Flipside Movie Emporium Forum Index Flipside Movie Emporium
Discussion Forums Locked & Archived for Browsing
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Story by The Third M?n

 
This forum is locked: you cannot post, reply to, or edit topics.    Flipside Movie Emporium Forum -> Random Insanity
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
The Third M?n
Studio Exec


Joined: 09 Sep 2003
Posts: 575
Location: Chasing Stef around post-war Vienna

PostPosted: 02.20.2004 3:37 pm    Post subject: Story by The Third M?n Reply with quote

Here is a story, for your reading pleasure, written by none other than Mr Lime. We had to do some creative writing for our English coursework and so this is what I came up with. I got an A* for it in the end -- I personally think it's quite good, but the climax ain't that, um, convincing. I did it in a rush, but I still think it's quite good.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
The Third M?n
Studio Exec


Joined: 09 Sep 2003
Posts: 575
Location: Chasing Stef around post-war Vienna

PostPosted: 02.20.2004 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"?"

by Pablo Hernandez


It was on a Saturday morning, at precisely twenty-seven past ten and with a temperature of minus five degrees, that I found a pig?s head in my back garden. It vaguely lay there, amid all the snow-coated trodden grass, its mouth grotesquely open in monstrous pain, grinning at me obnoxiously like a malicious clown. Ripples of water from the morning dew uninterruptedly rolled down its left side. A jet-black beetle crawled over its right ear. The head had been lopped off the body, clean as a dandelion. Blood slurred the snow, giving it a raspberry sherbet-like colour. I approached it with intense care, feeling as though I was in for something special, and contemplated it with the utmost delicacy. Dried blood covered most of its upper surface, contrasting with its pallid, pinkish flesh and from its mouth protruded a tongue that hung like a lifeless snake. Its teeth were sharp knives of once great power that were now rotten and decaying. I looked at it again. It looked back. I moved slightly to the left. It looked at me still. I moved slightly to the right. It looked at me still. No matter where I went, its penetrating gaze was fixed on me. I would never stop being watched. It was then that I squatted and picked it up with my bare hands, and held it right in from of me, my left arm extended. My hands were stained with blood; they were now filthy, culpable and full of sin. All of a sudden I realised that the pig?s head only had one eye. On its left side, where the left eye should have been, there was nothing. Just a space filled with emptiness. Oblivion. A wave of unreality and of ineffable incomprehensibility surrounded it with an invisible veil - and all I did was wonder.

??? I thought in my head, which was whirling in an interminable spiral of perplexity.

I had never before found a pig?s head in my back garden.

I walked towards the back of the house and opened the door. I entered the kitchen. As usual, it was impeccable ? but I was surprised not to see my mum there, chopping vegetables or preparing some curry for lunch. Just where was she? I left the blood-spattered pig?s head next to the microwave. I opened the fridge and got the peanut butter out. I got the sliced bread. Then I spread the peanut butter on the sliced bread with a knife. Voila, a peanut butter sandwich. How great. My mouth chewed and munched on the sandwich with incredible adroitness. I swallowed. ?Hey, how do you like it?? I said to the pig?s head. I anxiously waited for the dry silence to be broken, but no. It didn?t answer back. ?But why?? I asked myself. It was probably ignoring me. Ah, what the hell. ?I hate you, you pig!? I screamed at the top of my voice. The pig?s head didn?t move the slightest, and its grimace of utter horror and ugliness was still embodied on its plump face. ?Want me to tell you a story?? The silence continued. And on, and on, and on? The monotony of it all started to get on my nerves. It?s like when you read the same sentence in a story twice. It?s like when you read the same sentence in a story twice. How I hated it. The silence would not stop; the pig?s head just would not talk to me. I was pretty certain that the little man in the radiator would have something to say about all this, but he?d told me he wasn?t going to be home on the twenty-second so I decided not to resort to his wisdom. All of a sudden, I was swimming in milk, and I was happy. There was a baby in the oven.

The boy woke up.

Sweat rolling uninterruptedly down his cheeks, body cowered against the wall in a foetal position, trembling with ineffable fear, he opened his eyes. The bedroom looked as it had done three hours and a half before ? only darker. The walls were painted in black, as was the rest of the room. The boy could not see much at all, but with the dim light from the outside infiltrating the windows he could distinguish the toy clown, dangling lifelessly from the ceiling like a puppet. He knew that it was looking at him. That innocent, poor little clown, that wretched and miserable creature isolated from society. The red nose, the sorrowful eyes. He often felt sorry for him. The boy?s heart beat like a drum announcing an oncoming battle and his nerves twitched with dread. He didn?t like what he had seen. He didn?t like it at all. It was frightening. For some reason he could not really recall what it was that he had seen, yet he knew that it had poisoned him with a penetrating terror beyond mere description. He did remember, however, something icy touching him lightly (yet so gloomily) on the right cheek, but that memory was faint as the snow of a hot summer?s day. His blood ran cold. He shuffled in his wet sheets for a while, perplexed and bewildered, got up and staggered towards the light switch like a blind man. His Donald Duck pyjamas were wet, too. He turned on the light. Instantly, what had seemed menacing not very long ago now looked welcoming, what seemed colourless now seemed full of life. Or so it seemed.

Little Red Riding Hood lazily lay on the orange and pink carpet. He would read it with his mum for the umpteenth time the next night.

Toys lay scattered along the floor: Action Men, G.I. Joes, fake guns and Matchbox cars. The clown still smiled at him from the inaccessible ceiling.

The boy walked into the bathroom quietly, and looked at himself in the mirror. He was there, inside that web of unfathomable ambiguity. He could see himself, face pallid as the mist of the sea. I don?t look too bad, he thought. He slowly realised how frosty the floor had become ? his bare feet were getting colder by the minute. It was then that all of a sudden he caught sight of a most baffling thing: the bath tub was filled with water. Last night the bath had no water; in fact, he hadn?t even bathed. But now, even though he knew not how, it was full. The squeaky yellow duck remained there, nonetheless, floating ever happily. He hesitated. Not knowing what to do, he turned off the bathroom light, with the belief that something was wrong.

The boy got out of the bathroom. Bamboozled and with the shadow of a doubt, he thought of going back to bed - but no. The nightmare would return, he?d be scared, he?d pee himself and then the next morning his mum would get upset. More than once had she had to change the bed covers. The boy didn?t want to get his mum upset, nor did he want to be scared. But he wanted to go back to sleep. There was really no alternative: if he didn?t go to sleep now he?d be tired the next morning. If. But what if??

The boy looked out of the window. Eyes wide open; he carefully examined the surroundings of the garden, his terror and dismay mounting with anxiety. The wind whistled with the sound of a thousand dead souls, and the elms moved from left to right, right to left in unison. The starless sky had blossomed into a gigantic black mass, capable of engulfing even the innermost wishes. An injured bird cried in pain, somewhere in the distance. There was a click, and then the room was bathed in absolute obscurity once again. ?I want your body,? a dry, haggard voice murmured. A shudder, chill as ice, ascended upon his spine. He slowly turned around, the tendons of his neck cracking like the whip of a lion tamer. He did not know what to expect to see, nor did he ever want to find out. But he had to look.

His heart beat once.

Pop-pom.

And twice.

Pom-pom.

And thrice.

Pom-pom.

It was at the fourth beat that he suddenly caught sight of an old man, clad in a dark brownish gabardine, standing perfectly still. He was staring at the boy with a ghastly glance, his eyes penetrating as hypodermic needles. The boy moved back with a suffocated scream.

Things that go bump in the night.

?I want your body,? the old man repeated. This time the tone of his voice sounded comparatively more menacing. His cold hand reached out for the boy. He remained both frightened and incredulous. He could not believe what he was seeing, he just could not ? but the mere vision of it all raised his fears to a gargantuan crescendo. The old man approached him with intense care, as though there was glass on the floor and he didn?t want to step on it. The boy looked around the room in utter desperation and found dozens of eyes staring at him. The teddy bears, the dolls and even the people on the photographs hanging on the wall were looking at him eerily. As was the old man. His face remained stern, frosty and bitter. His eyes were still fixed upon the boy?s, even though he did not dare look back. An immeasurable sense of shock invaded the boy?s whole body, making it frail, turning it into an insignificant lump of shaky tissue. He was afraid. The old man kept getting nearer and nearer ? and still the boy couldn?t move. His heart still beat, not because he wanted it to but simply because it could. He wanted to get out of there, be somewhere else. The old man got nearer. The boy felt as though a weight had been set upon him; the terror was overwhelming, incisive, unbearable. He could not stand it any longer. The old man shuffled his feet in a fatigued manner, radiating a sense of utter horror, reeking of death. A sepulchral air hung in the room. The old man remained calm; the boy did not. His pupils dilated, his breath grew more and more intense. He shut his eyes. Blackness. He opened them. Blackness once again. But against it he could differentiate the silhouette of the old man. He had not gone.

?I want your body. I said I want your body,? the old man mumbled.

The boy gave a high-pitched scream.

?I?m not going to hurt you. I said I?m not going to hurt you.?

Not knowing what to do, the boy moved to the right, almost absent-mindedly, in an attempt to escape from the old man.

Yet it was in vain.

The old man grabbed him abruptly by the shoulders, gripping uncommonly hard; the boy found himself in monstrous, excruciating pain. A diabolical expression of both pleasure and pure malice was embodied on the old man?s weather-beaten countenance. And still he would not cease. The boy?s mind was twisted like a metal pole, rotating like a kaleidoscope in an array of sensations. But most of all pain and panic.

?I want your body. It?s not going to hurt, trust me.?

The boy remembered no more, and everything went white.

The next morning the little boy is waiting for the school bus. He rubs his hands together to keep himself away from the cold. The sky is grey like the eyes of a dying man, the sun shines with a faded passion, almost without grace. The birds do not sing. It is an ugly day, but the boy feels more content than usual. He has earlier woken up to safety; his mum has been there, next to him, soothing him and telling him that it is all right. It has been a mere nightmare, nothing more and no less. Yet, it had felt so very real. So authentic. But it is okay now.

He waits. Near the little boy, several older school boys talk amongst themselves. There is never anybody from his year in the bus stop, so every morning he comes he doesn?t feel very comfortable. Nonetheless, his mood has taken a radical turn and instead of the usual depressed one that he carries to school every day, which is mainly due to his nocturnal visualizations, he now feels jolly. He has a look around, to see if the bus is coming. Nope. He gazes at his watch. Seven past eight. He gropes around his pocket and takes out the lollypop his mum has given him. It?s a red one, with bubblegum inside it. He eats it. He gazes at his watch again. Nine past eight. The sound of the approaching bus reaches the boy?s ears. He laughs, with a sort of sick desperation. The bus comes into sight, and after two or three seconds, it?s right in front of the little boy. It stops. The door swings open. The pupils get inside it, chattering, bags on their backs. The little boy doesn?t. For he has just seen the old man, staring at him with his comatose eyes. He?s the bus driver.

?I told you it would be easy, my boy. I want your body.?

The little boy screams, not so much because of the shock of seeing the old man, but because the bloodied pig?s head is lying on his lap. It grins at him.


Last edited by The Third M?n on 02.20.2004 8:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
the night watchman
Studio Exec


Joined: 27 Jun 2003
Posts: 1373
Location: Dark, run-down shack by the graveyard.

PostPosted: 02.20.2004 6:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, pretty impressive. I like how you find dread in the most mundane things, like a bathtub filled with water and such. You also do a pretty good job of just piling on the abstractions until they take hold, a technique a lot like Lovecraft's. The story's unfocused progression seems very much like the world as seen through the eyes of a schizophrenic, complete with a sense of paranoia (the eyes that constantly regard the protagonist) and an acceptance of bizarre situations. The ending was actually quite affective; I liked how the way the narrative circles back on itself, however, I'd humbly suggest that it would have been more effective without the very last line. Overall, very engaging and genuinely creepy.
_________________
"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
The Third M?n
Studio Exec


Joined: 09 Sep 2003
Posts: 575
Location: Chasing Stef around post-war Vienna

PostPosted: 02.20.2004 8:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, the night watchman!

I just got rid of the last line for its own sake. Yup, it's better like that. Anyhow, your comments were much appreciated.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Al_Bundy_007
Key Grip


Joined: 28 Feb 2004
Posts: 33
Location: GA

PostPosted: 02.28.2004 3:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

awesome stuff man
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
This forum is locked: you cannot post, reply to, or edit topics.    Flipside Movie Emporium Forum -> Random Insanity All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001-2007 phpBB Group