Ah, of course you know the deal! I write a short chapter, you write a short chapter, he writes a short chapter, and who knows what we will have in the end? A funny story? A good story? A love story, a horror story? Will it be three pages long? Thirty pages? three hundred?
Such is the beauty of writing together with a dozen others.
I will begin, then. You will have to forgive me if my chapter(s?) will not be of a very good quality. English is difficult for me. Writing a good story requires mastery of the language, which, in this case, I do not have.
.........................
He often thought how merciful sleep was. How kind and wonderful. Like an angle, some kind of guardian spirit. How merciful of her(he was sure sleep was a "her") it was to come every night for him, to take him away from this awful world for just a few hours. To take him to those blissful realms of forgetfulness and carelessness which looked so impossible in this crude, cruel world of flesh and air. To dance with his naked spirit in the shadows beyond the edge of the conscious mind, to love him like no being physical will ever be able to. To kill him, then bring him back to life the morning after, carrying him in her gentle arms like a baby, like the fragile, mindless thing that he was. mindless. mindless.
One day sleep stopped coming. No matter what he tried, Alex could not sleep. He could close his eyes, of course. He could empty his mind, lie on the couch. But he could not SLEEP. He was tired. So very, very tired, sometimes he thought he could simply crumble to dust any moment. To disappear into the evening wind like the ghost of a lost love, like a mocking phantasm in the corner of the eye.
And yet, tired as he was, he could not sleep. sleep. sleep.
Something in him knew it was because of the pills. She warned him this would happen, of course. But there was no choice. He told her that many times. Drawing was his life. Her life, for crap's sake. And to draw, he NEEDED those pills.
He loved her once, Alex remembered, as if from another life. And he hated her so much. What did she know, anyway? It was her, after all, who brought him those pills in the first place. That monstrous woman, that horrible witch. She screamed at him so much. And he screamed back at her, and everything turned a hazy shade of dark blue. "It is the color of anger", he told her once, and she gave him a look like she did not understand. Anger, anger.
He hated her voice the most. Her accent. It was like the purr of some hidden beast, like she had a hive of bugs buzzing in her throat. This, too, he told her once. She did not like it, naturally. Maybe this is why she left, in the end. This, and a thousand more reasons, perhaps.
She was an evil, beautiful witch. Witch, witch.
But she was no more, now. Now, he was alone. Not even sleep would come to him anymore.
He sat, silent, in the darkness of the tiny, filthy room, staring at the long crack in the wall above the TV. It was an evil crack, he knew now. He had time to look at it, since he could not sleep. He knew that when he was not looking, that crack would grow. Like a maw, he thought, like a mouth. Growing and opening to eat him whole. Then, in the next moment, it would grow invisible again, like the cunning demon it was. It was taunting him. Crack, crack, crack.
It was raining outside. Raining. raining.
Tap, and tap, and tap and tap the raindrops crushed without mercy against the window. Like tears from heaven, they broke against the glass. How long will it take them to get inside? To get to him? Inside him?
Maybe they are already there? Sometimes he felt like there was rain inside him. It made him so scared, and he had to make it come out.
So he cried. Shuddered, and cried.
So very, very tired.
................................
Heh. It's the beginning of an old story of mine, as I remember it. The whole thing just disappeared one day, I don't know where it is now.
I wonder how you will continue it...
Such is the beauty of writing together with a dozen others.
I will begin, then. You will have to forgive me if my chapter(s?) will not be of a very good quality. English is difficult for me. Writing a good story requires mastery of the language, which, in this case, I do not have.
.........................
He often thought how merciful sleep was. How kind and wonderful. Like an angle, some kind of guardian spirit. How merciful of her(he was sure sleep was a "her") it was to come every night for him, to take him away from this awful world for just a few hours. To take him to those blissful realms of forgetfulness and carelessness which looked so impossible in this crude, cruel world of flesh and air. To dance with his naked spirit in the shadows beyond the edge of the conscious mind, to love him like no being physical will ever be able to. To kill him, then bring him back to life the morning after, carrying him in her gentle arms like a baby, like the fragile, mindless thing that he was. mindless. mindless.
One day sleep stopped coming. No matter what he tried, Alex could not sleep. He could close his eyes, of course. He could empty his mind, lie on the couch. But he could not SLEEP. He was tired. So very, very tired, sometimes he thought he could simply crumble to dust any moment. To disappear into the evening wind like the ghost of a lost love, like a mocking phantasm in the corner of the eye.
And yet, tired as he was, he could not sleep. sleep. sleep.
Something in him knew it was because of the pills. She warned him this would happen, of course. But there was no choice. He told her that many times. Drawing was his life. Her life, for crap's sake. And to draw, he NEEDED those pills.
He loved her once, Alex remembered, as if from another life. And he hated her so much. What did she know, anyway? It was her, after all, who brought him those pills in the first place. That monstrous woman, that horrible witch. She screamed at him so much. And he screamed back at her, and everything turned a hazy shade of dark blue. "It is the color of anger", he told her once, and she gave him a look like she did not understand. Anger, anger.
He hated her voice the most. Her accent. It was like the purr of some hidden beast, like she had a hive of bugs buzzing in her throat. This, too, he told her once. She did not like it, naturally. Maybe this is why she left, in the end. This, and a thousand more reasons, perhaps.
She was an evil, beautiful witch. Witch, witch.
But she was no more, now. Now, he was alone. Not even sleep would come to him anymore.
He sat, silent, in the darkness of the tiny, filthy room, staring at the long crack in the wall above the TV. It was an evil crack, he knew now. He had time to look at it, since he could not sleep. He knew that when he was not looking, that crack would grow. Like a maw, he thought, like a mouth. Growing and opening to eat him whole. Then, in the next moment, it would grow invisible again, like the cunning demon it was. It was taunting him. Crack, crack, crack.
It was raining outside. Raining. raining.
Tap, and tap, and tap and tap the raindrops crushed without mercy against the window. Like tears from heaven, they broke against the glass. How long will it take them to get inside? To get to him? Inside him?
Maybe they are already there? Sometimes he felt like there was rain inside him. It made him so scared, and he had to make it come out.
So he cried. Shuddered, and cried.
So very, very tired.
................................
Heh. It's the beginning of an old story of mine, as I remember it. The whole thing just disappeared one day, I don't know where it is now.
I wonder how you will continue it...