Poison

I see him through the large swarm of people. He stands alone, completely still. His eyes, black, swallow me whole as he stares at me. I can’t move. My heart has frozen over and my blood has turned to ice. He begins to walk towards me. Each step he takes breaks me further. I try to scream out, but no sound leaves my mouth. The ice has spread to my throat. He stops in front of me, so close that I can feel his warm breath on my skin. He opens his mouth to speak.
And the words, like poison, drip from his lips.

I see her through the large swarm of people. She is completely still, her deep blue eyes wild with fear. I could not imagine anything more beautiful. I begin to walk towards her. I can see that she wants to run, to scream for help, but its like she doesn’t know how. A deer caught in the headlights. I stop in front of her. Her long, blonde hair catches in the artificial light and it takes everything in me to resist reaching out and touching it. I open my mouth to speak.
She drinks in my words, cringing as if they were poison.

I see them both through the large swarm of people. They stare at each other across the crowd, both completely still. Their eyes connect, his full of power and hers full of fear. She doesn’t move a muscle as he begins to walk towards her, people parting for him as he does. He stops in front of her, so close that their chests almost touch. He opens his mouth to speak, not breaking eye contact for even a second. Once he has spoken, he receives a small nod of her head in reply, and he laces his arm around her waist possessively. She says nothing as he walks her out of the building.
The last thing I see before the door closes behind them is the curl of his fingers, gripping her side like he’s never going to let go.

Autumn Ghost Story (Draft 2)

Every year since he left, she met him on the platform. Every year her heart swelled when she heard the clicking of the train on the track, bringing her brother home. When she was ten, she had waited for him for the first time. Five years later, on the same day, she stood on the platform, eager for the train to arrive. It was no different from the other four years. Or so she thought.

Juliette was dressed in a thick, navy coat with fluff around the hood. A woolly, brown scarf was wrapped around her neck and she drew it up to her chin as she waited at the station.  A soft exhalation pushed a wisp of breath into the cool air. It was cold outside, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to see Thomas again.

The twenty three year old was a pilot in the air force. Juliette could remember seeing photos of him when he was little, always clutching a toy airplane in his tight, toddler grip. She could remember the mass of plane models he had in his bedroom when he was a teenager, so proud of his collection. And she could remember the beam on his face when he announced that he was becoming a pilot, finally getting to fulfil his dream. These were the images that played in her head as Thomas’s train pulled up in front of her.

The train doors slid open, revealing him standing just behind. He looked exactly the same as the last time she saw him, Juliette thought, he hadn’t changed. His blonde hair formed waves on his head, and she could see the faint freckles on his nose that he had always hated. She only let him take a few steps forward before bounding into his arms, embracing him tightly.

“Hey sis”, he whispered into her ear. A sad expression crossed his face momentarily, before he thought better of it and adopted a smile as she pulled away.

“I’ve missed you”, she replied, looking into his deep blue eyes which had become slightly watery, even through his effort to remain cheerful. A tear of her own escaped and slipped down her cheek. Over Thomas’s shoulder, she saw an old man’s brow furrow in confusion as he watched over the scene. Ignoring him, she grabbed one of Thomas’s icy hands with one of her own, wrapped snugly in a mitten. 

“Shall we go for our walk?” she suggested, already knowing the answer. Whenever he came back, the first thing that the two would do was take a walk down the Crab and Winkle, an old pathway near their house, where trees from both sides grew so large that they loomed over the path, forming a sort of tunnel. It was filled with memories from when they were younger and used to play there every day.

When they reached the Crab and Winkle, Thomas sucked in a breath at the beauty of it. The trees on either side of the trail were just starting to lose their leaves, so although they were mostly still decorated with the vivid oranges and yellows, a thin coat of the colours also lay across the pathway. As they walked together, Juliette told him stories of the year that had passed since he last visited. He chuckled as she told him about when her and her best friend fell into the river during the summer, and pride shone in his eyes as she told him about how well she was doing in school.

“So tell me about your year” she said, once she had finished. Thomas sighed and begun to speak gently.

“Well, about eleven months ago, not long after we went back, there was an incident. The engine on my aircraft blew, and it came crashing down. My entire platoon was in there; forty people. Only eight survived.”

As Juliette listened, more tears threatened to spill over her eyes, and she almost didn’t see the woman with a pushchair who was about to pass by.

The woman came to a halt just in front of her and said “Excuse me, miss, are you all right?”

“She’s fine, aren’t you Julie?” Thomas said, nudging her lightly.

Juliette nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine thank you.”

The woman gave her a sympathetic look. “Are you sure you’ll be okay out here on your own?”

“Um, its fine, I have my brother” Juliette replied after a moment of hesitation.

Thomas let out a heavy breath, and then softly murmured “Come on, Julie, let’s go.”

The woman stood and watched the strange girl continue down the pathway. What had she meant when she said that she had her brother? Maybe he was meeting her soon. Shrugging, she turned away, pushing her pushchair as she continued her walk.

Juliette turned to face Thomas, and spoke quietly. “I can’t believe how close you were to dying.”

“You have no idea”, he replied. Oh, the cruel irony.

“What do you think happened to all those people who died in the accident? Do you think they went to Heaven?” Juliette didn’t really believe in Heaven and Hell, but she wanted some reassurance that they would be in a place with no more suffering.

Thomas hesitated before answering. “Who knows? Perhaps, or maybe they are still roaming this world.”

“You believe in ghosts?” Juliette was surprised; Thomas didn’t seem like the type to believe in anything supernatural.

He shrugged noncommittally. “I believe that you shouldn’t dismiss something as impossible just because it’s improbable.”

“I guess”, she replied.

Later that evening at the station, just before Thomas had to leave again, he held Juliette’s face in both his hands. He looked directly into her eyes as he spoke. “You know I love you more than anything, don’t you, Julie?”

She was taken aback by his sudden outburst, but her heart blossomed with love anyway.

“Of course I do. I love you too, Tom. More than anything.”

He seemed satisfied, and after one last hug, the train pulled up to the platform. The doors opened and he stepped onto the train, turning to face Juliette once he was inside. He blew her a kiss, which she pretended to catch, and caught the one that she blew to him.

Juliette didn’t like to watch him pull away again so she left before the train set off. Her brown boots shuffled the few leaves that were scattered on the floor, and the slight evening breeze fanned her hair out behind her.

Thomas stepped out of the train again just before it could depart. He watched Juliette from the platform as she walked away; almost unable to believe how much she had grown up in only one year. There was a regretful look in his eyes and a lump in his throat, which he tried to swallow. Once she was out of his sight, he shifted his vision to the station. It was a beautiful building; one that he had always loved. The red bricks seemed to catch on fire in the light of the setting sun. He watched the birds that flew over his head, he watched the wild rabbits that moved at the side of the track, and he watched the sun as it slowly sunk downwards. He watched it all; capturing a mental image, so that he would never forget what life looked like.

He suddenly adopted a look of acceptance, his lips curling into a small, sad smile.

It was only once he closed his eyes that he faded into nothing.

Writing Journal- 1/12/13

This week I have been writing my ‘Autumn Ghost Story’, and also another piece.

For my ghost story, I wanted to have a character that was a ghost, but could only be seen by the other main character, who didn’t know that they were a ghost. I came up with the idea of having them as brother and sister; Thomas and Juliette. I found it quite hard because I needed to think of an idea that meant that other people wouldn’t have to interact with Thomas on a regular basis in front of Juliette. For example, if Thomas lived at home then it would be difficult to make the story work because she would notice if Thomas never interacted with their parents. In solution to this, I decided that Thomas could be in the military, and that he only came back to visit Juliette for one day each year, as he didn’t get on with their parents. I don’t think that my story really has the creepy feel of a ghost story to it, but it is still a story about a ghost, so I hope that still counts.  I also hope that it is clear, at the end of the story, about the fact that Thomas is a ghost. This was a worry of mine, because I didn’t want to spell out the he was a ghost, but had to try and write it so that it wasn’t so vague that the reader couldn’t understand.

The other piece that I have been writing started off as just a random, small paragraph because I was bored. I wanted to continue it, but didn’t know how to continue the story and so I wrote another paragraph, the same story but from the other characters point of you. I was pleased with the way that it turned out, so I decided to write one more paragraph, from an onlooker’s point of you. I like the way it turned out, and I will be putting it on my blog too so that I can hopefully get some feedback on it.

My quote of the week:

“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever.”- Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins.

After seeing Catching Fire at the cinema (twice!), I decided to re-read the series. I have read The Hunger Games series many times; I love it, but seeing the film adaption of the second book really made me wanted to read them again. When I came across this part in the book, it reminded me of Thomas in my ghost story, and how that is what he wanted. He needed the closure of seeing Juliette one more time before he could pass on. He would do anything to freeze that moment and live in it forever, but he knows that he has to move on. 

Sonnet- Jam Sandwich

A slice of bread is how I must begin,

So soft, so sweet, so lovely in its prime,

A jar of jam comes next, my knife goes in,

I spread it now; the lumps are past their time.

My stomach makes a hungry growl for food,

I place another slice of bread on top,

But once it’s done, I am not in the mood,

My appetites no more and so I stop.

My elbow hits the jar and time slows down,

The glass, it smashes as it hits the floor,

In comes my mum, she wears a nasty frown,

She sees the jam, retreats, and slams the door.

An abandoned sandwich and splattered tiles,

No more making sandwiches for a while.

Writing Journal- 17/11/13

This week I have been concentrating on two pieces; The Awakening Conscience and the one hundred word short story for the competition.

The Awakening Conscience:

I really enjoyed this task. After studying the painting as a group, and discussing the different ways we could approach the task of writing an 800 word story about it, I was excited about getting started. I knew that I wanted to take the approach of writing from the piano’s point of view, as I found the idea interesting and wanted to explore the idea that the woman in the painting was what eventually ended the piano. I am pleased with the way that my piece turned out, and with the feedback I received for it. There were some minor criticisms about a few choices of words, but I have now changed them.

One Hundred Word Short Story:

After completely changing my idea, I am now much happier with my story than I was with the first. I hadn’t originally come up with the entire idea when I started to write it, it came to me as I started describing a girl. It took me quite a while to manage to get it down to 100 words exactly, but I did it.

I want to explain my thoughts behind my short story, so I will do that here. In the original version, I wrote about how the girl almost couldn’t bring herself to tear her gaze from the other girl’s eyes, because they contained so much sadness. As the other girl is actually her own reflection, this was reflecting how she was staring into her own eyes, as if she wasn’t sure whether she could actually bring herself to move her hand and slit her throat until she eventually looked away and just did it. Also, as well as to create the twist, I wrote it as if she was describing another girl for a reason. This was because she was in a bad place, and in order to be able to bring herself to be the cause of her own death, she had to detach herself from the situation. If she pretended that the person she could see in the mirror was someone else, then it wouldn’t seem as real or as scary.

My quote of the week:

“Home isn't a place, its a feeling”- Where Rainbows End, by Cecelia Ahern

I read this book this week, and when I came across this line, it got stuck in my head. I was thinking about this when I wrote my one hundred word story, because for my character even when she is looking right at herself, she cannot find any sense of ‘home’.  

One Hundred Word Story 2

After re-reading my piece to enter into the competition, I decided that I didn't want to use that idea, and so I have written another one. The original version of it that I created was longer with more description, but went much too far over the word limit. After a lot of cutting down and re-wording,  I finally got it to exactly 100 words:

She stands alone, staring at me through the glass. A shapeless dress hangs to her scrawny knees. Her right hand is by her side, her left behind her back. Sadness shines in her eyes as she slowly exposes it. Her bony fingers clutch a long knife.

In one gradual movement, she draws it across her throat, blood smearing the blade as it seeps from the wound.

Feeling a sharp sting at my own throat, I touch it. Thick, dark liquid stains my hand. My knees buckle and I crash forwards into the glass dividing us.

The mirror shatters around me.