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loki456
11-17-2009, 01:18 AM
alright so this is for all you Lovecraftian's out there... It's not finished yet, but thought I would send in what I've done for criticism. You are more than welcome to be harsh, I'll take the good out of ill-mannered retorations. But civility will be much more appreciated. enjoy.


Mandolay Grimmolt ran as fast as he could, the night densely surrounded his form, shadowing both stench and fear. Mandolay was the name given to him in his dreams, the alter ego of the suffering insane. Silent trickery was shrouded in mystery as Grimmolt’s footsteps seemed to be drowned out by the thudding of his assailant. The night’s womb bore the scars of the light emanating from the planets three moons, while the dense fog swept the marshlands underneath Mandolay’s feet, only to hide the petrified putridness that he was so swiftly launching into.

Waking with nothing less than an adrenalin fuelled startle, his sheets had once again known the rank perspiration of a man haunted. Reality had seen it fit to change Mandolay Grimmolts name to the more mundane, Nicholas Dorjan. His non-charismatic poses so fittingly suited his thick, black rimmed glasses that had the tendency to slide down his bent nose, to its very tip. He turned from his startled position and hung his legs over the edge of the bed, back bent and gazing at the floor he slid his hand over the nape of his neck, only to feel the salty lubrication of sweat over his palms. His head hung as thoughts rummaged around an ungraspable idea, fleeting visions of déjà vu sunk like lead weights to his stomach, culminating in a swirl of an all too familiar feeling. Nicholas couldn’t shake this feeling, the feeling that his dreams were much more than just subconscious dribble, and even when awake the feeling constantly reminded him of his lurking dreams presence. The dark lured him like the melodic sirens call, and he felt nothing but the spectre of evil.

Nicholas being versed in the arcane arts had no aversion to things evil and macabre. His family for three generations before him had carried the mantle of antique book store owners. This enchanting title had given Nicholas and those before him the charge of witnessing the ancient and the most prolific of all occult texts. This had taken two college degrees in Arabic and ancient Hebrew to confer the meaning of such antediluvian manuscripts and with such knowledge he endeavoured to decipher the erudition of the primordial gods. It was a Monday afternoon on a dreary overcast day in London, 1978. The bookstore so aptly named ‘Before time itself’ was home to a fascinating array of old novels, magazines, instructional manuals and countless journals. However, the rear of the shop held much more than just the fanciful whims of the odd passerby, or the indulgent ramblings of the upper-class who perceived they knew much about antiquity, yet wallowed in pretentious mediocrity. Within this shops run down walls, flaking paint falling from the roof, fans rotating at a speed akin to the pace of a slug, laid the ancient of ancients, words spewed forth from before time itself on ageless parchment and written in ill-defined ink.

loki456
11-18-2009, 01:48 AM
so I've been home from work now for about an hr, had an interesting patient clearly high on amphetamines come in, and he was going on about a band I haven't heard of in ages. So on my arrival home I flicked through my stash of CD's and found one of their albums. I put it on and to my amazement I fell in love with the songs once again. the band is blind guardian and the song that has lifted this fleshly exterior to portray this beastly mind was 'otherland'. so this is the second part that I have written in the past hour. grammatically I'm not too sure how it is, but alas, you are all very bright people and will no doubt ring true the folly of my ways. enjoy.


The door to the shop swang open, ringing an old brass bell that had been attached to the doors overhanging sill. The tarnished brass metal let out its high pitched chaotic melody and through the doorway Nicholas preceded. His entry was met with a jovial ‘how are you today Nick?’A welcoming greet of Dorjan’s old school friend, Will McAvoy. ‘I had one of those dreams again and they’re getting stronger, not really sure what to do about them’, Nicholas replied as he fingered his way through the days mail. Will McAvoy was a thirty-something year old, with a ruddy complexion, silent demeanour and a thin, skinny build to boot. His attire usually consisted of oversized jeans, a white t-shirt covered by an open, tartan pattern flannelette shirt. The sleeves were constantly rolled up and he was always incessantly flicking his long, un-kept red hair past his ears. ‘I don’t know either; would you like to talk about it?’ ‘Nah, I’ll just go to the back and continue with the translations’, answered Nicholas in nonchalant retort. Passing through the curtain of beaded strings, seemed like passing through a portal to a whole new decade when dungeons were filled with peasants, dragons menaced the skies and muscle clad men, wearing not much more than tin foil were praised along the filth infested dirt streets. It was truly a picture dedicated to medieval superstition. As the dust danced rhythmically to an inaudible melody in the single ray of light that pierced the sepia toned room, Nicholas slumped back in his old wooden chair. With a sigh that denoted a haunting preoccupation with much more than just work, his hand covered his forehead and his head draped in exhaustion, the words slowly pursed their way through his lips ‘liber magnus oblivio’, as if spoken by a ghostly apparition, Nicholas was astounded. He had never heard this before and had never heard of the ‘book of great oblivion’, a mystery that he only assumed came from mental exhaustion, and a temporary insanity evident by the hazards of such a malevolent hobby. With that, Nicholas packed his belongings, re-organised the three lines of translations he had taken two hours to accumulate, and with a displeased sigh at the efforts of his labours, traversed through the portal of plastic beads to face his old friend again. ‘You going home already?’ Will asked while in deep thought looking at his freshly microwaved burrito. The question only added to Nicholas’s frustration and with an even greater tumultuous sigh, eyes slumped towards the dust laden wooden floor boards, Nick petulantly riposted ‘I’ve had enough, I’m tired and now I’m talking dribble to myself, I need to go back to bed’. As he was leaving Nick gave a small hand gesture that denoted a capricious attempt at a wave good bye, and as the old bell rang its piercing tune, the wooden door closed behind him with the sound of the latch clicking.

Nick’s studio apartment contrasted the very efforts of the back room of his bookstore. Custom designed sofa’s, paintings that pictured off centred black and white tiles, polished floor boards with a feature stair well that wound its way to a open level bedroom. The kitchen embellished every stainless steel appliance on the market, housed a variety of herbs and spices only known to the spice traders of old and the smell of fresh food permeated throughout the apartment. The disparity between home and office was as fundamentally perplexing as the difference between reality and his dream world. Nonetheless, home was home and his bed was all Nick could think about.

As he lay amongst the fortress of feather drenched pillows, wrapped in the safety of his blanket, guarding both physicality and dreams alike, Nick drifted off to sleep. Between flesh and vision, he soared amongst the abstract explosion of swirling colours and unspeakable shapes. Lines with no ending hinted at an optical illusion, black and white were inundated with the eruption of colours so bright and beautiful that would make Edmund Munch cringe at his own inferiority. Simplicity lost its meaning as Nicks mind become a blank canvas, all he had known was at a loss and the feeling he feared so much, returned like a stampede of wild black stallions. Looking down the tunnel of blinding artistic deluge he noticed that it terminated in a portal not much wider than the width of a man, through this portal nick saw the steaming fog swept marshlands he had come to dread. The closer he got to this unearthly habitat, chills swelled up and down his spine through to his extremities and he felt the evil envelop him wholly.

Landing in the wet marshland excrement, fog dissipating at the force of such a collision with the earthly filth he had awoken inside his dream, once again he donned Mandolay Grimmolts facade and faced the challenges unleashed within his psyche. Or so he thought. Not noticing before, Mandolay’s appearance had some stark differences to his veracious self. His hair was longer and windswept, glasses were amiss and he had lost about twenty pounds exposing once hidden abdominal muscles and popping veins. His attire consisted of medieval drab, cloth tightly wrapped around his feet and securely fastened with a thin strip of leather, and he also wore a necklace made of an un-usual metal with a very ominous symbol. This symbol had deep rooted reminiscent feelings for Mandolay, similar to the feelings Nick had burdened himself with in the outside world and like his worldly doppelganger, Mandolay was unable to account for the reason for such a sentiment. His hands sunk, squelching mud pierced the gaps between his fingers as he lifted himself off the ground. Trying again and again, Grimmolt slipped amongst the foulness until he stood upright and caught a sense of balance, his pupils widened, gazing past the night itself at the stabbing rays of light and became accustomed to the darkness. The three moons had once again flooded the night sky with their portentous demeanour. The silhouettes of distant trees portrayed the agony of twisted branches, blood soaked intent surged through their bare limbs and the star swept night, slipped into a very real homicidal atmosphere.

Maryd.
11-18-2009, 07:15 AM
Well Loki, what a great story. My only cristiscism would be the unusually long sentences, eg: below


The night’s womb bore the scars of the light emanating from the planets three moons, while the dense fog swept the marshlands underneath Mandolay’s feet, only to hide the petrified putridness that he was so swiftly launching into.

And possibly unusual words, like 'putridness.' I'm not really sure about them. You may have to do a bit of homework on them.

Also on the second part of the story, I have noticed you put everything on one line, like when dialogue is in place. These are all editing errs and can easily be fixed by sending your story to an editor. Or you could ask a very good friend with high literary skills to look at it. But the story line is great. I love it.

loki456
11-18-2009, 07:24 AM
yeah I totally agree. I have a tendency to make my sentences quite long, something I definitely need to work on. and yes putridness is not a real word (my bad - it just fit the feeling so well, shouldn't have done that sorry). but apart from the editing you are definitely right yet again. I actually have a novel that i've written undergoing editing now for publication, and he rings me furious sometimes, but oh well, he'll get over it.

thanks for the comment and critique, I'm really glad you liked it.

Maryd.
11-18-2009, 07:26 AM
yeah I totally agree. I have a tendency to make my sentences quite long, something I definitely need to work on. and yes putridness is not a real word (my bad - it just fit the feeling so well, shouldn't have done that sorry). but apart from the editing you are definitely right yet again. I actually have a novel that i've written undergoing editing now for publication, and he rings me furious sometimes, but oh well, he'll get over it.

thanks for the comment and critique, I'm really glad you liked it.

No probs, good luck with the other novel. Don't worry about your editor, it is his job to find errs. Let him get as angry as he likes. :crash: