Important Milestones - The Sounds of Shattered Glass

Sometimes, you can't take a break from writing without feeling like you will lose everything that has made the piece you are working on what it is.
For me, this happens all the time.  I've rectified that issue to a point by writing down main points of a story that pops into my head - bullets, for the most part, containing my unfiltered thoughts.  Often, many of these do not make the cut - but sometimes a single bullet catches my brain and nudges the muse awake.  Then, with a fire in my veins, I'm off.

This piece was written more as flash fiction, or a possible scene. I didn't want to focus on character development, but rather the idea of moving forward in the story without moving forward in time.  It was an interesting concept that came to me when I wrote down what eventually became my writing prompt for this piece:

The Lasting Memory of Shattered Glass

In all honesty, it seemed beautiful to me. So I thought, why not talk about the violence in certain moments of pure beauty.  Below is what I came up with.  I look forward to hearing what you think!

Flash Fiction / Scene

TITLE: First Kisses Are Important Milestones, Too

Everything about a shattered pane of glass has its own uniqueness buried within.  The subtle, grating noise that emanates as the singular object breaks apart; the fluid, yet almost mechanical intonation that rends the air like a lion's roar; and the quiet, calming trickle of the individual shards as they settle into place.

A violent maelstrom of sound and chaos, ending in one soft, final sigh.

Every time you see a mirror, or a window, or a cup to hold your drink - there is a tug at the back of your mind that wonders at the sound it would make if it erupted in that familiar scene of violence.  Each instance unique in its own minute details, yet they all echo the memory of the first time you heard glass shatter against a more durable force.

When she leaned in and pressed her supple, warm lips to mine, I felt the world shatter around me like an unfathomable crystalline structure - ripping apart my assumptions, my expectations, and my worries - replacing it all with something so unexpectedly beautiful and unique that, for a moment, the world and the universe paled in comparison.

I can still remember, to this day, the automatic reaction from my arms as they rose to embrace her - pulling her in closer, our lips pressing tighter together as the heat of our breath slowly escaped its prison.  We were both young - both amateurs at the arts of love and lust - and yet, we were lost in this single moment, connected by such a pure manifestation of our desire.

Her hair a tickle as my hands wandered, mapping out the valleys and planes of her back and shoulder blades - even as hers explored the forests of my hair in return.  They tread expertly through the foliage, lingering in seemingly familiar places - never faltering, never waning in persistence and desire. Moments ceased to matter, caught as we were in the eye of the storm.  Passion replaced violence, and eternity seemed the only definitive factor of our existence - each of us lost in the embrace of the other. 

Blood rushed through my ears, drowning out the world with sounds of oceans so vast and welcoming that the journey would take a lifetime to complete.  A lifetime that I welcomed, so long as she stood there at the helm, guiding my ship away from port into the vast unknown.

My heart pounded a primal soundtrack to the hurricane through which we passed - struggling to keep time with the urgency of our actions, straining to escape its prison and revel in the heat of this irresistible moment. 

Her lips parted, her tongue seeking mine with vigor and earnest curiosity, and mine reaching out to greet it with welcoming fervor - a response that was lost among the soft escape of her joy. We stood - the axis of our universe - as the world shattered and broke around us, rebuilding to fit the shape of this moment, to encompass it in memory and burn it into our hearts forever.

Reason broke through our revels, and our lips pulled slowly away from each other, eagerly seeking one last touch - as if they would never have the chance again. Breath was released, anxious to fully escape its confinement, and the sounds of the seas faded from my ears. 

I opened my eyes and was caught immediately by the quiet happiness that shone from hers. Opened as we had been, we watched one another as the moment slipped slowly past and our minds burned the experience into place - never to be forgotten, never to be usurped: a regal presence to which the future must face comparison.

Unconsciously we seek to repeat our milestones: with every bite, we compare the taste to our past meals, with every song, we reach towards the shelves of our minds and play the tracks of our favorite sounds. 

Nothing, however, stands apart so much as a first, true kiss.

Except, perhaps, the sounds of breaking glass.

Runaway Faucet - Sometimes, The Mind Does All the Work and the Fingers Struggle to Keep Up

This little piece just kind of hit me one night - I was having trouble sleeping and I actually heard a faucet in the apartment somewhere, dripping repeatedly and monotonously, without stopping. Of course, my attention latched onto it and I couldn't focus on anything else - sleep was out of the question, at the very least.

So I went ahead and fixed the faucet, stopping it from playing more if its rancorous music. Since I couldn't sleep, my mind started to drift, to a kind of dark question:

Writing Prompt:
What if it wasn't water making that sound?

That was my prompt for the introduction piece below.  I would be interested to turning it into a story, but we'll see.  Of course, I'm open to thoughts and interpretations here from anyone who feels like sharing - thought you might have to register on Google to leave a comment.

Short Fiction

TITLE: TBD (Runaway Faucet is a Placeholder)

Night is a special time for me. For everyone, really. The rest of the world just kind of melts away with the sun, becoming lost in the velvet of the encroaching shadows. I like the night, it's peaceful.

I've been up for far too long, now. I can feel sleep stealing over me like a vaguely oppressive force weighing down on my eyelids. I blink for a second, and the clock shows minutes have passed. There is a bitter struggle between my eyes and my eyelids - the mind is willing, but the body is not.

Using the pale light of the fading television, I guide myself into the bedroom. I'm vaguely aware of the 'no signal' message, but the auto sleep timer should take care of that after a while. It's been on for so long, I'm surprised it hasn't shut off already.

I drift hazily past the bathroom, too weak to bother brushing my teeth before passing out in this dry heat. It doesn't really matter, it's not like there is anyone here to smell my breath anyway. It's kind of nice having a queen size bed all too myself - plenty of room to get lost in on nights like this.

I fumble for my phone in the dark, setting the alarm for seven in the morning. A tiny message tells me that I'll be waking up in four hours - well-rested, I'm sure. Before everything goes black behind the curtain of my eyes, I notice the date - as if I hadn't stared at it enough over the top of empty bottle on the table: May 14th.

The sounds of nature outside disappear immediately - no more birds rustling through the trees, no more wind wreaking havoc on the ground below. The natural static in the air crackles into nothingness and I hear nothing but my breath: in and out, slow and faint against the hazy backdrop of night.

And a steady, rhythmic dripping coming from somewhere else. Somewhere close but too far for my brain to understand.

Drip. 

Water, maybe? It could be a faucet - a rush of silver and blues against white porcelain. Filling for a moment before disappearing without a thought.

          Drip.

It rained recently. Greens and oranges and greys falling together reminding us that spring is here. Pooling along the gutters and fading away - slowly, repeatedly.

Drip.

Her again. Red and crimson and maroon spreading away, trying to escape the room. Reaching the edge and falling slowly to splash on the tiled floor. Her hand outstretched at an unnatural angle, her hair matted with freshly flowing life. When she hit the table, there was a snap before everything came rushing out. Only to be slowly cascading from top to bottom, seeking another place to rest.

He looks at me - like he always does - a finger pressed against his lips. The same ruby colored nightmare clutches an old trophy in one hand, dented to match the divot in her skull. It hits the floor with a rancorous clang as the soft meta bounces off the mosaic tile, but all I can hear is that steady, rhythmic reminder.

          Drip.

*** 

Waking with a jolt is never fun. It gives me a headache every single time it happens. Sitting up quickly, I throw the sheets off of me as I fight the dizziness and the bile inducing vertigo. The phone is on the floor - must have knocked it over when the alarm started going off. It's telling me something I don't want to hear: It's 7:45 AM and I am late for work.

Just another wonderful May morning.

It's Never Too Late for a First Impression

Source: amandaonwriting.tumblr.com

Hello, all.

It's the broken poet again with another (hopefully final) attempt at jumpstarting my personal blog.  I'll keep it short this time - I promise!

While I've always enjoyed sharing my thoughts with people - whether they want to hear them or not - I couldn't bring myself to try and be 'deep' all the time. I don't like faking it or forcing it, and I hate to have anyone who knows me think that is all I am.  So then I got to thinking: what is something that I can't help but do, even when I don't want to? The simple answer, of course, is writing.

From there it was really just a matter of setting things up.

Read, Write, Discuss.

No matter what I do, I'm almost always reaching for my phone at some point to jot down another random idea in my Google Keep notebook.  If you write or just need to take down a lot of notes, Keep is an awesome choice - especially if you have android.  OneNote is pretty good too, along with a few others, but Keep is just so accessible from everything that I use, so it has stuck with me as my go to app when jotting things down.

Thanks to this realization, I thought it would be awesome to use my blog to share some of my written work based on random late-night thoughts or writing prompts that I find online.  Hell, I'll even write stuff based on other people's suggestions, if the topic hits the spot. So that's what I'm going to do here from now on: share with you my unfiltered, unedited works and see what happens.  Not everything - nor, possibly, anything - that gets posted here will be a true gem.  That's an unfortunate truth as a writer: you won't always get it right.  However, I can promise one thing:

Everything I post here is authentically ME.

If I do happen to reference other works, either as prompts or simply as references, I will cite them accordingly and provide links where applicable.  Otherwise, everything I write is mine, and I expect you to respect that and understand that nothing here is allowed to be taken or repurposed without the express consent of yours truly.  I would love for you to share this blog with your friends or associates - anyone who might enjoy reading some random fiction and discussing potential improvements, edits, etc.  But please, respect a writer's right to his own unique work.

I look forward to hearing what you all have to say - and if all remains quiet on the writer's front, well I'll just have to keep trudging along, won't I?

This is me, as I was always meant to be - I hope you enjoy the show!


--Christopher R. Severus Perry

An Introduction: Thoughts on The Way We Name Things

Source: Tardisio

For months, I’ve been debating about what the subject of my first post ought to be.  I’ve been reading and rereading everything that I’ve written, I’ve deleted and scrapped opening and transitioning sentences, and put more work into crafting a blog post than I almost ever felt I had to do in my 6 years as an English Major.  It took me until quite recently to really put my finger on the source of all this anguish – all of this self-imposed discomfort:

I wanted people to like me.

That is the simple truth of the matter, one that I am only too willing to share.  I wanted people to like me, which is a feeling I have not had in years.  Not since my time at Franklin Academy High School, in fact.  A time where I was the quiet, bookish kid in the back of the class, lashing out at teachers and walking the length of my town and the ones next to it just to get away – a time where I would have done anything to find someone to identify with. 

Which, when all was said and done, I did. 

That’s not really the point, however.  The point is that I sat here, staring at the cold blue light of my monitor for weeks on end, reading the paragraphs above over and over again, trying to impress a bunch of faceless strangers who know less about me than most people who actually know my name.  That is, until I finally realized why:

Because people matter.