Bleeding Utopia - an old writing exercise of mine

[Venetia]

I was searching through my old documents for some reason, and then happened on a word doc I hadn't seen in a long time.

A few years back, I had an INCREDIBLY boring job. It mainly consisted of my staring out a window at a receptionist's desk for 8 hours a day. I seldom did more than 6 hours of work a week. So I had a lot of time to kill.
How'd I kill it?

I VERY vaguely outlined a plot, after pulling a (albeit, melodramatic) title out of my ass. Then, I decided to pick up my pen (er, keyboard) and start just WRITING it. No real extreme character analysis on my end. I'd develop them as I wrote. The story would develop as I wrote. So would the world, and so on, and so on. I promised I wouldn't really read it after writing it, as I normally do. So you'll see some weird tangents or grammar errors here or there. Pitfall of the method.

What happened was pretty interesting. While I didn't really produce anything publish-worthy, I developed a few VERY multi-faceted characters, and a WAY-too-intricate plot.

I also have about 14 chapters done on it, which were all written over the course of about one or two months.

I'll put up a chapter every few days (they're already done so there's no worry over waiting for me to produce), and you can check it out if you like.

Spoiler: notes/introspective

The pacing will be incredibly hard to follow at first. This was kind of intended. There are 7 main story characters, and one "narrator" character, all of whom have their own chapter, told from a third-person perspective, but omniscient of that particular character. The chapters have colors as subtitles so I could delineate between them. The colors were supposed to have meaning but I can't recall what it was.

I am well aware that some Saints have japfaggish names. There is an allegorical reasoning behind this ... I won't get into its reason a lot though since the premise was thin to begin with.

I am also well aware of the frequent, extremely (and amateurishly!) sexual overtones, and the brief slices of melodrama. All this was just fluff off the top of my head; I didn't put a HUGE emphasis on avoiding those parts of my psyche. While it's a fantasy story, it's also very much a look into my thoughts. In a very roundabout way, of course.

Even though the chapters take place in uneven increments throughout time, there is no "time travel". It's mostly a story that's put together in the wrong chronological order.

Some of the chapters are wrapped up a little too quickly, I know. I think I got impatient with certain storylines :x

Spoiler: summary and shit

genre: dark fantasy

intended audience: mostly adult, though it doesnt get terribly graphic in descrips.

summary: Imagine time as something tangible, that wore on forever. Our timeline would be one solid ribbon, strong, and easy to define. However, imagine a timeline composed of multiple parts, like a rope: several intertwining lengths, spooling in a spiral around one center strand. Different versions of the same world, seen and propagated by different people. But what if those separate strands began to bleed together? Would the rope mesh into one piece, or would it all unravel? But who split it? And who keeps it from tangling?
In a world deemed recently as the "Mid-Plane", holes in this time continuum have opened up, and people from these other time strands have been able to come over from across the Rift.
Through the eyes of seven people, heralding from different times and different places, the puzzle pieces behind the Rifts will open, as they are led inexorably toward each other, and the crossroads in their timelines' future.

Anyway, I'm reserving the next five posts (idk if I'll need that much, probably not) for the installments. Enjoy, tell me what ya think.

 

[Venetia]

Spoiler: Chapter I: Grey

CHAPTER I   :   GREY
THE STORY THAT CLOSED AN ERA.

The news that transpired was sensational. There wasn’t a newsstand in the county that wasn’t running out of copy. Poor folks chatted it up in the taverns, while the elite huddled coldly about their hot radios to hear the static-garbled messages from supposed reporters.

Most of it was hype. A journalist would print a slightly skewed fact, then the paper one town over would take that skew and morph it into a lie. The lies became legends among the bored and the curious. After a month of reprint, and another month of editorials and “breaking news” (which was all just restatements of known skews), the originally mildly-attention-grabbing story had amalgamated into the scandal of the decade.

Like all good scandals, however, his one had been run into the ground so dreadfully that, one morning, people suddenly stopped caring. More strange than the story was the nearly unanimous sigh of ennui erupting two months after its conception. No one spoke of it, and the papers and radio broadcasts pulled it from their lineups. The people of Rosen County (formerly known as Jeneva County) simply stopped caring altogether.

Thus, the ambiguous legend of the Baron’s family rose into fame, and fell into obscurity. After six months, no one even remembered it at all, and only the old folks still talked about the age before, the years that passed so softly before the scandal.

The Jeneva Barony was gone, and the world stopped caring where it went.

Spoiler: Chapter II: Cerulean

CHAPTER II   :   CERULEAN
FEMINIST SOLILOQUY.

There is far too much brown in the world to warrant such a saturation of it in the home, she considered.

The marble flooring was new: just finished being installed a week before. It was a murky brown, cloudy and grayish, like so much dust in a puddle. However, the shine was magnificent. From the second floor balustrade, the girl could see the reflection of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling perfectly. In fact, if she stared hard enough, she could see the ceiling, and all the furnitures’ undersides in the reflective glow. It was obtuse, a little vertigo-inducing. She rather enjoyed the feeling and hung over the polished blackwood railing. The gravity spun up from under her, and she fancied the weightlessness of falling.

She imagined herself, falling. It was such a carefree experience – except for, of course, the point at the end. An image of herself staring back from that cold, mirror-like brown marble struck her forcefully, and she skittered backward from the railing as if a strong man had punched her in the chest. Yes, falling was truly freedom, but the outcome of it was usually fairly gruesome. She had considered ways to fall without being hurt, but then, she supposed, the thrill would be diluted.

These were ugly thoughts for a girl to have, she could hear her step mother say. She was all curls and lace, bosomy, yet petite. Skin like alabaster and eyes like aquamarines; fair of feature and trained in the furrows of what it takes to be a lady. But she was unpolished, ungraceful. She stared too much at nothing, and carried herself indignantly. She assumed her opinions mattered, even when they very clearly did not. She was brilliant, to a fault. A debutante this year, expected to have suitors literally piling themselves up outside the courtyard, and yet she received not even one courtship proposal. Those pouty pink lips set above those adolescent breasts should have been charm enough, yet something about her sent men shirking away like dogs with their tails wrapped around their genitals.

She caught herself, took charge of her thoughts. She needed to focus. She needed to be demure, to be pleasing. The sun outside bore down like a mattress on fire, and her father would have to come inside sometime. He couldn’t avoid her forever.

She was right; her father did indeed reenter, all glossed from summer’s heat. He spoke in low tones to one of the sergeants from the local peace force.

Her chest swelled with anticipation. Her bags were packed. Her papers were ready. She was greedily anxious about his promise. She had to restrain …

… She couldn’t help it; she had to skitter down the stairs in the stilettos she abhorred, carrying her many skirts, trying to be mindful not to trip while her thoughts reeled.

“Father! I’m ready! Oh, I’m so excited!”

For the first time in years, she threw her arms around her father in an embrace she meant, that her heart was in. He rocked back in surprise, and let out a guttural noise that punctuated his cut-off sentence he’d be sharing with the sergeant.

He tolerated her impish glee for a moment, then peeled out of her grasp. She was flushed from face to finger, looking like a virgin on the first sight of her new husband’s honeymoon gift. He was mildly disturbed by the analogy his mind conjured, and waved it away.

“ … Excited? For what?”

She beamed a grin at the sergeant, who shook a bit where he stood. He was heavily attracted to the girl – who wouldn’t be? But there was some presence about her that was slightly more repellant in force than that of the lust. He couldn’t place it, but while his groin ached for her, a deep place in his chest brought dread at the thought of touching her. He felt nauseous, and thought it absurd. Her gorgeous rivulets of hair toppled over her petite shoulders in a wave down to her waist. Her bosom nearly overflowed from her bodice, her waist was nearly thin enough to grab with two hands and touch fingers, and her skin was soft and creamy from years of lotion and oil baths. So why did the sight of her rest like a stone in the pit of his heart?

“Father, you’re sweet to fool, but I can’t contain it! I’m really going to the Conference! This is what I’ve always dreamed of!”

And then, there it was: that look. Her heart sank when she saw it. The visage of consternation. His graying hair seemed darker, the ridges in his crest more pronounced. The wrinkles on either side of his thin lips became gashes, while his eyelids disappeared under his unruly cobalt eyebrows. She dreaded that look, because it always ended up in her pillows being soaked in tears.

“Azure, you’re not going. I’m taking Maris.”

Crash. The prison door was shut. The reverberation could be felt throughout the mansion.

She strained, she choked them down, but the tears came anyway. Deep down, she knew he’d say that. It always came down to hollow promises.

“Father, please … It took me six months to write my proposal for education reform, I …”

“You’ll give that to Maris, and we’ll edit it on the way. You know women aren’t allowed in the Conference. They’ll make no exception for a spoiled little girl whose head is too full of ideas.”

“—But, you promised!”

“And I kept the promise!” It was the holler of the politician. Well enunciated, strong and low in tone, full of vigor, yet not quite emotion. “You asked if you could write a speech for the Conference! And I allowed you to write it! I promised nothing about letting you read it!”

“ … Or even accept credit for it?”

“I’m sorry, Azure.” His words were empty. The consternation look subsided into political indignance. Of mild contempt.

“Don’t … Don’t do this to me, father …” Her utterance should have echoed, but instead it hung in the air like a question, like the saline suspended on her chin.

It seemed like he would answer. For a moment, it looked as if the caring soul underneath was struggling to surface. She wanted pity, atleast. An honest apology. But the kindness drowned. He turned to the sergeant in an overly-done full-body swing, blotting his daughter out of his line of sight entirely. She introduced herself with his icy shoulder.

“ … Come, let’s speak in the ballroom. It suddenly has become uncomfortable in here.”

He pushed forward, strode toward the ballroom. The sergeant glanced at Azure. Her quivering lip and puffy, red eyes were piteous, while the rosy color in her chest made her desirable. All the same, as he walked after the Baron, he was lightly nauseated.

Spoiler: Chapter III: Crimson

CHAPTER III  :  CRIMSON.
THE GOOD AND THE BAD ARE THE SAME, THEY JUST HAVE DIFFERENT METHODS.

Was there anything more intriguing and despicable than a Saint? Calypso founded much of her life on it. She hated them; a deep-seated, traditional hatred, genetic as much as learned. But she hated them as much as she did not understand them, and this uncertainty turned her on.

“The Saint and the Daemon really aren’t much different,” her luscious quarry languished. “The Nymphs. The Pedirehm. They’re different.”

He was so delicious, Calypso couldn’t restrain herself. She had grown blonde hair for him. She had narrowed herself for him. Her skin was soft and pink for him. Her eyes were green like moss for him. She was without a tail, without pomp or frills for him. She wanted to understand him, and she had to become something easy to enamor. It has cost her much pain and had taken days to perform, but she had made her body his temple. And yet, she hated him for making her change, even though he was not conscious of it.

“I thought we were discussing—!” He playfully remarked. Calypso’s delicate right foot had found his genitals under the restaurant’s patio table. From what she felt, he didn’t seem to be put off by her inattentiveness to the conversation.

It was hard not to grin fiendishly. “I’m sorry, Vin, but I’m afraid I must be a bit of a Daemon right now. I can’t resist you any longer …” She glanced about, and her eyes fell on something she smiled wider at. “How about we skip lunch and go behind that building for a little ‘debate’, hmm?”

He was blonde, tall, and graceful, with dazzling grey eyes and perfect pink skin, like a baby’s. He dressed in suits, and was enjoying his last year in medical school. Vincato Izota was his name. And, as far as he knew, Calypso was Kyome. Names didn’t bother her, anyway. Her mother had named her something else entirely all those years ago. She fancied the name Calypso, but she could fancy anything once she’d heard it enough.

The Saint glanced to the building in reference: an old library across the cobblestone street. It was so covered in ivy the windows on the first floor were blinded completely. A little convenience alleyway ran behind it and the shop next door. Vincato was definitely not a voyeur, but he was throbbing with desire at this point, and it was too difficult to say no.

Calypso never gave him the chance. He was dragged across the street by her hand which seemed much too warm, and they cut by a gaggle of students on their way to study. Her golden locks, which had been set up in a ribbon, were coming undone. They bounced recklessly, reflecting light a little too perfectly. Her entire body was simply a little too perfect, a little too warm. Her eyes were too green, as if they were trying to hide something. But he was youthful and naïve, and he actually felt like he might have begun to fall in love with this temptress, this siren in a flouncy blue summer dress.

Deftly hidden in the shadows of the alley, Calypso led her prey into a clearing of crates, where the old, mildewed books rested until midweek, when the garbage collectors would cart them away. It smelled sweet back here, mildly damp, and the stone wall that ran parallel to the library was just dry enough to be inoffensive to the touch.

Giggling, Calypso pulled Vicato by the collar playfully onto her as her back pressed against the cold, rough wall. Her mouth, which was really much too warm, which had a little-too-flawless row of paper-white teeth, opened wide onto his. Hot breath poured over his face as her tongue plunged into his mouth. The heat was nearly uncomfortable, but the coolness of the shadows lessened it.

Her pelvis ached, and her breasts swelled on his chest. Although his mouth was not, his hands were playing innocent, grabbing about her too-narrow waist just above the too-curvy hips. She reached up, unclasped the ties on the halter of her summer dress, and then simultaneously unbuckled and wriggled free of her bra, in an amazing act probably done too many times.

Her breasts, almost as hot as her tongue, were probably too perky for how large they were, and they were a challenge for Vicato’s hands to fully grasp. She undid his trousers while he lifted her dress, and when he penetrated, he felt as if his groin were immersed in boiling water.

But it was so good, so forbidden and bad, so unlike him. He was drugged by the thrill. She was flawless, perhaps too flawless, and all the inhibitions ingrained in him were at a loss when connected with her. So he pounded, he thrust, as hard as he could, He gyrated so hard it would have hurt any normal woman, but she wasn’t normal, was she? No, she was special. She was forbidden. She was sin in a pair of high-heeled blue sandals. Her eyes were too green to be real, and he knew it. And he loved it.

She loved turning him, as she loved turning all the others. She loved being the forbidden fruit. She loved the power. They were supposed to be pure, so difficult to adulterate. They were never addicts. They thrived on moderation and restraint. And she was the idol, which forced them to abandon their heritage, to have dirty sex behind libraries while schoolchildren lingered about. That lured them into alleyways, into closed shoppes, into their marital bedrooms or their parents’ prized places and she forced them to lose control, all through psychology, all through sheer, candid lust.

Eventually, they’d find Vicato’s body, probably several weeks from now, too bloated with drugs to recognize, or swollen incomprehensibly with alcohol poisoning. She almost never directly killed them, but they always fell the same way: their inhibitions were shattered, and they turned from Saints to Daemons who weren’t strong enough physically to absorb the abuse.
She loved doing it, and it was because she was a Daemon that she couldn’t stop herself.



(I mentioned that some of these things were very amateurishly sexually charged didnt I :x yeah heh)

 

[Venetia]

Spoiler: Chapter IV: Violet

CHAPTER IV   :   VIOLET.
A TRAIN STATION BETWEEN WORLDS.

“Corel! My baby! You have to save my baby!”

The woman was overweight, and when she pleaded she shook her entire body back and forth in a repellant (yet, hypnotizing) blur. Her hair, a burnt sienna that blended in with her skin too well, was half-done in braids, while the rest was frizzy. That, paired with the old, holey nightgown and sprung slippers, gave her a demented look.

Harrison Nightswelle, a rather diminutive man, had only joined the Rescue Force to get a moderately-paying job with no college education. He wasn’t very skilled, nor was he very strong or fast, but he came to love his job over time. The thrill of saving lives had become addictive.

All hell was breaking loose. No one understood what was happening, but it was cataclysmic, and for some reason the west side of town had gone aflame while the east side was inundated by the river swelling.

He looked from the frantic fat woman to the house she referred to: a rundown wooden shack worn green with wood decay, whose windows had burst onto the street after it had ignited. He wondered briefly how anyone could just leave a burning apartment without their child, but a cursory glance brought him to realize that the fat lady had many children—six outside, by the look of it, and it was probably easy to forget one in a panic.

“Where is your baby, ma’am?” Harrison cried. It was shocking to find that he could barely hear his own voice in his throat over the yawning noise booming away from overhead. It sounded like a ton of dynamite in a cave paired with the all-bass section of the largest orchestra in the world all going off at the same time, continuously. That, married to the screams and fire and destruction, made for a very unpleasant, mind-blowing union.

The frenzied fat woman pointed a swollen finger at the second floor of the fiery apartment. Flames licked at the naked windowsills from inside. Smoke billowed out endlessly.

“His name is Corel Whitley, sir! He’s my baby! Only two years! Please sir! Dae’s Spirit bless you, sir!” She spat out more religious blessings unintelligibly over the sobs, as she clung to several frightened children, their faces immersed in her giant bosom.

Harrison swallowed hard. He wanted to save the kid, but that tenement was a deathtrap. He looked helplessly at the sooty faces of Corel’s supposed brothers and sisters. They all had purple crests on their foreheads, very symmetrical and glassy. He didn’t see many crests that nice; these children must have been very gifted. Their mother’s was a pewter color, so he supposed the father was the gifted one. Their eyes were sad and longing.

If not him, who? All the other rescuers were busy. The bass overhead was giving him an incredible headache. The sky looked like it being was burned with acid. It seemed to bubble, tumescent, too close to the ground for comfort. A red patch of cancer forming was where the clouds began to congregate.

It was the end of the world, according to the religious nuts running through the streets, so why not die in glory, right?

Without another thought, he exploded into the inferno of the tenement. Cinder met his lungs and he coughed unlovely spats of black into the smoke. The fire danced around him, and his flesh crawled, trying to escape the vicious heat. His hair singed and his lips blistered as he clamored up the steadily decaying staircase. He almost lost his footing on a hole, and imagined himself plunging feet first into a pit of brimstone.

No, he told himself, not before I find the kid.

The door to the second floor apartment was open, guarded by the corpse of a blackened piece of jerky that had been trying to escape. All its features were gone, boiled off.
Inside the apartment it was not as bad as the hall. Flames licked at the western walls, but the eastern side facing the alley was fine. None of the windows on that side had burst yet, but a heating gas tank was on the wall near a bedroom, and the fire was dancing precariously close to it.

“Corel!” Harrison cried, nearly forgetting the kid’s name. He wasn’t sure if it would even work on a two-year-old, but it was worth a shot. “Corel Whitley! Call out if you’re alive! I’m here to rescue you!”

There was a whimper from the kitchen. Harrison ran over, all left feet, knocking over a trash bin. There was nothing but ages-old tile and a mildewed icebox, set among decrepit counters.

The cabinet under the sink groaned open, slowly, carefully. Harrison nearly toppled backward in surprise. What revealed was a toddler, a boy with a sweet face and a bright violet crest, holding a tiny glass cage with a turtle inside. The turtle looked about lazily, while its protector peered up with frightened, intelligent eyes unlike Harrison had ever seen in a child that small.

The smell of burning rotten wood was noxious. His eyes watered, but the kid’s eyes were dry as a bone somehow.

“Are you Corel?” He asked, bending over. It was an absurd question, but the only one he could think of.

The boy nodded. His hair was a short, frizzy puff of brown, and his complexion was dark and creamy, like coffee with a quarter milk. His purple eyes fixated upon him with tenacity.

Harrison picked him up, and the boy cradled the caged turtle as if it were his lifeline.

The hallway was too engrossed with flames to brave. The staircase was probably long gone, anyhow. That only left the windows facing the alley. He opened one window above the sink. It was stubborn, so he had to let Corel onto the counter while he shoved up with two hands. It rose, eventually. The opening was just large enough to squeeze through, and he thanked Dae for making him thin as a rod (for the first time in his life). He peered down, into the alley, and gulped. Smoke escaped in frenetic waves.

“Okay, kiddo,” he said, shakily, “we’re gonna hafta go out this window. I’m gonna go down, then I want you to throw me your turtle and then jump into my arms, okay?”

The boy nodded smartly, with scared eyes. His knuckles were white as he clung to the little cage.

Harrison said a quick prayer to no one in particular, then shoved himself through, feet-first. He hung onto the windowsill and got a splinter, then dropped onto a less-than-soft open dumpster. Someone had discarded some glass, and it opened a gash on his ankle. He wobbled around, trying to get his balance, while crying out.

Shove it down, he told himself. Save the kid, then cry like a baby. Save the baby, be a baby … Got it.

“Throw down the turtle, and I’ll catch it!” He called up. He really wanted the kid to just forget about the thing, but he had been in enough situations like this to know a child would usually give their lives for a beloved pet.

Corel seemed hesitant, probing. He wondered if this man only just wanted to steal his turtle. But he glanced back at the flames and decided that that probably wasn’t the case.

“Good luck, Blarney,” Corel whispered at his friend through the glass. Blarney didn’t seem to care much.

Carefully, Corel dropped the glass cube down into Harrison’s hands. He caught it easily, then carefully placed the cage in the corner of the dumpster, with a considerable argument from his ankle.

Corel rather liked how ginger Harrison was with his friend, so he trusted him. He crawled through the window feet-first, dangled, then dropped into the man’s embrace. Impressive for a two-year-old. Harrison expected to coax him much more into jumping.

The cut in Harrison’s leg deepened on Corel’s impact, but he stifled the pain, and delicately dropped the toddler outside the dumpster. He grabbed Blarney, handed it to him, then climbed out.

The pain in his ankle paled in comparison to the jolt he received when the apartment they had been in exploded. He fell onto Corel to shield against the falling glass. A small piece lodged in his back; painful, but nothing serious. The gas tank must have caught fire, finally.

Corel seemed frightened, but didn’t cry. Harrison was amazed by the boy. They took off running out of the alley.

When Corel reached his mother, she was a sobbing mess of joy. The boy seemed to disappear into her bosom. Thank-you’s were cried.

Harrison wanted to pat himself on the back for a job well done, but as he peered up into that red tumor in the sky, the happiness vanished. It had grown considerably. Then, it suddenly metastasized into something horrific, as if it noticed that Harrison was staring at it.

Sickeningly, the tumor began to burn away, like film overheated in a projector, blistering. The bass grew even stronger. Harrison’s eardrums vibrated and felt like they were about to burst, but he couldn’t look away. The ground quaked. More windows shattered.

A black hole appeared in the dusky sky, and the clouds echoed thunder and clapped lightning. A strange, willowy crease drew downward to the ground, and destroyed the street it touched upon … Disintegrating the cobble completely. It became tactile, opaque. The alien thing dripped open like a two-dimensional jaw, yawning red and black clouds. The nearby people ran, but many were combusted into ash much like the cobble.

Harrison and the family stood approximately two blocks from the fissure, and they watched with horror as the jaw solidified into an image; an image of a mirror world, with skies of red and grass of grey, and people stared back—hideous people, morphed and strange, all different. Some had claws, some had wings, and they showed their many-fanged teeth. They were afraid, too, but not as afraid.

The staredown went on for what seemed hours, as the creatures on the other side slowly approached. The bass in the sky began to fade slightly, and the clouds seemed to absorb the bleeding atmosphere’s cancer, as if healing it.

Then, finally, a woman on the other side walked up to the gash. She stared in at them with frightened curiosity. She couldn’t quite seem to focus on anything, as if her side were nothing but a mirror. Her hair was bright crimson, her eyes as well. Ornate wings hung from her back, with long, whispy, black hair instead of feathers. Ghostly pale skin. A devil tail switched back and forth. She was dressed in only a black bodice and a skirt much too short and tight.

She was the most exotically gorgeous woman Harrison’d ever seen.

She reached a tentative hand to the gash, then pulled it back suddenly as if she were shocked. Her mouth opened, revealing gleaming, white, macabre fangs.

She hesitated, and then the most horrifying thing Harrison had ever witnessed happened:

The woman stepped through.

The next chp was one of my faves to write, as I recall. I think my favorite chapters are usually the Cobalt and Topaz ones.

Spoiler: Chapter V: Topaz

CHAPTER V   :   TOPAZ.
THE YEARS THAT FORMED A PSYCHOPATH.

Most girls aren’t six feet tall, but Astri was special. She was extraordinarily thin, but not waifish. She wasn’t knock-out gorgeous, but she had a timeless, demure symmetry to her face. Yellow-blonde hair fell in a flowing swatch to her ankles. Her catlike eyes flashed bright, almost fluorescent, orange. The sight of her was unsettling, yet alluring. She had a smooth, crestless forehead, but she wasn’t Daemon, Saint, or Nymph.

The vase shattered, echoing off the walls. Where it struck, a crumbling dent had formed in the stucco. Astri’s anger had not abated. She picked up the matching piece off the endtable and hurled it into the same spot its partner had met its demise. This one hit so hard, a cloud of porcelain dust puffed outward. The mini-chandelier overhead vibrated, jingling prettily.

“I’M SICK of this BULLSHIT!” She bellowed at nothing. “I want OUT! I want OUT OF HERE! I hate HER, I hate YOU, and I won’t DO IT ANYMORE!”

As if to punctuate, she picked up a china plate from the wall and burst it over the fireplace mantle. It made a loud, satisfying din, and half of it clattered clumsily to her bare feet. The porcelain remnant of the plate in her hand had a serrated edge on one side, and came to a dulled dagger point.

“I know you can hear me,” she threatened the fireplace.

“I know you can see me,” she spat at the bookshelf.

A hideous, maniacal grin crossed her lips. She raised the plate shard high in the air, then brought it down on her left shoulder in a stabbing arc. The semi-blunt edge perforated her skin through the sheer nightgown sleeve, and a red pudding substance began to emerge around the weapon.

A banshee in a gauzy white slip, Astri screamed as loud as she could while running out of the parlor, into the hall, and then into the dining room. Her focus met with the chandelier on the ceiling, while her grip stayed on the china shard lodged in her shoulder. She could feel it healing, and she was appalled. The demonic grin subsided in brief disgust, but came back forty fold a second later.

While her left arm hung limp like a dead fish on a line, she brought the right one down, holding the shard, tearing jaggedly through flesh, sinew, and scraping bone. The shard was inefficient at cutting, and the gash it left in its wake was more of a rip, with frays of tissue leaking through the opening. It was bright red, much brighter than a Pedirehm’s blood, too bright to be anything’s blood … As if suffused with neon.

The pain was excruciating, but liberating. She kept tearing, past the difficult crook of her elbow, all the way to her palm. When she reached an obstacle, she dug deeper and cut through it. She barely flinched the entire time, despite the agony. Her fixated grin remained on the twinkling cascade of prisms hanging idly above the dinner table.

The deed done, she tossed the shard at the far wall, and it left a bright, coagulated little splatter where it bounced.

Certainly this will leave a scar, Astri wondered, and looked at her work for the first time. She hoped that the bright blood would flow, that she’d be standing in a pool of it, and that she would simply lose too much of it to ever wake up again.

Instead, she was met with horror. Her gelatin-like blood had already clotted, and the frays had begun to mend. She wedged a hand into her arm near the wrist, tried to pull the flesh walls apart, but as the wound began to heal around her hand, she envisioned being stuck that way for eternity and then snapped her hand back.

The pain was already subsiding. She dropped to the tiled floor, landed hard on her knees. There were only three small globs of nearly-solidified blood lining the grout. The innocent chandelier cast hateful little spectrums of electric light on the floor next to her. All was quiet, except for the distant, ceaseless murmur coming from the animal’s room.

A short time later, after her wound had scarlessly healed, she threw off her lightly-stained-but-badly-torn nightie and sat, naked, on the living room sofa. She waited, staring quietly at the front door. There was no knob on her side. It was simply a smooth wall with grooves in the shape of a door.

At the precise time she expected it would, the door slid up mechanically, with a little, efficient whiff. There was a metal elevator beyond it, with a maid inside. She glanced apathetically at the nude teenager (or, what appeared to be teenaged) on the sofa, then rolled in her little cleaning cart. The door whiffed closed behind her. She was somewhat portly, and quite homely, but seemed intelligent. She headed for the dining room.

“The animal won’t shut up, and that’s what’s wrong with me,” Astri announced. It seemed she was talking more to the wall than the maid. “ … Everyone’s always judging me, but they should know what it’s been like to live with that animal who won’t shut up. Would a private room have been too much to ask? I mean, considering that I’ve absorbed enough understudy training to last any hobo farmer a dozen lifetimes of false prayer.”

The maid grunted from the dining room. She hated cleaning the goopy red stuff. So stubborn. Always stains like fruit juice.

Astri entered the dining room shortly after the maid, minding her steps carefully. Her pert little breasts had nipples that were standing tirelessly on end. Her body was hairless everywhere under her eyes. If not for the height, she could have passed for a girl who’d just been blessed with her first menstruation.

She latched onto her thick, soft, blonde tress and swung it around like a broken metronome. If she bent her knees a little, it would have swept the floor.

“It’s been a long time,” she considered at the maid’s back. Normally, she would leave the maid alone. But today was a bad day to be alive. The animal was really chatting it up today, and that drove Astri mad with loneliness.
The maid sensed the strange one approaching, and tensed. She readied a syringe, but didn’t turn.

Astri threw her arms around the maid, bending over. She smiled, and pressed her face into the maid’s left kidney zone. The maid was warm and soft, unlike herself.

For a second, Astri felt good. It was so nice to feel someone, to connect, if even on a queer, platonic level. The maid smelled like cleaning solution, and it made Astri think of spring for some reason.

After the maid recovered from her brief shock, she drove the needle-end of the syringe deep into Astri’s neck. A greenish serum dispersed into her too-bright bloodstream instantly.

Astri stood up, shuffled backward, and stepped on a coagulated droplet waiting to be cleaned, from earlier. She took out the syringe and dropped it on the floor. It came out clean and no blood escaped, despite the sloppy angle.

The maid swung around unsurely, and stared at the naked giant with doe’s eyes. They told her to inject Astri if she made contact, and she’d done her job. She knew Astri wasn’t homicidal, not yet, but she wasn’t stable, by any means.

The girl felt the place where she’d been poked, and her eyes welled with tears. She was nuts, but she was also pitiful. The maid felt a sudden shock of guilt.

Astri kept staring for a few seconds, while the tears rolled down her cheeks. Her breathing became labored. Her eyelids drooped. Sweat appeared in neat schoolhouse rows down her body.

“I … I’m so lonely, with the animal,” she uttered, sniffled. “Nobody loves me … And, one day, I’m going to kill that animal. So I’ll be f…” Her words slurred and trailed off, as she collapsed in a nude heap.

The maid looked after Astri for a time, really pitying her. The girl really must have been so lonely. But she had become warped over time, over the years and years, and while they admitted to making a mistake in her upbringing, there was no way to mend that fragile mind.

It’s best to quit dwelling on it, the maid thought.

She nodded, and finished her work, taking special care not to touch Astri.

i think i could have gone even further with the descrips of the wound, though

Chapter VI: Yellow, Chapter VII: Jade, and Chapter VIII: Cobalt will be posted on 12/17/08

 

[Venetia]

reserved

 

[Venetia]

reserved

 

[Venetia]

reserved

 

[e]

I liked the first chapter. There were some typos (i.e.: I think you said "his" but meant "this" at some point). Just saying. The overall tone was great and the rhythm just, particularly the end is very well written.

The second chapter is a little...eh...I know you talked about the amateurish sexual overtones, so I won't go there. So the sergeant. I think you're trying to show how feminism, that "presence" hovering above your character, keeps men at bay by making them feel "nauseous". I have a hard time buying that though, considering the very conservative feminine aspect and outward attitude you give her. Unless she's known for her strong opinions and such?

Otherwise I like it. Nice touches (for example, the description of her father's look is very well rendered), but from a man's point of view, although to me feminism is natural, I don't think men in a conservative society would react in such a way; more than nauseous, they'd feel superior and disdainful. I think?

 

[Venetia]

The nausea men get around her is on purpose; she's a pretty, sweet little girl, so why would men want to vomit around her? It's an unknown element that hasn't been explained yet that's doing it. :3

And yeah I'm typically good about typos when I'm writing for reals but like I said I didn't review this very hard after writing it so expect a few to pop in

 

[e]

Oh. I figured it was some sort of "effect" caused by her feminism.

 

[Venetia]

damn i read over chp 3 and i really am realizing i hate my female characters. the males are cool but the fems are all fucking crazy :/
I'll post two chps on the 12th since chp 3 is pretty short.

 

[Surmuck]

this looks to be a good read; i'll get around to leaving more in depth comments later; but i thought i'd just leave a quick note for now.

keep it up!!

 

[e]

it's so short. how could you not read it

 

[Venetia]

posted chps III, IV, and V today :D

Spoiler: after you read them

I'm not terribly fond of Calypso. I really wanted to make an exceptionally sexual character, but it cheapened the story I think. She doesn't get a good chapter for a while. Her character starts to become more interesting with time, though.

My favorite characters in this are Maris, Astri, and Mizoto. I think that really comes through in how much I pay attention to them. (Though you haven't seen Maris's chapter yet, he's technically the "main" "lead" character. He gets way more facetime later. And Miz's is "Yellow", so you'll see him next.)

The more I look at it the more I hate the japfag names but I used them as a reference toward how straight-laced Japanese people are, set against how "perfect" aryans are supposed to be (they have a jap culture sorta with american values/architecture and aryan looks).

Anyway. :3

 

[Despain]

here babe make use of this:

ESSENTIALS OF SPONTANEOUS PROSE

SET-UP The object is set before the mind, either in reality. as in sketching (before a landscape or teacup or old face) or is set in the memory wherein it becomes the sketching from memory of a definite image-object.

PROCEDURE Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image.

METHOD No periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless commas-but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases)--"measured pauses which are the essentials of our speech"--"divisions of the sounds we hear"-"time and how to note it down." (William Carlos Williams)

SCOPING Not "selectivity' Iof expression but following free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and expostulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang! (the space dash)-Blow as deep as you want-write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind.

LAG IN PROCEDURE No pause to think of proper word but the infantile pileup of scatological buildup words till satisfaction is gained, which will turn out to be a great appending rhythm to a thought and be in accordance with Great Law of timing.

TIMING Nothing is muddy that runs in time and to laws of time-Shakespearian stress of dramatic need to speak now in own unalterable way or forever hold tongue-no revisions (except obvious rational mistakes, such as names or calculated insertions in act of not writing but inserting).

CENTER OF INTEREST Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion-Do not afterthink except for poetic or P. S. reasons. Never afterthink to "improve" or defray impressions, as, the best writing is always the most painful personal wrung-out tossed from cradle warm protective mind-tap from yourself the song of yourself, blow!-now!-your way is your only way-"good"-or "bad"-always honest ("ludi- crous"), spontaneous, "confessionals' interesting, because not "crafted." Craft is craft.

STRUCTURE OF WORK Modern bizarre structures (science fiction, etc.) arise from language being dead, "different" themes give illusion of "new" life. Follow roughly outlines in outfanning movement over subject, as river rock, so mindflow over jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) arriving at pivot, where what was dim-formed "beginning" becomes sharp-necessitating "ending" and language shortens in race to wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to conclusion, last words, last trickle-Night is The End.

MENTAL STATE If possible write "without consciousness" in semi-trance (as Yeats' later "trance writing") allowing subconscious to admit in own uninhibited interesting necessary and so "modern" language what conscious art would censor, and write excitedly, swiftly, with writing-or-typing-cramps, in accordance (as from center to periphery) with laws of orgasm, Reich's "beclouding of consciousness." Come from within, out-to relaxed and said.



BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

 

[Venetia]

I actually read that recently. I'm starting to get into Kerouac's work, actually. It flows really nicely.

I wrote all this several years ago, mostly as an exercise to relieve boredom and so I didn't forget how to write altogether. I'm already well aware of a lot of the amateurish tics I used, but that was how it flowed, so that's how I left it. My current/future stuff, I like to think, is/will be a little more thoughtful and sophisticated.

 

[e]

Sophistication is just your intellect masturbating in front of a mirror.

 

[Venetia]

Well I meant less amateurish methods, not wear-thick-glasses-and-swirl-brandy-and-talk-about-17th-century-literary-devices-in-front-of-a-fireplace.

 

[e]

you forgot the part about smoking cigarettes attached to long pipes but not actually smoking just looking at the blueish smoke and the patterns it creates, all joni mitchel style.

 

[Venetia]

That's what you do in the lounge, not the parlour.

 

[e]

i...i didnt know ;-;

im so sorry
can we still be awkward friends?