Catching Up

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been around lately. School was a bit of a headache for a while, getting into classes and so on, but I'm back. I'll be updating on a weekly basis or so and just letting you know what's new on this end.

So I'm taking two English courses this year, English 245 and English 215. The latter is a mandatory course for English majors, but looks promising with some of the books we'll be reading, including excerpts from Aristotle, Freud, and Foucault. The former is an in-depth analysis of a prominent literary figure, and in this case it's the Southern writer Flannery O'Connor. I'll admit I hadn't heard of her before this class, and didn't know what to expect in taking such a class but I've been reading her short stories and have to say I'm quite impressed! It's fascinating to think her first short story, "The Geranium" was published when she was just 22 years old. I can't help but think that she was only three years older than me and she was already published. I guess that's just more motivation for me!

The class I'm most interested in, however, would have to be my Comparative Literature class, Comp Lit 135. It's an exploration into apocalyptic literature and how it relates to society through the ages. For those who have read my bio, there's little in the literary world I find more enjoyable than the post-apocalyptic genre and this class, which analyzes the strengths of the human condition in post-apocalyptic settings, is guaranteed to be entertaining and thought-provoking. If that's not enough, the book list for the class includes Kurt Vonnegut, Alan Moore, and Jose Saramago! Needless to say, a very exciting class.

I'll be starting work on another short story soon; I've got a great little idea I'm trying to flesh out into something tangible. It's a dystopic piece, which is a new genre for me, but it should be a rather rewarding experience. Stay tuned!

Part 3 of 3

January 25

It’s night again. I spent all of yesterday making sure everything is found just as I want it to be. I don’t know exactly what will happen to me after this, but I can’t leave Alice out there. I made a vow to her and to God that I would stay by her side in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, in good times and in bad, forever.

My dear wife Alice used to say I didn’t know how to follow through with resolutions because I didn’t like the idea of changing myself. I can only smile as I remember how she’d stare at me over her half-moon glasses and chuckle as I made my resolutions, wishing me the best but knowing I’d never finish any of them. But that was before. Now I truly see just how much I meant to Alice, and I want her to know that I will love her forever, regardless of how she looks. I’m committed to showing her my dedication, to prove to her she’s not fighting alone against whatever dark abyss she’s gazed into. I want to be there holding her hand as we fight together.

I’ve already set about making myself appropriate for the next time I see her. The straight razor has made quick work of my left hand. It’s almost eerie to watch the muscles twitch and strain as I flex my hand. I’ve done away with my legs, stomach, and chest too. I remember getting a manual as we landed in Korea, showing pictures of the human body as a muscle-enveloped skeleton with vital organs circled under bright red ink. As I looked into the bathroom mirror beneath a forehead gleaming white in the harsh fluorescent light, my lips dangling from my crazily-grinning mouth I could only imagine myself as some great leering caricature of what I’d seen fifty years ago.

I’ve saved my right hand for last, because I want to be sure the world knows why I’ve done what I’ve done. Any minute now I’ll go back into the bathroom and add a final pound of flesh to the bloody mess on the linoleum floor.

I want the world to know that I loved Alice. I still love her. I don’t know what will happen when I descend the attic stairs, trailing blood behind me like some macabre wedding train, but I know I’ll be with her.

That’s all I really want.

Part 2 of 3 (Long Section)

January 16

I’ve stared at this picture throughout the night. Every part of me knows it can’t be true, but the more I look at that haze of yellow light the more I can see her face. Her high cheekbones and soft chin hiding behind a radiant cascade of soft hair, her fair skinned arms holding her hands just like they did the night of our honeymoon, nervous but excited as we stood on the tarmac waiting for our plane to Hawaii. Her eyes, though. I keep coming back to her eyes. They seem different somehow, like they’re holding some kind of secret. There’s a soft smile behind them, but more a look of understanding. I don’t know where Alice went after she passed away. I guess I just assumed she moved on to a better place. But I’ve gone through every one of these pictures and she’s in each of them. Maybe Heaven was lonely. Maybe she could sense how much pain I was still in. I don’t know. All I know is she’s back now. Maybe things will get better.

January 18

I’m turning into the barmy old coot I never wanted to be. I’m completely changing my lifestyle for a blur in a picture that vaguely resembles my wife. There’s a small voice in the back of my head saying it’s all just a trick of the light or a funky blur, and the entire rational side of my brain is screaming at me for being so deluded. But at the same time, the camera doesn’t lie. Does it? All it does is show what’s there. So maybe there is something to this whole thing. I’ve certainly acted like there was this past few days. I’m back to my old ways of courting.

I’ve saved everything Alice used to like. I set her place at the kitchen table when I sit down to eat, laid out in her best china and crystal wine glasses. We used to love sharing a bottle of wine together. Tonight I’m treating her to a candlelight dinner, just like the one we had in Paris the night of our twentieth anniversary. The light glinted and seemed to dance, playing against the darkness of her eyes. I feel so much more life within me having seen Alice in those pictures. I need to take more.

January 20

I saw her today. Not in the pictures this time, I’ve seen her there dozens of times. I saw her in real life, before my eyes. Well, out of the corner of them maybe. I was in the den reading my evening paper and suddenly a glint of light sprang into the corner of my eye. I cocked my head almost instinctually, expecting perhaps light bouncing off the hood of a passing car, but I saw her. The yellow haze of light and dust was moving slowly, like a passing car’s reflection crawls across your ceiling. She seemed to be moving without any real speed, but if you’re no longer among the living I suppose you don’t really need to set an agenda. The light had an almost human form but still drifted like a patch of smoke, dreamily, toward her old sewing room. I feel so stupid, not remembering the hours she’s spend in that room making shirts and quilts and goodness knows what else. It’s only natural she want to stay where she’s comfortable.

She looks so much different when she’s right in front of you, rather than looking at you from a picture. Her features were softer, not so horribly contrasted by whatever barbarous acts the photo developers use. Her face was blurred, so much so that it almost seemed fake. Like a piece of rubber pulled over her skull. Maybe all the crazy stuff she’s going through means it’s just going to take some time to fully rearrange herself. Even without the eyes, nose and lips I’d stared at for so many decades, without the cheekbones that held her smile so beautifully, the forehead that always relaxed into a smooth dome when she laughed, I think she’s happy. She’s seen how I’ve kept everything just as she left it, and you need that. It’s like returning home from a long trip in a distant land, finding everything exactly as you left it and sliding into that sense of comfort in knowing you’re home at last.

January 21

Alice hasn’t come out at all today. I haven’t seen her around the rest of the house, anyway, so I’m pretty sure she’s still there. A soft golden glow keeps pouring out from under the door, moving around like a firefly who can’t find its off button. Maybe she’s just settling in again. Hopefully I’ll see her tomorrow.

January 22

Still nothing from Alice. I stood in the hallway outside her sewing room for about half an hour today, knocking on the door and waiting for a response. All I felt was a cold silence. The light under the door’s dimmed a little. I hope I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t want her to be angry with me. I told her I wanted her to feel comfortable, and I’d do whatever it took to make her feel that way. Maybe she’ll come out tomorrow.

January 23

She’s started crying. I didn’t hear it at first, except as a low sort of whimpering. It sounded like air rattling through the heating vents; this old house makes more noise in the winter than I do. Anyway, it started out really weakly, a couple of sniffles and some whimpers. Now it’s gotten a bit louder, and I’m concerned. It’s the crying you hear when someone learns of the death of someone they knew well, but weren’t particularly close to. The death of some kind of ideal image of that person. Maybe I’ve done something wrong.

Later

The crying’s gotten louder. It’s become full-fledged weeping now, flowing out from under her sewing room door like tar, heavy and solemn. I can’t seem to get her to stop, no matter what I say. It’s almost as though she can’t even hear me.

January 24

She hasn’t stopped. It’s two in the morning and her weeping has turned into wailing. Heart-rending shrieks of pain are coming from the other side of the door, and I can’t get her to stop. She never cried like this when she was alive; it’s a kind of screaming I haven’t heard since Korea. It’s the frantic, terrified scream of the men who limped back into the trenches with their stomachs torn open, holding their guts in their arms, eyes darting everywhere in hope of some kind of relief but secretly knowing all they could do was wait to die.

I just wish I knew what was wrong. I don’t know what else to do. I need to confront her and see what happened.

Later

My heart won’t stop pounding. God in Heaven, what’s happened to my wife?

I put down this journal and tried steadying myself, though her constant screams had quite deeply unnerved me. I slowly walked down the stairs, and as I did I felt an odd pulling sensation, as though part of me was trying to stay away from the source of the noise. I’d felt as though I tapped into the unrivalled fear of our ancestors who lived in the trees, huddling together as they heard dark shadows rustling in the foliage below. I reached the bottom of the stairs and started slowly moving down the hallway to her sewing room. I could see a weak reddish light coming from below the door, though I knew it to be the sun rising on the horizon. There was no other light.

I need to stop for a minute. My hands won’t stop shaking.

Later

The sun’s been up for a couple hours, and I think that’s helped to calm me a bit. I can still hear her; she hasn’t stopped screaming. She’s wandering around the house now, shrieking like a banshee, but her screams have lost their sorrowful tones. They’re now completely filled with horror.

To continue my story, I approached Alice’s door, my breath escaping my chest only in the slightest of constricted gasps. I could feel beads of sweat slowly forming on my brow, cool in the early morning air. I prepared to knock on the door, thinking as I did that there was no way she could have heard me over her own frenzied screeching, but the second my knuckles rapped the dense wood the door flung open, and I saw Alice.

Her body was no longer a shaft of light and dust. She was an honest-to-God human, though I don’t believe God would have claimed her. Her skin had gone a mottled gray and green, large patches falling off her face and arms, exposing black muscle and pearly bone covered in writhing maggots. Her hair was a scraggly black mess, sparsely covering her skull in the places where her skin still clung stubbornly. Her forehead was white bone, a huge flap of skin dangling over her cheek. Her nose had been eaten away, leaving a gaping hole in the center of her face. Most of all I remember her mouth. Her lips had gone a purple-green, shriveled to the point where her remaining yellow and black teeth leered at me in a grim rictus. Her tongue was hugely swollen, writhing behind her teeth like a purple slug, half eaten by whatever godless creature had done this.

She stopped screaming when she saw me. There was no love left in the empty sockets of her eyes, but her eyebrows wrinkled in an expression of absolute helplessness. She stumbled toward me on rotting legs, her fungus-eaten bones on the verge of collapse. Her wildly-flailing arms reached for me, shaking off dirt and maggots as she moved. I tried to back away, but her rotted stump of a hand, finger bones and ligaments wasted away, managed to grab my shoulder. Her rotten sockets stared into my eyes, her sour breath like compost against my face. She took a few shuddering breaths and with monumental effort succeeded in hissing a single word:

“Empty.”

Then her head fell back, as if she were struck with some divine inspiration. For the briefest of moments it rolled aimlessly over her shoulders, across her chest, and along her back as though she were trying to remove a kink in her neck. Her arm fell lamely to her side as she stumbled backward slightly. I began to back away from what had once been the woman I loved, the woman I swore to be with until the end of time, tears falling from my unblinking eyes. She seemed to sense my departure, and lunged toward me with a shriek that froze my heart. I turned around and ran, tears streaming from my face and in that last moment before I slammed the attic door behind me I could hear our screams mingling in the stale air of the morning.

Later

Since I left Alice downstairs she hasn’t stopped screaming. I can hear her downstairs, tearing the house apart. I must have left the door open behind me when I ran out on her. She’s still shrieking, but now it’s almost sorrowful. I think she’s looking for me. I know I didn’t see any love in what used to be her eyes, but I can feel her sadness. After all, she must be scared. Who knows what thoughts have been running through her mind these past days as she’s had to watch her body slowly decompose, then see nothing at all. Imagine sitting in your favorite chair, feeling every sensation as your skin decomposes and insects gnaw away at your flesh, the only person you’ve ever loved in the living room mere feet away from you. Imagine the utter helplessness of feeling your own body decompose.

I have done wrong by her. My God, I’ve forsaken the only woman I ever loved, and she’s going to walk the earth searching for me until the end of time, if she has to. Every now and then I hear a shattering come from below me, and I know she’s searching for me now. I’ve seen her as she is, and she thinks I’ve left her. There’s no way I can imagine the fear she must be enduring, and yet here I am, hiding away from her as she tries so desperately to make sense of what’s happened to herself.

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t leave her like this.

It's Here! (Part 1 of 3)

So here it is! Criticism is welcome; post it as a comment after any of the acts (I've broken it into 3 parts, roughly where the acts meet). The piece is untitled, but suggestions are welcome!

January 1

So here we are, the first day of a new year! I’ve made several resolutions this year and I intend to keep them! My dear wife Alice used to say I didn’t know how to follow through with resolutions because I didn’t like the idea of changing myself. She used to look at me from behind her half-moon glasses with a sweet little smile on her face as I’d go on about how I was going to be more active, maybe join her at bingo a few nights a month or just get gussied up for no real reason. She’d laugh and say “Jim you old curmudgeon, the day you follow through with all these promises is the day I start watching for the Second Coming!” We’d laugh together.

I miss her.

Anyway, I finally made a list of resolutions, and this time I intend to stick with them! I’ll do right by Alice and show her I actually can keep promises. First on the list, I’m finally joining the twenty-first century by buying a camera. Alice used to complain that we didn’t have any pictures of ourselves and I hated paying someone else to do the job I knew I could do. I kept telling her I was saving for a camera, putting away a little from each check. Pretty soon, I’d tell her, we’d get the camera and I’d take so many pictures she’d be sick of it! Every time I’d tell her that and every time I could see she didn’t believe a word of it. Well that all changes. First thing tomorrow I’m buying a camera.

January 2

Just got back from the store. Guess who’s the proud new owner of a digital camera? I told the young man at the store I wanted nothing but the top of the line and he brought me over to a rack of Japanese cameras with names I couldn’t even dream of pronouncing. He must have known I wasn’t much of a technological guy when I asked him where the film went. He told me there isn’t film in cameras anymore; everything’s saved on little plastic cards inside the camera and I can just print off pictures whenever I want. So I bought the one he said was the best they had (most expensive one too, I might add) and now I just need to read the instruction manual, as soon as I find my glasses.

Later

After a few mishaps and a lot of frustration I’ve got the camera working! The buttons on the thing are so damn small it’s almost impossible to use and the screen’s one of those touch-screen jobs that my beefy fingers aren’t used to using. You need Japanese fingers to use this thing! Anyway, I managed to get it going and I took a few pictures of my house, just to see how it works. I photographed my den, with my corduroy recliner and newspaper rack, I took a picture of the kitchen, with its yellow walls from years of Alice’s smoking while she cooked. So many times I told her those cigarettes were going to be the end of her, and she just laughed it off. I can’t blame her though. We both grew up in a time when smoking was everywhere; all the big movie stars were doing it and they seemed to be getting along just fine.

She didn’t take it seriously until that day in the oncologist’s office when they told her about the tumor sitting on her right lung, the size of a golf ball and getting bigger. By then her raspy voice had become second-nature to her. I hardly even noticed it anymore. But there was still something incredibly sad about listening to her cry in that cold sterile room, her chest hitching as she tried to gasp for one deep breath but knowing it would never come.

Now I’ve stained the pages. I’ve spent the last hour remembering how she spent her final days, just staring vacantly out the kitchen window with a look of resignation on her face. She tried so hard to take solace in the fact that pretty soon her pain would cease, but you could tell in her eyes the last remnant of spirituality, which had been such a strong characteristic in her in years past, had left. It just coiled away like heat rising from the road on a hot day. It left her as a shell, her eyes dark and dull.

I don’t think I want to write anymore today.

January 5

I haven’t been keeping up on this, but these last few days have been pretty hard. I’ve been crying mostly, lying in bed and trying to recall her face in happier times. Before the cancer ravaged her system and rotted her from the inside out. It’s getting so much harder to remember.

January 6

I went to Walgreens to get the pictures developed today. It seems if you need a camera you need a printer, and if you have a printer you need a computer and so on and so on. This is why I don’t like technology. It used to be my rant I gave to Alice every time she would bring up how we needed a television or a computer. One thing always leads to another, I would say, and pretty soon we’re spending thousands of dollars on things that we don’t even need. I raised hell the day we brought a phone into the house, and to this day I hate using it. It just seems so invasive, coming right into my home and talking to me less than an inch from my ear.

Anyway, I got to Walgreens and they told me they’d have the pictures done in an hour. Rush, rush, rush, everything needs to get done so fast! I told the lady behind the counter (who had more colors in her hair than the rainbow) I’d be back later this week and she could take her time. It felt good to get out of the house for a while. I just can’t seem to get over losing Alice. Everything in that house reminds me of her and I hurt more and more when I try to remember her face, knowing that it’s fading more and more with each passing day. You spend forty years looking into someone’s eyes every day, and within six months you can’t even remember what color they were.

This isn’t at all how I wanted this journal to be.

January 8

I think the man at the camera store took me for a fool. I picked up the pictures from Walgreens today and they turned out pretty well. The images were pretty clear and the quality of the camera is pretty good, as far as I can tell. But every single picture has some weird blur in them. There’s a wisp of yellow light that looks like maybe a smudge on the camera lens or some weird reflection of light off a mirror in the den or countertop in the kitchen. I think it’s a problem with the camera, though. I’m going back to the store tonight.

Later

Well that was pointless. The man at the store told me there was nothing wrong with the camera. I showed him the pictures and he told me it looked like a lighting problem. We got in a huge argument about how the camera was supposed to have some sort of light balancing technology and all sorts of bells and whistles. Pretty soon I was yelling and security had to escort me from the store. After all the money I spent on the camera I think I deserve to have something that actually works properly. I’m going to give the camera another try but if that smudge is still there I’m sending it back.

January 12

It’s not a smudge on the camera. I took another batch of pictures a few days ago and got them developed. The odd cloud of light is still in the pictures, but there’s something different about it now. It seems to be taking some kind of form. I’m getting a bit concerned, but the pictures are so small I can’t make out what it might be. I’ll be heading to the library to see if there’s anything I can do to make these pictures bigger. I don’t want to give Walgreens any more of my money than I have to, and I don’t think the camera store will even let me in the door, so I’m going to see what I can do on my own.

January 13

I found something that I think could help me. I was going through a mountain of books at the library last night when I found a chapter on something called a camera obscura. Basically if I can find a way to convert my digital images into film I should be able to set up a sort of projection system that makes the picture much bigger. I can set up the machine to project the picture onto one of the walls in my home. It should help me figure out what the heck this thing that keeps showing up in my pictures is. I suppose now I need to consult the yellow pages and find someone who can help. It’ll be expensive, I’m sure.

January 15

I found a specialty camera store that converted all my pictures to film. They even gerry-rigged a camera obscura machine for me, for a nominal fee. Photography’s becoming a very expensive hobby. I’ve asked one of the neighborhood kids to help me set up the equipment. I’ve become quite obsessed with figuring out what it is I’m seeing in this patch of dusty yellow light. It seems so familiar. Anyway, as soon as it gets dark I should be able to set up the projection and finally see what it is that’s wormed its way into all of my pictures.

Later

Oh my God. It’s Alice.

Some Shameless Self-Promotion

For those of you interested, a majority of the body of my work can be found on the website www.thepoetsanctuary.net. Just throwing that out there. My username is madamimadam, and you can run a search through the site after registering. It's a fantastic website, and their critiquing section greatly honed my self-editorial skills.

Speaking of which, the story will be coming up soon! A couple more tweaks, and we'll be good to go! I already have my next story brewing, more of an idea than a plot or story. It's futuristic and dystopic, which is a bit of a stretch for me but we'll see.

Stay tuned!

Huzzah!

So my first written work of the year is finally done! Well, the rough draft is done, anyway. I decided to try writing in journal entry form, mostly as a way of seeing just how much of my ability to create a distinct voice remained. It's a bit choppy, some of the language is lowbrow even for the layman I'm trying to create.

Anyway, the story's a short horror piece (commonly called "creepypasta" on the internet, for being a scary story that's often copied and pasted elsewhere by people who found it enjoyable), and it explores some pretty interesting aspects of loneliness and the desire for companionship. I think it could have been a lot worse, considering it's the first short story I've written in more than 2 years.

It'll be up here soon; I want to get one good edit in before submitting it for your reading pleasure. Criticism will be welcome!

With a New Year Comes New Writing...Soon

So the new year kind of caught me off guard with a family emergency and problems at work. Suffice it to say, I haven't been around as often as I'd like. This year I intend to devote at least two hours a week to writing and if I feel I've written something worthy of online publication (so to speak) I'll toss it up here for you. My first piece should be pretty intriguing; it's tentatively called "Perelesnytsia" so stay sharp! Hopefully it'll be up within a week or so; I'm toying with different formats right now so there's some heavy revision.

Naturally as followers you will also get to be in on the critiquing process; writing is rewriting, it is often said, and I'm not deluded enough to think I'll get it right the first time. If, after I post something, you feel it needs another revision, add a comment and I'll treat each criticism as that of the utmost importance.

Anyway, I'm off to my volunteer job for a couple hours of tea and writing. Until we meet again!