5 posts tagged “writing”

"Would you be our Preacher Enmarius?"  Hans held the joint below his lip for a moment before hitting it again. "That is, if you're willing to."  The joint trailed between us as Hans handed it to me.

-Lilian, I want to talk to you about something. Guy paused and took a deep breath, holding it longer than normal.  But, here... he took her hand and held it against his chest, right over his heart. Feel that?

-Yeah.

-I'm a little nervous. He looked at Lilian's dark eyes and long lashes, their youth big and bright on her inquiring face. She took her hand from over Guy's fluttering heart and asked what he's thinking. Well, Lil... he paused again, the silence so loud he found his thoughts being distracted from leaving his tongue. The last thing I want is for anything to threaten our relationship--our friendship.  We've known each other for nearly six years and we've seen each other both running and crawling through our lives.  We've seen each other broken and we've seen each other restored. Everything that we've been through these years, we have experienced together.

Lilian was laying on her stomach beside Guy and rolled to her side to face him as he developed his sentences.  He wasn't his usual confident self, his speech broken by hesitation and extreme care in word choice.  Obviously he had something on his mind that shook him into this foreign character.  He fell into a pause again and Lilian took the chance to reassure him she was attentive to what he was saying.  We have, she said.

Guy breathed deep again, Fuck it. I'll just say it. Guy clutched the pillow beneath his body and, from his belly, turned to face Lily.  This past month, the time we've been spending with one another has meant so much to me.

-Me too, encouraged Lily.

-But more than usual.  Lily, I really like you and not until you came home had I realized what a truly beautiful and unique and matured human you are.  I mean... he cleared his throat and squirmed a bit on his side... I think that you and I share something unbelievable, a friendship of astounding strength and honesty, something that I look for in a woman I want to be with beyond friendship.

Lily dropped her head onto the pillow under her and looked up, away from Guy. I agree, she said. We do have something uncommon.

-And as I noticed these feelings I have, my friends noticed them too. And I hold the advice and opinions of my friends with my faith in the friendship.  Friendship balances on the fulcrum of communication where talking about and talking to each other meet.  Rob and Shel both gave me perspective on how I act around you, pointing out nuances in me that change.  Guy shifted once again, setting his hand as a stand beneath his head, still facing Lilian.  They asked me why we aren't dating and I couldn't give them a good answer.

Lily looked back to Guy, studying his features, how he held a single brow above the other and how his eyes bounced over hers searching for a response. I, uh... I don't know what to say. She returned to looking away from Guy. 

-I just wanted to let you know that this is how I feel.  Are you against the idea of us making something more of our relationship?  I'm not expecting us to leave this conversation with some sort of label or anything...

-No, I know, she interrupted.  I don't have anything to say, which is most certainly not saying no. Looking back to Guy, Lilian continued, something was said to me and it got me thinking too.  Guy's lips parted and gave way to a smile, his body not nearly as tense and his features relieved. 

-So you're not against the idea?

-No, she said, I'm not.

-I guess that leaves my worry of mutuality with either yes or maybe. Guy breathed deep once more and smiled again, I'm glad.

-Me too, she said. Wanna cigarette?

-Yes I do.  With that, Guy grabbed his American Spirits and Zippo and jacket to step into the chilling night air with Lilian close behind, reaching for his available hand. 

I want a typewriter.  To be exact... I want an Underwood Portable circa 1915-1931.  I want to feel/hear the rhythm of the typewriter.  I want to introduce a new element into my process.  I want to experience the process of my favorites.
 
Kerouac, Chandler, Faulkner, Hemmingway, Hitchcock, Wolfe, and Sinclair trusted Underwood's machines and I want to too.

I feel like I'm hyping myself up for this a bit too much, but I don't care--this was something of a step for me: to put a creative work out for a somewhat general population to read.
So now that it's been published under my name, I'll post it here:

The Midst

The sky is closer now than it has ever been and I'm walking beneath it with my hair being thrown by its steady hand. My sunglasses are sitting tight and the eyes they hide are wandering, wondering along my path.

Tight-trim edges of grass line the walk ahead, each meeting pavement with an abrupt, aberrant end. The flower-beds lay below single trees in each tight-trim sprawl of grass, nature of the suburban standard.

Tan tiles, beige tiles, salmon tiles, too, with white stucco and contrasting trim inviting the hiding wandering, wondering eyes into a uniform view.

The sky is closer now than it has ever been. It's sitting tight atop the suburban roofs. The five clouds atop the sky, atop the shake-shingle, suburban roofs, move askew within the suburban sky.

My clock tells me it's five-O-eight because the neck-tie cars are entering the community of shake-shingle-suburbia. They enter with tinted windows with wandering, wondering eyes behind them. They think: “A stranger in our midst, shaded by hair and spectacles, possibly dangerous with a pair of testicles.”

Tinted neck-tie windows enter their piece of pavement only to close the doors behind them. Engines still billowing from their neck-tie tail-pipes – each within the skeyes of this shake-shingle suburbia closed within its pavement parking garage.

They are tucked neatly inside. They are sucked sweetly inside. They are fucked and numbed, soured and succumbed by the images devoured with their nightly supper.

I step forward, a pace unbroken, along a white-paved-path with my sunglasses tight and my hair still dancing in the sky's steady hand while the shake-shingle on my left and the one on my right, the one before it and the one after it, open their windows to a glinting blue glow... an audience laughter wafting from within. I hear tap-tap, plastic digits and neck-ties masticate to rhythms of the MAN-kind machine and its glinting blue tractor beam.

“He is a stranger in our midst who's danger and spectacles, with his hair and testicles,... tonight at ten!” The neck-ties will never, never win with carousels set to speed: Consume.

Beyond audience mastication and tappy-tap plastics, my clock tells me it's five-thirty-three and the sun's touch agrees – warm, pleasant, solar breath before its light fades to night.

One still remains outside, out front, on top of the neck-ties water-worked, tight-trim green grass. He is without his neck-tie, not grown into it. The one still remaining, sitting in a small red wagon, handle lying on the neck-tie grass, watches this stranger in his midst with wandering, wondering eyes. He, sitting in his small red wagon, without his neck-tie, hiding from glinting blue lights, holds up his hand to the stranger in his midst.

The stranger

waves back.

The Creative Writing Club has been created and had its second meeting tonight.  Since my school lacks a solid creative writing program... well, it completely lacks a program... a couple of students started up a recognized club on campus so writing majors can focus on their work outside of classwork. 
I'm really excited about it.  I think that it will be really helpful, not only in furthering my own work, but in helping me get into a writing community as well.
In February, the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference is in Chicago.  A few of the writers from the group are going and I'm really considering it.  Despite the growth I'll experience as a writer, I'll jump on the opportunity to travel. My school offers scholarships for students that want to further their education outside of the university if the students apply... so I'm gonna apply.

Anyhoo... truckin' along.
Cheers