Work in progress - Chapter 1

I thought of us today. Sitting on a dirty, overcrowded bus heading home. My eyes had maintained constant contact with the yellow sign that reads out when stops have been requested. Not that I cared when or where the bus stopped; the terminal was the final destination no matter the route taken. The stare was so I wouldn’t have the make eye contact with the other commuters; each with their own agenda, friends, wins, losses, things that couldn’t be guessed, or much less cared about.

The sign met my gaze, and returned as much concern to me, as I to it. If the sign could think, what would be on its mind? Do you think that it’d care to have someone’s unwavering glare fixated on it? Should it not, would it afford everyone the same acceptance as it did I? Was this it: unconditional love?

Never blinked, and soon, the words were bleeding into one another. That filthy yellow was seeping into the grey ceiling. The colours visiting one another reminded me of that summer we’d spent opiate in the countryside.

Your cousin’s farm had that knoll on the edge of his property. It rose up a few metres and looked over the field, rich in un-kept grass and dandelions. A gorgeous, green expanse that rolled on for what seemed forever. It lay several acres away from the nearest farm, highway, telephone poll, or electric hum.

This was the closest to untouched beauty you and I will ever find.

The hill was our discovery. One evening while taking a walk together, just the two of us, we stumbled across the elevation. The evening was chilly and unlit, and the task of trekking that far out on Gille’s property was one of merit. You were cold and wanted to turn back. I was adamant that we came back in the daylight; you were cranky and wanted to go back to the house. We stood there exchanging arguments, losing body heat as the moments passed, until you agreed to my condition, if only so we could return to the residence and grab a sweater to manage the cool summer eve.

Can’t say I’m certain when we did return. Don’t think it was the next day, but it was in all likelihood sometime that week. It was around noon-hour, and we’d just had tea and soup. We climbed to the top of that fantastic mound and secured ourselves a spot to observe.

Ensconced, four grams deep. My arm was stretched across your back, and my hand found rest on your shoulder, as we gazed into the sky. There was no words expressed between us; we’d become one with the world. Wind flowing through the nearby trees behind us sang gentle melodies. They were songs that told of nature’s clandestine knowledge. God’s breath rushed down through the meadow, causing the grass to sway, and as it moved it caught the light from the sun, and handed it like a torch, blade to blade until it vanished into the horizon. Earth’s heart beat for us, opened itself up and bared its fruit like we were the Originals.

Sitting in that canvas as it painted itself, we’d lost all track of the time. The sun had started to hide itself behind the clouds, crying tears of orange marvel into the blue pool of felicity, fusing the colours together. I remember that sunset on the hill, bathed in violet light that danced its patterns before us, for us. I never wanted it to end.

Those most likely to be interpreted as paramnesia are my favourite thoughts of you. That was our definitive episode in tainted innocence.

April, where are you now?

Silhouette edit diary.

The previous post was, for the most part, entirely unedited. I wanted to get some feedback on a rough of it prior to making any changes. I'm now starting the process of doing it now.

If you look at the piece now, you'll see some bolded and blockquote parts, each with a corresponding date. The blockquote areas mean either a new paragraph, or a major change to a previous paragraph. The bolded parts are simply edits to single sentences or thoughts. The following will contain all of my edits, including the original rough work, and my changes. Please feel free to comment on the changes, and suggest certain areas you think I should work on.

Original: His motions were fluid and almost poetic, a complex sentence of macabre, punctuated by loud blasts.

Edit: His motions were poetic; a stanza of macabre punctuated by gunshots.

2.7.06

I have a particular fondness for that sentence, but I felt it was spruced up for no good reason. On top of that, by saying his motions were fluid it brings pre-meditation to mind. Not to say that he didn't come here with murder on his mind, but that he's done it before, or practiced. I didn't want that, so I made the change. There's also something wrong with "almost poetic", especially when concluded with the rest of the sentence. So the changes were made.

Original: His thoughts were in another place altogether. Places far from the concrete jungle. Happier times, happier times he shared with her. She had a beautiful smile and a way of making him laugh. Her eyes saw right through him. He could confide his most personal thoughts to her. It wasn't perfect, it never was, but his mind wouldn't accept that at the present moment.

Edit: Like a shattered mirror, his thoughts ran in shards of varying length and accuracy; each sliver of reflective glass distorting each shape and colour to a writhing conviction. Everything that he'd experienced with her, good and bad, was falling into place; he organized each thought and emotion in an order that allowed for logic to justify his motive.

2.7.06

Re-reading that part made me think that the paragraph lacked in... everything. The edit isn't going to stand alone, I'm going to elaborate on it, or more importantly his state of mind, a little before and after that part in the story. Right now I'm kind of using that as a stepping stone to find my place and give me something to use to remind me of how to work on it at a later point. I think the broken mirror is a perfect metaphor for distortion.

Original:

It wasn't out of the ordinary to get a hobo looking for shelter to come in, which was easy enough to handle: throw him out. This character didn't look like a hobo.

Edit: It wasn't out of the ordinary to get shelterless riff-raff bumming around for a place to keep dry. This character didn't look like the average destitute scrub.

2.7.06

The "easy enough to handle" bit was removed because it was weak and diluted the the though. I changed the language because whenever I see the word hobo I associate it with cute. Weird, I know, but true. It's a cartoon word. Regardless of where I hear it I can't take it seriously. Riff-raff, on the other hand, reminds me of garbage. It's a step down on the scale of attractiveness. Exactly what I wanted. Oh, and in all honesty, I've been looking for a reason to use destitute ALL DAY.