ever see it again.
Such is humanity.
Dylan’s room beat out a comforting tune as he lay wide awake, sheets tossed in odd configurations about him, limbs strewn across the bed.
A click, click, click, click from the fan.
A consistent hum from the computer.
The gentle tap tap tap of rain on the window.
The overall effect was a music of sorts.
It was almost enough to lull him to sleep, were it not for the thoughts roaring discordantly through his head. He turned this way and that way and jammed his eyes shut, desperately trying to get the past day’s events out of his mind and wrestling with the memories of his earlier phone conversation, which was really the root of it all.
It had been 2 am exactly – he knew, he had been watching the clock listlessly – when the phone had rung, disturbing the lullaby that almost led him into dreamland. Blearily, he had picked it up, and equally blearily, he had listened to the sobbing coming from the other end.
When he first discerned the identity of the blubbering on the other end, his entire soul soured with fresh hope, revived from a stinking pile of rejections and all around angst.
When he finally discerned the subject of the blubbering on the other end, his entire soul sunk even further under aforementioned stinking pile and buried itself within a nice cocoon of loss and misdirected rage.
Yet another loss to add to his record.
Dylan had hung up without a word, without letting the person on the other end finish.
Now, two hours later, he was still as awake as he had been right when the phone rang.
His mind beat out another music of sorts.
Dylan’s mind clashed terribly with his room in that aspect.
((Candycoated Toxins here.))
She begins to write.
“It’s four in the morning and I can’t sleep because I just want to know what happened to you and what happened to us, but maybe I’m just being paranoid since you’re probably one of the few that I can talk to with ease even though you probably don’t care as much as me; see I can hardly fathom the possibility if what was said, what I told you and what you listened to was true, if that one thought came to fruition, so instead I said goodbye, and just like that you were off to something grand as I laid there at four in the morning, wide awake.”
It is all she musters.
The soul is laid bare in front of the oblivious, unbiased audience of ink on paper.
“So, here we are again.”
Tim sits back onto a brown leather couch, his jeans crumpling at the motion. A cup rests between his hands, slippery and filled with the remnants of a beverage. What’s left of the ice cracks, ever so softly. The sound of voices, conversation too loud for its own good, fills the otherwise stale air. It buzzes with life, for these few hours. One could consider this a party, of sorts. There is a bespectacled figure sitting less than two feet beside Tim; she ties her strikingly red hair effortlessly into a bun, holding it together with a clip procured from a slightly oversized purse. She turns to him. “You know, it’s not like I’ve been stalking you or anything.”
“You sure about that?” Tim takes a sip. It tastes icy, metallic, alcoholic. “I mean, you know everyone I know, we see each other every other hour, and all that good stuff.” He clears his throat. “So I’ll ask again, you sure about that?”
“Yep.” She nods as she says this. They are the sole figures on the couch, either pure happenstance or the cosmos at work. People pass in front of them every few minutes, each with their own idiosyncratic quirk; a beer-stained pair of shoes, an overabundance of perfume, the inexplicable odor of shame. Tim and the bespectacled figure are facing each other, ignoring their surroundings, now engrossed in an odd combination of small talk and casually flirtatious banter. One can hear the hooting of someone with too much to drink. It is an awkward silence, though neither of them are the awkward type.
“You should probably go home soon.” She finally says. It was something she always said.
“You should probably get to bed.” Tim replies. “You look tired.”
“I know.” She pauses. “But I won’t. You should get some sleep.” It was late, yet there was no sign of the festivities dying down. “I don’t sleep til five in the morning anyway, so I’m good.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Tim clears his throat, feeling the start of a cough. “First, though. I never did get your name.”
Her name is Rose, and that was the start of something.
((Short story of randomness. Sort of a back story for a character. Entered in Burn. – Candycoated Toxins))
Mikhail stared at the bleak world from behind his mask. None of them needed to see what he really looked like. How he really acted. They didn’t need to know his past, his present, his hopes for the future. At least, what little hopes there were. So instead of being like all of them, with his mind practically on display, Mikhail wore his mask.
And he wore it well.
Nobody saw past the act of coldness, of barely suppressed rage, and there was never a person capable of having him take it off.
He had perfect control over his mask. Mikhail never, ever expected to lose that control. When he walked through the door to the condo, he was ready to assume the mask around a whole new group of people and get on with his life as ‘the twisted bastard’.
He was not ready to be blown away by the people inside. He quickly lost his temper, his nonchalant attitude, and his heart in rapid succession. They unknowingly knocked off the mask that had protected Mikhail for all of his life. He lost his wall along with everything else, and then he was entwined with the weird people of that weird condo.
Just by walking through that one door, Mikhail lost the protection of the masquerade he had kept for so long and so well. And in doing so, he gained so, so much more.
I don’t know whether or not the site for a novella called “week.” getting a consistent (by consistent, I of course mean three days in a row) 7 views per day is the definition of “amusing” or “fitting”, but damn if I won’t use that as a segue for something else.
For at least the past few days I’ve been thinking of going through the endeavor of writing another novel, (this time maybe an actual one instead of a novella) and so far all I have is a compilation of what has been written here for the past few months, copy-pasted into a still unsaved Microsoft Word document. It was a half-assed attempt at reading through them, trying to find some ideas in the ways of a plotline, the development of characters, and all of that other bullshit that’s standard in fiction. On a seemingly unrelated note, I’ve been using the word “bullshit” as a casual synonym for “things” mainly because I find it to be a much more interesting word. What I have so far in the workings of my mind is a vague collection of notions that I’ve yet to find a way to both flesh out and get in words, the workings of a story (or rather, various scenes), as well as things from “real life” interesting enough to convolute and use. It’s proving to be a hassle, as I’ve yet to concoct any real ideas.
Maybe soon. Maybe consider this a holdover until something “good”.
A knock on the door.
Marshall stumbles toward it, shaking off the rust of a night spent asleep, and nearly tripping over scattered sneakers. He reaches for the door, the cold metal of it providing a sufficient jolt to open his eyes halfway. A turn and a creak reveals the image of a woman who he has never seen alone, donning a bright blue shirt and tattered gray jeans. Marshall holds the door open, his eyes confused. “Hi.” She speaks.
“Steph?” Marshall rests his arm on the worn wooden doorframe, lazily staring out onto her visage and the bright light of the sun surrounding her, the wind ever so gently tousling dirty blonde locks of hair in an eastward direction. He checks the appearance of the day, it seems to be sometime before midday. The heat from the outside permeates inwards, overtaking the artificially cooled atmosphere within the confines of a smallish home. The light aroma of nicotine suggests that he has been smoking, the even lighter sound of music suggests that Marshall is currently the sole being within the home. Stephanie clears her throat before speaking, her eyes gazing intently at his.
“Listen.”
“What?”
“I know you know me as Steph.” She pauses, “That one girl who’s always around but never really made an effort to get to know you. Tim’s old friend who he shoehorned into various situations.” Marshall reluctantly, nonverbally, agrees. “But, I’m here as Stephanie, an actual person, not some friend by extension, not that one girl who’s there just because.” She continues, “You know?” The implied message was obvious to both of them, as if it had been long since buried under formalities and the awkward distance between those unwilling to face the truth.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Marshall asks, a final time. She takes a step forward, her body now less than a foot away from his.
The door closes, leaving only a lonely doorstep and a markedly more interesting afternoon.
