Chapter Three
I would love to have feedback from anyone whose got me friended on this piece, as it is my primary literary endeavor for now and the rest of this year. Please be as thorough as you are willing; I'm aware that you all have busy, productive, satisfying lives to attend to.
Things that you should probably know:
Grey is a name, so I may spell it however I like.
This is the third chapter of a novel in progress. I've written much more, but this is the part of it I would like you to consider, so there will be no satisfying conclusion. Earlier chapters can be found here:
The First
The Second
I shamelessly copied and pasted this introduction from the first chapter.
The Third: Rough
I'm sitting in a plastic racing chair in an arcade. The room is empty except for Jack and I, and an icy chill so cruel it seems sentient. I don't move my hand from the "Ten and Two" position on the metal steering wheel because it has warmed to my hands there.
Jack picked an easy level so there aren't many tight turns, but when I have to make them the chains from my handcuffs clink together. The noise is out of place with the game's techno music and engine revving sounds. The cold chain brushes my wrist as I make another tight turn, drawing out goose bumps. For the rest of the game, I slow down and take turns as wide as possible. I don't make it to the finish line.
"Well that was a pleasant tour of a virtual city, but you were supposed to be racing," Jack says. He'd finished the race, sixth place out of eight, but at least my car didn't look like it had been hit by a train. I don't say anything, adjusting my handcuffs. They've rubbed through my skin, and now they are getting bloody.
"Got any more quarters?" He asks, trying to distract me. I shake my head. We'd put my only dollar in the token machine. I have two dimes left. I climb out of the chair and regret it. The freezing linoleum shocks my bare feet. Alice took my shoes and Jack’s sweatshirt. I try to cross my arms in front of my chest but the handcuffs won't let me.
"I've got one quarter. One whole quarter. And while the possibilities for one whole quarter in an arcade are not quite endless, we do have some decision making to do.” He takes my hand in his, trying not to bump the handcuff. He unfolds my fingers one at a time and lowers the coin into my palm. It seems larger than it should be. He has me hold it with both hands, like it is a frog that will try to leap away. I try to ignore my frozen feet, which stick to spilled soda as Jack leads me through the arcade.
"Here are the two machines in the arcade that operate with a single quarter." I see only one machine. Busta move. Jack points to the bubblegum dispenser next to it.
"Not quite endless." He repeats. I put the quarter in the left slot on the Busta move machine. The right slot is dark and has a foreign coin stuck in it.
The machine is too large. The joystick is too far back and too high for me to use. The game has one button to press, but it is too far from the joystick for me to reach while wearing handcuffs.
"Here." Jack lifts me onto the panel so I'm sitting next to the screen. I am sick of being picked up without warning, but I don’t know how to tell Jack.
"I'll aim. You fire." Jack takes the joystick. The game is beautiful. I have a better time popping colored bubbles than I did trying not to crash my car. We're about to lose, to be overwhelmed by gleaming white bubbles, when the miniature monster assistant on our screen loads a transparent bubble for us to fire.
"See that, Grey?" Jack asks, tapping the screen. Hearing my name makes me feel better.
"That bubble represents hope. That's salvation, right there, in those pixels." I do not think the transparent bubble deserves his speech. I don't think it’s as nice as any of the colored bubbles. It's a defect, a mutation of the pure bubbles.
"That bubble represents you," he continues, adjusting his shot. I'm offended.
"That bubble has meaning. Do you know what it means?" I shake my head. He has stopped moving the joystick, so I press the "fire" button. The shot ricochets off the side of the screen, and hits the row of bubbles clinging to the ceiling. The entire row vanishes, releasing the rest of the bubbles and winning the level. The little monster on the screen does a victory dance.
"It means..." He pulls me towards him. I’m afraid he is going to kiss me. But he only whispers "Everything is going to be okay." Then I think he at least deserves a hug. I'm handcuffed and balancing on the edge of an arcade machine though, so I don't try it.
"I HATE-" Alice’s voice startles me, and I fall off the arcade machine, landing awkwardly on my feet.
"-it when people tell me they don't understand. I'm SICK of speaking words no one understands." I can't tell where her voice is coming from. A man says something to her that I can't understand.
"She's beautiful, in an unkempt 'I can't take care of myself' way. A more generous person might say 'exotic'."
Alice walks around one of the arcade machines. Horace is with her. He shakes and sweats like he is suffering heroine withdrawal. I watch her, hidden by the arcade machine.
"Get out here," Alice demands. When I move forward, Jack grabs my arm and holds it up.
"Take off her handcuffs. They're hurting her." A blood trickles down my left arm. I pull it away from him. Alice kneels in front of me. She inspects my wrists, than turns me around.
“Horace, take Jack out.” Horace lurches behind the bustamove machine, returning with a sword. It’s thick, with a ruby in the pommel. It shakes at Jack.
“What the hell, ass, shit-“ Obscenities tumble from Jack’s mouth in face of the weapon. “-bitch. Where the fuck did you get a sword like that?”
“It’s mine,” says Alice. “Take him out now Horace, before I crack his head.” Alice puts her hands to her temples, like her own head is hurting in sympathy already. Jack backs out of the room at sword point.
“Don’t trust Jack. Don’t trust me either,” Alice commands. When I don’t look at her, she says “Grey,” in a warning tone. I look up from my wrists. “You’ve got your name, at least.”
She unlocks my handcuffs and puts them, still bloody, into a coat pocket. Both of my wrists are torn up. Alice hands me a tissue, which I use to wipe the blood that has trickled down my arm, and dab at my wrists.
“I want you to know that you’re the hardest. I mean that in more than one-way, but the way that I’m going to explain to you is this: You’re probably the hardest person in this world to torture, physically. I don’t say that because you have a strong will or high pain tolerance.
I say that because you’re so small. You’re fragile. If I misjudged anything, I’d snap bones I didn’t mean to, I’d break things that shouldn’t be broken.”
I’ve got tears in my eyes. I try not to shake like Horace. She’s speaking in a melancholy voice, like this makes her upset.
“This is yours.”
Alice pulls a grey notepad and a pen from her coat. She clicks the pen, and hands them both to me.
“Write your name, please.”
I put the pen to the paper. Grey starts with “G”, which, as a geometric figure, is not a polygon because it’s not enclosed. No, maybe I’m wrong. Well, I just need a curve for the top. That’s a line, but it-
“Write your name, Grey.”
A line is a collection of points. Infinite points, or finite? I’ll start with one point, the next one goes to the left, and lower, and then to the right also I think.
The notepad is pulled out of my hands.
“This is…This looks like a triangle with a rounded corner. You’ve spent the past minute drawing a triangle, when-“
I’m on the floor, ears ringing. Pain blossoms in my head. Alice is kneeling over me.
“-your name. Just say it. Do I need to hit you again? You don’t even have to write it. Just say it. Just say ‘Grey’.” Her eyes are a softer red than her suit. She’s got contacts. She looks like she might cry.
Grey has two spellings. Some people write it ‘Gray’. Some-
Alice pulls a pistol from her coat. It’s red. My breath whips in and out, so fast I’m afraid I’ll choke. My cheeks are wet, and it feels like I’ve got a rock pushing into the back of my head.
“Say it before I shoot you. Say it.” She pushes the pistol into my ribs.
Grey starts with “G”, which is grrr-
“Say it. Say it! Grey, Grey, Grey. Say anything. Anything at all.” The pistol muzzle digs further, pressing against bone. I scream a throat-tearing scream of frustration.
When I finish, she’s still there. She pops the pistol’s safety. The warning red of the “safety off” tag is a lighter shade of red than the rest of the gun.
“Grey!” Alice calls out in a tone of voice I would expect to hear from someone who had just discovered the bloody body of a loved one.
I close my eyes, because I do not want to die with her eyes probing mine.
Click.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
”Fuck guns. I fucking hate guns.”
I open my eyes in time to see her snap the hammer off the back of her pistol with her bare hands. She tosses the gun behind her, where it slides under an arcade machine, then sits, leaning up against the machine.
I lean into sitting position, and vomit. As my stomach rolls and heaves at nothing, Alice’s voice drifts through me, stronger than before, but deadpan.
“Grey cannot speak a word to save her life. A good thing to know about yourself, don’t you think?”
I lean against an arcade machine, wet hands under my armpits. A feeling of detachment seeps through me. I cannot control this situation. My actions have no consequence. That’s a sort of invigorating liberation.
Now that Alice tells me I cannot speak, I feel like we can talk things over. Alice is wearing only half a grin. She’s playing me. I’m supposed to feel this way.
“You think I’m terrible. You’re right, but I’ll tell you this: My sister is worse. I cannot condone her. You’re going to see her soon.
Before that happens, let’s talk about you.” Her eyebrows drop, and her eyes focus.
“Look where your right hand is now, Grey.”
I’m rubbing my nose with my hand.
“I said ‘let’s talk about you’, and you reached to cover your mouth with your hand. You did, even though you can’t talk. Your subconscious, though diluted and confused, stopped you mid-gesture, and turned it into an innocent nose-rub.”
I pull my arms inside my shirt, and clasp my hands together.
“I can read people, Grey. You don’t want to talk about yourself. That’s not your fault. That’s why we are here. That’s why we are here…”
There’s pain in those words. There’s a lonely hurt she keeps close.
“Where do you live?”
I have no idea where I live. I’m staying with Jack, and Susan, and Karen right now.
“Do you live with Jack? Is that your home?”
I nod. Her teeth grind. I crawl to Alice, and rest my head against her. I’m tense; she might hit me again.
“Aren’t you scared? You’re fucked up, Grey.” She glides her fingers through the hair on my scalp.
“Where do you come from?” Her fingers tighten. “Where? Before Jack, what was there? Nothing?”
She’s right. Nothing.
“It’s all one big vacation for you, isn’t it? My sister is coming. Her name, the demon’s name, is Penelope. Alice and Penelope. You won’t forget.”
“There are many kinds of demons, dearest Alice.” The voice is smooth, with words that blend and slip into one another.
Alice pushes me off, and I stumble to my feet. Penelope rests on the top of the Mortal Kombat arcade machine.
She is wearing purple bell-bottom pants, a silk long sleeve purple shirt, and her hair is a long, deep purple. She's slender and curved, not skinny and small like I am. She has a purple gift bag in her left hand. In her right, she holds Alice’s red sword.
“Succubi, Balrogs, and Imps, which am I?” asks Penelope, grinning.
“You’re a little imp. Drop my sword.” Alice advances on her.
”Well, Alice, you are an angel! Or you’ve found one, and she’s rubbed off on you. I do hope you played nicely.”
Penelope flips the swords end over end through the air. Alice catches it by the blade as it flips towards her, and swings, bashing the sword’s hilt into the arcade machine. The screen shatters, and the machine crashes to the ground. Penelope lands lightly among the shards of glass.
“It’s my sword,” Alice seethes.
“A mere club, the way you hold it.”
Alice stomps away. Blood drips off her fingers, where the sword’s edge bites into her hand.
Continued in Chapter Four
Things that you should probably know:
Grey is a name, so I may spell it however I like.
This is the third chapter of a novel in progress. I've written much more, but this is the part of it I would like you to consider, so there will be no satisfying conclusion. Earlier chapters can be found here:
The First
The Second
I shamelessly copied and pasted this introduction from the first chapter.
The Third: Rough
I'm sitting in a plastic racing chair in an arcade. The room is empty except for Jack and I, and an icy chill so cruel it seems sentient. I don't move my hand from the "Ten and Two" position on the metal steering wheel because it has warmed to my hands there.
Jack picked an easy level so there aren't many tight turns, but when I have to make them the chains from my handcuffs clink together. The noise is out of place with the game's techno music and engine revving sounds. The cold chain brushes my wrist as I make another tight turn, drawing out goose bumps. For the rest of the game, I slow down and take turns as wide as possible. I don't make it to the finish line.
"Well that was a pleasant tour of a virtual city, but you were supposed to be racing," Jack says. He'd finished the race, sixth place out of eight, but at least my car didn't look like it had been hit by a train. I don't say anything, adjusting my handcuffs. They've rubbed through my skin, and now they are getting bloody.
"Got any more quarters?" He asks, trying to distract me. I shake my head. We'd put my only dollar in the token machine. I have two dimes left. I climb out of the chair and regret it. The freezing linoleum shocks my bare feet. Alice took my shoes and Jack’s sweatshirt. I try to cross my arms in front of my chest but the handcuffs won't let me.
"I've got one quarter. One whole quarter. And while the possibilities for one whole quarter in an arcade are not quite endless, we do have some decision making to do.” He takes my hand in his, trying not to bump the handcuff. He unfolds my fingers one at a time and lowers the coin into my palm. It seems larger than it should be. He has me hold it with both hands, like it is a frog that will try to leap away. I try to ignore my frozen feet, which stick to spilled soda as Jack leads me through the arcade.
"Here are the two machines in the arcade that operate with a single quarter." I see only one machine. Busta move. Jack points to the bubblegum dispenser next to it.
"Not quite endless." He repeats. I put the quarter in the left slot on the Busta move machine. The right slot is dark and has a foreign coin stuck in it.
The machine is too large. The joystick is too far back and too high for me to use. The game has one button to press, but it is too far from the joystick for me to reach while wearing handcuffs.
"Here." Jack lifts me onto the panel so I'm sitting next to the screen. I am sick of being picked up without warning, but I don’t know how to tell Jack.
"I'll aim. You fire." Jack takes the joystick. The game is beautiful. I have a better time popping colored bubbles than I did trying not to crash my car. We're about to lose, to be overwhelmed by gleaming white bubbles, when the miniature monster assistant on our screen loads a transparent bubble for us to fire.
"See that, Grey?" Jack asks, tapping the screen. Hearing my name makes me feel better.
"That bubble represents hope. That's salvation, right there, in those pixels." I do not think the transparent bubble deserves his speech. I don't think it’s as nice as any of the colored bubbles. It's a defect, a mutation of the pure bubbles.
"That bubble represents you," he continues, adjusting his shot. I'm offended.
"That bubble has meaning. Do you know what it means?" I shake my head. He has stopped moving the joystick, so I press the "fire" button. The shot ricochets off the side of the screen, and hits the row of bubbles clinging to the ceiling. The entire row vanishes, releasing the rest of the bubbles and winning the level. The little monster on the screen does a victory dance.
"It means..." He pulls me towards him. I’m afraid he is going to kiss me. But he only whispers "Everything is going to be okay." Then I think he at least deserves a hug. I'm handcuffed and balancing on the edge of an arcade machine though, so I don't try it.
"I HATE-" Alice’s voice startles me, and I fall off the arcade machine, landing awkwardly on my feet.
"-it when people tell me they don't understand. I'm SICK of speaking words no one understands." I can't tell where her voice is coming from. A man says something to her that I can't understand.
"She's beautiful, in an unkempt 'I can't take care of myself' way. A more generous person might say 'exotic'."
Alice walks around one of the arcade machines. Horace is with her. He shakes and sweats like he is suffering heroine withdrawal. I watch her, hidden by the arcade machine.
"Get out here," Alice demands. When I move forward, Jack grabs my arm and holds it up.
"Take off her handcuffs. They're hurting her." A blood trickles down my left arm. I pull it away from him. Alice kneels in front of me. She inspects my wrists, than turns me around.
“Horace, take Jack out.” Horace lurches behind the bustamove machine, returning with a sword. It’s thick, with a ruby in the pommel. It shakes at Jack.
“What the hell, ass, shit-“ Obscenities tumble from Jack’s mouth in face of the weapon. “-bitch. Where the fuck did you get a sword like that?”
“It’s mine,” says Alice. “Take him out now Horace, before I crack his head.” Alice puts her hands to her temples, like her own head is hurting in sympathy already. Jack backs out of the room at sword point.
“Don’t trust Jack. Don’t trust me either,” Alice commands. When I don’t look at her, she says “Grey,” in a warning tone. I look up from my wrists. “You’ve got your name, at least.”
She unlocks my handcuffs and puts them, still bloody, into a coat pocket. Both of my wrists are torn up. Alice hands me a tissue, which I use to wipe the blood that has trickled down my arm, and dab at my wrists.
“I want you to know that you’re the hardest. I mean that in more than one-way, but the way that I’m going to explain to you is this: You’re probably the hardest person in this world to torture, physically. I don’t say that because you have a strong will or high pain tolerance.
I say that because you’re so small. You’re fragile. If I misjudged anything, I’d snap bones I didn’t mean to, I’d break things that shouldn’t be broken.”
I’ve got tears in my eyes. I try not to shake like Horace. She’s speaking in a melancholy voice, like this makes her upset.
“This is yours.”
Alice pulls a grey notepad and a pen from her coat. She clicks the pen, and hands them both to me.
“Write your name, please.”
I put the pen to the paper. Grey starts with “G”, which, as a geometric figure, is not a polygon because it’s not enclosed. No, maybe I’m wrong. Well, I just need a curve for the top. That’s a line, but it-
“Write your name, Grey.”
A line is a collection of points. Infinite points, or finite? I’ll start with one point, the next one goes to the left, and lower, and then to the right also I think.
The notepad is pulled out of my hands.
“This is…This looks like a triangle with a rounded corner. You’ve spent the past minute drawing a triangle, when-“
I’m on the floor, ears ringing. Pain blossoms in my head. Alice is kneeling over me.
“-your name. Just say it. Do I need to hit you again? You don’t even have to write it. Just say it. Just say ‘Grey’.” Her eyes are a softer red than her suit. She’s got contacts. She looks like she might cry.
Grey has two spellings. Some people write it ‘Gray’. Some-
Alice pulls a pistol from her coat. It’s red. My breath whips in and out, so fast I’m afraid I’ll choke. My cheeks are wet, and it feels like I’ve got a rock pushing into the back of my head.
“Say it before I shoot you. Say it.” She pushes the pistol into my ribs.
Grey starts with “G”, which is grrr-
“Say it. Say it! Grey, Grey, Grey. Say anything. Anything at all.” The pistol muzzle digs further, pressing against bone. I scream a throat-tearing scream of frustration.
When I finish, she’s still there. She pops the pistol’s safety. The warning red of the “safety off” tag is a lighter shade of red than the rest of the gun.
“Grey!” Alice calls out in a tone of voice I would expect to hear from someone who had just discovered the bloody body of a loved one.
I close my eyes, because I do not want to die with her eyes probing mine.
Click.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
”Fuck guns. I fucking hate guns.”
I open my eyes in time to see her snap the hammer off the back of her pistol with her bare hands. She tosses the gun behind her, where it slides under an arcade machine, then sits, leaning up against the machine.
I lean into sitting position, and vomit. As my stomach rolls and heaves at nothing, Alice’s voice drifts through me, stronger than before, but deadpan.
“Grey cannot speak a word to save her life. A good thing to know about yourself, don’t you think?”
I lean against an arcade machine, wet hands under my armpits. A feeling of detachment seeps through me. I cannot control this situation. My actions have no consequence. That’s a sort of invigorating liberation.
Now that Alice tells me I cannot speak, I feel like we can talk things over. Alice is wearing only half a grin. She’s playing me. I’m supposed to feel this way.
“You think I’m terrible. You’re right, but I’ll tell you this: My sister is worse. I cannot condone her. You’re going to see her soon.
Before that happens, let’s talk about you.” Her eyebrows drop, and her eyes focus.
“Look where your right hand is now, Grey.”
I’m rubbing my nose with my hand.
“I said ‘let’s talk about you’, and you reached to cover your mouth with your hand. You did, even though you can’t talk. Your subconscious, though diluted and confused, stopped you mid-gesture, and turned it into an innocent nose-rub.”
I pull my arms inside my shirt, and clasp my hands together.
“I can read people, Grey. You don’t want to talk about yourself. That’s not your fault. That’s why we are here. That’s why we are here…”
There’s pain in those words. There’s a lonely hurt she keeps close.
“Where do you live?”
I have no idea where I live. I’m staying with Jack, and Susan, and Karen right now.
“Do you live with Jack? Is that your home?”
I nod. Her teeth grind. I crawl to Alice, and rest my head against her. I’m tense; she might hit me again.
“Aren’t you scared? You’re fucked up, Grey.” She glides her fingers through the hair on my scalp.
“Where do you come from?” Her fingers tighten. “Where? Before Jack, what was there? Nothing?”
She’s right. Nothing.
“It’s all one big vacation for you, isn’t it? My sister is coming. Her name, the demon’s name, is Penelope. Alice and Penelope. You won’t forget.”
“There are many kinds of demons, dearest Alice.” The voice is smooth, with words that blend and slip into one another.
Alice pushes me off, and I stumble to my feet. Penelope rests on the top of the Mortal Kombat arcade machine.
She is wearing purple bell-bottom pants, a silk long sleeve purple shirt, and her hair is a long, deep purple. She's slender and curved, not skinny and small like I am. She has a purple gift bag in her left hand. In her right, she holds Alice’s red sword.
“Succubi, Balrogs, and Imps, which am I?” asks Penelope, grinning.
“You’re a little imp. Drop my sword.” Alice advances on her.
”Well, Alice, you are an angel! Or you’ve found one, and she’s rubbed off on you. I do hope you played nicely.”
Penelope flips the swords end over end through the air. Alice catches it by the blade as it flips towards her, and swings, bashing the sword’s hilt into the arcade machine. The screen shatters, and the machine crashes to the ground. Penelope lands lightly among the shards of glass.
“It’s my sword,” Alice seethes.
“A mere club, the way you hold it.”
Alice stomps away. Blood drips off her fingers, where the sword’s edge bites into her hand.
Continued in Chapter Four