Mattrick's Written Works

[Mattrick]

Rabid Euphoria (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=22484&viewfull=1#post22484)

Rabid Euphoria May 23, 2006 (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=99312&viewfull=1#post99312)

Rabid Euphoria Pages 8-11 (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=100123&viewfull=1#post100123)

Rabid Euphoria Pages 11-17 (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=100552&viewfull=1#post100552)

Rabid Euphoria Pages 17-22 (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=100732&viewfull=1#post100732)

The Catacombs (Short Story) (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=65351&viewfull=1#post65351)

first few pages of a script (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=536755&viewfull=1#post536755)

Nova Cane (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=539929&viewfull=1#post539929)

Many Ports In A Storm (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=680929&viewfull=1#post680929)

Novel re-write help (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=706512&viewfull=1#post706512)

Novel re-write continued (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=706514&viewfull=1#post706514)

Novel re-write Prologue (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=706942&viewfull=1#post706942)

Novel re-write Prologue & Act One (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?601-Mattrick-s-Written-Works&p=706942&viewfull=1#post706942)





Rabid Euphoria


Part One - Three Musketeers

Chapter One - Car Accident


There was a chill in the air outside but Lloyd doubted highly it was provided from the dampness that engulfed the city after this morning’s rainstorm. Regardless a shiver surged through his body and his hands pulled into his sleeves like a turtle shell. He could faintly see his breath in the flaming atmosphere as what remained of the sun was about to retire over the horizon for the night. I’m glad I've got my trusty toque. It’s fuckin’ frigid, he thought to himself and pulled a cigarette from his pocket through his protective sleeves. A puff of smoke escaped the flash of cinder and he discarded the match as well as the empty pack of smokes on the sidewalk.


Several cars raced by him clearly exploding through the speed limit. It could have very well been his imagination but he could have worn that one of the vehicles was being driven by a screaming teenager but he wasn’t screaming as many teenagers screamed to music or simply for the sake of being loud. He looked terrified. He dismissed it as the buzz he gained from the six pack he leveled before leaving fifteen minutes ago and continued walking.

Often he thought about his friends being as they were the only two people in his life anymore; Andy and Darren. It’s amazing a group of guys so different yet so alike could co-exist in this crazy world. Andy, of course was a smack head and Darren did every kind of drug under the horizon as long as long made him forget. Lloyd on the other hand was partial to the sauce and he sauced it up every night. One of the reasons his wife left him and took the kids. Of course, the abuse he put her through several drunken nights certainly didn’t help in that department. Every night he wished he could turn back the hands of time and retract all his past mistakes and love his family the way they were entitled to be but they called them wishes for a reason. Wishes were never granted. Not many people like him could find solace with people like Andy and Darren but nothing could feel more right. Or was it just plain easy? He wasn’t sure.


Lloyd tried to see his children sleeping. Frannie being four and Michael being seven before the divorce, he found it impossible. All he was able to depict was blackness. He considered this for a moment and drew from his cigarette. Jess had taken the kids five years ago and since the only glances he’d been allowed were the illegal ones at a distance from his car. The sentence was carried out by the Honourable ‘Judge Grudge’. Never in his life had he wanted to strangle somebody with a more psychotic rage. A man he hardly knew (nor cared for) took his kids away from him, leaving him with nothing but two hours every two weeks for visitation rights. During these periods Fran and Michael were in Prague and only spoke up if they needed something out of their reach and when they got what they wanted they thanked him with a sneer of such contempt you’d never think it was a little child giving it. These visits only lasted for five months as during the eleventh visit his emotions took control and he got very drunk. When Jess came for the kids and seen his state she called Child Services and they assessed him unfit to care for children solo and during visitation periods he would be in a state facility under supervision. Lloyd knew this would piss the kids off even more so he declined and said he’d be better off alone. Those hours alone with his darlings were more agonizing than the entire break-up.


For years Lloyd would lie in bed, the ceiling spinning, vomiting into a little red bucket at the bedside cursing Jess’ name in drunken slurs for everything she had done to him. One night in the haze of toxins he realized that perhaps he’d done it all to himself. Perhaps he had. When around Andy and Darren he’d often wonder what choices they made to end up where they were and if they had deserved it. Did Lloyd feel he deserved everything that has happened to him? He did until he wandered further down the path stopping at all the dives and slums getting so plastered at times he couldn’t even remember whose names he was cursing.


He tossed his cigarette on the sidewalk and when he stomped it out there was a loud crash from behind. Every instinct told him to run but the human mind was ever curious and in these days such sounds pumped the adrenaline and the thought of seeing disaster excited him. The line he ran was surprisingly straight and there was only one step where he almost keeled over. It was difficult to tell what the commotion was all about with the growing crowd around the scene but he could see a rising cloud of smoke and blue metal; a car crash.

T
he blue car was on its roof with the rear tires still spinning frantic to grip the pavement. Fluids leaked from the front end which had been smashed beyond all recognition. On the other side was a black SUV with a crumpled front end and the driver of it was leaning on the hood of the car, blood streaming from his nose but looked otherwise fine. Obviously the little mid-size car was no match for it. Exhaust still smoked from the muffler like a metallic cigarette which made him crave one. There was incoherent screaming pouring from the wreck but he could pick out there being two voices; a male a female. Sparks flew out from the under carriage and a puff of a flame appeared. The female voice let out an ear piercing scream and several people from the crowd covered their ears and then it fell silent, save for the snapping of flames.


It wasn’t until he was closer that he realized he recognized the car from somewhere in the back of his mind. Maybe it was Jess’ car and the kids were in the back seat and every part of his sorrow would be gone. A sick thought but many people are prone to them. Even sickening was the toothy and drunken grin which crossed his face.


“Somebody call an ambulance!” a woman screamed through the crowd and Lloyd saw dozens of people with their cell phones primed to the number already.


Someone ran from a clothing store with a fire extinguisher and vanquished the fire. If the gas tank had of blown not only would the people inside have been killed but some the onlookers as well. Thank goodness for small favours. Lloyd supposed the entire world wasn’t shit and seeing the way all these strangers worked together brought up a brief twinge of hope. He moved to the left around the crowd to catch a better glimpse of the car and it was when he found himself behind a rotund gentleman he could recognize the driver. It was the car with screaming teenager in it. The driver had to be no older than seventeen and was probably driving illegally. Blood covered half his face in a crimson mask and a large chunk of skin was missing from his right shoulder. His bloodied hand reach out of the wreck and someone from the crowd went to grab it.


“Don’t touch him!” the rotund gentleman in front of Lloyd yelled and ran up to the young man. The young man looked at him with startled surprise and anger.

“Man, if we don’t help this kid fast he could end up as dead everyone else in the car!”

“Don’t do anything or you might kill this boy. If you pull the wrong way you could paralyze him if he’s got a broken back, sever a nerve or kill him. Do you really want that on your conscience? That your impatience caused this boy who could very well have been saved by professionals to die?”


The young man backed off and the rotund gentleman bent down and said something too low for Lloyd to hear to the bloodied boy. The young man scratched his head in a gesture that seemed too comical for the dire situation. Someone from the crowd roared that an ambulance and fire and crews were on their way. There was a murmur of applause from the gathering of strangers.


When the rotund man turned towards Lloyd again his face was pallid and his eyes empty as if someone had told him the gravest news. Lloyd couldn’t help but ask what the boy had said if he’d said anything at all. “He told me it was the man eaters that did this. They stormed his house in the outskirts of the city and attacked his family.” Lloyd swallowed and reached into his pants pocket for his smokes and remembered being fresh out. He asked the rotund man if he smoked and the rotund man offered him one and even lit it to boot.

“Is that all he said?” Lloyd asked after skirting around the question as he enjoyed the first drags of smoke.

The rotund man was mute for a moment before commenting. “No, he said something else. He said that it didn’t stop there. What do you suppose he was trying to say?”


Lloyd simply shook his head and continued to stare and the bleeding boy and listened as the bellowing screams turned from jumbled words to incoherent moaning. He couldn’t take anymore, thanked the man for the cigarette and bid him good evening. The man returned the thanks with a nod but never took his eyes off the accident. Several minutes later when he was blocks away he could hear the ambulance arrive. He wondered if the boy would survive and how he would take knowing that his family is most likely dead. How would he - could he - go on living after this? He knew what it was like to have a ‘dead’ family.

It made Lloyd want to drink but then again, almost everything did.

[Steve]

RE: Rabid Euphoria

Man, I love the work you've done over on .net, and I urge you to keep it up. Maybe design a book cover or something.

[Mattrick]

Re: Rabid Euphoria

I'm nearly finished...have about thirty pages to go in first draft. :rock:

[Mattrick]

I had a school assignment to write a short story. This story is meant to be my second novel but with me still working on the first it was difficult for my to concentrate on my old novel with this one invading my thoughts. There is a limit and I could only include the bare bare essentials and it is pretty compacted.

Looking for critique on techniques, style and voice. Just making sure it doesn't vary. It felt pretty constant to me when I read it a few days after I wrote it.



The Catacombs


He sat in the house. It was empty, unforgiving. At least it was free. Only the study, kitchen and bedroom contained furniture and that wouldn’t change. Nothing will change. Six months his lethargic apathy had paralyzed him. Then again, this house was a change of scenery; his penthouse apartment was corrupted with love. Claire’s aunt had left the house to her a week after he’d died. Naturally, it was signed over to him through a marriage license. The house – half a mansion – was not without its creeps; dim-lit hallways, dank basement and a half rotting, antique bathtub. Many of the floorboards creaked, the doors loud.

For months he’d tried to convince her to quit her networking job since he’d published several books, acquiring a convenient cash flow. An argument about it was their last experience. Claire and him came from a small town and she was afraid of losing face with wealth. She insisted on taking the train even, to grasp normalcy. She boarded the 8:25 to Dundas and never arrived. It derailed, ninety-six people died including his wife.

When she jumped the tracks so did he. Writing has become impossible. Sometimes he’ll sit for hours writing a mere sentence before deleting it. Everything he wrote was pure crap. Sleep was impossible. That is why he drinks. Lately he’d gotten into the painkillers left over from Claire’s surgery last year – an axis ally. Late nights spent in large beds were torture.

Last night he’d dreamed, of a crawlspace filled with cobwebs and spiders. An abominable force was there. She was also there. A terrible force was keeping her from me. Unseen. Malignant. Noxious. For a moment he thought he could smell her perfume before awaking. He stroked the bottle, sitting in a fold-up chair surveying the basement door. The realtor mentioned a crawlspace yet hadn’t showed him it. He wanted to go, just wanted to be sure. It wasn’t even arachnophobia that worried him.

It was that thing.

Assuring himself it was a mere dream wasn’t a possibility. Rational thought grew faint, translucent in vision. When he drank the whiskey he didn’t taste it, he was already hammered. That dream dug deep. It was the closest he’d been to her in six months. No soul or task remained. In life, he was two things; husband and writer. Both duties wisped away.

Enough.

The crawlspace summoned. Already he could feel the tingles of hundreds of prickly legs on his skin. When he opened the door it groaned. Each step creaked and clunked under the pressure of his weight. An overhead light contributed little to his vision. It was an old basement; the walls constructed of large, grey stones and red brick above that. A rusted woodstove and wood stack to his left. Around the back of the stairs was the crawlspace. Several boxes sat in front of the door.

When he opened the door, his heart skipped, taking notice of the frigid draft. A small spider crawled from the crack of the waist-high door. It was enough to stop his movement. A stale cobweb slung from the door frame spoke to him. Not literal words but an off perception. He was told to retreat, that death and madness awaited him – stale.

A queer draft blew back his hair, exhaled from sordid lungs. The breath of the beast failed to deter him. Claire and his will were held hostage. He needed it. Death was a reasonable payment.

The doorknob grew colder against his palm. Insanity was awful. Automatism could be another world for it. Involuntary functions of the mind. No part of him wanted to believe the crawlspace contained hellions yet he believed it. Poking his head into the darkness beyond the door he fathomed comfortable lunacy.

Cobwebs caressed his face as he crawled. Much of it was empty save for dust balls shaped like boxes. Grits of cement scraped his palms. From his pocket he removed a small flashlight. Ahead were more cobwebs and he though he spotted guising spiders. Then legs crawled across his hand. He yelped, rather girlish from the fright. It was the respect he gave spiders that terrified him; nature’s perfect predator. He truly believed if they banded together they could overtake the world.

Ahead there was a green square, fashioned with vertical golden etching. The reflection was blinding. It was a door, eerie in its freshness. Not a single cobweb, absent of dust and the colours were vibrant. The door was decorated with a ruby, an emerald and a pearl stacked vertical. Without words he understood it; Claire. Red hair, green eyed; precious.

Boundless, torrential atrocities prepared. Gnawing mandibles and clawing talons and stinking abominations. How he knew this he could not say. A stray omnipotence propelled him through the doorway with no breeze, only stale.

Claire’s door closed, a phantom hatch winched shut.

For twenty minutes he crawled through grubby roots hanging from the dirt tunnel. His elbows drove his body, his mind drove his elbows and his vacancy drove his mind. He pushed, relentless. When he came to the end he climbed onto his palms and toppled, drunk.

It was a passageway; ancient by impression. Torches illuminated the passage way, a staircase swooped down and right. The architecture was remarkable, unlike any he’d ever seen. The ceiling resembled a steeple. Though, it couldn’t be higher than fifteen feet. Sandstone blocks were designed for the wall to appear to flow like a river. There was no choice, he had to move. Something was tearing for him.

Bearing a torch he descended further into lunacy.

At the bottom of the stairs happened upon a door constructed of cast iron. Its weight was tremendous. All of him opened the door, its deep whine echoing through the next chamber. This chamber was much smaller, homely. Ten feet ahead was another door, small (like Claire’s door) but plain. He opened it and looked inside. The crawlspace was only two or three times his length and he could see a light as well as a table leg.

No hesitation existed, only an aching destitution. The fit was tight but he was able to pass through it without much effort. An old wooden table was in front of him. There were three places set with clean, white china. It was a kitchen, he could smell roast. It didn’t make any sense. The room was dilapidated with luxury dinnerware.

There was a door and it opened to a hallway. Upon further investigation he found two doors in the ‘L’ shaped hall. Inside the first was a bedroom. Though rundown, it was far from dirty. A single candle was lit beside the bed, a pair of glasses beside them. They were hers, he knew it. He picked them up and smelled them – lavender, definitely hers.

He called her but received no acknowledgement; alone and asunder. Comprehension throbbed in his head. Ignorance was bliss.. This proves he wasn’t crazy, that this was all real and she needed him. But this place, it defies logic.

The glasses turned to ash in his hand, leaving it’s remnants on his palm. Onward he would have to go. Pieces of her weren’t enough.

When he opened the door to the second bedroom his heart stopped. The walls were draped in dark red sheets. There were three beds beside each other, white sheets draped over bodies. It was their featureless faces – the noses – he noticed first. Two candles were lit and they blew out; a tendril of dense black faded in their stead.

A coarse pressure expanded around him. His hair went numb, his eyes stung. Something was coming. He didn’t know what it was and he didn’t want to know. There was no sound, no notification. He just felt it.

Knew it.

As he ran he knew it was getting closer and it was fast, ripping apart whole worlds just for him. It was years faster than him. He threw open the door into the kitchen. Faces, boneless, were laid on the fine china. A man was eating a woman’s face, cutting with a knife, a mild stream of blood. All he noticed was the stranger’s plain report before lunging into the crawlspace.

As fast as his elbows could pull he pushed. A wall imploded, he could taste the dust. The pressure was so intense he waited for an eyeball to burst from its socket and his ears to hemorrhage. A sulphorous odour emanated from the fiend. He pushed open the door and felt the brief touch of alien before slamming it shut behind him.

It screamed and pounded on the door then outright vanished. Embodiment of terror, pure evil is what he felt tearing towards him. In the dense silence he heaved and wiped the sweat from his brow. A peculiar thought entered his head; it was tearing through this place yet this flimsy door halted it. He decided it was best not to question good graces.

A new door had materialized. It was a deep, crimson red and decorated with strange wood cuts. One showed a sailboat going off a waterfall and another while another presented a woman in a rocking chair. Each individual picture represented something subtle, too subtle. What was its purpose? Who made it? They were questions lacking answers and voices without words. When he touched the knob, it was ice cold. A bad omen, perhaps, but Claire was beyond this door.

They were both green and ambitious, only sampling life. A cosmic force killed them. How was he supposed to start over when he’d barely learned to start? Thirty days of insomnia, drinking, writer’s block and grief. Last week his brother, after weeks of irritation coerced him to lunch. It was a listless affair, the dialogue faded from his memory. No two conversations have lacked exhausting empathy and feeble endorphins. The love he felt for his brother was authentic. However, he’d banished love in all forms.

When he awoke this morning he’d the platonic presence of death. He dreamt of a crawlspace, but what of this place? What fiendish force induced this? A faint murmur begged for reconsideration. It was too late.

Inside the door was a cavern. Jagged spikes of earth rutted the landscape. It was quite expansive in height but narrow, like a coffin standing up. A folded note, donned by a lone torch was placed beside him. The writing was feminine, scrawled in scarlet ink.

S’ Bye Dear

Lavender, it reeked of it. He inhaled its narcotic nurture. Tears welled to near escape but he convalesced. When the paper ignited in his hands it floated away. Another piece burned away. There was no fighting, he cried with the utmost shame. He hated crying. Being a wounded fawn watching the wolf lick its gums. Avoidance allowed it to brood. He grabbed the torch and continued into the damp passage.

Several bats flew overhead. Smutty supplies of disease. As he walked he heard the bats vision, from the left then overhead. Not creatures particularly to his liking but tolerable. Fluttering by his face, he dodged one. There was the matter of rabies. He swung around the torch to warn them, before continuing forward. Minutes later the bats were behind him and the cavern began to narrow. It was a hydro minefield. Reflection of the fire made it difficult to discern distance.

What was that noise echoing forth? Did it exist? He listened, the fire roaring beside his head. It was so faint…

Cold filtered the air. A chill climbed his spine before sinking into his head. What was up there and why was he so afraid? He’d sensed the abomination but what of it?

Pressing forward he avoided the water. Visibility wasn’t more than fifteen feet. Some thing could be perched, tensed. The sound of water spelunking echoed but there was something subtle looming beyond it.

There was something off to the side, an old typewriter. It was hefty, made of dense metal. Claire’s birthday gift to him, he’d meant to write his next novel on it but he can’t even recall if he’d packed it. It had rusted from dripping water. Why was this here? He didn’t touch, didn’t want to lose it to dust.

A whisper distracted him. It was her voice but it was unintelligible.

Then it was coming. The noise had grown louder, faster.

Above him the ceiling was dome shaped, constructed of limestone tablets. The light reflected effortless, a wider field of view. The cavern was dead and a beast was coming. It felt different; less barbaric, and covert. A deathly skitter, audible barely above the torch. His mind painted wretched portraits and he shoved them aside.

First they were tiny, insect sucking things. They’d all stopped in a circle, covering the entire tunnel. Tiny legs crawling all over each other and millions of eyes watched. It was a candid sensation of anxiety. The beings behind those eyes meant to suck him dry. Not long after, the meaty ones arrived. Cannibalistic, calculating, predators lined in front of him.

Swinging the torch did little. It was as if they were hive, together for a universal objective. The fire projected a wave reflected from their ravenous eyes. Then something peculiar happened. They all crawled over each other, creating a dense mass. All species combined to create a massive spider. Its skin rippled and flowed as they trampled. The scale was massive making him an insect in seconds. The entire cavern was engulfed by this force.

What could be done to defeat it? It’s long, slender leg reached forward and pushed him down. Several spiders broke away and crawled over his skin. He flicked a black widow from his shoulder and daddy long legs from his leg.

It moved with quiet grace. He swung at the leg and broke it. An assortment of spiders exploded from it, many burning before they were replaced. To his right was the type writer. An urge to write on the keyboard was impossible to resist. Words channeled out of him, he didn’t focus on what he was typing just the fact that he was. It was sheer ecstasy. A simple joy he’d been without for half a year. Hearing the click clack of the keys was relief.

As the spider reared up and darted towards him his mind drifted toward Claire; their wedding and honeymoon, fights and agreements – bittersweet.

He looked above at the formidable force looming. Its liquid skin swarmed around him, scratchy and slithering. Random breeds dropped from the host. At first he sensed the legs inside his jeans, prickling his calves. Then he felt the pincers. He’d been bit. Death was imminent. A stream of them poured over him, a faucet flowing arachnids.

Through it all his hand continued typing, even when it was covered in spiders. Click. Miniscule, grating laughs horded around him. Millions of fangs pierced him. Clack. He screamed out in pain. A large spider lay on his face, felt the bite into his brain. Through the paralysis he knew they were all wrapping him up.

As he began to swoon, a hint of lavender broke through the sordid stench.

Then he coughed. Something in his mouth tasted horrible. He turned his head and was sick. All he could taste was ash. All the spiders were gone. He was surrounded by ash. It was odd but he didn’t question it. The typewriter, too, was blanketed in ash. He wiped away the paper, a thick cloud of smoke billowing.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Everything that lives, dies. The spiders dematerialized around him leaving him sheathed in clotty ash. He coughed and turned his head to vomit.

He continued reading, intense and discombobulated.

When he read the words on the type writer he couldn’t believe his eyes. Surely, it was all a mistake. He’d gone insane, it was the only answer. He continued reading until he reached the bottom of the page. This is where the catacombs would erode.

His eyes widened as he read the words. They became vacant, redundant. He began to rise.

When his knees lifted from the gritty floor a panic surged through him. An abnormal weightlessness that, if he could feel it, would’ve started to thrash. He clutched the type writer, desperate to know what happened next. No man’s grip could break its bindings. As he rose higher the words passed out of focus, then the type writer then the circle of grey.

All was black, dense, except for a pinprick of light off in the distance. He wanted to float to it but he couldn’t control his movements. There was a voice that echoed. The only word he could decipher was ‘movement’. No idea what it had meant. He closed his eyes or thought he closed his eyes.

When he opened them a bright light was facing him. Someone was touching his right arm, a murmur. He tried to speak but no words came out.

He wanted to know where he was, wanted to know where she was.

How much time passed he couldn’t determine. A woman told him his parents were on the way, they would be ecstatic to see him moving. He tried to ask her why they were coming and where was he moving? He smells something, lavender. A vase of flowers invaded his thoughts with white sheets and a blue gown.

“Oh hunny. Are you alright?” A woman asked and far away someone kissed him on the cheek.

“Claire?” he choked out. It might have come out as hair, or dare. Hope that the message was received was all he had.

“Who? Who is Claire?” Was the reply.

Time slipped.

He was alone. The flowers were gone. A tray of food lay to his right. Much of the blur had faded from vision. Blinking hurt his head, thinking hurt more. Images were received but not processed. The white walls cramped him. He wanted to thrash because there were spiders on him. If his legs and arms were moving he couldn’t feel it.

Someone walked in the door, daylight poured in through the window.

Did he fall asleep?

A shadow loomed over him and he tasted chicken, felt his jaw move. “My wife, where is my wife?” he asked, each syllable a marathon. There was no reply, only another sampling of chicken. There was no protesting.

When he was alone again, he was embraced by a coarse pressure. He attempted to scream. No sound. He couldn’t even run. The wolf was licking his gums.

A hand grabbed him and he was shaking. Another hand grabbed his shoulder and pushed him down. A man told him he was dreaming and they were there for him. A raspy laugh drilled into his skull.

“It’s your mother.” She said. Her face was lucid, wrinkles deeper than his memory recorded. Memory felt foreign. “There was an accident, on a train.”

“I know. I remember. Claire is dead.” The words were a reaction.

“The nurses have said you’ve mentioned her, said she’s your wife. You’ve never married. Never dated anyone name Claire.”

Could that be genuine? The love of his life, figmented then fragmented? It wasn’t a probability! It was preposterous above and beyond! He protested and screamed and they tried to remain calm. His mother broke down into tears and his sister had to leave the room. Did he just lose her all over again? His father calmed him and he was left alone.

Ten minutes later he watched the images deteriorate. Shards remained but it was hard to piece together. There was a crawlspace, spiders and…that force. An image of bodies covered in white sheets bogged his mind and he cringed. The terror was all too real; the insane knowledge of evil approaching. It faded. He heard a door shut and there was a doctor.

He was briefed on the accident. A passenger train had derailed. They found him under three bodies, impaled through the shoulder by a pole. Severe trauma had cracked his skull, gave him a concussion and sent him into a comatose state.

The next few days were a blur but a week later he was discharged and returned home.

Claire had died. She was a fellow passenger on the train. Still, he cannot recall the slightest second of that train ride. He made sure to visit her grave. There be broke down, it was impossible not to. His parents watched with hurtful eyes. They thought he’d gone crazy. He sprayed lavender on her grave and left her a yellow tulip, her favourite. They may never have spoken, perhaps overheard her name in conversation yet he grieved her, longed for her.

When he got home he there was a present waiting on his desk; an old fashioned type writer. A note attached proclaiming he’d slept through his birthday. A piece of paper was already ready. A quixotic desire surged through him. He began typing. Click. Clack.

A great idea just came to him, ‘The Catacombs’ he would call it.

The dedication read: To Claire, thanks for nothing.

[Steve]

Re: The Catacombs

I liked it. Pretty quirky at times, but otherwise pretty good. I give it a B+.

[Storyslinger]

Re: The Catacombs

I thought it was good

[Mattrick]

Re: Rabid Euphoria

Hello, fellow horror lovers! I'm announcing the reposting of my novel, in serial form. A new post every day.



Ill post this is manageable parts. essentially, when I have a space in the writing - signifying change in setting or time, will be a post. I've always gotten complaints they are so long. So, keep in mind, some will be short (half a page to a page but I think I've got one that's ten pages. Some will have to be split in two.

I've gone through the effort of creating chapters (I had just parts, but with two at seventy plus pages and the rest under 30 I figured I may as well make it all chapters, in the parts. I've also done some editing (not rewriting, though) to the initial pages and will replace the post above. It's been reordered so above isn't the exact beginning, either.

I need to write my ending but it's not even a block I have (I know, essentially, how to end it) but I guess I've got the same syndrome King had with Carrie. I wonder if I've wasted my time and I suppose I just need some reassurance that after working it and tweaking it that I can use it as a stepping stone. No one has read my later pages, probably only the first few chapters.

Does anyone wish to help me along this journey? A new post each day? While it's not perfect yet, I do think you will enjoy the experience. And, hopefully, get a nightmare or two :unsure:








May 23, 2006

“What have I become?
My sweetest friend?”

I heard Johnny Cash’s version of the song on a special of him the other night. Personally, I know what I’ve become so that question answers itself; nothing. Whoever reads this would probably be thinking that I’m some twenty-something know-it-all who thinks he has it bad. Anyone who would think that obviously has no clue what I really think. I’ve never had it bad. In fact, my parents told me when I was eighteen to leave home and never come back, find an apartment and just live my life. On the first of every month there is two thousand dollars transferred into my personal banking account from my comforting creators. Since they are pretty well off it’s not obscene for them to grant their only son such money to live. Both of them know I’m not able to work due to my problems and essentially they’ve given up on me. However, the love they feel for me has faded to a dull moan and albeit all hope being abandoned I have not. They’d rather never speak to me again than know I might have frozen to death on the unforgiving curb of the train station.

I’ve thought about calling, of course. Thanking them for their courtesy yet realizing the truth has halted me. There would be pleasantries to no end, nods in the appropriate places and silence filled with inane chatter. We’d all skirt around the real issues and in the end the connection would not only be absolutely redundant, it would be depressing. In a sense it would be like conversing with yourself in a past life as that life no longer holds any meaning for you. The comfortable life I took for granted during youth is now as real as Hobbiton. Now, I’m simply Andy, needle freak and ailing junkie.

My entire life has been cast aside like an empty pack of cigarettes and replaced with this thin existence. I’m not living or dead…I’m simply waiting to see what team decides to pick me and I’ve always been the last one picked. What I now have instead of a life is euphoria in its purest form. Life was good but this is nothing short of spectacular. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise because those are the ones who are really afraid to live.

Reality is not everyone is apt to agree with me (my well off parents included). Plenty of the do-gooders out there that consider me absolute scum – a sponge of the everyman. Not that it’s wrong to have an opinion but until you’ve seen the world through my eyes you’ve no right to label me as the shit on the bottom of your shoe. Deep down I’m no different from you and I think that’s what makes you all so revolted by me. We’re not the same but we’re no different. We’ve all got our quirks and jerks, things that turn our chins a different way and we’re all keeping skeletons in our closets. Whether it’s your taste for hookers or alcohol or even those idiotic toy trains some people find so fascinating. We all have our escapes and methods of ventilation. Perhaps my means aren’t the cleanest or the most dignified but it’s mine all the same.

You’ve no right to take it away from me.



All thought drifted away from him; a feather in the winds of consciousness. The echoes of thoughts long passed faded to an inaudible drone in the winds and he was free of the prison that was his mind. Alcatraz must’ve been easier to escape. What he called ‘The Climax’ was on it’s way, he could tell by the way the light reflected of the pane window before him and the thin ripples that passed through his skin like shockwaves; the hairs on his arms stood at attention. Sleep washed over him in a dank blanket of space. Stars whirled around his face in a psychotic display. Their gravity tugged his arms towards the swirling emptiness taking form beyond comprehension. As his arms were gently pulled into the nothingness of space a faded silver mist spiralled around the tips of his fingers exciting the follicles of the tiny hairs growing on them, towards his knuckles and swathed his entire body with tainted metallic aura.

To be enclosed by nothing - alone in the vastness of existence is truly insatiable. Being truly alone is a gift the meek are not awarded and the strong have forever possessed. For a brief second a silky weight pressed against the colour of his eye yet he did not blink nor could he blink for he wasn’t sure he was even seeing with his own eyes any longer. Maybe this time his wish would be granted and he would never return to his shell and forever he would wander the universe as a specter, marveling perpetually at the silent beauty of absence.

Surrounding him was a remote melody that sounded so eerily familiar yet he was unable to place a finger on what it was which, was often the case. An image of a thousand angels stuffed into a tiny cathedral and forced to bellow out the most serene piece of music passed before his eyes and suddenly he could make out the words but not understand them. And the band played on.

The melody dulled and the serenity of the voice became a low moaning which seemed to envelop his body in an uncomforting numbness. There was a foreign undertone which he found unfeasible to touch. Now that too was fading and he was left in silent obscurity. The tiny follicles of hair on his fingers repeated their queer actions as the silver mist retreated quicker than it arrived.


In the real world the worn syringe had snuck its way from his indolent grasp and now lay nestled in the spine of the journal he’d been writing in over half an hour ago. A year or so ago (though to Andy it felt as if eons had passed since he came into possession of the object of his wayward affections) his life altered. During his cooked wanderings downtown (as was the thing to do after his parents discarded him) he came across a stationary story whose name escapes him even to this day. Gaining possession of the journal even seems to be a dream because as capricious as he isn’t, an unapparent hand plucked the book from a shelf and casually slipped it into his coat pocket. He browsed for several more moments before exiting the shop oblivious to the fact he’d just committed a felony. An hour later when he’d placed the keys to his new apartment on the kitchen counter (beside the toaster, not the microwave) was when he’d discovered it. Nothing about it seemed unordinary to him – it held about three hundred pages and the cover of the book was being protected by a smooth leather casing (he decreed was a nice touch) and was bound together by a gold plate of metal which was fastened with magnets. When he opened it he discovered a new world or a way of life, so to speak. Before his eyes lay hundreds of pages of empty space (which happened to be his favourite place in the entire universe) that was simply begging—jonesing to be filled with its drug of choice; ink. He cast his glance away from the open book and left to sleep; the day had tired him and his new possession would have to wait until a later day. It’s time would eventually come. And come it had. For the seven months following his first entry (psychotic rambling about how all the traffic lights in the world should always stay green and how the cat across the hall had it out for him) the pages became more and more filled. Initially it started off he would only write in it when he felt the need to get some things off his chest but as the entries piled up he felt more of a [i]need]i] to fill up those empty pages until it became something that was done at least once a day, even if he only jotted down a few scribbled slurs. These blank pages would not be denied their birthright.

Nor would he.


The next post will finish this part with Andy. To those that have read this already I apologize, after this next post it will be new. Though, I think Steve has read about the first 30, unedited pages on .net.

[Mattrick]

Re: Rabid Euphoria

A sucking sound overtook Andy’s world. Much like the slimming stack of blank pages his mind had begun to wear thin and the malady began. In his world universes began to spin around his face and the stars that were dancing their psychotic jig were too miniscule to see. It was nauseating but after so many trips even the worst tumbles seem elementary. For a moment he caught a glimpse of the face of his father in the dissipating light and he recalled back to a lesson his father had taught him one winter day when his wish for a snow day was denied (it had only snowed an inch when half a foot had been forecasted). No sense in worrying about the negatives all the time, Andy. For you should always remain focused on the positive things in life. If all you think about is negative then it’s all you will see. It is mind over matter son, mind over matter. His Dad had said that on several occasions but this was the time he’ll forever remember. It was the day he realized life without optimism would be impossible and happiness unobtainable. Knowledge is power and with the divine knowledge that at the end of the day when all the chores are done and the doors are locked, you’re nothing more than a star in an infinite sky. To many, the mere thought of unimportance is disheartening yet to Andy it was even more of a reason to go on. When nothing you do matters…what does it matter?


Miles away a slim line of a smile cut across his face.


Boring into his head the carnivorous resonance grew to a sickening level before silencing. A momentary wash of tepid air wrapped around his body and it was in this moment he knew that once again it was all over. “Sorry kid, better luck next time” he could almost hear the voices saying. Maybe he would have better luck next time and be stranded (hardly the word considering he wants to be stranded) in the extraneous. Retraction was never an easy thing to cope with and when the ear piercing wind chimes erupted he bit, no chomped, down on his bottom lip spilling blood onto his chin. Comparing the scintillating sensation that engulfs his being to the re-awakening to reality is like comparing black and white. Awakening was in such a deep contract to his momentary feeling of bliss that at times he’d simply break down with his hands in his face and pour out. No dubitably the afterglow was satisfying but compared to the climax it’s as thrilling as Donald Trump finding a dollar. The afterglow will fade until the know-it-all voice in his head told him he needed another fix.

There was a love/hate relationship with that voice.

Nothing shifted to everything (words) revealing the pathos of his forsaken apartment. The blurred syringe blockaded his entire frame of sight. Peering over the rough contours of the paper he could see the digital clock stating it was ten to seven. Lloyd would be over soon for sure but he wasn’t sure what was going on with Darren as in recent weeks he’s been much more isolated than usual, in fact, Andy doubted if he’d even talked to him in the few days. Surrounded by silence he wiped the viscous drool that pooled around the corners of his mouth. From the nestling of the book’s spine he removed the worn syringe with his left hand, negating to realize his right still grasped his blue ball point with stern determination. Getting to his feet with shaking legs wasn’t the easiest task he’d done all day but he managed just fine.


Feverish, he sat down on the old plaid sofa his parents had bought him for his sixteenth birthday – now three years overdue for its appointment at the dump and his considerable ass groove was now pasted with duct tape – with ball point in hand and let out the deep groan of an old cynic. He squished his ass around on the gummy tape until he found his point of comfort and thought maybe it was time for a new couch. “Whatever works, works.” He slurred and kicked his tingling legs on to the creaky coffee table.


On most nights the malady of the apartment failed to bother him and on more than a few occasions felt even the luxury of his parent’s model home in the suburbs couldn’t provide more comfort yet, on this night, there was a distractive pull in the air around him. Maybe it was the way the white-turned dingy yellow (nicotine) paint was beginning to peel off the walls that did it. Three years he’d laid holed up in this box never being sober enough to look twice at it (not that he was sober now by any stretch) but up until now it had been acceptable. In the back of his mind he placed a Post-It where he figured he’d see it with a note ‘find new apartment’ scrawled on it.


After a few seconds his thoughts drifted back towards his euphoria and the serene singing. Mere thought of the tune broke his skin into gooseflesh simultaneously exciting the blood. Later he would spend hours trying to recreate the same sensation in a time of need and would come up short. To him it was like a message that there is beauty in the world if you look hard enough for it. In essence, all his years of searching for that perfect place in the world might have finally come to its end. Whilst floating through the vision of the angelic choir a sensation arose he couldn’t resist; his niche. He’d finally found his niche. It was queer and awful.


Reflection on his experience was beginning to drone into incomprehensible sentences and he knew soon he would fall victim to sleep. All in all his experience was completely unlike anything he’d previously experienced on the needle. Everything including space and time was available to him. Every instinct in his ailing body commanded anything and all was at his disposal and he was god of it all – although, what everything and all were was the variable.

Thoughts and images began to bounce around in his head like a pong machine on mescaline. One of his arms twitched involuntarily in a comical fashion that, if his buddies had been in attendance, surely would cause them to shit their pants laughing as they often said as, it actually happened once.

Peering through glazed eyes that were tearing profusely his feet began to imitate a spinning record. His head reeled flinging a glittering swatch of saliva through the innards of the dingy apartment.

That was when the side of his head cracked off the coffee table and his body landed in a heap.

[Mattrick]

Rabid Euphoria

Lloyd took the stairs up to third floor of the apartment building that his friend Andy lived in as he always did. Andy asked him one day why he was so intent on taking the stairs when he said the elevator would be quicker and easier, Lloyd lent him a smile and said ‘ever been to the movies kid? The elevators always fall’. And Andy had laughed just as he always had. It was probably most of the reason that him and Andy had become such good friends since that fateful evening two years ago. Andy made him remember that not everyone in the world was shit regardless of the image they projected and you could find solace in the strangest places.


He opened the door on the third floor and stepped out into the hallway. The apartment building was the Hollywood stereotype for where a junkie would live; the walls were a dull and faded green which lent the impression of grime covering the walls, the navy blue carpet was worn and missing fabric in patches and it was dimly lit with flickering lights. There was always a lingering smell throughout the building, one of cooking beef in a greasy frying pan that made him want to gag but luckily Andy wasn’t cheap in the incense department and much like the fire extinguishers at the scene of the accident, thank goodness for small favours.


Andy’s Apartment was number 316 and, if the numbers were stolen (not entire uncommon considering the neighbourhood) you could always still recognize it by the bottle cap sized hole about waist high from the time he’d one drunken night tripped on his untied shoelaces and cracked his elbow through the door. Lloyd paused in front of the door for a moment and raised his hand to knock but paused for a moment and looked back over his shoulder. He could’ve sworn something was looking at him but he shrugged it off. He knocked once and waited a moment.

No answer.

Andy was a smack head so not answering the door immediately wasn’t surprising but after the third knock a sweat broke on his brow. He placed his ear firmly against the wooden door and even stilled his breathing to help ear any sort of noise. But there was nothing. He tried to the knob and when it didn’t turn he assumed Andy had left to go somewhere but when he tried the knob again the door popped open.

Slowly the door swung open revealing a bit of the apartment at a time. First it was the wall on the left of the door, then it reveal the short hallways leading towards the bedroom and bathroom, the small but perfectly fine kitchen and finally the living area to the right of the door. Nothing seemed out of place and he sure didn’t see Andy anywhere.

“Andy?” he asked and waited for answer but all the replied was the stillness of the room.

Outside a dog parked furiously at something and he took a few steps forward. “Andy? You here?” he said louder this time. Yet, still there was nothing. Andy was especially picky about security and keeping his door locked because he usually always had some stuff in this place.


When he stepped forward he could see the outstretched hand sticking out from behind the couch with its palm towards the ceiling as if waiting for a high five. Lloyd ran towards him shouting his name but Andy hadn’t stirred. There was blood on the carpet but it looked as though whatever happened was just a step above painful but quite a ways from damaging. From what he can gather he was standing or possibly sitting on the couch and he fainted and cracked his head off the corner of the coffee table. He grimaced when he imagined what the pain must’ve felt like. Fortunately for Andy it was a good chance if he was baked the pain would be minimal at most. With the swiftness of a sober man he dropped to his knees and turned him over. The right side of Andy’s brow was splattered with cadmium and he could see the cut just underneath the hair line. It wasn’t very deep but it was about an inch long and would probably require stitches to heal properly. He shook his shoulders and slapped his face a few times before Andy’s eyes managed to peel open. Lloyd was greeted with a distant look that reminded him so much of the way his children would look at him during those days and he wanted to pulverize Andy.


“L-Lloyd man…how the fuck did you get in this place?” he said and his lips formed a sliver of a smile but it was a painful smile then he continue talking, not even waiting for an answer. “What the hell happened? It feels like someone clocked me over the head with a pipe or something.”

“Just don’t try and sit up right away. From what I can tell you took yourself a little tumble and smashed your forehead off the coffee table. Looks like you got off lucky my friend.”

Andy touched a finger to the location of the numbing pain and brought the fingers over his eyes – blood. “You call this lucky asshole?” There was no anger in his voice.

“You’re damn right. I’m going to grab you some ice from the freezer and myself a beer. That is if there is any”

“There might be some at the bottom. Darren probably left a couple here when he stopped by here the other night on the worst bender I’ve ever seen him on. I didn’t want him to leave at all.” He paused and winced in pain. “I was afraid he might do something completely stupid like get himself killed or worse, kill himself.”

Lloyd laughed a hoarse laugh and found himself coughing by the end of it. He walked into the kitchen. “A bender eh? What was it all about this time? Get stuck in some traffic for a few minutes or stub his toe? That guy always finds something to bitch about and makes it seem so horrible.”

“Amy dumped him.” There was an audible click in his throat.


The freezer door stood open while Lloyd rushed back into the living room to look at his buddy face to face. “You gotta be joking with me right? Tell me you’re joking!” But Andy simply looked at him and said nothing. The look said what words hadn’t. Lloyd looked down at his feet and said, “Shit. Do you know why?”

Andy shook his head. Lloyd opened his mouth to say something but felt it would be better if he hadn’t. Afterall, it was a hot reply itching to escape his throat. There were far too many times where he felt Darren could use a good slap in the face for his bitching and the things he says but he’d always refrained for Andy’s sake. There were times where he liked being around Darren but there weren’t many. He turned back into the kitchen and grabbed three ice cubes from the tray, two remaining buds from the back of the fridge and the only clean rag from the drawer wrapped it around them.

“Why do you think Amy dumped him, Lloyd? They seemed perfectly happy to me most of the time. A great couple actually.”

Lloyd shook his head and stepped back out into the living room. Should he give Andy a version of what he’d just choked back? Or should he simply toss out a little white lie and go on with their peachy little lives? He stood there looking at Andy for a moment, beers in one hand and the rag in the other. No, not right yet. He lobbed the rag to him. “Here you go, put it on your head. It’ll keep the swelling down.”


Without a hitch he did as bid and winced when the ice cubes connected with the hot wound. Fortunately he hadn’t repeated his question and simply sat silent, dabbing at the gash on his head. Some blood spilled on the rag but the bleeding had stopped.

There was a pishhh followed by a plink and the beer cap was on the creaky coffee table and the first swallows went down with pride. As always the first sip led to the second and eventually to the bottom of the bottle. The empty bottle was placed on the coffee table.

“You know, I think I read somewhere, in Newsweek or Time or one of those big publications that drinking too much too fast can rupture the kidneys causing internal hemorrhaging.”

Lloyd looked at him with intense fascination that in Andy’s state – battered and baked – that he was even able to put together such an intricate sentence.

“I think it’s definitely something to think about every time you crack open a new case, ol’ buddy.”

“You don’t even read magazines.”

“I know.”

“Look Andy, you can call you me your buddy, you can call me an asshole or a prick or a pole-sucking mother fucker or, if you so feel the need to do, you can call me your daddy but that’s only on Tuesday when I’m feeling generous.” Lloyd winked at Andy and he returned the gesture with warm-hearted laughter. “But, if there is one thing I’m not, it’s old.”

Andy reached his free hand up and Lloyd took it and hoisted him up to his feet so they were standing face to face. “Sure man, whatever you want. If you don’t want to be old I’ll hold myself back when the urge comes.”

“Glad we’re in agreement.”

“I just want to be clear with one thing,” Andy said and place his hand on Lloyd’s shoulder. “You have to make me a promise and it’s a promise that is bound on everything you’ve ever lived for. Strong as oak, ya know?”

Lloyd nodded and waited. When Andy hadn’t spoken back up he took it upon himself to get the train rolling. “And…that promise would be?”

“That if I ever feel the need to call you daddy you put a fucking bullet in my head.”


Both of them erupted in a roar of laughter which would no doubt irritate the neighbours if they were normal neighbours. Lloyd slapped his knee and Andy fell back bottom down on the floor holding his ribs with tears streaming down his face.

“I think we’ve got a deal on that one.” He choked back through a fit of giggles. The booze was definitely starting to work into his system now. There was an audible crack in his back as he once again helped his friend to his feet and he let out a droning groan. Andy looked up at him with cunning eyes that seemed to glisten in the soft light. Immediately it was obvious what the expression intended but what happened was unstoppable. Andy grabbed the worn green toque from his head with cat-like swiftness and flung it across the room. It landed in the shoddy blue recliner he picked up from a junk pile several months ago.


“You might not be over the hill yet ol’ buddy but you’re sure going pretty damn bald!”

Lloyd’s palms had immediately covered the ever-growing pallid circle of flesh on the top of his heads as if trying to protect it. Blind surprise was written all over his face. Andy giggled and inside Lloyd screamed out in frustration and shock. Andy and Darren could never understand how it feels to start losing the hair you loved so much at such a tender age, years shy of when most people get their first grays. Behind his thick rimmed glasses his eyes watered and he caressed what was left of his black hair. Lately it had become a habit to do this with a hope it might come back. “Asshole.”

It never hit Andy how vain he might have been about his losing his hair but him and Darren couldn’t help but rag on him about it because it was just so easy. They don’t mean to hurt his feelings because it’s all just for shits and giggles. Just the kind of things guys do to each other to pass the time. He watched him plod towards the shoddy recliner muttering what were probably curses under his breath and pluck the toque from the armrest with the foam sticking out the front. “I try Lloyd my man. Boy do I try.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t.”

“Look, if I hit a nerve I sure didn’t mean it. All I was doing was fucking around man, you know me.”

“Yeah, not a serious bone in your body, I know. Life’s all a big joke to you.”

Andy said nothing.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

“No, don’t worry about it.” He replied and sniffled. “I suppose I did deserve it. After all, I started it.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it is all.”

There they sat in silence for several minutes. Neither of them said anything yet attempted to break the uncomfortable silence. All the phrases rush up their throat were held safely behind their teeth. Lloyd finished half of the second beer and sat staring down at his army green toque which he’d neglected to put back on. Outside the wind was beginning to pick up and with the sun fully set it was impossible to see the approaching storm clouds preparing to unleash their cargo. Horns honked furiously and sirens rushed past the apartments windows casting a flashing atmosphere of crimson and indigo around them. Silence was something not easily broken, especially for those short on words. But it would have to eventually be broken.

“How was Darren doing?”

“Hold on a second. You look like a man who could sure use a cigarette.” He held out a cigarette to Lloyd and he accepted it and popped it into the corner of his mouth.

“That and a blowjob from a five hundred dollar hooker but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.”

Andy lit his smoke and offered his lighter. Lloyd shook it off and used his Zippo. “Thanks.”

“Anytime O…sorry, buddy. I almost forgot about the whole ‘you can call me daddy’ bit.. Any who, as you can imagine Darren was completely out of his head. Hammered out of his tree, spending half the time he was over mumbling phrases I couldn’t make out. I kept asking him what was wrong and he would just reply with that mumbling. It seemed he was doing everything under the moon that night. He told me he spent the evening smoking rock with a few other friends of his and spent the rest of the night getting booted from bar after bar after he kept trying to pick fights with people and I mean bad people. It was as if he was trying his damnedest to get himself killed. It wasn’t until before he left around three in the morning he told me that Aimee dumped him and he wasn’t sure if he could handle it. I haven’t heard from him since. I tried calling him all day yesterday and couldn’t even get his machine.” He took a pull from his smoke and exhaled it slowly with a contemplative look on his face. “I managed to talk to Amy though.”

“What’d she have to say?”

“She told me she couldn’t deal with his woe is me bullshit anymore. In the beginning she said it was magic but the past couple of months it was if the man she fell in love with just up and vanished. Poof.” He flipped opened his closed fist to emphasize. “We both know she wasn’t an innocent girl and lived on the wild side but she said it was Darren who managed to get her feet to touch ground. Then it all turned to shit. He started sneaking out of their place, not calling when he was being late, coming home out of his head. It didn’t stop there though. She said that when she approached him about his recent tendencies to vanish he hit her several times in a drunken stupor. He told her that if she tried to leave him whatever happened after was on her head.”


“Jesus Christ! He fucking hit her? That mother fucker!” Lloyd screamed and pounded both of his fists down on the coffee table. “Son of a bitch! I’m gonna beat the-"

“No you won’t. We won’t do nothing except try and keep him as calm as possible right now. If he shows up tonight which I have a feeling he just might we’ll try and take his mind off things. In other words, we’ll be his friends.”

Lloyd didn’t like the idea of simply letting this guy sit in this apartment tonight fucked out of his tree babbling about how fucked up his life got when he was the one who fucked it all out of control. For starters you never, ever hit a woman no matter what they’ve done to you. If anyone in their group has ever had a right to hit a woman it was him for what Jessie has done to him over the past few years, stripping his former life away from him piece by piece and even that was no excuse. Could he keep his cool tonight around Darren if he showed? No, he didn’t think he could but he would try for Andy’s sake. Always for Andy.

“Fine.” He butted out his smoke. “I’m outta smokes and I need some beer. You need anything while I’m gone? A chocolate bar or a soda?”

Andy waved him on.

A gunshot rang out in the distance followed by a several more dogs joining in the furious barking.

Lloyd left the apartment in an extremely foul mood hoping to god that Darren wouldn’t show up tonight or he’d have to bite his tongue so hard it bleeds.

[Mattrick]

Rabid Euphoria

Not sure if anyone is reading this or not but I'm going to keep posting, every day.




This city, like most cities was teeming with people who didn’t know each others names, the people who owned the shops around their houses or the name of the man in blue behind the wheel of a cruiser. People went place to place driving their cars and chatting away on their cells phones as they walked the streets appearing to have interesting and exciting lives filled with interesting characters but the problem is that none of them do. All of them wake up in similar fashion and go to bed in similar fashion. Nothing separates them from each other except for the thoughts in their heads. On a street that ran along downtown there was a man who’s thoughts focused mainly around all the people walking around him as he hung up the phone. The whites of their eyes wide when they seen him and he knew the look better than his own face. It was the look of being lost and looking for someone to blame and he was sick of being that someone. No longer will they fuck with his life. Now, he will do the fucking. [/SIZE]

Casually he strolled – well, staggered is more apropos – along the darkening streets of downtown equipped with stainless steel flask and the switch blade he’d always carried with him because you never know. Vision transcended from a blurred reality to a thin darkness and with each spot of sight he’d be further up the street than the last. A swoon was cast over him and the nearby bus shelter was as good a spot as any for a drunk ponder silly questions and forget serious situations. From inside his coat he removed the flask and knocked back a strong swig. It bit the back of throat in a way most would wave off a second but he took his with zeal.


Every attempt to mull his thoughts away on silly questions was futile. Every attempt to mull his thoughts away on anything remotely pleasant was slapped away with images of Amy and her tenderness. It made him want to die. She was gone and it was the only thing he could really think off. To every thought there was an inaudible thought below it infected with the love that abandoned him. No longer was Amy with him to put her frail arms around him and plant soft kisses on his neck as she often did. Darren’s free hand began to run through his long brown hair stroking the scalp delicately. For an instant he could smell her perfume and feel her breath on his skin and when he moved in closer, the cold glass of the bus shelter to much to bear. A shocked yelp escaped his lungs and pounded repeatedly on the glass, pushing his moist face against the clear surface. Warm tears streaked down the cold glass behind chocked cries. He staggered out of the bus shelter not sure of what to do or where to go.


Strangers walked around him unbeknownst of the pain and torment that was surging through his veins and in that moment he hated them all for being so heartless. Why couldn’t there ever be anyone for him to count on in this cruel and inarticulate world? Why did everything have to be out of his grasp when he needed them the most? Piss on you. He thought through a tangled smile. A man in a baseball cap looked him and it was a look he knew very well. He’d seen it every day as far back as he could remember and it always made him feel as if he should be behind a glass case. Darren returned a grimace and the man the baseball cap quickly turned his head and looked away. Yeah, you’d better hurry away you piece of shit. I’ll piss on you and your entire family, until their hair is yellow. A moaning chuckle escaped his mouth.

Another swig of the flask might relax his nerves a bit. Yes, it just might. Again the bittersweet concoction inside the flask bit his throat in a pleasant way and warmed him inside in a way that not even Amy had been able to accomplish. Alcohol was mankind’s cure for everything and he loved it.

Above him the traffic light changed from green to yellow to red. On a drunken whim he decided to sprint across the street instead of waiting for the next green light. Fortunately for Darren traffic wasn’t congested and he tripped on his untied shoelace. He tried his hardest to remain balanced but gravity overcame him. Had traffic been busier he’d most likely have been run down a driver in the outside lane. The cement scraped above his left eye and a trickle of blood ran down his face. Various people around him laughed heartily at his misfortune and someone from across the street made sure to scream how much of an idiot he was. Typical people who simply don’t understand what it’s like and the more typicals he came across the more he loathed them. However, he managed to pick himself up and crossed the intersection as the light turned green.

Not a spectacular way to start the night. Darren thought. He turned and looked back the way he’d come wiping blood on the sleeve of his jacket. At the back of his mind he hoped that he wouldn’t run into a cop who’d throw him in the drunk tank for the night. No, I couldn’t have that. It would destroy my night. Over time acting sober had become easier than being sober and the only white flag about him was the sordid stench of alcohol wafting from him. Cars sped through his vision in a blur that caused the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and the corners of his mouth to go numb.

Darren put his hand in front of his mouth and exhaled into it and sniffed it. Good, my breath absolutely reeks of whiskey. It’s far better than the smell of that skank.

On his right he passed the store Lloyd happened to be in buying smokes. Coming out from the store was a young couple walking arm and arm, both displaying white grins. Grief washed over him like a waterfall and he desperately needed a drink. The girl even looked a bit like Amy and with the wind was able to deduce she even wore a similar scent. He compensated with another swig from his flask which was nearly as light as it would get. Sad but true.

A police car sped up the street beside him with sirens blaring and lights flashing. Up ahead there appeared to be some kind of accident and the crowd seemed unusually small. However the cop drove right past and turned a hard right on the following block. There was an ambulance parked along the side of the street with an EMT leaning against the side having a cigarette. In front of him lay three body bags and trails of blood leading towards them. Several onlookers apparently either refused to leave until all the commotion concluded or they were new to the scene. One of them was a rather rotund man wearing a black sweater and blue jeans. A cigarette was in the corner of his mouth and he stepped around the body bags and began to chat with the EMT. A middle-aged woman had dropped her shopping bags at the site of the accident and appeared to be enthralled by the destruction. An older gentleman was looking at the damage done to his Cadillac while he was yelling at someone on the phone.


The accident looked pretty fresh to him. As he got closer he a police officer stepped around the far side of the ambulance and he could see there was a cruiser there all along. It was time for him to put up or shut up with his acting abilities and not allow the cop to catch a whiff of him. There was a good bet he wouldn’t care with everything that was on his plate but he decided to keep a good distance all the same.

Catching sight of the man in uniform the guy who owned the Cadillac raced over to where the rotund man and the EMT were talking before the officer could. “What the fuck is going to happen with my car? This stupid punk of a kid came barreling through that intersection and drove straight towards me!” From the phone a voice crackled and he put it back to his ear. “Yeah, I know. I’m talking to a cop right now. Yeah, I’ll make sure to ask him that as well. Of course I’ve got my proof of insurance with me! Ow, my fucking neck!” Cadillac lowered the phone again and told the cop to hurry up and write this report down because or else he would sue.

“Hey buddy. If you want something to be done about your precious car and your valuable time then shove that goddamn phone up your ass.” The rotund man quipped. “You see what’s behind me? Three goddamn body bags and a nearly dead teenager that was just taken away in an ambulance.”

“You don’t think I know that? That damn kid smashed my car!” he said, holding he neck with his free hand.

“Go wait by your car sir.” The officer instructed. “We’ll need to resolve any disputes in an orderly manner but your smashed car is the last thing I’m worried about. As this gentleman just said we’ve got body bags and going form what this man has told us it was a homicide of some kind.”

“But my car!”

“Fuck your car.” The rotund man said behind a minute smile.

Displeased with the results Cadillac went back to his car kicking at the ground like a kid whose mother called to come in for the night.

Darren could hear everything clearly and for the time being wasn’t just sober, he actually felt sober. There was a set of stairs leading to an apartment building he sat on and listening to the unfolding situation with ardor.

“Can you tell me again what the boy said to you?”

“It was a bit difficult to make out but I’m almost definite he said that man eaters stormed the house and attacked his family and he said he lived on the outskirts. Actually, even through all the trauma and shock he tried to apologize to me for causing the accident before he passed out cold from the pain.”

“Is that all he said to you? Nothing else?”

The rotund man considered this for a moment before replying. “I do believe he said that ‘it didn’t stop there.’ I had no clue what he was talking about so I dismissed as just jargon.”

The police officer nodded and jotted down a few notes on a small pad of paper and then placed the pad into the breast pocket of his uniform. His glance found Cadillac still flipping on the telephone and shook his head. “If only everyone I had to talk to was as co-operative as you.”

“Don’t we all.” The rotund man mused and offered the officer a cigarette from his pack.

“Thanks but I’m trying to quit. Using the patch but I tell ya, it’s hell.”

“So I’ve heard. But I figured why bother? We’re all going to die anyways so I may as well keep on smoking like a chimney.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

“Officer, before you go I was wondering, what would you say was the cause of death?”

“We won’t know until we get back from the coroner which probably won’t be until the wee hours of the morning. Why?”

“Oh, the bodies looked rather tattered so I was just curious.”

“Thanks for your help, it could help to catch the fuckers who did this. We’ve got officers en route to their home.”

After the officer left to deal with Cadillac there was a window of oppourtunity to walk past the scene without receiving too much attention from the officer of the law. He snuck away past the ever diminishing group of people. Around a blind corner he drew the last suckle of booze from his flask and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. The accident had shook him out from the destructive trance and at last he was able to think easier. What he set out tonight to do still needed to be done. A malicious smirk appeared on his face.

“Amy, you’ll always be mine. Whether you want to be or not.”

While the officer dealt with Cadillac and the EMT waited for the coroner to remove the bodies Darren wandered in search for blood.

[Jean]

Re: Rabid Euphoria

keep posting

it is being read

the chances of it being commented on will increase if you comment on someone else's writings, too

(personally, I would read it much more productively if the font was larger...)

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gif

[Mattrick]

Re: Rabid Euphoria

I changed one of them...size 3 looked no different and size 4 might be too big...?

[Jean]

Re: Rabid Euphoria

both (the part that starts May 23, 2006 and Pages 11 - 17 - 22) look ok to me. A lot more readable than those other parts.

[ATG]

Re: Rabid Euphoria

Nice.

[Mattrick]

Now, I posted a story on here sometime ago called Rabid Euphoria. I wrote about 230 pages of it. Problem was, due to the large gap in time between the first 70 pages and the last 160, there was a large lack in continuity from start to finish. My ideas changed and even the characters did. So I had to rewrite it all and I still had finished the ending. So, after getting a copy of Final Draft, a screenplay writing program, I decided to adapt my own work into a script. Seeing as I am planning to get into a really good film program, part of my portfolio should included scripts that I have written.

I won't be posting the whole thing, obvious. Maybe a few snippets here and there. Not sure if many people have read/wrote scripts but I just want to be sure it's presented as best as possible. Now, the full presentation and layout will not transfer to this site, so I'll try to make it as how it looks on my screen as possible.






EXT. STREETSIDE - NIGHT

LLOYD is walking. He is wearing a dark green toque and rounded glasses. He walks with his head down, as if he’s waiting to see his own feet come from underneath him. This is because he’s already began drinking.
He lights a cigarette. He watches the traffic pass by.

He continues walking, deep in thought. He is thinking about his kids, whom he had not seen in years.

A loud bang interrupts his thoughts and he turns to survey it. A car crash had happen merely a block or so behind him. Instictly he begins to run towards it.


CUT TO:


EXT. CRASH SCENE - NIGHT


Lloyd finds himself to be among the first few onlookers, along with a rotund gentleman with a jovial spirit and a small handlebar moustache.
Screaming from inside the blue car which, was on its roof. The tires spum frantically. It had hit a black SUV, whose front end had been smashed to pieces.


LLOYD
What happened?

ROTUND MAN
I’m not entirely sure, I wasn’t looking. Judging from the wreck, the blue car veered off suddenly, hit that SUV.
A door opens and shuts an a very clean and well dressed man steps out of the SUV, holding the back of his neck. Blood trickles from his nose.

LLOYD
Well, he looks to be fine.
(Motions towards SUV Driver)



ROTUND MAN
Then let’s forget about him. They’re still screaming in there. One definitely sounds like a woman.


A blood curdling female scream comes from the car. Then silence.


LLOYD
Jesus! What the fuck was that?

ROTUND MAN
I’m don’t want to know.


The driver’s door opens. A teenager, about 15, crawls onto the pavement. He is covered in blood and visible wounds.


ROTUND MAN
He’s just a kid! Where the is the ambulance?


Rotund Man takes steps forward and kneels down beside the boy, who had now rolled on to his back.



ROTUND MAN
Help is on the way. Stay calm, okay?

TEENAGE DRIVER
They came...they came out of forest.
(coughs, blood comes out)
My dad heard noise at the back door, so he opened it...


Lloyd stepped behind the man who was attending to the kid. He surveyed the inside of the wrecked car. There was a body in the passenger side. An older woman, the kids mother.



ROTUND MAN
Don’t talk, son. Just rest, help will be here soon.

TEENAGE DRIVER
They...they attacked him. Thrashed him. I heard it and then I saw it. They were not people. They were animals!

SUV DRIVER (O.S.)
...Yeah that’s right, Martin. It’s totally destroyed. Twenty Minutes? Well, the blasted cops will take more than that to get. Sounds good.

LLOYD
What’s the kid saying?

ROTUND MAN
I think he’s delirious. He’s probably in shock. How does the inside of the car look?

LLOYD
Not good.

SUV DRIVER
Alright, you better have insurance there buddy!


Lloyd and the rotund man turn to look at the driver, who still held his phone. He was approaching them as he talked.



SUV DRIVER
My premiums aren’t going up because of some little shit having a joyride!

ROTUND MAN
I’d advise you wait until the police get here to sort out your insurance concerns.


The SUV Driver looks down at the boy’s bloody body and is taken back.



SUV DRIVER
Damn kid! He turned right into me! I will not stand for this! I think my damn nose is broken.

ROTUND MAN
Go wait by your car. You can explain your side to the police when they arrive.

SUV DRIVER
You can count on that.
The driver pulled out his cell phone, dialed and turned and started walking away.

TEENAGE DRIVER
My dad...they, killed him. They hurt my mom...I was the only person who could get her away from them. And then she...
(cough)
Mom, I’m so sorry!


As the boy screamed blood came out of his mouth and then he died. A significant crowd had gathered around the scene, chattering to each other. When the boy died, they fell silent.


LLOYD
Shit...oh man, shit.

Lloyd pulled out a cigarette and offered one to the rotund man, he took it.
ROTUND MAN
I haven’t smoked in over ten years. But if there was ever a time to start again, this is it.
(Lloyd lights his cigarette)
What a tragedy.
LLOYD
Amen.


CUT TO:



INT - ANDY’S APARTMENT - NIGHT


Andy sits at his writing table. Andy looks to be in his twenties. Slovenly yet dignified all at once. The dignified half comes from his late parents, who were well off. The other half comes from apathy.

In front of him is a journal, he can’t remember where he got it. In it were the skewed scrawls of an addict. It had become routine to write entries before fixing. We find him find making his latest entry.


ANDY (V.O.)
The comfortable life I took for granted during youth is dead, that kid is dead. Now, I'm simply Andy - needle freak and ailing junkie. My entire life has been cast aside and replaced with this tenuous existence. I'm neither living or dead. I'm simply waiting to see which side I end up on. What I now have instead life is euphoria in its purest form. Life was good but this is nothing short of spectacular. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise because those are the ones who are really afraid to live.


Andy begins to scratch at his neck as he writes.



ANDY (V.O.)
Reality is not everyone is apt to agree with me. Plenty of the do-gooders out there consider me absolute scum; a sponge of the everyman. Not that it's wrong to have an opinion but until you've seen the world through my eyes you've no right to label me as the shit on the bottom of your shoe. Deep down I'm no different from you and I think that's what makes you all so revolted by me. We're not the same but we're no different. We've all got our quirks and jerks, things that turn our chins a different way and we're all keeping skeletons in our closets. Whether it's your taste for hookers or alcohol or weed or cigarettes. We all have our escapes and methods of ventilation. Perhaps my means aren't the cleanest or the most dignified but it's mine all the same. You've no right to take it away from me.



Andy places the pen on the table and opens the drawer beside him. He removes a wooden jewelery box. Inside are his tools; spoon, lighter, syringe etc. He opens a baggie with brown powder and places it on a spoon. Adds a few drops of water and takes a lighter to it.



ANDY
Come on...come on.
(mutting to himself)
Cook damn it.


As the brown powder turned to a liquid on the spoon, he salivated. Sweat appears on his brow. He draws the drug into the syringe and sets it down. He wraps the rubber band and preps his vein.


ANDY
Euphoria; my best friend. My one true love.
Andy inserts the needle and pushes the plunger.



CUT TO:

[Sandalwood79]

RE: first few pages of a script

Mattrick,

I too have Final Draft. I went to film school for two years and am currently raising funds to direct and produce a short film I've been dreaming of making for years now, but aside from that, I have produced/directed/written and worked various positions in real film crews, and have at least a rudimentary idea of screenwriting, and am thrilled to see someone has thought to post a script (or at least, a segment of one) here on the forum! Kudos!

If you really want help, I would be more than happy to give you general feedback on your piece, but after reading it I can see that you already have the basic principles of screenwriting down. Most of your action lines are short, there appears to be a lot of space there (which is a good thing), and you're clearly passionate about the project. These are all good qualities when working on a screenplay.

Of course, to give you any helpful feedback, it would help to know exactly what you're purpose is for this script you're writing. For instance, if you were going to submit this to an agent in Hollywood and propose this to studios, you would have to make appropriate tweaks in you're structe and formatting, as well as knowingly gear the subject matter so that it's business-friendly (they are, after all, only in it for the all-powerful-dollar, regrettably).

However, if you are planning on making this yourself with your own financing, or finances you raise from investors, and would be interested in making this an independant production, I would give you differing feedback still.

However, old advice is sometimes the best advice, and there are fundamental screenwriting techniques (very subtle techniques, but they work wonders) that will instantly improve the quality and urgency of your screenplay without changing a single word of dialogue, or augmenting the plot or story at all!

And it all starts with your action lines.

One thing you want to keep in mind is that movies always take place in the moment. Moment-to-moment. It's all present-tense. Even in flashbacks, the images are "painted" with words onto the page using active descriptions that keeps the reader focused in what it literally happening to the characters. This means that by simply eliminating all "ing" words will instantly add urgency and suspense to your story. Also, it serves a second, and more aethstetic purpose, by cleaning up your sentences and making them look neat, trim and short. It also lends a certain authority to the writer that triggers a sense of confidence with the reader that makes their brains say: "this story is going places, and I want to read more", even without them knowing it.

For instance:

JEREMY, a stout and grim man in his 40's, is walking into a bar with dim lighting. He starts digging into his deep overcoat pocket, snarling impatiently, and starts pulling out a heavy wad of sweaty bills.

JEREMY, a stout and grim man in his 40's, walks into a dimly lit bar. He digs into his deep overcoat pocket with an impatient snarl and releases a heavy wad of sweaty bills.

Granted, neither of these is an amazing action line. The use of "heavy" to describe the bills suggests a narrative touch that would be more fitting in a novel, or short story. All "prettying up" of words should be kept to an absolute minimum when writing a screenplay.

Think of a screenplay as a blue-print for making a movie. The director is looking at the script to decipher information as to how the scene should be shot. Adding details is instrumental to this process, but it is important to ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS omit any and all useless words that don't directly contribute the whole. "Heavy", in this case, is supporting "wad", which calls to mind roughly the same image; therefore rendering "heavy" as a description that isn't altogether necessary, even if it is interesting.

That is not to say that you couldn't add these words of flair every once and again, to help maintain the reader's imagination; but I believe firmly that this is only to be used sparingly, and only for good reason. A director will know these words when he sees them. As a matter of fact, there's a rumor that Christpher Walken goes through the screenplays he is going to star in, and omits all his character's punctuation marks; periods, commas, exclamation points, everything. He does this because he knows that punctuation doesn't build character, and it doesn't make a movie. Likewise, fluff words don't make a movie: they are fluff.

It's like a jenga tower. Take out any and all blocks that aren't essential to the foundation of your story. But don't take out too much that the whole thing collapses. The trick to writing a good screenplay is making every single word so absolutly essential that without any one word, the whole thing would collapse. Every screenplay I have ever written, or read, would benefit from this drastically.

I'm sure I may have written more than you bargained for, perhaps; and I certainly hope it helps! I'm really happy to see someone else on here who is interested in writing screenplays, and would really like to see where this (and other) work goes for you.

And of course, if you would be interested in feedback concerning the subject material or content of your script, I would be more than happy to do so :)


-ksZ

[Mattrick]

RE: first few pages of a script

This was more an experiment, really. I thought it would be easier to familiarize myself with the process by adapting something I'd already previous written. So I could focus more on learning the program than actually creating it.

Now that I have the gist of the program and can use it more efficiently, I've started working on something I started writing but only got about ten pages in before my laptop and pc both died on me. It's a story that has been bugging me for sometime and it's definitely much easier to write in a script format.

I wrote 8 pages of this work tonight. It's actually more freeing to write this story as a screenplay. Funny enough, I always envisioned my main character to be a male and the shrink to be female but I think it works better the opposite way. It also allowed me to give the a character a very interesting name, as well as the title I couldn't find for the work.

I realized above the narrative aspects were too detailed. That's what happens when you copy from a novel you wrote, more things feel necessary then they really are.

One thing I like about final draft is the voices. Makes it a little easier to see how the dialogue flows in words rather than text. It does mess up sometimes...it pronounced passed 'pass-ehd' and middle-aged as 'middle-aye-jed' but can't really complain.

I'll look to your post for advice if I get stuck. I do plan on going to film school myself and one day make movies. But I would deal with being a screenwriter as long as I get to write what I want. Ideally, I would love to like a Shyamalan, P.T. Anderson or Wes Anderson where I write my own movies as well as direct them.

[Mattrick]

Nova Cane






INT. DR. GREYS OFFICE - DAY



DR. THOMAS GREY sits at his desk. He is middle-aged. He takes his wedding ring off while he works. His hair is greying but thick for his age. He’s expecting a new patient today. In his line of work, he often sees many new patients. Though, due to the circumstances which often brings them, he doesn’t see them very long. He checks his watch and goes to the door to let in his new patient.


DR. GREY
Hello, you must be Nova. Please, come in.


NOVA enters. She sits down on the couch and places her coat on her lap, her purse beside her. She is in her mid-twenties, beautiful but not particularly striking. She carries a void in her eyes but a smile on her face. This void is even more expressed by the thick makeup around her eyes.



DR. GREY (CONT'D)
Would you like me to take your coat?
NOVA
No, thank you. I’m quite fine holding onto it.


Dr. Grey nods and smiles and sits in his chair.



DR. GREY
Hello, Nova. That’s a pretty name by the way.
(she nods)
My name is Doctor Thomas Grey, but I’m sure you already know that. First off, I’m going to ask you if you understand how this process works.


NOVA
I saw someone like you when I was younger. I was a much different person, then. Now, the reasons are much different.


DR. GREY
So then, that brings me to my next question. What exactly brings you here?


NOVA
I think you’ve got a fair idea. When the doctor handed me your card, it came from a large stack of them. Are they all yours or are you simply a member of some legion of super shrinks?


DR. GREY
I suppose my reputation preceeds me.


NOVA
Well, your card did.


DR. GREY
I suppose that does as well.


A moment of silenced passed.


NOVA
Aren’t you curious?


Dr. Grey smiles.


DR. GREY
Curious about what?


NOVA
What I’m dying of.


DR. GREY
Do you want to know what I’m curious about?
(she nods)
I am curious about your super shrink comment. Is that what you expect of me?


NOVA
For you to be a super shrink?


DR. GREY
Yes.


NOVA
Doc, in the first place, I was hesitant to even show up to this appointment. Opening up has never been my area of expertise. But it IS yours. So I figured, what the hell? Give it a shot. Secondly, I thought, who else do I have to talk to?


DR. GREY
No one? Not a family member or a friend?
(she shakes her head)
What about your parents? Siblings?


NOVA
I was an only child. My mother died when I was eleven. She was the only person who ever actually cared about me. My father...he could never come to grips with me.


DR. GREY
In what way?


NOVA
Pardon?


DR. GREY
In what way couldn’t your father come to grips with you?


NOVA
Sorry Doc, but I’m not going there yet. You’re going to have to work for that answer.


DR. GREY
A woman of mystery, I see. That’s quite an admirable quality. Especially in today’s age of self voyeurism. That’s fine, we’ll get to it. What would you like to talk about, then?


Nova reacha into her purse and removes cigarettes and places one in her mouth. Dr. Grey shoots her a queer stare.



NOVA
Oh, I’m sorry.
(laughing)
Is it okay if I smoke?


DR. GREY
Actually, I’d prefer it if you didn’t.


NOVA
Fine.


She places the cigarettes back in her purse. She pulls out gum instead and puts it in her mouth. She closes her eyes as if to savour the taste.



NOVA (CONT'D)
So this ailment, well, disease I have. It’s pancreatic cancer. I looked up the statistics on the internet and I did the math. I’ve got a one in ten chance of surviving this.


DR. GREY
When did you first discover you had this, pancreatic cancer?


NOVA
I went to the hospital a few weeks ago, told them I was coughing up blood. After a few appointments, tests and a biopsy, I got the results in last week and went to see the oncologist. He told me I was in advanced stages and I mean advanced stages. Current diagnoses is extremely bad. I’ve got seven tumours in my pancreas; 4 malignant, 3 benign.


DR. GREY
What else did they say?


NOVA
Mhmm?


DR. GREY
What else did they say? About your condition?


NOVA
That I’ll die before my 25th birthday. Which is just less than two months away.
(coughing)
Just my luck.


DR. GREY
Now, I’m not overly familiar with pancreatic cancer, but I do know it’s extremely painful. Are you feeling any pain right now?


Nova looks down at her feet as they shuffled. She then looks at him but doesn't speak.


DR. GREY (CONT'D)
What is it?


NOVA
Dammit. I didn’t want this to come up so fast.
(sighs)
Well, here we go. I haven’t told anyone this, ever, that didn’t already know it. I’m considered somewhat of a medical miracle.


DR. GREY
A medical miracle? In what sense?


NOVA
Get this, when I was born. I was completely paralyzed. My mom told me before she died, that they thought I was a stillborn. But I had a pulse and my lungs were working, but just barely. I was in an incubator for weeks she told me. I was undersized and malnourished but that was temporary. They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t moving.


DR. GREY
So how did they fix you?


Nova reaches into her purse, pulls out a cigarette and lights it.



DR. GREY (CONT'D)
I thought we already discussed the smoking rule.


NOVA
I’m showing you how they fixed me.


She extinguishes it on the underside of her arm. Her expression doesn't change. Dr. Grey winced and withdrew.



DR. GREY
Why would you do that?


NOVA
To show you.


DR. GREY
Show me what?


NOVA
That they didn’t fix me. I’m still paralyzed.




I've had this idea for sometime. I know somewhere there is a condition actually like this. Think a girl went on Oprah with it or something and I would love to know the name but I really don't. I just thought of the possibilities to write with someone who cannot feel, physically. How it would affect their lives, how they would have to work to do the littlest things like knowing when to use the washroom or understanding when to eat to avoid starving. The favourite part I wrote when I tried to novelize it, was how human memory is often linked to bodily harm or sensations. There is always a story to go with a scar. But what if someone couldn't feel the pain that made the scar, would they remember how they got it?


Also, the name. Considering my main character cannot feel anything, I thought calling her Nova Cane (after the drug dentists use to numb an area) would be clever. That will also be the title.

[Mattrick]

Any port in a storm; it’s a saying resounded through time and generations, passed down as a pearl of wisdom. It tells that no matter how daunting the world becomes we can find refuge in the most unlikely of places – in not so many words – buck up, things will improve, be blessed for that which you have. This definition is a far-gone fallacy – a talisman to bear through the darkness, lighting the way for those in simple denial of their own situations. The phrase echoes no such sentiment to me as I prepare my vessel for deportation. The storm was here but I could no longer stay in this port, it no longer provides me what I need and its lighthouse blinds me upon each slice through the violent sky. The saying is one that kept me here for much longer than I needed to reside. It was a port at first glance seemed so elegant in all its simplicity. When I initially arrived I was overcome with loquacity despite my emotional stupor. Yet, something struck me as indignant about it, some intrinsic quality I cannot yet see. As I shove off the dock in my small yet sturdy vessel I understand it.

Some weeks before a light appeared in the night, its first appearance brief yet enticing. It was a few days before I witnessed it again; its white light seemed to beckon to me. It wanted me to come to it, I knew this, and I could feel it. Without words it spoke entire volumes of longing and exasperation. It wasn’t until a week I ago on a crystal clear, moonless night I comprehended that it was a lighthouse itself. I questioned on whether or not what felt to be a beacon was merely poor translation. I doubted its need for me or perhaps I merely doubted my own need for it. It wasn’t until I received an S.O.S. two nights before I finally learned the truth. My inklings proved to not be an erroneous belief but an absolute certainty. What the message said is not critical but my response holds great weight upon my being as I cast off shore.

The storm that the horizon wore as a hat for days had finally arrived. This was, without a sliver of doubt, the most asinine time to venture out into the murk but no other option resided in my thoughts. All I knew was that I had to leave and I had to get to that light. But in order to get there I must push through familiar territory. The vast ocean was prepared to throw everything it had at me. On the odd instance the moon managed to shimmer through the opaque sky it seemed to be screaming at the chaos surrounding me. My shoulders already ached from paddling through the bellowing wake, its white caps spilling solemnly over the sides. A morbid thought crossed my mind that this storm was designed with me in mind. That or my own crisis had built it up and now as I strive for a new life the torment of my past life is determined to sink me en route.

I bellow laughter from my stomach. I laughed at the ocean as well as myself, it was an act of pure and utter madness and untimely selfishness yet it contained a notion of heroism. To leave a life behind at the promise of something that might be better is both foolish and valiant. I felt like a general, leading my platoon into battle with a saber in hand, screaming CHARGE until my voice gives out. I relished the frigid water on my face and the taste of salt on my tongue. Its amazing how alive I feel! This was a place I used to call reluctantly call home, I was adrift without a paddle, enveloped only by the harsh extremities of the world for comfort. I recall the elation when I saw a lighthouse in the dim, concluding that my errant drifting nomadic ways were coming to an end. I recall this because through the sleet and the rain I see the other lighthouse – faint but unmistakable.

I paddle faster and faster. The swell of the ocean means to push me off course but I refute its influence. Its shoves pressure of the frame of my boat. I feel the wood groan beneath me. Lightning breaks through the sky and its brilliant light blinds me and my destination is lost momentarily. I panic during this temporary blindness, a gripping anxiety that when my vision returns there will be no light, that I will have gone off course, never to return. I continue to struggle against the ocean yet it feels more difficult than it should. I look around the frame of the boat and I see something glisten in a flash of lightning – an iron chain. Feverishly I begin to pull on the chain, my muscles threatening to burst through my skin with the act. After much tribulation I haul it inboard and notice it is an anchor. There is another one opposite this one but I’m too sapped of strength to pull it in.

It was no surprise on how this had come to be. I must have given off some discernible signals that I was planning on leaving. In my rush to fulfill my own needs I neglected on how it would be for those who accommodated my stay in that port, how I was welcomed with open arms and provided shelter from the storm. My leaving obviously inflicted a wound and now I’ve been sabotaged in revenge. Part of me felt if I was more cautious about my intent to leave, handled it with more tact this journey would be easier. I had no choice but to make the best out of what I had to work with so I dug in and paddled once again.

Visions of the promise that awaited me flooded my vision. During this time I forgot about the maelstrom slapping against my face; I see the bright colours, the beautiful sunset, the new things to feel and experience and discover for myself. Before lay a destination of eternal potential, it’s a truth that permeates my soul much as the rain has my coat. Still I see the lighthouse through the sleet and the rain.

Then it is gone.

I paddle, my frantic eyes pooling with destitution and overflowing with despair. I had to get there I just had to, there was nothing else out there for me, I know, I’ve drifted through the ocean for decades and only found one port. This is the only chance I have at laying true foundations. Days seem to wisp by in each icy and cutting gust of wind. Still I could not see the light. I turned the boat around over and over again, feeling like a dog chasing its own tail. Still I could not see it anywhere. I was surrounded by vehement darkness. Millions of questions on a nightmare loop played through my mind; was it all a lark? Miscommunication? Fear? Denial? Why oh why did the light disappear? Did I go off course? Did the saboteur accomplish their task? Did the world simply seek to chastise me? Was the light extinguished or can I merely not glimpse it?

I was alone in the murk again, an unwilling solitude I was again entrusted to bare, my own talisman. There is no future before me and my past trails everlasting behind me. I find myself once again adrift, an all too familiar place; a place where I once established incorrigible peace, yet one thought does not escape me during this hour of distress – that I do not want to go back to that place, to be that person once again. I reflect upon myself as I shoved off into the storm and the epiphany that came with it. Any port in a storm is a feeble mantra. To throw yourself at the mercy of the first port you come across is act of embarrassing desperation. I’ve arrived at realization that not one port out there exists. No, any port in a storm will not do, not at all. I now understand there are many ports in a storm.

I plunge my oar into the water, slicing through a perfect reflection of the raging storm above and press on.

[woodpryan]

Re: Many Ports In A Storm

In the forum I posted for my story, "Embers and Ashes" you asked for a critique of this story. Here goes.
The first thing I noticed about this story is it's tone, which is very distinctive and different. The question I have, though, is why? I have no sense of when this story takes place, but the language feels archaic, leading me to believe that the story is supposed to have taken place in the late 1700s or early 1800s. I would recommend two things dealing with tone. Explicitly tell us at some point where the story takes place and when the story takes place. If it does not take place at a time that matches this archaic sort of language, it needs a tone overhaul, bringing it up to date.
The second thing I notice is that we have a few tense problems. Does this story take place in the present tense or the past tense? I would recommend that you make this a past tense story for two reasons. It is easier to write a story in the past tense, making it less likely for you to slip up and have a tense issue, and it is easier to read a story written in the past tense.
Next, I notice that we don't have much conflict in this story. What is the real driving force of the story? We have a man who is in the ocean during a storm who sees a light and is trying to get to it. What is special about this light? Why is it imperative that he reach it? What put him in the ocean in the first place? We need a stronger conflict. We need more tension here.
Next, I realize that we know nothing about our main character. Why should we care if he reaches the light if we don't know who he is, what he is doing there, who he cares about, what he cares about, how old he is, if he is even a he, if he is married, has kids, has parents who are still alive. We know virtually nothing about this character. On this point, I have not just a suggestion, but a requirement. I will not read a further draft of your story without you having written a detailed character sketch. Before you come back to this story to re-write, you need to know everything about this character. You are his mother, father, best friend, closest confidant, therapist. You know more about this character than this character knows about himself. You know what time he wakes up, goes to bed, how many times a day he brushes his teeth, the year, date, hour of his birth, how many girlfriends he has ever had and why those relationships failed, how many kids he has, all of their names and how he feels about each of them. I mean everything! You know everything about him. Make a character sketch that is 3,000 words long. I'm not kidding. Then, come back to the story with all that knowledge in your head. Not everything in the sketch will come out in your story, but you will have enough information about him as a character that he will be lifelike, realistic. A walking, talking, 3D character.
I notice that you do not tend to use adverbs very often in your story. For that, you are to be commended. Good job on not throwing useless crap at me.
I also notice, however, that there is a bit of a lack of description here. How does it smell out there? How cold is it (show me, don't tell me)? What time is it (show me)? What is the season(show me)? What color is the water? Blue, grey, black? It is raining. How hard? Is there lightning? Wind? Give me some more descriptions.
I commend you on your verbs. You use some excellent verbs here, and your vocabulary is enormous. But, here is the question. Are you doing this to show off your vocabulary or is it for the overall tone of the story?
I get the sense that this is the first draft of this story due to numerous awkwardly phrased passages and mistakes that would have been caught by a re-read. Make sure you catch these in revision.
Finally, I get the sense that this story was written with a moral in mind, or some sort of lesson to be taught. I highly recommend against that. Your purpose as a writer is not to import upon me some sort of moral, value, or lesson. Your purpose as a writer is to tell me a story. If I get a lesson out of your story, that's great, but don't write the story with the lesson in mind. Write the story with the story in mind.
I hope I have been helpful. Keep writing, my friend. Practice makes perfect as Mr. King said in, "On Writing." Good luck.

Ryan Wood

[Mattrick]

Re: Many Ports In A Storm

I'm not an overly descriptive writer, I tend to only describe what I feel needs to be described. For me the emotion and themes of the story are more important to present. I like to allow my audience to create the scene in their own minds. This short story is actually an abstract short story and it's more of about symbolism than anything. Someone described it to me in my group as they envisioned a painting while I read it aloud which is what I was going for. As for what the story means, what you see in it is what you get really. It's not about a moral or a lesson, but about it's protaganist have an epiphany, one which require great loss and pain to realize. My goal essentially was to hide it's meaning in imagery and allusions so hopefully each reader sees it in a different light. We had to write a story about change and it's a pretty personal story.

I agree with backstory and such and that's very important in a narrative. The novel I am writing, I suppose you could say, is nothing but backstory lol. And I assure you there is great conflict in this story. It contains man vs. nature, man vs. himself and man vs man. Some of the things you mentioned are in there and some were unnecessary. There is backstory there, you just have to look for it, as was my intent.

And as for the character sketch, the person in the boat is me so...no need for that. I've all the information I need on the character. I consider specifics in a character to be arbitrary. What good is the date of a characters birthday or age if it holds no significance. I just read of Mice and Men and it mentioned neither, nor really any back story on the individual charactes, merely backstory on their relationship with each other. It really all depends what you need in your story and what you don't.

Thanks for your thoughts and much appreciated. I was very proud of this piece of work as I thought I articulated what I wanted to say very precisely. It's actually given me confidence to write more, as I'd not written in sometime, nothing of any value at least. I'll do a write up of your story tomorrow...maybe tonight if I feel up to it. I'll make it pretty in depth and I hope I can help.

[Mattrick]

Re: Many Ports In A Storm

Also thanks for going a little above and beyond. I only wanted you to read it :P

[Mattrick]

Currently I'm rewriting a novel I wrote some years back. The original draft was basically a failure as I wasn't a fantastic writer when I initially took on the project and I had far too much fun with it, which eradicated the realistic and gritty atmosphere I originally intended on, nor did I manage to properly work in the themes that originally drew me to conceive the story. If anyone remembers it (I only posted I think about 30 rough pages of the 260 I wrote), it was called Rabid Euphoria. Basically this thread is more about help with my prose as it's something I've really focuses on improving. I'll be posting paragraphs from it that I've had trouble or I feel that could do more or maybe do too much or that I'm having trouble make flow properly, or maybe I'm mis-expressing (is that a word lol) things. If anyone can lend me a hand (Jean, I'm looking at you for some help here) it would be much appreciated.



This is the opening paragraph. In it I'm trying to illustrate the backdrop of this tale, as I feel the settings are a character entirely of itself. Yet I don't feel it packs quite enough and it could definitely use more. I want the reader to truly understand how destitute the city really is.


----

The city in which this tale takes place, is a decaying city; in most respects it is a cesspool, a blight on humanity and all it’s strived to achieve . . . the infrastructure is failing, poverty runs rampant, there are pregnant children, broken families, and drugs course through this particular city’s veins, and as the city crumbles it personifies the conditions of it’s inhabitants. If this city were to go up in a flash, many residents would not be missed for they are shattered people, many who’ve severed all ties with loved ones and they now exist merely for their vices. The most profitable businesses in this city are prostitution, illegal gambling, bars and drug trafficking and that is not even mentioning the far less sordid practices of fraudulent welfare and disability claims, many of which are supported by the far more sordid practices. It’s the kind of place where people walk with their heads down, so as to not mistakenly anger a drunk or a smack addict in dire need of a fix, where if you thought you heard someone beckon after you, your gaze remains fixed for you don’t turn; sure you may know this person, but it would not stop them from mugging you for your last dollar in hopes of making a score.


- - -

As I continue with the rewrite I'll post more parts of it for some help and any help from anyone is extremelyappreciated.

[Jean]

Re: Novel re-write

I'll be greatly interesting in reading/revising it with you. Don't use the italics, ok? for the sake of readability

[Mattrick]

Novel Re-write continued

It must have done that because I used the quote feature...I'll refrain from using it lol I'll edit it.


This next part is the introduction to one of the main characters in the first chapter. I think it's the strongest writing I've done in the re-write so far yet something about it strikes me as odd. I'm thinking all these paragraphs could really be one paragraph is all kind of ties in togther. Wondering if it does an effective job of making the reader understand the character's situation.


----


Andy lay slumped on his couch, stoned, practically drooling, his gaze vacant with a cigarette draping a snake of black ash in one hand. The couch is quixotic in correlation with the rest of the two bedroom apartment; the paint was tinted yellow from tobacco smoke and a perpetual smell of mustiness permeated the apartment. . . . it was a sordid dwelling, perfectly fit for a self-actualizing junkie who gave no second thoughts to appearances. It was an unclean, dimly lit place. The living area was scarcely furnished; a television, a tattered chair, a leather couch and wobbly coffee table and over in the corner was his contemplation spot, an old, coffee ring stained desk, and on it rested his journal and his heroin lockbox. The windows were grimy, dirty dishes littered the counters and the trash container overflowed several days ago and no one had bothered to clean it up and now, flies congregated around a rotting slice of pizza on the floor. Yes, it was the ideal domicile for a self-actualized junkie. It is ideal for the mere fact it is cheap. It is no more than a habitable drug den. Andy was content with it.

The amusing part of it all is that Andy could afford to live somewhere more accommodating, yet he chose to thrust himself into poverty. He is from a suburb of this once thriving city – his father was employed as a manger in a manufacturing company and his mother was an English teacher at a high school in town. He lived comfortably in a modestly appraised home; a pool in the backyard, a two car garage, four bedroom, three bathrooms and a finished basement, with a white picket fence a large Beech tree in the front yard. It was in a picturesque neighborhood where luxury vehicles were no stranger to its driveways. In Andy’s eyes it was artificial and mundane and its inhabitants mere slaves to the redundant superficialities of society; caring more about the aesthetic value of their lawns than of anything with substance. How he loathed being surrounded by sycophantic socialites! They would exchange congenial greetings to your face and gossip when you turned around. This place vexed him irrefutably and he wanted out.

One fateful night, he received a phone call from the police not long after scraping through high school. . . . there had been an accident; a drunk driver T-boned his father’s Lincoln in an intersection and killed him on impact, and his mother was in critical condition at the hospital. The police sent an outfit over to pick him up. He was high at the time. When he’d arrived his mother had already slipped into a coma. All night he spent in the hospital, utterly inconsolable, shaking, scratching, craving. . . .needing. As the sun rose he was told by a doctor they didn’t know the extent of his mother’s injuries, if she’d ever awaken from the coma or the long term repercussions of the incident. Before Andy even pondered the possibility of being an orphan it became an unrelenting reality – at noon his mother succumbed to her injuries. The week following was an incoherent blur of nameless condolences and gripping embraces from relatives he hardly knew. He shot up before the funeral and stumbled and sweated through his prepared eulogy, those in attendance chalked his composure to grief. After the funeral he was contacted by an their family attorney, to come in for a meeting. The will stated that their estate and all their assets, including half a million in life insurance, was left to him. Andy was stupefied at his situation. For sometime he attempted to co-exist with his fallaciously considerate neighbours, as they brought him food to eat and helped him out around the property, smiling counterfeit smiles and uttering proverbs of inane wisdom and consolation. However, the plaguing of family memories wore on him like a ball and chain and he had to make his escape. Promptly he sold the house for a smooth three hundred thousand. The only way he could escape was to find a place that in no way reflected the idyllic home he once had. All his families belongings were either given or sold away, save for the couch he is now slumped over on.

Andy no longer had a family, nor had a loving home and in their stead he substituted something far superior. . . .he had euphoria in its purest form. Its caress equaled that of his mother’s touch, no, in fact, it eclipsed it, pervading his entire being, from his skin to his very essence but more than anything it made him whole, it validated his existence.

[stkmw02]

Re: Novel re-write

If I were to rewrite the first paragraph, it would look something like this:

The city in which this tale takes place is decaying. It is a cesspool, a blight on humanity and all it has striven to achieve. Like its inhabitants, this city is plagued by poverty and drugs course through its veins. The foundation is crumbling along with the values of its citizens, as families break apart and children bear more children. In this failing society, business is booming in the sale of sex, drugs, and alcohol. These sordid practices are funded in part by less sordid practices of fraudulent welfare and disability claims. Even if some of these people deserve to hold their heads high, their fear of their fellowman prevents it. This city and its people are downcast, overrun by angry drunks and desperate addicts. If it were to be wiped off the face of the earth, no one would notice. No one would miss these already missing people, who exist merely for their own vices.

[Brice]

Re: Novel re-write

Wow, I that sounds incredibly mean. I like it. :evil:

[Mattrick]

Okay, here is the entire prologue. I have some questions if who ever reads them could answer them that would be fantastic:

Do you have a clear sense of what kind of people the characters are? Which of the characters do you find most interesting thus far?

How is the style of the prose? Is it drab to read or is it gripping enough that you want to keep reading?

Have I set up the atmosphere well enough? When I polish it up I plan on adding more physical characteristics to the city itself but that's all in the final touchs.



------




Prologue





Welcome to Ashton. Once a thriving, middle class metropolis, the heart of the automotive and manufacturing corporations have long since vacated. Now, the city is crumbling. Tens of thousands of jobs have been sacrificed, family businesses have gone under and now the middle class stronghold of the region is a lower class cesspool of contamination and crime. The veins of city are poisoned with drugs and alcohol and it stands on the legs of thievery, prostitution and bottom-feeders leeching from the government. Like blemishes broken families litter the streets, teenagers have babies and eleven year old children are on drugs, both legal and illegal. At night you walk with your head down and mind your own business. The streets are teeming with unsavory miscreants and felons just waiting for an oppourtunity to strike and make a score. Once, this city was a growing city, full of prosperity and booming families, now a breeding ground for vermin and scum. These people, if you can even call them people, live with blinders on, only truly caring about fueling their own vices. The downtown sector was almost entirely abandoned by commerce and now belonged to the street people and the criminals and the junkies. Police often simply avoid it unless someone is murdered. It is in this mutinous and inhumane place where we will spend the duration of this tale.



As Lloyd walked through the destitution of his city he smoked and he itched, he itched so badly, he scratched as he walked. It was almost time for him to get a fix himself, only a few more blocks and he would have it. It would flow through is veins and frolic in his brain and maybe he would stop thinking, if only for a few hours. All day the faces of his estranged children danced in front of his eyes, it was these days he needed skag more than any other. A year had passed since he’d seen them, almost as long since he’d spoken to them. A treasure of knowledge existed in him and that was they would lead more meaningful and profitable lives away from him. After all, he wasn’t ignorant to his situation, he understood what he was now . . . what he had become. \

Tomorrow was a pernicious centennial for him, one that conjured up a storm of anxiety in him, although it used to be the pleasurable (almost unbearably) anticipation of the surprise event; the gift and the expensive restaurant, the night on the town, the whole shebang and would he ever unload his wallet on that special date. That date was no longer special to him, it was a torturous day where recollecting was all that was possible, what disturbed him most was the intangibility of these images, for he could not ruffle his son’s hair, or read a story to his daughter or lay naked with his wife. . . . no those days were long dead to him, and the grieving process seemed exponential to him. It had been over three years since that fateful day, drunk and high on cocaine, roaring into the driveway, still with the taste of the hooker in his mouth. Kate was already furious as he was hours late and driving drunk. He staggered towards her, rambling apologetically and he kissed her. She could state another woman on his breath. No longer could she put up with his abuse. Lloyd realized she was frigid o the touch She immediately ordered him out of the house, said she never wanted to see him again. He lunged at her as she attempted to slam the door and knocked her down. She tried to keep him off but he was too strong for her. He punched her in the ribcage several times, breaking one of them, as she squealed in pain. He screamed obscenities and slung vicious words at her, tendrils of spittle hanging from his lips and caressing her face. He pulled his fist up and swung it at her face, not once but twice, knocking out a molar and fracturing her jaw. As blood streamed out of her mouth, she moaned and held her face. Lloyd stood up, a glimmer of satisfaction on his face, proud of what he had done. That look however, fell from his face as he saw his precious daughter Nikki standing at the top of the stairs, clutching onto her Pooh Bear in horror at what she had witness. Lloyd froze, as if his daughter was holding him with her moist eyes, he looked at Kate’s swollen, bloody face and he staggered backwards, raced to the car and sped off.

Yes, tonight would be a great night for the bottle, mixed with a little heroin he thinks he’ll be okay, everything will be okay, he will be able to laugh, maybe, and have a good time with Andy and Darren and just try to forget. That life no longer exists for him and it never will again.

Still that image of Nikki clutching her bear was a crown of thorns and it hurt so much. He needed to drink, right now. He ducked into the nearest liquor sore, purchased a bottle of whiskey and drank from it heartily in the nearest alleyway. The sweetness of it excited his tongue and he wiped his chin greedily before taking another swig. He could already feel it aid his nerves, but to be safe he drank some more and placed the bottle inside his jacket pocket.

As he walked, he smoked. He passed strangers on the street, attaining a variety of looks; most were simply indifference but in some he felt distain and distrust, welling up anger inside of him toward the common man. What angered him was the excommunication from that normalcy. Sometimes he would gaze into the mirror at his ragged skin, his rapidly thinning hair and the perpetual weariness he wore and wondered where he had gone, he didn’t recognize the tattered human before him. Where did his strut go? And what about his inordinate charm? Why, he could charm the pants of almost any girl, now he notices them crossing the street as he approaches, reproachful, dripping wet with scorn. Even in the growing May warmth he hides his insecurity underneath and army green toque as well as wears them on his nose, as his sight began to degrade early as well. How did he get on this road, in this city, so far from that which matters most to him? In the next alley he snuck another swig. At the tender age of thirty he felt his life years behind him. Now he was simply waiting to meet his maker, after he suffers accordingly.

But did the lord truly want him to suffer? He pondered this severely. If he was damned by the almighty was he spared? Why place a hapless junkie in his path? If he’d been run over by that car, shrouded in a haze of toxins, the world would be a better place, he was convinced of this. Instead, he was pulled back at the last second, by a young man adorning a universe of track marks on his arms. This man was named Andy. There was an instant bond with Lloyd. . . .divinity perpetrated this meeting, for it was not happenstance. No doubt, drunk and stoned he’d thanked Andy for saving his life yet he never feels as though he can thank him enough. As little as he valued his life, he was spared from a messy fate nonetheless. To Lloyd, he owed Andy an insurmountable debt, and at times to Andy’s chagrin, Lloyd is always guarding him. He was a good kid, only twenty-four yet level headed for a junkie, good-hearted and loyal and somehow incredibly selfless. Andy would get stoned and rant about the universe and the possibilities that exist in it, metaphysics was his favourite topic; he was in favour of Darwinism and the evolutionary theory, which Lloyd would often dispute with him, as a proud Catholic. Their tirades would often devolve into a more rudimentary vernacular, such as the cute girl at Patsy’s Pizzeria Andy had and incurable crush on, Lloyd found this boyish yet made Andy all the more endearing. ‘She is too pure for me.’ Andy admitted on cold and stormy night, while heating scag on a spoon, ‘I could never taint her beauty, no matter my lust for her, my debauchery knows no bounds, and my unclean hands would ruin her forever. That, my friend, is why I never make eye contact with her, for fear that alone would bequeath my grunge on her.’ At times Andy was a poet and others a philosopher and at times, was nothing more than child hiding under the safety of their bedsheets.

Lloyd arrived at their apartment building, Sauer Suites, and unlocked the door. He found himself grinding his teeth, in stern anticipation of getting stoned and he took the elevator up.



.Andy lay slumped on his couch, stoned, practically drooling, his gaze vacant with a cigarette draping a snake of black ash in one hand. The couch is quixotic in correlation with the rest of the two bedroom apartment; the paint was tinted yellow from tobacco smoke and a perpetual smell of mustiness permeated the apartment. . . . it was a sordid dwelling, perfectly fit for a self-actualizing junkie who gave no second thoughts to appearances. It was an unclean, dimly lit place. The living area was scarcely furnished; a television, a tattered chair, a leather couch and wobbly coffee table and over in the corner was his contemplation spot, an old, coffee ring stained desk, and on it rested his journal and his heroin lockbox. The windows were grimy, dirty dishes littered the counters and the trash container overflowed several days ago and no one had bothered to clean it up and now, flies congregated around a rotting slice of pizza on the floor. Yes, it was the ideal domicile for a self-actualized junkie. It is ideal for the mere fact it is cheap. It is no more than a habitable drug den. Andy was content with it.


The amusing part of it all is that Andy could afford to live somewhere more accommodating, yet he chose to thrust himself into poverty. He is from a suburb of this once thriving city – his father was employed as a manger in a manufacturing company and his mother was an English teacher at a high school in town. He lived comfortably in a modestly appraised home; a pool in the backyard, a two car garage, four bedroom, three bathrooms and a finished basement, with a white picket fence a large Beech tree in the front yard. It was in a picturesque neighborhood where luxury vehicles were no stranger to its driveways. In Andy’s eyes it was artificial and mundane and its inhabitants mere slaves to the redundant superficialities of society; caring more about the aesthetic value of their lawns than of anything with substance. How he loathed being surrounded by sycophantic socialites! They would exchange congenial greetings to your face and gossip when you turned around. This place vexed him irrefutably and he wanted out.

One fateful night, he received a phone call from the police not long after scrapping through high school. . . . there had been an accident; a drunk driver T-boned his father’s Lincoln in an intersection and killed him on impact, and his mother was in critical condition at the hospital. The police sent an outfit over to pick him up. He was high at the time. When he’d arrived his mother had already slipped into a coma. All night he spent in the hospital, utterly inconsolable, shaking, scratching, craving. . . .needing. As the sun rose he was told by a doctor they didn’t know the extent of his mother’s injuries, if she’d ever awaken from the coma or the long term repercussions of the incident. Before Andy even pondered the possibility of being an orphan it became an unrelenting reality – at noon his mother succumbed to her injuries. The week following was an incoherent blur of nameless condolences and gripping embraces from relatives he hardly knew. He shot up before the funeral and stumbled and sweated through his prepared eulogy, those in attendance chalked his composure to grief. After the funeral he was contacted by an their family attorney, to come in for a meeting. The will stated that their estate and all their assets, including half a million in life insurance, was left to him. Andy was stupefied at his situation. For sometime he attempted to co-exist with his fallaciously considerate neighbours, as they brought him food to eat and helped him out around the property, smiling counterfeit smiles and uttering proverbs of inane wisdom and consolation. However, the plaguing of family memories wore on him like a ball and chain and he had to make his escape. Promptly he sold the house for a smooth three hundred thousand. The only way he could escape was to find a place that in no way reflected the idyllic home he once had. All his families belongings were either given or sold away, save for the couch he is now slumped over on.

Andy no longer had a family, nor had a loving home and in their stead he substituted something far superior. . . .he had euphoria in its purest form. Its caress equaled that of his mother’s touch, no, in fact, it eclipsed it, pervading his entire being, from his skin to his very essence but more than anything it made him whole, it validated his existence.

The vitriolic itch was on the back of his neck again and his fingers scratched it, knowing full well the itch would not subside, this itch was ethereal and it seethed and clawed at his neck. Andy stood up and sauntered to his nook and sat down at his desk. He removed the key from necklace around his neck and unlocked the black, mini-safe on top of it. Inside the box was assorted drug paraphernalia; a roll of tin foil, alcoholic wipes, a few spoons bent back in the middle caked with brown resin, a straw, several butane lighters, syringes, rubber tubing and what remained of his monthly supply of heroin, of which only a few days (a week at best) worth remained. That itch must be eradicated and this was his arsenal, a full frontal attack was underway. His process was meticulous, sanitary; one might consider it akin to a religious ritual. Carefully he wiped the needle off with the alcohol wipes, held the spoon and carefully placed the smack in the spoon. As always, he licked the middle finger on his right hand, pressed one the powder and rubbed it along his teeth and gums. Chomping on his lower lip he lit a flame under the spoon. During this process he did not blink and his skin quivered, perspiration shimmered on his brow, he licked his lips with anticipation as his nostrils inhaled the sweet vapour that rose from the spoon. When it reached a suitable consistency, he drew the drug into the syringe. Drool drained out the side of his mouth. He smacked his lips. He set down the syringe and installed the tubing around his bicep and drew it tight, slapping his arm and making a fist to prep the vein. As great as the euphoria was, it was the anticipation of euphoria that was the truest to him. Gasping, he pierced his skin and pushed the plunger down.




Darren was furious and inconsolably so. He drank vodka from his flask. He emits a satisfactory gasp as he swallows it. By this point in the night he is walking with a slight stumble, perhaps just enough to lure the attention of a cop trying to make his quota for the night. However, he wasn’t concerned with such trivialities. He was on a mission, and to accomplish anything less would be a failure; Darren was by no means a reliable person, some would say he’s rather the opposite, yet tonight his obstinacy would know no bounds. Because someone wronged him, and it was a dear, dear mistake they made. . .in fact, two people wronged him and when he discovers who that second person was they will also be very, very sorry. A smile appeared on his face, the smile of a fox about to rob the chicken coop, and he tittered under his breath. The first person who wronged him was his dear, dear Amy, his shining star in the uncertain blackness of night.

No longer would she be there at night, when he stumbled home after consuming a cornucopia of intoxicants, no longer would she reassure his bruised ego that he was handsome and alluring, no more would she run her frail fingers through his hair and kiss his forehead when he was out on his luck. In his eyes she was the only girl to ever see past his exterior and see something worthwhile inside him. And the truth was, many nights that would fill him with self-imposed rage, the world an ubiquitous depressant, he hated himself for it. What could such a kind, caring and loyal girl. . .no, strike that, he had to remind himself with another swallow of liquor, she is no longer loyal. No she is now an unfaithful cur. For sometime he has suspected her to be unfaithful, to be placing her loyalties and consolations elsewhere. Was it physical betrayal? That was something he hadn’t confirmed yet he knew it was emotional betrayal; someone else had become her confidant, her anchor, her lighthouse or any other metaphor he was able to conjure. His suspicions were proven warranted when she broke up with him last night. It was so callous the way she did it, as if she contained no human qualities and had transmogrified into a being of bitter and cold steel. Then she slammed the door in his face. He screamed, he punched and kicked the apartment door, saliva dripping in streams from his jowls as he hollered obscenities intended to wound through the inches of wood that separated him from the object of his affections. Through all this she never uttered a word from beyond the door, nor even opened with the chain installed. She was gone.

Thinking of it again; whose he kidding? It’s all he’s thought about the past twenty-four hours, the horrific experience replaying over and over again like a nightmare tape loop. His incessant muttering to himself rescinded his love for her, yet his heart yearned for her as a starving person yearned for bread. Without her warmth and kindness he was a derelict soul, sentenced to wonder the earth as an aimless spectre.

He began to shake and he knew what he had to do. Darren made sure no one was around him, as if it really made little difference in this city, and put a rock of crack cocaine into his pipe. He took his light to it and huffed and puff, inhaling the sugary sweet taste into his mouth and he held it in his lungs, until he felt he may pass out and he exhaled. Instantly he felt amazing, that he could do anything and surmount any obstacle in his path, and seeing as there was only one obstacle in his path, he knew what he must do to regain his sanity.

Fifteen minutes later he found himself outside of their apartment building, where he was no longer welcome. Due to their heated repartee he’d not given over the keys yet, nor would she have had time to ask the superintendent to change the apartment locks. That meant he still had a window of oppourtunity. His phone said it was almost ten o’ clock; she’d still be at work for another hour.

He sat on the curb and he drank and as he drank he smoked cigarettes. A storm was in the air, he could feel it and he laughed to himself at the irony. Because a storm was indeed coming in, and Amy would soon know this. In a little while he would make his move but until then he would increase his intoxication level. The more intoxicated he was, the more he felt he could fixate on something, without everything going wavy and off balance, for his vision was true right now. Nothing was going to deter him, nothing. As he considered this he reached into his pocket and pulled dime bag housing two green ecstasy tablets, he swallowed them both with a mouthful of vodka. As they settled in his stomach two police cruisers tore up the street. For a moment they instilled panic in him, as if the thought police had learned of his intentions and had come to take him away, he was afraid it was over but as the sirens faded out of audible range he was beyond relieved.

He chased his smoke with some more vodka and stormed up the apartment stairs, unlocked the door and entered the building. Strangely enough, he was giddy with excitement. He could barely keep himself from drooling he was so ecstatic. No doubt he would have the drop on her and he would coax the answers he craved from her. Routinely he went to the elevator but opted instead to take the stairs, walk the hallway on the third floor and take the furthest staircase to the fourth, less chance of running into someone he knew. Enough people in the building were customers of his and bought dope off him periodically. He was a part time seller, full-time customer, he sold just enough to support his habits and some for everyday uses, but Amy mostly took care of the bills. That’s why he is so devastated. Looking at his state now it’s hard to believe not two hours ago he in a Subway washroom, doing lines of blow on the toilet seat, after spending a night at home drinking, smoking crack and crying like a ten year old girl. That’s what he felt like, a whiny pathetic bitch who didn’t deserve anything, that he was a ugly piece of shit that mattered nothing to nobody; he was one hundred and twenty percent expendable to the world. It was something he felt for most of his life, a truth he understood but didn’t recognize until now, and Amy was the Shepard to this epiphany. At the end of the day, who wondered if he was healthy or happy or safe? Did anyone? His father was glad he rid of him and they haven’t spoken for three years, which is fine for Darren which means no more drunken beatings, and his mother has disowned him because if he didn’t, his father would beat her too, that is if she wasn’t busy ingesting the ridiculous amount of painkillers for her gout. Now if Amy truly doesn’t love him anymore, then no hope remained. He was desperate and desperation makes men do the work of insane men. Sometimes, as history will note, desperation can make heroes and victors out of men, as well as leaving us in remembrance of a fool.

When he arrived at their apartment, he tried the key and sure enough it still worked. It was dark inside which was reassuring. He never considered until now that Amy could be perhaps bedridden with guilt over her treatment of him and laying, under the covers of the bed they’ve shared for nearly two years, crying and howling into her pillow in absolute darkness. When he envisioned this possibility he thought if that was the truth, would crawl in bed beside her, wrap around her and gently whisper in her ear that everything will be alright, that he forgives her, and she would turn to him and gaze into him through his eyes, and he’d wipe a tear from her cheek as she nods apologetically and he’d kiss her. Then he’d make her grovel for a bit. Yes, he wants to see her grovel before him. And that is exactly what he intended to make her do, after he got what he wanted from her.

To rest his paranoia he turned on the bedroom light. The room bed was unkempt. Clothes were strewn on the floor. A pipe and a pile of ash were on the night table. But she wasn’t here. He turned the light off and smiled in the darkness. A sip from his flask. Darren locked the door to the apartment. He went into the hall closet and shut the door behind him. And he seethed.

[Brice]

Re: Novel re-write

For me....it's just impossible to proof/edit, etc. without access to a complete text. I can't do the section at a time thing. I need the frame of reference. My mind doesn't compartmentalize this way.

[stkmw02]

Re: Novel re-write

The only way I could do it without the full text is as I did, by completely translating what is written into how I would say it instead. When tutoring, I often use that approach to show students how changing the "voice" can change the story... when they hear their own story a different way, it usually helps them identify what parts of their own words they want to keep and which to change (not necessarily to my wording).

I hope I didn't sound mean? :lol:

[Brice]

Re: Novel re-write

You made the narrator sound mean. LOL I liked it.

My editing style leans more towards me using the text to belittle and mock the writer. :innocent:

[Jean]

Re: Novel re-write


For me....it's just impossible to proof/edit, etc. without access to a complete text. I can't do the section at a time thing. I need the frame of reference. My mind doesn't compartmentalize this way.same here. It is not impossible, but not very desirable

[Brice]

Re: Novel re-write

:couple:

[Mattrick]

Re: Novel re-write

I gather it'll be a minimum of two months before the rewrite is done, only 20 pages into it. Just on act one scene 2

[Mattrick]

Re: Novel re-write

Well act one is done. Going to polish it up tomorrow and will post it up on Friday.

[Mattrick]

Novel rewrite Prologue - Act One

So here it is. Approximately a fifth of the book. Keep in mind it is still rough. Still, this would be a good indication of the style and prose as well as the content the book will possess. Any thoughts on it would be appreciated but I suppose the only question I ultimately care about it...do you want to read more? Curious to see how invested the reader will get in the story and where it is going. To those who needed a more complete work I hope this suffice. Thanks for reading!








PROLOGUE







Welcome to Ashton. What was once a thriving, middle-class metropolis, has become infected. This city was built from the ground up by the working class, its blood pumps through construction and booming infrastructure. Once it was the heart of the automotive and manufacturing corporations. These corporations were forced to leave. Bloodsucking unions jacked up wages to the point of no return and to prevent buckling they fled town. Industrial plants litter the city like remnants of a bygone era. Tens of thousands of jobs were lost when the industries made for cheaper pastures. Commerce began to fold. Family businesses went under. Houses were no longer constructed. Over the past few years many people have moved away. Abandoned houses pepper the residential areas. The roads are in a state of decay many impassible by vehicles. No funds existed to fix the roads, nor did anyone on the council have the will to rejuvenate it. The city was indeed dying.

This working class stronghold has eroded into a lower-class cesspool of contamination and crime. The veins of the city are poisoned with drugs and alcohol. The denizens of this once proud place have devolved into beings of incessant need and vice. Those who stayed have been forced to take demeaning jobs, or live off social assistance and whatever they can pander from government programs. Poverty stricken and dirty, families attempt to lead normal lives, however their struggle is in vein. The rise in teenage pregnancy serves simply another dredge on the support system. Many of these families are irreparably damaged; domestic abuse is an extremely common thing. Sexual assault has been a growing charge as the people of Ashton become more depraved and unabated as the towns police force dwindles.

Deep beneath the skin lays the source of the infection. It is within the people who inhabit this dying city. A scourge of drug use has overtaken the populous. Reflecting this is the wave of petty crime; muggings, robberies, break-ins and grand theft auto are the commonest. It’s come to where the streets are no longer save to inhabit, each person passed creates a sense of dread and anxiety. Will they beat you? Kill you for the five dollars you have in your pocket? Are they on some crazy drug and they’ll attack you and maul you? And if they aren’t antisocial thugs they are desperate and homeless and will either beg for the few dollars you have left. Among the most profitable businesses now are drug trafficking, prostitution and thievery.

At the centre of Ashton is the downtown sector. This is the blackened heart of the city, where its decay is readily apparent. The only stores still open serve food, liquor or cigarettes. Comprising the area are dozens of low income apartment buildings. Despite business collapsing, it houses tens of thousands of people of the worst kind. Don’t get the wrong idea. Many decent and virtuous people still live here out of necessity. These people are targets for the seedy underbelly. It is only a matter of time before the infection of the city gets inside them, or they die. Until then they walk with their heads down, living in constant fear and aggregation of the scoundrels amongst them. The dregs of downtown are despicable people (if you can call them that); living with blinders on, only existing to fuel their own wretched vices. Unless someone is murdered, the police do not enter downtown and even then they arrive with several cruisers. Downtown now belongs to the vagabonds, felons and addicts. It is in this mutinous and inhumane place where we will spend the duration of this tale.





Lloyd traversed the destitute city. Fresh from his job at a local grocery store, he was itching for a fix. Soon it would flow through is veins and frolic in his brain and maybe he would stop thinking, if only for a few hours. All day the faces of his estranged children danced in front of his eyes, it was during these days he needed scag more than any other. A year had passed since he’d seen them, almost as long since he’d spoken to them. A treasure of knowledge existed within that was they would lead more meaningful and profitable lives away from him. After all, he wasn’t ignorant to his situation; he understood what he was now . . . what he had become. \

Tomorrow was a pernicious centennial for him, one that conjured up a storm of anxiety in him, although it used to be the pleasurable (almost unbearably) anticipation of the surprise event; the gift and the expensive restaurant, the night on the town, the whole shebang and would he ever unload his wallet on that special date. That date was no longer special to him, it had become a torturous day where recollecting was all that he could do; what disturbed him most was the intangibility of these images, for he could not ruffle his son’s hair, or read a story to his daughter or lay naked with his wife….no those days were long dead, and the grieving process was exponential. It had been over three years since that fateful day, drunk and high on cocaine, roaring into the driveway, still with the taste of the stripper in his mouth. Kate was already furious as he was hours late and driving drunk. He staggered towards her, rambling apologetically and he kissed her. She could taste another woman on his breath. No longer could she put up with his abuse. Lloyd realized she was frigid to the touch She immediately ordered him out of the house, said she never wanted to see him again. He lunged at her as she attempted to slam the door, knocking her backwards. She thrashed and kicked but he was too strong for her. He punched her in the ribcage several times, breaking one of them, as she squealed in pain. He screamed obscenities and slung vicious words at her, tendrils of spittle hanging from his lips and caressing her face. He pulled his fist up and swung it at her face, not once but twice, knocking out a molar and fracturing her jaw. As blood streamed out of her mouth, she moaned and held her face. Lloyd stood up, a glimmer of satisfaction on his face, proud of what he had done. That look however, fell from his face as he saw his precious daughter Nikki standing at the top of the stairs, clutching onto her Pooh Bear in horror at what she had witnessed. Lloyd froze, as if his daughter was holding him with her moist eyes. Seeing Kate’s swollen, bloody face he staggered backwards to the car and sped off.

Yes, tonight would be a great night for the bottle, mixed with a little heroin he thinks he’ll be okay, everything will be okay; he will be able to laugh (maybe) and have a good time with Andy and Darren and just try to forget. That life no longer exists for him and it never will again.
Still that image of Nikki clutching her bear was a crown of thorns and it hurt so much. He needed to drink, right now. He ducked into the nearest liquor store, purchased a bottle of whiskey and drank from it heartily in the nearest alleyway. The sweetness of it excited his tongue and he wiped his chin greedily before taking another swig. He could already feel it aid his nerves, but to be safe he drank some more and placed the bottle inside his jacket pocket.

As he walked, he smoked. He passed strangers on the street, attaining a variety of looks; most were simply indifference but in some he felt distain and distrust, welling up anger inside of him toward the common man. What angered him was the excommunication from that normalcy. Sometimes he would gaze into the mirror at his ragged skin, his rapidly thinning hair and the perpetual weariness he wore and wondered where he had gone, no longer recognizing the tattered human staring back. Where did his strut go? And what about his inordinate charm? Why, he could charm the pants of almost any girl, now he notices them crossing the street as he approaches, reproachful, dripping wet with botheration. Even in the growing May warmth he hides his insecurity underneath an army green toque and behind thick-rimmed glasses. How did he get on this road, in this city, so far from that which matters most to him? In the next alley he snuck another swig. At the tender age of thirty he was certain the halcyon years were long past. Now he is simply waiting to meet his maker, after he suffers accordingly.

But did the lord truly want him to suffer? He pondered this severely. If he was damned by the almighty, why was he spared? Why place a hapless junkie in his path? If he’d been run over by that car, shrouded in a haze of toxins, ‘the world would be a better place’ he’d long since convinced himself. Instead, he was yanked back at the last second by a young man adorning a galaxy of track marks on his arms. This man was named Andy. There was an instant bond with Lloyd. Divinity must have perpetrated this meeting, for it was not mere happenstance. No doubt, drunk and stoned he’d thanked Andy for saving his life countless times, yet he never felt it was repayment enough. As little as he valued his life he was spared from a messy fate nonetheless. He owed Andy an insurmountable debt and at times to Andy’s chagrin, Lloyd always guarded him. Lloyd perceived he was a good kid, only twenty-four (level headed for a junkie) good-hearted, loyal and somehow alluringly selfless. Andy would get stoned and rant about the universe and the possibilities that exist in it (metaphysics was his favourite topic); he was in favour of Darwinism and the evolutionary theory, which Lloyd would often dispute with him as a proud Catholic. Their tirades would often devolve into a more rudimentary vernacular, such as the cute girl at Patsy’s Pizzeria Andy had and incurable crush on, Lloyd found this boyish yet made Andy all the more endearing. ‘She is too pure for me.’ Andy admitted on cold and stormy night, while heating scag on a spoon, ‘I could never taint her beauty, no matter my lust for her, my debauchery knows no bounds, and my unclean hands would ruin her forever. That, my friend, is why I never make eye contact with her, for fear that alone would bequeath my grunge on her.’ At times Andy was a poet and at others a philosopher, and at times was nothing more than child hiding beaneath the safety of their bed sheets.

Lloyd arrived at their apartment building Sauer Suites, and unlocked the door. He found himself grinding his teeth, in stern anticipation of getting stoned he took the elevator up.




Andy lay slumped on his couch – stoned – practically drooling with a vacant gaze; a cigarette draped a snake of black ash in one hand. The couch is quixotic in correlation with the rest of the two bedroom apartment; the paint was tinted yellow from tobacco smoke and a perpetual smell of mustiness permeated the apartment; it was a sordid dwelling, idyllic for a self-actualizing junkie who maintained zero second thoughts to appearances. It was an unclean, dimly lit place. The living area was scarcely furnished; a television, a tattered chair, a leather couch and wobbly coffee table, firmly in the corner was his contemplation spot, an old, coffee ring stained desk, on it rested his journal and his heroin lockbox. The windows were foggy with grim, dirty dishes littered the counters and the trash container overflowed several days ago and no one had bothered to clean it up resulting in flies congregating around a rotting slice of pizza on the floor. Yes, it was the ideal domicile for a self-actualized junkie. It is ideal for the mere fact it is cheap. It is no more than a habitable drug den. Andy was content with it. Amusingly, Andy could afford to live somewhere more accommodating, yet he chose to thrust himself into poverty. He is from a suburb of this once thriving city – his father was employed as a manger in a manufacturing company and his mother was an English teacher at a high school. He lived comfortably in a modestly appraised home; a pool in the backyard, a two car garage, four bedroom, three bathrooms and a finished basement, with a white picket fence a large Beech tree in the front yard. In the centre of a picturesque neighborhood where luxury vehicles were no stranger to its driveways, he was in disarray. In Andy’s eyes it was artificial and hopelessly mundane. Its inhabitants served as mere slaves to the redundant superficialities of its society; caring more about the aesthetic value of their lawns than of anything with substance. How he loathed being surrounded by sycophantic socialites! They would exchange congenial greetings to your face and gossip about you when you turned around. This place vexed him irrefutably and he wanted out.

One fateful night, he received a phone call from the police, at the age of twenty. There had been an accident; a drunk driver T-boned his father’s Lincoln in an intersection and killed him on impact, and his mother was in critical condition at the hospital. The police sent an outfit over to pick him up. He was stoned at the time. When he’d arrived his mother had already slipped into a coma. All night he spent in the hospital, utterly inconsolable; shaking, scratching, craving…needing. As the sun rose he was informed they couldn’t ascertain the extent of his mother’s injuries, if she’d ever awaken from the coma or the long term repercussions of the incident. Before Andy even pondered the possibility of being an orphan it became an unrelenting reality – at noon his mother succumbed to her injuries. The week following was an incoherent blur of nameless condolences and gripping embraces from relatives he hardly knew. He shot up before the funeral and stumbled and sweated through his prepared eulogy, those in attendance chalked his composure to grief. After the funeral he was contacted by their family attorney to come in for a meeting. The will stated that their estate and all their assets, including half a million in life insurance, was to be left to him. Andy was stupefied at his news. Elated and dejected at once he meandered home, with thoughts of heroin and his dead parents dancing through his mind.

For sometime he attempted to co-exist with his fallaciously considerate neighbours, as they brought him food to eat and helped him out around the property, lending smiling counterfeit smiles and uttering proverbs of inane wisdom and consolation. For several months he toughed it out, wore a fake smile and attempted to form bonds with his neighbours. But the itch was too bad. They could never accept him, he knew this. Eventually, the plaguing of family memories wore on him like a millstone around his neck. Escape was his only chance at survival. Promptly he sold the house for a smooth three hundred thousand. The only way he could escape was to find a place that in no way reflected the idyllic home he once had. All his family’s belongings were either donated to charities or sold away, save for the couch he is now slumped over on.

Andy no longer had a family, nor had a loving home and in their stead he substituted something far superior; he had euphoria in its purest form. Its caress equaled that of his mother’s touch…no, in fact, it eclipsed it, pervading his entire being from skin to bones but more than lent a sensation of wholeness – it validated his existence.

The vitriolic itch on the back of his neck teethed and his fingers scratched it, knowing full well the itch would not subside; this ethereal itch gnawed at his skin. Andy stood up and sauntered to his nook and sat down at his desk. He removed the key from necklace around his neck and unlocked the black, mini-safe on top of it. Inside the box was assorted drug paraphernalia; a roll of tin foil, alcoholic wipes, a few spoons bent back in the middle caked with brown resin, a straw, several butane lighters, syringes, rubber tubing and what remained of his monthly supply of heroin, of which only a few days (a week at best). That itch must be eradicated and this was his arsenal; a full frontal attack was underway. His process was meticulous, sanitary – akin to a religious ritual. Carefully he sterilized the needle with the alcohol wipes. The heroin was placed inside the spoon. As always, he licked the middle finger on his right hand, pressed one the powder and rubbed it along his teeth and gums. Chomping on his lower lip he lit a flame under the spoon. During this process he did not blink and his skin quivered, perspiration shimmered on his brow; he licked his lips with anticipation as his nostrils inhaled the sweet vapour that rose from the spoon. When it reached a suitable consistency, he drew the drug into the syringe. Drool drained out the side of his mouth. He smacked his lips. He set down the syringe and installed the tubing around his bicep and drew it tight, slapping his arm and making a fist to prep the vein. As great as the euphoria was, it was the anticipation of euphoria that was the truest to him. Gasping, he pierced his skin and pushed the plunger down.






Darren was inconsolably furious. He drank vodka from his flask emitting a satisfactory gasp as he swallows it. By this point in the night he is walking with a slight stumble, perhaps just enough to lure the attention of a someone looking for an easy target. However, he wasn’t concerned with such trivialities. He was on a mission and to accomplish anything less would be failure. Darren was by no means a reliable person (some would say he’s rather the opposite) yet tonight his obstinacy would know no bounds. Someone wronged him. Iit was a dear, dear mistake they made…in fact, two people wronged him and when he discovers who that second person was they will also be very, very sorry. A smile appeared on his face, the smile of a fox about to rob the chicken coop. A titter escaped his breath. The person who wronged him was his dear, dear Amy, his shining star in the uncertain blackness of night. No longer would she be there at night, when he stumbled home after consuming a cornucopia of intoxicants, no longer would she reassure his bruised ego that he was handsome and alluring, no more would she run her frail fingers through his hair and kiss his forehead when he was down on his luck. In his eyes she was the only girl to ever see past his exterior and see something worthwhile inside him. And the truth was, many nights that would fill him with self-imposed rage. The world acted as an ubiquitous depressant, instilling him with stern self loathing. What could such a kind, caring and loyal girl…no, strike that! With another swallow of liquor he reminded himself, she wass no longer loyal. No she is now an unfaithful cur. For sometime he has suspected her to be unfaithful, to be placing her loyalties and consolations elsewhere. Was it physical betrayal? That was uncertain, yet he knew it was emotional betrayal; someone else had become her confidant, her anchor, her lighthouse or any other metaphor he was able to conjure. His suspicions were proven warranted when she broke up with him last night. It was so callous the way she did it, as if she contained no human qualities and had transmogrified into a being of bitter, cold steel. They were engaged I heated argument for an hour, then she slammed against his nose. He screamed, he punched and kicked the apartment door, saliva dripping in streams from his jowls as he hollered obscenities intended to wound through the inches of wood that separated him from the object of his affections. Through all this she never uttered a word from beyond the door, nor even opened with the chain installed. She was gone.

Thinking of it again…whose he kidding? It’s all he’s thought about the past twenty-four hours, the horrific experience replaying over and over again like a nightmare tape loop. His incessant muttering to himself rescinded his love for her, yet his heart yearned for her as a starving person yearned for bread. Without her warmth and kindness he was a derelict soul, sentenced to wonder the earth as an aimless specter.

He began to shake and he knew what he had to do. Darren made sure no one was in proximity (as if it really made little difference in this city) and placed a rock of crack cocaine into his pipe. He took his lighter to it and huffed and puffed, inhaling the sugary sweet taste into his mouth, holding it within his lungs, until he felt he may pass out then finally he exhaled. Instantly he felt amazing, as if he held the ability to surmount any obstacle in his path and seeing as there was only one obstacle in his path, he knew what he must do to regain his sanity.

Fifteen minutes later he found himself outside of their apartment building, where he was no longer welcome. Due to their heated repartee he’d not given over the keys yet, nor would she have had time to ask the superintendent to change the apartment locks. That meant he still had a window of opportunity. His phone said it was almost ten o’ clock; she’d still be at work for another hour.

Sitting on the curb and he drank, and as he drank he smoked cigarettes. A storm was in the air, he could feel it and he laughed to himself at the irony; Because a storm was indeed coming in. In a little while he would make his move but until then he would increase his intoxication level. The more intoxicated he was, the more he felt he could fixate on something, without everything going wavy and off balance, for his vision was true right now. Nothing was going to deter him, nothing. As he considered this he reached into his pocket and pulled a dime bag housing four green ecstasy tablets. He swallowed half of them with a mouthful of vodka. As they settled in his stomach two police cruisers tore up the street. For a moment they instilled panic in him, as if the thought police had learned of his intentions and had come to take him away, he was afraid it was over but as the sirens faded out of audible range he was beyond relieved.

He chased his smoke with some more vodka and stormed up the apartment stairs, unlocked the door and entered the building. Strangely enough, he was giddy with excitement. He could barely keep himself from drooling he was so ecstatic. No doubt he would have the drop on her and he would coax the answers he craved from her. Routinely he went to the elevator but opted instead to take the stairs, walk the hallway on the third floor and take the furthest staircase to the fourth, less chance of running into someone he knew. Enough people in the building were customers of his and bought dope off him periodically. He was a part time seller, full-time customer, selling only enough to support his habits; Amy often took care of the necessities. That’s why he is so devastated. Looking at his state now it’s hard to believe not two hours ago he in a Subway washroom, doing lines of blow on the toilet seat, after spending a night at home drinking, smoking crack and crying like a ten year old girl. That’s what he felt like, a whiny pathetic bitch who deserve nothing, an ugly piece of shit that mattered not one iota to anyone; he was one hundred and twenty percent expendable to the world. It was he carried like a talisman for most of his life, a truth he understood but didn’t recognize until now, and Amy was the shepherd to this epiphany. At the end of the day, who wondered if he was healthy or happy or safe? Did anyone? His father was glad he rid of him and they haven’t spoken for three years, which is fine for Darren which means no more drunken beatings, and his mother has disowned him because if she did not his father would surely beat her too…that is if she wasn’t busy ingesting the ridiculous amount of painkillers for her gout. Now if Amy truly doesn’t love him anymore, then no hope remained. He was desperate and desperation makes men do the work of insane men. Sometimes, as history will note, desperation can make heroes and victors out of men, as well as leaving us in remembrance of a fool.

When he arrived at their apartment, he tried the key and sure enough it still worked. The welcoming darkness reassured him. He’d never considered until now that Amy could be bedridden with guilt over her treatment of him and lying under the covers of the bed they’ve shared for nearly two years, crying and howling into her pillow in absolute darkness. When he envisioned this possibility he thought if that was the truth, would crawl in bed beside her, wrap around her and gently whisper in her ear that everything will be alright, that he forgives her, and she would turn to him and gaze into him through his eyes, and he’d wipe a tear from her cheek as she nods apologetically and he’d kiss her. Then he’d make her grovel for a bit. Yes, he wants to see her grovel before him. And that is exactly what he intended to make her do, after he got what he wanted from her.
To rest his paranoia he turned on the bedroom light. The room bed was unkempt. Clothes were strewn on the floor. A pipe and a pile of ash were on the night table. But she wasn’t here. He turned the light off and smiled in the darkness. A sip from his flask settled him. Darren locked the door to the apartment. He went into the hall closet and shut the door behind him. And there he seethed.
















ACT ONE – SCENE ONE –





When Lloyd entered the apartment Andy was slumped over at his desk. He tsked at the image. Approaching him he saw his journal open beneath his face, a puddle of saliva darkening the paper. In his hand was a pen, constructed of sixteen karot gold. Lloyd was astounded to discover he'd spent nearly ten thousand dollars on this pen purely on a stoned whim. Lloyd had often pondered what he wrote in it. It was odd to him that Darren was not here. It's common on Fridays to see him already half in the bag by the time his shift ended.

He shook him awake.

Andy turned at him with glazed eyes, as if he didn't recognize his roommate. Then he shook the cobwebs out and smiled at his compadre.
"Good to see you, Lloyd."

Lloyd smiled back at him. He was always happy to see Andy, even in this pathetic state. Andy came from a family of privilage and oppourtunity, something neither him or Darren weren fortunate to have, yet he willingly pawned it all for this squallid apartment in a shitty neighbourhood; it was befuddling to Lloyd. Unbecoming as his exterior is, Andy was somehow more human than anyone he'd ever known.

"Likewise," Lloyd said and offered him his hand.

Andy accepted it graciously and made it to his feet. Andy $plopped on the leather sofa and Lloyd sat in his chair. It was the one physical remainder from the house he shared with his family, the fabric was now faded and pulling in places, the recliner handle broke and now a monkey wrench is installed, and it carried the yeasty odour of many spilled beers. The rest of his things housed in a storage lot; he’d not visted his memorabilia for many years.

They both lit a cigarette.

"So how was work?" Andy asked.

"Same old shit as always. But what choice to I have? I need to make money somehow. Sure it’demeaning and unfitting of my experience. You know how it is in Ashton. I read in the paper last week we lose ten jobs a day, averaging just over three thousand jobs a year."

Lloyd regailed Andy with his sob story. He was once a legal assitant and made a moderate salary of eighty thousand a year. He lived in a fine, suburban house, drove an Infiniti, a lavish television he adored, a great lawn that was the envy of all his neighbours. After the divorce he found a job at a law firm in Ashton. During his tenure he was in a terrible state; depression clogged his lungs, infliltrated his thoughts and assassinated any possible relationships, plutonic or otherwise. The squalor of his life defeated him every day, he drank the nights away, either in the slummy bar around the corner or in the poverty of his own home. Two months in, he arrived at work drunk (on a Monday) still carrying his drunk from Friday like a torch. Needless to say, he was a sloth and aggregator, disposing his misery on his co-workers and his bosses. When he called his boss, the man who hired him, a fascist pig-fucker for asking for photocopies, it was all over. This particular boss carried a tremendous amount of clout in the legal jurisdiction of employment and ratified he would never find another job in his field in the region. His boss did not welch on his promise. When the unemployment ran out, and dozens of interviews with every law firm in within a hundred miles, he gave up.

"True that." Andy replied solemnly. "I'm sorry things turned out the way they did for you. That boss of yours was a douche, what was his name again?"

"Humphries. Yeah, he's a douche but still. It was my fault, ya know. I though I was in golden when I got that job at the Motors but sure enough, they closed the plant down and left me out of a job. My experience is limited outside of legal and the manufacturing industry in this city is over. So now I stock shelves at a goddamn grocery store. "

Lloyd began perspirating suddenly and he became fidgety. Something was on his mind and the inane small talk was driving him batty. Finally, he blurted out: "So Andy, can I get any of that scag off you?"

"Sure man, help yourself.” He threw his hand over his shoulder towards his box, then threw it towards the kitchen. “Can you get me a beer first, though."

Lloyd was put off by the notion of having to get a beer first. He'd been salivating at the thought of smoking some dope since hour one of work. Even during a six hour shift it was difficult for him to remain sober throughout that time, often by the end of a shift he would be introverted and agitated if someone approached him. He knew intoxication at work screwed him over once so he's attempting to reform. Still, he got a beer for himself while he was at it and opened them both, handing one to Andy and sipping at his own.

From the open lock box he removed the tinfoil and ripped it into a square. He placed heroin ont he tinfoil and took a lighter to it and inhaled the smoke through the tube. It penetrated his lungs with feroicity and he coughed, it was always good to cough. He lit it and inhaled more. He fell on the chair and his head swooned, he closes his eyes and he was gone for the ride.

Andy sipped his beer and laughed. "That's good shit, isn't it? Francis never lets me down, nothing but the best from him. "

Lloyd heard him but was unable to respond. The faces of his children melted away from his vision and he was at peace. In this moment there was
no alimony, no child support, no crummy jobs, no shattered dreams. . .It was freedom.

While Lloyd took his freedom, Andy pondered where Darren was. He was supposed to be here hours ago, it was their routine Friday night gathering. The fridge was stocked with beer and there was enough scag to go around. He'd tried calling his cell a few times and it was off. Darren never turned his phone off in case he got word of a good deal on something or if he could pander a deal to the lowest common denominator. It was eleven now. . . probably some drama going on with Amy. If that's the case he might not see him for days. Andy laughed to himself. He decided to try Darren again. His phone was still off. He thought to try Amy but decided against it. A minute later he wasn't even considering Darren anymore. He merely drank his beer and smoked his cigarette. Always coming down from the high is this afterglow, in which his mind slows to a crawl. In this state contemplation is impossible and his mind is free to drift.

When Lloyd came around he returned to his chair, stroking the arm rests in ecstasy, still reeling from the drug. "Do you know what tomorrow is?"

"No." Andy answered.

"It would've been mine and Kate's ninth anniversary."

Andy sighed remorsefully, but said nothing. Lloyd didn’t notice the reluctance.

"It's been over three years since we separated and it's weird, I miss her yet I don't. Does that make sense to you?"

"You know I've never been in a serious relationship before." Andy admitted. "But go on."

"When I was with her, I was too busy chasing something."

"Like what?"

"I only wish I knew." he said and lit a cigarette.

"All life's quandaries are solved only with time."

Lloyd looked at him, perplexed. Andy had a way of speaking that still, over a year after first meeting him, struck him with wonderment.

"You're right." Lloyd said. "At least if time doesn't answer our questions it gives us new ones to consider."

Andy smiled. "I know I'm right. I always am. But I digress, another beer?"

Lloyd motioned for him to carry on and he did, returning moments later with two more beers.

"So, did you hear about the news out of Texas?" Lloyd asked.

"Me? Hear news? Latest news I heard was that they got Saddam.” He laughed at his own joke. “Current events are trivilous, Lloyd. That is, until they become history then one must take notice."

"What if the news is, 'Incoming nuclear warheads from China?"

"Then the flash will scare the shit out of me." Andy said with a warm laugh that caught on in the room. "But what's this news, you've piqued my curiousity now."

"There was a guy, not sure how long ago it happened, but someone tried to kidnap his daughter. Well he ended up catching the guy and he beat him to death. He was just aquitted of all charges. An overwhelming show of support of parents outcrying 'I'd do the same'. And he doesn't get charged. And if that happened here, in this city, he'd be serving a life sentence. Amazing, Texas is such a backward place yet I commend them for this."

"So you're saying that you'd do the same thing, if someone tried to, say…take Nikki for instance."

Lloyd eyes looked at Andy with a sullen intensity. He crushed his empty can of beer in his hand and opened the next one, and took several long, drawn out sips while still staring at Andy.

"You're goddamn right I would."

"And you don't think taking a man's life with your own hands isn't a little extreme?" Andy said, chipper at the prospect of a healthy debate.
"Not in this situation, not when your child and their safety is involved. If you had kids of your own you would understand. You would rip your own heart out of your chest if theirs stopped beating. I'm talking about boundless devotion here."

"But does that justify the killing of someone?"

"In the eyes of this father it does. I'd serve a life sentence before I let my baby girl get violated by some sicko, by my watch and warrant I stand by that statement."

The conversation titillated Andy, for he'd always looked in awe of the power of the parent and child bond, it's will indominatable and unbreakable. There is so much power involved in raising a child, the influence you carry is daunting. As a father you're imprinting how you perceive the world onto your kids; your reactions, your feelings, your words and affections mould a child into adulthood. Andy couldn't imagine the pressure of being a parent. He shuddered at the thought of having a kid; the responsibilities alone would make him tear his hair out. Life with no responsibilities was the only way he knew how to live. He's fine sitting in his corner, with his introspections and judgements. It was far easier to live life through a dirty window.

"It's good to know you're so considerate of your children's welfare." Andy said and raised his beer to him.

"I only do what is best for them."

Upon saying the words, Lloyd realized that it was true. What lasting impression did he make on his daughter when he saw him lay hands on her mother? Hearing the things he'd said. That ravenous, drunken fury in his demeanor. Did he scar her? That wasn't the first time he'd hit Kate, no there were many times where she deserved it, and times when she probably didn't deserve it. Lloyd didn't care about that though, to this day he feels no remorse over the things he'd done to Kate. Afterall, she trapped him into marriage with a pregnancy. But he couldn't take losing control and doing anything to his children. Many drunken nights he'd imagined himself slapping his daughter in the face, and he'd have to drink until the image would vanish. Since that night he hasn't even been able to look his daughter in the eye and he hasn't seen his children in nine months. What he is now, is no impression to make on a child. He's best left begotten in their eyes.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to change the subject.” Lloyd vulnerably admitted.

“Of course, anything you want.” Andy nodded.

“What do you write in that journal, anyways?’ Lloyd asked, throwing his head towards the desk.

“To tell you the truth” Andy took a sip of his beer, drew a big long breath and held his arms out at his sides, surrendering. “I have no idea.”

“None? At all?” It was Lloyd’s turn to be interested.

“I’ve never actually read any of it back. Been writing in it every day for, I don’t even know how long, maybe five months. Sometimes I only write a sentence, others I write pages.” Andy drank some beer and laughed. “It’s probably incoherant drivel.”

“You’re a queer fellow aren’t you?”

“Excuse moi?” Andy raised an eyebrow.

“Peculiar, I mean.” Lloyd replied with a sly smile.

“Ain’t it the truth.”

Lloyd stood up and stretched, his shoulders were tight from stock shelves.

“You ever plan on reading it?”

“One day, maybe. Why?” He looked at Lloyd suspiciously. “Have you ever taken a peak at it? I wouldn’t be made if you said you did.”

“If you were the girl next door and I was twelve, then yes I would have. But no, I respect your privacy. Afterall, you’re gratious enough to allow me to stay here for free.”

Andy held his palms out ot him.

“What are friends for? It’s not as if I have any problems paying the bills. Got no problem getting you high so long as you can buy me some pizza from Patsy’s once in awhile.”

“Ahh, made by your dream girl I reckon.”

Andy blushed.

“Don’t be bashful, Andy. I get it, she’s cute. A little young for me but I can see why you’re taken with her. Somehow she does for flour stained aprons what Marilyn Monroe did to street vents.”

They both laughed.

Andy scratched the back of his neck.

“You want to get high?” Andy asked.

“Sure, why not? Then I say we go out and I grab us a large, sausage and pepperoni pizza with extra cheese.”








ACT ONE – SCENE 2 –




The air was chilly and damp, Amy thanked herself for bringing her jacket. It was another hard night of work at the restaurant. She tended the bar, which usually wasn’t too bad, but when hockey was on the orders for drinks and wings never ceased, with the playoffs on it was even worse, the patrons were loud and obnoxious, spilling their drinks and one guy even toppled a basket of nachos and cheese in celebrationg of a goal. In other words, it was a torrid night, made moreso by the happenings of the night before. The fight between the her and Darren had been long since building and last night she erupted like a volcano. She wondered if anything she said registered in his drug addled brain. The shift felt longer than usual and after smelling wings and appetizers all night she’d worked up a voracious appetite herself, to curb this she went into Patsy’s Pizza.

A fair share of her was glad to be rid of the weight that was Darren; he was going nowhere in life and dragging her along with her. A few days before she had a good long gaze in the mirror, analyzing every line on her face, every curve and blemish and the dark under her eyes. At one time a vivacious girl would stare at her, full of promise and jubiliation; now she was merely treading water and the waves had gotten tall. At night she was anxious of the shadow she cast. She’d learned, at the behest of Darren, the kind of light that shadow cast. Everything was always her fault, even when it was his. For years he’d undermined her at every turn, insulting and degrading her, stripping away her youth and vitality until only a pallid, cracked shell remained. What she saw in the mirror now was unjust in her eyes. There had to be better out in the world. Surely, someone venearble and civil had to exist for herr. For the a year she’d been consumed by a seething rage for her lover, though she no longer thought of him that way. As long as she’d wanted out was as long as she couldn’t get away. All he had was her, there was nothing for him to go back to. The thought of his suicide if she were to leave kept her at bay for quite awhile, for the potential guilt would crush her frail form. So she trooped it out, but she could no longer take it. She approached Darren about going into rehab and getting off the drugs and he’d planted his hand around her throat and slammed her against a wall, declaring that would never happen, he assured her that he was in complete control. Then he said what she’d always feared; that if she was planning on leaving him that he would kill himself; actually hearing those words instilled a fear of dread on her yet, it liberated her. The fear no longer seemed irrational and she realized she didn’t care if he killed himself.

Amy ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza and a can of Coke, and sat down at a table. The white paper plate was see through already, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She ripped off a mouthful of pizza, instantly elated from the taste and washed it down with a cold swig of coke. It had been a month since she’d been clean. Some nights the sweats made her want to tear her hair out but most of that had subsided. Darren was a constant trigger for her, the mere sound of his grating voice made her want a fix of anything. For a few weeks she only smoked weed and drank then decided to stop that altogether. Soon she wanted to enroll in school, economics or city planning was her planned major. She knew her parents would never take her back, not without becoming commanding drill sargeants. Her only hope was to talk to her sister, Becky, try to make an arrangement to live in Toronto with her. Dropping Darren should help her make her case.

She looked at her phone. Still nothing from Darren. It would be a lie for her to admit she wasn’t worried about him. As sour as things became she didn’t want him to harm himself. It had been almost twenty-four hours and not a call, not a text. Frankly, she expected him to come crawling back, stoned out of his mind, kissing her feet and bowing before her, petitioning for a second chance and if he were to do just that, she would surely hold him by the chin and pull his face towards her and she would utter those magical three words; ‘no fucking way.’ Truth be told, if he did grovel it wouldn’t befit their relationship. No longer was she going to allow Darren to stomp all over her.

“Well look who it is!” A familiar voice exclaimed. She turned towards the voice; it was Lloyd, with Andy. They both looked stoned.

“Hi, Andy.” She smiled, turning to Lloyd. “And you as well.”

Darren’s compadres were sure to spoil the mood for her. Tonight was her first night unbound. Andy probably knew about what she did, so then Lloyd did as well. She can only imagine what skewed version of the night they heard.

“Have you seen Darren?” Andy asked her.

She was caught off guard by the question.

“No, I haven’t.” She answered.

“Then where could he be Lloyd? I thought for sure he’d be with Amy.”

“I have no idea. I’m ordering the pizza.” He said and made his way to the counter.

Andy asked with his hands if he could take a seat, she answered by pushing the chair out with her foot. He sat.

“So what brings you here?” Andy asked.

“You mean besides the pizza? Amy forced a laugh, it sounded forced. “Looking to unwind for a bit before I go home. Was a long night at work, well technically it’s still last night to me.”

“Up all night eh?”

“Yeah there was no way I was sleeping after last night.”

Andy shot her a puzzled expression.

“Why, what happened?”

Amy was bemused.

“You mean you don’t know?” She said, suddenly panic stricken.

“Should I know? I don’t keep up with current events. Funny I was just explaining that to Lloyd before we came here.”

“I just thought he’d have told you. Last night I broke up with Darren.”

Andy pushed his hands into fists and turned towards Lloyd at the counter.

“Oh.” He said, but looking at Lloyd. “Get me a coke, man. And some garlic bread.”

“Sure thing.” He rang back.

An award silence passed. Amy couldn’t believe he was so non-chalant about it. Afterall, Darren had been his best friend for nearly a decade. It was hard to understand his reason for being so unfased.

“You don’t seem surprised to hear that.” Amy blurted out finally.

“About you and Darren? Am I supposed to be?” Andy held back a smile.

“Well…yeah! I would think anyone would be shocked when their best friend’s relationship comes to a sudden stop.”

Andy looked around as I to make sure Darren wasn’t eavsdropping in the shadows. He leaned forward and spoke in a whisper.

“Do you want to know why I’m not surprised?”

“Why?” She replied, genuinely intrigued.

“Because I see the way he treats you and if I don’t see it, I hear about it from him. I see that you’re a smart, beautiful girl with a lot of potential. Truthfully, you can do better than him; I know, you know and he knows it too. I’ve seen this coming for a long time. I’d have said something but it’s not my place. I don’t get involved in people’s relationships. The Surgeon General says you’ll live longer that way.”

Amy was perplexed by the situation she found herself in. She laughed so loud the Andy’s dream girl stopped taking Lloyd’s order to look at her.

Andy stared at her with a queer expression.

“I was so dreading the conversation when you came in.” she admitted. “I thought you had already known and you’d speak on his behalf, convincing me to take him back. And now I’m so relieved that you agree with my decision.”

“Woah, hold on there a second.” He said waving his hands in front of him. “I never said I agreed with you. It all depends on the manner in which you let him down, was it gentle or hard?. And it’s not my place to ask how it all went down. I just hope you weren’t too hard on him, he’s had a hard life.”

“Oh, believe me…I know all about his hard life. Hear about it all the time. I ran out of sympathy for him a long time ago, Andy. For as long as I’ve known him he’s gone around and pitied for himself, wallowing in his own debauchery and expecting me to console him when he turns up empty handed. I’ve tried to help him, I tried so hard to. I love him, I still do love him, a part of me will always love him. But I know he’ll never be the man I thought he could be. I can’t placate him until a miracle happens.”

Andy sighed and watched Lloyd approach them, unbeknownst of the serious nature of their current dialogue.

“Your dream girl says ‘hi’ Andy.” Lloyd smirked, poking his friend in the ribs with his elbow, offering him a wink. Andy, shot him an odd look. He offered the two of them puzzled glances at the silence that greeted him.

“What did I walk in on here?” Lloyd asked, shaking his head.

“I guess we may as well tell him.” Andy proposed to Amy.

“May as well.” She concurred, looking at Lloyd. “I broke up with Darren last night. I’m not getting into why. Not right now.” She finished her slice of pizza. “In fact, I’m to start the journey home.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Lloyd said, in misguided sympathy. Amy didn’t need sympathy, she needed reassurance, to know that somewhere down the road is success and someone who will treat her with love and respect.

“It’s okay. You two have a good night, I’ll see you around.” Amy said and got up.

As she walked out the door she could already hear Lloyd inquisitioning Andy about what they had talked about. That isn’t to say she wasn’t worried. Much like how Andy expected to find Darren with her, she expected him to be adorning consolation from his best friend. That simply begged the question. . . where was Darren? And perhaps more pertinent, what kind of condition was he in? He had a habit of being aggravated emotionally, turning to anger fueled by a desperate need for escape, and that escape was usually whatever he could get this hands on.

The streets of Ashton are hardly a place for young, vulnerable woman to be walking alone at night. Even the streetlights cast shadows. She walked past the ruins of a bookstore which gave her temporarily employment once; it’s sign now spraypainted to say ‘Gookstore’, the windows broken and boarded up. She peeked in through the boards and saw the flicker of a lighter, followed by the acrid scent of burning rubber, and she knew it had become a crack den. It made her want to break down and cry. The city is dead and it will claim everyone who can’t get out in time. She just had to get out.

Until last night she had been clean for two weeks. Not an epic accomplishment but she was proud of herself. The stress of the situation last night made her smoke some weed hidden in a secret stash, one she used to hide drugs from Darren, who would always simply help himself. The level-head that came with cleaning up allowed her to be assertive for the first time in their relationship. She had a plan and up until now it was going perfectly; one, get clean, two, break free from Darren and three, move to her sisters in Toronto.

Amy pulled out her phone, it was nearly eleven thirty and it was almost too late to call her sister. A major falling out happened when she moved in with Darren. Her sister was just leaving for an entry level job in marketing in Toronto, and took her parents side on the matter. Now Amy accurses herself for not heeding their advice, that Darren was a terrible person and influence. It was too easy to go home but it was this city, it did something to you, she had to make a fresh start. A liberation awoke within her and she wondered if this how female pioneers felt, traversing across uncharted lands, an ardous yet necessary journey ahead. She had to get everything in motion. She hit dial. The phone rang three times, her sister picked up before the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Becky! Hey, it’s Amy.” She said, sounding a little too phony.

“It’s late. Can this wait till tomorrow? I have to work early in the morning. Can you believe it? On a Saturday, in an office. Something about some rush job from KFC they need done for some new item they want to push. Of course I don’t get a say in it, I just sit and watch and learn, I guess. I’m the person who gives the phone to someone else.”

Amy sighed.

“Becky, you’re ranting again. I hope you don’t do this before you give the phone away.”

“Well, you know me, an old fashioned motor mouth. So, what are you looking for? You wouldn’t call me at this hour simply to have a chat.”

There was a silence before she spoke. Amy was worried about the justification in her previous actions upon hearing the news.

“I broke up with Darren.”

“Amen!” her sister ejaculated in jubilation through the phone. Amy was taken back by it, but wasn’t surprised by it in the least. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”

“No, it’s okay,” Amy insisted. “It really is. I’m in a good place…well actually no, I’m not. I’m in a very bad place. You have got to get me out of this city.”

“You want to move here? Is that what you’re saying?” A sigh of ambivalence carried through the call.

“I can’t go back with Mom and Dad. I’ll be on house arrest, treated like a child and I’m still in this fucking city. It’s a disgusting place. I can’t take it anymore!”

“I remember, I remember. You forget I’ve been gone not even two years.”

“I know, but its somehow gotten worse; seedier, dirtier. It’s like it gets inside you somehow, the melancholy of this place is infectious. It don’t see it having a rebirth, Becky, it’s gone. Please let me come stay with you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Please.” She pleaded, making puppy eyes her sister couldn’t see.

“I don’t want you freeloading off me, okay Amy? I know you’ve been good with working whenever you can. Just promise me you’ll be dilligent in finding employment. There are lots of places you could work in my area alone.”

Amy wanted to let out a shriek of joy.

“Is that a yes?”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll come out there tomorrow night. Pack up a load tonight and we’ll bring it out. You can stay here for the week, just buy your own food and we’ll go move you out next weekend.”

“Oh my god! Becky, I love you so much! You have no idea what this means to me!” Amy was jumping up and down in place. An old man watched her with hungry eyes across the street, hiding in a plume of smoke.

“This is just temporary. Okay, we’ll see how it works out. If you start getting on my nerves, I’ll kick your ass. Fair warning!” Becky laughed on the otherside.

“I can’t even begin to thank you enough! I’m almost home. Call me or send me a text when you’re coming tomorrow. I’ll get the ball rolling on my end. I love you, Becky. I feel silly now. I was anxious to ask you.”

“Why?” she replied. There was a distinct moment of silence.

“Because of how we left things, before you went to Toronto. You did take Mom and Dad’s side.”

“I didn’t take their side. I’m not vindictive. I just wanted what was best for you, same as them. That’s in the past, Amy. You’re making strides now. I think you starting somewhere anew could be exactly what you need.”

Amy wiped a tear away from her eye as she turned the key in the apartment lobby. She sniffled.

“You’re right. It’s a new beginning. Have a good night, Becky.”

“You too. Talk to you tomorrow night. Goodnight”

Amy shut the phone and went up the elevator to the fourth floor. A wave of pleasure washed over her, better than any drug she’d ever taken. This is what hope and promise were like. It was wonderful. It was as if she had been born again, all sins repented, all mistakes erased, she just couldn’t help but smile as she entered the apartment.

In the closet Darren smiled too.








ACT ONE – SCENE THREE –




“I know you’re smitten with that girl, and she’s rather nice. To be honest, I think he’s a little smitten herself with you.” Lloyd said, after shoving the last mouthful of pizza crust in his jowls.

Andy put down his slice of pizza, put his hands on his knees and rearranged his slouched posture so he was now sitting forward. He let out an irritated sigh.

“Why are you asking me again?” Andy asked, his face contorted to display his anxiety.

“I just don’t understand why you won’t even talk to her. You always make me go over and order, while you sit at a table and wait for me.”
Andy snuck a peek at her; she was a petite, yet still curvaceous. Her eyes were a brilliant green and her smile seemed to invite you. Many nights lying alone in his bed, he considered the pleasure of her warm body pressed against his own. It had been many years since he’d shared a bed with a girl. In high school he was a bit of a playboy, his intellectual charm seemed to make naïve girls swoon at every twist of his tongue. As he’d told Lloyd many a night, he’s never had a serious relationship, nor had he consciously considered one.

“Why do you look at me as though I’m a fool?” Andy was defensive.

“I don’t think you’re a fool. Just now she looked over at you! I saw this myself, and it’s not the first time.”

Andy looked again and as he sensed her gaze fix on him he quickly turned away, flush in his cheeks.

“See?” Lloyd said his arms akimbo.

“See what?” Andy took a sip of his coke.

“The door is wide open for you to walk through it.”

“Just because you spent your younger years as a hound dog doesn’t me we’re all like that.” Andy laughed.

“I know you’ve had your fair share of flings.”

Andy laughed again, this time from the depths of his stomach.

“No, flings are one night stands or the usage of the opposite sex for…well sex. I’ve never once used a girl. Truth be told, I think many girls have used me throughout my days. Most of the girls I’ve slept with have ended it themselves.”

“You’re saying not once, you’ve ever used a woman for sex?”

“Scout’s honour.” Andy held up his hand in a salute. “Simply put, I have too much respect for women. It’s such an atypical quality in these times. We live in a world furthered by debauchery and sexual titillations. In layman’s terms; sex sells and it gets results.”

“And don’t you think that’s an endearing trait to have? At least in the eyes of the fairer sex, anyways. I know a lot of guys would there would insinuate that you’re playing for the wrong team.”

By this stage Andy was tired of defending himself. In the simplest terms, he simply wanted a life devoid of personal dramas. The death of his parents, whom he respected a lot, as hard workers and dedicated family people, gravely affected him. Even as an atheist he envisions the stern, disappointment in his mother’s eyes, her face twisted in disgust, watching from above as he injects heroin into his arm. Another life can’t get dig in that deep, the loss of such a thing would devastate him irreparably.

“I’m not saying it isn’t. In this stage of my life I have no inclinations to be involved with anyone.” His gaze drifted towards the object of his affections. “No matter how alluring she, or any girl for that matter, may be…I just don’t want to complicate my life.”

Lloyd laughed as he picked up another slice of pizza. In his eyes Andy was too pure for this world and this particular city. Yet, as kind and ethical as he was, it was silhouetted by his insufferable altruism.

“What do you mean complicate your life?” Lloyd said jovially. “You have the simplest life I’ve ever encountered! You don’t work; you have no romantic relationship and yet you’re still worth a half a million dollars! With that kind of money you should have to beat the girls off with a stick!”

“I don’t need the entanglement. I’ve got you and I’ve got Darren and I have my scag…what more do I need? I surely don’t need money, or fame or power.”

“No, you certainly don’t.” Lloyd paused to collect his next thought. “But what about love? Everyone needs love. Love makes the world go round, afterall.”

Andy’s interest in the conversation piqued at the question. He pondered to himself whether he truly needed the love of another human. Besides the primal and necessary love from his parents he’s never really found a yearning for it; inklings yes but never a desperate needing.

“I have love in my life.” Andy said, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s just unconventional love. Come on; let’s take the rest of this to go. I can’t eat anymore.”

He stood up, turning once more towards the subject of conversation before turning his back.

“What already?” Lloyd inquired as he looked at his half eaten slice. Then he noticed the way Andy was scratching and he placed the remainder of the slice into the box and closed it. “Okay, let’s go then.”

Lloyd stood up, gestured goodbye to the girl and she returned it with a wave and a smile. He understood the stress he placed on his good friend interrogating him about the Patsy’s Pizza girl. It was strange to him, not wanting to approach a cute, personable girl who sent all the signals. If Lloyd were Andy he’d have already bedded the girl by now. Then again, those days were long behind him. He suddenly considered his own sexual drought and the last time was nothing to brag about (he paid), which is why he’d never bragged about it.

The moon was full and bright/ On this night, the denizens of the city were out in full force. A middle-aged woman walked alone on the sidewalk across the street, a pair of arms reached out of the darkness of an alley and pulled her in. Neither Andy nor Lloyd saw this, yet they heard the scream of terror she uttered as she was attacked. They craned their heads towards the sound but saw nothing, so they continued walking.

An old man staggered towards them, crossing the street mindless of traffic.

“Do you have any change?” he said as he crossing their path.

The stench from him was appalling, his yellow stained teeth seemed to shine in the moonlight, his breath smelled of decay and his white, unkempt beard was stained. He was homeless and probably suffering from some form of dementia. These types spent all money given to them on a bottle or a pill or some powder and if one happened to ask you for a cigarette, and you gave them one, they would ask again, forgetting they just had. Lloyd was disgusted, yet Andy looked upon him with pity.

Andy reached into his pocket, withdrew his wallet and handed the homeless man a twenty dollar bill. The old man snatched it from his hand, gazing at him cautiously the whole time. And then he was gone, no thank you or a nod of gratitude nothing. Already his mind was working out how to get stoned, drunk or both. Lloyd shook his head with disapproval at the actions of his friend but said nothing. When he lived in Toronto, many times had bums pandered at him for change or cigarettes or some had the boldness to ask straight up for drugs. Never had he parted with a single penny of his own. All the sob stories in the world could not persuade him to give away his hard earned cash. The only emotion he felt as they pleaded with him was abhorrence. Lloyd wished a passing car would strike the old man as he ran across the street. Alas, his wish wasn’t granted.

There was another scream from somewhere else, ricocheting off the old brick buildings that constructed the downtown district. Lloyd looked around but still he didn’t see anything. It was simply his imagination he decided. In this city a scream often meant you walked the opposite direction. Three police cruisers flew towards them, sirens blaring and took a hard turn down Baker Street.

“Wow, I wonder what’s going down.” Lloyd said aloud.

“I have no idea. Probably taking down some drug dealer or they found the guy who committed that double homicide on Celina Street on Thursday.”

“It’s probably a domestic disturbance and no way would a cop come into downtown without full backup.” Lloyd giggled. “It’s probably a call about some old woman who fell and broke her hip and the neighbours called because she wouldn’t shut the fuck up.”

“They get the call, hearing its an old woman and decided not to take chances. Who knows? Maybe the old woman could be high on PCP and have a fully automatic rifle. They should have called the S.W.A.T. in for this one!”

They both laughed as they entered into their broken down building on Baker Street.

Upstairs Andy immediately headed for his lockbox for a fix. Lloyd set the pizza on the coffee table and went into the kitchen for a beer. Within minutes both were indulging in their vices, Lloyd drank his beer in haste and Andy smoked a hit of heroin.

For the next ten minutes they sat in silence. Lloyd had started on his second beer and was smoking. Andy lay slumped in his chair; eyes closed and adorned a swooning face.

Lloyd’s thoughts helplessly drifted toward Darren and the state he would be in. He concurred Amy’s fears were just and he was out on the bender of his life. He merely hoped that he’d be safe and out of the grasp of the law. Knowing how it felt to be cut loose by someone dear, he silently prayed for Darren’s welfare.







ACT ONE – SCENE FOUR –






Darren could hear Amy moving around the apartment; her shadow danced through the crack of the door. He reached out, touching the shadows, expecting a surge of happiness but was instead instilled with a deepening sense of madness. Through the door was the love of his life…and she wanted nothing to do with him. Such a notion could not sit well with him and his intoxicated thoughts. He seethed as if preparing for his own Normandy Invasion; the right move must be made at the right time. If he were to lunge from the closet too early, he feared she wouldn’t feel secure enough to be truly frightened and her terror would be the key to getting everything he needs from her. The answers the questions that have ignited a fire inside him, one that threatens to burn down his life.

He finished the vodka in his flask. His eye twitched. Puddles of sweat formed around his neck and armpits. He ground his teeth. His breaths were rapid but deep and he exhaled silently. He heard her approach the closet and watched the crack darken as she moved past it. Next he heard the chain latch shut on the door. He smiled, knowing she would feel safe now. No way could he possibly get in, not with the chain on. He had to suppress a laugh by dipping the flask to his lips and was dismayed to discover its emptiness. In that moment he felt the flask was mocking him so he tossed it aside. He had to focus and wait for the perfect moment. As the minutes burned away he began to wonder what she was so energetic for. Amy moved around the apartment as if on a mission; the sounds of drawers opening and closing, the zip of zippers and the rustling of bags. He wondered what she was up to.

The two tablets of ecstasy had just kicked in, a tingling rushed across his skin, his heart pounding against his ribcage and sweat on his brow. His foot was tapping against the floor and he had to use his hands to steady it. The breaths that escaped him were rapid and shallow, his tongue protruded from his mouth. He closed his eyes and spun in the darkness of the closet. Amy was singing to herself, though he could not make out the words, perhaps she was merely humming. Still, the sound of her voice was caustic to his ears and he found his plans crushing around him. The closet enveloped him and squeezed the air from his lungs. As much as he wanted to wait he merely couldn’t, the agitation and anxiety were far too great to subside.

When he burst out from the closet and ran at Amy she let out a scream. Before she should react he was upon her. His weight pinned her to the ground, her head his bed on the way down. She trashed immediately, scratching him on the cheek and drawing blood. She screamed at her and he pitted his forearm against her throat and she began to gasp for air.

“If you ever want to inhale another breath you will tell me what I want to know.” Darren said his voice frigid.

Amy’s eyes screamed since her mouth could not. Instantly Darren knew that he’d already won and was in the position of power. So far, so good, he commended himself. For another moment she resisted and tried to break free from his weight but it was impossible. The panic melted from her face and she softly nodded that she understood.

“Good. I’m going to let you breathe but if you use that breath to scream I will crush your windpipe. Do you understand me?”

Amy knew he was beyond high. His pupils took over his entire eyes, one eye lid twitched with every beat of his heart and he was drooling on her. Her best chance of making it out of this altercation unharmed was to cooperate.

With hesitation he alleviated the pressure on her throat and replaced it with pressure across her breast. She could speak but he’d no intention of allowing her to move free of him.

“What do you want to know?” Amy asked with a trembling lip.

Darren simply laughed at the question and pressed his weight down harder.

“What do I want to know? What a humourous question! Let’s start with what you’re willing to tell me.”

Amy looked into his eyes, utterly confused at this line of questioning. She thought he was paranoid, delusional and dangerous.

“Tell you about what?” She choked out.

“For starters, tell why you dumped me without warning!” Darren screamed in her face.

“Can I sit up?” she said, grimacing in pain.

Darren pulled her up a few inches off the floor the slammed her down again. Amy screamed in pain and Darren covered her mouth to make it a moan.

“You will sit up whenever I decide you can sit up. Don’t play games with me, Amy! I deserve better than games! I deserve your undivided attention! Don’t fuck with me tonight!” he stopped. He need to compose himself, no get emotional if he could help it. “Why did you leave me?”
Amy was terrified of telling him the truth, yet was even more terrified of being caught in a lie. So she decided on truth: “Look at yourself! You’re pathetic! You’re a junkie mother fucker! You treat me like shit and you always have. You condescend to me as if I was a mere dog! I’ve had enough of it.”

Darren slapped her in the mouth and she recoiled in pain. Instead of screaming, she let loose bellowing sobs of pain and frustration. She thought all this was over, that she was finally free and she cursed herself for being so naïve.

“How dare you talk to me like that? After leaving me out in the gutter with my head in my hands! Alone, cold and miserable! How could you do it? Two years we spent together…” He was beginning to break emotional composure again. “Two years! And for what… for you to cast me aside like a piece of trash?”

“I’m glad you know how it feels now.” A mistake she knew, but the instant gratification before he slapped her again was worth the pain.

“Don’t talk down to me, bitch. I worshipped the ground you walked on for two whole years; I did everything I possibly could for you! I treated you like a princess!”

Amy laughed right in his face. Darren wanted to hit her again but instead, let up the pressure on her.

“Boy is your memory spotty, Darren. You scoundrel! It was I who worshipped you, who sacrificed who I was for you! Who I am now… I don’t even know who she is but I hate her! I hate her so much I just want to smother her and it was you that bore her into the world!”

“How dare you blame me for your own mistakes! I didn’t put the pipe in your mouth!”

Amy flinched, prepared for the sting of his skin against hers. When it didn’t come she cautiously parted open her eye lids. Tears rolled down Darren’s beat red face as he vigorously gritted his yellowy teeth. She waited, with his weight pinning her down, for him to make a move or say something. Already she’d said regrettable things during this scenario. The primal passion brought out the facetious tendencies in her. Now, as the adrenaline fades the throbbing of her jaw lectured her on the benefits of being cordial to your attacker.

A full minute past, where the only sound uttered between them was exasperated panting. Each waited for the other to make the first mistake. When the tension became too much to bare, Darren broke the silence:

“Who is he? Just tell me who he is?”

Amy was aghast by the insulting inquisition, almost as much as she gazed at him confused.

“Who are you talking about?” She replied, every syllable dripping with honesty.

“The person who has turned you against me, it’s obvious that it has happened. You don’t just end a long term relationship on a whim, Amy! Who does that? There is always a reason and more often than not, it’s because someone is fucking around on the other person…that or are though is at least entertained.” Darren studied the perplexity and benevolence on her face. “What you think you’re innocent in this? Well you’re not! You’re not innocent at all!”

“There is no one else!” she pleaded.

Darren looked at the bed, littered with clothes and a half full suitcase. He then smiled and laughed when he looked at her.

“Do you honestly think I’m that large of a fool? Do you? What’s with the suitcase and the clothes? And why, oh why, were you humming so happily when you came home. Did you just come from seeing him? What did he promise you? That if you left with him you’d live happily ever after? That he’d take care of you?”

“You’ve lost your mind!”

Darren laughed, mouth agape, eyes darting around the room. He inhaled a large, deep breath, which seemed to bring him down to a more controllable place.

“Have I? Have I really? Oh poor Darren has lost his mind!” He tittered. “Well I suppose that doesn’t bode well for you then, does it?”

Terror glazed over Amy’s eyes. She began to squirm and shift his weight but it wasn’t enough. Darren mocked her with his dilated pupils.

“I may be insane,” He began, chomping his lower lip with such force it oozed blood. “But that still doesn’t explain the bag. That you were packing. Your parents would never take you back, not after the big mistake that was me. Isn’t that what you believe? Hmm? That I influenced you to ruin your own life, take drugs yourself, move away from your precious Mommy and Daddy?”

“You were a mistake!” She defended herself.

“That’s right, keep drinking that misogynistic Kool-Aid your mother has been serving you for years! You can’t even think for yourself! I bet you never even loved me! Oh now I know that is entirely true. Don’t deny it! You’re already denying it with your eyes! How could you love me, I’m a piece of shit right? Your mother warned you, and so did your friends, oh how everyone looked out for dear, precious, naïve, delicate Amy. How nice to have so much support! You’re the only support I ever had and it was all a ruse, wasn’t it? All you wanted was to rebel! To make them love you all the more but when they disowned you, oh how you cried! I remember now! And I consoled you! I held you and caressed you and that night we made love! Well I made love,you simply made do.”

“How can you say that?” Amy screamed with moist eyes. “Do you really think I’m such a vile person to stoop to such levels? That I would use another person for a petty ploy against my parents? After all this time that is how you see me?”

Darren stared at her, vexed. His nose kept curling in anger, his teeth clenched and bared. It was as if he’d becoming nothing more than an animal. There was something in his eyes, something that reached into her body and grasped her heart with icicle fingers.

“It’s clear to me now. The way you left me with no warning whatsoever! I was an experiment, a society slumming experiment. I was the perfect candidate, wasn’t I? A broken home, drug user and abuser! How much sympathy have you garnered from your friends? ‘Oh poor me’ I can see you saying, ‘I love him so much but all he does is treat me like trash’ and then you’d get a pity hug but it’s so much more than that to you isn’t it? It’s a commendation for suffering through my suffering!”

Amy opened her mouth to speak but he placed his palm over it. She wanted to bite him, make him scream and bleed but she was a model of restraint.

“No…no, my pretty, you’re not speaking. This is my time, you spoke last night. And ever since, all those destructive, wounding words have floated around my head. It’s only been a day and I can’t take it! I just cannot live with being abandoned by you. What do I have to go back to? More beatings? Watching my fifteen year old sister give birth in a few months? Watching my mom robotically function with her painkillers and Xanax? And that is why you will tell me where you were going. I want to know what fantastical life you were leaving me for. I need to know. Think of it as closure.”

He uncovered her mouth and as she began to spoke he muffled her again.

“I only care about the truth. Don’t bullshit me.”

Amy coughed viciously and gasped for air when he finally removed his hand from her mouth and nose. The room seemed to spin around her, the adrenaline was back again. Darren’s condition and emotions would eventually give her an opportunity to escape. She just had to bind her time and give him what he wanted.

“I was going to my sister’s, in Toronto.”

“Becky?” he shook his head. “But she hated me most of all! I know you told her things you didn’t tell your mom.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re sisters, and I can only imagine the skewed image she has of me. She never even met me, except when we ran into her at the mall! You didn’t think I noticed the contemptuous way she regarded me? She looked me like one looks at their shoe after stepping in dog crap!” He paused and shook his extended index finger in her face. “Let me guess, she’s happy as a pig in shit that you’ve dumped me?”

Amy smiled at the corners of her mouth. She peeled it away before Darren noticed.

“I can only imagine the sob stories you’ve given her, most of them probably helpless exaggerated.” Darren concluded.

“Don’t insult yourself with my mouth.” She pleaded. “All I want is s a fresh start at life, in a new city with new people and new doors to open. Do you really begrudge me that? I thought you love me?”

Darren began to cry and in that moment he wanted to be lost in her all over again, to hold her and cherish her and make love to her to keep her from leaving.

“I do love you! You’re my entire world! And now my world is on fire and it is burning!”

“Then let me go.”

Darren wasn’t sure how to react. His instincts battled over slapping her and embracing her. In the end he came to solution and that maybe he should let her go. He apologized to her with his eyes and she returned the favour.

“If you love me, let me go.” She repeated with a swollen smile.

Darren shifted his weight and sat back. Amy pulled her left arm that was under him up to her face and tried to shake it awake. He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. Sobbing he squeezed tight with love than he had with hate. She gasped out at the shock of the action. They shared a passionate kiss. He stood up and helped her up.

“You’re right.” He said, holding her numb left arm. “You are so entirely right.”

Amy laughed, relieved. She inhaled her first true breath in almost ten minutes, her lungs ached from deprivation. As much as she hated Darren now and wanted away from him, she drew herself in and planted a kiss on his lips. Then, crying, she grinned and squeezed his hand.

“I’m glad you understand. This is really what is best for me. Thank you so much.”

Darren punched her in the face. She was so caught off guard she howled. Then he broke one of her ribs. Oxygen rushed from her throat. She fell to her knees, coddling her ribcage and crying. When she looked at Darren she seemed to be asking him ‘why? What his eyes answered cause her heart to sink. Then he was back on top of her, but she squirmed free. Frantically she made it to her feet, knocking over a night table and sending a lamp crashing to the floor, casting them both in darkness. She made a great din all the while. Before she could leave the bedroom he’d grasped her ankle and yanked. She fell face first into the floor. Everything sounded distant. Her eyes could no longer focus in the darkness. A great weight held her down. More impacts against her ribcage, followed by the metallic taste of her own blood. Hands tightened around her windpipe. Each haggard breath burned her throat. A pressure built up around her eyes. It was impossible to think, impossible to move. She could feel herself fading away into an all encompassing blackness. Still, she could make out the moonlight glistening in Darren’s massive pupils and faintly heard him say: “I’m letting you go.”

And then Amy was gone.








ACT ONE – SCENE FIVE –






Once again the city of Ashton claimed another life. Once again it appropriated the unclean hands of one of its residents. It is said that a city has a life-force and personality of its own, often this is to be attributed to the culture of the people of the city. But what if the people merely existed to the propriety of the city’s demands? Is it possible for a city to influence its inhabitants to make choices to meet its own ends? Is a decaying city the product of the choices made therein by the people or do they obey an intangible force? In this city, people are driven by inhumane acts for dirty hedonisms, allowing their fellow man to be eaten alive if it meant they could loot their wallet afterwards. Such an intense selfishness this is! Darren was no stranger to such indecent acts. For once he watched a man beaten outside of a bar, for reasons he did not know, As he watched it like a movie he drank fro his flask. For nearly five minutes this old man was pummeled by three other men. When they were done they left off belting laughter, still taunting him. Soon after Darren walked up the man, who begged for him to get him help. He was so bloodied and swollen he could barely shift his own weight. Down on his luck himself, Darren reached into the man’s coat, retrieving his wallet, removing the twenty-seven dollars inside and contemptuously dropping the wallet on his aching chest. Then he left. Until now he’d never recalled this incident. But staring at Amy’s lifeless body, still feeling her drying saliva on his hands, he was inexplicably reminded of it. He’d no way of knowing if the man had lived or survived and until today he was not the least concerned. Now he understood the jolt taking a human life can give. He coped with the distress by smoking several pipe loads of crack and popping another two tablets of ecstasy. What other way could he take the pain away?

Amy’s eyes were still open. The courage to close them didn’t rest within him. Never, never until last tonight had he laid a hand on Amy. For the past hour he’d recounted how easy it was! He was beguiled by how powerful he felt with each crack of his knuckles. The ability to manipulate Amy into feeling anything he’d wanted did rest within him. However, as the conversation wore on he realized she was invulnerable to physical abuse. Darren’s arsenal the past two years consisted of verbal and emotional abuse, the only goal in his actions to make her smaller than him and until last night it had worked. Every opportunity to compact her ego he seized like a lion sinking it’s fangs into a sick antelope and he got high off it. Yes, staring at Amy’s corpse had brought Darren too many stunning epiphanies. Was taking a life the only reliable way to reflect on your own life? He considered this over an after fix cigarette. In recollection he considered the power dynamic of their relationship. By all means Amy was the responsible one, who believed in family despite being disowned by hers and maintained legitimate employment to sustain their apartment. And what did Darren do? He controlled her money, not allowing her the right to use their own. He introduced her to drugs, for she’d done nothing more than smoke weed with friends before meeting him. Darren gets it, she wanted danger and excitement and an escape from the proper suburban prison she was raised in, but still, he was infuriated that she would use him for adventure. He was a human being! He didn’t deserve this!

In his mind he was in a courtroom already, on trial for his life and in his thoughts he defended himself mightily. He was merely a victim of the circumstances of his life! No, he isn’t a bad man or a spiteful man or an indecent man but merely a boy without structure and discipline. Any sins he had committed were crimes of necessity, not of cruel or inhumane intentions. This was a crime of passion! So what if he was waiting in the shadows to pounce on her like a jackal? All he wanted was answers but things got out of control. He envisioned a sea of shaking heads, the twelve men and women on the jury regarding him with the harshest scorn and the hammering of the judge’s gavel. He shook the image away. No, he wasn’t among the damned yet. Instead, he chose to maintain a sliver of hope in his dark and twisted mind.

The truth of it all was he hadn’t considered the way he treated her until her death rattle penetrated his ears. Why did he treat Amy so terribly? Why did he minimize her self worth until she was a destitute soul like his own? He was crying now, repenting his past indignations with tear drop apologies. He didn’t believe in God but if there was a God, he considered if he could be forgiven. The human race certainly won’t let bygones be bygones. Deep down Darren was terrified with Amy attaining the realization she was truly better than Darren and that she would leave him. He needed her love so much that he would do anything to keep it. The only way he knew how was burden her with misgivings and meticulous criticisms. For so long it had worked, the power he held over her was tantalizing. It was easy to take half her paycheck to buy drugs, because he convinced her she needed the drugs as well. Did Darren feel supreme guilt at this moment? No, he did not.

Darren let out a bellowing laugh at Amy’s maligned body.

“You were so easy to manipulate.” He taunted. “When we met you were so strong willed and independent. You knew exactly what you wanted and how to get it. And what you wanted was to infuriate your folks. Isn’t that right, love? Oh but you didn’t count on me, did you? No, you did not. Somewhere along the line you really did fall in love with me. When that was I haven’t the faintest idea.”

Darren got off the bed and lay down with Amy, draping an arm across her.

“Do you remember our first anniversary? You were saving up money from your job so we could go out and celebrate properly. You massaged my face in bed the week before and consoled me for not having money for it. It was so sweet. You did it just like this.”

He took his hand and brushed the back of it across her frozen face, swooning at the memory.

“The next night I told you I could get a great deal on an ounce of weed and that I could dime it out, sell it and double our money and I promised you it would work, that I would need the money you’d saved and half your paycheck. Well, I digress; you know what happened, you were there.”

He cackled at his own words.

“I smoked most of it, with friends and the money I made selling I spent on coke and I brought it home. I remember lying to you, saying that I made more money than I thought by pinching and I bought us some blow to celebrate our love with. When you took those lines you were so happy. And when I told you the day of our anniversary, when you asked for the money, that it was all gone, you got so angry. You were livid! I’d never seen you so angry, honey, not once. You cried and you wailed and thrashed your arms about. I reminded you how great the coke was and the passionate sex that followed it.”

With his eyes closed his hand fondled at her breast, and he kissed her bruised neck.

“Oh you pleaded my forgiveness! I was the one who fucked up and you asked me to forgive you for being so upset. As much as you wanted a romantic, grown up night out, it wasn’t happening. Why were you so apologetic to me? Was it because you were angry at yourself for trusting me with money or trusting me with your love? From that moment on, you were mine. That night you gave me absolute control over your life. And tonight you gave me absolute control to free you from it.”

He stood up and walked over towards her purse which lay on the bed and opened it. From inside he removed her wallet, took the cash and stashed it in his jean pocket.

“You know, I’ve realized something tonight, staring at your body. For so many years I walked through life with this…this weight on my shoulders. And do you know what that weight was, love? It was the feeling of being pathetic. My parents made me feel pathetic, my friends made me feel pathetic and sure as shit the ladies made me feel pathetic. Tonight I realized you’re the pathetic one. And that’s not just because you’re dead.”

Darren lifted his head up the heavens, laughing at his own comment, it echoed through the empty apartment.

“If you weren’t pathetic you wouldn’t have let yourself become a doormat or whatever metaphor you conjured up in your feeble little brain. All you did was humiliate yourself over and over again. You made it so easy! At first it was a clever game, like chess, where it would take me dozens of moves to get to checkmate and yet the past months it was like hunting a deer by sticking a shotgun in it’s sleeping mouth. Where is the sport in that! I began to lose respect for you, chasing after me like a weak puppy…yet my love deepened. I couldn’t make sense of it. But tonight, as I wrapped my sweaty hands around your frail little neck and I squeezed until I watched the light vanish from your eyes that I realized that it wasn’t love I had for you, no it was an overwhelming feeling of power. I had power over your thoughts, your emotions, your livelihood, your self-image…you weren’t even a human when I was through with you. You were just skin and bones with no meat, no substance. Hell, you were the walking dead. I had no intention of killing you tonight. All I wanted was to terrify you to get the answers I wanted out of you. But you were going to leave me, and not just romantically. I just couldn’t have that; I couldn’t have my power taken away! It was all I have left.

“Wait, don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it! I know it! I know it all too well! You’ve still left me and that power is still gone. Yes, I mourn that loss and will mourn that loss for quite sometime. Do you think you’ve won?” he kicked her lifeless body much like he’d once poked a dead raccoon with a stick as a child. “Sorry to disappoint your ego but I still won. You wanted to make a fresh start, get out of this…what did you once call it…an ‘infectious city’? You wanted to make a new life for yourself? You thought you could regain power and control over your life? No, I wouldn’t have it! Not under my watch, you don’t get that back. I could see it in your eyes as they darkened, how disappointed you must be at how things turned out! To think not more than an hour ago you were humming cheerfully, packing for a new life of promise and adventure! How beautiful it all sounds! Blue skies and bright eyes! Isn’t that right?”

Darren knelt down beside her, took a drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke into her face. With a devilish smile he touched his mouth to her ear.

“You truly believed you had gotten away, didn’t you? You can’t escape it.”