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Local Parasite

Member Elite

since 2001-11-05

Posts 2527
Transylconia, Winnipeg

0 posted 2004-02-06 03:53 PM

My ears were cold when I stepped outside of my door, turned around, and locked it, and checked to make sure that it was locked, and turned back around, and took a few steps down the front step, and opened and closed the gate, and finally I was outside.

I live in a spectacular kind of city, you see. The city is named Hawaii, but that name is a kind of joke, I've always thought. You'd step off of an airplane and laugh at how absurd it is before taking a few steps and then crying for mother. What I saw today could terrify the real Hawaii---the clouds, shaking snow out of their fur, hid the sky so nicely that it was necessary for streetlights to be on, even at seven in the morning. (As lights tend to be) they were yellow, and our grey city was cast in a rusty antique lining. The snow seemed in fact to be brighter than the sky: for a day everything had been put on its head, and I felt inspired, creative, as if my father had given me an empty piece of paper and a crayon.

Just a few steps away from my house, I leaned on a steel pole stuck in the ground next to the road and looked over my shoulder, towards the city summit. I saw the ass end of my bus as it came to a stop light just a block down from where I was. Buses look awkward when they do their rounds in suburbia---kind of like a middle-aged man in an elementary school playground, picking up children and taking them to his house where he can teach them the wonders of the universe.

Having been left behind I felt sad. Had I skipped brushing my teeth this morning I probably would have caught my bus, but I recall that struggle I had had, when the clock told me it was time to leave but my mouth, stinking, begged to be washed out. I felt like turning around and going home and brushing them a second time just to be funny or clever or something, and that made me laugh, so I shut up and stood at the stop. Maybe if I hadn't seen my bus I would stand here dumbfounded waiting for the bus to come and looking over the heads and behind the ears of cars and trucks to see if that next set of lights happened to be the one I was looking for. Maybe I could pretend that I didn't see my bus. Could I do that? Could I make myself curious again? I wondered if I had locked the door when I left.

A fat old woman came up behind me rambling something out loud. She was wearing a purple jacket with a skirt of snow adorning.

"What?" I asked.

"Oh he just told me I was gonna go hurry for to catch my bus that's all," said the foreign woman, as she looked down into a plastic bag that she was holding religiously with her mittened fist. She didn't make sense, so I ignored her, but she kept talking to me, so I opened up the book that I was holding and read a few sentences without any interest. I hate reading, I thought, as the words on the page and the words of the foreign woman fought over my brain. She was waiting for the bus that had already gone by, but I hated her, and my chance to punish her was to wait here with her discourteously. After all, she looked much colder than me.

My book was boring so I flipped the page and stared at a sentence a few times, trying to understand what it said, when another shorter and marginally younger and much louder woman came up behind the one before, talking to her in an irritating tone.

"Ya know a big white bus gone by eh? It gone by when I was walkin' here. I kid ya not! Came right by," she said and pretended her hand was a bus, and moved it in the direction the bus had gone, when she noticed me and said to the old woman "How 'bout that lady there?"

"Hay!" the loud woman yelled at me, "Ya been here long?"

"Yes," I said, looking at her like a pale criminal. "A while."

Then, together like orphan children, we glanced once at the sleepy volcano and walked back to our houses, and shut and locked the doors.

Poet deVine

Administrator

Member Seraphic

since 1999-05-26

Posts 22612
Hurricane Alley

1 posted 2004-02-06 04:17 PM

You weave wonderous characters! I knew them instantly from your descriptions. Please don't waste your talent. Are you submitting somewhere? Find a REAL story writing contest and submit something.

The only problem I had was the volcano reference? What was that?

Endlessecho
Member

since 2003-09-05

Posts 398
I live within myself

2 posted 2004-02-06 04:48 PM

Wow. You really know how to create a scene. I live where we definitely get winter and so I could really understand your descriptions of the snow and cold. You know how to really draw someone into your narrater and create a voice. I enjoyed and look forward to reading more of your stories.

Endlessecho
Member

since 2003-09-05

Posts 398
I live within myself

3 posted 2004-02-06 04:49 PM

Could I say really anymore times?? I really (SEE!) need to read over my replies before I hit send.

Duncan
Member Ascendant

since 2001-08-07

Posts 5455

4 posted 2004-02-06 07:19 PM

Enjoyed the story and characters but like Sharon, didn't get the volcano reference.

Martie

Moderator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-09-21

Posts 28049
California

5 posted 2004-02-06 07:38 PM

Hi LP

There are Volcano's in Hawaii...and it is very cold on the top of them...but snow? That puzzled me. I did enjoy your characters...each with own voice. Interesting too, just how much power a bus can have over someone's life. Well done!!

PS...I thought maybe you would write in prose like you write poetry...but you fooled me. I'd like to see more.

Local Parasite

Member Elite

since 2001-11-05

Posts 2527
Transylconia, Winnipeg

6 posted 2004-02-07 12:30 PM

The problem with writing symbolism into one's work is that it's hard to tell, sometimes, whether or not there's enough information in a piece to disclose a symbol's meaning in particular. I guess I didn't give the volcano reference enough to go by, so it should either be elucidated or removed.

When I wrote this I pictured the suburbs as a sort of flatland in view of a larger menacing figure in the distance, a volcano, the downtown city. I guess not everyone lives in Winnipeg though. Heh.

Thanks for the encouraging words.

cherish
Senior Member

since 2001-03-25

Posts 1639
swimming in fairy floss...........

7 posted 2004-03-31 07:53 PM

heya brian,
was wondering the hallowed pages of pip and looking for older pippers and all i found was this of yours.i dont know how long ago you wrote this {and i cant be bothered to click back to check} but judging from everything i've read of yours, this piece was rather sloppy. it was as though you could only be half-arsed to keep your flow going.

i didnt like the use of so many "and"s in the first sentence. i thought that if you were going to use that as a device, you should use it coherently throughout the piece. it's as though you thought it would be clever there and forgot about using it elsewhere to link the piece together.

the second paragraph was good though. but i think that that was the only thing in the entire prose that i actually liked.

i think, if you are going to use symbolisim in your prose, the length of the piece needs to be increased for it to have any substance.

sorry babe, but i know you have it in you to write a whole lot better.

cherry

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