porridge
12-03-2009, 03:33 PM
Hullo!
I used to write voluminous amounts of short stories when I was at school, and I absentmindedly wrote this little story on the train a couple of weeks ago, then promptly forgot about it. What are its faults in terms of pace and subject matter?
Also, my apologies for the lack of indentation at the beginning of the paragraphs, I couldn't figure out how to format it with the [INDENT] tags.
Limp tendrils of light crawl along a street paralleled by neat privet and monoblock. In the damp fields surrounding the village, mist hangs, ghost-like above the grass.
The street is inhabited by former council-houses, built just after the Second World War. Solid and neat, they huddle in groups of four, while lights flicker on along the street.
The people of this street are nothing out of the ordinary: a selection of shop workers, physiotherapists, photographers, and the like. This street exists in a thousand places, with countless variations on the same theme. To live here is to know rhythm, normality, and predictability. Contentment rises from the grass of the modest gardens, and begins to drift into the thoughts of those currently awakening in the gable-ends and mid-terraces.
In one house lives a young man, a student. He lodges with his parents, quite an economically sensible position! His alarm is almost about to ring, but he is already awake, snatching it from his desk, with the promise of its bell left hanging in the air. Briefly staring at the ceiling, he hauls himself from bed, greeting the pallid sunlight with the disdain it deserves.
Gliding from his bed, he slides into the shower with practiced ease, and back out with the same familiar motions. His personal effects were organised the night before.
With yet more smooth, quiet movements, he quietly descends to the kitchen, careful not to waken the others in the house. A heavy breakfast of porridge awaits. To this point, the student's silence has been almost continual: his lips are sealed, as no one else is present. After the warm, filling porridge has been consumed, the student proceeds out the door, into the frosty November air. His feet trace the path he has taken many times before, to a bus stop two streets distant. His foot prints leave light shadows in the frost, while his breath is lost to the mist, drifting off to become indistinguishable from the whole.
At the stop, an eternity passes rapidly. The young man stands, careful not to make eye contact with his bleary-eyed comrades in their meagre foxhole. A cough here, a sniffle perhaps, and time slows to a stagger. The number 47 rolls up, its cacophonous clanking muffled by the aether. Thankful for the distraction, the troops board their transport, forming an orderly queue, before sitting a minimum of two seats from each other. They indulge in the lighthearted free newspaper, or their own literature, or perhaps even some academic or business-related work. With a hiss, the bus departs, and the inhabitants begin to warm up.
The sensibly-dressed student is bundled up on his seat, a bubble of silence surrounding him. Leafing through his paper, he gradually removes his outer layers, despite the need to soon put them back on. The artificial hardness of the bus' interior lighting illuminates the travellers, picking out the crags and peaks of their grey, semi-somnolent faces.
This bus is warm; it is quiet; there is a silent covenant of mutual disinterest between the passengers. The journey allows them to occupy their own sovereign ground, without the need to face taxing conversations, or fake interest in the affairs of vague acquaintances. The student, briefly, feels at peace, as he trundle through the sodium-orange streets, and almost feels himself drifting back into a gentle stupor. But his stop comes all too soon, and the 'STOP' button must be pressed; and – oh god – the air is cold, and then he mumbles “thanks driver”, and is back on the street.
The light is slightly more pervasive, but the sky is still an inky blue, and the little crowd crosses the road, their vow of silence still enacted. They march briskly to the train station. En route, some casualties are caught out by frost, or by ice, but the brigade plunges forward, onwards into the steamy warmth of the train station. All eyes swivel to them for an instant, then return to their previous objects of interest.
All of society is represented here: private schoolgirls talk in a lively fashion, weighed down by hockey equipment; thirty-something women, their looks recently lost (and not handed in at the desk), carrying on the ritual of high heels and shortish skirts; men of all ages stand, occasionally bursting into awkward conversation with neighbours and familiar faces. The young man stands indifferent to this, camouflaged by a gaze he has trained to focus on infinity. This dull-eyed stare sharpens occasionally to check the timetable on the monitor.
Seven minutes until his train arrives, and he watches the first wave of amateurs panic, and exit onto the platform, He knows better. Five minutes. Reading from the back of his paper, he begins a more thorough review of the sport and business pages, raising eyes to glance at incomers. As usual, human catastrophe and amusing, half-true tales littler the newsprint; any semblance of order is indistinct to the commuter's eye. Three minutes, another wave goes over the top – playing it safe, they exit – and another shortly after. They aren't yet hardened to the ways of the train, still assuming it might be early: they can't be blamed for their naïveté, he supposes, but they have to learn. One minute. Bags are lifted, papers folded, tickets sought, as the masses assemble to push (in an orderly fashion, of course) through the platform doors.
The train glides into the station, and the bold student strides across the salt-speckled tarmac, and steps into the carriage. Squeezing between the others, he cannot find a seat, and so is relegated to standing in the aisle, hanging from a handrail. The train shudders to life, complaining about the cold, and moves out of the small town with a climbing hum.
On the train, the student's glasses steam up, temporarily blinding him in the hot crush of the aisle. An ungainly dash for the remaining seats ensues at the other end of the carriage, as commuters wedge themselves into seats slightly too small for the average person in a winter coat. So they sit, arms pressed in front of them, unable to avoid contact with each other: every carriage is like this, a shipping container full of people irritated each other's proximity. Occasionally, there are two or three people breaking the silence, talking animatedly. The subtle scowls of those around them are a grey, unnoticed counterpoint to their upbeat gossip. The student has managed to locate a seat by this point, and he sits with his book-laden rucksack on his knees.
The train thuds along; bud-dum, bud-dum; he concentrates on the serious novel he has brought. He is inside the book, insulated against all those out there, on the train and beyond. Bud-dum, bud-dum. The train's repetitive sound and motion encourage a meditative state in the student and his fellow passengers.
Briskly moving along the track, this route has long ceased to be merely familiar: the student knows this invariant path as he knows the veins on his hands, or the length of his stride. The blurred rush of the scenery alternates rapidly. Embankments towering over rotting housing estates suddenly change to streaks of green, and a tangle of brambles and nettles obscures the view. Soon the train is at a large station, which serves a sprawling town, whose once-great industry crumbled decades ago. The carriages become even more packed. People stand frozen, packed around the doors, and between the seats; unsure of where to look, or even where to put their hands, so they sway with the engine, as it departs once more.
Now the longest part of the journey begins. Between here and the city centre, there is twenty minutes worth of track, twenty minutes worth of silence. People begin to nod off, safe in the knowledge their destination is the terminal stop for this service. It begins with a definite feeling of heaviness in the eyelids . The fact that this trite imagery is close to the actual feeling would be surprising anywhere else, but such literary conclusions don't concern out student, as his eyes crash shut. He blinks them open, angry at his momentary show of weakness, and forces them to remain open. The light becomes glaring, itchy, and it shifts along the spectrum, becoming an irritating blue.
Suburbs – but not in the North American sense – surround the train's curving path. Laid out in no particular order, their roads spiral and twist, rarely properly straightening. The antithesis of rational design, these relatively new houses are still fairly logically arranged compared to the older architecture of this region.
The sunlight is now beginning to slowly coat the entire scene visible from the steamy train windows. The student was thankful for this pittance of real light, as he knew there would soon be none. The Earth would advance round its orbit, and the morning light would be forgotten. It was a familiar cycle, to which he had been subject for his entire life. Rising in the morning, it would be dark; the Sun might briefly emerge while he was in a subterranean lecture-theatre, but it would have disappeared when the time came to return home. The student muses upon this strange, yet totally natural, cycle of events. He acknowledged that he enjoyed the darkness of high-latitude winters, when the days became cocooned in darkness; an extension of sleep, which allow the sharp edge to be taken off the winter air.
The train is now entering the South Side of the city, and it shakes slightly while merging onto another track. This jerks the student abruptly out of his contemplative stupor, and a ghost of a smile crosses his face: some of his fellow passengers are already beginning to pack up. The man next to him stands up, hurrying towards the exit, and he is afforded space to stretch his arms. The train judders to a halt just outside the station, and many of those standing up look confused, then embarrassed, as the train restarts and pulls up to the platform. A few moments pass, and the scrum engages, driving forwards and out of the train's doors. The herd is thrust into the cold air of the station, and rapidly disperses along the platform. A merciless quick march is the order of the day, as the battalions stream into the streets.
The commuters move rapidly out of the station doors, and their various priorities cause them to rapidly scatter. One stream heads towards a packed bakers, enticed by the warm blast of air laden with the scent of pastry. Another cohort halts immediately, their nicotine-starved metabolisms demand cigarettes; the relief is evident in their faces. The majority of the commuters head towards their place of work, or some further part of the city's transport network. The student, wrapped up against the cold, walks rapidly along the street. This is the least salubrious part of the central shopping district, testified to by the tacky shops, boarded-up Woolies, and fast-food debris. The student ignores most of this, having seen it daily for three years, but his eyes are drawn upwards: ornately carved sandstone crowns the street, testament to the Georgian wealth of the city. He is surprised by the downcast eyes of the others on the street; can't they see it? Carrying on, eyes aloft, he wanders across the pavement, nearly bumping into a person coming the other way. His polite apology is met with a monosyllabic grunt; not a morning person then... Moving on, he enters the subway station, and rapidly descends to the platform: there is weather here also. A subterranean wind, preceding the rapidly approaching train, buffets those waiting on the platform; the squat, orange train glides into the station, and the student boards it.
The subway train has much in common with its larger cousins on the surface, but it is compressed into a much smaller space, and is forever limited to its circular route. The carriages are circular in profile, meaning that taller travellers curve parallel to its walls. Much like the overground train, most commuters here attempt to avoid each others eyes, and the limited space ???
I used to write voluminous amounts of short stories when I was at school, and I absentmindedly wrote this little story on the train a couple of weeks ago, then promptly forgot about it. What are its faults in terms of pace and subject matter?
Also, my apologies for the lack of indentation at the beginning of the paragraphs, I couldn't figure out how to format it with the [INDENT] tags.
Limp tendrils of light crawl along a street paralleled by neat privet and monoblock. In the damp fields surrounding the village, mist hangs, ghost-like above the grass.
The street is inhabited by former council-houses, built just after the Second World War. Solid and neat, they huddle in groups of four, while lights flicker on along the street.
The people of this street are nothing out of the ordinary: a selection of shop workers, physiotherapists, photographers, and the like. This street exists in a thousand places, with countless variations on the same theme. To live here is to know rhythm, normality, and predictability. Contentment rises from the grass of the modest gardens, and begins to drift into the thoughts of those currently awakening in the gable-ends and mid-terraces.
In one house lives a young man, a student. He lodges with his parents, quite an economically sensible position! His alarm is almost about to ring, but he is already awake, snatching it from his desk, with the promise of its bell left hanging in the air. Briefly staring at the ceiling, he hauls himself from bed, greeting the pallid sunlight with the disdain it deserves.
Gliding from his bed, he slides into the shower with practiced ease, and back out with the same familiar motions. His personal effects were organised the night before.
With yet more smooth, quiet movements, he quietly descends to the kitchen, careful not to waken the others in the house. A heavy breakfast of porridge awaits. To this point, the student's silence has been almost continual: his lips are sealed, as no one else is present. After the warm, filling porridge has been consumed, the student proceeds out the door, into the frosty November air. His feet trace the path he has taken many times before, to a bus stop two streets distant. His foot prints leave light shadows in the frost, while his breath is lost to the mist, drifting off to become indistinguishable from the whole.
At the stop, an eternity passes rapidly. The young man stands, careful not to make eye contact with his bleary-eyed comrades in their meagre foxhole. A cough here, a sniffle perhaps, and time slows to a stagger. The number 47 rolls up, its cacophonous clanking muffled by the aether. Thankful for the distraction, the troops board their transport, forming an orderly queue, before sitting a minimum of two seats from each other. They indulge in the lighthearted free newspaper, or their own literature, or perhaps even some academic or business-related work. With a hiss, the bus departs, and the inhabitants begin to warm up.
The sensibly-dressed student is bundled up on his seat, a bubble of silence surrounding him. Leafing through his paper, he gradually removes his outer layers, despite the need to soon put them back on. The artificial hardness of the bus' interior lighting illuminates the travellers, picking out the crags and peaks of their grey, semi-somnolent faces.
This bus is warm; it is quiet; there is a silent covenant of mutual disinterest between the passengers. The journey allows them to occupy their own sovereign ground, without the need to face taxing conversations, or fake interest in the affairs of vague acquaintances. The student, briefly, feels at peace, as he trundle through the sodium-orange streets, and almost feels himself drifting back into a gentle stupor. But his stop comes all too soon, and the 'STOP' button must be pressed; and – oh god – the air is cold, and then he mumbles “thanks driver”, and is back on the street.
The light is slightly more pervasive, but the sky is still an inky blue, and the little crowd crosses the road, their vow of silence still enacted. They march briskly to the train station. En route, some casualties are caught out by frost, or by ice, but the brigade plunges forward, onwards into the steamy warmth of the train station. All eyes swivel to them for an instant, then return to their previous objects of interest.
All of society is represented here: private schoolgirls talk in a lively fashion, weighed down by hockey equipment; thirty-something women, their looks recently lost (and not handed in at the desk), carrying on the ritual of high heels and shortish skirts; men of all ages stand, occasionally bursting into awkward conversation with neighbours and familiar faces. The young man stands indifferent to this, camouflaged by a gaze he has trained to focus on infinity. This dull-eyed stare sharpens occasionally to check the timetable on the monitor.
Seven minutes until his train arrives, and he watches the first wave of amateurs panic, and exit onto the platform, He knows better. Five minutes. Reading from the back of his paper, he begins a more thorough review of the sport and business pages, raising eyes to glance at incomers. As usual, human catastrophe and amusing, half-true tales littler the newsprint; any semblance of order is indistinct to the commuter's eye. Three minutes, another wave goes over the top – playing it safe, they exit – and another shortly after. They aren't yet hardened to the ways of the train, still assuming it might be early: they can't be blamed for their naïveté, he supposes, but they have to learn. One minute. Bags are lifted, papers folded, tickets sought, as the masses assemble to push (in an orderly fashion, of course) through the platform doors.
The train glides into the station, and the bold student strides across the salt-speckled tarmac, and steps into the carriage. Squeezing between the others, he cannot find a seat, and so is relegated to standing in the aisle, hanging from a handrail. The train shudders to life, complaining about the cold, and moves out of the small town with a climbing hum.
On the train, the student's glasses steam up, temporarily blinding him in the hot crush of the aisle. An ungainly dash for the remaining seats ensues at the other end of the carriage, as commuters wedge themselves into seats slightly too small for the average person in a winter coat. So they sit, arms pressed in front of them, unable to avoid contact with each other: every carriage is like this, a shipping container full of people irritated each other's proximity. Occasionally, there are two or three people breaking the silence, talking animatedly. The subtle scowls of those around them are a grey, unnoticed counterpoint to their upbeat gossip. The student has managed to locate a seat by this point, and he sits with his book-laden rucksack on his knees.
The train thuds along; bud-dum, bud-dum; he concentrates on the serious novel he has brought. He is inside the book, insulated against all those out there, on the train and beyond. Bud-dum, bud-dum. The train's repetitive sound and motion encourage a meditative state in the student and his fellow passengers.
Briskly moving along the track, this route has long ceased to be merely familiar: the student knows this invariant path as he knows the veins on his hands, or the length of his stride. The blurred rush of the scenery alternates rapidly. Embankments towering over rotting housing estates suddenly change to streaks of green, and a tangle of brambles and nettles obscures the view. Soon the train is at a large station, which serves a sprawling town, whose once-great industry crumbled decades ago. The carriages become even more packed. People stand frozen, packed around the doors, and between the seats; unsure of where to look, or even where to put their hands, so they sway with the engine, as it departs once more.
Now the longest part of the journey begins. Between here and the city centre, there is twenty minutes worth of track, twenty minutes worth of silence. People begin to nod off, safe in the knowledge their destination is the terminal stop for this service. It begins with a definite feeling of heaviness in the eyelids . The fact that this trite imagery is close to the actual feeling would be surprising anywhere else, but such literary conclusions don't concern out student, as his eyes crash shut. He blinks them open, angry at his momentary show of weakness, and forces them to remain open. The light becomes glaring, itchy, and it shifts along the spectrum, becoming an irritating blue.
Suburbs – but not in the North American sense – surround the train's curving path. Laid out in no particular order, their roads spiral and twist, rarely properly straightening. The antithesis of rational design, these relatively new houses are still fairly logically arranged compared to the older architecture of this region.
The sunlight is now beginning to slowly coat the entire scene visible from the steamy train windows. The student was thankful for this pittance of real light, as he knew there would soon be none. The Earth would advance round its orbit, and the morning light would be forgotten. It was a familiar cycle, to which he had been subject for his entire life. Rising in the morning, it would be dark; the Sun might briefly emerge while he was in a subterranean lecture-theatre, but it would have disappeared when the time came to return home. The student muses upon this strange, yet totally natural, cycle of events. He acknowledged that he enjoyed the darkness of high-latitude winters, when the days became cocooned in darkness; an extension of sleep, which allow the sharp edge to be taken off the winter air.
The train is now entering the South Side of the city, and it shakes slightly while merging onto another track. This jerks the student abruptly out of his contemplative stupor, and a ghost of a smile crosses his face: some of his fellow passengers are already beginning to pack up. The man next to him stands up, hurrying towards the exit, and he is afforded space to stretch his arms. The train judders to a halt just outside the station, and many of those standing up look confused, then embarrassed, as the train restarts and pulls up to the platform. A few moments pass, and the scrum engages, driving forwards and out of the train's doors. The herd is thrust into the cold air of the station, and rapidly disperses along the platform. A merciless quick march is the order of the day, as the battalions stream into the streets.
The commuters move rapidly out of the station doors, and their various priorities cause them to rapidly scatter. One stream heads towards a packed bakers, enticed by the warm blast of air laden with the scent of pastry. Another cohort halts immediately, their nicotine-starved metabolisms demand cigarettes; the relief is evident in their faces. The majority of the commuters head towards their place of work, or some further part of the city's transport network. The student, wrapped up against the cold, walks rapidly along the street. This is the least salubrious part of the central shopping district, testified to by the tacky shops, boarded-up Woolies, and fast-food debris. The student ignores most of this, having seen it daily for three years, but his eyes are drawn upwards: ornately carved sandstone crowns the street, testament to the Georgian wealth of the city. He is surprised by the downcast eyes of the others on the street; can't they see it? Carrying on, eyes aloft, he wanders across the pavement, nearly bumping into a person coming the other way. His polite apology is met with a monosyllabic grunt; not a morning person then... Moving on, he enters the subway station, and rapidly descends to the platform: there is weather here also. A subterranean wind, preceding the rapidly approaching train, buffets those waiting on the platform; the squat, orange train glides into the station, and the student boards it.
The subway train has much in common with its larger cousins on the surface, but it is compressed into a much smaller space, and is forever limited to its circular route. The carriages are circular in profile, meaning that taller travellers curve parallel to its walls. Much like the overground train, most commuters here attempt to avoid each others eyes, and the limited space ???