Memories, Memoires, and Fiction
Here's just a little something I wrote for an assignment (on cumulative sentences a-la-Christensen), and I was fond of it.
Irulan jammed the cigarette in her mouth, a Marlboro red purchased not ten minutes before in a lonely café, the closest one on Place Sainte-Claire, a little bit of familiarity on that foreign and dead Sunday, all the natives retreated to the mountains, their little children smiling around blueberry crumble and hot chocolate, escaping to the brisker winds and narrower roads. She lifted her little green Bic lighter and cocked it, igniting flame against the tip of her cig, smoke erupting from the end, burning hot and crimson as her lips pursed around the orange filter, her lungs slowly inhaling the toxic air, chest expanding with the effort. She released her anxiety in the exhaled smoke and took a sip of espresso, served hot in a tiny cup with a tiny chocolate. She was ready. She took pen to paper and began to compose, a little whisp of red here, tempered with blue, her passion, an ice queen’s passion, leaping from the page, demanding reverence metrical and lyrical, flowing easily, ultimately free verse with a bit of end rhyme, ABABCDCDFF, nothing they taught her in school; describing their meeting and her ridiculous position, celebrating her ecstasy then castigating it in the next line, labeling it “but maudlin,” her fingers cramping up as the poem shot out from her shaky hand. Shaky from too much nicotine and too little sleep. Just as soon as she deemed one poem finished, she began the next, a continuation of the same theme but expanded, more honest, less clipped, more vulnerable, with the style only slightly changed, the meter progressively uneven in feet, unbalanced, spiraling towards the crashing point of prose and frequent pauses. She rubbed her eyes and looked out at the sparse collection of fellow patrons, pausing to massage her hands. She’d done it. She’d finally said what it was she feared to say. She took a steadying breath before jamming another cigarette in her mouth; it was time to survey the results.
Irulan jammed the cigarette in her mouth, a Marlboro red purchased not ten minutes before in a lonely café, the closest one on Place Sainte-Claire, a little bit of familiarity on that foreign and dead Sunday, all the natives retreated to the mountains, their little children smiling around blueberry crumble and hot chocolate, escaping to the brisker winds and narrower roads. She lifted her little green Bic lighter and cocked it, igniting flame against the tip of her cig, smoke erupting from the end, burning hot and crimson as her lips pursed around the orange filter, her lungs slowly inhaling the toxic air, chest expanding with the effort. She released her anxiety in the exhaled smoke and took a sip of espresso, served hot in a tiny cup with a tiny chocolate. She was ready. She took pen to paper and began to compose, a little whisp of red here, tempered with blue, her passion, an ice queen’s passion, leaping from the page, demanding reverence metrical and lyrical, flowing easily, ultimately free verse with a bit of end rhyme, ABABCDCDFF, nothing they taught her in school; describing their meeting and her ridiculous position, celebrating her ecstasy then castigating it in the next line, labeling it “but maudlin,” her fingers cramping up as the poem shot out from her shaky hand. Shaky from too much nicotine and too little sleep. Just as soon as she deemed one poem finished, she began the next, a continuation of the same theme but expanded, more honest, less clipped, more vulnerable, with the style only slightly changed, the meter progressively uneven in feet, unbalanced, spiraling towards the crashing point of prose and frequent pauses. She rubbed her eyes and looked out at the sparse collection of fellow patrons, pausing to massage her hands. She’d done it. She’d finally said what it was she feared to say. She took a steadying breath before jamming another cigarette in her mouth; it was time to survey the results.