Alone/Thank You

Well here is some new old stuff I wrote.  Again, these two pieces were written while at work one day.  They aren’t really short stories, they are more like ramblings I had off the top of my head during a particularly disheartening day at work.  I combined them into one post because I hadn’t posted anything in a while and was planning to give you guys something brand new, but due to conspiring forces I was unable to get anything done.  So I would feel bad posting one short rambling after so long, so I decided to put the two of them together.  Next week there will be something new and it should be the start of the online story I mentioned back in Blog Post 1.

Alone

Perhaps the greatest loneliness in life is to realize that the people with whom you’ve surrounded yourself don’t care about you.  Sure, you could be alone in a literal sense.  You could sit in a dark room with no other individuals, but at least then someone on the outside cares and if someone cares, are you really alone?  When multiple people care about a similar topic or share ideas, we say they are not alone.  So why not apply that to people?  If you care about you (topic) and someone else cares, you two share in something and are thusly not alone.  But when you are the only one who cares about you, there is no shared topic, they would say you are alone.  So then, when you discover that in a room full of people nobody cares, you are truly alone.  How sad is that?  To be all alone in a crowd.

 

Thank You

Does saying “thank you” hold any real meaning anymore?  It seems that people just say it because it’s what they’re supposed to and for no other reason.  It has dawned on me that rarely am I thankful when I say “thank you” and instead I simply say it to sound polite.  When does an honest “thank you” apply?  The term has become so overused that any endearment that was once attached to it has now been lost.  I or anyone else could say “thank you” a hundred times in a day and only mean it ten times.  If you don’t mean what you say, why say it at all?  I’ll tell you why.  You’re expected to.  The expectations that are placed on you force you to say it, even when you don’t mean it.  If you don’t say it, you are labeled as “inconsiderate” or a “jerk” and nobody likes to be labeled negatively.

Thank you for reading.

Wail of the SIREN

This is yet another poem I wrote back in college.  This’ll probably be the last post for a little bit and when I do post again it’ll be the start of a short story series, hopefully.

 

I am stirred from darkness by the shriek of a Siren.

I try to gain my senses,

but they come to me slowly,

like a snail making its way across the ground.

 

My eyesight returns

though I can see nothing.

I attempt to push myself up,

but I find my body wants nothing of the sort.

 

My eyes are still fuzzy

and my head is droggy.

My body does not wish to move,

except away from that damn shrieking.

 

There is security in the darkness

that wraps me like a newborn in its blanket.

But that is stripped away with a single cry.

Laying there exposed to the world, I yearn for my darkness.

 

My eyes pinch closed,

and my head turns away as

I pray for the end of that ear-piercing screech,

but her volume only intensifies.

 

Forced to do what I always do,

I reach my hand up

and, with goosebumps dancing along my arm,

hit “Snooze”.

Tomorrow Never Comes

Tomorrow is the end of today,

but tomorrow never comes

and today never goes away,

making life one long day.

Chair

Like Burning, this is another short I wrote while at work one day.  I was inspired to write about a chair after a creative writing professor told a story about how she hated it when her teachers would make her class write about specific things, such as a chair.  Naturally, I decided to write about a chair.

 

I sit now and ponder not of the wondrous events that I have seen, but rather I think about the chair I sit on.  The chair is made of a strong wood that once, long ago, composed a strong tree.  The tree itself probably housed 1,000 stories.  But now, that once mighty tree is an ugly colored chair. 

An uncomfortable, ugly colored chair.  I find it impossible to relax in this chair.  The sturdiness, the greatest asset, has turned into the greatness weakness.  The back is too stiff, with no give.  The seat is hard and forces one to shift frequently. 

Isn’t it a shame?  A once mighty tree, home to 1,000 stories, has been turned into a chair 1,000 people will sit on and hate.  Would it kill someone to put a cushion on the poor old thing?

Burning

This is a short I wrote while at work one day.  It is a story that I wrote off the top of my head, which means it is pretty raw.  There is a good chance this story will reappear later on as poem.

 

Through the thick vines, he climbed.  Like a man possessed, he climbed and fought his way through thick, thorny vines.  He ignored the thorns as they pierced him.  He ignored the burning in his wounds from the vine.  He ignored the burning in his legs from the fight with the vines.  He ignored the burning in his lungs from the climbing.  He ignored the burning in his arms, which grew weary as he progressed through.  He ignored the burning in his head, which told him to stop, rest, recover!  He payed mind only to the burning in his chest, for the burning there gave him purpose, gave him desire, gave him the possible in the impossible, gave him a way out.  It was the burning in his chest that drove him now, through the vines with their thorns.  It was that burning in his chest that burned the most and if he could quell this burning, he knew it would mean everything.

My Friend

Here is another poem I wrote back in college.

 

O monotony…

you drain pleasure from me

like a mosquito gorging itself on the blood of its host

and like the mosquito, you leave me itching and agitated.

 

O monotony…

you make the day feel endless

and unique activity

has given way to redundancy.

 

O monotony…

you sap the sunset of its glory

and make the verdant fields filled with life,

seem like a graveyard, sullen and filled with death.

 

O monotony…

you have bound me to boredom for too long.

The constant samenity of the days is gone,

creativity  has come.

 

O monotony

you are no more!

Creativity has freed me of my bonds

and gives me pleasure like you could never!

Love Story

Here is a story I wrote for a creative writing class:

   A lone girl sits quietly on a swing.  She sits there, slowly rocking herself back and forth, with her hands gripped on the metal chains.  She is looking down at her lap, her medium length brown hair falls lazily in front of her, blocking her face from the world.  Her lackadaisical hair is in stark contrast to the care in which she spent on the rest of herself.  She is wearing brand new shoes that she bought just for today.  She has her best pair of designer jeans on with her favorite brown belt.  The sleeves of her white shirt come down to just past her elbows and on top of that, she is wearing a brown, short-sleeve, low cut shirt, another article of clothing bought especially for today.  On her left wrist is a silver watch and on her right wrist is a loosely hanging silver bracelet.  Her hair, though falling lazily, looks painstakingly taken care of and smells of “Ocean Breeze”, her favorite shampoo.  All this, just to slowly rock back and forth on a swing.

   The sun is still in the sky and a brisk breeze is blowing softly.  The leaves on the trees are still green, but it is only a matter of time before they fall.  One such leaf has just met its end.  A gust of wind tears it down and it falls gently down into the hair of the girl on the swing.  The girl ignores the leaf and remains rocking on her swing.

   From across the park comes a young man.  He has an old pair of sneakers on and a pair of cargo pants that have seen better days.  He has a worn polo shirt and a beat up watch tight on his left wrist.  He has short, unruly hair and it looks as if he hasn’t shaven in a couple of days.  He walks over to the lone girl on the swing and takes residence on the swing to her left.  He reaches over and pulls the leaf out of her hair.  With the leaf gone, he grips the metal chains and swings his legs for some momentum.  He picks up speed and continues to gain altitude, his violent swinging causing the entire swing set to shake.

   The girl on the swing next to him slowly raises her head.  She peers at him through her hair.  She allows herself a chuckle at seeing the young man swinging like he is a small boy.  She starts to swing her legs and gains momentum.  She swings slower and lower than the young man next to her, but now her hair blows off her face enough that one can see her meticulously done make-up and her silver earrings shaped like dolphins.  She swings along and smiles.

   The young man stops swinging his legs and lets his momentum slow.  He releases the metal chain and catapults out into the brisk air.  He starts to come down, but his feet are not under him.  He is parallel to the ground while in the air and falls hard on his side.  The girl stops herself from swinging and brings her hands to her mouth.  She starts laughing.  She hops off her swing and bends over the young man.  The young man rolls to his back and throws his hands in the air.  He starts laughing too.  The girl takes his hand and starts to pull him up.  Now on his feet, he looks at the girl.  She is still giggling as she looks back at him.  He smiles and lets out a laugh as he puts his hand on his forehead.  The young man reaches out and ruffles the girl’s hair, then dashes foreword.  The girl does a quick fix to her hair then gives chase.  She catches up to the young man, who had stopped running, and she hits him on the arm.  He feigns injury, then takes the punched arm and pats her on the shoulder.  He rests his hand on her shoulder then gives her a playful push.  She stumbles, but catches herself.  She comes back and gives him a light shoulder blast, knocking him a bit off balance.  He returns to her side and they walk off together as a breeze blows in and gives the swing one last push.