MrBosnia
01-05-2008, 11:23 PM
Foreword: This is my first step and work of my big re-entry of the area of prose in literature. (I am a poet) It is the first story-like thing I have written in many years, and of course there are bound to be many issues with the story. For one right of the bat, there is a bit too much of direct characterization for it to be a fully developed story. Nonetheless, it is my first prose work in years and a start. I put effort into this, and I hope you enjoy it least a small amount.
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How many days have passed? It was difficult to tell for Victor, whose weeks of months have passed in his small dirty cabin. Each day feels like a paradox of the next, and each week a progression of time that he feels is lazily doing its job. His days are simple: He eyes open, he pouts at the clock on the bedroom wall that does not work because the battery is dead and keeps forgetting to put a new one in, putting on some dry jeans and a sweater, taking long walks down to the docks, picking up either fish or steak to eat for dinner from the shop there and staring at his dried-up palette and brushes. Victor was an artist.
But he was somewhat of a misanthrope.
Who was Victor? At sixty-two years, most of the town knew him, but yet in a way they did not seem to know him. He was somebody that would exist, but in a way not exist. For most, he was the kind that would be seen during the day and forgotten overnight. The only ones that observed him were the elderly, but even they could not understand his case. From where did this resentment for everyone start? Angry painter. Lone man. Insane man. Quiet man. It was easy for most to pick a label.
He was never at ease.
This day, Tuesday, he felt unusually in awe at the sun because his eyes that view an artistic world saw something worth replicating as he picked up some meat from the shop down by the docks: An orange coastal sunset. He was not sure whether the yellowish gleaming crust around the sun that made the dark docks less ugly then they normally were or whether it was the rays scattered around the disc that turned to a strange purple color as the sun submerged into the sea that captured his heart.
The next day, he awoke up and put on his light brown wool sweater, his dark blue jeans, and put the new battery into the clock. Hopeful he felt, for he both found his old colors for his palette and most importantly the stool that his great grandfather once painted on before passing down to his grandfather, and then his father, and then himself. He then waited for hours until the sun began to glide down the cold December sky.
It was time. After three years, Victor decided to make once again the rainbow on his palette, sit on his stool, and capture another beauty of the world. Victor decided to paint.
The stool in his left hand, the brushes in his right hand, and the palette somewhere between both hands. He opened his squeaky wooden door and stepped outside. It was chilly. But he quickly forgot about the cold when Margaret, his elderly neighbor saw him leaving towards the docks.
“If my right eye still serves me well, it looks like you’re going to paint Victor.” She commented.
Quickly squinting his right eye he replied:
“And if both my eyes still serve me well, it looks like you’ve gotten a little too old to sit around your patio all day without a jacket on.”
“The wrinkles on my face are much younger then your mind Victor.”
“I’m going to go down to the docks. You just leave me alone and don’t disturb me while I am out there”. He quickly said as he walked past her.
“Bye victor!” – Margaret melodically said, but he walked away motionless in his usual commanding strut and into the heart of the small town of Mirgrad.
Mirgrad is small and tranquil town. Right next to the cold sea, it is widely recognized by everyone who knows that the sun is strangely larger and closer to its people especially during the sunsets. Cobblestone as the town’s carpet, blooming poppies around the town center and grand mighty oak trees that are scattered around everywhere and that seem to have this strange feeling as if they multiply overnight because of their numerous presences. Houses all seem to be monochromatic with grey roofs and pure white walls, but they mysteriously all easily stand out for everyone because of their strange architecture. Some of them are small; some of them look like they were poorly constructed as they lean off to their lefts, some with roofs that almost look like circles, and some which seem to have hidden chimneys. Most fascinating is that no character in Mirgrad is a hidden character. Somehow someway, when a name is mentioned at any family’s dinner table in the town, they are able to precisely bring up their appearance and personality. There was nothing much more that could be said about Mirgrad.
When Victor is usually walking across the town center he notices the robins up in their nests that huddle with their young. He notices the lilies that lightly bump into each other in the pond next to the big statue in the middle. He notices the town’s ancient oak tree next to the dock gate that the leaves never seem to sway for some reason. Today, he payed no attention to such things whatsoever. His eyes fixated on the dock gate down the street. His fingers clenching his brushes, palette and the old stool.
“Folks! Folks! Get yer’ copy of the paper today! Weekly special! 50 cents only!”
He usually found the newspaper deliverers harassing on a daily basis, and he payed no more attention to them today.
“Hey sir! Come check out what is in today’s paper. Only fifty cents. Would you like one?” said a young deliverer not even making eye contact with him. The phrase sounded robotic as usual, and he almost predicted what he would say to him to the word just before the young man opened his mouth.
“Look, I haven’t wanted a newspaper in months and I’m not going to want one for a while, so stop bugging me about it every day and focus on the people who are going to want one” he almost too confidently said.
“Nice day to you too sir!”
His tyrannical strut continuing as usual.
His short journey came to a close when he opened the gate to the docks. Victor rarely smiles, but today he did. The sunset he saw yesterday was in exactness to the detail of today. A scarce amount of people walking down the docks, the sun that slowly hid behind the lighthouse in the distance before dipping itself into the dark water, and most importantly, the dark corner-like edge at the end of the dock that was well away from the view of most people yet provided the best angle to view the sunset.
It was hard for Victor as it usually is to some degree when always walking down the dock. He knew he could definitely not swim, and occasionally at least several times a month he recalls his childhood incident of when his younger brother threw his watch into the lake in which he jumped in to rescue it but forgot he never learned to swim. Throughout his childhood, he never quite understood why he could not swim. Was it his irrational natural fear of water, or was it some sort of physical inability to stay afloat? Either way, he steered clear from most large bodies of waters for the majority of his life, with the exception of his lovely sunset by the water he so admires here at the edge of town.
He went over to the end of the dock at its right. He placed the palette and its colors that fit snug inside their tubes on the ground. Then, he carefully placed his ancient stool right at the edge of the dock.
But there was a strange sound, a sound that he did not notice. The back leg of the stool made a strange wooden cracking noise, as if the leg was breaking. The sound was clear and strong, but yet Victor did not notice at all, too busy in deep thought on how to precisely replicate his sunset. He violently crashed all his weight onto the stool, and the sound again happened. The clear distinct sound like when a twig breaks in the forest when heavy boots are slammed onto it. The sound when you can hear every tiny piece of wood softly snap. Yet, he once again did not notice the sound at all.
He picked up his palette and colors from the ground and began squeezing the red. He greatly enjoyed the sound that he has not heard for so long, the sound that can be heard when his thick colors oozed onto his palette and made a distinct slimy sound. He thought to himself why he procrastinated so long of experiencing his simple pleasure in painting. He shook his head in a circular motion so that the strand of hair over his left eye was cleared away that hung over from his thick long hair. He looked up and once again admired his sunset. Every ray in place and every glow with the same intensity as he saw yesterday.
“Beautiful!”
He loudly said as he finished squeezing out his last color. Everything was to perfection for Victor.
As he was ready to start, he waited for a few seconds to enjoy his happiness before he picks up his old paint brush. He bent his back to the left and just before his fingers made contact with the brush he so deeply desired with his fingers, it happened.
Very sharply, the back leg of the stool in which he had completely all his weight on, snapped and cleanly broke. The front of the stool leg slammed against the hard wood of the dock. The stool started falling to the left, and before Victor fell into the frigid December sea, he slammed the back of his head against the edge of the dock, and received a strong concussion. He was completely paralyzed.
The paralysis rushed through his body completely. He could not even move his eyes. Yet he heard everything. He saw everything. He felt everything.
The first thing he felt was the rush of the icy cold water. It first engulfed his head, sunk down to his chest and wrapped around his legs. It devoured his body. His fragile heart could not take the shock, and began beating more loudly, more sharply, and more quickly. It began to beat very irregularly. First very quickly, then very slowly, and then quickly again, as if one was in love.
Amazingly, the sharp cold seemed to have cleared his senses and helped him recover from the paralysis. He regained control of most of his body. His arms and legs began to flail, but the movements were useless. He was familiar with this feeling, the feeling as if one sinks into a dark abyss and cannot seem to fight it. Very hastily, flashes of his childhood lake memory began to speed through his mind, but this was over all too quick. There was no hope for Victor, as not a living soul was around.
He held onto his breath for a while, but the pressure and the extreme urge for air become too consuming. His lungs straining for the smallest amount of air, they felt as if they were to burst. Yet Victor kept his mouth clenched together tight. When he thought he felt his lungs literally popping, he decided he could not hold on any longer. Involuntarily, he opened his mouth wide and inhaled.
The stinging icy water rushed into his lungs, yet it was scorching. It filled his lungs like hot molten lead filling a mould. His entire body began to burn as if somehow set on fire underwater. His pain was only temporary, as his entire body and mind began to relax. The scalding sensation began to wear off. He began to doze off. His eyes gently shutting themselves, his arms outstretched, his resistance ended. Victor began to fall asleep.
Just before he fell asleep onto his watery bed of death, as he closed his eyes, he saw his slim color-stained brush swim across from his left eye to his right eye and away.
__________________________________________________ _______________
How many days have passed? It was difficult to tell for Victor, whose weeks of months have passed in his small dirty cabin. Each day feels like a paradox of the next, and each week a progression of time that he feels is lazily doing its job. His days are simple: He eyes open, he pouts at the clock on the bedroom wall that does not work because the battery is dead and keeps forgetting to put a new one in, putting on some dry jeans and a sweater, taking long walks down to the docks, picking up either fish or steak to eat for dinner from the shop there and staring at his dried-up palette and brushes. Victor was an artist.
But he was somewhat of a misanthrope.
Who was Victor? At sixty-two years, most of the town knew him, but yet in a way they did not seem to know him. He was somebody that would exist, but in a way not exist. For most, he was the kind that would be seen during the day and forgotten overnight. The only ones that observed him were the elderly, but even they could not understand his case. From where did this resentment for everyone start? Angry painter. Lone man. Insane man. Quiet man. It was easy for most to pick a label.
He was never at ease.
This day, Tuesday, he felt unusually in awe at the sun because his eyes that view an artistic world saw something worth replicating as he picked up some meat from the shop down by the docks: An orange coastal sunset. He was not sure whether the yellowish gleaming crust around the sun that made the dark docks less ugly then they normally were or whether it was the rays scattered around the disc that turned to a strange purple color as the sun submerged into the sea that captured his heart.
The next day, he awoke up and put on his light brown wool sweater, his dark blue jeans, and put the new battery into the clock. Hopeful he felt, for he both found his old colors for his palette and most importantly the stool that his great grandfather once painted on before passing down to his grandfather, and then his father, and then himself. He then waited for hours until the sun began to glide down the cold December sky.
It was time. After three years, Victor decided to make once again the rainbow on his palette, sit on his stool, and capture another beauty of the world. Victor decided to paint.
The stool in his left hand, the brushes in his right hand, and the palette somewhere between both hands. He opened his squeaky wooden door and stepped outside. It was chilly. But he quickly forgot about the cold when Margaret, his elderly neighbor saw him leaving towards the docks.
“If my right eye still serves me well, it looks like you’re going to paint Victor.” She commented.
Quickly squinting his right eye he replied:
“And if both my eyes still serve me well, it looks like you’ve gotten a little too old to sit around your patio all day without a jacket on.”
“The wrinkles on my face are much younger then your mind Victor.”
“I’m going to go down to the docks. You just leave me alone and don’t disturb me while I am out there”. He quickly said as he walked past her.
“Bye victor!” – Margaret melodically said, but he walked away motionless in his usual commanding strut and into the heart of the small town of Mirgrad.
Mirgrad is small and tranquil town. Right next to the cold sea, it is widely recognized by everyone who knows that the sun is strangely larger and closer to its people especially during the sunsets. Cobblestone as the town’s carpet, blooming poppies around the town center and grand mighty oak trees that are scattered around everywhere and that seem to have this strange feeling as if they multiply overnight because of their numerous presences. Houses all seem to be monochromatic with grey roofs and pure white walls, but they mysteriously all easily stand out for everyone because of their strange architecture. Some of them are small; some of them look like they were poorly constructed as they lean off to their lefts, some with roofs that almost look like circles, and some which seem to have hidden chimneys. Most fascinating is that no character in Mirgrad is a hidden character. Somehow someway, when a name is mentioned at any family’s dinner table in the town, they are able to precisely bring up their appearance and personality. There was nothing much more that could be said about Mirgrad.
When Victor is usually walking across the town center he notices the robins up in their nests that huddle with their young. He notices the lilies that lightly bump into each other in the pond next to the big statue in the middle. He notices the town’s ancient oak tree next to the dock gate that the leaves never seem to sway for some reason. Today, he payed no attention to such things whatsoever. His eyes fixated on the dock gate down the street. His fingers clenching his brushes, palette and the old stool.
“Folks! Folks! Get yer’ copy of the paper today! Weekly special! 50 cents only!”
He usually found the newspaper deliverers harassing on a daily basis, and he payed no more attention to them today.
“Hey sir! Come check out what is in today’s paper. Only fifty cents. Would you like one?” said a young deliverer not even making eye contact with him. The phrase sounded robotic as usual, and he almost predicted what he would say to him to the word just before the young man opened his mouth.
“Look, I haven’t wanted a newspaper in months and I’m not going to want one for a while, so stop bugging me about it every day and focus on the people who are going to want one” he almost too confidently said.
“Nice day to you too sir!”
His tyrannical strut continuing as usual.
His short journey came to a close when he opened the gate to the docks. Victor rarely smiles, but today he did. The sunset he saw yesterday was in exactness to the detail of today. A scarce amount of people walking down the docks, the sun that slowly hid behind the lighthouse in the distance before dipping itself into the dark water, and most importantly, the dark corner-like edge at the end of the dock that was well away from the view of most people yet provided the best angle to view the sunset.
It was hard for Victor as it usually is to some degree when always walking down the dock. He knew he could definitely not swim, and occasionally at least several times a month he recalls his childhood incident of when his younger brother threw his watch into the lake in which he jumped in to rescue it but forgot he never learned to swim. Throughout his childhood, he never quite understood why he could not swim. Was it his irrational natural fear of water, or was it some sort of physical inability to stay afloat? Either way, he steered clear from most large bodies of waters for the majority of his life, with the exception of his lovely sunset by the water he so admires here at the edge of town.
He went over to the end of the dock at its right. He placed the palette and its colors that fit snug inside their tubes on the ground. Then, he carefully placed his ancient stool right at the edge of the dock.
But there was a strange sound, a sound that he did not notice. The back leg of the stool made a strange wooden cracking noise, as if the leg was breaking. The sound was clear and strong, but yet Victor did not notice at all, too busy in deep thought on how to precisely replicate his sunset. He violently crashed all his weight onto the stool, and the sound again happened. The clear distinct sound like when a twig breaks in the forest when heavy boots are slammed onto it. The sound when you can hear every tiny piece of wood softly snap. Yet, he once again did not notice the sound at all.
He picked up his palette and colors from the ground and began squeezing the red. He greatly enjoyed the sound that he has not heard for so long, the sound that can be heard when his thick colors oozed onto his palette and made a distinct slimy sound. He thought to himself why he procrastinated so long of experiencing his simple pleasure in painting. He shook his head in a circular motion so that the strand of hair over his left eye was cleared away that hung over from his thick long hair. He looked up and once again admired his sunset. Every ray in place and every glow with the same intensity as he saw yesterday.
“Beautiful!”
He loudly said as he finished squeezing out his last color. Everything was to perfection for Victor.
As he was ready to start, he waited for a few seconds to enjoy his happiness before he picks up his old paint brush. He bent his back to the left and just before his fingers made contact with the brush he so deeply desired with his fingers, it happened.
Very sharply, the back leg of the stool in which he had completely all his weight on, snapped and cleanly broke. The front of the stool leg slammed against the hard wood of the dock. The stool started falling to the left, and before Victor fell into the frigid December sea, he slammed the back of his head against the edge of the dock, and received a strong concussion. He was completely paralyzed.
The paralysis rushed through his body completely. He could not even move his eyes. Yet he heard everything. He saw everything. He felt everything.
The first thing he felt was the rush of the icy cold water. It first engulfed his head, sunk down to his chest and wrapped around his legs. It devoured his body. His fragile heart could not take the shock, and began beating more loudly, more sharply, and more quickly. It began to beat very irregularly. First very quickly, then very slowly, and then quickly again, as if one was in love.
Amazingly, the sharp cold seemed to have cleared his senses and helped him recover from the paralysis. He regained control of most of his body. His arms and legs began to flail, but the movements were useless. He was familiar with this feeling, the feeling as if one sinks into a dark abyss and cannot seem to fight it. Very hastily, flashes of his childhood lake memory began to speed through his mind, but this was over all too quick. There was no hope for Victor, as not a living soul was around.
He held onto his breath for a while, but the pressure and the extreme urge for air become too consuming. His lungs straining for the smallest amount of air, they felt as if they were to burst. Yet Victor kept his mouth clenched together tight. When he thought he felt his lungs literally popping, he decided he could not hold on any longer. Involuntarily, he opened his mouth wide and inhaled.
The stinging icy water rushed into his lungs, yet it was scorching. It filled his lungs like hot molten lead filling a mould. His entire body began to burn as if somehow set on fire underwater. His pain was only temporary, as his entire body and mind began to relax. The scalding sensation began to wear off. He began to doze off. His eyes gently shutting themselves, his arms outstretched, his resistance ended. Victor began to fall asleep.
Just before he fell asleep onto his watery bed of death, as he closed his eyes, he saw his slim color-stained brush swim across from his left eye to his right eye and away.