»
Main Forums
»
Passions in Prose
»
A True Story: Third Time's the Charm
| Passions in Prose |
|
A True Story: Third Time's the Charm |
|
|
fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
When I was a young child I came into the possession of a certain diary under circumstances which should be quite familiar to most. In my eight-year-old mind, my parents were really quite boring -- so much so that I was often given the opportunity on visits to my grandmother's house to go about snooping as my elders whiled away the time with grownup talk. "Ah children!" Grandmother would say as she noted me sneaking off as my mother took up once again the subject of the daffodils outside, "so adventurous, so curious!" Her words were the benediction after my father's sermon on the front step of Grandmother's house, imploring me not to misbehave myself. I was given my blessing and invited to leave, hastily as I could. One day, entering the large basement I fancied the room to be the engine room of a large starship. The reason I imagined this was simply that Steve's dreams at night were becoming like the core of the Earth. It's hot but solid, pulsating and pushing lava out to erupt at the surface. Something just wasn't right in the whole plan. Nobody took Steve seriously anymore, his teachers were giving him his lowest marks ever, and his Dad was happier now than ever. "This is great!" Dad said, "Do you know what this means?" "Uh," Steve had to say (he didn't know, to tell you the truth) "I don't know." "It means," Dad said, "that you're getting closer to becoming cool! It's the cool kids that get the crappy marks in school that are cool!" "Yeah," Steve said, "But Mr. Guyster said that if you don't have the tools you can't play the game." "Pah," Dad said, "Lipservice! What did that ever get anyone?" Steve looked down at the cold fish on his plate. It was his favourite meal, frozen fish. If anyone else had known (I'm sure you're a tolerant person, whoever you are, so I'll let you in on the secret) that Steve loved frozen and uncooked fish, they would have labelled him a freak. "Dad?" Steve said. It was now or never. If he didn't act now he'd lose his chances of ever getting into Buckerton U. But the costs were so high. Wasn't it A who said that you'll regret whatever decision you make? Dad looked up from his cornflakes. "Dad?" "Yes son?" "There's a spider on your chin." And so there was and so he swatted the thing off his mouth and said, "Thanks, son." "Dad?" "Oh," Dad said, "He's still crawling there on the table, not quite dead yet." As Dad swatted the spider he would see in the corner of his eye his son in denial about this really being your own problem and no one else's. You have projected onto society your own despair at change and just look stupid you look. Again, you should have kept all this bottled up in your journal and applied one of your twenty-five year classification restrictions to it. The problem would have been solved without anyone know it existed. But no, you had to go and create what's basically become a rambling blog entry about your problems for all the world to see. Blogs, as you know, are self-indulgent navel gazing. I think I heard that on the radio once. It's got to be true, it sounds too good and true not to be true. It's irresponsible of you (irresponsible both to yourself and to your readers) to be posting crap like this on the internet. It's not a true story and you know it. You are in denial and like dreaming of being naked, everything is exposed and nobody is being fooled by your new writing style. The minute I took up your true story I could tell what was going on in your mind. I could tell that you were futilely opening yourself up to a world that just doesn't care about you. I could tell that everyone could see inside you, could see that the brains and the soul and the mind and the plumbing and the pipes were all visible. One could see, it seemed, into the very inner workings of this house. Down here below he had power over the entire ship. By flicking one of those switches on the circuit breaker, for example, he could deny light to one man, or he could act ethically after a surge and restore power to all men and women in the house. To my right, inside a small room there rumbled a washing machine -- the dilithium crystal chamber. It was a warm box that vibrated with raw power. Above it was a red cardboard box containing the life-blood crystal powder itself, that drove us all through the stars. I exited the room and walked again down the basement hallway. At the end was a room I had never entered before. The door had always been locked. Today, of course, someone had left it ajar. Elated, I raced to the end of the hall, barely able to contain my curiosity. But soon I was gravely disappointed. The room at the end of the hall was barren and empty. From the ceiling hung a lone lightbulb on a wire. Pheh, I sighed, twentieth century technology. It was a quiet room, and it was warm. It was monotonous. I was about to exit when I caught sight of something black in the corner of my eye. It was a small book, the size of something you might carry with you in your pocket. I picked it up and opened it. Written on the first page was fine black handwriting. But written across it in red marker was, "Jonathan, we need to talk. I can't let you keep writing things like this." I slipped the forbidden item into my pocket and left the room. As I climbed the basement steps I felt a strange sense of calm. "Ready to go dear?" Mother asked. We left and not once did I feel any dread that my theft might be found out. Looking out the back window of the car, I could see in the livingroom window of her house, my grandmother looking very tense. "What is it, son?" He asked. "It's not working. I'm just not cool." Kevin, I honestly worry about you. I really do. |
||
| © Copyright 2006 fractal007 - All Rights Reserved | |||
|
the_girl_next_door Senior Member
since 2006-02-26
Posts 591USA |
Intriguing.. I loved it.. I had to go back and skim over it to make any sense of it.. I'm not sure I understand it but it has the sense of a Schizophrenic type thing.. because you jump from one thing to the other and always pick back up where you left off at the last subject.. I've never seen anything like this before.. It was quite an interesting read if you ask me.. Great Job.. Maybe you could explain a little bit about it to me?.. that is if you want.. I'm just curious about where this came from.. Again.. I loved this.. keep it up.. ~Heather Desire nothing except desirelessness. Hope for nothing except to rise above all hopes. |
||
|
the_girl_next_door Senior Member
since 2006-02-26
Posts 591USA |
PS- not that I thought about it.. for like 20 seconds.. this seems to me to be like 3 different parts in your life.. at the beginning you're talking about youself as a child.. then as an older boy.. and then it's like your talking to yourself when you are the oldest because it says at the end "Kevin, I honestly worry about you, I really do" (I think that's what it said) so if I'm correct.. that's your name (I think) and it's like your talking to yourself.. great job.. I like your point of view.. (if i'm anywhere close)  ~Heather Desire nothing except desirelessness. Hope for nothing except to rise above all hopes. |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
