Ten Minute Stories

[Wren of the Brown]

I'm taking an "American naturalist writing" course this semester and part of the goal I've set for myself is to write for at least ten minutes a day.  In chat tonight with Ryrin, we talked about turning this into a Kin project where Kinsters write something and post it for feedback and commentary.  So, here's how this thread works - sit yourself down, find a happy place (Happy Places here) and write for ten minutes or however long you want to.  When you feel like you've accomplished all you can for that session, post it here and hopeful someone will come along and offer support, feedback and encouragement.  Leave your Pretentious Scarves and Catty Berets at the door, please.  We're all friends here (I hope) and we want to see each other get better, not give up.  Feel free to also post prompt pictures that stir something in the cavernous realms of your skull in the hopes that it inspires someone else to write or just post what you've done.

 

To begin, here's a prompt picture.  Take a long, ponderous gander and when you've pondered enough, pick your pen and write!  I promise, you aren't being timed!

 

 

 

WRITE, DAMMIT.

[Wren of the Brown]

Here's tonight's result.  I've had this story bouncing around in my head and I definitely want to develop an untrustworthy narrator.

He left behind two children of surrogate origin.

The first, a young man by the name of Legitimate Esquire, followed by his sister, Sweet Nomenclature. Legitimate was tall and ruddy with shoulders broad as bridges, his hair the color of rusted turbines and his mouth was torn between a hesitant laugh and a persistent sneer. On the day he was born, the sky turned the color of a dried fish. It would be the last time it snowed that year and the year after wasn't much better. The small band of settlers looked upon him with fear and trepidation and, in the usual manner of folk when they're scared, shunned him, tarnished his life with vinegar words and the peculiar hope that something awful came into the world with him. Naturally, he picked up on the things said in hushed whispers and, like any normal boy, set out to accommodate their sensibilities. If you've ever challenged a young man to a bet, you know what follows.

Sweet Nomenclature, on the other hand, came into this world with a splash of blood and the death of a kind woman. This, and the effect of Legitimate Esquire had upon the weather, set the minds of that small colony to commit an act of poetry, naming her No Man's Creature. This proved itself a timely thing as their father was hung for killing a man in an act of literary criticism.

Now, at this point, your bullshit detector should be going off like an irate stoat perched on your shoulder. That finely woven article of strained credulity is the story the Professor told anyone who asked unseemly questions about his adopted family and that's the story I intend to relay to any man who suffers from the ten inch stare. He was a peculiar man with a strange sense of humor and, for that reason, he intended for me to take these two under the auspices of my care upon his departure. I got the punchline before it got me.

 

[Guest]

I wroet ths in 10 minuts but lol...spelcheckin ws bit longre. Supose it stil counts:

 

 

 

A caul of doom shrouded his face, sign of divinity, veil of the gods, when he was pulled forth from that blind passage, red of life, red of toil, the womb of the mother. What joy there never was of the father and the laboured mother, such exultation over broken flesh on the screaming head of a child. Helpless limbs jerking and grasping in slow, unlearned motions, his cry a protest of agony against the sudden, relentless cold of the novel realm – and all that remained of the complete safety of the mother, a small world liberated of pain and blessed of oblivion, was milky tissue bound over his head, an omen of the gods who had sent him down the spiral path.

 

A caul that heralded matchless honour for the child in his latter years, flesh to make triumph for the pride of the parents, was lifted reverently from the little head by the hand of the father, and the delighted gleam of his eye was extinguished  by a brew of loathing, never to be rekindled, to look fully upon the face of his son. Not mine, spake the stream of bitter words that rolled in hatred off the father’s tongue. Not mine and he shall never be.

 

Misery or a mercy, that the love of the mother spared him from the woods, expending yet more of her strength to wrestle away from hateful hands the twisted creature she had nourished with her body and her alcohol through long and brutal months? Foolishness or greater wisdom, wrought of a mother’s blind love, to swear to preserve the wretched child when not even the druid would yet foretell his path, and Brigit withheld her blessing? Mockery or divine kindness, to hold him close in that hour of confusion and hatred, as she rarely would in years to come, to name him Youth and Innocence when others could only utter Beast and Woe?

[Ryrin]

Wow!  I don;t know if I can even come close.  This looks like fun..... i'm working.  Be back later.

[Guest]

Here's tonight's result.  I've had this story bouncing around in my head and I definitely want to develop an untrustworthy narrator.

He left behind two children of surrogate origin.

 

The first, a young man by the name of Legitimate Esquire, followed by his sister, Sweet Nomenclature. Legitimate was tall and ruddy with shoulders broad as bridges, his hair the color of rusted turbines and his mouth was torn between a hesitant laugh and a persistent sneer. On the day he was born, the sky turned the color of a dried fish. It would be the last time it snowed that year and the year after wasn't much better. The small band of settlers looked upon him with fear and trepidation and, in the usual manner of folk when they're scared, shunned him, tarnished his life with vinegar words and the peculiar hope that something awful came into the world with him. Naturally, he picked up on the things said in hushed whispers and, like any normal boy, set out to accommodate their sensibilities. If you've ever challenged a young man to a bet, you know what follows.

 

Sweet Nomenclature, on the other hand, came into this world with a splash of blood and the death of a kind woman. This, and the effect of Legitimate Esquire had upon the weather, set the minds of that small colony to commit an act of poetry, naming her No Man's Creature. This proved itself a timely thing as their father was hung for killing a man in an act of literary criticism.

 

Now, at this point, your bullshit detector should be going off like an irate stoat perched on your shoulder. That finely woven article of strained credulity is the story the Professor told anyone who asked unseemly questions about his adopted family and that's the story I intend to relay to any man who suffers from the ten inch stare. He was a peculiar man with a strange sense of humor and, for that reason, he intended for me to take these two under the auspices of my care upon his departure. I got the punchline before it got me.

 

is thsi goin to be mean t to be a bigre story abuot a guy who spin s yarns, if thts awaht you mean by untrustwrthy.

 

 

Um...lol nw taht what I look at what i wrote, sems soemwhat dark; im goin to try to do aomthing brightt next time i sit an do this.

[Guest]

I wnt to finsh with thi som othre tiem - thers supposd to be moer to it, but thi waht I got down so far. It taks a perspctive that is probaly hard to undrstand for othr peopl but Ill jus leve it open to intrepetation lol.

 

 

What does it mean to be a man of Mólg? I have tried many a time to understand, through careful scrutiny and deepest pondering – and with as much care as my sort can muster, clumsy as it may yet be, these ill-formed lines, symbols, I wrought, to create the sketch of man.

 

Man is born, primordial desire his only thought, spirit as unclothed as his body, wanting only the Mother, the Mother’s touch, the Mother’s warmth, the Mother’s smell, the Mother’s voice, the Mother’s milk. I was born in this way – how then are we different?

 

Man is formed, in earliest childhood, to know the tribe and its ways – to learn its symbols, to speaks its symbols, to be its symbol, and innocence in its roughest form, cruel and kind, is carved with gradual remorse. I was formed in this way – how then are we different?

 

Man is blackened, blasted by the furnace of newfound desire, clouded by the murk of his world unveiled, as his body begins its relentless metamorphosis – the colours begin to stale, the little joys no longer sate,  the limbs of imagination begin to lock. I was not blackened in this way – is this why we are different?

 

 

Edit: Here is prmpt picture; thnking green and/or convuluted :P

 

[U4ea]

ok, ten minutes... *clears her throat*

 

His breath caught in his throat as he stood on the edge, staring out into the beautiful sunset beyond the horizon. She'd disappeared over that horizon months ago and had yet to return, a bit of knowledge that no one around here would let him forget. They'd been inseparable for so long that it felt alien walking the corridors of the castle without her near. Her laughter used to echo on the now-silent walls and the marble columns that had once made him feel solid, as if his place in the future of this world was molded and waited for him to be big enough to fit into it now made him feel as if he were walking through a tomb. 

 

Worse, the sunsets taunted him. They lit the sky with brilliant displays, creating a breathtaking array of swirling colors that gradually deepened, hiding the clouds that rolled over the moores in the evenings from the eye of the jealous onlooker, angry for the loss of the glorious sun. She'd left with the sunset, stepping off this ledge into the abyss below and taking with her every shred of peace he'd ever felt at the beautiful show Mother Nature put on each night. Now, he found the colors garish, over exposed. He wished for the night to fall ever faster, something she'd never have tolerated if she'd been here to argue with him.

 

But she wasn't. 

 

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes against the setting sun, denying it the pleasure of seeing his misery. As if such things would affect the flaming ball of gas, he drew away from it in spite. The breeze blew gently behind him, lifting the hems of his clothes and shifting them lightly against his skin. The sensation drew him out of the spiteful reverie and he opened his eyes to see...

 

...Was it her?  Truly? 

 

She beckoned him from the dying sun, her wings spread behind her like a soft blanket. His breath caught tightly in his chest and his arms reached for her, but found only air. He stretched further, remembering what she'd told him only days before she'd disappeared. 

 

"You have to commit to the fall, knowing you might die before you really begin to live," she'd said. He'd laughed then, but could it be that she'd been right? 

 

He looked down at the waves crashing against the rocks below the cliff and then back up at the sky. He took a deep breath, not looking over his shoulder to the responsibility behind him. Commitment to a thing like this meant he'd have to let go of everything holding him here and embrace this change. He closed his eyes, leaning towards her, feeling her fingertips tousle his hair... or was that just the wind? He heard her laughter again, shimmering in the air between them and held his breath in his chest, leaning still closer. 

 

A small brush of wind forced the last of the commitment out of him and he gasped, feeling his body tumble forward into...

 

 

 

 

*smirks* 10 minutes! 

[Guest]

I wnt to finsh with thi som othre tiem - thers supposd to be moer to it, but thi waht I got down so far. It taks a perspctive that is probaly hard to undrstand for othr peopl but Ill jus leve it open to intrepetation lol.

 

 

What does it mean to be a man of Mólg? I have tried many a time to understand, through careful scrutiny and deepest pondering – and with as much care as my sort can muster, clumsy as it may yet be, these ill-formed lines, symbols, I wrought, to create the sketch of man.

 

Man is born, primordial desire his only thought, spirit as unclothed as his body, wanting only the Mother, the Mother’s touch, the Mother’s warmth, the Mother’s smell, the Mother’s voice, the Mother’s milk. I was born in this way – how then are we different?

 

Man is formed, in earliest childhood, to know the tribe and its ways – to learn its symbols, to speaks its symbols, to be its symbol, and innocence in its roughest form, cruel and kind, is carved with gradual remorse. I was formed in this way – how then are we different?

 

Man is blackened, blasted by the furnace of newfound desire, clouded by the murk of his world unveiled, as his body begins its relentless metamorphosis – the colours begin to stale, the little joys no longer sate,  the limbs of imagination begin to lock. I was not blackened in this way – is this why we are different?

 

i finishd ths litle thing - not goin to wriet anymroe abuot it

 

 

Man is hollowed, the transformation resolved, the child reduced to fading memory – the colours are washed away, a rapacious need compels him ever, his mind is stiffened, his innocence is dead - a finished creature and yet incomplete. I was not hollowed in this way - is this why we are different?

 

Man is disquieted,  ever seeking yet rarely finding, ever devouring yet rarely sated – his ambition cleaves the earth, his will poisons the water, his hunger casts down the woods, his comfort makes foul the air, his doom reckons little forethought. I was not disquieted in this way – thus is why we are different.

 

Man is withered, for the gift was never his – gray becomes his hue, decay his flesh and bones, for death is his enthralling fate, written in blood, written in magick. I was not withered in this way – thus is why we are different.

 

The sketch of man is then this – frailty, finite, futility manifest – animal tortured by forethought and unrest – innocence unmade through his senseless struggles – destruction his fare unto his end, fathomless chasm his stomach – his pride he shouts in vainglorious fanfare that eternity is deaf to. This image is not duplicate to my own – we are different.

 

But for all his vanity and cruel appetites, his fleetingness and his fated fall, there is something to be admired in his morbid portrait. A passion hot as flame, that scorches the earth, that speeds him to dust, he turns to the forge, crafting things of peculiar beauty – my kind will never know it,  ever in innocence, ever only a passing heat faltering into forgetfulness. A knowledge of an end, a final oblivion, the corruption of the animal, he enhances the taste of each moment with it when it looms most poignantly in his mind – my kind will never know it, ever tepid in endless rhythm, ever as ignorant as children.

 

That is the sketch of a man of Mólg – and though I would not trade our images, there is envy still. 

[Ryrin]

Wow!  You guys are good.

[U4ea]

*smiles* Thanks! It's nice to be in such good company! 

 

 

Try this one today:

 

 

borrowed from : http://coolvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Fantasy-Art-Yulin-Yao-Shining-and-the-darkness-992x494.jpg

[Guest]

A child muted by confusion, his tongue twisted by agony. The earliest memories, after the blindness of infancy - vague touches and harsh noises, no more from that unintelligible time. But surely something in that mysterious beginning had helped to take the child’s voice – the harsh noise imprinted in his memory, sound used to harm him, hurtful sound before his world grew nearly silent, by an illness that had taken much of his hearing, as he was told by those who could recall for him.


Now the noise was very quiet – father’s voice, a distant thunder of wrath – but the pain remained, the fruits of the curse at his birth. Not mine and he shall never be. Monster, father’s voice called to him, dim but audible yet  – twisted boy, rabbit-faced, Fomoire-spawn, and though some words he comprehended naught, there was hate in them, and harm, the hurtful noise of his unappeasable creator.


Words the boy had uttered – surely not the first, but the first he could recall – to mimic, to communicate, to offer prayers and atonement to his raging god, fighting his deformity to make intelligent his voice, but his appeals were cast aside. Imperfection displeases the gods, and so was it for father, for every word the boy might utter was returned by blows and sneers – the harsh noise, the unbearable noise. It displeased his father that he should speak, so speak he would do no more, not even at the frustrated bidding of mother, or the gentle urgings of sister. Sound was agony, sound was confusion, so in dumbness was there mercy.

[Guest]

i wroet ths becuse im goten woken up feling strange lol

 

 

In darkness do the odd thoughts come, macabre and grotesquely peculiar, for in mine eye does it now bear semblance to that queerest and most abhorred thing, Death. In many forms does it steal nigh, pain its harbinger, corrosion its herald – in potent poisons siphoned into the blood, wasting the flesh, setting aflame the nerves – in corruption of the mind, twisting thoughts to destructive perversity, enthralling the body in mindless spasms. Deadly darkness, night’s ultimate blackness, you carry much of oblivion’s aspect to me.

A kiss of the rim, but a taste of Death’s quaff, brings rapturous torment, tantalising decay – what can be more perfect in satisfying the mad man’s idiosyncrasy, to revile and weep in terror of your coming, yet then by unnatural self-loathing, to delight in the caresses of your harbinger and crave for your greater embrace?

The sun’s gaudy and disenchanting arrival remains hours away, and the moon’s spells of lunacies yet hold sway. Sun and moon, light and darkness, sanity and lunacy – primal forces without and within the animal, goading it towards destruction yet then turning in mundane whims towards preservation, then back fiercely towards destruction… But then with what little light there is, I look and see besides me, sleeping in a content I have never known, my son, all the beauty in me that I could never see in myself cast forth in him. A clarity is restored by his sight, however fleeting it may be, and it calls to my mind this: that whatever greater power, light or darkness, god or ungod, should harrow my mind and ravage my body, there is a child just as potent, and he gives his strength to me.

[Ryrin]

Lovely, Taltos. I'll try writing this weekend. Your writing makes me happy.

[Guest]

Lovely, Taltos. I'll try writing this weekend. Your writing makes me happy.

im glad yuo like them, i dont gt prais often and it means vey much

 

i wroet ths becuse i was thinkin on it:

 

 

Why won’t you speak? The child did not understand why it was repeated to him, again and again, a daily interrogation, a tedious ritual, which could have no rational resolve. How could he answer, if he was not allowed to use his voice? Father had forbidden him the practice of such craft. Surely, it was taboo, for him to form words – the pain delivered unto him was retribution for his misdeed, to speak the words of his god with guttural and ill-formed noise, his ugliness tainting that which was beautiful, Monster mutilating divine utterance. Silence was his lot, for it reduced his greater burden – if remaining silent meant he could be spared one less grinding kick to the stomach, one less stunning blow over the head, one less cruel word burned in wrath and disapproval into the fragile cloth of his conscience, it was no bad exchange.

The boy is an idiot – of course he cannot speak, Father would say, and Mother would worry, questioning him incessantly over the nature of the mind he would share with no one. He understood what an idiot was, and he knew he was not one; he could understand the words that were said to him, he learned them from his creators, and Sister, steadfast in kindness. Sister knew,Sister defended him – he is not an idiot, he knows what you say. He understood, and perhaps he could even say the likeness of the words he learned, but he would not, he could not. Sound was forbidden, silence his lot.

But then came the threats, the ominous words, Mother’s urging to speak more urgent, more angry, and even Sister’s countenance was transfigured, grave and stern yet voice filled with fear.

 

You have to speak.

 

You must speak.

If you do not speak, they will dash your head on the rocks. Do you want that?

He knew Death – Death was sleep without waking, Father liked to tell him, and he threatened him often with it. Sleep without waking, without Mother, without Sister, without vision, without play, without the small joys he could conjure – there was utter dread in that. Death waited at the rocks.

And so he spoke, a dialect unintelligible by fault of his cloven face, faltering because of speech’s fearful ban, but speech it was nonetheless, to appease Mother, to satisfy Sister, to anger Father, to avoid a greater terror. 

[Guest]

lol i loev how dragomunt randomly scews up th format nw each tiem i post thes

 

The night is my world, the weird and the crooked, the ancient and obscure, the wailing of nameless spirits, the roaring of gods. A sleeping world, an elder world, whose inhabitants move as shadows, scarcely seen in the denser gloom, vanishing in the light of day.

 

This is my world, rarely seen, by those who live under daylight’s rays – magick breathed from every leaf, from every stalk, from every twig, glinting in black waters, bathing the face of the moon – primeval ways whispered in the cold breath of wind that sets the trees to a shivering dance in the dull starlight, primeval ways repeated in zealous reverence by the inhabitants of the night, for only in this primitive creed can they ever have being.

 

The night is my world, and forever shall be, where the ancient order lives on in immortal imperturbability, where the children can flourish in magick’s midst and obscurity, where the non-gods can suckle the arcane milk of the earth and wax strong. Blood spilled over the soil, for sacred sacrifice, nourishing the Mother  – it shall be no more than dark, rich mud in the blindness of the day. Secret sorcery uttered in the illumination of the moon, calling forth the corn, invoking ruin on the enemies – it shall be no more than pristine oats, no more than lament over ill fortune, in the blindness of the day. Circles formed on the hills and in the glens, clasped hands and wild dancing around a great fire, praising the gods with ecstatic rapture – it shall be no more than scorched earth in the blindness of the day. This is where I exist, inescapable, but a happy prison – for the eccentric day must always fail, and all return to the changeless night.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

if I could write like this I would never do anything else...

 

re the format, I've found if I just hit edit and then post without doing anything else, the paragraphs and spacing reappear.

[Ryrin]

if I could write like this I would never do anything else...

 

re the format, I've found if I just hit edit and then post without doing anything else, the paragraphs and spacing reappear.

 

I know.  Taltos is gifted.

[Guest]

dm scrweing up th formatin again...

 

From the beginning, there was Brother, just as from the beginning, there was Sister . Sister sheltering him in her arms, her flesh warding part of Father’s blows from his own, her flesh sharing his pain – and Brother, tiny brother, fragile brother, noisy brother, who the child protected in turn. Sister had told him that brother was a year younger than he, but it did not matter to the child – Brother was with him as far back as he could recall, to the veil of nothingness, unformed thought, innocent unawareness – Brother was there in his earliest memories, his spark of consciousness, his true beginning.

Emerald eyes staring blankly through a film of milk, flinching not at the thrush that alighted in haste in the yew ahead of him – those were the eyes of Brother. Father and Mother did not like Brother’s eyes, because they were covered in milk, so slight and luminous in appearance - but dense enough to blot the light of the world out. Father and Mother did not like Brother because he had only darkness. The child had once tried to rub the milk from Brother’s eyes with his hand – surely, if he could rub away the obstructive film, and give him light, Father and Mother would want Brother then – but it had only made Brother cry and Sister scold him. No effort nor care, no salve nor magick, could remove the haze from Brother’s eyes, just as it could not be lifted from his own right eye, the one whose lids Mother smeared in charcoal each day. That is a magick eye – its glare must be darkened. You do not want to hurt others with it.

Brother’s eyes were not magick – were not significant, were not blessed, were not beloved by either of their gods. But the child loved them, and loved brother, for his helplessness and sweetness, his utter reliance on he and Sister to preserve him from the wakeless sleep, for Father refused to acknowledge Brother’s existence, save with a curl of disgust to his lip, the druids refused to give him his path, and even Mother, who could be merciful and kindly in her caprices, avoided Brother, her third shame. No one to love Brother but Sister and he, and his loathsomeness made him all the more lovely, all the more precious, to the child.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

father and mother are gods... 

 

sorry, i'm writing the screenplay. 

[Guest]

ths part an th othre oen mentineing "Brothre" rghtfuly gos befoer the one dealin wth startin to speak

 

Tears. Pain. Either of these things washed his face, etched it with the exquisite minutiae of suffering, youth marred doubly by physical deformity and the contorting expressions of relentless sorrow. Sister was not around, and the child was glad, revelling in the privacy of his lamentation such as he had been unable to do because of her, and Father, and Mother, the day before, a day of perfect horror. Lying in the hay piled to one corner of the barn, faintly inhaling the smell of the dung of the cows with each retching breath through his open jaws and the gaping hole that split the bone between mouth and the olfactory hollow, alone because the cows were out to pasture – it was a greater comfort to him than any words, gentle or harsh, and here he could loose his tears without fear of impunity by Father.  Tears were bad, he was forbidden to cry, but it was a thing he found much harder to abstain from than making noise,especially when Father or Mother hurt him – especially now in his state of shock and enduring grief.

Brother, one of his sole companions in a world monotonous of its abuse and environment – so many good memories he made with him, such as the periodic visits he paid Brother throughout the day, to make sure he was unharmed, just to hear him talk. Brother had learned the child did not speak from Sister, had learned to identify the opening of the bedroom door and his unannounced steps, his hug accompanied by a happy breath, with the child, and though Brother sometimes grew angry that he would not speak, he many times talked as Sister did, recounting thoughts and happenings to him but in a way not expecting much answer besides a shake or nod of the head. With Brother, a squeeze of the hand meant yes and a tap on the palm meant no. They could never be long visitations – Father might notice he was not at the task he had been set if he was gone for too long – but just the brief presence of Brother, being allowed a moment of peace with someone who valued him, gave him a delight that energised him to make it through the rest of his chores and Father’s harassment for the day.

And then the walks through the woods about their farm. Usually it could only be done at dusk, when both he and Sister were free from chores; then Sister would take one of Brother’s hands, then the child would take the other, and they would make their way out amongst the trees, until they could no longer see the farm, wise Sister guiding them along, wary and protective of them. Brother saw nothing of the green beauty about them in the burning, dying light, not the oaks or the ferns and the deep shades cast under them, not the various birds nor the peculiar insects nor the creeping things in the loam, but he apparently could hear things clearly, in a way the child couldn’t, and he delighted in the sounds he heard. Sister would tell Brother the names of the things that made the sounds, whilst the child eagerly brought many different things – leaves, twigs, rocks, snails, beetles, flowers –
for Brother to touch and for Sister to name as well, teaching him as well as Brother. He did not care about the thing that had come out of Mother some time ago – another Brother apparently, who Father praised and lauded over them. He cared only about Brother of the milk-sheened eyes, who he would always protect and who could never hurt him.

But Brother was gone now. Brother had stopped breathing yesterday. He had been so very sick for awhile, coughing endlessly on a bloody fluid within his chest, weeping in desolate pain, and no remedies Mother gave him could relieve him – then in the morning they had found him asleep. Sleeping without waking. When the child had discovered this, he made such a noise that he had not in a long while, screaming and crying over Brother, trying to rouse him, unwilling to accept that Brother was now no more than an insensible husk. Father had taken him away then and beaten him for his noise and tears, but the pain Father’s fists gave him meant little next to the sight of lifeless Brother scalded into his mind. Such a wild frenzy of despair he was in that he did something he had never done before, something his mind somehow formulated as a solution to the nonsense and darkness his world was suddenly clouded in – as soon as Father had stopped beating him, he began to gnaw viciously at his arms with his crooked teeth and slam his head against the ground where he lay. Insane, Father had merely said in disgust before leaving him alone in the hall, but Sister had come to stop him, stop him when he didn’t want to be stopped, holding him from hurting himself when this novel pain somehow felt so natural, somehow made the pain in him for Brother slightly less. Brother was no more – he had been taken away that same day, he had been burned, and no monument was there for him, because Brother had not been a “person” – no one was a person until they were seven years of age.

Brother was gone – the child still could not accept it, save through the unconscious sorrow that would not end. He could scarcely do chores, despite how much Father beat him and ordered him to do it. He felt too paralysed to even feign at working ever since the trauma yesterday. Only the pain was a relief, as he did now, tearing as deeply as he could into his arms with his teeth, occasionally smashing his head against the wall by him until his skull throbbed and his senses were light. Lesser stings to draw attention away from the greater malady that was in his spirit. Brother was gone forever, and the child would never be the same for it.

[Ryrin]

Takes my breath away... you write so well.

[AesSedaiGuy]

Talt ... You have a gift. You are an amazing writer.you definitely have the soul of a bard. Your writing is incredible. Haunting, beautiful, Lilting and deep. Very impressive talent. :)

[Guest]

im flad think they are good

 

ths one is anothre stand alone. 

 

 

Am I lost to this world?

 

I am he who goes oft forth into the remnant wood – I am he who kneels on the loam, and lays an affectionate kiss on the Mother, whose fertile womb all sprang from. I am he who walks beneath the tree’s contorted limbs, and breaths the green air with savour – I am he who gives ear to the trees, cheek pressed to a mossy skin, hearing with what sound remains to him the secret murmurs moulded of magick. I am he who walks the bogs, bared feet soothed in the hydrated soil – I am he who reflects over the murky waters, pondering the mystery of its sudden ripples, and who gladly follows the wisps. I am he who climbs the reeks, a trial biting and cutting soles, to reach nigh the sky – I am he who raises his hands in joyous trance, towards the limitless void beyond, realm of gods and un-gods, and chants in primitive dirge for they. I am he who sings for honour, when the full moon lies overhead – I am he who lies in the glen, feeling the pulse of the earth throb under him, into him, renewing the life within him – I am he who sees divinity in the world, in the flight of the hawk, a god’s message, in the crashing of the waves against the rocks, in the dark clouds flashing ominous light from within, in the swaying of trees in a gale’s violent sigh, in the rising of the sun, burning the world with violent red, in the deathly hours of twilight, as the sun traverses away, and darkness creeps after him, in the rain that patters, insistently or gently, on the roof of earthen home, in the singing of the tribe around the high flames of the sacred fire. I am he who holds honour above all else, I am he who keeps the hidden name, I am he who the Gift is his flesh, I am he who spills the blood for Mother and All-Father, I am he whose heart throbs in time with the earth’s.

But in the world of the others, enclosing and smothering my own, I am he who lives in perpetual incredulity – I am he who wanders in a stupor, disoriented by the unnatural haste. I am he who walks with bare, toughened soles over artificial ground, hurtful in composition, demanding the binding of feet – I am he who stares and shrinks at the unadorned hives that tower threateningly above. I am he who cringes and chokes on the foul dusts and stenches asphyxiating the air – I am he who covers twisted ears to drown out the raucous, overwhelming murmur. I am he who is reviled, for primal ugliness – I am who draws fear in the eyes for sudden, instinctual violence. I am he who is laughed at and condemned for adhering to honour which is no more in the world of the others – I am he who is held in contempt for offering to the gods. I am he who brings discord amongst them, wherever I may tread in their midst – I am he who bears the old curse, forever setting him to enmity. I am he whose heart is turned to weakened struggling beats when the earth’s pure rhythm is drowned out by sounds of cruelty, sounds of the bleak. I am he who is a relic of man’s disgruntling simple roots, I am he who holds no name but filth and evil, I am he whose being is beyond all reconciliation with the other’s, I am he who revels in the slaughter and primeval sport, I am he whose heart bleeds and beats ever slower as the earth dies.

I am lost to this world.

[Ryrin]

But your real home is the first!

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

taltos... you are a magnificent writer, better than most I've read, maybe better than any.

 

and stand alone or not, I see everything you've written here forming a book. I could reorder them in a chronological sequence with the seeming stand alones as prologue or epilogue but the order they're coming from you seems most natural, a childs history, a mans life, punctuated by more narrative and... less literal thoughts.

 

and I don't even know how to say what I mean but... don't stop. you're so good.

 

I can't write anything, especially after reading your work.

 

thank you for sharing this with us.