(no subject)
I feel as though I've been filled with a hopeless abundance of story ideas lately. I've been leapfrogging between them, so bear in mind as I try to detail this new one in as great of detail as possible. I realize I'm still writing the novel (slow going at the moment, somewhere in the neighborhood of 86,000 words) as well as the story with the grandfather and the grandson and the roadtrip/traintrip to Chicago. I'm still pending those, but this one struck me over the weekend and I'm trying to run with it. It's the style, I believe, that captures me so; the journalistic sense to it. That and its use of photographs. This one actually won't take too long to write, I suspect, and isn't even a manuscript. Just something to pass around the school, methinks, and for people to tell me how they feel about it.
The story opens with words from the troubled narrator: "I dreamt of the woman I think I loved once last night. More specifically, I dreamt of her making love to another man." The narrator continues to relate to the audience of his dream in which a friend of his emerges from a darkened room in his house, stripped only to a pair of black briefs, slams down a glass of milk, and disappears back into the darkness which hides her. He knows she's there without ever having to see her. Agonized, he listens on the opposite side of the door to the orchestration of moans and the occasional shriek or two, as well as the monumental zenith of eroticism and its rather steep denouement. He listens on as they talk beneath the covers, just out of sight, sharing a cigarette between them and describing a passion for which he himself never got to share. The dream ends with the door peeling back, not unlike a retreating wave. She stares down at him in the creamy nude before dissolving into a mass of embers. He awakes and promptly takes down all of the doors in his apartment.
So revealed is his state of life, a voluntary prison. He admits that only last week he has nailed the last board into the west window. Slivers of the morning sun cut across his face, but not nearly enough to witness the world that burns outside. He passes the time by rereading his favorite poems of Edgar Allen Poe as well as the short fiction of Jorge Luis Borges and Ovid's "The Metamorphoses." Sometimes he'll left up one of his floorboards and root through the piles of photographs he's stored up. Often he'll find a photograph (usually of him and the woman) that moves him so much that he first attempts to rip at the panels that have barred the windows; not because of the emotional richness of the photo, but by the very fact he cannot recall when and under what circumstances it was taken. Such a photo is of the two lovers (he recalls they were lovers) under a willow tree stained crimson by autumn's decadent touch, but the tree is foreign to him. Scour his memory though he may, he cannot recognize what has happened here.
Throughout the journalesque story, the narrator relates many incidents and anecdotes to the reader, most of which seem to have no correlation to his imprisonment in his own apartment. Such stories are of him and his friend, whom made love to the woman in the dream, in the night they once played Russian Roulette. Sometimes the narrator describes dreams, such as one in which he transcends Heav'n and Hell ("Like a fucked up Dante," he says). At one point he even relates his earliest memory: being born, and his mother throwing him away like unwanted refuse. Sometimes he'll intervene to tell the reader how drunk he is off wine and tell the reader that he wishes "that fucking bitch" would come back and open the door already and stop being sick.
Soon, the narrator begins to describe how he has started to engage in things that aren't even there. One day, a candleflame whispers in his ear, telling him that it is Prometheus and that it can lift the lock, if only the narrator will swallow a razor blade. He recognizes this for what it is; a mental delusion, but after long he no longer cares that he constantly talks with ravens from between the boards, or that he has even lifted one and is hunting for angels amongst the clouds. One night, the moon babbles on and on for so long that he decides to drink a cool swig of water. The door falls open and there is his friend, begging of him to stop. Upon further investigation, he is not upturning a glass to his lips so much as he is lodging the barrel of a gun down his throat. He can no longer determine what is reality and what is simple dream. He leaves the apartment for a walk in a park, and along the pond's shore a woman in a gondola wishes him to ride with her. She calls herself Karen, but as the ride persists and a phantom fog rolls in, it is revealed that she is not Karen but Charon, the ancient ferryman of dead souls of Greek mythology.
Herein, the theme reveals itself. For all his constant monologues and dream descriptions, he is still helplessly in the mire of love, and she is still out of his reach. One is dying physically and one is dying mentally. He still has the last photo he ever took of her, glancing long out of the window on the landing below his apartment. The photo is singed, as though saved from a fire he cannot remember setting. She is sick, withering away, something he calls "a heartless ticking clock." He must rescue her or at least make amends before time runs out, if it isn't too late yet.
The story is really a digression of the narrator into the bogs of madness, as well as macabre sort of love that knows no happy ending. Looking back at the description, the haunting story that has plagued me all weekend appears to be somewhat trite, maybe even predictable, although I hope the ending I have planned isn't like the norm. I guess really this is almost like a "You had to have been there" kind of situations, only it's "You had to have read it." A simple synopsis does it no justice, especially when it is lacking the photographs. I have quite a series that are to illustrate not only the past relationship, but also the meandering mental health of the narrator.
Maybe this isn't as great an idea as I think it is. I guess it will come down to whether or not I'm a strong enough writer to handle it (I'm not). I'll keep you posted; maybe I'll even let you read it when it's done.
The story opens with words from the troubled narrator: "I dreamt of the woman I think I loved once last night. More specifically, I dreamt of her making love to another man." The narrator continues to relate to the audience of his dream in which a friend of his emerges from a darkened room in his house, stripped only to a pair of black briefs, slams down a glass of milk, and disappears back into the darkness which hides her. He knows she's there without ever having to see her. Agonized, he listens on the opposite side of the door to the orchestration of moans and the occasional shriek or two, as well as the monumental zenith of eroticism and its rather steep denouement. He listens on as they talk beneath the covers, just out of sight, sharing a cigarette between them and describing a passion for which he himself never got to share. The dream ends with the door peeling back, not unlike a retreating wave. She stares down at him in the creamy nude before dissolving into a mass of embers. He awakes and promptly takes down all of the doors in his apartment.
So revealed is his state of life, a voluntary prison. He admits that only last week he has nailed the last board into the west window. Slivers of the morning sun cut across his face, but not nearly enough to witness the world that burns outside. He passes the time by rereading his favorite poems of Edgar Allen Poe as well as the short fiction of Jorge Luis Borges and Ovid's "The Metamorphoses." Sometimes he'll left up one of his floorboards and root through the piles of photographs he's stored up. Often he'll find a photograph (usually of him and the woman) that moves him so much that he first attempts to rip at the panels that have barred the windows; not because of the emotional richness of the photo, but by the very fact he cannot recall when and under what circumstances it was taken. Such a photo is of the two lovers (he recalls they were lovers) under a willow tree stained crimson by autumn's decadent touch, but the tree is foreign to him. Scour his memory though he may, he cannot recognize what has happened here.
Throughout the journalesque story, the narrator relates many incidents and anecdotes to the reader, most of which seem to have no correlation to his imprisonment in his own apartment. Such stories are of him and his friend, whom made love to the woman in the dream, in the night they once played Russian Roulette. Sometimes the narrator describes dreams, such as one in which he transcends Heav'n and Hell ("Like a fucked up Dante," he says). At one point he even relates his earliest memory: being born, and his mother throwing him away like unwanted refuse. Sometimes he'll intervene to tell the reader how drunk he is off wine and tell the reader that he wishes "that fucking bitch" would come back and open the door already and stop being sick.
Soon, the narrator begins to describe how he has started to engage in things that aren't even there. One day, a candleflame whispers in his ear, telling him that it is Prometheus and that it can lift the lock, if only the narrator will swallow a razor blade. He recognizes this for what it is; a mental delusion, but after long he no longer cares that he constantly talks with ravens from between the boards, or that he has even lifted one and is hunting for angels amongst the clouds. One night, the moon babbles on and on for so long that he decides to drink a cool swig of water. The door falls open and there is his friend, begging of him to stop. Upon further investigation, he is not upturning a glass to his lips so much as he is lodging the barrel of a gun down his throat. He can no longer determine what is reality and what is simple dream. He leaves the apartment for a walk in a park, and along the pond's shore a woman in a gondola wishes him to ride with her. She calls herself Karen, but as the ride persists and a phantom fog rolls in, it is revealed that she is not Karen but Charon, the ancient ferryman of dead souls of Greek mythology.
Herein, the theme reveals itself. For all his constant monologues and dream descriptions, he is still helplessly in the mire of love, and she is still out of his reach. One is dying physically and one is dying mentally. He still has the last photo he ever took of her, glancing long out of the window on the landing below his apartment. The photo is singed, as though saved from a fire he cannot remember setting. She is sick, withering away, something he calls "a heartless ticking clock." He must rescue her or at least make amends before time runs out, if it isn't too late yet.
The story is really a digression of the narrator into the bogs of madness, as well as macabre sort of love that knows no happy ending. Looking back at the description, the haunting story that has plagued me all weekend appears to be somewhat trite, maybe even predictable, although I hope the ending I have planned isn't like the norm. I guess really this is almost like a "You had to have been there" kind of situations, only it's "You had to have read it." A simple synopsis does it no justice, especially when it is lacking the photographs. I have quite a series that are to illustrate not only the past relationship, but also the meandering mental health of the narrator.
Maybe this isn't as great an idea as I think it is. I guess it will come down to whether or not I'm a strong enough writer to handle it (I'm not). I'll keep you posted; maybe I'll even let you read it when it's done.