Hello everyone, I'm a newbie. Feedback welcome on my story that I'm publishing in parts. I wrote a blurb for it:
"Sleepless and burnt out at the age of twenty nine, Felixstowe is one of the romantic poets to whom history turned a blind eye. A peripheral figure, he ekes out a living as an office monkey while his erstwhile friends form part of the poetic jet-set, bent on cutting a drug-fuelled swathe across the tedium of Enlightenment thinking.
But Felixstowe’s adventures are far from over. He’s about to find out that once life has taken a turn towards the weird it rarely travels in another direction. "
It's my attempt at writing in a genre within the steampunk genre, which hasn't got a name yet (at least not a good one!). I'm sure its not to everyone's taste. My friend Joe does the artwork. Not for children though ;-)
Felixstowe - Elysium
Felixstowe cowered under the burgeoning sun. Insomnia had weakened him and the rocky journey in the horse and trap, which he could still hear as it made its way over the neglected path, had shaken him to an untenable level of wakefulness. He felt crushed and drained by the heat – there was not a shade-giving tree this side of the mountains, only flatlands and, then, the sea. And save Hanson’s cottage there was no other legitimate port of call for miles. It stood alone on the cliff edge, a white stone building with a tall chimney, bellowing smoke. An unusual sight in summer.
Hanging on the door there was an old lead knocker bearing the figure of a three-headed beast. Felixstowe rapped on the heavy knocker three times, causing three echoes to follow each other into the depths of the house. After a few minutes the door was pulled open and a head appeared somehow buoyed by the darkness within, tufts of white hair shot out of the scalp, eyes popped like pustule protuberances, ringed by black circles. Felixstowe asked if the master might be found. But the head didn’t answer. Instead, a hand appeared as if from nowhere and beckoned Felixstowe inside. He entered with some trepidation, following the ghostly figure down the unlit corridor. Somewhere on the journey the head – and whatever light there had been – disappeared, leaving Felixstowe to feel his way through the darkness. A stampede of small creatures, possibly rats, scuttled over his feet as he walked. He froze in dread until the last of them had passed and then continued his journey. Eventually, turning a corner, he came upon a door, only visible due to the bright frame of red light that marked its parameters. The butler appeared again and opened the door.
Stepping into the room, he was blinded by the ferocious fire, which raged like a demon in the hearth. In front of the fire was an armchair. The stench of something rotten – beyond death- choked him and he could no longer breathe. Neither could he cry out for help. The blockage in his throat would only allow the hiss of what Felixstowe supposed was his last pathetic scream as he tumbled backwards clasping his neck.
Sometime later, Felixstowe came round to a jet of warm water splashing on to his face. The realisation that he wasn’t dead was soon superseded by the realisation that someone was urinating on him. As it puddled into his mouth, he gagged and spluttered and sat up to see the urinator, a toothless, sub-human creature in rags, laughing and shrieking at Felixstowe’s undignified resurrection.
‘I need some of the white powder’ said Felixstowe to the poor wretch, whom he supposed was once his good friend Hanson. The creature immediately stopped laughing and scampered into the corner of the room. It began pulling at the skirting boards, whereupon it found one section that was loose and prised it off the wall. The sick smell of kitten death spread about the room as the creature picked up a rag-like ball of fur, which rained tiny beetles, and it muttered ” Manson! That’s where you got to.” At which it shrieked a solitary laugh and tossed the rotting feline onto the fire. It thrust its hand back into the hole and delved blindly until its nails hit metal and pulled out a small tin box, which it handed to Felixstowe. It then grabbed a bucket of coals and threw them onto the already raging fire.
Walking away from the house, Felixstowe checked the tin and sure enough it contained a sachet of bone white powder. ‘Sleep’ he thought. ‘I must have sleep’.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE ILLUSTRATIONS GO TO THESE LINKS:
Part one http://www.frontlip.eu/2012/03/felix...art-1-elysium/
Part two http://www.frontlip.eu/2012/03/felix...-resurrection/
Thanks and love the site so far
Jay
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