i'm an open book, a portrait by carlyle
writing·@carlyle·
0.000 HBDi'm an open book, a portrait by carlyle
Hey Steemit! This is my next experiment with trying to mix my photos and my stories. So far I think the effect of adding pictures is really interesting, and I like how it adds toning and a sense of timing to the piece. I don't think I've gotten it "right" yet, but I still think these photos help shape the story into a more engaging narrative.  Colours burst from the void. Greens, and yellows, and blues came like waves, washing away the grays, the light, the shading of everything that was before. With these new colours came warmth, came energy, came life. The pulsating colours crashed straight into his eyes, massaging/ vibrating/ shocking his brain. In his shoulders and his spine the tension disappeared, and his body relaxed. When the colours stopped filling the scene, everything turned black. For that moment he was okay.  But in this new void, he was moving forward as if he was standing on a conveyor belt. On both sides of him were floating objects. The first thing he saw was a star, a blue sun that burned without heat or blinding light. It floated by in a serene and kind way, never begging for attention. When he got to the middle of the path, he could see that at the end of the track was his mother’s head, except giant. She glared past the lenses of her glasses with stabbing/ scrutinizing eyes. (But what else could she had stared with?) Her mouth was moving, and the sounds of crashing cars and sirens sputtered out from her lips like blood out of a pierced jugular vein, as he was being pulled closer and closer towards her teeth.  Once he was in reach of her tongue he whimpered, but then he pulled back his fist. After a moment of hesitation, he punched her right in the cheek. Although his fist was the size of the fly in comparison to her fleshy face, his hand hit her with a crack, and she responded with a scream. Her head was forced to the side, as if she was hit by a baseball bat, and then broke off, spinning off into the nothingness, finally getting out of his way. The belt pushed him forward still, but instead of his mother’s head, he was being pushed towards an abyss. All of sudden he started falling faster, at a rate so that he was without any sort of hope for being able to stop, but still, he was at peace. As he fell the air did not cut into him, nor did his head ache.  He landed without feeling it. Now he was in a town, a sweet little town. In fact, it was the town of his childhood, a place that he loved. Down the street a boy on a bike played, driving in circles over and over. At first he smiled, thinking it was cute, until the boy went faster and faster, and steam started rising from his tires. The kid stopped looking like he was in one place, but instead could only be recognized as a blur. The rest of the town looked empty, but it stilled looked as if was his. He was standing in front of the gas station where he smoked his first cigarette. Sally, or whatever the popular girl’s name was, invited him to smoke it with her. For the entire time he didn’t cough because he wanted to look cool in front of her. He remembered the next year, in his final grade of middle school; he scoffed when he saw Sally in the hallway and said to his friends “She’s such a side character.” They laughed, slightly because of the funny way that he expressed himself, but mostly because the ones who didn’t laugh would surely be hit, or be called names. Those sweet, nasty boys were so afraid of names. Looking around the town he saw houses where they shouldn’t be. The street was made up entirely of his friend’s homes. He was filled with ecstasy because of that. He missed his friends, or at least he thought he did. When he tried to walk over to the front door of his favorite friend, Ally’s, home, he noticed something odd. First off, his legs wouldn’t work, but he didn’t notice that. What he noticed was that the front door wasn’t a door, but instead a board. The rest of the homes looked the same. As he stared at them their paints, their gay coats of pinks, and yellows, and greens, started peeling from the homes. The grey under them started showing as the squealing of the bike started assaulting his ears. He looked back at the boy to see the tires melting. When the tires were gone it was the scratching of metal on pavement, but the metal started melting too, as the boy’s blur shrunk smaller and smaller. The rest of the world started melting too, the paint went first, and then the homes started slumping and collapsing like a child on a lazy day. He watched it all, as it all turned gray and red. In that fading the very air turned to ash. The fire burned out, and the ground melted away from his feet. The heat was gone, and the air was stripped of everything. It wasn’t a smooth collapse; instead it all flickered by in stages. Yet it wasn’t violent either, just broken. The world wasn’t consumed in a rage; it faded in a series of whisper.  Once the world was gone, he melted back into the couch in his therapist’s office. The middle aged man that saw him sat watching with solemn eyes and full beard. He loved his therapist, probably because to him his therapist was Dostoevsky. The great man was looking intently at him, watching him with a fatherly gaze as he lay sprawled out on the couch. Again, his mother was there, in the room with him and his inspiration. She was talking about him to the doctor, but never to him, screeching in that voice, that voice that always echoed in his head. “Depressed?! Depressed?! There’s one thing I know and it’s how to raise boys. No son of mine is depressed! He couldn’t be! There’s no reason he would be! He wouldn’t do that to me!”  Dostoevsky’s calming eyes continued to rest on him, soothing him as his mother’s voice stoked the flames within his chest. He wanted to run, but the comforting presence of that literary titan kept him there - lying on the couch - somehow feeling safe. For hours he felt secure in the presence of that man who he thought of as home. Even as he grew numb to his mother’s shrill voice he was given some sense of security. ______________________________ The previous scene faded, and he fell into a grey box. He was in his cubicle, sitting in that creaky chair. A thin layer of sweat covered his forehead, and he felt tired, but the caffeine burning in his intestines kept him awake. Because of the drugs, no longer did he want sleep, but now he just lacked the motivation to live. The taste of salt was lingering on his tongue.  An employee rapped her knuckles against his door. She was an attractive girl, blonde with a well-kept body, but she was very proud. Something about her eyes, and the way she held herself, made it obvious that she came from an upper class education. “Mr. Daedalus,” she said through her noble and pale lips. “Your 3PM is here.” And with those words, the girl was gone. Something about her made him want to laugh. He didn’t know what it was, but it was the love and belief in living. Under his breath he cursed her for having the warmth that’s so necessary for being.  Daedalus wasn’t unsocial or uncharming. He knew how to talk well, and he was good humored, he just loathed being. At work he was a man of influence, in fact he ran the entire firm of architects, but he had no interest in dealing with clients. After he gained control of the firm he changed his name from the name of his parents to the name of the ancient architect, as every day he fantasized about building a labyrinth to be left alone in with his thoughts. He knew his that hero suffered, and he knew his hero had caused suffering, but he longed for his fate as at least there was some beauty in it. Even if he lost his son, he was still jealous of the architect for being able to have loved something dearly at all. When two minutes had passed and the needle of the clock struck 3, a man, sweating all over and constantly tugging at his collar, rushed in. He was frothing to get started. Daedalus sighed.  Fin