Fifteen years of fear and regret exited his life in the belly of a suitcase. She wouldn’t forgive him. Yet… the betrayal felt like that of a stranger. The child belonged to another: the youth who died at the bottom of a bottle when his lover disappeared without a trace.
The room felt stiff and forbidding. It denied me the luxury of distance and I was glad to have been left alone, if only for a few minutes. I searched for something to distract me and my gaze inadvertently fell upon his coat. It lay on the edge of the sofa, an abandoned shell with a fallen arm extended as if in supplication towards the ground. Lonesome and drab without its owner wrapped in its folds. He wore his clothes like his moods, with deceptive carelessness.
The edge of a book inched out of the depths of the coat pocket. So this must be his escape. Stooping over aged pages, oblivious to the rest of the world, he would detach himself from all concerns and flee to another world. One of his own choosing. I tried to guess whether it would be a biography or a work of history. Perhaps a novel, although knowing him, that seemed unlikely. Before I had the chance to satisfy my curiosity, I heard the door open behind me. He was back.
I had grown accustomed to his silence over the past few months. At first I found it unsettling. I tried to reach out, make him speak. It mattered little what he would say. No accusation, no reproach could equal this continued absence of sound. I was reduced to searching for pathetic substitutions for our former tête-à-têtes. The only times I heard his voice these days was when I tiptoed to the door of his office to eavesdrop on his conversation with others.
He was punishing me. I knew that he would never make me leave, but he did his best to make it difficult not to. At first I stayed because I hoped he would relent, certain that he couldn’t go on ignoring me indefinitely. I was wrong. He had made an art of it and I was nearing the breaking point.
On reentering the room he had settled into the armchair by the window, his body turned away from me so that I could see very little of his profile. Light sifted through the blinds in jagged lines: the portrait of a shadow-striped reader.
“What is it that you are reading?” I asked, cutting through the silence.
He looked up, his expression… he had the look of a dreamer that had been suddenly awakened from their sleep, but upon whom reality had not quite settled. He paused. He blinked. A hand moved towards his hair and ruffled it slightly as if enquiring, attempting to guess what the question had been. I moved towards the sofa and extracted the book from the pocket of the coat.
“Ah. It is Huxley,” I answered for him.
A novel after all. Aldous Huxley. It was a good name. One could not help but be persuaded by whatever an Aldous might tell them. I turned the book in my hands. It was an old edition and looked as if it had been read many a time. The pages had acquired a rusty hue and the spine was not altogether firm. It had a mild scent of tobacco.
“A favourite of yours?” I asked, turning one page and then another, aware that I was being observed as I did so.
He shrugged noncommittally.
Words swam soundlessly between us. He would not speak. Brave New World. I knew of it, but had never taken the trouble to read it. I wished I had. In my desperate attempt to cross over the chasm, this may have been a bridge. I believed that familiarity with something he cared about would have anchored me back into his life. Just like me… to depend on something so useless and fail even at that.
“What is it about?” I persisted, my eyes fixed on the page before me without being able to take in its contents.
“Inadequacy.”
His answer startled me. Its existence as much as its content. I expected to see a challenge in his eyes when I finally dared look at him, but I could not read his expression. I knew what he would read in mine: defeat.
For an instant only a compact formed between us around that one word. It hurt to hear it. It summed up my present state of existence. Somehow, it encompassed all that I had felt, been, for the past few months. He had made me feel that way without even trying. Did he know it? I looked away.
Moments later he was at my side. Not to embrace me. No. I had lost that privilege. I thought he wanted to reclaim his volume and offered to give it back, but that wasn’t it either. He shook his head to indicate that he didn’t want it and reached out for his coat instead.
At times I wondered whether he planned his actions or whether there was a cruel coincidence to the things he did. He fished out of the coat pocket the lighter I had gifted him the day after “the incident”. It was that clichéd gesture that gave me away in the end. Had I been a man, I might have bought him flowers. He knew me well enough to guess what it meant, and once suspicion found a foothold, it did not give way until he had it confirmed.
He lit a cigarette. It suited him. That vice. I watched him draw in the smoke and exhale it. He watched me watch him. Would that be it… a word once in a while and silence forevermore? Inadequacy. Succinct and to the point.
“It’s a dystopia. Or it was intended to be one. The way we’re going it may as well be a blueprint,” he said.
I waited for him to continue.
“The main character is an outcast who cannot or will not conform to the happy world of endless consumption and promiscuity.”
A turn of the head, a swift glance and he had caught me out. I wanted to laugh, but did not have the strength. He may be mocking me. It was too painfully close, too coincidental for it to be true.
“And what is his solution?” I asked.
“Exile.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was speaking of me or of himself.
Running, running, running… Every time his feet gave up and he fell to the ground, he would gather himself up, stumble forth a pace or two and then gathering speed through some sheer contortion of the will, he was once again running fast down the hill. His cheek hurt, as if the earth had slapped him so that his body might suffer as did his ego. Thoughts, one after another, followed his mind’s eye inwards. Mission unaccomplished.
It wasn’t a first time for things to go wrong. The target escaped unscathed. His partner was nowhere to be seen. She had accompanied him against her better judgement, knowing that there was every chance she would be recognised, her disguise too feeble at short notice. He had failed her and now she was gone. Dead or worse…
He was certain that he would die of guilt before dehydration or exhaustion had a chance to finish him off. What a coward. Yet what could have been gained from staying behind? All had been lost long before he took to the road. He had to survive. If there was any chance of getting her back, he will do so. Time. It was all a matter of time. Hours, a few days at most.
Which hurt more, mattered more: loss or humiliation? Humiliation he could deal with. He had been humiliated many a time in his life. He had learnt to let it wash over, turn every knockdown into an upward step. You did not get into his shoes by wasting time on pity parties. But this he had not expected.
He thought of her name. It was seldom that he indulged in speaking it out. Ever cautious, she had forbidden it, even when alone. She became a number, a code. Just like him. She was little more than a shadow. Her past so insubstantial as to allow her to disappear at will. For a time they had worked the field apart. He didn’t like her restraint. She despised his recklessness. Alaska had changed everything. Too much perhaps. And then came the Game…
“We have to get out of here now. He knows,” she had said. She had meant it. He knew that much. It could not have been all a lie. So where did they go wrong? Had there been clues? Did she try to tell him, did she try to warn him? Had he been too wrapped up in his ego to pay sufficient attention?
Running, running, running… He was exhausted. He stumbled. He fell to the ground. The cut on his right cheek had started to burnt and now he could feel his heart pulsating in the side of his face. No. It was impossible. He must be imagining things. Hot liquid gushed unexpectedly down his cheeks. He tried to wipe them dry, his hands dirtied by the dust of the road. Shaking, he forced himself to straighten up again and looked along the road ahead and then behind him. Alone, he screamed. Once. Twice. Thrice.
It was the release he needed. All of the pain, the dull thumping tension that had been gathering strength in his chest, let out at once. He laughed. A madman, his suit ripped at the knees and covered in dust, his face slashed and bleeding, dirt mingled with blood.
After a while his laughter subsided and he breathed in deeply. It felt that he had never truly breathed before that moment. His eyes had a mad glimmer about them and the trace of a smirk was imprinted in the corner of his face. Limping slightly he continued down the hill, one step at a time, determined yet heavy. The weight of a life to be saved set on his shoulders.
Lying on the pavement. Helpless. A leg stuck under the weight of an overturned cart. Desperate. “Eddie! Eddie!” the shout reverberated through the crowd.
***
We had crossed the river in search for a terrace and must have veered off the established route into a side street at some point. We were so engrossed in conversation that the change of direction and scenery were lost to us at first, until we reached a busier part of the road, surrounded by an eclectic group of people. Their appearance and clothing were so strangely out of place that one could easily have believed themselves to have inadvertently stepped into the middle of a carnival or… through some deficiency of the time fabric, into 16th century Britain.
At first we could not distinguish between the disparate elements of that mobile picture to know what it was. A mound of bodies, half covered in dirty cotton, lines of rosy flesh interrupted by triangles of torsos, the number of which appeared to be greater than it was possible to belong to the number of women and men entangled in wretched proximity.
The day was quickly turning into dusk. Streetlights flared up here and there struggling to disperse the gloom. We were making slow progress up the road, as the crowd inexplicably thickened. We could not walk a pace without having to turn and twist through the anonymous living bodies littering the street, wandering in lowered whispers what all of these people could be doing out in fancy dress.
Cries erupted somewhere in our vicinity. We tried to isolate distinct parts of the picture, differences of size and shape, length of limbs and skin colour before we could only view it all as an endless mass of grey. Turning towards the direction of the noise just in time to avoid the advance of a cart and horse, we were suddenly struck by the slithering movement of bodies and limbs all around us, their faces turned inward, as if ashamed to be noticed.
Eddie had promised to lead us to the bank of the river so we followed him in silence, taunt faces in an line that threatened to be pulled apart at any moment. The increasing number of people, or perhaps one should rather say men, wearing clothes cut plainly from a brownish sackcloth ought to have worried us, but we were too busy trying to keep our leader in sight to think of much else. However slowly we were advancing towards our destination, we were advancing nonetheless. The crowds were only a background blur.
A woman of nondescript age approached us and asked whether she can make herself of any use. She was so tall that we thought she must be walking on stilts, although her maid’s outfit made her look rather matronly: a washed out blue dress set against a chalk tinted apron, the edge of which she kept twisting slightly with her thumb as she spoke. She asked whether we were lost. We were quick to decline her services. There was something otherworldly about her looks. It did not bode well.
Their story would have a beginning and an end. For Lara this much was clear from the very start. She wondered at times whether Adam had known it too, or whether the realisation had crept upon him incrementally, with every forgotten promise, every angry word, every moment of guilt and remorse that went unshared.
She could have borne it all, just about. She would have found the strength to accept it and move on, if only it she could rid herself of that sneaking suspicion that he didn’t love her. Not fully. Not as she craved to be loved. Her pride was hurt by the thought of that imaginary offence alone. If she had made no sacrifice, it would’ve hurt less. But she gave up her sense of self to become his, and to think him indifferent was crushing.
She loved more. She would hurt more when it was finally over. And there was a perverse desire within her to make him pay for the difference. If she couldn’t make him love her, then she would make him hate instead. Anything was better than indifference. If he hated her, she would be remembered. And that was something.
There would be an end. All things end after all. Perhaps for him, who believed in eternal life and damnation, that sense of an ending was more difficult to grasp. But then again, he was unaware of the beginning too, shocked to discover himself complicit in the affair.
She dreamt of making it last once. In her most daring moments of playing at make-belief, she envisaged their leaving together, hand in hand, into the somewhat dreary London sunset. She was almost, almost able to see a couple of blue-eyed lookalikes filling their later years with the clamour of childish laughter. Wasn’t that the greatest proof that there had been love: that desire to authenticate it, to cement it in flesh, replicate it generation after generation?
They were naïve, those dreams… impossibly farfetched. So she let them weaken and die, and with the death of hope, came unavoidably the slow decay of love.
*
Let’s Talk Opinion in conversation with The Daily Post
Disclaimer: Things written in the heat of the moment may unintentionally cause offence to the reader. In such cases the reaction may range from minor irritation to shock and severe disapproval. If read on an empty stomach, possible side effects include a scarlet face, foot tapping and finger drumming. To minimise any lasting damage, please take with a pinch of salt. Contact the author immediately if symptoms persist.
I’m not one to get hot under the collar, not even when I’m wearing one, but today’s Daily Prompt managed to get me there. I felt skin prickle uncomfortably and fingers itching to have their say. Admittedly, the fact that I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a while and things are stalling on all fronts did not help, but still. Here it is:
“Write the blurb for the book jacket of the book you’d write, if only you had the time and inclination.” Daily Prompt: BYOB(ookworm)
After reading and re-reading it several times, I had to consider the following options.
So here we are.
Now I hope that you are not staring blankly at this point wondering what on earth could have gotten me irate about this prompt. It’s straightforward enough. What kind of problem could I possibly have with it?
Let me explain.
There is a reason why when a stranger asks what it is that I do, I tend to waiver. More often than not I will say that I’m a postgraduate research student. Why? Well… Because on the few occasions that I was asked and said that I am a writer, I got one of the following reactions:
— Oh, yes. I’d write a book myself if only I had the time, but you know… Got more important things on my plate at the moment.
— It’s nice that you have the time to do it. I’m too swamped with work, kids and everything else to indulge.
— Aha. Everyone’s at it these days. God knows where people find the time.
You see? It’s the daily prompt in a nutshell: anyone would write a novel “if only they had the time and inclination.”
I don’t imagine that people in other professions get that line. Imagine being at a party, the conversation flows as well as the [insert beverage of choice here]. You go to the counter for a refill and can’t help overhearing the following snippet of a conversation:
“So what is it that you do, Gill?”
“Oh. I’m a paediatrician.”
“You know, I’d try my hand at it too, but I just never get the time. Busy-busy-busy,” said no guest ever.
When it comes to most professions, the assumption is that one would require to put in years of work in order to become proficient. When it comes to writing on the other hand…
It is true that writing a novel takes time. I won’t dispute it. Many an hour that could be spent raising children, shopping, doing the housework, meeting up with friends, making money and what have you, will have to be sacrificed if one is to be a writer.
What I take issue with is the idea that writers have magicked up spare time for themselves in which to do the work, time that others occupy doing things that are far more important. I don’t write because I have time that others lack. It is not an inclination that I choose to indulge. I write because this is my vocation, and I trust that this is the case with all writers.
Do I believe that there is a book in everyone? Absolutely. We are all story-tellers. Can anyone be a writer? Sure. Anyone can be anything they want to be if they have passion and determination, and if they are willing to put in the necessary work and learn the nuts and bolts of it. This is the case with writing as much as it is with anything else.
The art of writing is more than the sum of free time plus inclination It is the exhilarating ambiguity of a world yet to be created. It is about finding your original voice as a writer. It is the arduous task of plotting and characterisation, learning the art of description and dialogue, building the story scene by scene until at last the first draft is ready. It is a matter of constantly working at improving one’s craft so that the words we sent into the world may not ring false or empty.
Writing is fun – yes – but it is also a lot of hard work. We write, rewrite, revise and then rewrite some more. In the words of Kingsley Amis: “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one’s trousers to the seat of one’s chair.”
I’ve said my peace.
There was of course a fourth option in reply to the Daily Prompt. That is, I could have simply added my blurb and be done with it. Alright then. Glove taken.
FINDING SWIFT
September 7th 2011. Jane Swift wakes up to a shocking reality: she has no memory of who she is, where she is, or what brought her there. He was her only visitor, this man who brought her to the hospital after her collapse, yet Jane cannot shake off the feeling that Cedric Stewart is hiding something from her. And then there is Gray… Where do you start when you’ve lost your past?
Armed with an iPhone and little else, Jane begins her journey into the unknown. The more she delves into her past life, the less sure she is whether it’s worth burrowing further.
She feels haunted by the life of a woman she is getting to know, but not like.
Should she allow her past to dictate her future?
*
Let’sTalk Opinion posts engage with issues that are important to other bloggers, connecting with others on matters close to their heart. If you like a topic and would like to contribute, please feel free to add to the comment box, reblog, share, email or message me on Twitter @shardsofsilence.
Or if you happen to be a fellow Hogwartsian send me a letter by owl. 
There is one sure way for an editor or publisher to find out the amateur: the viewpoint switch.
First things first. Before we have written the first line of a novel we have to know both from whose point of view we’ll be telling the story, as well as decide whether we’ll use first-, second- or third-person narrative to do this.
Getting the viewpoint consistently right requires a great amount of skill and care. One mistake and the intended effect will be destroyed, rather like the appearance of a stain on an immaculate dress.
Let’s get into the nitty gritty of common mistakes when it comes to viewpoint.
The first one is such a basic mistake that it very rarely finds itself on the page of a submitted manuscript, although if ever it does, it is a good enough cause for instant dismissal. I refer of course to:
1. Switching from first person narrative to second, or third person. For example:
“I remember clearly the first day I met Clare. She was the angriest person he‘d ever come across. We decided to go through the date anyway. I did not think that I’d ever see her again. But then Mike had been known to be wrong before.”
Although this is an extreme case, I hope it illustrates how confusing the switch in narration can be. Mike begins by telling the story from the first-person, but then quickly changes to first plural and then goes on in third, first again and third again. Confused yet? I know I am.
2. The second type of mistake is just as easy to identify, and it refers to instances when the narrative method is consistent, but the viewpoint character changes:
“I loved the way he flipped that coin between his fingers. Heads! he’d declare with such confidence as if the outcome was fated. He was the same when it came to every aspect of his life. It was mesmerising. I knew that she liked me, admired even. What I didn’t expect was to be ambushed on a third date with silly questions about where all of this was going. Nowhere, darling. That’s what I wanted to tell her, but I bit my tongue and said instead that we’ll flip a coin for it.”
The first six sentences are written from the point of view of the female character. Let’s call her Clare. Although the narrative continues in first-person, it’s clear that the viewpoint character suddenly switched. It is her male companion, Mike, speaking next.
Although it is possible to have more than one viewpoint character in a novel, it is best if each of them have their own separate chapters or else the reader will soon be confused as to who is telling the story and when. Within each individual scene or chapter however, it is key to stick to one viewpoint.
There are many experienced writers who use the viewpoint switch to their advantage, but they will never make the switch mid-sentence or mid-chapter. That is the sign of an amateur and they will soon be found out and sent home to think again (from one point of view only henceforth, or so we hope).
3. Have you ever come across a character who knows things they shouldn’t? Hopefully not, as such characters usually find an early death on the slush pile. Of course this is not a case of busy-bodies who shove their noses where the sun don’t shine as it were, but rather it is about characters who suddenly and incomprehensibly know what other characters are thinking and feeling.
“Mike decided that Clare will have to do. His parents insisted on a plus one, two days before his brother’s wedding, and out of all his on-off girlfriends she was the only one who was free that weekend. He watched her walk away from the table, wondering whether she danced as well as she walked. She stopped when she reached the door, turned around and waved. She thought he looked handsome in his burgundy shirt and skinny jeans.”
You may have noticed the offending line. Yep. It is the last one. It’s Mike’s viewpoint we witnessed throughout the paragraph, so how on earth is he supposed to know what Clare was thinking? This is a blatant example of viewpoint inconsistency. Unless this is a paranormal novel and we’ve already established that the viewpoint character can read minds, that line needs to be cut out and quick.
4. The final mistake I will mention in this context is the most difficult to spot. It usually occurs at the start of a novel where we first meet the narrator: the viewpoint character that does not engage the reader.
I won’t attempt to write an example for this, because it is rather tough and I hope at least that I’ve never done it in the past and will never in the future. There are several ways however to identify such a narrator: they will be plain boring. Their voice will be bland and unoriginal. There is nothing distinctive or gripping about how they introduce the story and as a reader you won’t either like them or dislike them, you simply won’t care. The result of course is that you won’t care about the story they are telling either.
The solution is also quite simple. Get a trusted reader to peruse the first five pages of your manuscript (no more) and ask them to answer the following questions. Does the voice of the viewpoint character stand out on the page? Do they have an idea of what that character is like from those pages alone? Is their interest piqued?
If the answer is “no” to any of those questions, then it is a clear case of the viewpoint character requiring a little spicing up.
Now that we’ve got the viewpoint and narration down, we’re ready to step into character. See you on the other side. Bring me a loveable villain and a conflict-driven hero and we’re in business!
I swerved into the bend of the road and stopped. Completely lost, trapped by a curtain of snow. Four pm and already the scenery was immersed in gloom. It was a guessing game where the road stopped and the fields began. How was I supposed to find the village Emily had anchored in?
I must have taken a wrong exit at some point, but when? The flat light made it impossible to keep my bearings even on busy roads, leave apart in the countryside. Suddenly, surprising my friend with an impromptu Christmas visit no longer seemed like such a good idea.
“Driver takes last breath in the middle of idyllic scenery” was one headline that did not feature in my plans, at least not yet. Certainly not the ‘till death do us part’ I envisaged when he proposed last summer.
I had to slow down, my vision impaired by a rush of tears. Breathe. Argh! I promised myself to be good about this. Happier thoughts… Think happier thoughts.
George staring in dismay at his shredded suits – George getting a nasty surprise from gelled underwear – George coughing his lungs out after taking a swig from any of the chilli powdered drinks in the fridge – George jumping around the house with bleeding toes after trying to get into his stupid, brilliantly-trapped-by-me shoes – George cheating on me. Merry Christmas to me.
For a few seconds she relived the chasm before an idea was able to solidify, take shape. Time stood still, refracted in a moment of weightlessness. The wheel turned, speeding backward faster and faster one sequence after another.
Winter retreated into autumn. Snow melted into rain. The river bolstered its darkened waves. A curtain of sand, floating upwards, drapes of luminous particles.
One moment, only one moment awaited in that deserted landscape. A moment of abandon, she — at one with the world that brought her into being.
Let go now and everything comes to an end.
A point of pressure recovered just in time and she swerved to a stop at the bottom of the slope. Lungs starved of air. Invaded. Then clouds of wispy steam escaped her nostrils. It felt like breathing ice.
The steep warp of the mountain stooped behind her. She didn’t dare look back.
Related articles: Shards of Sanity and Unfaithful
She stood alone at the top of the mountain, surrounded by a sea of bleached snow. Strings of evergreens lined the periphery of her sight, burrowing deep into the horizon. Falling, always falling, an incessant curtain of white.
The boundaries of direct-less space canvassed her sensory experience. Her mind was clear, empty of fear and hope, moving in stillness, at one with the icy precipitous vastness. At once she pushed forth, her body entrusted to the pull of gravity.
Downward. Sliding. Faster and faster. A solitary sail against the wind. One thought, her only point of reference ahead: nothing matters. She accelerated. Ten miles, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, fifty-three, fifty-six miles per hour. Her body — a disintegrating flash of light.
When you plummet disoriented into the abyss… are you floating?
Related article: Unfaithful
vic briggs 