Open Mic

They stare up with their naked faces and observe the long-haired, round-faced young woman, her hands shaking with nerves, shuffling through pages, squinting through the bright stage lights and sweating under their heat. The expressionless faces waiting to be encouraged this way or that, a frown, a smile, a gasp, a giggle, a tear; just one will do; it will make the multitude that the young woman has poured over her paragraphs seem a little less useless. All they want is content. Coherent content that they can soak up and process, through those brains, between those ears, behind those eyes; that glare up with so much focus; gazing through the young woman’s naked soul.

A pair of lungs get cleared and the sound echoes and rumbles through the room, deafening for the young woman, inaudible to the audience.

She lowers her focus to the pages that she shuffles through her hands and she tries to think. She knows what she must do. She must deliver herself from this moment of stomach wrenching pause. She must transport the audience away from reality. She must bring them on the journey that she once traveled in a dream life. She must show them the butterfly effect that caused these organised smudges to form letters, that formed words, that now crawl from her mouth, and grow wings, and flutter through the air, and perch on each of the ears in the room.

For a moment, they smile; a momentary indication of delight at the sight of words that metamorphose. But this pretty exhibition of pixie magic is not enough to satisfy their demonic appetites as they grab the butterflies from above their ears shove them between their teeth and munch on them like dragons on horse bones, preferring to feed on the girl’s pain and labour than to gaze upon her creations with awe.

She returns from her pages to the polite applause of the audience, their facial expressions still unstirred, no smiles, no frowns, no tears; not one. She descends from the stage and returns to her seat amongst her demons.

It was the content. It was too sweet. She shouldn’t have sugar coated the butterflies. It’s a lesson learnt and another dagger through her heart. That doesn’t matter now. It’s her turn to throw the daggers.

To Do

1. Wake Up

-ongoing

2. Get out of bed

-check

3. Get dressed

-check

4. Eat breakfast

-check

5. Solve the mysteries of life

-ongoing

6. Achieve eternal happiness

-ongoing

7. Write easier ‘to do’ list

–

8. Fail to complete new ‘easier to do’ list

–

9. Write another new list

–

Dinner

The bus nudged it’s passengers from side to side as it rapidly navigated through the sharp, narrow roads of the town. A curious old lady sat in one of the reserved front seats. She leaned her head to a side to better observe the contents of the pink plastic shopping bag that dangled in front of her. At first she thought it was some sort of white cuddly toy. But when she took her spectacles from around her neck and perched them on her nose the image came into focus and she saw it move. The bag was slung over a boy’s shoulder, the handles of the bag in one of his hands, a bus pole in the other. A head protruded from the top of the bag and returned the old lady’s curious glances with bright eyes, twitching whiskers and it’s long ears standing to attention. She looked and smiled at the boy and leaned forward in her seat to touch and feel the soft, white ears.

‘Is this your rabbit?’ she asks the boy, ‘he’s very pretty!’

‘Yeah. This is Dinner.’ the boy replies.

The old lady sits back in her seat, her expression of charmed admiration, slipped into confusion, to disgust, and back to confusion. The boy pushed the button on the pole and hopped off the bus.

He skipped along the footpath with Dinner swaying from side to side over his shoulder until he got to Lucy and Ciara‘s house. He knocked on the door and Lucy came out and lead him through the house to the tiny back garden where a box, smashed together with bits of old, white-painted, skirting boards and chicken wire, housed another black and white bunny. Ciara, the younger of the two girls stands over it, dropping pellets of rabbit food through the wire.

‘Is that her?’ the boy asks.

‘That’s her.’ Ciara says as she throws herself to her knees and removes the stone that keeps the door closed. She stretches an arm in and rummages after the bunny, trying to avoid getting her wool jumper caught in the stray, rusty nails that protrude within. She grabs her by a hind leg and lifts her from the box as she squirms to free herself from her grasp. She drops her on the grass and she scurries a couple of steps into space.

‘Isn’t she the coolest rabbit you ever saw?’ Ciara asks.

‘Dinner is cool too!’ the boy reacts. ‘What did you name it?’

‘Brittany. After Brittany Spears’ Lucy replies with pride.

‘Brittany the bunny… I like it.’ the boy says.

‘We can call one of the babies Brinner.’ Ciara shouts as she chases Brittany around the lawn, trying to gather the evasive bunny up into her arms so she can hold it and give it love.

‘Or Brunch.’ the boy adds.

‘Why would you call it Brunch? That doesn’t make any sense.’ Ciara reprimands, tired now from her futile attempt to catch the rabbit.

The boy shrugs his shoulders and lowers the plastic bag to the ground and releases Dinner.

Dinner immediately mounts Brittany and begins trusting quickly.

‘Should we give them some privacy?’ Lucy asks.

---

‘Maybe they escaped!’ Ciara says when the boy returned a month later. He was confused. Lucy had told him at school that day that Brittany was after having little bunny babies that morning. The three of them stood over the box, bewildered by the absence of the bunny babies.

‘They might have squeezed through the tiny holes in the wire and ran away.’

They turned the little back garden upside down searching for them, checking every bush, shrub, flower and blade of grass but to no avail.

The next day they found little bones in Brittany’s poo.

A Quick Nap

His eye lids are heavy. He can’t keep them open. His neck goes limp and his eyes blink hard. He straightens himself. He can feel the air around his eyeballs. His head begins to move in circles. Around and around. He tries to fight it, but Nature rolls his eyes back into his brain and commands him to sleep. Finally, his head rests down on the keyboard and a string of drool stretches for the letter ‘k’.

Now he’s bidding at an auction. He bids five hundred on an old sega mega drive game that reminds him of his youth.  He is outbid. He bids again. This time six hundred on a set of first edition ‘Sherlock Holmes’ books. Again, he is outbid. He keeps bidding but someone keeps outbidding him. He remembers that he might have to wait three to five days for delivery and decides he can’t wait.

Now he’s at a zoo in China looking at a panda and her cub. The cub sneezes and gives the mother a little fright. He captures the moment. He takes the moment to Australia and shows it to some friends there. They like it. He takes it to America and shows it to some friends there. They like it. He then takes it home and shows it to some friends there. They like it too. It quickly becomes stale. So he stops.

Now he is at the races. He reads all the form on all the horses and he knows what the outcome of all the races will be. He places his bet. He bets on five horses in an accumulator. They all win. He wins a lot of money but not enough to retire. So he puts all his winnings on a horse in another race. That horse falls, breaks a leg and is shot. He loses his winnings.

Now he is in Vegas playing Texas hold ‘em. He gets pocket aces. He moves all in. He gets called. His opponent has pocket kings. The flop has an ace. He is winning. The turn is a king. He’s still winning. The river is another king. He loses. His opponent takes all his chips, all his money and all his pride.

Now he is in the company of a woman. A beautiful woman, who begins to undress. While she is undressing a second woman walks in. She too begins to undress. While she is undressing a third woman walks in. She too begins to undress; And then another; And then another; And then another…

He opens his eyes. He lifts his head. He feels the print that the keyboard left on his face. He observes the long squabble of letters, numbers and symbols on the screen. He wipes away the drool. He stretches his neck and back and sits upright. He cracks his knuckles.

Then he bids.

Louise vs Kate

This is another little one from the writing class. It’s a continuation of sorts from Kate vs Louise. (You can read that here if you want but you don’t need to though). I switched from the third person to the first person. It’s a little more abstract too! Any feedback welcome. Thanks!

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A seagull circled over our heads a number of times before descending and landing next to us.

“Get away from my fish” he squawked at us. We looked at each other.

“Go on… Shoo!” he cawed.

‘Is that a talking seagull?’ Louise asked, disbelief in her tone.

‘Go on! Get out of here you dirty rotten humans. Caw Caw!’ he continued, getting more agitated in his gait.

“It’s an extremely rude talking seagull too…” I replied.

A fish peeped its head out of the water.

“Hey!!… Smelly-ass” he shouted.

The seagull’s attention was drawn away from us, cocking his head towards the fish.

“Ha ha! You looked. How did you know I was calling you? You must have a smelly-poopy-bum!”

The bird shuffled awkwardly into flight, fumbling over himself in his rage. The fish turned and swam with the seagull hot on his heels… (or gills… or fins… or the underwater equivalent to heels…. Tail!… That’s it).

“Squawk, squawk, squawk…. you little fish sh*t…. When I catch you I’m going to gut you like a…”

The fish piddled and paddled and dipped and dived out of the birds reach whilst laughing his little fish ass off.

That excitement faded into the distance and then it was just the two of us on an empty beach.

The beach is the same. It’s the same as any other beach. It’s where the water meets the land. Sometimes they come together and gently caress and kiss and touch and rub each other. But sometimes the water beats the land, engulfs it and engorges it. The seasons change as swiftly and easily as our own human nature. From calm to rage, rage to turmoil, turmoil to mourning, mourning to peace and back again to calm… And now I am rambling.

If Louise could hear me I’m sure she would say something to bring me back to reality. Something like “Will you shut the f*ck up!” or “Stop making mountains out of piles of dog poo! The sea is the sea and the beach is the beach.” Then we would laugh and go and get ice cream.

But there’s nowhere to get ice cream around here. It’s too cold for ice cream anyway. Even if I could get ice cream, I’d have no-one to share it with. I imagined Louise. She doesn’t exist. I imagined the fish. The seagull was real but he doesn’t talk. He’s beside me pulling out of a banana skin. Is the banana skin real? Louise will know. Where did she go?

I look around for Louise and see the fish peeping out of the water again. “You are so crazy…” he says as he splashes at me.

“You’re so crazy that you have to talk to a fish to help you decipher what is real and what is not…. Do you know how crazy that is?”

“But the seagull was busy eating the banana skin.” I replied.

“Kate… Kate… Katie?… Kathleen??? Hello?”

Louise’s urgings signaled my time to return to the real world.

We were on the beach. “What kind of ice cream are you getting?”

Kate vs Louise

This is another piece from the writing class I did. For this one we were asked to set it on a beach, use plenty of dialogue and write it in the third person. Please feel free to offer feedback.

Also… beware of the strong language.

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Kate vs Louise

 

Louise was speaking but Kate couldn’t hear her.

A white noise washed over her. She gazed… She gazed so far she left her eyes and wandered into her mind and into another world. Here she was safe and content. Every sensation she ever felt before was here.

She remembered the feeling she used to get when she was just a girl. The flutter in her core caused by thinking about a boy. What she could only describe back then as an explosion of love. Her first euphoric feeling. Time robbed her of that feeling though. Now she merely basked in its shadow, gazing up at the immensity of what it once was.

“Kate… Kate… Katie?… Kathleen??? Hello?”

Louise’s urgings signalled her time to return to the real world. They were on the beach.

Kate had always found that going to the beach was a very practical solution to a weekend. It was a nice balance between doing something to pass the time, whilst at the same time, doing absolutely nothing. It fills a void in time and fills the void in her head and she had a huge void in her head today. The last she remembered of the night before was the drugs. Euphoria, minced with amnesia, minced with regret. She was glad to be here now.

“Sorry, my mind was wandering… say that again?”

“Are you going to meet up with him again? That guy you were with… He seemed nice.”

Kate took a moment to recollect but failed to do so.

“I don’t think so.” she replied, strategically covering up her memory lapse.

---

That’s where Louise interjected.

“This story is boring…. There’s too much feeling in it and hardly any action, humour or suspense. Kate thinks this… Kate feels that… Meh meh meh”

“Oh I’m sorry… I’m sorry my writing doesn’t live up to your incredible standards.” Kate retorted.

“The girl who used to throw dog poo at me is now critiquing my work. Please, tell me how you would write it so.”

“Fine… I will!”

---

Kate was dying!…

She was out three nights in a row now and simply looking at the sea was making her seasick. Louise had been out with her each of those nights but she was still fresh enough and ready to do it all again. ‘Stay in the game as long as you can…’ that was their motto and while they still had money they would do just that.

So, there they were, standing on the beach, nursing hangovers, when a zombie rose out of the sea and limped towards them.

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“A zombie… Really? A zombie?” Kate interrupted.

“Yeah…! A zombie…”

“That’s fucking stupid!”

“No its not… You’re fucking stupid with your stupid fancy emotional shit!… Ooooh, my heart broke in two and the dog ate one half and the cat the other as a symbol of the unfixable heart that I once had when I was dreaming one night in my dreams…”

“Will we go get ice cream?”

“Yeah, go on…!”