Tag / story

by whyididntwritetoday

A Halloween tale…

I wrote this several years ago and, as it’s Halloween, I thought I’d share it:

I have a confession to make.

We’ve all done things wrong, and we’ve all done things we’re not exactly proud of. But I think mine probably tops all of yours – I mean have you ever killed the one you love?

No?

No…I didn’t think so. To look at me, you’d never imagine that I could be capable of such a malicious, sorrowful deed – for I am perhaps one of the most humble, slightly-built older males you are ever likely to see.

It’s taken me a few days to collect my thoughts on the matter – a few miserable days, sitting in this cell – with only the faraway drone of the other inmates and the sparsely decorated walls to keep me company.

I’ll tell you the tale right now and I’ll pull no punches and spare no details, for I am
old now, with such little life left that there’s no point even attempting to preserve myself from whatever justice the authorities see fit for me.

You may feel sympathetic to me perhaps, but then you may very well agree with the majority of society and deem me a villain – one not fit to share the world with the other right-thinking folk.

I’ve been in love with someone before, oh yes I have! When I was much younger! She was a lovely lady.

Virginia Wright was her name.

And even now many, many years down the line I still think of that name in a rose-tinted light.

She was a few years older than I, and perhaps not the easiest lady on the eye – but out of all of her many suitors she chose me and our affectionate companionship slowly turned into a deep-rooted understanding and love.

I’ve always been too slow of head to be a well-versed romantic, but I’d have to say she was “the one”, and perhaps once I’ve been judged by the aforementioned forces of authority I may well be reunited with Virginia Wright in another life, somewhere far, far away from here.

The early days (honeymoon period) were my favourites – they stretch out before me even
now in a sort of effervescent movie montage.

The places we went together, the little quirks we both had that we learned to love so well, the people we met and of course those quiet moments that are shared between two like-minded souls, the quiet moments that no one else ever knows.

However as time went on and age consumed Virginia faster than I, it became more and more of a challenge to get by – at the start of things it was a pleasant challenge to keep her happy, but toward the end it was a struggle just to support her through anything.

Everyone tried to convince her to ask for extra care, care that I (being no spring chicken
myself) couldn’t really provide, but being the strong soul she was she was determined to
carry on.

And from that determination I will always carry inspiration.

I still remember the day she died in my arms like it was yesterday, her soft hazel brown eyes closing as life was finally taken from her. It looked more like she was asleep than devoid of life, but perhaps that’s all death is?

Just another level of sleep, one mortal minds can’t configure.

From a selfish perspective I was distraught at losing my life’s companion, but from a more senior, learned point of view I was able to eventually rest soundly to the oh-so-familiar tune of her “being in a better place”.

But alas, I’m getting off of the real point of my sin with all this talk of Virginia Wright –
perhaps I am more of a romantic at heart than I initially thought.

The lady of my confession goes…or rather went…by the name of Lily Swann, a pretty name I’ll agree, but hideously misplaced.

In the years following Virginia’s passing I had little or no connection with
anyone, Virginia’s family all lived away from the city and I, myself, was born of another
country and at my age I had no real way of getting back there.

So it was a lonely life I led, a life spent mostly traipsing to and from various shopping centres, markets and outlets – people watching.

If I didn’t have a life of my own I could at least gain some interest from what
others around me were doing, you can earn an awful lot from people and from my various vantage points I saw many dramas, conflicts and romances unfold.

Life has a simple algorithm, we just like to kid ourselves that it’s more complicated than it is.

It was while I was scanning the aisles of a second-hand store on West Street that I was
approached by a lady called Linda.

She must have noticed my lonely existence before, as I was sure I’d recognised her from somewhere – but when you reach my age all the names and faces seem to roll into one and it becomes harder and harder to decipher any countenance that isn’t common place in your life.

Linda was a weekly carer for a lady called Lilly, and she must have thought of herself as some sort of matchmaker as she arranged for a few meetings with us.

We didn’t really warm to each other at first, I didn’t feel I wanted her – and she felt she had no use for me, but the relentless matchmaking continued and eventually we fell into a mutual companionship.

I’ve always firmly believed that if you try hard enough you can learn to like, and who knows, maybe even love someone if you really want to make it work.

It was hard getting used to Lily’s hair-string temper and shoe-string budget but I settled into the idea that I would never find anyone else to love at such a late age.

That woman proceeded to wear me down – both physically and mentally. I’m not trying for sympathy now, I’m sure that perhaps I could have just upped and left somehow, but I just could never find the nerve.

She used to mumble to herself all the time, what she was saying I couldn’t decipher at times – but I knew it was nothing positive, her mutterings gradually changed to insults – mainly aimed at me. Useless.

Never has a word cut me so deep as that, through my whole life I’d been a hard worker – both at work and in a relationship, and to be constantly called this whenever I was with her or helping her hurt me in a way that you cannot imagine.

But as we grew to know each other better, and as we got older, words turned to actions.

The little things at first, nudging me out of the way when she wanted to hobble a short distance across the house, spilling the odd drop of boiling tea onto me without the slightest murmur of an apology and then slowly moving to the physical.

She soon fell into the habit of kicking me from the solitude of her own gnarled rocking chair whenever something annoyed her. As if I was some sort of worthless scapegoat for her pathetic frustrations.

Alas a few days ago the two of us had decided to head into the city for a day’s shopping, and this is where things came to a head.

Having your body fail on you is the worst part of old age, a body that you’ve grown so used to over the years – suddenly becoming rigid and hopeless.

We were a few yards away from the house when I felt a sudden pang in my creaking limbs, and before I knew it they’d stopped – locked up completely – I couldn’t go any further.

“What’s wrong with you? You’re useless. I want to be back in time for the soap operas”.
With that she straightened herself up and flung a leg at me, striking me a lot harder than I would have expected from a woman of her age.

“Useless. Useless. Useless. Supposed to be there for me. Useless”.

With each cry of useless her foot connected against my limbs, until I felt something rise
inside of me, an anger so sharp and so stunningly severe that I’d never felt it before. But an anger that brought new life into me and I found myself lunging forward at the old hag – we toppled to the pavement in an ear-splitting crescendo of shouts and screams- noises
of pain, raw emotion and rage.

Next thing I knew, all I could hear was a sickening, crack as the old lady’s head met the pavement. It was only then that I realised just what I had done.

Emotions. They often get the better of you in the end.

Oh…wait, what’s this that has broken my tainted string of thought? The cell door in front of me is opening, finally! It’s barely been opened since the day I was first banished here.

Two policemen appear in front of me – bored and tired in their dark blue, padded uniforms.

After a moment they fix their attention on me and the room, and I can hear the first
one speak: “Bloody impound lot gets more and more cluttered every time I come in here”, now he turns his attention to me, and me alone, “stupid rusty wheelchair, that can go to the scrap yard I don’t think we’re going to be needing that anymore.”
“That from the Swann woman investigation?”, asks his younger colleague.
“Yeah, weird one. Found her on the pavement with the chair on top of her, but no one could seem to find anything wrong with the chair itself, ‘cos she wasn’t even on it at the time. Almost as if it just got up got up and rolled on top of her”.

His colleague laughs.

I know my fate is sealed. The scrap man calls.

Virginia, I’m coming, I won’t be long now.

by Ashley Brown

by whyididntwritetoday

Talent: yours is better than you think

Talent.

It’s a great thing, isn’t it? It’s one of my favourite qualities that we have as humans and I think we should celebrate our talents at all times – you know, those little things that we’re able to do just that bit better than anyone else.

Whether it’s singing a note, kicking a football, writing a sonnet or anything inbetween.

Yet, how often do you really make the most out of your talents? How often do you use them to your full benefit?

There are a lot of people out there who are really talented, but they just never pursue it. I guess sometimes they think their talents are too obscure or too useless to really help them in the world.

But, for anyone who thinks that their talent isn’t worthwhile…let me tell you about a man called Tarrare.

A chap who well and truly had one of the ‘worst’ talents you can imagine.

Tarrare was born into a relatively poor family in late 16th century France. But, before he was really into his teenage years, his parents had to kick him out.

Not because they didn’t love him. But because he was, quite literally, eating them out of house and home.

You see Tarrare had an insatiable appetite for food. There’s no other way to describe it. Live animals, loaves of bread and even furniture – he’d eat nearly everything in sight, yet it still wouldn’t cure the great hunger within him.

Tarrare ended up travelling with a bunch of circus performers and made something of a living by eating random objects in front of a crowd. Whether it be animal refuse, blocks of wood or shards of glass.

The military even tried to use his talents by getting him to swallow important instructions and take them through enemy lines. He wasn’t suited to this line of employment though and gave the secrets away to the enemy without too much questioning.

Perhaps it just took one laxative…

Legend has it that he once ate enough for fifteen people in one sitting. Including portions of puppy, snake and lizard. Yet, even after all that grub, he still wasn’t full.

Those who knew him described him as normal size and said that, asides from being weirdly apathetic, he didn’t seem to have any unusual character traits…asides from his appetite.

Eventually Tarrare was admitted to hospital with exhaustation because, try as he might, he just couldn’t top off his hunger.

He didn’t last too long in hospital. They ejected him after he (apparently) started eating corpses…some even say that he was responsible for eating a toddler!

Whether these tales are true…I do not know. But he was thrown out of the hospital. Which is fair enough. I’d hate to be in hospital with someone who might try to eat me…

After that, Tarrare disappeared from the records for a few years.

Only to resurface a few years later and ultimately die of tuberculosis. An autopsy revealed that he had an abnormally large gullet and stomach…but you probably guessed that, I’m sure.

So as you can see, there are talents more unfortunate than yours…now, if you tried, what could you really do with your talent?

 

 

 

by whyididntwritetoday

If you’ve ever worn a T-shirt you need to read this!

This morning, as I scrabbled to get ready for work, I opened my cupboard and found a clean T-shirt to wear.

I slipped it on without thinking and then went about my day.

I mean, it’s just such a part of daily life that I was on autopilot.

T-shirts. Everyone wears them, right?

But, actually, as it turns out…wearing T-shirts is a fairly new thing, by historical standards, something that only really became popular after the 1950s.

You have the US Navy and the actor Marlon Brando to thank for their popularity.

T-shirts started out their lives as simple, crude undergarments – usually worn by farmers or general laborers underneath their work shirts.

If you believe in reincarnation, here’s hoping that you don’t come back as a 1800s farm worker’s T-shirt…living out your days with only a sweaty armpit for company.

But they didn’t get their big break until 1913 when the US Navy issued them (as undergarments) – simple white crew necks. By the 1920s the word T-shirt gradually slipped into the dictionary.

They were hidden away. Never displayed. Worn under shirts or jumpers. Locked away like the child of an overprotective parent – barely seeing the light of day.

Then in 1951 the T-shirt finally gained recognition for being a standalone fashionable item. Thanks to Marlon Brando, one of the coolest guys of the era.

He wore it in the classic ‘Streetcar Named Desire’ and the youngsters who idolised him at the time rushed out to buy and wear them.

A great example of just how much film inspires culture.


european

The swinging sixties rolled round and more and more people began to wear printed T-shirts – often putting their own slogans on them to protest and make statements.

Not much has changed since the sixties, has it?

So there you go – there’s a story behind the humble t-shirt. That piece of fabric that we usually put on without thinking.

And, as a storyteller, it’s worth remembering that everything – even the simplest things – have a story behind them and it’s up to you to flesh them out.

For example, if I were in the fashion industry and I wanted to sell T-shirts, I’d find a creative way to sell them and their story.

‘DID YOU KNOW THAT MARLON BRANDO MADE THE T-SHIRT FAMOUS?’ I guarantee that people would be interested, particularly as most of us now only remember Brando as the old guy in ‘The Godfather’.

So, whether you’re selling something or just writing about something, have a look at the story behind it – does it have a good enough story to sell itself?

Most things do. Just look at the telescope, for example…

Class dismissed.

by whyididntwritetoday

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room…

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.”

How’s that for a first line? (Or maybe two lines, as there’s a full stop in-between).

It conjures up a lot of questions and it had me, for one, wanting to read on.
Who is this man?
What happened to everyone else?
Is he the last man on the earth, or the last actual person?
Etc.

When it comes to writing anything that you want someone to read it’s important to hook them in, from either the headline or the first line. It seems kind of obvious, doesn’t it?

But then, you’d be surprised how few people actually put it into practice.

‘On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest.’ (Copyblogger)

Ask a question, inspire thought – do something that will make the reader want to continue.

Because, once you’ve written than opening line, every other word you write is, in itself, a reason to get your audience to read the next word.

If you’re interested in where that quote came from at the start, it’s been taken from the short story ‘Knock’ – written by Fredric Brown.

It was based on the following short segment of text, which was written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich:

“Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, Tripoli or Paris. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell!”

Class dismissed.

by whyididntwritetoday

The Top Shelf of the Library

I didn’t write today, because I couldn’t find the right story to start on.

I always feel that the fictional storyteller’s mind is a library of ideas and plots, many of these are easy to access and get a hold of. But, usually the ideas that you really want to pursue and start to write about are the hardest ones to find.

By that I mean, to again use the library analogy, they’ll often be on the top shelf. You can see them from a distance, and can make out a bit about them, but you need to get closer to them.  So, you’ll spend ages looking around for a ladder or maybe you’ll clumsily try and climb up the shelves until you reach the top.

Then, after using all that time to try and get a proper hold of the idea, you’ll be so distracted that all the time that you’d made to write will have floated away.

I’ve always been an ideas guy. Even as a kid I’d be more interested in sketching out my own comics and stories than I would reading them. I guess there are two types of people – those who walk out of a cinema and think; “man, that was a great film!” – and those who walk out of a cinema and think; “that was an awesome film, but I reckon I could do better”.

Creative consumers and creative do-ers.

I’ve always been the latter.

I can’t remember the last time a day went by where I didn’t have a story in the back of mind that I wanted to tell. Whether it be simple, or more complex. Sadly, without a computer (or at the very least) a notepad permanently taped to my hands the creative flow can’t always be tapped at the best time. Life has a habit of getting in the way, doesn’t it?

I wonder how often, in the whole history of the world and everything ever, truly great masterpieces have fallen to the wayside because the potential authors just weren’t able to organise their mental libraries in time to grab the bull by its horns and get some words down on some paper.

Motivation for an idea can be lost so quickly.

Why do they always come to you when you’re just about to drift into the land of nod, or when you’re out and miles away from your desk?
But, here’s a Sunday night vow…I will be better, and I’ll avoid excuses and organise my gems when necessary.

Because becoming the greatest writer who ever did live isn’t going to come about without a blood, sweat & tears.

New York Times Bestsellers List here I come…

by whyididntwritetoday

Procrastination…the doom of a cyber generation.

When many bloggers or cyber writers tackle a theme they start off by pasting the dictionary definition of their topic…why!? Do they think their audience is too silly to know what the word means? Did they not know what it meant themselves? Or, are they just using it as a springboard to help their lazy ass get a creative flow going? My apologies, to quote many a millennial…’rant over’. Let’s get on with the blog post…

Procrastination
prə(ʊ)ˌkrastɪˈneɪʃ(ə)n/
noun

  1. the action of delaying or postponing something.
    “your first tip is to avoid procrastination”

In case you’ve not guessed this one is about procrastination, and for as long as I’ve tried to write creatively procrastination has been the main reason why I’ve not been writing. It’s such an easy thing to do, and an easy trap to fall into…I’ll sit there at my desk, ready to launch a full blown verbal assault on a blank word document, and then suddenly I’ll start to wonder what year Die Hard was released or what happened to an old footballer I used to like once he’d retired, or perhaps I’ll start to wonder how long it would take to fly to Mars in a rocket.

And thus that catalyst for procrastination ‘Google’ will open and away my hours will wile, access to information is great…but it sure as hell can shut the doorway of productivity at times.

Asides from maintaining focus, there’s not really a known cure for procrastination is there? Very few doctors seem to be trained in dealing with it, and listening to TED talks about it only further exacerbates the issue in the first place.

I guess it says a lot for how advanced the human mind is now that we have enough time for such a level of reflection that it can take us away from the present so easily. I mean back in the day, when cavemen and women danced across the far corners of the Earth, I’m pretty sure procrastination must have been nigh on impossible.

The fear of a T-Rex making me into a candlelit dinner for one would certainly keep my ass in check and stop me from googling the full cast and crew of an episode of ‘Friends’ to see if the bit part actor I thought I saw was actually in it!

But yet, as our lives and the worlds around us become more and more complicated, the more scope there is for delaying what you want to do.

So, today I didn’t write because I was procrastinating and, after thinking about cooking dinner for ages, decided to alert the nearest pizza merchant of my hunger and ask them to deliver their product forthwith.

I guess the secret to stop procrastination and maximise productivity would be to make sure I find the right project. One that I simply can’t put down, one that keeps me awake with flowing words until the wee hours. Mind abuzz with ideas.

But…finding that project…that’s the challenge.