Fictional Writing

I used to write a lot of short fiction & poetry. I took writing courses in college. Fiction, poetry, rhetoric, etc. I really enjoyed diving deep into the darkness. It was always more of a challenge. I’ve had one published but really I just wrote for the fun of it. For myself. I figured since I have the medium I could use it to post a little something from time to time. This was primarily written in March of 2019. Last year I tweaked it up with some fourth wall breaking dialogue which I think adds to it. It’s a pretty dark little tale that I had fun with. Enjoy or not, I don’t care. My “I don’t give a shit” meter is on the red line.

A Lesson on Misery

As he dips his toes into the shallow waters it occurs to him that he had taken too much today. It was as if he had been the punchline of some cosmic beings bad joke. His endurance for anguish, both mentally and physically, were near its threshold. He couldn’t see how things could get worse, but he had already said that twice today.

As if to confirm that the world had turned its back upon him, the clouds overhead suddenly break and the cold rain begins to dampen his skin. He felt a shiver. He was not dressed for this sudden unexpected change of weather. Turning his head upwards, he shouts blasphemies towards the heavens or whomever will hear him. Throat raw from the volume of words that outpour from his being, he falls to his knees into the grime. Placing his head into his hands, the first tears begin to mix with the rain upon his cheeks.

Shuddering in the cold muck, he feels the irrelevance of his existence. What has been taken from him has left him nothing but a hollow husk. A glimpse between his fingers he takes notice of a slug moving across the mud. The slug, he reflects, has more importance than him. It has more purpose than him. It provides food for all sorts of animals. It recycles organic materials into the soil. The world benefits from the slug where it doesn’t from him. Nothing benefits from him anymore. The realization comes with some respite. However brief that it might be, a calm within the storm is a welcome gift. It won’t last long. If the earlier events of the day are any indication, an impending doom is only a matter of time.

A Voice: A lesson on misery. The pain of a soul breaking to pieces. Love torn from its very being. An emptiness of heart and mind. Broken to the core with no means of repair. Equally tormented by one’s self and the world around. Haunted by deeds done and those to come along. A void.

Struggling to regain composure, he lifts his head from his hands and momentarily the sobbing subsides. With visibility low due to the rain now coming down in sheets, he almost misses the figure standing alert across the pond. An immense dread settles over him. This unknown figure standing in the down pour. Impossible to discern through the rain, he is almost certain the lone figure is studying him. Disquiet settles into his bowels as he watches the motionless Phantom in the storm. His heart is pounding.

Uncertainty leaves him as stationary as the one across the pond seems intent on being. Irrational thoughts begin to transform themselves. If he moves the figure will begin to make its way toward him. It isn’t a large pond and he isn’t in much shape to elude should the Shadow in the rain follow.

A Voice: A thing about fear. It can either set one in motion or in deep paralysis. In his case he is almost physically unable to move.

A thunderous boom causes him to close his eyes out of instinct. When he opens them the lone figure is no longer across the pond. Scanning the surrounding area he cannot locate the figure in the rain. Both self-doubt and a gut punch of panic set it. Did he ever actually see something or was it an illusion caused by the rain and his broken mental state?

It is possible that the figure in the rain was a manifestation of all his suffering. The mind can play tricks on you. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that his perceptions have lead him astray. Still scanning the surrounding area a moment of relief settles over him. He begins to laugh softly. Then loudly. His laugher reaching a point where it is no longer controlled. It is the sound of a man on the brink of losing his mind. A passerby would look alarmed to hear such a sound of complete oblivion exiting a person. He regains control, but the episode has left him more exhausted than he was before.

Suddenly there is a light pressure on his shoulder. His heart skips a beat. His bladder breaks and the warmth of urine spreads across his thighs. Trembling like a baby, he knows in his heart that somehow, impossible and illogical as it is, that the shadow figure is the one behind him. Its ominous presence never having gone anywhere. His mind had indeed played a trick on him. While in the grip of hysterics the Unknown managed, like a specter, to find its way behind him.

With every ounce of his being, he wills himself to turn around. What he sees shatters all threads of sanity. As he looks up into the rain and into the eyes of the Dark above him, into the eyes he has seen mirrored back at him for 40 years, all the pain is taken away. He feels nothing and suddenly, he is nothing.

***

A strange sense of déjà vu settles over him as he looks across the pound. All this pain seems familiar. He thinks to himself that he has had enough today to last a lifetime. For all his sins that went unnoticed have caught up with him. Everything has been taken from him. He is nothing now. He begins to weep.

A Voice: A lesson on misery. Often misery is a consequence of action, or lack of action. It is often something one brings upon themselves in some matter of fashion. For this man, misery could have been prevented had he choose his path thought life differently. This man lived a life in which he gained from other peoples misfortunes. He profited from the suffering of others. He now exist within a cycle. His reality is now a circle of pain. Misery on repeat until the very last star in the universe blinks out of existence. For he never learned this lesson in life. He choose to put himself ahead of others, no matter the aftermath. All the misery that he sowed upon the land is now his to experience over and over. His lesson.

The End

That was uplifting, wasn’t it? Not my best but I’m sort of proud of it because it’s new. Also, it’s short at only 1,036 words. Ambiguous. I’ve found writing without spoken dialogue to be my favorite. I dabbled with dialogue in college and I’m not sure I was ever comfortable. Hell, I’m not sure of the words coming out of my own mouth half the time so how would I feel stewing on the ones I put on paper.

Happy Friday everyone!! Cheers & hope the weekend is a blast!!!

Jalapeño

Teriyaki ground beef over a bed of jasmine rice garnished with green onions.

Meet the burrito baby!!! Egg, chorizo, brisket, hash browns, onion, jalapeño, chipotle peppers and cheese smothered in a verde sauce. Somehow I finished it off.