The original opening paragraph to Swimming in your Soul (Part 2) followed by three optional rewrites. We may see more, for the sake of play, for the sake of slapping myself, for the sake of drowning my pain in words.
Kyra moved to the left side of Kieran’s bed. Rog moved to the right. The room felt cold, looked cold, was cold. White sheets, silver metal and the lonely smell of medication greeted the pair. Kyra resisted the thought, the association of that smell with death.
1. Glow. The room glowed the way dreams glow, a Gaussian blur smoothing edges beyond reach. In the center of the room, his bed floated, silence suffocating, thick as humid, a pall, undertaker irrevocable. I moved left, Rog right. We stood, looking like tongueless giants, our feet rooted to the floor of a world forsaken. Us or him, I suppose, much didn't matter.
2. White sheets, silver metal and the medicated smell of death assaulted spinctered nostrils, Kyra to the left, Rog to the right. Kieran's bed, slab still and midnight silent, floated. Kieran did not; his marble visage sheening not of life, not of any damn thing good. Cold, cold so cold it burned, birthed in the vacated residence of hope, a vacuum, expanding under the heart, hoarfrost racing the insipid horary, turning crimson indigo.
3. Between this world and the next is a smell, sui generis, stiletto sharp. It leaves a stain on memory, indelible, palimpsestic, vestigical eidolons haunting the halls of mind, waiting, seeking to connect what is two back into one.
I kept looking from Kieran to Rog, from pale to weathered, from death to life. I thought of papa and of all he had taught, of promises rendered, of change in my pocket, of standing before the cashier wondering if I could pay for my desire, wondering if I had stepped outside the flow and into the eddy of selfishness, if the spinning was of my own making, a mistake of youth, of inexperience, of wanting to hold on to that which could not be held.
Under a piebald sky, I stood as a diver on the edge of a cliff, the heights higher than I had ever dived. The wind felt cold and my skin pebbled, taut like dry leather. I felt my eyes ache in the dry air and my hair stiffened like straw, brittle. Blood rushed to my heart leaving me dizzy, my chest thumping and pounding, the feeling as if I were hammered from the inside, each blow more urgent than the one before. I couldn't not dive. I couldn't live with the what if.
On a different note, below is the opening of a new chapter that is stuck in my throat like a hairball. So I'm coughing it up. Feel free to sweep it away.
Water lapped his toes. Warm. Endless openness. With a single incision, he opened his chest. With a solitary reach, he removed his heart. Held forth, the instrument of bottomless pain, black as pitch, burning his hands like ice, damned as angels bowed before pride and greed, the sword of ambition upon their burning shoulders.
18 comments:
Please don't sweep this away. The water, the incision, the pain, the release - all so evocative. If it needs changes then let it call them on, but don't let it be swept away.
Molly, I think, sooner or later, this chapter will bloom. The subject is John, who is still struggling with the rape and murder of his wife, which he witnessed, helpless to stop it, feeling as if he were the cause. The scene I envision is John, with his daughter Ariel by the sea. John feels his black heart is just not healing and, in fact, may just be getting blacker and blacker, like a black hole consuming itself. He fears for Ariel, for what she might see of him when he cannot control the horrors that live within him. This scene was to be a dream and also in the dream is the song "Be Like the Sea" by Cathie Ryan. Here are the first couple of verses. Who is singing this in his dream is not clear:
It matters nothing what they did to you
The storm is over, the wreckage through
Leave them in your wake, no more for you to take
Be like the sea
If it hurts your heart, cast it up on the shore
Let it go forever, ceart go leor
Wash away the sorrow, the tears of no tomorrow
Be like the sea
The sea, the sea, dive with me
We'll lose these rags we're wearing and be
Like the sea, the sea, wild and free
We'll swim out past the longing so deep
So, that is the basic idea. Execution eludes me. Time will fix that problem. :-D
Thanks for the kind words. You've busted your commenting cherry at DT. :-)
This is so raw... and beautifully vivid. The depth is so clearly vast and it promised much more to come, more introspection and growth and pain and beauty. I'm impressed, can you tell?
Like the nocturnal scene of late, there is such appreciation that these came to be seen.:-) The original was and is marvellous. The movements of the pair of them coming first, one punctuated sentence at a time, to either side of the bed, the emphasis placed on cold, the individual impressions all leading to Kyra's and mirrored in the reader's unwelcome thought. Cleverly done. The two re-writes however...equally impressive. I love way one opens, the silence as it is described, tongueless giants, feet rooted and the world forsaken. In two the part about Kieran's visage has a very high wow-factor, cold that burns too and it all. All three overflow with the same sense of foreboding, grip with the same sense of fear, of knowing what is up ahead, of having no influence, no control, of being able to do nothing but watch as fate, life, death, plays its hand.
And that is one helluva opener you have got going on there at the end. It begins so soothingly, from the very first word and first sentence, it could have lead to Valla, or the beach (Interview with Kyra) or to the Village (Trev and Em) or something else entirely, something warm as the water lapping, thus what comes next is for the surprise all the more glaring and dramatic, and upsetting. Sad.
What you describe in your comment is heartbreaking. When the time comes, we'll not be any more ready for knowing what was coming. Like Kyra.
Beautiful swimming-in-your-soul image.
Welcome home, x
Three for sui generis, stiletto sharp alone I adore and delight, for so many more reasons too. Halls of the mind, enough change to pay for desire, pebbled skin and looking from death to life and I couldn't not, Piebald sky too. Inspired, innovative. In awe.
Awe is good. On your knees is better. Bent over a bale of hay in the matutinal loft of an old barn would be best. :-D
:-D What else can I do but nod in agreement.
JRM, I was impressed from the first HNT pic. Nice to see your taut belly stopping by. I want to run my fingers over it like a washboard but it's not your cloths I want to clean.
"a Gaussian blur smoothing edges beyond reach."
from this everything unfolds effortlessly, like fresh sheets just hung on the line and caught by the first afternoon winds when the heat from earth begins to mingle with a coming evening.
Like this it was subtle, inevitable, light and all in the original, though the rewrites were beautiful as well.
Thank you Blue. I'm never completely happy with much of anything I write and the ache to rewrite is ever present; and a luxury I seldom indulge. Nice to have you looking over my shoulder. Kind words always appreciated. :-)
Equally astounding each time your writing reveals it, that image and audio are of even quality, that when I and others speak of poetry it has as much to do with sound and it does with the imagery that you have the ability to create. One can feel the sizzle and hear the grimace, and as one reads it has a distinct onomatopoeic quality that gives each word taste, speaking here mostly of the second paragraph, how like vapours they seem to beset. How else to say it other than that it is absolutely awesome how much flair you show in your choosing. How your writing consumes. On two levels, at least two, what you describe and how you describe it. Each word echoes. Sensational piece of writing, underlined, in caps, bold font and with an exclamation mark.
Had to stop. Resisted thought and undertaker irrevocable. Love the imagery here. The idea of being able to resist what crosses our mind, to learn that would be an amazing accomplishment. And the finality of undertaker irrevocable. Not a common phrase but you could use that in a conversation and the person that you were talking to would get it immediately.
going back to read...maybe I will make it further this time? :)
Jen, about five years ago I crashed on my bike. Not an ordinary crash but the kind that, in the time of a snap of fingers, could have and would have ended my life. A silly accident. I was trying to set a new downhill speed record, lost control on a curve and ended up in the hospital--twice.
I have a respect for the finality of death that I did not have before. Hard to explain. Sometimes you have to die in order to live.
Like holding your child in the emergency room, seeing the look on the nurses face, and knowing at that moment, everything that is ordered in your heart could explode and not go back together the same way? A fear that makes you live differently. Live harder, because that fear exists.
You are still riding, inspite of that terrible accident. So it didn't kill you, and made you stronger. And weaker at the same time. That phrase has always bugged me a bit...
Jen
Jen, that's it. You've been there.
I still ride. Not the same. Then again I'm not the same person. I'll probably live longer for it too. :-D
Well thank goodness for that. Longer life = more Story time for me.
Going to listen to you now!
Cause it is there.
And will answer my question.
*blushing and grinning*
Jen, thanks for taking the time and making the effort to listen to the audio. Such dedication. I'm impressed. :-D
This is just amazing.
Oh cool picture, too.
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