November Six (D-6) - Psychedelic Phanerothyme
Not as productive today, as I'm rather tired, and I'm having a brainfart. x_x I mean, I did my minimum, but I didn't quite get to 2000. :x Which is bad, since I should be building up a steady buffer. DX
ANYWAY.
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The Best of the Day: "Sure, they were a little scarring, but they say that whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. (And most likely crazier and uglier too, but that’s a little less optimistic than the Belland staff wanted us to be.) "
Sugar/Caffeine had: Small chocolate bread thing.
Sanity: The sanity level is down in the negative values. x_x
Word Count (Daily): 1,954
Word Count (Total): 13,164
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Excerpts today~ :D Expect lots of crap-tastic quality and a truckload of typos, as I type quickly, but with lots of errors. XD; And no, the chapters have not been numbered incorrectly. :3
One - Thoughts on the Finer Chords of American Pie • Bang!
August weather was usually nice, but it was particularly nice that day. The previous day had been graced by a series of absolutely spectacular thunderstorms which had effectively chased away the heat wave that had been tormenting the people for the past two weeks, but had not (courteously enough) prevented the giant yellow oven in the sky from keeping the earth relatively dry. The result was a very pleasant day in which the grass was fluffy and green, the sky was clear and blue, the air was fresh and clean, and the idle were lethargic and sleepy.
"Alexias!”
A pity that such a beautiful day had to be marred with such an imperfect voice; it was that of a young woman, somewhere around the age of 20, a voice that was most likely pretty enough once you listened to it enough, but was just high and grating enough to rub your nerves the wrong way when you first heard it-
“Alexias, did you hear me?”
With a sigh, the person in question sat up off the lawn chair he’d installed on the grassy knell, the paperback book he’d been staring at absentmindedly in the pretense of reading it set down on the white plastic slats as he shifted to face the girl, a smile as pleasant and the weather and as sincere as a politician on his face.
“Yes, I heard you. Hello, Augustine, did you need me?”
The girl, Augustine (ironical that she should be named as such, for she was actually born in December, though this something that no one really cared about), practically gushed in response, legs forming a practiced, pigeon-toed stance that magazines advocated would draw the attention of men for sure.
“Me and the other girls from Wilbur Hall were going to go watch a movie tonight, and there’re a couple of the boys from Waxon Hall coming too! Maybe you’d like to come with us?”
The young man, Alexias, narrowed his eyes, seemingly in thought but actually because Augustine had so conveniently placed herself so that the sunlight streaming down from the sky was angled fairly close to his eyes, then gave her the twin brother of the smile he’d flashed her moments ago.
“Sorry, but I’m rather busy tonight. I have Professor Shellabarger’s paper to finish tonight, and I should really start on my individual project. Maybe next time?”
Augustine rather poorly disguised her disappointment with a smile just as fake as Alexias’, just not as refreshing, and nodded in mock empathy, hands clasped together at her chest in imitation of the goody-goody girls so often advertised in movies and magazines.
“Alright! Let’s go together next time! And good luck on your project!”
There was a pattering of feet, punctuated by the slight squishing sounds of the girl’s heels sinking sluggishly into the tiny reservoirs of mud dotting the grass, but it was otherwise fairly steady and rhythmic, eventually fading away like the last guitar riff of a long rock piece. Something like American Pie. Not the smooth chords of the Don McLean version, but rather, the shallow, mass-produced horrors that were from Madonna’s remake.
Letting these idle thoughts dominate his mind, Alexias sunk back into his chair, the book closed (the cloth bookmark placed neatly in the page he’d had it opened at - not reading, but just opened at - in the image of perfect neatness, as none of the pages were dog-eared in the least) and laying just on his abdomen, its paper-y weight a strangely comforting sensation.
A movie. She’d invited him to go watch a movie. Now really, there was a person he knew as truly persistent; how many times had he turned down her requests by now?
Though, to be fair, they hadn’t been just her requests. A fair number of people had invited him to frat parties, drinking games, late night outings, movie marathons, panty raids…but he’d declined them all. Not because he necessarily didn’t like them (except for the latter; a panty raid was not something he really wished to try out as, he supposed, having girls pelt you with the wrath that only a woman robbed can muster would not be much fun), but more because there was always something else that awaited his attention. A school paper to write, an individual design project he had to slave through, a magazine interview on his latest exhibit that his parents had set up for him, et cetera, et cetera.
There was a small popping noise to his left as a Door oozed with honey-like green slime, bubbles occasionally rising to the surface of the goo and bursting open with little noises, not unlike those from kids’ cartoons, but leaving behind a smell of grass and paint combined. It was one of the few Doors that he openly disliked; it was located on the outer surface of the right wall to his dorm room, and seemed to never run out of the bubbling slime, but the grass field just beyond the wall made it worth enduring the stench of the slime.
Watching absentmindedly as another bubble collapsed open, releasing its intestinal odor of paint (most likely gray) to the air, he leaned back in his chair, the plastic slats providing a comfortable place for his back. …that Door was always there. Always. From when he’d first stepped onto the Yale campus and had been introduced to his dean (like all deans, he tried too hard to be pals with everyone), up till now, a good year and a half since he first wrinkled his nose at the bubbling sludge. (He’d made up some excuse to his roommate about being allergic to a flower in that area.)
Then there was the other Door. The one on the oak tree just three meters away from the “melted skin Door,” as he liked to call it. This one was much plainer, and must more elegant, the surface made of smooth wood and with an elegant pattern carved around the rim, gilded with gold leaf and usually glinting in the sunlight.
Picking himself up off the bench, he abandoned his book in the sunlight and approached the Door, running his fingers lightly across the reflective - almost glowing - golden doorknob. This Door, he knew, was nice. He’d ventured through it a couple times, and he’d discovered that it led to a small grassy knell not unlike where he was at the moment… bar the fact that the other side of the door had no mis-named girls trying to invite him to the movies.
None of the locations through the Doors had any people, or any living creatures of any kind (or at least none visible to the naked eye), but some were more pleasant than others. Or, at least, the grassy knell was extremely pleasant in comparison to the garden of trampolines the Pollock-esque painted door led to, or the groundhog burrow that the smallish white door had opened up to. Oh, and of course, that strange wasteland of fish the door in the bathroom had led to; more than a few times, he’d opened it in the morning, groggy with sleep, and nearly broken his neck stepping on a weakly flopping halibut.
Looking around to make sure that Augustine was not returning to try a second stab at dragging him out to the films, he snatched his book up from the bench before turning back to the Door. It had been a good, what, three, four months now since he’d last been through a Door? He’d been too swamped with college papers and essays, research projects, individual design, long-term experiments, to find a chance to sneak off through the door. Though now, there was no one.
Just for one hour, he thought to himself. Just for one hour, he’d stay past the Door, and rest. Once he was refreshed, he’d return, making sure no one saw him, and go do his work. Yes, that seemed reasonable enough. He’d been wanting a good chance to rest for a while, to take a break from the constant stream of work that awaited him both on and off the Yale campus, and now didn’t seem like too bad a timing to take it.
The sight must have looked like something from a science fiction film, to anyone watching. A young man, “pretty as a picture,” as books so often said, slightly curled golden hair framing a well-shaped face, blue eyes glancing around cautiously as he stood before the mighty oak, slender fingers running lightly over the pocked surface of the bark. An artist may have even illustrated the scene with a title such as “Young Spy On An Undercover Mission” or something equally as surreal.
There was a small creaking noise inaudible to anyone but Alexias - he knew that the sounds the doors made were only heard by him; he’d learned of and abused this fact quite a bit when he’d discovered that opened and shutting the tiny, narrow, wind chime-covered door on the left side of his lab table in chemistry didn’t phase the teacher or his classmates in the least, and he spent more than a few boring hours during lectures fiddling with the door, pushing it opened and closed with the tip of his pen) - as he pulled open the door, the hinges sliding open with only a little resistance, the edge of the door flattening the grass at his sneakered feet.
“…” Looking around one last time to make sure that no one was around, he finally nodded, tossing his book onto the bench, and stepped through the door, closing it behind him. To anyone else, it would have looked as if the young man had vanished off the surface of the earth, having stepped into the trunk of a solid oak that had swallowed him up. Quite the scientific discovery, really, if someone had seen him, but Alexias was cautious enough. No one spotted his departure from the world, and Augustine, returning to the benches to strike up a conversation with Alexias (the movies had been cancelled, as the car they were supposed to ride had overheated and blown its hood), gave a small sigh at the sight of the abandoned sun chair, the orphaned book lying forlornly atop the plastic slats.
“…Why won’t he come out with us?” she whined to herself, pouting girlishly (true to her extracurricular studies in the acting business; she’d been taught that the cute pout had a fairly great effect on any people watching). “Poor Charlette, she’ll never get to go out with him… hmm?”
Reaching over, she picked up the abandoned paperback by its cover, giving it a curious glance.
“…Alice in Wonderland? …why’s he reading a kid’s book?”
I - Chocolate Bitter • Locktight Superglue
The first time I stepped through a door, admittedly, I was still pretty dumb. But then again, I was six. And generally, kids aren’t very intelligent at the age of six.
My little adventure into the Door had been born out of pure resentment, rebellion, and a wish to prove myself. I’d always been told that, my parents, in a fit of curiosity, had gotten me some sort of astrophysical Tarot reading just before I was born, and the man (strange, since I thought most Tarot readers were gypsy women) had told them, “Your boy will be one with a strong will.”
Sure enough, I was pretty strong willed. I’d been protesting about the existence of the Doors for a good two years or so, since I could talk, and I was having difficulty seeing why other didn’t see the Doors. They were just there, weren’t they? But people just didn’t understand. I would even open and close a door to show them that they were there, poking at a few, but to other people, it apparently looking like I was pretending to open and close a door in thin air, miming out an action that I was so furiously protesting was real.
I believe I got quite a few compliments for my miming abilities around then.
It was also around then that I stubbornly began calling these Doors “Doors” with a capital ‘D’. They meant a lot to me, I guess, though it’s more of a habit now.
So then, of course, I decided to go more hardcore. I would go through a door. Once. Just once. It would be enough to prove to everyone that these Doors really existed, and people would stop saying that I had a fabulous imagination and instead would come to think of me as the kid who spoke truthfully even against the odds.
The Door I chose was one selected through a rigorous process; the plain, plastic Door that opened up in the back wall of my bookcase had been tempting, as I’d seen that it opened up into a field of trees which seemed to bear fruit made of batteries and bees, but I decided to play it safe in the end, instead going for the rusty old Door in the grandfather clock in the hallway that revealed a boring, but safe flower field.
When I first stepped through the Door, what I first noticed was how dead everything was. I use the word “dead” quite figuratively here, as the flowers were blooming beautifully, the sun was shining brightly (but not too hot), the sky was a pretty blue, and the few clouds that dotted the azure were fluffy as cotton candy. However, something just seemed…dead. The colors of the flowers were oddly muted in my mind, I remember, despite the vibrant whites and greens of the petals and stalks, and there wasn’t a single living creature in sight. Literally, it was a dead place.
I stayed there for as long as I could without getting bored, laying down amid a bundle of “dead” flowers near the door and curling up for a short nap before getting up, picking flowers for a while before crawling back out of the door, proudly walking up to my parents and telling them, “I just came back from a Door!”
The next few hours were a rush. Apparently, my father had not noticed my disappearance, while my mother had realized after two hours that I had mysteriously vanished out of the house. Panicking, she’d called all of the neighbors, asking them if they’d seen me, and, when there was a lack of positive response, she’d thought for the worst, and was about to call the police. The talking to I received is no longer something I remember, but I do remember the words, “Don’t ever do anything stupid again.”
…what was it that I’d done that was so stupid? I had just done something that I said was real, to prove that it was real; I hadn’t played with knives or stuck my hand in fire or done anything dangerous; why was it stupid?
I think that, regardless of how corny it sounds, I was a little crushed that day. I'd wanted so badly to prove that what I’d been saying was real, that I wasn’t a liar, that I was a good little boy that always told the truth, but, well… it apparently made me into a stupid little child. It was something like being slapped with a handful of superglue: it only stings for a little while, but the aftereffects stick for a long time.
That was when I was six.
The next day, I went to elementary school for the first time.
ANYWAY.
-----
The Best of the Day: "Sure, they were a little scarring, but they say that whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. (And most likely crazier and uglier too, but that’s a little less optimistic than the Belland staff wanted us to be.) "
Sugar/Caffeine had: Small chocolate bread thing.
Sanity: The sanity level is down in the negative values. x_x
Word Count (Daily): 1,954
Word Count (Total): 13,164
-----
Excerpts today~ :D Expect lots of crap-tastic quality and a truckload of typos, as I type quickly, but with lots of errors. XD; And no, the chapters have not been numbered incorrectly. :3
One - Thoughts on the Finer Chords of American Pie • Bang!
August weather was usually nice, but it was particularly nice that day. The previous day had been graced by a series of absolutely spectacular thunderstorms which had effectively chased away the heat wave that had been tormenting the people for the past two weeks, but had not (courteously enough) prevented the giant yellow oven in the sky from keeping the earth relatively dry. The result was a very pleasant day in which the grass was fluffy and green, the sky was clear and blue, the air was fresh and clean, and the idle were lethargic and sleepy.
"Alexias!”
A pity that such a beautiful day had to be marred with such an imperfect voice; it was that of a young woman, somewhere around the age of 20, a voice that was most likely pretty enough once you listened to it enough, but was just high and grating enough to rub your nerves the wrong way when you first heard it-
“Alexias, did you hear me?”
With a sigh, the person in question sat up off the lawn chair he’d installed on the grassy knell, the paperback book he’d been staring at absentmindedly in the pretense of reading it set down on the white plastic slats as he shifted to face the girl, a smile as pleasant and the weather and as sincere as a politician on his face.
“Yes, I heard you. Hello, Augustine, did you need me?”
The girl, Augustine (ironical that she should be named as such, for she was actually born in December, though this something that no one really cared about), practically gushed in response, legs forming a practiced, pigeon-toed stance that magazines advocated would draw the attention of men for sure.
“Me and the other girls from Wilbur Hall were going to go watch a movie tonight, and there’re a couple of the boys from Waxon Hall coming too! Maybe you’d like to come with us?”
The young man, Alexias, narrowed his eyes, seemingly in thought but actually because Augustine had so conveniently placed herself so that the sunlight streaming down from the sky was angled fairly close to his eyes, then gave her the twin brother of the smile he’d flashed her moments ago.
“Sorry, but I’m rather busy tonight. I have Professor Shellabarger’s paper to finish tonight, and I should really start on my individual project. Maybe next time?”
Augustine rather poorly disguised her disappointment with a smile just as fake as Alexias’, just not as refreshing, and nodded in mock empathy, hands clasped together at her chest in imitation of the goody-goody girls so often advertised in movies and magazines.
“Alright! Let’s go together next time! And good luck on your project!”
There was a pattering of feet, punctuated by the slight squishing sounds of the girl’s heels sinking sluggishly into the tiny reservoirs of mud dotting the grass, but it was otherwise fairly steady and rhythmic, eventually fading away like the last guitar riff of a long rock piece. Something like American Pie. Not the smooth chords of the Don McLean version, but rather, the shallow, mass-produced horrors that were from Madonna’s remake.
Letting these idle thoughts dominate his mind, Alexias sunk back into his chair, the book closed (the cloth bookmark placed neatly in the page he’d had it opened at - not reading, but just opened at - in the image of perfect neatness, as none of the pages were dog-eared in the least) and laying just on his abdomen, its paper-y weight a strangely comforting sensation.
A movie. She’d invited him to go watch a movie. Now really, there was a person he knew as truly persistent; how many times had he turned down her requests by now?
Though, to be fair, they hadn’t been just her requests. A fair number of people had invited him to frat parties, drinking games, late night outings, movie marathons, panty raids…but he’d declined them all. Not because he necessarily didn’t like them (except for the latter; a panty raid was not something he really wished to try out as, he supposed, having girls pelt you with the wrath that only a woman robbed can muster would not be much fun), but more because there was always something else that awaited his attention. A school paper to write, an individual design project he had to slave through, a magazine interview on his latest exhibit that his parents had set up for him, et cetera, et cetera.
There was a small popping noise to his left as a Door oozed with honey-like green slime, bubbles occasionally rising to the surface of the goo and bursting open with little noises, not unlike those from kids’ cartoons, but leaving behind a smell of grass and paint combined. It was one of the few Doors that he openly disliked; it was located on the outer surface of the right wall to his dorm room, and seemed to never run out of the bubbling slime, but the grass field just beyond the wall made it worth enduring the stench of the slime.
Watching absentmindedly as another bubble collapsed open, releasing its intestinal odor of paint (most likely gray) to the air, he leaned back in his chair, the plastic slats providing a comfortable place for his back. …that Door was always there. Always. From when he’d first stepped onto the Yale campus and had been introduced to his dean (like all deans, he tried too hard to be pals with everyone), up till now, a good year and a half since he first wrinkled his nose at the bubbling sludge. (He’d made up some excuse to his roommate about being allergic to a flower in that area.)
Then there was the other Door. The one on the oak tree just three meters away from the “melted skin Door,” as he liked to call it. This one was much plainer, and must more elegant, the surface made of smooth wood and with an elegant pattern carved around the rim, gilded with gold leaf and usually glinting in the sunlight.
Picking himself up off the bench, he abandoned his book in the sunlight and approached the Door, running his fingers lightly across the reflective - almost glowing - golden doorknob. This Door, he knew, was nice. He’d ventured through it a couple times, and he’d discovered that it led to a small grassy knell not unlike where he was at the moment… bar the fact that the other side of the door had no mis-named girls trying to invite him to the movies.
None of the locations through the Doors had any people, or any living creatures of any kind (or at least none visible to the naked eye), but some were more pleasant than others. Or, at least, the grassy knell was extremely pleasant in comparison to the garden of trampolines the Pollock-esque painted door led to, or the groundhog burrow that the smallish white door had opened up to. Oh, and of course, that strange wasteland of fish the door in the bathroom had led to; more than a few times, he’d opened it in the morning, groggy with sleep, and nearly broken his neck stepping on a weakly flopping halibut.
Looking around to make sure that Augustine was not returning to try a second stab at dragging him out to the films, he snatched his book up from the bench before turning back to the Door. It had been a good, what, three, four months now since he’d last been through a Door? He’d been too swamped with college papers and essays, research projects, individual design, long-term experiments, to find a chance to sneak off through the door. Though now, there was no one.
Just for one hour, he thought to himself. Just for one hour, he’d stay past the Door, and rest. Once he was refreshed, he’d return, making sure no one saw him, and go do his work. Yes, that seemed reasonable enough. He’d been wanting a good chance to rest for a while, to take a break from the constant stream of work that awaited him both on and off the Yale campus, and now didn’t seem like too bad a timing to take it.
The sight must have looked like something from a science fiction film, to anyone watching. A young man, “pretty as a picture,” as books so often said, slightly curled golden hair framing a well-shaped face, blue eyes glancing around cautiously as he stood before the mighty oak, slender fingers running lightly over the pocked surface of the bark. An artist may have even illustrated the scene with a title such as “Young Spy On An Undercover Mission” or something equally as surreal.
There was a small creaking noise inaudible to anyone but Alexias - he knew that the sounds the doors made were only heard by him; he’d learned of and abused this fact quite a bit when he’d discovered that opened and shutting the tiny, narrow, wind chime-covered door on the left side of his lab table in chemistry didn’t phase the teacher or his classmates in the least, and he spent more than a few boring hours during lectures fiddling with the door, pushing it opened and closed with the tip of his pen) - as he pulled open the door, the hinges sliding open with only a little resistance, the edge of the door flattening the grass at his sneakered feet.
“…” Looking around one last time to make sure that no one was around, he finally nodded, tossing his book onto the bench, and stepped through the door, closing it behind him. To anyone else, it would have looked as if the young man had vanished off the surface of the earth, having stepped into the trunk of a solid oak that had swallowed him up. Quite the scientific discovery, really, if someone had seen him, but Alexias was cautious enough. No one spotted his departure from the world, and Augustine, returning to the benches to strike up a conversation with Alexias (the movies had been cancelled, as the car they were supposed to ride had overheated and blown its hood), gave a small sigh at the sight of the abandoned sun chair, the orphaned book lying forlornly atop the plastic slats.
“…Why won’t he come out with us?” she whined to herself, pouting girlishly (true to her extracurricular studies in the acting business; she’d been taught that the cute pout had a fairly great effect on any people watching). “Poor Charlette, she’ll never get to go out with him… hmm?”
Reaching over, she picked up the abandoned paperback by its cover, giving it a curious glance.
“…Alice in Wonderland? …why’s he reading a kid’s book?”
I - Chocolate Bitter • Locktight Superglue
The first time I stepped through a door, admittedly, I was still pretty dumb. But then again, I was six. And generally, kids aren’t very intelligent at the age of six.
My little adventure into the Door had been born out of pure resentment, rebellion, and a wish to prove myself. I’d always been told that, my parents, in a fit of curiosity, had gotten me some sort of astrophysical Tarot reading just before I was born, and the man (strange, since I thought most Tarot readers were gypsy women) had told them, “Your boy will be one with a strong will.”
Sure enough, I was pretty strong willed. I’d been protesting about the existence of the Doors for a good two years or so, since I could talk, and I was having difficulty seeing why other didn’t see the Doors. They were just there, weren’t they? But people just didn’t understand. I would even open and close a door to show them that they were there, poking at a few, but to other people, it apparently looking like I was pretending to open and close a door in thin air, miming out an action that I was so furiously protesting was real.
I believe I got quite a few compliments for my miming abilities around then.
It was also around then that I stubbornly began calling these Doors “Doors” with a capital ‘D’. They meant a lot to me, I guess, though it’s more of a habit now.
So then, of course, I decided to go more hardcore. I would go through a door. Once. Just once. It would be enough to prove to everyone that these Doors really existed, and people would stop saying that I had a fabulous imagination and instead would come to think of me as the kid who spoke truthfully even against the odds.
The Door I chose was one selected through a rigorous process; the plain, plastic Door that opened up in the back wall of my bookcase had been tempting, as I’d seen that it opened up into a field of trees which seemed to bear fruit made of batteries and bees, but I decided to play it safe in the end, instead going for the rusty old Door in the grandfather clock in the hallway that revealed a boring, but safe flower field.
When I first stepped through the Door, what I first noticed was how dead everything was. I use the word “dead” quite figuratively here, as the flowers were blooming beautifully, the sun was shining brightly (but not too hot), the sky was a pretty blue, and the few clouds that dotted the azure were fluffy as cotton candy. However, something just seemed…dead. The colors of the flowers were oddly muted in my mind, I remember, despite the vibrant whites and greens of the petals and stalks, and there wasn’t a single living creature in sight. Literally, it was a dead place.
I stayed there for as long as I could without getting bored, laying down amid a bundle of “dead” flowers near the door and curling up for a short nap before getting up, picking flowers for a while before crawling back out of the door, proudly walking up to my parents and telling them, “I just came back from a Door!”
The next few hours were a rush. Apparently, my father had not noticed my disappearance, while my mother had realized after two hours that I had mysteriously vanished out of the house. Panicking, she’d called all of the neighbors, asking them if they’d seen me, and, when there was a lack of positive response, she’d thought for the worst, and was about to call the police. The talking to I received is no longer something I remember, but I do remember the words, “Don’t ever do anything stupid again.”
…what was it that I’d done that was so stupid? I had just done something that I said was real, to prove that it was real; I hadn’t played with knives or stuck my hand in fire or done anything dangerous; why was it stupid?
I think that, regardless of how corny it sounds, I was a little crushed that day. I'd wanted so badly to prove that what I’d been saying was real, that I wasn’t a liar, that I was a good little boy that always told the truth, but, well… it apparently made me into a stupid little child. It was something like being slapped with a handful of superglue: it only stings for a little while, but the aftereffects stick for a long time.
That was when I was six.
The next day, I went to elementary school for the first time.