(no subject)
hi, just found an old short story i wrote. i guess if you want to read it, feel free..but i don't blame you if you don't. i never seem to want to read long posts in livejournals.
Merciful Society
That clock on the wall was broken, it had to be. It was trying to pass off a lie- that only twenty minutes had gone by since it was last glanced at. But the man sitting in the small room staring at the clock knew that he’d been waiting for at least an hour. He’d done all he could to not sit idle and worry, but the room did not offer very many objects to look at. The man decided to do a summary of the slightly promising objects in the small room, as if he held the responsibility of showing this room on Mtv’s Cribs.
First, there was the clock on the wall. It was a standard clock with black numbers and rim, and a white face. It was the kind that they had in every classroom when he was in school. He almost chuckled to himself, when he had graduated, he thought he had been leaving the activity of staring at those clocks all behind.
The only other object in the room, besides the grey folding chair he was sitting on, was a large machine. When he had first entered the room he had actually been very interested in the contraption. It had filled him with a strange feeling, like he was looking at a particularly ominous rollercoaster. He had crouched down to study it and had discovered that instead of it being just one giant machine, it was more like a cupboard on wheels with all sorts of gadgets in it. He had observed a heart monitor, needles on retractable cords, and a compartment for instruments like stethoscopes and the little hammers doctors hit their patients’ knees with. On the cabinet’s flat top was a pillow, which the man supposed meant that the flat area was meant to be a bed.
Now that the machine was no longer a mystery to the man, he was as unconcerned with it as ever. He had sat back in the folding chair, and that was where he had been since. He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. It was flat and white with no cracks to form pictures with or speckle dots to count.
The man sighed and leaned forward in the chair to retrieve his wallet from his back pants pocket. He pulled out the brown, worn leather object and for a moment, just sat stroking the soft material with his thumb. Finally he flipped the wallet open and pulled a folded photograph from the billfold. He did not seem to notice the fact that no money had fluttered out with this action. The man unfolded the picture and traced the large, white, vertical crease. A beautiful blonde woman and a small blonde girl beamed up at the man from the picture, and a huge grin slowly extended across his face. In the background, large amounts of orange and red leaves had been spinning in the air.
He remembered his daughter, Sara, pulling him by the sleeve to their front porch to see the amazing sight. A storm that had developed suddenly had created incredible winds which took the fallen leaves off the ground and swirled them like a twister, and Sara, who was already more taken with anything brightly coloured or noisy than the typical Barbie dolls, had instructed him to photograph her and her mother. The two had leaned against the railing and neither had to smile for the camera, they had already been grinning from the excitement of the storm. Like mother like daughter, he had thought as he snapped the picture. It had been an extraordinary sight to see, that much was true.
The man carefully folded the picture back up and slipped it into the wallet once again. He put it back into his pocket and thought about the word extraordinary. He tried to remember how he said it; whether he pronounced it like two words or not. He sat with his brows knitted in concentration- he was extremely frustrated by the fact that he could not remember something as trivial as how he articulated a word. As he focused all his energy in thought, the endless silence around him blared deafeningly, and he closed his eyes in pain.
Suddenly the screaming silence was broken and the door to the room swung open. The man’s eyes snapped open and settled on a tall figure standing in the doorway. He wore a traditional white doctor’s coat and was holding a brown clipboard.
“Thomas Tonin?” the tall man asked, striding into the room to stand before the other man.
The seated man cleared his throat, “It’s pronounced tone-in. But, yes, call me Tom.” Tom was not going to bother with fake cheerfulness with this unapologetic doctor who made him wait over an hour.
“Alight, Tom,” the doctor winked one green eye, “You can call me Doctor Bennet.” The doctor tapped a small, rectangular name tag pinned onto his chest.
Tom nodded noncommittally; he wasn’t blind.
“So, how long have you been in here for?” the doctor asked, flipping through papers on the clipboard. He paused and glanced at Tom.
“Oh,” Tom hit rewind on his memory. Having his nose broken by his cell mate, being knocked to the ground thirty-seven times (he’d kept count), finding the torn pages of his journal scattered in the cafeteria- the hundreds of pages of poems, analyses of people he had met, drafts of letters to his daughter and wife, lists of things to do as soon as he was released. He’d only managed to save two pages of his journal- a page filled with the lyrics to his wife’s favourite song that he’d memorized to sing to her, and a page of things that upset him. “Three years,” he finally answered.
“It says here that you were sentenced to eight..?” the doctor trailed off.
“Yeah, well, I was acquitted after a year, and I would have gotten out sooner, but, you know, it takes awhile.” Tom shrugged awkwardly.
The doctor tapped his nose, “I’ll bet you’re excited to get out, huh?”
Tom did not bother to respond. He was well aware that the doctor was making small talk, simply chatting Tom up to get him to open up more. As far as Tom was concerned, Doctor Bennet was wasting time and simply delaying his release. Tom could feel his temper rising and his mouth formed a thin line. He looked at the doctor pointedly, hoping he’d get the point.
Tom’s look of annoyance did not register with the doctor, or it did, and he was just ignoring it completely. Doctor Bennet flipped to a different paper on the clipboard, nodded slightly, and then suddenly looked up.
“Where’d it go?” he asked, almost to himself.
“What?” Tom had no idea what the doctor could have been talking about.
The doctor walked out of the room, leaving Tom looking disgruntled. After a moment, classical music began to play and the doctor returned.
“This was supposed to be playing while you were waiting, but someone must have forgotten to turn it on,” Doctor Bennet explained.
Tom felt a numb and a bit close to tears. What was wrong with him? “What is it?” he asked the doctor.
“You don’t know it?” the doctor looked surprised as Tom shook his head. “It’s Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven.”
“It’s beautiful,” was all Tom could think to say.
“Thanks, I think so too. I chose it,” Doctor Bennet said, a bit smugly.
They both lapsed into silence as the music continued to play.
“Well, I guess we should begin,” the doctor said slowly.
“Alright,” Tom replied.
Doctor Bennet motioned for Tom to move to the makeshift bed. Tom hesitated slightly and then climbed up. The doctor began to retract a cord with a needle attached as Tom watched with wide eyes.
“What are you going to be doing with that, doctor?” Tom asked in a high voice.
“Oh, this?” Doctor Bennet held up the syringe and Tom nodded slightly. “This is just a general vaccine to get rid of any lurking diseases you may have contracted while enjoying your stay here.” The doctor winked, but Tom did not seem to be reassured.
“I could give you something for your nerves, if you’d like,” the doctor seemed genuinely concerned for Tom’s anxiety.
Tom considered the offer for a moment and then accepted with a meek smile. The doctor took a blue pill out from a pocket on his jacket and handed it to Tom. “Chew it,” he said.
Tom did as he was told and laid down on the bed. He noticed that the music seemed to be getting softer, as if he was walking away from wherever the speakers were located. Doctor Bennet waited for a moment and then continued with preparing cords. Tom heard the heart monitor turn on, and the next thing he felt was a slight amount of pressure on his chest. Then Tom was listening to somebody’s heartbeat; his heartbeat, it later occurred to him.
Suddenly Tom felt very heavy and he could no longer hold open his eyes. He saw small spots burst into colour and what he imagined electricity would look like, pulsing behind his eyelids. He turned his head in the direction of where he thought Doctor Bennet might be and mumbled, “Do you ever hear things that aren’t really there?”
Doctor Bennet did not bother to look up, “I’m sorry, what?” He didn’t sound like he was sorry, only mildly amused.
“I really just want to be this warm yellow light that pours over everyone that I love,” Tom was murmuring. He hummed along to the music; he could no longer feel his body.
Suddenly Tom was whisked away to his favourite memory. He was sitting in a grey folding chair, much like the one that he had been formerly occupying, and holding his newborn daughter. Tom was staring at Sara’s tiny fingernails, trying to wrap his head around the idea of a child being brought into the world. He had cradled her in the crook of his arm and pressed her lightly against his chest, so she could feel his heartbeat. Her warm breath was comforting and gave him shivers up and down his spine.
The memory broke and Tom was once again lying on the makeshift metal table. He felt Doctor Bennet’s presence and heard him say something; the meaning of the words was irrelevant, Tom was still aware of what was going to happen next.
Tom could feel the point of the needle puncturing a hole in the skin of his arm, feel the edgeless needle sliding beneath his flesh, feel the liquid being pushed into his vein; he shuddered as his eyes rolled back. The sound of his heartbeat on the monitor sounded horribly high-pitched and Tom felt a consuming pressure in his chest, like he had been filled with quick drying cement.
Abruptly, the whine of Tom’s heartbeat was replaced with a constant, low beep. The classical music was switched off and Doctor Bennet, who had left the small room, reappeared. He rolled Tom’s body onto its stomach and pulled the wallet from the corpse’s pants pocket. The doctor pulled the photograph out of the billfold and looked at it with disappointment. He let the picture slip from his fingers and flutter to the tiled floor. The doctor stared at the door to the room and it opened, as if on cue. A janitor in an orange jumpsuit slinked in, visibly hunched over.
The janitor glanced at Tom’s body and asked, “You let him think he was acquitted, or did ya break the news?”
The doctor scrunched his mouth up, “I did the humane thing, Charlie,” he said grimly.
Charlie said nothing and stood near the doorway, staring at Tom.
Doctor Bennet sighed quietly and walked out of the room, leaving the janitor to dispose of the body.
-APPENDIX-
Speak Easy
Maria Taylor
We'll bathe in rose petals, red
And lie in violet lilac beds
And through the darkness of the night
We'll watch our future shining bright
And out of everyone I've met
It's you I can't forget
And there was a time my heart was aching
Yes there was the day I swore it was breaking
Under a lucky star our love was born brand new
And in the shadows of the night
I'll trace your silhouette in candlelight
And if you fall asleep when you rise
I'll be there to kiss your eyes
And now my heart is in your hand
So baby, understand
And there was a time my heart was aching
Yes there was the day I swore it was breaking
Under a lucky star our love was born brand new
So don't cry, Angel
I will stay the whole night through
Forevermore, I'll be loving you
And there was a time my heart was aching
Yes there was the day I swore it was breaking
Under a lucky star our love was born brand new
So don't cry, Angel
I will stay the whole night through
Forevermore, I'll be loving you
Forevermore, I'll be loving you
Things That Upset Me
• Listening to a skipping CD and not being able to do anything about it (this has yet to happen to me)
• Getting frustrated by a new bag of cereal, pulling it open too hard, and spilling the contents all over the newly swept kitchen floor
• Waking up before the alarm clock goes off and not being able to go back to sleep
• Being talked to condescendingly
• Long division (what was the point in learning it?!)
• When Sara told me she wouldn’t love me anymore unless I got her a pony (she later apologized)
• Getting seated next to a very large person who spills over onto your chair and uses your armrest on planes, buses, trains, trolleys, and in movie theatres.
• Trying to help insects that cannot figure out that they cannot get through glass windows (I always end up killing them or getting stung)
• Falling asleep with my contacts in and waking up with them at the back of my eyes
• Being asked multiple times whether or not I got the memo
• Having no plans and too much time
• Telling a joke and then forgetting the punch line halfway through
• Telling a joke and only getting polite laughter as a response
• “Reality” television shows
• The price of gas
• The president
• Florida, in general
• When taxi cabs refuse to pick you up
• The word colonel
Merciful Society
That clock on the wall was broken, it had to be. It was trying to pass off a lie- that only twenty minutes had gone by since it was last glanced at. But the man sitting in the small room staring at the clock knew that he’d been waiting for at least an hour. He’d done all he could to not sit idle and worry, but the room did not offer very many objects to look at. The man decided to do a summary of the slightly promising objects in the small room, as if he held the responsibility of showing this room on Mtv’s Cribs.
First, there was the clock on the wall. It was a standard clock with black numbers and rim, and a white face. It was the kind that they had in every classroom when he was in school. He almost chuckled to himself, when he had graduated, he thought he had been leaving the activity of staring at those clocks all behind.
The only other object in the room, besides the grey folding chair he was sitting on, was a large machine. When he had first entered the room he had actually been very interested in the contraption. It had filled him with a strange feeling, like he was looking at a particularly ominous rollercoaster. He had crouched down to study it and had discovered that instead of it being just one giant machine, it was more like a cupboard on wheels with all sorts of gadgets in it. He had observed a heart monitor, needles on retractable cords, and a compartment for instruments like stethoscopes and the little hammers doctors hit their patients’ knees with. On the cabinet’s flat top was a pillow, which the man supposed meant that the flat area was meant to be a bed.
Now that the machine was no longer a mystery to the man, he was as unconcerned with it as ever. He had sat back in the folding chair, and that was where he had been since. He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. It was flat and white with no cracks to form pictures with or speckle dots to count.
The man sighed and leaned forward in the chair to retrieve his wallet from his back pants pocket. He pulled out the brown, worn leather object and for a moment, just sat stroking the soft material with his thumb. Finally he flipped the wallet open and pulled a folded photograph from the billfold. He did not seem to notice the fact that no money had fluttered out with this action. The man unfolded the picture and traced the large, white, vertical crease. A beautiful blonde woman and a small blonde girl beamed up at the man from the picture, and a huge grin slowly extended across his face. In the background, large amounts of orange and red leaves had been spinning in the air.
He remembered his daughter, Sara, pulling him by the sleeve to their front porch to see the amazing sight. A storm that had developed suddenly had created incredible winds which took the fallen leaves off the ground and swirled them like a twister, and Sara, who was already more taken with anything brightly coloured or noisy than the typical Barbie dolls, had instructed him to photograph her and her mother. The two had leaned against the railing and neither had to smile for the camera, they had already been grinning from the excitement of the storm. Like mother like daughter, he had thought as he snapped the picture. It had been an extraordinary sight to see, that much was true.
The man carefully folded the picture back up and slipped it into the wallet once again. He put it back into his pocket and thought about the word extraordinary. He tried to remember how he said it; whether he pronounced it like two words or not. He sat with his brows knitted in concentration- he was extremely frustrated by the fact that he could not remember something as trivial as how he articulated a word. As he focused all his energy in thought, the endless silence around him blared deafeningly, and he closed his eyes in pain.
Suddenly the screaming silence was broken and the door to the room swung open. The man’s eyes snapped open and settled on a tall figure standing in the doorway. He wore a traditional white doctor’s coat and was holding a brown clipboard.
“Thomas Tonin?” the tall man asked, striding into the room to stand before the other man.
The seated man cleared his throat, “It’s pronounced tone-in. But, yes, call me Tom.” Tom was not going to bother with fake cheerfulness with this unapologetic doctor who made him wait over an hour.
“Alight, Tom,” the doctor winked one green eye, “You can call me Doctor Bennet.” The doctor tapped a small, rectangular name tag pinned onto his chest.
Tom nodded noncommittally; he wasn’t blind.
“So, how long have you been in here for?” the doctor asked, flipping through papers on the clipboard. He paused and glanced at Tom.
“Oh,” Tom hit rewind on his memory. Having his nose broken by his cell mate, being knocked to the ground thirty-seven times (he’d kept count), finding the torn pages of his journal scattered in the cafeteria- the hundreds of pages of poems, analyses of people he had met, drafts of letters to his daughter and wife, lists of things to do as soon as he was released. He’d only managed to save two pages of his journal- a page filled with the lyrics to his wife’s favourite song that he’d memorized to sing to her, and a page of things that upset him. “Three years,” he finally answered.
“It says here that you were sentenced to eight..?” the doctor trailed off.
“Yeah, well, I was acquitted after a year, and I would have gotten out sooner, but, you know, it takes awhile.” Tom shrugged awkwardly.
The doctor tapped his nose, “I’ll bet you’re excited to get out, huh?”
Tom did not bother to respond. He was well aware that the doctor was making small talk, simply chatting Tom up to get him to open up more. As far as Tom was concerned, Doctor Bennet was wasting time and simply delaying his release. Tom could feel his temper rising and his mouth formed a thin line. He looked at the doctor pointedly, hoping he’d get the point.
Tom’s look of annoyance did not register with the doctor, or it did, and he was just ignoring it completely. Doctor Bennet flipped to a different paper on the clipboard, nodded slightly, and then suddenly looked up.
“Where’d it go?” he asked, almost to himself.
“What?” Tom had no idea what the doctor could have been talking about.
The doctor walked out of the room, leaving Tom looking disgruntled. After a moment, classical music began to play and the doctor returned.
“This was supposed to be playing while you were waiting, but someone must have forgotten to turn it on,” Doctor Bennet explained.
Tom felt a numb and a bit close to tears. What was wrong with him? “What is it?” he asked the doctor.
“You don’t know it?” the doctor looked surprised as Tom shook his head. “It’s Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven.”
“It’s beautiful,” was all Tom could think to say.
“Thanks, I think so too. I chose it,” Doctor Bennet said, a bit smugly.
They both lapsed into silence as the music continued to play.
“Well, I guess we should begin,” the doctor said slowly.
“Alright,” Tom replied.
Doctor Bennet motioned for Tom to move to the makeshift bed. Tom hesitated slightly and then climbed up. The doctor began to retract a cord with a needle attached as Tom watched with wide eyes.
“What are you going to be doing with that, doctor?” Tom asked in a high voice.
“Oh, this?” Doctor Bennet held up the syringe and Tom nodded slightly. “This is just a general vaccine to get rid of any lurking diseases you may have contracted while enjoying your stay here.” The doctor winked, but Tom did not seem to be reassured.
“I could give you something for your nerves, if you’d like,” the doctor seemed genuinely concerned for Tom’s anxiety.
Tom considered the offer for a moment and then accepted with a meek smile. The doctor took a blue pill out from a pocket on his jacket and handed it to Tom. “Chew it,” he said.
Tom did as he was told and laid down on the bed. He noticed that the music seemed to be getting softer, as if he was walking away from wherever the speakers were located. Doctor Bennet waited for a moment and then continued with preparing cords. Tom heard the heart monitor turn on, and the next thing he felt was a slight amount of pressure on his chest. Then Tom was listening to somebody’s heartbeat; his heartbeat, it later occurred to him.
Suddenly Tom felt very heavy and he could no longer hold open his eyes. He saw small spots burst into colour and what he imagined electricity would look like, pulsing behind his eyelids. He turned his head in the direction of where he thought Doctor Bennet might be and mumbled, “Do you ever hear things that aren’t really there?”
Doctor Bennet did not bother to look up, “I’m sorry, what?” He didn’t sound like he was sorry, only mildly amused.
“I really just want to be this warm yellow light that pours over everyone that I love,” Tom was murmuring. He hummed along to the music; he could no longer feel his body.
Suddenly Tom was whisked away to his favourite memory. He was sitting in a grey folding chair, much like the one that he had been formerly occupying, and holding his newborn daughter. Tom was staring at Sara’s tiny fingernails, trying to wrap his head around the idea of a child being brought into the world. He had cradled her in the crook of his arm and pressed her lightly against his chest, so she could feel his heartbeat. Her warm breath was comforting and gave him shivers up and down his spine.
The memory broke and Tom was once again lying on the makeshift metal table. He felt Doctor Bennet’s presence and heard him say something; the meaning of the words was irrelevant, Tom was still aware of what was going to happen next.
Tom could feel the point of the needle puncturing a hole in the skin of his arm, feel the edgeless needle sliding beneath his flesh, feel the liquid being pushed into his vein; he shuddered as his eyes rolled back. The sound of his heartbeat on the monitor sounded horribly high-pitched and Tom felt a consuming pressure in his chest, like he had been filled with quick drying cement.
Abruptly, the whine of Tom’s heartbeat was replaced with a constant, low beep. The classical music was switched off and Doctor Bennet, who had left the small room, reappeared. He rolled Tom’s body onto its stomach and pulled the wallet from the corpse’s pants pocket. The doctor pulled the photograph out of the billfold and looked at it with disappointment. He let the picture slip from his fingers and flutter to the tiled floor. The doctor stared at the door to the room and it opened, as if on cue. A janitor in an orange jumpsuit slinked in, visibly hunched over.
The janitor glanced at Tom’s body and asked, “You let him think he was acquitted, or did ya break the news?”
The doctor scrunched his mouth up, “I did the humane thing, Charlie,” he said grimly.
Charlie said nothing and stood near the doorway, staring at Tom.
Doctor Bennet sighed quietly and walked out of the room, leaving the janitor to dispose of the body.
-APPENDIX-
Speak Easy
Maria Taylor
We'll bathe in rose petals, red
And lie in violet lilac beds
And through the darkness of the night
We'll watch our future shining bright
And out of everyone I've met
It's you I can't forget
And there was a time my heart was aching
Yes there was the day I swore it was breaking
Under a lucky star our love was born brand new
And in the shadows of the night
I'll trace your silhouette in candlelight
And if you fall asleep when you rise
I'll be there to kiss your eyes
And now my heart is in your hand
So baby, understand
And there was a time my heart was aching
Yes there was the day I swore it was breaking
Under a lucky star our love was born brand new
So don't cry, Angel
I will stay the whole night through
Forevermore, I'll be loving you
And there was a time my heart was aching
Yes there was the day I swore it was breaking
Under a lucky star our love was born brand new
So don't cry, Angel
I will stay the whole night through
Forevermore, I'll be loving you
Forevermore, I'll be loving you
Things That Upset Me
• Listening to a skipping CD and not being able to do anything about it (this has yet to happen to me)
• Getting frustrated by a new bag of cereal, pulling it open too hard, and spilling the contents all over the newly swept kitchen floor
• Waking up before the alarm clock goes off and not being able to go back to sleep
• Being talked to condescendingly
• Long division (what was the point in learning it?!)
• When Sara told me she wouldn’t love me anymore unless I got her a pony (she later apologized)
• Getting seated next to a very large person who spills over onto your chair and uses your armrest on planes, buses, trains, trolleys, and in movie theatres.
• Trying to help insects that cannot figure out that they cannot get through glass windows (I always end up killing them or getting stung)
• Falling asleep with my contacts in and waking up with them at the back of my eyes
• Being asked multiple times whether or not I got the memo
• Having no plans and too much time
• Telling a joke and then forgetting the punch line halfway through
• Telling a joke and only getting polite laughter as a response
• “Reality” television shows
• The price of gas
• The president
• Florida, in general
• When taxi cabs refuse to pick you up
• The word colonel