Writer's Block

Greetings all. Here is another scrap of writing that I recently put through the editing process and ended up with a short story. I am enjoying this compression of plot, even if it costs me pages of description. It's easier to stay on task and finish a thought with such condensing afoot. Enjoy!

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Standing at the front door, Myron fidgeted in the waking day’s groggy wakening. Writer’s block, he frowned as the thought danced through his mind as it had danced for the past 48 sleepless hours of his crestfallen life. Myron had been on a writer’s spree up until this point, THE point, actually. He couldn’t close this novel, not on his own as it was no longer his own.

Arnold was a childhood friend by trade, but in Myron’s case, Arnold was his publishing agent. Their relationship soured in the weeks surrounding Myron’s first accomplished publication, which through shrewd tactics and ventriloquism throughout the chain of unknowingly participating companies, found its way into Myron’s damp basement by the crate-load. The novel was a flop, and in turn Myron was a flop, and both of them were forever branded by the publication world as unsavory and dishonest fellows.

If it weren’t for that bastard Arnold, Myron wouldn’t be here right now, toiling over the most irrelevant of minutia. Myron needed to finish his redeeming novel; he needed to make everything right. Myron fidgeted again as the sun peeked through the low hanging trees in front of Arnold’s sleeping home. Turning the knob quietly, he watched as a sliver of golden light expanded on the foyer floor. Myron needed to end this novel. He needed to right his wrongs, and as he tightened his grip on his raised sledgehammer: he knew exactly what changes were in store.

Only Darkness Remained

This was written for an exercise, I took about ten minutes writing and editing this piece and then did some finer/minor tuning when I transferred it to digital. This short short is a self contained tale, I meant it to be something of a commentary on attitudinal difference between my generation and its parent generation as well as some other old world themes. As always, I am open to any commentary or criticism. Enjoy!

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The crowd hissed and swayed, a chorus of ten thousand locusts. They paid for blood, from the lowly, wracked gambler to the naïve infantile, who knows something momentous is occurring and yet can not comprehend its vessel. ‘DEATH,’ they jeered, screeched, and volleyed. The dim arena below, a macabre theater of abject gore, beheld two nameless figures too sorry to have escaped such a fate. One stands bent albeit proud, a gray and withering old man. On the arena floor, drowning in both blood and bile lies the other, a helpless adolescent hardly able to wield the sword issued to him at the start of the duel. The surging masses in the stands mouths frothed with ravenous bloodlust, eager for the axe’s inevitable and terminal descent. The grizzled victor to-be towers over his young challenger. Shaking and haggard, he knows he will not see the New Year’s dawn but reassures himself that his life is worth this one last effort. Anything to ensure his own survival, he reassures himself, as he raises his bloodied and worn axe.

“I am sorry, my son, for I have not the courage to face my own mortality. And so I must perpetuate this season of death so that I, not you, may inherit this defunct world to which I have you brought you in to. One last day, for myself.” And then only darkness remained.

Under The Dunes

Part II of my cruel revival, this is shorter and less edited but more developed than my previous post. Here I dissect the question of motivation at large. Enjoy!

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I’ve spent countless nights willingly feeding my soul to the toiling of ostensible failure, digitally submitting my life as I search for its very definition. What is it about my emotional discharge that fascinates me so? What is it inside of me that forces me to exit my fantasy and begin to pour myself onto digital canvas? It is my unwillingness to conform to the forgotten body that is my generation? It is my unending effort’s fruition that, although seemingly forced, causes me to record these fleeting gasps of breath as they radiate from the recent corpse that is my creative instinct. Who am I kidding? I just want to become famous and remain unforgotten whence my corporeal form has returned to the soil from which it came. I only want to live long enough to see my constructs bury me, and only then will I be able to slip into the sands and rest under their dunes.

To Be Forgotten

It's been over two years since I've taken anything and put it online. I've grown significantly in terms of cognitive maturity, the voice I write with, and the subjects I prefer to linger on. I willingly let this project slip away while I went about whatever it was I was doing. Anyway, I've decided to start fresh by not dumping what I've written during this two year gap and instead to post some things that were written today. I think it's a good start to what may evolve into a routine, which is what I intended to do with this project when I began. Enjoy!

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I’m obsessed with filling a void I’m told exists within the depths of my conscious soul. This void is played out in a meaningless menagerie of thoughtlessness insistent on being that which is thoughtfulness. I’m told this void exists in every person, and I’ve observed how my peers and associates cope with their own existence in the shadow of humanity’s pass. I am unlike my peers in that I am exactly like them; I proclaim my individuality by proclaiming my singularity. Every thought and every opinion is not of my own just as every material possession in my home is not of my own making. I have barricaded my soul behind the thoughts and dreams of recent decades passed and I am content with living in moral squalor so that I may be comfortably lulled to sleep by what the world tells me is important. I constantly question my motives for continuing my journey, naively believing that I know enough to see my path's conclusion. My happiness is wrought digitally, my sadness, however, is culminated in a fine mist that is only apparent when I occasionally open my eyes. The age of harmlessness is in actuality the most deadly age we have ever come upon, where a man cannot disappear into the wildness of nature to construct his living but rather must disappear into the masses to construct his identity among an unending sea of dreams that have already been dreamt. And even then, what was it all for? To be remembered is to be immortal, to be forgotten is to have lived. Mortality is our gift to each other before and after, it is a tribute to never be conquered nor matched. Mortality is what equalizes the façade of conjured happiness, wealth, and notoriety. It proves to us that we are no greater than the sculptures we create in our likeness or the winds generated by our wings’ flap. In that thought, I find great comfort.

The Happening at Barna

This piece was written a few months ago, emailed, forgotten about, and rediscovered. I am aiming for a hind-sighted dystopian plot in this short story. I am revisiting the plot line loosely outlined in this story for a longer short story, more news later. As always, leave comments and feed back! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

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As the dying gas giant lights the united surface, the remnants of the evolutionarily excluded stage a coup in the Stronghold of Barna atop the Pangaeic mountain range central to the previously divided world. Knowing was the key, knowing their demise under the heel of a sister race which sprung from the stars, perhaps their best weapon was simply the fact of knowing their acts were futile no matter what direction they transpired in. When The Visitor arrived, the surging masses were unaware and unprepared, but how could they be for something so out of their naive control? In the night, a film spread throughout the land and sea from an ever expanding point somewhere in the deep azulite recesses of the ocean Pacific, a film unknown to this dimension that radiated and permeated onto everything it touched in an endless cycle that could only terminate upon completion. Upon awakening, those possessing what scientists would confirm to be ‘the God gene’ endured a meta-evolutionary process that resulted in heightened psycho-mental awareness and mass inter-humanoid communication via the mind. Those excluded from the supposed ‘God gene’ pool were routinely hunted and slaughtered or forced into hiding as the fear of dismemberment or being the subject to uncouth experimentation until annihilation was a threat all too real to allow stagnant stubbornness keep the unaffected undetected. The Stronghold at Barna crowns a mountain range with naturally occurring labyrinthine caverns, water dredged vaults, and a sheer face allowing no mountaineer any quarter for footing as the drop climbs to thousands of feet. For six years after the spreading of The Visitor’s gift the Stronghold at Barna shelled only small amounts of its population in exchange for an innumerable amount of invading ‘God gene’ possessors. Coordinated and focused attacks stressed the very chakra points of the structure, forcing its denizens deep into the tunnels and hidden pass-ways. In its last days, the stronghold’s reinforced walls and bolted metal doors gave birth to the unified world’s last three surviving homo sapiens, the last known free-thinkers of the new monadian world order. The surrender was peaceful, they were taken into custody as the rest of the world saw visions of their capture, interrogation, execution, and the dissection of their thoughts and bodies. These minds were among the most coveted, providing one final insight into who we used to be and how the individual mind worked in the petty squabbles and stresses of the previously modern world. Emotions unique to life were sensed one last time as the new face of hive-minded humanity took turn as a wholly unified and truly interconnected utopia of transparency. Individualism’s death was the key to a utilitarian life that until The Visitor appeared, remained a dream unseen in the eyes of Earth’s leaders. When the last of the Stronghold at Barna’s vaults had been pried open and investigators narrowed in on the most sought after room, a question was scrolled in human blood upon the walls of the hallway leading down deep into the mountain range’s core. The meaning of this question sent a shockwave of calculated and weighed response throughout the connected collected mind of humanity at large. It read, “Choice is the spawn of chaos, a gift unlike any entrusted upon us, will the death of deviance in thought quench our thirst for control or will our quenching of chaos only fuel thought in the direction of deviance?” Behind that last vaulted door of homo sapien withholding was a vibrant orchard in bloom with color, fruit, and aroma. In the center was the long decayed corpse of a woman, the most vivid colors of sprout came from her bones that peeked timidly from the soil. This perplexing mystery remains unknown as the hive-mind surges upon itself until the dormancy of chaos awakens from slumber, whenever that may be.

The Dwindling of the Fire / Consider the Steer

While I write often, I update few and far between; deeming only a select few pieces worthy of posting. Recently I have been seeing a bipolarity in my mood and in my actions, and only in reflection can I see it in my writing. This poem is a product of an unknown dismal fear, influenced by a certain 1984 by a certain George Orwell. In The Dwindling of the Fire, I want to draw the reader's attention to the predicament of cattle in modern society. I want to expose the concept of society having the ability to exist only in sought-after emotions while simultaneously blotting out the unsavory ones. I want this to cause reflection on the fear of fear as a necessary element to life, it's increasingly obsolete nature, and present the alternative of universal unification as a dream turned nightmare.

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The dwindling of the fire, a road irreversibly traveled

“Emotions give way and give away,” they shouted from their capitols

“Peace is freedom, freedom is unification, unification is cooperation!”

Surging masses quelled, armies disbanded, tyranny evaporated as anarchy rained down

Abolish government, unify the corners of our square into a circle, it was the only way

In peace lies complacency, a mulling of cattle on the very property of their death,

Graze as cattle do, they shuffle through paradise unaware.

Perhaps it is the steer that benefited most from domestication, for their own good.

Mortality rates wane, life lengthens, smiles broaden and frowns simmer.

Encouraged to forget the filthy primal instinct of fear, of anger, of woe;

We settle on our pasture and await slaughter in peaceful repose.

To forget fear is a fleeting nightmare of the human essence, a duality longed for to be destroyed. In that wish lies our paradox of compassion versus compliance, a struggle to save as we cleanse in a self appointed righteous fire. To choose utopia is to choose a compliant fate worse than death, to end chaos is to ignore the fact of life that we strive to preserve.

The Trick

I wrote this on a beautiful autumn day in Valley Forge, outside of King of Prussia. The changing of the seasons was an excellent inspiration to writing about the changing seasons of my own life and daily ritual. Finding truth in life is as essential as finding the falsity in life. Enjoy!

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The truth of happiness lies in the pain of sacrifice.

The pain of sacrifice is driven by our fear of regret.

Choicelessly, we take the plunge hoping all is right

By the time we land.

Accomplishing everything we can

As we gain speed and the weight of the journey pulls us closer to that final truth.

On occasion we find a boulder on which to grasp with futile stubborness,

Knowing our optionless destiny

But not its path.

The pain of sacrifice lies

In keeping our grasp on the boulders we encounter long enough

To catch our breath

But not so long that they become our regrets.

Roses and Love!

I just wrote this. I decided to take something familiar and attempt to twist it into the unexpected, though i realize this has probably been done many times in many ways (I can't think of a more cliche way to describe love, and writing an 'arch-nemesis' poem about it isn't that new I am sure). Either way, as always, enjoy!

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My love is like a bright red rose,

Cut early across country and shipped

In the ghettos and by the highways it dwells and thrives.

By the cars I give myself to all who dare look onto me,

Primed with enough sustinence for my love to appeal to the would be reciever –

My love is like a bright red rose,

I know I am among others of my kind, doing the same dance for the same reasons

We dance in fear however, our days are nigh and our nights frigid.

Day by day one or two of us surrenders to the elements and is cast astray.

It is that freedom I seek, lying in the garbage company to other used individuals.

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My love is like a bright red rose,

Thorns are cut, leaves removed, my love is vulnerable and

Uncorrupted as opposed to the figure selling it for profit.

The people pass me day by day as my love whithers and moves on.

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Since this has been recently written and hasn't seen a second set of eyes or second revision, please note that it is unfinished. As always, open to suggestions (particularly the absent final line).

The Glass Castle.

I have decided to make an honest effort to finish stories that I have started writing instead of starting brand new ones that I will never get to finishing. I began writing this story in pieces over the course of a few weeks, adding a few parts here and there or editing out other bits to make it more dramatic. I had it saved as The Arena.doc, but titled it The Glass Castle as of a day ago when I re-read it and started working on it again. I always seem to gravitate to a more common tongue in my short stories (mostly just swearing) I noticed. I just don't want to end up using 'fuck' as a comma is all.

Here is the prologue that I have thus far:

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The Glass Castle

“I am just giving the people what they want, what they need.” Blood dripped down his trimmed golden beard, three of his precious pearly white teeth had been kicked out, his spotless gums now swelled with blood and pain. His eyes, eyes that stared calmly and motionlessly into the public for years on end every night at exactly seven o’clock, now darted nervously around the dark corridor. George Henson, executive director and host to the Global United Federation’s top rated 24-hour news and entertainment station, could not help but laugh at his current predicament. Droplets of scarlet ejected from his lips as he heavily exhaled, squeezing out a belittling scoff, “Even now, I am giving you what you want and need. Go ahead and kill me, it’s not going to do shit in the end.”

The figure that stood above him, fists clenched and dripping with fresh blood, stared with furious eyes into the perfect blue irises of George Henson. Henson struggled on a sprained wrist to sit up as he brushed aside matted blonde hair, trying to look his best for his final moments. The silhouette grabbed him by the collar, Henson yelped for fear of a painful death as he was swiftly pulled into a sliver of light escaping into the hall; just inches from the figure’s face. George could see the man’s pupils shrink as they came into the light, like a stalker about to close in on it’s prey. “I am going to let you live, to see the abomination you have created collapse on itself. I am going to hunt each of your pawns down and twist their arms until they scream so loud it wakes the public up. No, George, I won’t kill you tonight, but you’re going to wish you were dead after I am through.”

The Start of a Loving Relationship.

I was going over what I should work on for posting and what I should just never post and I came across this old bit I wrote for a creative writing class assignment. I was worried I made it too confusing, but I have faith that whoever reads this likes puzzles. I was inspired to write this by thinking back on all of the Bar Mitzvahs and weddings I have attended. I suppose I wish my life was this wrought in turmoil and drama in a weird way.

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"The Start of a Loving Relationship"

Martin sipped back another vodka cranberry, leaning back onto the bar. "How long do think you they* will last together?" Martin's older brother James was admiring another girl he saw at the wedding ceremony earlier that morning and was thus not paying attention. "I suppose they will, I mean I heard some things from Aunt Susan's step daughter1, what's her name2?"

"Allison?"

"Yes, Allison, she told me Alex was caught fooling around with some lady3 a month ago and Sarah almost4 called the wedding off. Sounds like Alex is in the dog house for the rest of his life, I mean no sex ever5."

Martin turned and gave the bartender the tip, thanking him for the top shelf liquor, and turned back to his brother's side. "Allison is lying, that kind of shit would never happen in this family."

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*The newly wed couple, Mr. Alex and Mrs. Sarah Windinbratt. "They" is not a relative term, the two were known for fighting with each other, but the rest of the family** was happy "they" found each other.

**The Windinbratt family is an old family, a proud family. Every one of it's children have made a successful name for themselves. Namely in business, but some such as Aunt Susan, excel in the fine arts.

1 James had met(1) her(2) earlier in the halls of the sizeable cathedral the wedding ceremony was held in.

2 James already knew her name as the two had collided in the halls during the ceremony. When they recovered, they introduced themselves and ended up in a lonely hallway together doing drugs(3).

3 What began as a drunken fling with a co-worker, Alex Windinbratt soon found himself buying his secret affair gifts and eventually confessing his love to her.

4 The Windinbratt family would ostricize both of them, ruining Alex's aspirations to be a successful writer(4) and Sarah would have to return to a working life(5).

5 After a loud argument the two accepted each other for what they were and eventually moved to the bed(6).

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(1) Wedding ceremonies were the last thing James needed to get over his girlfriend of six years. He wanted to marry her.

(2) The girl James met, both akwardly new to the family and unfamiliar with the Cathedral; had gotten lost in it's halls. She was trying to visit the ladies room in order to crush a few pills up and snort them, making this entire situation less akward.

(3) Martin frowned on James' addiction to drugs and releasing information about this relapse would not reflect as a wise decision on James' part.

(4) Alex had no talent as a writer and he knew this, the wealth of his family kept him financially afloat.

(5) Sarah had finally found a gold mine of a man and greatly relished in the fact that she was twenty-seven and would never have to lift another finger.

(6) The start of a loving relationship.

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