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 Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:53 pm
Thanks ^^. Yeah, I had my friend Abby translate the Spanish for me; yay Spanish III students! Then my dad helped with the Dutch bit. And I knew the Japanese, 'cause I'm learning it.
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:32 am
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Monkeyinafryingpan Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:51 am
I must learn that soon if I want to succeed in the medical profession, but I don't like it, Spanish is difficult when taught at a late age.
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 12:17 pm
Pfft. I'm going into medicine, but I have no intention of learning Spanish. Granted, I also have no intention of staying in the US, so... yeah. Spanish'd be useless anyway.
As for my story, it has no officially blown out of control. It was intended to be a five-part short story. It's now a ten-part... I think it's long enough to be called a book. And still not near finishing. There's a sideplot involving a woman named Edith Flinch who fights against rights for illegal Mexican immigrants and dies in a firefight. Between would-be immigrants and a militia. So she meets up with Hal (who is now the main character; I love Kiri (now Jilly) to death but she's no protagonist), who actually used her as a bad example when in politics and rejoiced at her death, and they go off to try to find Jilly. But Edith, too, is there illegally, so they have to avoid anyone who's too friendly with God, Jesus, or Saint Peter. And when they eventually find Jilly, lucky Hal isn't so lucky, 'cause Jilly's fallen in love with Kaska, who helped her out when she didn't know about Heaven. And then they all go off and try to start a political movement for more freedoms for those who come through to Heaven illegally, and... it's all rather confusing when I explain it. I'm not much good at summaries....
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Monkeyinafryingpan Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 8:38 am
Very nice
Such talent is rare, and devotion even more rare. The farthest I ever got was 6 pages, and I lost interest. I go back to it once in a while, but not that much, it's dying a slow and painful death.
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Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:34 am
I think I might pick that story back up...
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Monkeyinafryingpan Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:35 am
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Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:44 pm
Monkey has had a few things published locally, but is probably to modest to tell you that....
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:01 am
cool,
never knew that about you, monkey! smile
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Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 7:41 pm
I promises, I'll put something more recent up! It's rather freaky, but... I like it! Plus some poems. After I retrieve my flash drive from my Computer Science classroom... I made a random program in COBOL, and it was still compiling when I left...
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Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:45 pm
All right, just the story for today. It's not titled, by the way...
My eyes drifted lazily open to the haze of frigid mists rolling off of the Atlantic colliding with the thick window to create sunburst patterns of icy bliss. I reached up, tentatively, to put my finger on the glass and create a ring of viewable space, only the width of my finger, crowned by an eerie halo of pale white. I jerked back reflexively; it was cold. As was to be expected this far from nowhere.
In the seat across from me, mouth open and snoring, quietly, but with the same sort of tone as an aggravating buzzing fly, a middle-aged man slept. What sort of life did he lead? Surely, one filled with the love I had never known. There were faint crinkles around his eyes where he had laughed, not bitterly, but in earnest. Deeper creases around his mouth hinted at a propensity towards smiling. Nobody who lived alone, knowledgeable only of the cold bitterness of reality, could look like that. He must have been on his way home to his family; a well-worn pink scarf peeked out of his coat, too short and rather evidently belonging to a young child. His daughter's, perhaps, or a granddaughter's even. Not his, certainly. There were other hints; fainter, but they were there. The corner of a photograph peeking from the edge of his briefcase. A hand-made key-chain, comprised of fluff balls and pipe cleaners, hanging from its strap. The marks of a dark marker in big block letters, faded, but still evident on the brown leather. He had a home.
I sighed, and leaned back in my seat, resolved to listen only to the frantic rushing of the steel wheels below us and the belabored exhalations of steam farther forward. The quieter sounds of small ice particles being crushed beyond recognition beneath the steel behemoth that carried us; myself, the middle-aged man, the family of four a little bit away, playing go-fish and shrieking delightedly. Outside, birds twittered before hushing and flying away screeching as we rushed by, with barely time for a glance at their dark wings and spindly legs grasping, desperately, at a higher perch.
The hours crept fleetingly by, vanishing with hardly a notice into the landscape that blurred beside us and melted into a single stream of gray. It was one of those days, when nothing seems to happen, and yet the day has hardly had the opportunity to begin when it is snatched away again by the moon and the stars and the night, kidnapped until the ransom of tears of despair and hours of darkness has been paid. Across from me, the man sat up, alert now, clear green eyes brushing straight past me, through the misted-over window and to the approaching lights. It wouldn't be long, now, until he, too, left me in this derelict of silence and madness. But there were others. Always, there were others, interesting ones who held in themselves the hint of madness that seemed necessary for interaction.
The last had been months earlier. A woman, clutching her purse warily, watery eyes darting from side to side as though fearful of impending assault. She didn't trust anyone, and shrank away from the conductor when he came to take her ticket, shrank away from the woman bringing drinks on the rattling black cart. An identification bracelet hung limply from her thin wrist, and the others all avoided her as she did they. Except for me. Perhaps she was so far gone she didn't notice. Perhaps all she saw was the girl in misty gray dress, as alone as herself. Perhaps she simply wanted to embrace the death within all of us.
It was hard, then, to listen. To allow her to tell her tale of oppression and fear and, yes, insanity. Of the way people gave her a wide berth, when all she had wanted was a little bit of compassion. Of the way people pushed in too close, trying to right her, when all she had wanted was a little bit of breathing space. Of all the injustices and the wrongs and the way she had finally stood, facing the open sky, eyes closed, with the leaves of autumn permeating the air with the sharp scent of their decomposing flesh, and the gusts of wind brushing by with a lover's soft embrace, and the final echoes of crashing water raging far, far below. It was hard to not leave my seat next to her and run, far away, as far as I could possibly go without breaking away from this harsh reality forever.
But she was interesting. I had barely been able to resist following as she slowly stepped off and onto the platform, glancing behind to see if I was still with her. But that was never destined to be, for me at least. And now this man shifted impatiently in his seat, fingers white as he clutched the rim of the window, not noticing the droplet of blood left behind by his left index finger as he took his hands away. But I was nothing to him, and he had no story to tell. So I sat, waiting for the last stop to come to a grinding and creaking halt and for the stories I got to see unfold before me. Never participating, but still I saw, and wasn't that good for something? It was little consolation, but it was a t least a start.
The man could barely restrain his excitement, wriggling in his seat with the wait, covering his ears with his hands when the unearthly screech of steel rasping across steel was the only thing one could hear, taking his hands away when he realized the significance of the sound. He turned, nose pressed eagerly to the window, trying to see beyond the dense fog. With the final shuddering halt, he leaped from his seat and pelted down the aisle, unable to contain himself any longer.
Out on the platform, I saw him sweep a little girl into his arms, as a pretty woman came and hugged him. It was his family. They'd gotten here before him, but all three had been reunited and now there were tears in his eyes for the lost time. Such had been the meaning of the scarf. Some people brought a wedding dress with them, and their ring, and some brides came with veils thrown over melancholy faces. Some brought childhood toys, some a well-worn paperback book, some an instrument that livened the compartment, if only for a time. Some brought only their stories, and some brought only memories and expectation. This man had brought that which he held dearest, as did every other person that came this way.
And I? I was only the observer, the eternal watcher. Death's love child and Melancholy's daughter, sold to the earth and barred from all walks of life and death. I was, in short, a literal nobody, left to wander the aisles of this train, this tangible barrier between Life and Death, unendingly.
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