nomadspasture
12-09-2017, 05:53 AM
Two short unfinished stories that I wrote in the Pyrenees. I plan to write more but havn't yet. Would love some feedback :) They are very sort.
Here they are;
Jack's
The thing with this city...' Jacks was telling me as we walked quickly down Sithton street, is this;
'It's all about appearances.'
'I appear to have money'
'I appear to be busy'
'I appear not to care'
'I appear to have options'
'When really you cry yourself to sleep every night because your broke?'
'Nah. Not yet anyway.'
'Half the time I lie so well that even I believe it.'
'And that's the key man. That's where its at. THATS what success in Brishton smells like. Once you believe in your own bull**** enough your world just seems to merge itself in that image. Its unreal man.'
'or it merges itself into the shape of a magnum 44 pointed at your face'
I tried to emphasise the word face, I don't know why. I added the 44 for effect I know that much though.
'Detail's, Details..and I don't care, remember?'
He waved his hands about as he spoke. One thing I did believe was that he believed. And I liked that.
Jacks walked with the self assured swagger of someone who really did believe in his own bull****. Positive bull**** it was clearly. Egotistical? Probably. Dangerous? Almost certainly. The guy was a clinical moron in that respect. Still, he had morals and I was a pussy, so we made a good team.
We were heading to his friends house to buy half a ki of hash. Nothing by Jacks standard he assured me. The guy we were meeting was a friend of a friend of Jacks, though it turned out I had met him before at a house party. My house actually, but not my party. Well anyway, even though I was the last person you would expect to be involved in such an activity- unassured, anxious, self-conscious and shy- here I was walking down Brishton high street with Jacks. I hope you get the picture. Quite why he had taking a liking to me I was not sure. Although I must admit I felt it, so it didn't surprise me when he invited me along. I'd already analysed it of course – our relationship that is. Skipping over the possibility of any homoerotic undertones I quickly came to the conclusion that the reason Jacks liked me was that I was perfectly content to not only go along with his cocky coked up self stylized version of the world, but to believe in it too. So here I was – walking along Brishton highstreet with Jacks on the way to pick up an ungodly amount of hash.
I should of looked awkward and felt anxious and I probably did look awkward but I didn't feel anxious. Just a nervous excitement and more excitement than nerves if I'm honest.
Let me come clean. I was, if you haven't figured out already, not a natural roughian. I was never one to hang around the rough kids. I was bullied in school and so were my friends. We played with pretend pretend lightsabres in the playground or walked around avoiding the bullies and the footballs in deep discussions. Our discussion topics were not universally popular. In fact I'd have traded you my graphics card if any one else in that playground ever even approached the same topics. You gotta give it to us, we might not have had swagger but we could discuss the merits of communism. Anyway. I digress. Where was I? My graphics card. That was the life and soul. And now? Now I'd swap it for a spliff. I've long since forgotten what happened to it. Funny that. It once let me enter a world that was realer than real. For I had more options there. Without trying to get all philosophical, but its true. I was actually good at something there. And now I crumble brown plant matter into a paper and smoke it. I was smarter back them.
Finally we bobbed into a side street. For a fleeting second Jack's looked less sure of himself, then the moment is gone and with his trade mark quizzical smile he looks intently at me. I make a half smile back. I can't help myself, there is a certain intellectual glint in his eyes that puts me at ease. I'm not sure what exactly he is thinking in these moments, only that he is on my side. Whatever the hell that means. I've wondered before how other people take this look. I'd wager a lot of people hate it.
'Last house on the left. 56.'
'Simple enough I say.'
I mentally rehearse my role and almost say somthing about most stop and searches being made by undercovers, but I catch myself just in time.
We walk up the short flight of steps leading to the front door.
'Which one is it?'
I feel stupid saying this, but really I am just nervous. It's a fair question. One of the numbers buzzs and a guy tells us to come up. Flat 5. At the top. It's a matrix house; Old spacious and unlived in. But nice. It has character. Unlike some places, done up, the last t dotted. Clearly money, thought and time poured into every corner. And clearly everyone would smile and say it was lovely. Yet no soul. Like the pretty girl on the train, only you look closer and she's on candyrush or facebook. No! Different. The pretty girl fools you, at least at first. You assume she has a soul because she is pretty. But these houses do not and you sense that the moment you open the door. Anyway. A matrix house is the exact opposite.
We ascend the stairs. I say ascend and not climb because it feels like we are on a mission. It feels dangerous. Jacks ascends irritatingly slowly. It is making me even more self concious. At least let me distract myself from my anxiety by getting out of breath. But no. Before I have time to ring the buzzer the door opens.
Behind the door is a guy about our age, the unassuming student type. I am instantly at ease. He speaks rapidly, intellectual without being nerdy. I would have killed for this trait once. He is talking about someone I do not know. Already it feels like he could comfortably talk for hours. He can talk the middle zone. That's a rarity. More interesting and intelligent than weather or food but not so far out that it could pose any threat. Undemanding. It's too introverted and personal to require a response. That's not the purpose here. He manages to talk about these people in a detailed and interesting way, skipping all the banality of small talk yet not passing judgement. I like him straight away. Most people are completely incapable of this middle zone. They either stick to safe well rehearsed lines that they repeat their entire lives. I say that, you say this. Or they push the boat out for whatever reason – maybe they are bored. Maybe they are trying to impress you. Then you have the pleasure of hearing their ugly confused judgemental inconsistent values spewing out and contaminating everything and everyone they discuss. It's painful to hear. The worst are the ones who manage to contaminate even the small talk, they discuss the cooking but leave you with a sick twisted knot in your stomach which renders you (or me at least) agreeable, depressed and distant. **** it! Rather that than sell my soul and roll with them. One day I will replace the half nods, the twisted smiles and the self-conscious 'uhums' with a 'and so ****ing what?'.
Well anyway. You get the picture. This guys 'ok'.
He stops speaking and looks at me.
'I think I saw you before at Nick's party.'
He says this unassumingly. It doesn't mater what I say.
'Probably'.
Normally I don't do one word answers even if I want to.
'Well anyways' he continues quickly.
'Its decent stuff. New batch of the old stuff that's been going around for a while now. Sold it to a few people and they found it slightly better.'
'I haven't smoked it myself' he added as an afterthought.
'But I don't smoke anymore so it would probably just knock me out.'
Jack's was giving him that look. The atmosphere was chill. You know its all good when he's looking at someone like that and they haven't kicked off. Like I said I don't think ***-holes can take it. You need a certain security about you. Not a toughness. That's the thing, its like a mirror and if you aint smart you won't see it right and you'll just see the worst part of yourself staring right back at you. And if you get it you'll see the smile and smile right back.
Sophie
The entire carriage seemed to glow soothingly with adverts. Each panel flickering and changing to its own unique rhythm, a white glowing mass of seemingly never ending energy.'Your feeling low' Sophie's iview informs her. The words glared threateningly through the screen in a warm fuzy green. The background was of her favourite place with her oldest friend. Still- it stung. The implications were unsettling, and the feed relay would prompt annoying questions at best and at worst trigger hostile remarks and uninvited personal questions. No matter the outcome, the subtext was clear. How dare she be anything but happy. A couple of the displays on the carnage windows flickered into her favourite shade of green whilst displaying various 'needs'. A discount on the latest form of therapy, 'clinically proven to make you happier and more content'. The world was well informed. A personal message from her job seeker adviser. Her iview did not display any personal messages from friends, she could not afford this feature. Another advert flashed up, a feature allowing you to edit social media photo's so that 'you will appear happier and more content which has been shown in numerous studies to increase your profile popularity'.
The train creaked to a halt – the words 'delayed' flashing in the corner of her iview. The details would be passed on to her contacts should she request it, but she had no way of knowing the details herself. She recalled a conversation with an academy teacher in which she'd pointed the absurdity of not being giving this information directly – only to be met with a patronizing, puzzled and quizzical look and a rising of the eye brows accompanied with a pointed high pitched 'and who wouldn't have an iview?'. As if the only possible problem could be a person not being able to receive the information. What about her right to it? Thought's like this just left her feeling even more alienated than she already felt. It wasn't as if people disagreed with her when she brought it up they just...it was hard to explain even to herself. Some people at best twisted the question into a completely new one and then answered that. The new question was never in the same spirit. Other people did not even try to hide their patronizing feelings and she always struggled to make sense of the words coming out of their mouth as the patronizing look drowned out the words . Luckily they usually expect a reply. Silence was taking for her acceptance of there correction to her naive viewpoint.
A small window towards the rear of the train next to the run down toilets did not emit a glow of a billion high definition pixels reminding her in some form or another of what she needed to be happy. Instead it display a seemingly endless mass of grey warehouse roof tops, each seemingly stretching on for ever, under which. Actually under which she wasn't sure. She'd heard rumor that they had genetically engineered pigs. But not to contain a higher proportion of healthier fats as promised, but to become bacterial resistant. Apparently the facilities rearing them now more closely resembled that of a labyrinth of sewers. Speculation had it that this was exactly where the latest outbreak of e36 had come from – not home grown from an eco terrorists laboratory as suggested by the media worldwide. The window flickered into life- an advert for oven chips smiled brightly at her.
She had met Dom on an internet forum. Both discussing the merits of genetically modified animals. The talks had been interesting but when she received a personal message from Dom promising her to show her 'another way' she'd been intrigued. Parts of what he wrote seemed almost to have been stolen from her private thoughts. It was exhilarating to feel even for a moment that she might not be the only one to think this way. Directions had been vague – 'meet me half a mile past the junction under highway 76 – you will see what looks like a little animal track going into the brambles by the fence, take it and keep going until you reach a tall barbed wired fence. I will meet you there'. It was an obvious risk – or at least should have felt that way. But it didn't. Too much of what Dom had said made her feel immune to sensibility. She had to meet him.
The train creaked into life and breathed heavily on.
The brother and sister.
So as per usual she was dragged into one of her brothers mad ideas. Mad, but well thought out – she had to give him that. She hated being dragged into this mad energy which had him obsessed with something she didn't understand. He'd read about this idea from a little book he'd found in the science section of a run down bookshop. This time he looked less sporadic than usual and more focused. He had – if she'd understood his excited jabbering correctly started this project with the most central and important piece intact. The pink crystal which has luck would have it he already possessed- was – according to this book 'rare and for the most part useless with no practical value, offering nothing beyond a mild and unspectacular aesthetic.' Her brother was now frantically trying to create a frame from which to dangle the crystal from in such a way that it did not touch any of the sides. Unaware to the girl the boy was not the science prodigy she so fondly felt. In fact, had he been he would no doubt not have bothered. The basic premise defied every area of physics. Only but the most adept quantum physicist – one in a million – would have been intrigued.
Here they are;
Jack's
The thing with this city...' Jacks was telling me as we walked quickly down Sithton street, is this;
'It's all about appearances.'
'I appear to have money'
'I appear to be busy'
'I appear not to care'
'I appear to have options'
'When really you cry yourself to sleep every night because your broke?'
'Nah. Not yet anyway.'
'Half the time I lie so well that even I believe it.'
'And that's the key man. That's where its at. THATS what success in Brishton smells like. Once you believe in your own bull**** enough your world just seems to merge itself in that image. Its unreal man.'
'or it merges itself into the shape of a magnum 44 pointed at your face'
I tried to emphasise the word face, I don't know why. I added the 44 for effect I know that much though.
'Detail's, Details..and I don't care, remember?'
He waved his hands about as he spoke. One thing I did believe was that he believed. And I liked that.
Jacks walked with the self assured swagger of someone who really did believe in his own bull****. Positive bull**** it was clearly. Egotistical? Probably. Dangerous? Almost certainly. The guy was a clinical moron in that respect. Still, he had morals and I was a pussy, so we made a good team.
We were heading to his friends house to buy half a ki of hash. Nothing by Jacks standard he assured me. The guy we were meeting was a friend of a friend of Jacks, though it turned out I had met him before at a house party. My house actually, but not my party. Well anyway, even though I was the last person you would expect to be involved in such an activity- unassured, anxious, self-conscious and shy- here I was walking down Brishton high street with Jacks. I hope you get the picture. Quite why he had taking a liking to me I was not sure. Although I must admit I felt it, so it didn't surprise me when he invited me along. I'd already analysed it of course – our relationship that is. Skipping over the possibility of any homoerotic undertones I quickly came to the conclusion that the reason Jacks liked me was that I was perfectly content to not only go along with his cocky coked up self stylized version of the world, but to believe in it too. So here I was – walking along Brishton highstreet with Jacks on the way to pick up an ungodly amount of hash.
I should of looked awkward and felt anxious and I probably did look awkward but I didn't feel anxious. Just a nervous excitement and more excitement than nerves if I'm honest.
Let me come clean. I was, if you haven't figured out already, not a natural roughian. I was never one to hang around the rough kids. I was bullied in school and so were my friends. We played with pretend pretend lightsabres in the playground or walked around avoiding the bullies and the footballs in deep discussions. Our discussion topics were not universally popular. In fact I'd have traded you my graphics card if any one else in that playground ever even approached the same topics. You gotta give it to us, we might not have had swagger but we could discuss the merits of communism. Anyway. I digress. Where was I? My graphics card. That was the life and soul. And now? Now I'd swap it for a spliff. I've long since forgotten what happened to it. Funny that. It once let me enter a world that was realer than real. For I had more options there. Without trying to get all philosophical, but its true. I was actually good at something there. And now I crumble brown plant matter into a paper and smoke it. I was smarter back them.
Finally we bobbed into a side street. For a fleeting second Jack's looked less sure of himself, then the moment is gone and with his trade mark quizzical smile he looks intently at me. I make a half smile back. I can't help myself, there is a certain intellectual glint in his eyes that puts me at ease. I'm not sure what exactly he is thinking in these moments, only that he is on my side. Whatever the hell that means. I've wondered before how other people take this look. I'd wager a lot of people hate it.
'Last house on the left. 56.'
'Simple enough I say.'
I mentally rehearse my role and almost say somthing about most stop and searches being made by undercovers, but I catch myself just in time.
We walk up the short flight of steps leading to the front door.
'Which one is it?'
I feel stupid saying this, but really I am just nervous. It's a fair question. One of the numbers buzzs and a guy tells us to come up. Flat 5. At the top. It's a matrix house; Old spacious and unlived in. But nice. It has character. Unlike some places, done up, the last t dotted. Clearly money, thought and time poured into every corner. And clearly everyone would smile and say it was lovely. Yet no soul. Like the pretty girl on the train, only you look closer and she's on candyrush or facebook. No! Different. The pretty girl fools you, at least at first. You assume she has a soul because she is pretty. But these houses do not and you sense that the moment you open the door. Anyway. A matrix house is the exact opposite.
We ascend the stairs. I say ascend and not climb because it feels like we are on a mission. It feels dangerous. Jacks ascends irritatingly slowly. It is making me even more self concious. At least let me distract myself from my anxiety by getting out of breath. But no. Before I have time to ring the buzzer the door opens.
Behind the door is a guy about our age, the unassuming student type. I am instantly at ease. He speaks rapidly, intellectual without being nerdy. I would have killed for this trait once. He is talking about someone I do not know. Already it feels like he could comfortably talk for hours. He can talk the middle zone. That's a rarity. More interesting and intelligent than weather or food but not so far out that it could pose any threat. Undemanding. It's too introverted and personal to require a response. That's not the purpose here. He manages to talk about these people in a detailed and interesting way, skipping all the banality of small talk yet not passing judgement. I like him straight away. Most people are completely incapable of this middle zone. They either stick to safe well rehearsed lines that they repeat their entire lives. I say that, you say this. Or they push the boat out for whatever reason – maybe they are bored. Maybe they are trying to impress you. Then you have the pleasure of hearing their ugly confused judgemental inconsistent values spewing out and contaminating everything and everyone they discuss. It's painful to hear. The worst are the ones who manage to contaminate even the small talk, they discuss the cooking but leave you with a sick twisted knot in your stomach which renders you (or me at least) agreeable, depressed and distant. **** it! Rather that than sell my soul and roll with them. One day I will replace the half nods, the twisted smiles and the self-conscious 'uhums' with a 'and so ****ing what?'.
Well anyway. You get the picture. This guys 'ok'.
He stops speaking and looks at me.
'I think I saw you before at Nick's party.'
He says this unassumingly. It doesn't mater what I say.
'Probably'.
Normally I don't do one word answers even if I want to.
'Well anyways' he continues quickly.
'Its decent stuff. New batch of the old stuff that's been going around for a while now. Sold it to a few people and they found it slightly better.'
'I haven't smoked it myself' he added as an afterthought.
'But I don't smoke anymore so it would probably just knock me out.'
Jack's was giving him that look. The atmosphere was chill. You know its all good when he's looking at someone like that and they haven't kicked off. Like I said I don't think ***-holes can take it. You need a certain security about you. Not a toughness. That's the thing, its like a mirror and if you aint smart you won't see it right and you'll just see the worst part of yourself staring right back at you. And if you get it you'll see the smile and smile right back.
Sophie
The entire carriage seemed to glow soothingly with adverts. Each panel flickering and changing to its own unique rhythm, a white glowing mass of seemingly never ending energy.'Your feeling low' Sophie's iview informs her. The words glared threateningly through the screen in a warm fuzy green. The background was of her favourite place with her oldest friend. Still- it stung. The implications were unsettling, and the feed relay would prompt annoying questions at best and at worst trigger hostile remarks and uninvited personal questions. No matter the outcome, the subtext was clear. How dare she be anything but happy. A couple of the displays on the carnage windows flickered into her favourite shade of green whilst displaying various 'needs'. A discount on the latest form of therapy, 'clinically proven to make you happier and more content'. The world was well informed. A personal message from her job seeker adviser. Her iview did not display any personal messages from friends, she could not afford this feature. Another advert flashed up, a feature allowing you to edit social media photo's so that 'you will appear happier and more content which has been shown in numerous studies to increase your profile popularity'.
The train creaked to a halt – the words 'delayed' flashing in the corner of her iview. The details would be passed on to her contacts should she request it, but she had no way of knowing the details herself. She recalled a conversation with an academy teacher in which she'd pointed the absurdity of not being giving this information directly – only to be met with a patronizing, puzzled and quizzical look and a rising of the eye brows accompanied with a pointed high pitched 'and who wouldn't have an iview?'. As if the only possible problem could be a person not being able to receive the information. What about her right to it? Thought's like this just left her feeling even more alienated than she already felt. It wasn't as if people disagreed with her when she brought it up they just...it was hard to explain even to herself. Some people at best twisted the question into a completely new one and then answered that. The new question was never in the same spirit. Other people did not even try to hide their patronizing feelings and she always struggled to make sense of the words coming out of their mouth as the patronizing look drowned out the words . Luckily they usually expect a reply. Silence was taking for her acceptance of there correction to her naive viewpoint.
A small window towards the rear of the train next to the run down toilets did not emit a glow of a billion high definition pixels reminding her in some form or another of what she needed to be happy. Instead it display a seemingly endless mass of grey warehouse roof tops, each seemingly stretching on for ever, under which. Actually under which she wasn't sure. She'd heard rumor that they had genetically engineered pigs. But not to contain a higher proportion of healthier fats as promised, but to become bacterial resistant. Apparently the facilities rearing them now more closely resembled that of a labyrinth of sewers. Speculation had it that this was exactly where the latest outbreak of e36 had come from – not home grown from an eco terrorists laboratory as suggested by the media worldwide. The window flickered into life- an advert for oven chips smiled brightly at her.
She had met Dom on an internet forum. Both discussing the merits of genetically modified animals. The talks had been interesting but when she received a personal message from Dom promising her to show her 'another way' she'd been intrigued. Parts of what he wrote seemed almost to have been stolen from her private thoughts. It was exhilarating to feel even for a moment that she might not be the only one to think this way. Directions had been vague – 'meet me half a mile past the junction under highway 76 – you will see what looks like a little animal track going into the brambles by the fence, take it and keep going until you reach a tall barbed wired fence. I will meet you there'. It was an obvious risk – or at least should have felt that way. But it didn't. Too much of what Dom had said made her feel immune to sensibility. She had to meet him.
The train creaked into life and breathed heavily on.
The brother and sister.
So as per usual she was dragged into one of her brothers mad ideas. Mad, but well thought out – she had to give him that. She hated being dragged into this mad energy which had him obsessed with something she didn't understand. He'd read about this idea from a little book he'd found in the science section of a run down bookshop. This time he looked less sporadic than usual and more focused. He had – if she'd understood his excited jabbering correctly started this project with the most central and important piece intact. The pink crystal which has luck would have it he already possessed- was – according to this book 'rare and for the most part useless with no practical value, offering nothing beyond a mild and unspectacular aesthetic.' Her brother was now frantically trying to create a frame from which to dangle the crystal from in such a way that it did not touch any of the sides. Unaware to the girl the boy was not the science prodigy she so fondly felt. In fact, had he been he would no doubt not have bothered. The basic premise defied every area of physics. Only but the most adept quantum physicist – one in a million – would have been intrigued.