Unfinished Story
Unfinished story. Explanation will be provided if requested, but the post is too long otherwise.
EDIT: OK, I figured out what was making the post too big and fixed it. This is a part of what I hope will be a series of stories about mythological monsters in a modern setting with a slight undertone of horror. If the project gets too intensive, I might restrict it to Chinese mogwai/yaogwai/yaojing and Japanese youkai but I'm hoping to encompass as many cultures as I can. If anyone has any good resources for this kind of thing, I'd love to see it. Thanks!
Comments and criticism are, as always, welcome. Even "DL you suck you're such a hack" would be appreciated.
Enenra (煙々羅)
They said it was easier to deal with your feelings when you wrote stuff down. I don’t know about that, but I’m willing to bet that the real reason we’re doing this is so they can get paid to watch us sit at our desks for a half hour. They don’t know what to do with us otherwise. If all it takes to be a therapist is to talk to your patients like they’re five, I’m gonna start hiring myself out. Yeah, we know what it means to die. Saint isn’t in a better place or with his family or whatever the heck else they want to call it; he got burned to ashes and he died. That’s it. There’s nothing wrong with saying it straight.
But I guess since we have to sit here anyway, there’s no point wasting my time. They talked to us once about repressment or something like that and not doing it, but it sounded like a pretty good idea to me. I figure since I plan to try and forget it happened at all, it’s worth writing down while everything’s fresh. I owe at least that much to him.
It must’ve started the night his house burned down. I’d known him long before that, of course. Sylvester Penbleman moved into the house across the street when I was eight, and the first thing he ever said to me was, “Have you accepted Jesus into your life?” That was the kind of family he came from. I think I remember trying to change the subject a few times before I finally just stuck a cookie in his face to get him to shut up about his Savior and God. The other neighborhood kids decided pretty quick about him after that. Yeah, we waved when we passed on the street, but no one ever sat next to him on the bus, and we always forgot to get him when we played kickball in the field. I don’t think he ever minded, or even noticed.
So like everyone else, I kinda forgot he existed. And by the time I was fifteen, I was too cool to bother with a kid who brought his Bible to school every day. Even if I hadn’t been, he'd become the type of guy that just faded into the background and never really cared to come out. He wasn’t exactly geeky or nerdy or bad-looking or even all that weird, but I don’t think he managed a single real friend in those seven years. So what’s worse? Living to 70 all alone, or checking out at 17 with a few good buddies? They both suck, but I’d take the friends.
Then came May 25th. I remember waking up to the sirens that night, thinking they were the loudest things I’d ever heard and nearly pissing my pants when I saw Saint’s house all aglow - like a birthday cake, it was. That’s what I thought when I saw it. A glowing halo on top and flames licking at every window. I remember wondering if I'd gotten stuck in a TV show or a bad horror movie or something, cause this just wasn’t the kind of thing that happened to people you knew. It was the kind of thing you watched on the news, and it always happened to someone far, far away so you could sit safe and cozy on your side of the screen.
I was the first one to get to him that night. Things might’ve gone differently if I hadn’t been. He was standing on the street and crying when I looked out the window, but honestly, that wasn’t why I went out. It was 'cause he wasn’t wearing anything but boxers. There was nothing worse than watching your house burn while almost naked, I figured, so I brought him some of my clothes. Maybe I was still half asleep. But when I got close, his face . . . I don’t even know what to say about it. Think of the worst you’ve ever felt, multiply that by a thousand, add total numbness, and maybe it'd be like the same thing. He didn't recognize me. He just took the clothes and stared at them for the longest time.
Well, he never got to change. All the neighbors were out soon enough, and it seemed like half the town was crowding around, screaming and yelling, pressing blankets on him, trying to push us away from the fire, whatever. He wouldn't budge. And then he grabbed me real tight for some reason so I couldn't budge, either, and it was just the two of us solid as rocks in the middle of a mass of people who couldn't decide what we should do. In the end, everyone just ended up standing there. Just . . . watching the house go down. Saint didn't say a word to anyone the whole time. He had his head tilted at the sky, like he couldn't stand looking at the fire any more, and he just kept on praying. Or maybe he was just gibbering. Saying, 'the smoke the smoke the smoke' over and over again.
When it died down about three hours later, it was just me, my parents, and a few of the closer neighbors left to stare at what was left of his house. We'd somehow missed it, but the firemen had brought out the rest of his family and taken them to the hospital. And even then, he wouldn’t let go of me, so they said he could stay with us for the night after they took a look at him. I was too worn out by then to wonder how he’d made it out without even breathing problems, but I didn’t think much about it. I was actually more worried about whether or not he’d ever let me go.
He did, after we got into my room. He took the bed. I was on the floor. Neither of us slept. He cried, then gasped for breath when he didn’t have any more tears. I stared at the ceiling and wondered what it would be like to lose everything in one go. About an hour after a dawn, we were both trying to pretend that we were asleep when he suddenly rolled over and asked me my name. I had to ask his, too.
“Sylvester,” he said automatically. I couldn’t help myself.
“Like the cat?”
“ . . . Like the saint.”
He said it so simply that I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a dumb thing to do, but I giggled like a kid at the thought of Saint Sylvester the Cat. I don’t know what I’d have done if he hadn’t started quietly laughing, too.
So after that, he was Sylvester the Saint. Sometimes Cat, but usually Saint.
EDIT: OK, I figured out what was making the post too big and fixed it. This is a part of what I hope will be a series of stories about mythological monsters in a modern setting with a slight undertone of horror. If the project gets too intensive, I might restrict it to Chinese mogwai/yaogwai/yaojing and Japanese youkai but I'm hoping to encompass as many cultures as I can. If anyone has any good resources for this kind of thing, I'd love to see it. Thanks!
Comments and criticism are, as always, welcome. Even "DL you suck you're such a hack" would be appreciated.
Enenra (煙々羅)
They said it was easier to deal with your feelings when you wrote stuff down. I don’t know about that, but I’m willing to bet that the real reason we’re doing this is so they can get paid to watch us sit at our desks for a half hour. They don’t know what to do with us otherwise. If all it takes to be a therapist is to talk to your patients like they’re five, I’m gonna start hiring myself out. Yeah, we know what it means to die. Saint isn’t in a better place or with his family or whatever the heck else they want to call it; he got burned to ashes and he died. That’s it. There’s nothing wrong with saying it straight.
But I guess since we have to sit here anyway, there’s no point wasting my time. They talked to us once about repressment or something like that and not doing it, but it sounded like a pretty good idea to me. I figure since I plan to try and forget it happened at all, it’s worth writing down while everything’s fresh. I owe at least that much to him.
It must’ve started the night his house burned down. I’d known him long before that, of course. Sylvester Penbleman moved into the house across the street when I was eight, and the first thing he ever said to me was, “Have you accepted Jesus into your life?” That was the kind of family he came from. I think I remember trying to change the subject a few times before I finally just stuck a cookie in his face to get him to shut up about his Savior and God. The other neighborhood kids decided pretty quick about him after that. Yeah, we waved when we passed on the street, but no one ever sat next to him on the bus, and we always forgot to get him when we played kickball in the field. I don’t think he ever minded, or even noticed.
So like everyone else, I kinda forgot he existed. And by the time I was fifteen, I was too cool to bother with a kid who brought his Bible to school every day. Even if I hadn’t been, he'd become the type of guy that just faded into the background and never really cared to come out. He wasn’t exactly geeky or nerdy or bad-looking or even all that weird, but I don’t think he managed a single real friend in those seven years. So what’s worse? Living to 70 all alone, or checking out at 17 with a few good buddies? They both suck, but I’d take the friends.
Then came May 25th. I remember waking up to the sirens that night, thinking they were the loudest things I’d ever heard and nearly pissing my pants when I saw Saint’s house all aglow - like a birthday cake, it was. That’s what I thought when I saw it. A glowing halo on top and flames licking at every window. I remember wondering if I'd gotten stuck in a TV show or a bad horror movie or something, cause this just wasn’t the kind of thing that happened to people you knew. It was the kind of thing you watched on the news, and it always happened to someone far, far away so you could sit safe and cozy on your side of the screen.
I was the first one to get to him that night. Things might’ve gone differently if I hadn’t been. He was standing on the street and crying when I looked out the window, but honestly, that wasn’t why I went out. It was 'cause he wasn’t wearing anything but boxers. There was nothing worse than watching your house burn while almost naked, I figured, so I brought him some of my clothes. Maybe I was still half asleep. But when I got close, his face . . . I don’t even know what to say about it. Think of the worst you’ve ever felt, multiply that by a thousand, add total numbness, and maybe it'd be like the same thing. He didn't recognize me. He just took the clothes and stared at them for the longest time.
Well, he never got to change. All the neighbors were out soon enough, and it seemed like half the town was crowding around, screaming and yelling, pressing blankets on him, trying to push us away from the fire, whatever. He wouldn't budge. And then he grabbed me real tight for some reason so I couldn't budge, either, and it was just the two of us solid as rocks in the middle of a mass of people who couldn't decide what we should do. In the end, everyone just ended up standing there. Just . . . watching the house go down. Saint didn't say a word to anyone the whole time. He had his head tilted at the sky, like he couldn't stand looking at the fire any more, and he just kept on praying. Or maybe he was just gibbering. Saying, 'the smoke the smoke the smoke' over and over again.
When it died down about three hours later, it was just me, my parents, and a few of the closer neighbors left to stare at what was left of his house. We'd somehow missed it, but the firemen had brought out the rest of his family and taken them to the hospital. And even then, he wouldn’t let go of me, so they said he could stay with us for the night after they took a look at him. I was too worn out by then to wonder how he’d made it out without even breathing problems, but I didn’t think much about it. I was actually more worried about whether or not he’d ever let me go.
He did, after we got into my room. He took the bed. I was on the floor. Neither of us slept. He cried, then gasped for breath when he didn’t have any more tears. I stared at the ceiling and wondered what it would be like to lose everything in one go. About an hour after a dawn, we were both trying to pretend that we were asleep when he suddenly rolled over and asked me my name. I had to ask his, too.
“Sylvester,” he said automatically. I couldn’t help myself.
“Like the cat?”
“ . . . Like the saint.”
He said it so simply that I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a dumb thing to do, but I giggled like a kid at the thought of Saint Sylvester the Cat. I don’t know what I’d have done if he hadn’t started quietly laughing, too.
So after that, he was Sylvester the Saint. Sometimes Cat, but usually Saint.