Max Payne style
So in an attempt to expel something worthwhile from this corpse of a life, and not just a great deal of boredom and frustration at not having an artistic outlet (even one I'm no good at). I present this small piece of feculence for myself to have a record and hopefully some criticism from Mr. Saithkar.
Whatever. Here goes...
This wasn’t were he wanted to be. Derek hated heights. Not just hated, loathed with every fibre of his being. If he ran into a height in a dark alley (nice and low to the ground, of course), the height better have said good bye to its wife and kids and made sure it's affairs were in order.
His legs dangled from the side of the balcony, hands gripping to the railing. His left hand was slick with blood and throbbed as a dull pain just now settled in for a long and unwanted visit. Glancing up he could see small shards of glass protruding from it, glancing downward as the rest of his body swayed in an ever decreasing pendulum effect, he could see a crowd of gawkers assembling. Pointing up at him and lifting mobile phones to their ears or in front of their faces taking photos or videos. Some poor bastard copped a particularly large piece of falling glass right in his neck and was being attended to by a waitress from the café next to the building that Derek was now dangling from. Ask a stupid question, get blown out of a fifth story window, Derek thought to himself. His vision began to blur and he could feel his fingers slipping. He had to snap out of it soon or he’d have a lot less to worry about than a few cuts and some embedded broken glass. As a matter of fact, he wouldn’t even have to worry about breathing, or keeping his internal organs… internal. He looked up to try to break the spell, and as he did a drop of blood from his left hand rolled off his thumb and landed directly in his eye. Fortunately this was just enough to get his mind off the death-drop below and onto more useful things, like getting the fuck off the side of this building before the cops came and asked him a lot of uncomfortable questions.
After the inertia of the blast had dissipated, he began trying to pull himself back up onto the balcony. He knew he only had minutes to get away, find some gutter to crawl into and lick his wounds. As he began to heave his weight upward, his left hand decided it wanted nothing more than to let go of the railing as the muscles in his hand shredded themselves as they tensed and relaxed around the glass shards driven deep into them. Derek had used all of his strength to hang on to the railing during the explosion, and now it took all he had just to keep hanging there. He tried again, pushing past the pain in his hand; he closed his eyes and started to feel his body move slowly upward. Hi left hand was on fire, his nervous system telling him to give up. The blood was too slippery beneath his grip. The left hand lost traction, his eyes shot open and all of a sudden he was hanging by one hand staring down at a 5 story fall.
Derek hated heights.
It all went back to when he was a kid, probably 7 or maybe 8. This was a long time ago and Derek had drunk most of his childhood into oblivion over the past few years. The scene was a rickety tree house that Derek was now convinced was held together more by a sheer act of willpower on behalf of his father, than actual binding materials (nails, rope, sticky tape, fridge magnets, etc.). Derek's father, Greg, was a formidable man. Survivor of the Vietnam War and the President of the town’s local Motorcycle Club. These weren’t just your bunch of middle-aged men going through mid-life crises. This was an Honest to God outlaw biker gang, like the ones on TV and movies. Greg had been in and out of jail for most of his adult life after returning from ‘Nam, but somewhere along the way found time to find an old lady and whelp a cub of his own. Turns out the whelp was called ‘Derek’ and the Old Lady was called ‘Mum’ (or ‘Helen’ if you happened to be anyone but Derek).
People knew not to fuck with Greg, or 'Butcher' ('Butch' for short) as he was known to his friends. And Greg knew that people knew not to fuck with Greg. Greg's shortcoming, however, was an unwavering arrogance that lead him to believe that his power of dominance extended past the malleable minds of weak willed and frightened people into the realm of hard inanimate matter… That, and a severe case of laziness which stopped him from ever sureing up the tree house. Greg was a man who knew what he wanted to do and did it. But it was obvious that on the day of constructing the tree house, Butch did not want to be makin' no fuckin' tree house for no one. Despite Butch's worst efforts the damn thing managed to cling together. It was 'built' in the latter portion of autumn and then abandoned in winter due to the snow. All the time being held in place, Butch thought, by a threatening glance that would negate the need for actual effort on his part. When summer finally arrived and young Derek set to playing in the back yard, was when tragedy struck.
For the longest time, Derek had been developing a crush on his neighbour - one, Ms. Jenny Darden. A raven haired, sharp featured, goddess of a woman. Never married and a school teacher at the local high school. Derek had caught a glimpse of her last summer through a gap in the fence as she sunbathed in her back yard. And such a bounty did he find through that narrowest of apertures that he set his mind to marrying her as soon as he was old enough. In the meantime though, he had to have something to tide him over. It was this need that culminated in his master plan. He would ask his dad, just when he was the right stage of drunk, (somewhere between his 5th and 6th beer) to build him a tree house.
Although the initial negotiations conducted that night were a success, it appears that Dad's promises were pushed out of his mind come the morning and replaced with a severe headache. For most of the year all negotiations were on ice, but with persistence and fortitude, and a bit of nagging Mum to nag Dad on Derek's behalf, the tree house was finally built in late autumn. The tree house would make an excellent new vantage point to secretly view his amore, come summer. Derek chose the perfect tree. Above the fence line and in a position that he thought would allow him plenty of opportunity to see what must be seen without attracting undue attention to himself.
One day, as Derek watched his dad working on the tree house, there was a voice from over the fence. It was soft and light like freshly washed sheets right from the dryer.
“Hey there boys! What’cha workin’ on?”
It was Ms. Darden!
Whatever. Here goes...
This wasn’t were he wanted to be. Derek hated heights. Not just hated, loathed with every fibre of his being. If he ran into a height in a dark alley (nice and low to the ground, of course), the height better have said good bye to its wife and kids and made sure it's affairs were in order.
His legs dangled from the side of the balcony, hands gripping to the railing. His left hand was slick with blood and throbbed as a dull pain just now settled in for a long and unwanted visit. Glancing up he could see small shards of glass protruding from it, glancing downward as the rest of his body swayed in an ever decreasing pendulum effect, he could see a crowd of gawkers assembling. Pointing up at him and lifting mobile phones to their ears or in front of their faces taking photos or videos. Some poor bastard copped a particularly large piece of falling glass right in his neck and was being attended to by a waitress from the café next to the building that Derek was now dangling from. Ask a stupid question, get blown out of a fifth story window, Derek thought to himself. His vision began to blur and he could feel his fingers slipping. He had to snap out of it soon or he’d have a lot less to worry about than a few cuts and some embedded broken glass. As a matter of fact, he wouldn’t even have to worry about breathing, or keeping his internal organs… internal. He looked up to try to break the spell, and as he did a drop of blood from his left hand rolled off his thumb and landed directly in his eye. Fortunately this was just enough to get his mind off the death-drop below and onto more useful things, like getting the fuck off the side of this building before the cops came and asked him a lot of uncomfortable questions.
After the inertia of the blast had dissipated, he began trying to pull himself back up onto the balcony. He knew he only had minutes to get away, find some gutter to crawl into and lick his wounds. As he began to heave his weight upward, his left hand decided it wanted nothing more than to let go of the railing as the muscles in his hand shredded themselves as they tensed and relaxed around the glass shards driven deep into them. Derek had used all of his strength to hang on to the railing during the explosion, and now it took all he had just to keep hanging there. He tried again, pushing past the pain in his hand; he closed his eyes and started to feel his body move slowly upward. Hi left hand was on fire, his nervous system telling him to give up. The blood was too slippery beneath his grip. The left hand lost traction, his eyes shot open and all of a sudden he was hanging by one hand staring down at a 5 story fall.
Derek hated heights.
It all went back to when he was a kid, probably 7 or maybe 8. This was a long time ago and Derek had drunk most of his childhood into oblivion over the past few years. The scene was a rickety tree house that Derek was now convinced was held together more by a sheer act of willpower on behalf of his father, than actual binding materials (nails, rope, sticky tape, fridge magnets, etc.). Derek's father, Greg, was a formidable man. Survivor of the Vietnam War and the President of the town’s local Motorcycle Club. These weren’t just your bunch of middle-aged men going through mid-life crises. This was an Honest to God outlaw biker gang, like the ones on TV and movies. Greg had been in and out of jail for most of his adult life after returning from ‘Nam, but somewhere along the way found time to find an old lady and whelp a cub of his own. Turns out the whelp was called ‘Derek’ and the Old Lady was called ‘Mum’ (or ‘Helen’ if you happened to be anyone but Derek).
People knew not to fuck with Greg, or 'Butcher' ('Butch' for short) as he was known to his friends. And Greg knew that people knew not to fuck with Greg. Greg's shortcoming, however, was an unwavering arrogance that lead him to believe that his power of dominance extended past the malleable minds of weak willed and frightened people into the realm of hard inanimate matter… That, and a severe case of laziness which stopped him from ever sureing up the tree house. Greg was a man who knew what he wanted to do and did it. But it was obvious that on the day of constructing the tree house, Butch did not want to be makin' no fuckin' tree house for no one. Despite Butch's worst efforts the damn thing managed to cling together. It was 'built' in the latter portion of autumn and then abandoned in winter due to the snow. All the time being held in place, Butch thought, by a threatening glance that would negate the need for actual effort on his part. When summer finally arrived and young Derek set to playing in the back yard, was when tragedy struck.
For the longest time, Derek had been developing a crush on his neighbour - one, Ms. Jenny Darden. A raven haired, sharp featured, goddess of a woman. Never married and a school teacher at the local high school. Derek had caught a glimpse of her last summer through a gap in the fence as she sunbathed in her back yard. And such a bounty did he find through that narrowest of apertures that he set his mind to marrying her as soon as he was old enough. In the meantime though, he had to have something to tide him over. It was this need that culminated in his master plan. He would ask his dad, just when he was the right stage of drunk, (somewhere between his 5th and 6th beer) to build him a tree house.
Although the initial negotiations conducted that night were a success, it appears that Dad's promises were pushed out of his mind come the morning and replaced with a severe headache. For most of the year all negotiations were on ice, but with persistence and fortitude, and a bit of nagging Mum to nag Dad on Derek's behalf, the tree house was finally built in late autumn. The tree house would make an excellent new vantage point to secretly view his amore, come summer. Derek chose the perfect tree. Above the fence line and in a position that he thought would allow him plenty of opportunity to see what must be seen without attracting undue attention to himself.
One day, as Derek watched his dad working on the tree house, there was a voice from over the fence. It was soft and light like freshly washed sheets right from the dryer.
“Hey there boys! What’cha workin’ on?”
It was Ms. Darden!