Ok, so mines not the best prose, I haven't written a single bit of fiction for about 2 years now. Nano is kinda my baptism of fire. If you do post/read things here everyone please keep copyright privillages in mind.
Here's what I have...
At first it looked like a bundle of silks, washed up into the tide pool and his heart quickened. Damp sand crunched underfoot and a fresh gust drew cold fingers through his hair as he bent to inspect it. Kelp wrapped it, small crabs scuttling across the surface, waving at each other, their tiny pincers signaling mine, mine. They scattered as he came closer. He frowned. A wave gently lapped at the fine cloth, dislodging some of the sea greens and his heart sank. It was just another body.
Ezekiel brushed a strand of hair from the dead woman’s face. She hadn’t been in the sea for very long. Her skin was white, like her silken dressing gown, her blue lips matched the waving claws of the crabs. She could be dressed fancy for all hallows eve if you ignored her eyes. They could not seem him, or the beach, like someone had spilt milk on them, open against the sand and unblinking sun. Ezekiel sighed and stood up, stretching his back. He’d looked at her long enough. A few business like movements had the body divested of it’s valuable silk gown and undergarments. There was nothing attractive about the naked body, pale, discolored, bloating. At least he tried not to see it as a person any more; Just a piece of flotsam and jetsam now.
It was tempting to walk it out to sea, to let it have her back. but that just wouldn’t do if the body washed up again and the boys came across it, or perhaps Margaret or Anna as they combed the beach for washed up trinkets and treasures. He let the body alone while he rinsed the sand from the clothes in the tide pool. The cloth making elegant swirls in the water, mirroring the clouds above. Silk was always beautiful when immersed, like it belonged under water, that it was some how made less by being in the air. He hauled it out and fanned it out on the grey rocks to dry. Water darkened the boulder, imbuing the grey salt encrusted rock with a negative halo. He wondered how it was made, what sort of plant it came from. A sea weed perhaps? A flax grass?
Keeping these thoughts running through his head he hauled the body over a shoulder and walked up the dunes, doing his best to keep his mind busy. It was not the first body, nor the last, that was for sure, but he could never quite be at peace with himself if he thought properly about what it was he was doing. He would not think about it as a her any more. It was a thing. A thing. He dug a hole in the sand with his hands, each stroke revealing layers of colour, white, black, white, brown, white. Everything had beauty in it, if you paused to look, and everything a mystery. The patterns in the sand held his mind, pushing the thought of what and why he dug for the corner of his thoughts. Each layer of black was the debris from a great storm, the type that swept up every twenty or more years and here he was undoing the seas hard work with each handful, disturbing it’s careful patterning of endless time in a moment, yet he was also doing it’s work, burying it’s unwanted offering on land, keeping the waves unsullied.
No, that was too morbid a line of thought. He cast around looking for another thing to occupy his mind, keeping the body from his sight and awareness. Another gust of wind ran like fingers though his hair and he latched onto it, wondering where it had come from. Did it travel from distant lands, starting as a tiny breeze? Perhaps it began as a housewife’s sweeping dust from a doorstep, or a child running past a field of grain at speed? He placed the body into the hole and began to shift the sand back, wishing that he could arrange it back as he had found it, with each stratification back in its place. Where there had been a swirl of black and white sand there was now a jarring grey. It seemed to muddy the white of the dune, it cast a shadow where there was nothing but sunlight. Perhaps it was the event of the storm and the wreak that caused the shadow to appear? There was no way of ever putting them back. Although he could not see it he knew there was another patch just like this a little further up the beach, he avoided that spot. Perhaps he would begin to avoid this one, walk around it with carefully measure steps.
He walked back to the silk, dry and stiff with salt. It crackled when he folded it and placed it in his pack then moved on to the tide pools, bending to collect handfuls of red dulce weed freshly torn from it’s inaccessible beds past the breakers. A few tiny crabs scuttled from the weed as he lifted and shook it, they dived back to the water and safety. A few other things hid amongst the weed, a small bit of rope, a plank of half rotted wood covered in barnacle and, for a moment his heart seemed to stop, a tiny arm, that of a babes limb but on closer inspection appeared to be the arm of a doll, a strand of discolored muslin still attached to the upper arm. Where the two connected? Had the woman a child. Or was it from some other wreak? To many questions.
It was enough, his heart had had all it could take of surprises and shock. He tucked the tiny porcelain arm into his bag and drew the strings. No more surprises to day. Tomorrow he would come again and search, perhaps. For now he would go home, cook up some breakfast and then help John repair his nets. Anna might need an eye kept on Henry for awhile. Nothing could take Ezekiel’s mind off morbid thoughts brought about the more disturbing gleanings of this morning. It was better to entertain an ever active and curious three year olds mind than his salt encrusted one.
**
“Zeek, Zeek, I found something!” Henry rushed down the path like a small whirlwind, cheeks red with the wind and excitement of his find. Ezekiel dropped his bag to lift the boy up and greet him, nose to nose as was their habit. Henry giggled and flung his warm arms around Ezekiel’s neck.
“What did you find?” he asked with a grin.
“No” said Henry momentarily serious, shaking his head. “You have to guess.”
Ezekiel appeared to think, momentarily just as serious.
“hm. A cockcle, as big as your head?”
Henry laughed, shook his head again and squirmed out of his grip. He hauled up the bag of findings and handed it back to Ezekiel, who hefted it casually over his shoulder.
“A fish in the shape of a dog?” he asked, again mock serious.
“No,” said Henry growing impatient, “Come and see!” he took Ezekiel’s free hand and pulled him towards his parents home. For a moment Ezekiel played at being reluctant to go but let Henry drag him inextrolliably towards the tiny stone cottage.
“is it a purple and red octopus?” asked Ezekiel, playfully. Henry shook his head and pulled harder. “A shiny metal button? A cowry shell? ” Henry smiled and shook his head at each guess. The last time they had played this game he had found a tiny rusted music box encrusted with barnacles and the remains of an officers shoe. Ezekiel improvised wildly, caught up for a moment in the three year olds excitement.
“A warrior’s sword? A set of armor? An entire library? A mermaid?” The last drew a curious response from Henry, who smirked and would say no more but merely shook his head and dragged him finally to the open door.
Anne bustled about by the hearth, building up the fire in the already stifling room. Curtains had been drawn across the tiny windows against the morning light so that the only illumination was the roaring fire. It took a moment for Ezekiel’s eyes to adjust from the crisp morning sun to this cavern of a hut.
“Mamma, I found Zeek! He guessed it was a mermaid!”
Anna gave Henry a fleeting smile and brushed a hand over his head, eyes on the pile of blanckes in the corner.
“Good boy, now go and get Margaret, like I told you.”
Henry nodded and rushed out the door again. Anna turned back to the fire, deftly placing a kettle above the flames and raking coals into the cast iron bed warmer.
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There are two types of people in the world, and I'm not one of them.
40,250 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 17 02
Not the whole lot, since I'm still going to keep going for a while, but here's some of what I started with:
Amber pressed her forehead against the window watching the white line disappear as the car hurtled down the road. Occasionally the lines would move away, and she’d lift her eyes to watch them for a moment, before finding where the new line had started. She knew that when the lines ended it would all be over.
It felt like they’d been driving forever; just Amber and her mother stuck in the tiny can of a car, with the air conditioning blasting and the windows up to prevent the world from touching them. In reality, Amber knew it had only been an hour or so, but the whole time thing wasn’t being helped by her mother’s sustained silence.
Her mother coughed, and Amber resisted the temptation to lift her head, to look over. It was just a cough after all, not the attempt at a real conversation. They didn’t do real conversation. It wasn’t their thing.
She closed her eyes, just for a second, allowing the wheels to spin around and around, allowing them to swallow the white line. She felt the cool glass of the window, the freezing air her mother insisted on blasting the car with. She wondered if it would be okay to go to sleep . . .
“Amber?”
She sat up, startled, and turned to face her mother. She was looking at Amber, concern spreading across her face. Amber shook her head, and quickly wiped away the tears which had snuck out when she wasn’t thinking. “I’m sorry, mum. Must have drifted off there.” She looked around, for the first time taking in the scenery. “Wow, there’s a lot of trees out here.”
“Do you like them?” Her mother nearly managed to smile. “I thought it would be nice to be away from that city air. You can become a real country kid out here.”
Amber wanted to remind her mother that they couldn’t actually smell the air, trapped here in the closed car. And she wanted to tell her that she was really interested in becoming a country kid. She imagined herself, dressed in one of those cowboy checked shirts, jeans and dusty dirty boots, with a piece of hay stuck out the corner of her mouth. Nah, she’d rather stick with her Converse shoes if that was okay with everyone else.
She wondered what the house would look like. Her mother hadn’t said much about it, just that it was perfect for the two of them. And that the neighbours looked like nice people. Amber imagined a house with big verandas and green, wooden railings. With a front door that always looked better open, and a long hallways, just perfect for a game of cricket on a rainy day. She imagined a little room, with walls painted blue or green. Small enough for her and her bed and her desk, with a seat she could curl up in to watch the birds as they flew through the trees outside.
35,191 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 17 03
Ooh so good! I am so full of questions "What's happened, What'd he find, Where are they? Awesome can't wait to read some more.
7,073 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 20 11
Well. Imma writing lots of short stories for NaNo. And here's my first.
It was sunny - apart from the clouds - and the day was middle-aged, fast approaching old. Happy that the day was almost over Bob continued his fascinating job of accounting. He loved his job so much, it was like being slowly forced through a meat grinder while listening to Britney Spears.
Brbing to his MSN contacts, he heaved himself out of his chair and wandered to the kitchenette to get some coffee - and see if anyone had pinched his spoon again.
With much uneventfulness, the day ticked on, slowly drawing nearer the much awaited hour of 5:00pm.
Then it struck… with silence defying logic, the office emptied. Except for one chair.
Bob cursed his bad luck of being dumped with an hour long job five minutes before 5:00.
***
Two hours and much cursing later, Bob was finished. Signing out of MSN he powered down his computer, packed his gear, and stalked to the elevator. Waiting for it to make it’s long journey from 1st floor to 13th floor, he counted the number of tiles in the inlay around the door.
Ping!
He stepped in the lift and punched the 1st floor button. The door slid shut with more noise than an office emptying and began its decent.
Clunk!
The elevator stopped its decent.
Many thoughts rushed through Bob’s brain, fighting to be first in queue to be spoken.
‘Awww shit.’ Won.
‘[Edited massively for sake of PGish rating.]’ Came second, closely follow by: ‘[less heavily edited but inserted for purpose of bolstering word count.]’
Coming a grudging fourth was sissy punch at the wall - an expression of anger without the intention to hurt ones self.
All this obviously did nothing to the elevator. But it’s a commonly known fact that swearing and hitting things makes you feel better. Unless of course you’re doing it about someone a lot bigger than yourself, in which case it can make you feel a lot worse when he decides that swearing and hitting things will make him feel better.
The next stage was repeatedly hitting the emergency button. This almost did something, but then the power shut off.
The world tripped and fell into darkness.
Sighing, Bob sat down and contemplated his future. He had to get home by 9:00pm, ‘cause he had a WoW mission to complete. It was now about 7:30. He pulled out his iPhone and called his mum to tell her he’d be even later to work. She told him to hurry home, his dinner was getting cold. He told her that he was stuck in an elevator. She told him that she was sick of his excuses, and if he didn’t want to admit he was out partying with friends, not to call her. And then hung up.
He browsed Facebook for a few minutes until his phone ran out of battery and died.
***
Hungry… went the thoughts of Bob. Oh so hungry. Had no food in hours. Wonder what’s for dinner. Dammit. No dinner. Not till I get out of here. Where is here? That’s right… an elevator. Why did I get in the elevator? Because I didn’t feel like the stairs. I didn’t look like them either. Hehehehehe. Didn’t look like stairs.
Sigh…
Wonder how long I’ve been in here…
***
There was a young man once called Bob.
He was to most’s surprise still called Bob.
He got stuck in a lift,
And was never missed.
That poor young man still called Bob.
***
Waterfalls. Pouring water.
Mud. gooing and oozy.
Animals. Smelling and yucky.
Shit. In the corner and I need to pee.
***
I wonder what the time is…
Dammit… 7:59pm…
***
Hour two. Still hungry. Need to go to the bathroom. But that’ll smell. And I still need to eat. I wonder… crap in the corner… piss in a bucket… hmm… Not that desperate. Might wait it out some more…
***
Nope, can’t wait any longer…
***
Yes I can.
***
No I can’t. I really, really, really need to go!
Think of dry stuff… think of dry stuff. Desert… sand… beaches… waves…
Dammit!
***
Ohh, that feels better. Thankgoodness for Mum making lunch and packing it in a box…
***
Captain’s log. Time is 1:38am and no sign of rescue. Will I spend my last hours trapped in an elevator? I can’t believe I will. I’m too young to die!
What did I do to deserve this?
Alright, alright, alright… I know being an accountant is a pretty bad job. But I did it ‘cause me Ma wanted it! Though I suspect she just wanted me to do her taxes for her…
***
If I get out of here… I swear I’ll never look at another figure again!
***
In a world of so many wonders I’m dying in pitch black in a steel and concrete shaft. My life sucks.
***
Need to piss again. Running out of room in my water bottle though.
***
Cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, CHEESE!
All you need is cheese, all you need is cheese.
All you need is cheese, cheese, cheese is all you need.
Cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese.
There’s nothing you can eat that isn’t eatered.
Nothing you can smell that isn’t smellered.
Nothing you can choke that isn’t already choked on.
All you need is cheese, cheese, cheese is all you need.
***
What’s that you say? A noise? Don’t be daft. We’re here to stay, we are. Just me, me and the elevator. Good friends we are.
***
Back! Back fowl fiend! Back to the hen-house from whence you came!
***
This is it. This is the end. You can’t stop me now. I must end this before I go insane…
What’s that you say? It’s too late? Who are you to tell me I’m already crazy!
Oh… you’re me, aren’t you?
Well, why didn’t you say so earlier! I always wanted to meet me. I’m Bob. What’s your name?
boB you say? Very nice name that. Funny inflection on the ‘b’s, but still a nice name. We should hang out more often. Life is so much more fun when you have someone to share it with.
***
Hey… I was thinking… do you, ya know… wanna catch up sometime after this?
What do you mean? ‘Screw you!’ You are me! That’s like…
***
What was that jolt? We’re moving! Yes! Someone has rescued us! Many, many hours later and we’re rescued!
Wait a moment… why aren’t the lights on? And we’re moving rather fast…
Oh…
24,370 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 22 28
Okay, but just for today - it's not been proof-read (and just copy/pasting I notice there's a detail I still need to fill in. Better do that before the end of the day, or else I am cheating by 4 words!)
I quite like the way it's started though. I'm looking forward to discovering exactly what crime my protagonist committed, because I don't know yet! :)
===============================================================================
{Day 1}
The gavel hit with a slam and the bailiff stepped forward to replace the handcuffs on Michael S. Beckham's tattooed wrists. As he was led out through the rear door of the court room, Mike "Deck'em" Beckham hung his head, not in shame, but in rage. He was oblivious to the noise and bustle around him, his thoughts transfixed on the judge's words which cycled in his head over and over again.
Two life sentences.
When he was leaving high school, Beckham had roughly plotted out the course of his life in his own mind. A twinge of obsessive compulsive disorder had always stalked the dark recesses at the rear of his mind, forcing him to align details and strive for a neat and symmetrical "big picture" in life. Sadly, his life was a complete mess, with any semblance of order or symmetry largely confined to the geometric tattoos that ran from his knuckles up to his shoulders on both arms. It had taken talented artists to match both sides so perfectly each time a new element was added, and luckily for [name of tattoo parlour] the only noticeable mistake was hidden from Deck'em Beckham's view on the rear of his biceps.
The plan had been to marry by 25, have three kids by 30 (two sons and a then a daughter), be earning three times the national average wage by 40, retire early at 55, and then find some kind of relaxing way to spend the proceeds of his incredibly successful investment portfolio until he died at the age of 81. But sadly, Mike was to discover that even the best laid plans can go awry.
As he was led up a sterile corridor in his chains, he reflected on the 53 years that still stood between him and death - years without freedom, without an identity. He'd spent 8 months in prison already awaiting trial, hating every moment. As the judge's words continued to bounce forwards and backwards through his reeling mind he noted the self-contradictory nature of the phrase "life sentence", because he knew that from this point on he had no life. He was now merely a statistic. He was a number, locked with another number in a numbered cell, in a cell block that, as though just for a change, was referred to by letter.
Involuntarily, his fists tensed. As his fingernails marked the palms of his hands he realised what his body was doing and forced his arms to relax. It would be no help to him at all if the guards saw him getting aggressive right now.
"Stop," said a guard. There had been mutters of conversation around him all the way along this corridor, but this was the first word that Mike Beckham had heard since the slam of the gavel. He did as he was told, looking down and noticing that the line on the ground which they had been following turned from white to red a few paces ahead of him. To his left was a counter, behind which stood an expressionless man who appeared to have misplaced whatever personality he might have had when he had joined the judicial system. Between Mike and this drone was a reinforced window that seemed angrier than Mike. The glass was thick, with criss-crossing wires worked through the middle of it. It screamed distrust, as though each criminal who was led past this processing point was being told, "You are dangerous scum. We don't trust you. From this point on, we are withdrawing you from any sort of uninterrupted contact with normal people. You are not normal. Normal people need protection from your sort". And if windows could salivate, this one would probably have spat right into Mike's face.
"Approach the counter and stand on the footprints," projected another emotionless guard.
Mike knew the procedure. He'd faced this treatment a couple of times over the past 8 months, although as his mind began to focus again he was stiffly aware of the lack of the word "please" this time.
He stepped onto the little white shoeprint shapes that had been painted an insulting distance from the counter - yet more de-humanisation from the justice system. We don't want you too close our guards; you might breathe on them.
As he became more aware of his surroundings, he quickly pieced together that he had been accompanied up this corridor behind the courthouse by two police of some kind who now stood a "safe" distance behind him. Mike was soothed somewhat to realise that the three of them stood in a beautiful isosceles triangle there in the passageway, pointing towards Mr No-Personality behind the counter of criticism. Mike tried to read Mr No-Personality's name tag, but he was too far away and the reinforcements in the angry window made it hard to see fine details on the other side. Typical really - the other side of that window counted as the free world, and we couldn't be having convicted prisoners looking in at that, could we?
"Wait a moment, please," said Mr No-Personality, his voice pumped through tinny little speakers set above the window.
Mike became aware of the air dancing across his cheeks and realised that the angry inner turmoil of the last ninety seconds was probably very evident to the world on his now-red face. He inhaled deeply through his nostrils, which led his body to respond by pushing back his shoulders and attempting to stretch out his arms with a yawn. It was then that he encountered a subconscious confusion that would soon become integral to his very existence, for as his arms went to move in opposite directions, the chain between the handcuffs tightened and suddenly prevented Mike from stretching. His brain, shocked by the interruption of a natural process, paused for a split second as though re-booting before coming to terms with the whole situation. To the guards standing behind, the momentary freezing of every part of Beckham's body was imperceptible, and as he relaxed again it seemed to all observers as though he had merely drawn a breath and rolled his shoulders once.
Mr No-Personality still hadn't looked up. There appeared to be some very urgent paper-shuffling that needed to be finished before he could possibly engage with a statistic.
Taking great care not to move any part of his anatomy below his neck, Mike glanced around him. As expected, there was no clock. He had not experienced the true passage of time for the past eight months of his imprisonment. Of course, there was routine, and there were mealtimes and lights-out, but there were no clocks or wristwatches in prison. You did what you were told, when you were told, but there was no way to display that time was truly passing on the inside of prison beyond counting the days. In his youth he thought that the ticking second hand of a clock on the wall was the torture device of a school detention that made time seem to pass slower, but now he knew that time crawled all the more when you couldn't see it moving. He'd love to say that he'd got used to living in a timeless world, but it seemed that he hadn't. But now he had the rest of his life to learn.
Apparently Mr No-Personality had found a relevant piece of paper now. He laid it carefully in front of him and then began tapping on his keyboard. Mike noticed it was at a 30-degree angle to the front of the counter, and something subconscious told him that Mr No-Personality probably went home at the end of each day complaining of a sore right shoulder.
Nearby, the clack of mechanical locks signalled the opening of a heavy door, and the ensuing sound of footsteps on the linoleum floor heralded the arrival of someone with a high sense of personal importance.
Finally Mr No-Personality looked up at Mr Beckham for the first time, and his voice again buzzed through the cheap, outdated speakers.
"Michael Sebastian Beckham, you have been convicted of..."
"Mr Beckham," said a voice that had a tone to match the footsteps, "could you please follow me."
It was clearly not a question or a request, but Mike carefully noted the deliberate use of the P-word in the sentence and immediately reasoned that he was being summoned by someone with far more authority than any of the three people he was currently standing with. Only someone truly important would say please to a convicted criminal about to be led away to be stored a safe distance from society.
He turned his head to face the new voice, keeping his feet cemented to the painted shoeprints on the floor. A short way up the corridor he saw two well-dressed men. They could have been lawyers, but here behind the courts, defendants met with their lawyers in locked rooms with safety windows, not in the corridors.
Looking back towards the counter, Mike saw that the clerk had seen the two suits and immediately stopped talking. Cautiously turning to look over his shoulder, he found no guards behind him. There was a shot of panic that ran down his spine as his brain sent every perceiveable distress signal at once. Now was not the time for a 'fight' response, but nor did 'flight' seem particularly practical.
The body heat that had made his face red only a minute or two earlier was now replaced by intense cold - the same cold he had felt at the time of his arrest.
He looked back at the faces of the two men in suits as they now walked towards him, hoping for a clue. Nothing sparked his intuition. He felt lost. He didn't know what was going on, and that troubled him more than his handcuffs or the lack of a clock in the corridor. He needed an answer, just to let him know where he stood. He got better than an answer; he got an instruction.
"Follow us, please Mr Beckham," said the taller of the two suits.
With an instruction, you definitely knew where you stood. But Mike didn't feel any more at ease as he walked on up the passage between his two new minders. Between his feet, the line that led the way from the courts to the holding cells had now gone from white to red.
{1736 words}
----------83,947 / 50,000
nov. 1, 2009 - 13 37
I just have this weird feeling that I may have a little too much to post ^__^''
----------Number of Coffees: 8
Number of Teas: 19
Number of Meals Missed: 7
Number of Central Characters Killed: None... Yet... MWAHAHAHAHA