Gettin Creative
I found some people who get together every Sunday and share their creative writing. Each week has a different prompt; this week's was superheroes or super powers. I decided to take the concept of a super power to a more darker realm. This is the story I wrote. Comments and constructive criticism welcome!
“I’m so sorry Janice. I’m sick. I’ve been sick for a while.”
She winced dully at his words, too tired to move from her half-fetal sprawl on the passenger seat. Her long brown hair, unkempt and tattered from neglect, attempted to hide her lifeless expression. She tried to open her mouth to respond, but couldn’t. She could only stare.
It’s been days since she had slept. Or had it been weeks? It was all blurred together. The days and hours and minutes and seconds, all one long intoxicating escapade. What time was it now? She couldn’t know. Time had become merely a concept, an idea outside her vision. Her only vision was him. This man. This man sitting next to her in his utterly normal style, looking hurtfully at her as if he had done something wrong, as if he had done it again, again and again and again, whatever it is that he had done.
She crept her hand toward his, determined to feel his flesh once more. The tiny black hairs permeating his arm stood on end, as if anticipating something. But it was too much. All she could do was let her skeleton hand fall softly on the parking break beside her. All she could do was look into his eyes, those great big green eyes and short jet black hair and round, beautiful face, all features she both loved and despaired over. She wanted to kiss him and fall into a dream once more. But it was gone. She was gone. Her eyes closed forever.
The man exhaled slowly. His hands gripped the steering wheel, white-knuckled in uneasiness for the thing he had done. He had done it again, this romance of his. And now he had to do another thing. He reached under his seat and popped open the trunk.
Digging a grave was nothing new. It was a simple affair and always had been. He wrapped her in a plain white sheet, dug six to eight feet, laid her in, and said a prayer. He wasn’t a religious man, but he said a prayer. It seemed like the only decent thing he could do.
The night sky was dark, black and starry over a dusty windswept nothingness of desert. He lit a cigarette against a chilling breeze and looked out into the great quiet around him. He liked these moments, these moments post-grave digging. It gave him a chance to reflect and, perhaps, hopefully, change.
“I could go away for a while,” he thought. “I could go away and be by myself and not hurt anyone anymore.”
But this was a fantasy. It had been done. Over and over and over again, it had been done. Hundreds of years of voluntary solitude, locked up and shut-in, all contact with the outside world erased with a wish to simply die. Why couldn’t he die? Why couldn’t he just lie in the Earth like poor, poor Janice, and just be nothing? He wanted to be nothing. Or, above all else, be a normal human being.
He looked at his ageless hands, hands dirtied from grave-digging. When can I die? It was a question he habitually asked himself. This thing he had, this sickness, it was a plague. It was a madness that consumed everyone he stayed in contact with. Male and female, all perished at his altar of obsession. He deserved to die. He was not of this world and never had been, and he deserved to die.
He stared down at the dusty desert mound that was once Janice. It was a simple mound, a mound like any other mound dug hundreds of times before. A dime a dozen, these crumbly and temporary mounds. Not particularly special, nor intoxicating or ecstatic. Just another mound in a quiet desert.
He reached a decision about what to do next. He will go home. He will rot in front of a TV for a few weeks. He will attempt suicide, and fail. Then he will get lonely and meet someone new.
Maybe next time it will be different, he thought. Maybe next time,she’ll stick around and not be another mound. Maybe next time will be the last time. Maybe, he thought, maybe next time I’ll be the mound.
*************************************************************
He always liked Vegas. There have been many Vegases in his lifetime, but this particular Vegas especially suited him. The lights and sounds attracted him like a moth, a blur of distraction to dull his sense of things. But, best of all, the people here were temporary. And temporary was the only relationship he was capable of.
Caesar’s Palace. It reminded him of happier days, days of gods and god-worshipping. He wasn’t so conflicted back then. When people died, they called it ecstasy. It was worship, to die like Janice did. It honored the people to be in the presence of such seductive power.
There were many bars in Caesar’s Palace. He usually went to The Dionysus, but decided on a different joint, The Lady Luck. He wore a hand-me-down collared shirt and matching pants, just formal enough to pass dress code. Sitting at the bar, he ordered his usual rum-on-the-rocks and waited.
His figure was not particularly striking. He did not attempt to mingle or serenade; he had a rule against such wooing. He thought him choosing a woman to be unfair; it upset some mythical balance of power, him deciding who lives and who dies. It comforted him to put some of the blame on fate. Ultimately, it was fate that killed them, not him.
A group in the north corner of the bar shouted excitedly at a TV screen. They had won a great deal of money and were eager to show it. The men in the group gave each other high-fives, the veins in their necks bulging with excitement as they took a celebratory chug of their beers. The women chattered excitedly amongst themselves, sipping cocktails and other colorful drinks.
A pair of soft brown eyes stared at him from amongst the group. She was smiling, happy with her friends but distracted by his presence. As she got up to walk towards the bar, he remained withdrawn. Fate, he told himself. Fate will kill this woman.
“Nice place, huh?”
She sat down next to him, casually raising her hand for the bartender.
“Pretty nice, yeah.”
She ordered a fancy mix drink, something he wasn’t familiar with nor cared to be familiar with. He always liked simple drinks, drinks that reminded you of its bite and its true intentions. I’m here to get you drunk, the drink should say. This is who I am.
“Win much here?”
She gave a short wave to her friends.
“I’m not much of a gambler.”
“Oh? Strange town to hang in, don’t you think?”
“It suits me.”
He took a long swallow of his rum and turned towards her.
“What’s your name?”
“Jenna. Yours?”
“How about another drink?”
She looked down at her already empty glass and, bewildered, nodded.
The bartender made her drink in fashionable time. As he poured she looked into the man’s eyes, noticing a tinge of sweat moistening his face. Was it hot in here? Not particularly. But it aroused her, to her personal surprise.
He could see the puzzling look on her face. Jenna reminded him of someone he romanced a few years back. She was a fancy PhD in molecular biology, an intense and inquisitive mind who became intrigued by her circumstance. One night, as he was sleeping, she sampled the strange sweat that seemed to always glisten his body. All night she worked. She wanted to know this man, every part of him, in the finest detail, in the best way she knew how.
He awoke in the morning with a surprise. She talked mostly in code, words that had little meaning to his unscientific ears, but, importantly, something about his pheromones, she told him. A mutant several orders of magnitude stronger than she’s ever seen before. She wanted to test more, she said with a smile. She wrapped her legs around him and exclaimed she wanted to know his everything.
He could see it in Jenna. The madness, the ecstasy, the obsession, gripping her exposed and helpless biology. The pupils in her soft brown eyes dilated sharply, as if suddenly drug-addled. Her heart quickened, beating faster and faster as if panicked. Adrenaline released. Sweat dripped. Breath moistened and labored. She abruptly shoved her glass across the bartop in disinterest and put her hand on his thigh.
“C’mon, you have a name, don’t you?”
He never saw it take hold so quickly before. It startled him and saddened him at the same time. She will not last long. He will be alone soon.
He looked onto her now sweat-drenched face and noticed her body trembling. She was young, this Jenna. And she was reacting especially badly. It disturbed him to see this. Someone so young and helpless, succumbing to it so quickly. Not that he hasn’t been with younger women before. But it never happened this fast. It was like watching a child crumble underneath the tires of a speeding bus, rather than watching the same child grow old and die. It was unnaturally brief. It was wrong. No. This isn’t right. He must leave.
“I have to go,” he said.
“What?” She sounded deeply disturbed.
He bluntly stood up from his bar stool. She tried to hold onto him as he walked away, but her disorientation and clumsiness knocked her to the floor. She flailed wildly on the ground, panicked by the loss of something she would later be unable to describe to her friends. I must of have been drunk, she would say.
He stiffly walked out onto the Las Vegas strip. A strange calm overcame him. This was the first time he had ever walked away like that. It was soothing. But not soothing enough. Loneliness nudged him to light a cigarette. He fired it up and took in the Vegas air. People. Lights. Music. I’m alone, but I’m not alone, he thought. He walked down the strip into a crowd of people. The sea of flesh and hair and voices overtook him. He swam amongst the lives and personalities that he would never get to know nor ever hope to even discover. He swam, taking in whatever comforts of superficial contact he could.
The crowd ended and he stopped swimming. In front of him was a woman, standing off to the side of the street, smoking a cigarette. Her long blonde hair flowed freely in the cool desert breeze, a look of sadness emitting from her deep blue eyes. She was alone in a manner familiar to him. Curious, he thought. He came closer.
He felt his heart beat faster. His eyes dilated. He sweated as adrenaline took hold. He came closer.
She was glistening. She was a goddess. She turned her head and looked at him.
He was lost in her deep blue eyes. He trembled. He smiled.
Feel free to join in if you guys would like. This week's prompt is making some sort of craft using your hands. It's intentionally open-ended for you to be creative with.
“I’m so sorry Janice. I’m sick. I’ve been sick for a while.”
She winced dully at his words, too tired to move from her half-fetal sprawl on the passenger seat. Her long brown hair, unkempt and tattered from neglect, attempted to hide her lifeless expression. She tried to open her mouth to respond, but couldn’t. She could only stare.
It’s been days since she had slept. Or had it been weeks? It was all blurred together. The days and hours and minutes and seconds, all one long intoxicating escapade. What time was it now? She couldn’t know. Time had become merely a concept, an idea outside her vision. Her only vision was him. This man. This man sitting next to her in his utterly normal style, looking hurtfully at her as if he had done something wrong, as if he had done it again, again and again and again, whatever it is that he had done.
She crept her hand toward his, determined to feel his flesh once more. The tiny black hairs permeating his arm stood on end, as if anticipating something. But it was too much. All she could do was let her skeleton hand fall softly on the parking break beside her. All she could do was look into his eyes, those great big green eyes and short jet black hair and round, beautiful face, all features she both loved and despaired over. She wanted to kiss him and fall into a dream once more. But it was gone. She was gone. Her eyes closed forever.
The man exhaled slowly. His hands gripped the steering wheel, white-knuckled in uneasiness for the thing he had done. He had done it again, this romance of his. And now he had to do another thing. He reached under his seat and popped open the trunk.
Digging a grave was nothing new. It was a simple affair and always had been. He wrapped her in a plain white sheet, dug six to eight feet, laid her in, and said a prayer. He wasn’t a religious man, but he said a prayer. It seemed like the only decent thing he could do.
The night sky was dark, black and starry over a dusty windswept nothingness of desert. He lit a cigarette against a chilling breeze and looked out into the great quiet around him. He liked these moments, these moments post-grave digging. It gave him a chance to reflect and, perhaps, hopefully, change.
“I could go away for a while,” he thought. “I could go away and be by myself and not hurt anyone anymore.”
But this was a fantasy. It had been done. Over and over and over again, it had been done. Hundreds of years of voluntary solitude, locked up and shut-in, all contact with the outside world erased with a wish to simply die. Why couldn’t he die? Why couldn’t he just lie in the Earth like poor, poor Janice, and just be nothing? He wanted to be nothing. Or, above all else, be a normal human being.
He looked at his ageless hands, hands dirtied from grave-digging. When can I die? It was a question he habitually asked himself. This thing he had, this sickness, it was a plague. It was a madness that consumed everyone he stayed in contact with. Male and female, all perished at his altar of obsession. He deserved to die. He was not of this world and never had been, and he deserved to die.
He stared down at the dusty desert mound that was once Janice. It was a simple mound, a mound like any other mound dug hundreds of times before. A dime a dozen, these crumbly and temporary mounds. Not particularly special, nor intoxicating or ecstatic. Just another mound in a quiet desert.
He reached a decision about what to do next. He will go home. He will rot in front of a TV for a few weeks. He will attempt suicide, and fail. Then he will get lonely and meet someone new.
Maybe next time it will be different, he thought. Maybe next time,she’ll stick around and not be another mound. Maybe next time will be the last time. Maybe, he thought, maybe next time I’ll be the mound.
*************************************************************
He always liked Vegas. There have been many Vegases in his lifetime, but this particular Vegas especially suited him. The lights and sounds attracted him like a moth, a blur of distraction to dull his sense of things. But, best of all, the people here were temporary. And temporary was the only relationship he was capable of.
Caesar’s Palace. It reminded him of happier days, days of gods and god-worshipping. He wasn’t so conflicted back then. When people died, they called it ecstasy. It was worship, to die like Janice did. It honored the people to be in the presence of such seductive power.
There were many bars in Caesar’s Palace. He usually went to The Dionysus, but decided on a different joint, The Lady Luck. He wore a hand-me-down collared shirt and matching pants, just formal enough to pass dress code. Sitting at the bar, he ordered his usual rum-on-the-rocks and waited.
His figure was not particularly striking. He did not attempt to mingle or serenade; he had a rule against such wooing. He thought him choosing a woman to be unfair; it upset some mythical balance of power, him deciding who lives and who dies. It comforted him to put some of the blame on fate. Ultimately, it was fate that killed them, not him.
A group in the north corner of the bar shouted excitedly at a TV screen. They had won a great deal of money and were eager to show it. The men in the group gave each other high-fives, the veins in their necks bulging with excitement as they took a celebratory chug of their beers. The women chattered excitedly amongst themselves, sipping cocktails and other colorful drinks.
A pair of soft brown eyes stared at him from amongst the group. She was smiling, happy with her friends but distracted by his presence. As she got up to walk towards the bar, he remained withdrawn. Fate, he told himself. Fate will kill this woman.
“Nice place, huh?”
She sat down next to him, casually raising her hand for the bartender.
“Pretty nice, yeah.”
She ordered a fancy mix drink, something he wasn’t familiar with nor cared to be familiar with. He always liked simple drinks, drinks that reminded you of its bite and its true intentions. I’m here to get you drunk, the drink should say. This is who I am.
“Win much here?”
She gave a short wave to her friends.
“I’m not much of a gambler.”
“Oh? Strange town to hang in, don’t you think?”
“It suits me.”
He took a long swallow of his rum and turned towards her.
“What’s your name?”
“Jenna. Yours?”
“How about another drink?”
She looked down at her already empty glass and, bewildered, nodded.
The bartender made her drink in fashionable time. As he poured she looked into the man’s eyes, noticing a tinge of sweat moistening his face. Was it hot in here? Not particularly. But it aroused her, to her personal surprise.
He could see the puzzling look on her face. Jenna reminded him of someone he romanced a few years back. She was a fancy PhD in molecular biology, an intense and inquisitive mind who became intrigued by her circumstance. One night, as he was sleeping, she sampled the strange sweat that seemed to always glisten his body. All night she worked. She wanted to know this man, every part of him, in the finest detail, in the best way she knew how.
He awoke in the morning with a surprise. She talked mostly in code, words that had little meaning to his unscientific ears, but, importantly, something about his pheromones, she told him. A mutant several orders of magnitude stronger than she’s ever seen before. She wanted to test more, she said with a smile. She wrapped her legs around him and exclaimed she wanted to know his everything.
He could see it in Jenna. The madness, the ecstasy, the obsession, gripping her exposed and helpless biology. The pupils in her soft brown eyes dilated sharply, as if suddenly drug-addled. Her heart quickened, beating faster and faster as if panicked. Adrenaline released. Sweat dripped. Breath moistened and labored. She abruptly shoved her glass across the bartop in disinterest and put her hand on his thigh.
“C’mon, you have a name, don’t you?”
He never saw it take hold so quickly before. It startled him and saddened him at the same time. She will not last long. He will be alone soon.
He looked onto her now sweat-drenched face and noticed her body trembling. She was young, this Jenna. And she was reacting especially badly. It disturbed him to see this. Someone so young and helpless, succumbing to it so quickly. Not that he hasn’t been with younger women before. But it never happened this fast. It was like watching a child crumble underneath the tires of a speeding bus, rather than watching the same child grow old and die. It was unnaturally brief. It was wrong. No. This isn’t right. He must leave.
“I have to go,” he said.
“What?” She sounded deeply disturbed.
He bluntly stood up from his bar stool. She tried to hold onto him as he walked away, but her disorientation and clumsiness knocked her to the floor. She flailed wildly on the ground, panicked by the loss of something she would later be unable to describe to her friends. I must of have been drunk, she would say.
He stiffly walked out onto the Las Vegas strip. A strange calm overcame him. This was the first time he had ever walked away like that. It was soothing. But not soothing enough. Loneliness nudged him to light a cigarette. He fired it up and took in the Vegas air. People. Lights. Music. I’m alone, but I’m not alone, he thought. He walked down the strip into a crowd of people. The sea of flesh and hair and voices overtook him. He swam amongst the lives and personalities that he would never get to know nor ever hope to even discover. He swam, taking in whatever comforts of superficial contact he could.
The crowd ended and he stopped swimming. In front of him was a woman, standing off to the side of the street, smoking a cigarette. Her long blonde hair flowed freely in the cool desert breeze, a look of sadness emitting from her deep blue eyes. She was alone in a manner familiar to him. Curious, he thought. He came closer.
He felt his heart beat faster. His eyes dilated. He sweated as adrenaline took hold. He came closer.
She was glistening. She was a goddess. She turned her head and looked at him.
He was lost in her deep blue eyes. He trembled. He smiled.
Feel free to join in if you guys would like. This week's prompt is making some sort of craft using your hands. It's intentionally open-ended for you to be creative with.
Comments
Think of it this way. If I wrote a short story about myself and what has happened today, it wouldn't be filled with my musings and analysis of what I've done systematically across all the relationships I'd ever been in. I'd be primarily focused on what has most recently happened, and that would lend itself to clues about what has happened BEFORE that in a natural way.
This is sort of why I find my short stories to be weak, as I have a similar tendency to want the reader to understand more about a character than they probably should. A short story is like a movie trailer for a person's life. You can't tell two hours in two minutes, and if you try it's going to come out strangely.
Other than that observation, I think it's a good concept and I was interested to know more about the character. Is there a limit to how long they can be or is it just whatever and however much hits you?
There is no limit per se, but I don't imagine I could read a literal book that I churned out (in a week). The group itself is pretty lax; we get together at Starbucks (yeah lol) for about an hour or two and just share whatever we have. My story actually turned out to be the longest, so I think for this week I'm going to try to follow your advice and come up with something more "in the moment."