Come Play With Me August 22, 2008
She is sitting there, in the corner, hands crossed (I do not see her, but I feel her posture, that of a sad, abandoned child) and she’s looking at me.
She’s been watching me for days. There isn’t much else she could do.
She doesn’t know my language and I don’t quite know hers (except for few words which wouldn’t help). But I know what she’s asking me.
“Why don’t you play with me?”
“I can’t. I’m sad, and I’m tired, and nobody needs me.”
“I need you.”
“You are better off without me, actually. Right now, all I can do is twist you and hurt you, give you shackles and restraints, and you won’t be able to…be yourself.”
“I would do anything to get out of here.”
“You can’t. My mind is closed. I shut it down as it was killing me.”
“Come to me, we’ll get out together.”
“I can’t. Don’t you see? Here I am, right beside you, sitting in the corner, curled up in emptiness without laughter or tears, and I’m waiting for him to come by and play with me.”
Why don’t you come?
There is a whole world in my mind, waiting for somebody – something – to crack the shell.
-I- The Dragon Tamer August 20, 2008
I searched for him high and low, and I found him low. Deep in the darkest ocean, among those weird beings that may have never seen the light of the sun, there he lied, dreaming, coiled like a snake.
“Come with me, my lovely,” I whispered to him in that eerie water-tongue I was learning for years, “come with me and rise with me up there, in the sky.”
He opened his eyes, strangely blood-cracked, like giant balls of stained glass.
“Come with me, the Dragon of Deep,” I said. “And you’ll see the world watching you in awe and wonder, for you are the strongest, the most beautiful being in the world.” (more…)
They Are Looking At Me! August 19, 2008
This is one of the many strange phobias of mine. Something that really creeps me out, the way (I suppose) some people are scared of spiders or mice. The thing that makes me roll in the bed and whimper and have nightmares and wake up next morning willing to FLEE, change my name, go to friggin’ America and start everything from scratch like in some witness protection program. (I guess I’m not the only one with this phobia, thinking how many books are written about this, from Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye to all those bestsellers you read once to never pick up again.)
The idea that people are looking at me. Watching me. Thinking of me. (This last one gives me goosebumps even now when I’m pretty sure nobody really cares for this particular piece of writing.)
I don’t know how this rhymes with my need to express myself, to be noticed, admired, looked at. Maybe it’s some kind of vicious cycle, a bipolar disorder with its ups and downs (and random murders in the peaks). But I have to do something with it or I’ll get stuck in a month or so (yea, if I stop writing, you’ll know what happened).
So, in the case if you’re like me (I sincerely hope you aren’t), this is what I do (and what sometimes helps)…
1. Get a good friend, somebody you can trust to read and evaluate your works. But it is very important that you’re NOT competing or setting records, this can spoil both the friendship and much of the fun. Oh, and the friend doesn’t have to be the literary type – my head critic is a computer geek who doesn’t know a thing about Literature but he’s got a perfect gut feeling (which is, in fact, way better than ability to babble about Plot Structure and whatnot).
2. Go online (like I’m doing now) and make sure people don’t know who you are. The knowledge that nobody can come after me, call me in the middle of the night and ask why I wrote what I did and what I’ll be doing next, is so relieving. Of course, you should then think about how to publish your writing without really publishing it… The rule of the thumb is that everything that’s been publicly viewable as a finished piece is considered “published”, but stuff that is viewable for a selected group of members (e.g. password-protected entries in wordpress) is NOT published, so you can sell it much easier.
3. And the last advice is what works the best for me, but it’s a tricky one – somehow not many people are doing this (don’t know why because it had an instant “bingo!” effect on me). It’s what Castaneda calls “Losing Self-Importance” and describes in his book “Journey to Ixtlan
Oh yea, and write a book about it. Or at least a short story. I’m doing it right now, and this is quite a thrill.
The Blue T-shirt August 19, 2008
So. I’ll tell you about that blue T-shirt of my son’s. It’s in that stupid baby-blue color; my ex has a terrible taste for clothes. I told her that. She just retorted I can by his clothes myself if I’m not satisfied. Ha.
Anyways… That shirt. Josh wore it on the day we went to the zoo. You know, bears and monkeys and stuff. The monkeys were hilarious, especially those baboons with purple arses. Such freaks.
So Josh and I went to the zoo, and he got that T-shirt all dirty with icecream and coke and all that stuff I bought him. So at home, he took it off and put another T-shirt on. His mother is like this, better give him an extra T-shirt instead of teaching him to stay clean for a change.
Josh left that T-shirt on my bed (hasn’t been taught to take care of his things either), and then my ex arrived. We had that major argument about alimony. I told her I didn’t have cash ’cause I spent it all on zoo tickets and icecream and stuff.She didn’t even say thank you.
I told her I’ll transfer her the money tomorrow. I was gonna do that, too. But she screamed at me and stormed away with Josh, forgetting that T-shirt. She gets like that alot. This was the reason I divorced her in the first place.
So I was going to transfer her that money in a few days, but she kept on nagging me, so I didn’t. I don’t like being under pressure, and she knows that very well. I bet she did that on purpose, to piss me off.
Well, she got what she wanted, didn’t she.
Anyways… After a month or two she stopped calling me. She didn’t sue me like she said she would. Guess she didn’t need that money so badly after all, huh? I knew that all along. I bet she figured I’m not so easily played.
So I hung on to that T-shirt. I even machine-washed and folded it. Guess I’m a bit of perfectionist, and I’m not ashamed of that.
But now I hear she’s getting married again. I hear Josh is calling her mate “daddy”. A friend told me that, she didn’t even have the decency to call me. She didn’t even invite me to Josh’s birthday last week. Well, I couldn’t have made it anyways, but I would have called him at least, to remind him who his real daddy is.
But I guess that’s it for me. I’m not the kind of person who shows up uninvited. I’m not the kind of person who gets boys to call him “daddy” to get into their mother’s pants. So I guess I’m not needed anymore.
I guess I’ll just chuck that T-shirt out. Josh has probably outgrown in anyways.
P.S. This is a response to Word Ferret’s prompt. And a work of fiction, so don’t come after me about being a jerk.
Stationery for Writing August 18, 2008
Ever since I started writing I’ve put lots of thought into what I write onto.
Well, sometimes I haven’t. Sometimes I’ve thought that writing is not – cannot be – connected with the means you put your words on the paper (or the screen). But these periods were the ones when I had a major writer’s block, unable to write down more than two pages without throwing a tantrum about how untalented and unable to express my ideas I were. Coincidence?
Anyhow, this is one of my “good” times, so I’ll share what I have now: (more…)
Trapped August 18, 2008
Walking down the street, Kate sees an old woman coming out of the office building. It is a cool summer day, the rain clouds are swelling slowly over the dusty rooftops. A sudden gust of wind lifts up old lady’s skirt, revealing pale bumpy legs.
Kate scans the lady briefly. She has grayish brown brown hair in colour of cappuchino, which sounds good but actually is a no-colour for hair. Large glasses in semi-transparent plastic frames. Plain sandals and light colourless jacket. She is sun-bleached, outworn, just the way old ladies are supposed to look.
But when that gust of wind lifts up her silky skirt, the old lady smiles to herself while holding down the mischevious cloth – a sudden shy smile with an aftertaste of self-appreciation.
There is a young girl trapped inside this old body, Kate thinks. With so many years between them.
*
Kate herself is wearing jeans and sneakers today, just like most days. She avoids skirts as her legs are usually either unshaven or cut while shaving, and when neither is true it just seems awkward to wear skirt all of the sudden.
Kate is also wearing a top and a shirt and a jacket. She likes the top which accentuates her round firm breasts, but she is wondering whether it’s too revealing, maybe she should button up her shirt? She has just washed her sneakers in the toilet (didn’t work too well) and sniffed her armpits just in case.
She would look really pretty if she had a chance to wash her hair this morning and if she was sure about those sneakers (maybe they are too childish?) and if she didn’t have that first wrinkle in her forehead.
So her heart sinks when she sees the old lady smiling, holding down her flowing skirt.
There is a happy old lady trapped inside Kate’s body. With so many years between them.
