VGF Fiction Exposition

[Valigarmander]

Unintentional rhyming. D:

Okay, all, this is the thread where people can post small stories or segments of stories you've writed for everyone else to read. Keep them short (either short stories, or segments). Read and review, viewers, and look for any strong/weak spots to help the writer. This topic can be used as a source for constructive criticism, promotion for your writings, or just a place to give everyone a taste of your pen.

You may put the story directly in your post, or link to offsite if you have it hosted somewhere else.

Now, I'll start off with a short story I wrote last year for a class. It's a new twist on an old fable.


The Strawberry

“Don’t do it!” came the cry of a terrified apartment resident. John did not listen, his hands balancing himself precariously on the balcony edge.

He was a broken shell of a man, tired of his own life. Earlier in the afternoon, he had come home from his job and was left ample time to think to himself. He had no girlfriend, no family. He didn’t even have a dog to wait for him at home. His car was aging and in need of repairs, yet he didn’t have the money to do such a thing. His job dragged him from the early hours of the morning to the brink of the afternoon, six days a week. At that moment, he realized he deplored his own life, and wanted to bring it all to an end.

That had been an hour ago. Now, he stood perched on the balcony, with shocked people and swarming news crew on the ground below. He felt at peace, the wind whipping about him. He felt ready to go.

“Mr. Matthews!” an officer shouted through a megaphone. “We don’t want you to get hurt. Please, step off the balcony and back into your apartment.”

John sighed, looking down at the tiny policewoman. Her cries for him not to jump were all just lies, the only reason they wouldn’t want him falling is because he’d be a mess to clean up afterwards. He knew nobody loved him, and nobody would miss him. Their halfhearted pleads to him were useless.

He could see the people below, some with hands at their mouths, some pointing up towards him, some covering their eyes. They all looked so tiny from the eighth story balcony, like little bugs. And soon, John thought, he himself would be like a little bug, flying through the air before being crushed into the ground.

As he gulped, he prepared to step off the ledge. He glanced to the right, seeing a frightened woman waving her hands out of her window. He turned left, and was surprised. In the adjacent balcony, there stood a small adobe pot. In it, a strawberry plant grew.

John didn’t know what to think. However, strawberries were in fact his favorite food. He decided to have a last meal. Slowly, he reached out and plucked one of the ripe red berries from the plant, and placed it into his mouth. It tasted so tart, so tender… It was the sweetest thing he had ever eaten.

As he swallowed the strawberry, he looked back down. Those people didn’t want to see him jump. Nobody did.

He smiled lightly. Maybe life actually was worth living. Maybe people aren’t meant to focus on the bad things, but the good things, like that tiny strawberry.

John grasped ahold the ledge. “It’s okay!” he shouted. “I’m not going to jump!”

The people below seemed relieved as John slowly stepped back towards his window. But as he lifted his left foot, it was caught in his shoelaces. Before he could realize what had happened, he tripped, lost his balance, and to the shock of the police, news crew, apartment residents, and himself, fell to his death.

[Ace Mercury]

It's a bright afternoon. A man walks along a side-street; the bright winter sun casts his sharp shadow against the pavement. The air was light and silent as the slush muffled the otherwise salient sounds of the city.

He had always liked model trains, and his basement is home to a meticulously built model town. An electronic locomotive circles around it, timed to make the round trip exactly once every five minutes. The track guides the train through hilly model terrain, as it delivers its model goods. Rail guards descend at rail-road crossings, stopping model cars (which weren't moving anyways), to make way for the model train. Equally miniature people stand around, transfixed by the train, and seem cheer it on as it chugs along. Each morning, he leaves the train running when he leaves, and he expects it to welcome him when he returns.

In the past, his mother had always told him that he could do anything, even become president. His teachers in grade school had lauded his abilities, much like how one would revel in winning twenty dollars in the lottery. His boss always said his work was "top notch", but he has yet to get a raise, beyond the cost of living increase.

The man returns home, but the house is eerily silent. The train had derailed sometime while he was out, wiping out several model trees and a few unfortunate model cows grazing nearby; its wheels were still spinning in vain. Gazing upon the wreck, he weeps openly and honestly.

---

This is a little short story I wrote on a whim last year, using a literary device I've seen in an episode of Honey and Clover.

[Galefore]

Father and Son

A little hovel covered by shadows and surrounded by an archaic and undisturbed land; this sort of sight was not glimpsed by any human or by any beast, for in its own way, even when seen by the eye, it could never be fully appreciated for what it was. Deep inside there lurked history, and deep inside there lurked memories of hatred, love, darkness, light, perception, blindness, sorrow, happiness… Deep inside there lurked everything possible for a home to hold. Even the light of life, that necessary element, and the stench of death, as every home can wistfully hope never to see, lived calmly there as memories of their events quietly slipped out of mind.

And within, there lurked the figures of two creatures. One was a tall, misshapen beast, whose manner of walking gave him a unique sort of being, an existence of novelty that attracted to all who glimpsed him a bit of a chill. He walked about on four legs, each tipped with a short stump of a wood-like substance. He crawled about, looking around him with eyes of amber, enormous portals of vision that felt like they crawled into the mind of something ancient and wise. About him he saw a faintly glowing light, the sun’s remaining rays, escaping dilution by the trees and their enormous branches. The fingers of the old wooden sentinels lent a ghostly trick to the floor, of hands reaching towards the alien creature’s unfortunate existence and grasping for his murmuring throat.

From said throat, the creature seemed to recite an epic in some odd language, his voice rising and falling and warbling like some form of high-pitched instrument. He spoke through a wide mouth that seemed to spread in a demented manner towards his ears, his very mind wasted on some sort of ignorance or perhaps insanity that gave him nothing to live for. His ash-colored skin gave no contrast to the bluish light of the sun’s rays, and his long, almost human arms cradled and caressed the other figure gently.

The other creature was a miniscule thing, a curiosity to behold, seeming to have no arms and no legs, staring with a calm face like a corpse’s up at its keeper. It gave a murmur most gentle every once in a while, as if it aimed to join the odd chorus of the four-legged creature that nurtured it. He would occasionally place the small creature, whose age was unknown despite the appearance of infancy it gave forth, on a bed of straw and leaves formed in the single, bare room of the remote home. It did not eat, nor did it make noise; sometimes it seemed that it did not require breath, its limbless figure rolling around occasionally so that the tall beast had to occasionally put it back in a safe position.

And in this loving relationship, the beast would sing and sing, a father to a creature that was not of his own race. He gave an unnatural grin to his “spawn” every once in a while, a slightly moving spectacle that echoed a fatherly warmth that was not truly present in the creature’s countenance. And he would sing, always murmuring his little tune like a broken record.

There came a time one day where the two no longer exchanged any contact; the tall creature did not sing, and the child did not try to sing along. The two did not move in their usual pattern, and neither gave their sad little grins to each other. And they were happier now, as they knew that there was no longer any responsibility…

Only freedom.

A leaf dropped from the sky as the two beasts silently sat, music that once livened the woods around them no longer coming.

Days passed.

Years passed.

And when the years had found them again, they were no more; the two creatures sat in the same position, a pair of petrified statues observed by many dead trees, yellow and red leaves covering the little thatched roof of the cottage they had made their pattern within everyday. The blue glow had become a yellow glow, and by night, the shadows were lighter. The stone cottage, as it was now, and the two stone bodies, sat peaceful as they always would.

-----------------------------------------------

And it remained that way forever. Whether they existed or not is up to you; and which died first is as well, or if they even died at all. But I challenge you to ask yourself, what relevance did this story truly have; could you find the meaning to it, could you find what level of truth was applicable? If not, I hope that one day your eyes are opened. Until then, please see this as a story told by nobody.

[Booyakasha]

It’s past ten. Grandma calls, hysterical—the old fellow’s fallen again. Coats go on, lights go off, I lock the door. We zoom across town, half-listening to the morons on the radio. Dad is grim and silent at the wheel. We pull into their driveway—car doors slam, shoes tap on asphalt, then up the steps to the front door. We go in. Grandma flits around the living room in her robe, hovers over the old fellow, who waves to us feebly from where he lies next to the sofa. I take hold under his arms, Dad grabs his hands, and we li-i-i-ift him to his feet. Grandpa laughs and thanks us, pitches to the side, nearly tumbling over again before we steady him. He laughs again, sheepish.

I follow him up the stairs, step by painful step. He grips the banisters; I stand ready to catch him. It takes a while. At the top landing, he thanks me and laughs again, winking a watery eye, and shuffles off to bed. Back downstairs, Grandma asks me to take out the garbage.

We leave. The radio plays a brash, repulsive new song. Dad weeps quietly to himself. I pretend I don't see.

'Extremely short story' assignment, from my creative writing course at the tech, three years ago.