karenmcd
07-15-2011, 08:03 AM
I hope its ok to post again, I am trying to write a short story every morning for a week.
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She Stands, small, in an empty playground with a red swing set. Gravel on the ground, in the park behind her she half sees an old man pass by as he taps his walking stick off the *** of his dog, moving it along.
I'm not even a real person, she thought, just a hastily formed character of a writing exercise. She sighed, wondering why the swing set was even included when there were no children around, why the park had to be so bloody empty.
She felt a pang of pain in her gut, the pain of loss and sadness. Oh, she said, I'm pregnant. How exactly do you deal with a pregnancy when you aren't even sure what kind of life you have lived, a hastily formed character rarely has the depth of an observed character with family and a past, instead, my present is the only reality i have to cling to. Rubbing her barely there bump on her barely there body she wondered would the writer keep writing until the baby was born, would there be a series of stories about an uneventful family life, a happy home, a loving partner, an uncomplicated birth. Her hands with tiny freckles wrapped around herself.
The pain came again, like loss, only more acute this time. She looked around, seeing only the old man and some run down council style houses vague in their greyness.The same grey sky and the unused half seen football pitch screamed of laziness, why hadn't the writer even given her a real place with real people and some colour, something to run away with, or run away to. If i just stay here, still, silent, the writer cant keep writing, waiting for something to happen, If i refuse, she said to the sky, will you let me go?
She knew that the writer wondered if it was ok to start a dialogue with a hastily formed character in a writing exercise. Knowing, as she did, that at some point the story would end and the character would be trapped in the loop between opening paragraph and closing words. Stuck in a short story, not even the long life of an epic novel but a short story, not even 1000 words of meanderings.
The girl looked up, her red rain jacket, hood up made her appear young, fragile. No answer came from the heavens, she looked around again, the old man was gone, there was a mist about the park making all around it less visible. Trees were standing, touching leaves, old bark old trees.
She lay down in the playground, feeling the gravel in her fingers, knowing it was catching in her hair, sticking to her legs that were bare between her wellies and her rain jacket. Feeling the sharp, pointed pain of little stones settling into her skin. She knew there was a knife in her pocket, she remembered now, taking it from the kitchen. She took it out and lay it by her right side. She lay still, as the gravel dug into her thighs now and her fingers and forearms, she lay there covered by the grey sky, the knife lay at her right.
Her straight red hair was whipped across her face, her small eyes were smaller with the will of begging, her fingers seemed smaller now as they were wrapped around a blade.
The problem, she thought, with hastily created characters is that you care more about their hair and fingers instead of their past and pain.
____________________________
She Stands, small, in an empty playground with a red swing set. Gravel on the ground, in the park behind her she half sees an old man pass by as he taps his walking stick off the *** of his dog, moving it along.
I'm not even a real person, she thought, just a hastily formed character of a writing exercise. She sighed, wondering why the swing set was even included when there were no children around, why the park had to be so bloody empty.
She felt a pang of pain in her gut, the pain of loss and sadness. Oh, she said, I'm pregnant. How exactly do you deal with a pregnancy when you aren't even sure what kind of life you have lived, a hastily formed character rarely has the depth of an observed character with family and a past, instead, my present is the only reality i have to cling to. Rubbing her barely there bump on her barely there body she wondered would the writer keep writing until the baby was born, would there be a series of stories about an uneventful family life, a happy home, a loving partner, an uncomplicated birth. Her hands with tiny freckles wrapped around herself.
The pain came again, like loss, only more acute this time. She looked around, seeing only the old man and some run down council style houses vague in their greyness.The same grey sky and the unused half seen football pitch screamed of laziness, why hadn't the writer even given her a real place with real people and some colour, something to run away with, or run away to. If i just stay here, still, silent, the writer cant keep writing, waiting for something to happen, If i refuse, she said to the sky, will you let me go?
She knew that the writer wondered if it was ok to start a dialogue with a hastily formed character in a writing exercise. Knowing, as she did, that at some point the story would end and the character would be trapped in the loop between opening paragraph and closing words. Stuck in a short story, not even the long life of an epic novel but a short story, not even 1000 words of meanderings.
The girl looked up, her red rain jacket, hood up made her appear young, fragile. No answer came from the heavens, she looked around again, the old man was gone, there was a mist about the park making all around it less visible. Trees were standing, touching leaves, old bark old trees.
She lay down in the playground, feeling the gravel in her fingers, knowing it was catching in her hair, sticking to her legs that were bare between her wellies and her rain jacket. Feeling the sharp, pointed pain of little stones settling into her skin. She knew there was a knife in her pocket, she remembered now, taking it from the kitchen. She took it out and lay it by her right side. She lay still, as the gravel dug into her thighs now and her fingers and forearms, she lay there covered by the grey sky, the knife lay at her right.
Her straight red hair was whipped across her face, her small eyes were smaller with the will of begging, her fingers seemed smaller now as they were wrapped around a blade.
The problem, she thought, with hastily created characters is that you care more about their hair and fingers instead of their past and pain.