Pocketwatch

It's so strange. I don't know why but somehow today writing this - purely self-indulgent thing - is hitting me hard. Writing about the moments when two people are looking at each other, so full of feelings that their skin is tingling, but each thinking the other holds them in no regard...

That gulf between cuts too close to the bone, I think. The countless times I've looked at someone and thought...you and I, we would...you and I, will never...

It's like a memory of a life that never happened. A door that existed so briefly before it blinked out of existence. That thick, yearning melancholy that was the possibility of a burning world full of passion before it vanished.

I love that the world can be so full of those threads. And that it hurts to be in that moment. A moment that wasn't anything at all, except two worlds colliding...in a glance.

Trees

This is something I tapped out a while ago and found again today. The original reason why I wrote it is blowing in the wind, and it didn't really say what I was trying to get it to.

But in a strange way, I almost think that's what makes it more important to share or chronicle...because I think in missing the point, there may have been something else there worthwhile. The road twisted away from my destination but where I ended up wasn't a wasted journey, somehow.


I think reading a book is a little like seeing a tree. You see one, you go "Ooh that's a tree!" and you've got it. You see a few more you think "ooh okay, so this is how they can be different," and you nod to yourself and think...I know what a tree is, I could probably plant and raise one of my own.

So you take an acorn, any old acorn, and you put it in the soil in your garden. You water it and a while passes. A month, then a couple of seasons. You forget about the acorn for a while and figure in time it'll work itself out. Occasionally, you try to water it a little more but nothing like the care you gave it in the beginning.

One day you just get frustrated at why you're spending effort on a stupid tree anyway, and that's it. For a while.

Some time passes. It's not too long until summer swings around and you want something new to do. A friend drops by and talks about this big wonderful tree they saw, and you snort and roll your eyes a little. You could grow a tree, easy.

Except you didn't. And now you're curious.

So you take a walk. It's a long walk, and there may or may not have been a bus in between, but eventually you come to a park. And this is a park unlike any you've seen. The trees here are large, huge! Of many different types and many different different colours, some with leaves shining brightly, some crooked and spooky in the undergrowth. It's like a library of trees, and you can't get enough.

Eventually you head home, your head full of leaves and your hands full of acorns. You're inspired and uplifted, and you tell yourself that surely a tree will grow now.

But now you want an orchard.

You plant your trees and they take root, they spring under your care and guidance and start tilting upwards to the sun in little saplings. You have trees, you have all the trees. You have the best trees.

A neighbour passes a while later, and pauses to admire your trees. They're growing well, at least some of them, the ones that took root. It's a few but you're proud. You talk trees with your new friend and they point out a few things that could help the trees, while they also ask you about how you kept your lovely trees healthy. You talk, swapping ideas, and nod thoughtfully. You've learned there are many things you could do to improve them, and you're happy about that. You want your trees to grow well, and in all honesty, sometimes it just seemed too hard to take care of them properly.

Then the neighbour mentions having seen a mango tree nearby. Now this is intriguing. You've had mango, of course, but never seen the trees they came from. Indeed, you didn't even think about those trees at all. Your neighbour talks about how delicious the fruit was and how healthy the tree was, and you decide you have to go and see the tree for yourself.

The next day you hurry off, eager to have a look at this new tree. When you get to the little gardens you are blown away. It's a single tree in the gardens, not quite as tall as the trees you hope to grow your acorns into, but it's wonderfully lush and the fruits dangle healthily from their thin stalks. "Mango tree," you breathe, and sneak a bite of its fruit.

You hmm a little at the taste, it's not quite what you expected, but that's okay. You're glad you got to see the tree and taste the fruit, but you think maybe your oaks are more your style. Besides, you could happily play with acorns all day long.

The years pass and your acorns turn into spritely little trees, coming nicely into their own. They're not exactly what you envisioned, but they give you a lot of pleasure and bring a smile to your face and, you notice, the passers by, too.

One day a thoughtful stranger takes a walk down your road. They see your trees and are intrigued, and after talking to you for a while they tell you they really like your trees but point out that your front yard, much larger and spacious, could also do well with some trees. Some big ones.

You smile at the thought and it gets you thinking, but you shrug a little and feel like you like your trees as they are and that's probably enough. Also in the back of your mind you feel like you really have as much trees as anyone should have. They're not large or very visible but they're pretty and cute and you love them.

And that's the end of that, really.

Until one day, someone comes by and asks if you've ever seen a Redwood. You have no idea what a Redwood is, so you ask and they smile as they talk about the tallest trees they'd ever seen, in a beautiful forest they used to wander in. Now that's a new word to you. You nod and chat and you get the gist of what a forest is, and as the stranger moves on, you smile and wave at them.

But you chuckle to yourself as you watch them go. Why would you need to see a forest?

Why indeed.

S|ending

I saw the finale of an old show today and I realised that there are some endings I just don't like. Not because they're poorly thought out or somehow unrealistic, but because they hit the note of things being over. Just...done. And that leaves me in mourning over what's been lost.

I know things change and the world moves on, but when you take a cast of characters, people who've been through thick and thin, and you just...disband them, it's like saying "this time will never come again".

Every part of me seems to rebel against that simple reality. It's a timeless constant of the universe that moments once experienced, will never be repeated. There is no groundhog day, no replay of yesterday, and yet every time I delve into the unknown to bring forth something from my imagination, it's with the intent of bringing people together, through excitement and adventure and peril, to forge bonds, connections that will last, no matter what may come.

And when my stories do end, they end with an open door, a new frontier, a lifetime of adventure waiting.

I think in some part this is why my casts are often small. If I gather up four or six people it's hardly an ensemble, and if a pair of those characters end up together it rarely feels like a breaking when it's all over.

This feels like a strange revelation to me though. I've known for a while that what I really wish for is to have my loved ones close, to be in a time and space where all my friends are near and it would be a simple matter to meet up to do something, or simply chat. And all my endeavours, on some basic level, are towards the hope of achieving that.

But I wonder if that's simply a refusal of reality. Moreover, I wonder if that's the reason for some of my most dearly held ideals. The notion that the human race could achieve great things if it came together may still originate from this deep seated need to gather, to bond, to share and explore and build.

And I wonder if that's stupid, and childish, and immature. And that I need to wake up to the realities of the world and say "goodbye!" to yesterday and these deeply etched wounds on my heart.

...

I think...I think my answer is no.

Or maybe I just don't care.

If I am a child living as a man, then so be it. Because that child within believes in a world where everything good and joyful and wonderful can be manifest. Where we can build beyond our skies into our dreams, and find all those things we could never allow ourselves to believe in, waiting for us. Where we can wake up and look around and be at one with the world and all that dwells within it.

Where I can have a world where I don't have to say goodbye. Except for the hand of nature, or evil, or the smallness of hate.

And where one day, far in the future, perhaps those last two won't have to be counted.

Bumbling

I haven't been working on my nearly completed novel much at all, trying to figure out the ending is taking a while, and I've no real stomach for it. I'm distracted by the bright summer lights of my other stories but I desperately want to finish something, and I'm nearly done now. Hopefully Camp Nano will be the finisher.

Anyway, in lieu of being productive I've been writing steamy romance shorts (emphasis on the steam), and as always getting skooled by my characters. 

Kat led them along a series of corridors, moving a little slower compared to the frenzied pace they had pursued before. They stopped often to peer through the walls, usually into empty rooms but now and again there was a guest retiring from the party interspersed amongst them. As the rooms began to thin out and cobweb began to appear they entered what seemed to be a disused area of the manor, and the rooms became much more interesting. A few times they stumbled into nooks that appeared to be made for spying, and once even found a room replete with a large bed, its purpose quite clear.

“My my,” Kat said as she eyed the moth-eaten covers. “This manor has quite a history, it seems.”

“It must have been hard back then - not really being able to see who you want, be with who you wanted,” Tare said thoughtfully.

Kat laughed. “Not for the owner of this though.” Then her face turned a little sad. “But do you really think it’s so different for us?” she asked, reaching out to run her fingers along the bedstead. “Seeing what we want, but never being able to touch it. You must have felt the same, Tare.”

A lump formed in Tare’s throat as he thought about Claire. So many times he had wanted to reach out, but never could. “No,” he said gently, surprising himself. “We are free. Free to fail, free to lose, free to lack courage. All of these things, but free to love, most of all.” His hand moved to Kat’s shoulder. “I could have told her any time, but the time was never right. Maybe there was a reason for that. At least...I would like to think so.”

Kat turned and smiled softly at him. “What a fool she was to never see you.”

Tare blushed, his tanned skin turning a deep red. “Now that’s just the drink talking.”

“You think so, hmm?” Kat almost hummed the word before taking his hand again. “Let’s go, before I start sneezing.”

Writing Confidence

Something that helps is if you can write one sentence.

Write a sentence of something you want to breathe life to, it can be as much as a paragraph if you like. Then take that and look at it again. Pay attention to whether it says what you want it to, whether it flows like you like it, whether it feels right. It won't, so keep tackling it until it does. Keep tweaking and editing it. Get a feel for when you've gone too far and lost what you wanted to say. Understand the origin of the sentence often has a grain of truth that can be obscured with over-editing. Reel it back in, go back to the original, and get it right. It might take you half an hour, it might take you three hours.

But you'll get there.

And when you get there, you'll know that you can do it.

From there on out it's just a case of realising that you can't write out a story with that level in mind, but you can make it like that after it's done. And that's the point. It takes a rare genius to get things right the first time, but it takes only dedication to get it right in the end. And you can do that, you already proved it with the sentence.

Good luck, writer.

Daydreams

There's an incredibly luscious woman

running through my head

who I wanted to write

who I wanted to bed

But I can't stand the feeling

of giving her away

when all that I want

is for her to play

So I sit here and shiver

as she paces through my mind

as my hands tangle with hers

and she caresses in kind

The light from her eyes

that does nothing but glow

as she teases my heart

dreaming of her flow

But the thought lingers with me

like a hand on a thigh

does she really exist

or must I say goodbye

I want to wake up

with you by my side

And that's all.

Trailing

On this night of all nights...

The piano struck a chord, the notes floating in ethereal bliss above the sound of the waterfall just past his door. The pianist. Her breath caught in her throat as she gazed upon his dishevelled state, the ragged ruins of his nails seeming to complement his attire. She wasn't sure what part of her could notice such a small detail, but as the mournful notes rang through the bare halls, they seemed to tease her forward, elude and entangle her senses, until her steps formed glimmering puddles across the dark floors.

His gaze never faltered from the keys his fingers barely seemed to touch, but his eyes closed at each strike, the shivers running through his very bones and seeming to tangle and entice his body to elicit breath.

This was all he was, she knew, all he had been...for memory fading. And memory did fade as she neared him. Every step a fractured cascade into another world, another life, where all she had been and was rippled away on the breeze, unbinding from her form in ribboned wonder. She turned her head to watch a flow, and some part deep within her felt surprised as she saw it simply halt, ruffling in the air as if time had no sway over it. She found herself nodding, it was simply as it should have been.

He was watching her. How she knew she could not tell, for his motion had not changed, his eyes blinking at each languid strike...but somehow he was. The third eye of the world had glanced at her and she had never noticed, even as she shivered. But the siren's call was a man in a tattered shirt playing a piano in the shadow of a waterfall. The madness of reality had tilted to sane and she had stepped beyond its pale echo, with the aid of a bridge she had never seen.

The Oracle (Dark Blue pt 2)

Lucial threw down her keys and took off her jacket, ending the day with a long sigh and a blank stare across the room. The lounge was in order, as ever, the fluffy pillows enticing with their imitation goose down on the long, soft sofa. But with a shake of her head she got herself moving and trudged over to the kettle, kicking her boots off as she went.

The cool tiling was refreshing under her socked feet and she felt life returning to her limbs as her toes softly pattered on the floor. The fridge didn't have much going for it at this hour, but she hummed softly as the kettle boiled, perusing the shelves for hidden scraps and parcelled packets. Eventually she spied a half-empty pot of humous and the hank of leftover uncut white loaf. "That'll do," she murmured, retrieving the items and setting them on a plate.

The tea took forever, as usual. Or perhaps it only felt like forever as the couch was calling. Still the bread was tasty, though it missed something with the humous, and she would have killed for some tomato soup. Or at least poked someone, she amended in her mind.

The clock ticked back and forth, pendulum in name and nature and an odd thing for a modern apartment, but oh so relevant. He would be coming soon, she knew, and he would want answers.

The television flicked on with a cascade of light and sound, and she let it suspend her as she settled onto the couch. She knew what she would be watching, and indeed had looked forward to it for the entire day. The comforting mellow tones of the love interest as he walked around the city, running errands on his way home for the night, washed over her with the title music.

Lucial supposed he was actually the hero of the story, the protagonist, but somehow she had never seen it that way. He was the love interest, she...or well the heroine at least, was the protagonist. She smiled as she felt herself nod at the thought, at least in the movies Lucial thought of herself that way. Real life always ended up shockingly disparate.

She rolled her shoulders and slipped into null mode, the second stretching out interminably. The movie paused itself in an odd muting of light and sound as she made her way back over to the fridge and fished out some more food. The lazy use of her power made her chuckle, but she wanted to get as much of the film seen as possible before he arrived. That was a good reason to stop time, right?