Missknee's Blog

Stubs

Some short pieces produced in my writing class this term. They are far from earth shattering, but they seem like a nice way to start blogging again.

This first piece was an exercise in which we were not allowed to use adverbs and adjectives:

She stepped lower to the landing, the carpet scratched against the soles of her feet. Her hand lingered on the banister, and she shifted her weight, swinging round to the next set of stairs. In the hallway a parcel hung through the door. She had not been expecting anything. She opened the parcel at the kitchen table. It contained a photograph in a frame, a toy and a whistle. She pushed them around the table until they sat in size order on the wood. The toy was an alligator, she wound it up and pinched its stomach as it walked and snapped. It petered out. She stood and reached to switch on the radio. The sound of laughte r filled the kitchen. On the table the alligator lay on its back. She sat and sipped at her tea. A corner of paper poked from the parcel remnants, she slid it across the table and read the pencil marks that had been scrawled across it. It said it was sorry, that it hadn’t known what to do with these things. That they belonged to someone else but this was the address in the book that had stood out. It wasn’t signed. She picked up the photo frame. The reflection of light from the window slid across the glass. Finger prints appeared like an oil slick. It was a photo of her.

 

 

Another piece, another week:

A Note

The paper he received the message on was ordinary. It was bleached, white paper, sharp cornered and concertinaed up to fit inside the brown envelope. It was the writing that made the hairs on his forearms prickle. Not the message, per se, but the size and placement of the letters.

‘The cafe on the corner of Lexington Street and Highgate Road. 12 noon. April 5^th.’

It was in the exact middle of the sheet, in a tiny, neat handwriting. There were no rubbed out pencil markings that might have been used for reference, or mistakes in the sentence. The regimented and level capitals, all though quite definitely hand-written, could have been printed. The ‘t’ was no bigger than the nib of his biro. He tried to copy the writing. After four sheets of paper and a wasted half hour, he gave up.  It was impossible to recreate such perfection. What kind of person could have written such a note? They must be a master of art. Or perhaps a painter of miniatures. Whoever it was, they were either a calligraphic protégé or, more worryingly, possessed such a calculating mind, that this note could be produced at a moment’s glance.

He felt the bile rise in his throat. When he had sat at his office desk that morning he could not have known the danger he faced as he began gutting envelopes. He had wielded his thumb like a knife, carelessly and callously through bills and documents. Until this. He pushed the shorn envelopes across the desk and pressed his forehead against the cool surface of his mouse mat. He would have to go. Shit.

 

And a short section of a longer piece we produced:

“Nice boots.” The beady-eyed man across the table was staring at me. He nodded pointedly at my feet.

“Thank you.” I turned a page in the free rail magazine. A woman in a yellow dress laughed vapidly up at me from the picture. It was an advert for women suffering from slight incontinence. She didn’t look incontinent, but then you never can tell.

“When did you go?” said the man. He was persistent.

“What?” I knitted my eyebrows together.

“Your wristband, Glastonbury, isn’t it?” As he said it he clicked his lighter repetitively. It was out of gas.

“Yeah.”

The conversation limped on, and I stared blankly around. The man on the other side of the aisle was sat in a pleasurable silence, I glared at him. No one was trying to talk to him. This was the last time I wore these boots, next time I would wear a suit and loafers. I nodded in response to something the man had said, he was leaning forward in his seat and tapping his finger on the table. It was plump and round. I averted my eyes from it. The city outside the window was composed of lines of derelict warehouses and tagged concrete walls.

He said something about the toilets at Glastonbury. “They are pretty horrible,” I replied, trying not to think of the smell of port-a-loos on a hot day.

“That’s nothing compared to Iraq.”

I half snorted, but he was definitely in earnest. He looked at me seriously, “It’s hell out there.”

“How do you know?” Shit, I was being rude. “I mean, have you been?” I pointed at his khaki army trousers. He shuffled his bum up the seat until he was sat up straight.

“It was on the news: ITV special report. It’s worse than hell. There’s bodies everywhere.”

I put my face in my hands. I was changing in an hour and twenty minutes. That was too long, I had to get out of there. “Would you keep an eye on my seat? I’ve got to pop to the buffet carriage.” He nodded, and I slid out and away from his tapping fingers and sideways glances.

I dawdled up the aisle. Double vision had kicked in and the only way I could stay up straight was to walk my arms along the tops of the seats. There wasn’t much movement in the carriages. The occasional turn of a newspaper page. A woman talking loudly on her phone. A line of swaying people outside the toilet. When I reached the buffet, the counter was deserted and the cabinets empty. My stomach growled and I hung around for a few minutes, hoping to waste some time. The train pulled in at a station, no one got on, it pulled away. I had only ever seen this town from a train, and it was soon out of a sight. Newton Abbot. No, thank you.

When I reached my seat only the man’s beret remained. Either he had been swept away by ITV special reporters for further insights into the Iraq war, or he was in the bathroom. I carefully checked the bag I had left for bombs or faecal matter. Then I rolled up my jumper and leaned on the window, feigning sleep.

The man came back, I could hear him tapping and clicking. I kept my eyes shut. It was a game of sleeping lions. He got off at Taunton, no surprises there. He saw me staring at him as the train pulled away, he moved to wave at me, or swear. I’m not sure which. The train got faster and faster until we were overtaking cars on roads, and a shower of rain slid horizontally along the window.

Today’s efforts (very rough):

I came through the lobby into the bar, my shoes slipping off my heels at every step. I was desperate for a drink and some company. The room was all mahogany and green silk, as if the designer had taken inspiration from illustrations of Victorian gentlemen’s clubs. It all looked flat. I wasn’t sure if it was the oppressive lighting caused by the heavy drapery or the dressing over my left eye. I stood for a few seconds in the doorway, turning my head slowly so I could take in the whole room. There were lounge chairs and low tables scattered in pockets around a central parade to the dining room. People in evening wear milled around, gathering to drink and chatter before dinner. The only places left to sit were the stools at the other end of the bar, so I crossed the room towards it. A waiter brushed past me, spinning a tray between his hands, the reflection from the chandelier blinded my eye for a second. I swayed on the spot, feeling the rush of air touch my bare arm. The hairs bristled and prickled. And I turned my head and peered past my nose to where he approached a large group of people. He said something and they all rose, turning their bodies towards me as they made their way to the dining room. I stood still under the chandelier as they pushed past me, wondering if I should take their table. I turned back to the bar. The room felt longer than it had first seemed, and someone walked over the floor above the chandelier. If there hadn’t been a lull in the conversation as well as the piano music coming from the hall I would have missed it. The chandelier tinkling with each footstep. I stared up at the dusty pendants, my eye straining against the muscles in it’s socket. Someone passed me and my eye began to water. I swept away the tear, I didn’t want them to think I was crying.