This is a poem/Writer's Bloc – Creative Fridays

It’s our final Creative Fridays of term! We bring you two fantastic poems by Peter Tse to see out the term in style…

 

Photo Credit : Bob Dass

This is a poem

 

Not a poem about writing poetry.

This is a poem

With its deliberately end-stopped lines.

Self-conscious, carefully selected

Enjambment. Don’t forget to vary

your lines,

varied line length

can

have

an

effect.

A very important effect.

 

Choose words that create iridescence,

that are sonically mellifluous.

Give simple words a chance too –

an exorbitant smorgasbord of esoteric words can awkward a line.

 

Give the beat a bit of a chance

to find itself some rhythm,

you don’t want to force it

finding beats to just fill pentameter.

 

Play with words to create metaphor,

like a child playing with bread dough

really, that’s what words are for –

to plant an image and make it grow.

 

Plants grow like people –

Personification –

It’s a form of metaphor

Or more generally, a trope.

There’s something to avoid,

exposition

It doesn’t add to the poem

It’s superfluous, it’s unnecessary

And slows lines down

Like a car running out of fuel.

 

Finally,

add the odd ambiguous line

challenge the reader’s preconceptions of the poem,

challenge their slowly forming conclusion of the poem

Cheese is fine.

 

 

Writer’s Bloc

Photo Credit : bibekthecrony

The sky is blue

The clouds are white

The sea is blue

Unless it’s night

The sun is bright

It gives us light.

 

Mix those paints there –

On that blank canvas

 

Blue and white make light blue

They make the sky white

They make the clouds blue.

 

Blue and black make dark blue

They make the sea black

And the sea less black.

 

Set it on fire

To get a bright light.

 

I tried to paint the sea view

At day,

But the sky is blue

And the sea is blue.

 

Then I tried to paint the sea view

At night,

But the sky was black

So the sea was black.

 

There was a star in the night,

It could be seen in the sea.

Yellow is not bright enough

Nor white,

Nor yellow and white,

Nor yellow and white and orange,

With a sprinkle of cheap glitter.

 

Set it on fire

To get a bright light.

 

Peter Tse

 

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Hooked/The Gloves – Creative Fridays

Delivering three poems about growing old, Lewis Henderson provides another dose of poetry to this weeks Creative Friday installment…

Hooked

Sand sticking to fibres,

Dampened by salts of the sea,

The towel had travelled far.

Two elbows peaked over,

Connected hands clutching pages,

Planning the next voyage.

The rectangle relished the new,

New grains on other beaches,

New hooks in other towns.

More trips passed,

Threads slackened,

Fabric hardened,

Labels departed.

A one-hook towel,

Hanging with no aspirations,

Appeased with memories.

At night sand returned,

Warm reclining bodies revisited,

Salts could be felt.

In ‘mourning’ the towel reminisced.

 

The Gloves

Wrapping quivering hands,

Bracing the nippy air,

Pushing the tartan trolley,

Fumbling for keys,

Sitting on the side.

Hands creased,

Hard skinned,

Spotted with brown,

Coated in veins.

Fingers Grew,

Wool loosened,

Colour faded,

Holes expanded.

When they were Juvenile,

When freshly knitted,

How they would play.

Games with snow,

Games with leaves,

Games with mud.

The Games still breathed.

The couple remembered them.

 

Visits in the Festive Period

A solitary Milk pan,

Heated on the rusting surface.

No kitchen utensils to entertain,

No tins to be buttered,

No fragrances of spice,

Or bubbling of sauces.

Curious plastic meals frequented.

Occasionally, maybe once a year,

Lemon stuffed Birds returned,

Potatoes crackled in fat again,

Parsnips tanned,

Pudding steamed away up top,

Peas enjoyed a Jacuzzi.

This ended,

A shinier host took over.

Smells of warming bread,

Smells of sizzling beef,

Had a new permanent home.

The old has once been the new.

The new remembered the old,

Understanding the value of these visits.

Lewis Henderson

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NaNoWriMo-Mania

Dannee McGuire talks about the intense experience of writing a novel in a month…

Alongside your average essay word count of 2,000 or 3,000 words, could you imagine writing 1,667 extra words a day… For 30 days? That’s what NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is all about: challenging people to write a 50,000 word novel over the course of November. I’m about to embark on this challenge for the third time.

NaNoWriMo began in 1999, surging from 21 people to over 260,000 as of 2013, under dynamic founder Chris Baty. NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel. The website offers prospective writers the infrastructure to track and display every word they add to their fledging masterpieces, with certificates offered to those novelists who finish by 23.59 on 30 November.

My first NaNoWriMo experience was in 2006. Having found out about the competition half way through November, I ran helter-skelter into it on the 12th, enthusiastically scribbling over 3000 words a day as I nudged my heaps of GCSE coursework out of the way. 18 days later, with a not so insignificant bout of Repetetive Strain Injury, I was the proud owner of my first novel. If you could call it a novel. It was a topsy-turvy jumble of scenes, prospective opening lines, snippets of character development plots, all out of sequence, and not proofed in any way. After completing it, I looked at it in despair and shoved it into the bottom of a baseless folder, never to see the light of day.

Yet that’s the whole point of NaNoWriMo. It doesn’t promise its writers a perfectly crafted work of art by the end of the month, but instead offers a foot in the door and a boost of confidence to tackle what many consider as the most inhibiting factor of a writer’s life: writing anxiety. “NaNoWriMo is an unbeatable way to write the first draft of a novel because it’s such a powerful antidote to that horrible foe of creativity: self- doubt,” says Grant Faulkner, Executive Director. “NaNoWriMo is a rollicking conversation about all aspects of writing, and an invitation to dare to do what seems impossible.”

My second novel, completed in 2007, was a slightly calmer affair. Yet since then, I’ve been hindered by the second, twinned Achilles heel of the budding novelist: procrastination. That’s where the collaboration side of NaNoWriMo comes in. The website offers a comprehensive forum for writers to find answers to all their questions, post their daily targets and gather writing research. For those who prefer more instant forms of communication, there are chatrooms and other forms of live chat for ‘word wars’ (the term referring to intensely writing as many words as possible within twenty minutes). Face-to-face options are also available. NaNoWriMo have local meetups within Exeter, where writers can meet for a coffee or a drink. But more instantly for students, the Exeter Creative Writing group since last year has supported NaNoWriMo writers. Every weekend from 2-4pm, you can find a flock of students taking over a table in the A&V Hub armed with their laptops. Biscuits and tea are available for members to join, although the society kindly requests for people to bring their own mugs.

With such a strong local and global support system, NaNoWriMo looks set to make another 341,375 or more writers into novelists this year, as they did in 2012. With no plot or ideas, I’m all set to spend 30 minutes a day scraping together another haphazard novel this year (1667 non-academic words per day really doesn’t take too long!). Who’s up for joining me on the challenge?

Dannee McGuire

 

Drip – Creative Fridays

This week for Creative Fridays we have a powerful, emotional story by Chloe Forsyth…

Photo Credit: andydr

Drip. Drip. Drip.The steady sickly slap of the viscous liquid striking the soft sapphire rug.

You only noticed her quiet breathing when it ceased. All that was left to compete with the suffocating silence was the sickly drip, drip, drip of that coward blood, fleeing the tangle of dormant limbs in the hope of salvation.

But there was none.

I wanted to feel her hands around me once again. The first time she’d held me her hands had been as soft as newly spun silk. But she hadn’t touched me, or anyone else, in a long time.

She used to be so happy. The first time I ever saw her she was riding high on her Daddy’s shoulders, giggling from the unique view of her new vantage point. Her beautiful brunette curls had bounced around her shoulders, rocking backwards and forwards like a Jack-in-the-Box as she tossed her head from side to side in a childish attempt to see all that the surrounding landscape had to offer. Her hazel eyes caught mine. They were so bright and alive, countering the tacky fairground lights with their youthful optimism. She’d pointed and begged that she wanted me. Why? Well I was never sure. My leering black button eyes, my wonky smile and my arms, open in a desperate plea for attention, had turned away many prospective partners. But not her. From that moment on we would always be together. Never one without the other.

Or so I thought.

Like any good father, set a challenge by the apple of his eye, he sought desperately to please her. He paid for five dull red rubber balls and began throwing them at the dented metal cans. Concentration masked his sagging features. A good shot. He should be, he’d served in Vietnam. His aim was true and soon enough the burly proprietor was aggressively tugging my furry brown body from the highest shelf. A few uncomfortable seconds waiting in his sweating unwashed paws before finally being passed onto her.

She hugged me tightly against her chest, my face buried in the warm woollen scarf knitted by a doting Granny. Her smell was refreshingly different to what I had been used to. Gone at last was the stale stench of grease, alcohol and sweat that had wafted from every orifice of every worker at the fair, clinging to my fur like freshly melted tar. Now there was just a subtle hint of lavender and wet grass. The smell of hiking upon rolling green fields that stretched out to the horizon and beyond. A premonition of the family outings that were to come.

And there had been many. From sliding sideways on a painted wooden chair (as we shared tea from plastic pink cups and saucers while we chatted like grown-ups about grown up things), to clinging to her shivering goose pimpled body as we were flung into the clear blue ocean. The waves engulfing us in a blisteringly cold embrace. Like the one she was enfolded in now.

Every night we would lie on the thick mattress, duck down cushioning our heads as a cotton sheet was pulled over us. The peaceful action was the perfect antidote to a day full of exuberant play. She would turn her head to the side, brown curls forming a halo as she snuggled her chubby cheeks into my fur. Her loud snoring was my lullaby.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Where was it all coming from? The parquet floorboards were saturated. Yet still more dripped from the lifeless white limb hanging limply off the bed. I traced a single droplet, as it forced its way over the parapet then descended down the groove in her palm. The life line. It dawdled lazily down her naked ring finger before hanging over the precipice. The pool of its fallen comrades below. Drip.

Tonight, the yelling had been louder than usual. It was routine. Come in. Scream. Slam the door. Throw herself violently onto the bed. Sob. I watched it all from the odd angle that my body had slid into after years of sitting neglected on that painted chair. The peeling pink paint the only outward sign of the neglect we both felt. My body ached from the exertion of keeping itself upright, whilst gravity tried its best to pull me down. Once a trusted best friend, I was now reneged to a leering audience member in her great show of self-destruction. Tonight, instead of sobbing, she had torn open the wooden desk draw and fumbled for the sharp metallic shears. I like to think that she’d glanced at me one final time before she’d resolutely plunged the wicked metal into her yielding flesh.

Love. Laughter. Life. Now all that had dripped away.

Chloe Forsyth

Six Word Literature – The Art of Quick Writing

This month the hype is all about NaNoWriMo, the marathon of the writing world. But if 50,000 words sounds like a bit too much to combine with deadlines, why not try the complete opposite, quick writing? Fe Toussaint introduces us to the world of six-word literary masterpieces…

Photo Credit: poetrygenius

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” It was with these six words that the twentieth century author Ernest Hemingway inadvertently inspired a quick writing movement in our own day and age. It only takes one Google search for ‘six word stories’ to find a vast array of webspaces dedicated to the art of moving people within a six word limit. And there’s much more where this particular brand of short form writing came from. Literary short distance runners can find solace in initiatives such as 55 Fiction (allowing 55 words to be written), Flash Fiction and, perhaps the most wide spread one, Twaikus.Traditionally speaking, this might confuse those who love to read. One might already hesitate to classify a book as legitimate literature where it’s only 90 pages long, let alone 55 words short.

However, we can assume different types of art will move individuals in different ways. While your flatmate might turn to Dante’s Divine Comedy for a relaxing read, you could perfectly enjoy the twenty word long poem a blogger has just posted. The accessibility of platforms like Tumblr and Twitter allow for both a huge potential audience, and a large base of authors. Just because writing short pieces often isn’t as much of a deadline ridden bootcamp as, for example, NaNoWriMo will be, that does not mean short form writers are not contributing to their own art’s development.

There is one risk involved in this ever growing hype of quick writing: it might become a victim of its own success. The fact that publications like O Magazine, the New Yorker and Esquire have joined in on short form writing could ultimately contribute to its decline. The biggest charms of short form writing are its low threshold, its improv-like feel and – alright, I’ll admit it – the fact that it might just be the in-crowd thing to do right now. Submitting short works to blogs and seeing your name up there can be surprisingly satisfying. What happens if more and more mainstream publications start to grant tiny little spaces of their magazines and newspapers to authors, who have already made a name for themselves? Just how long will we be able to get the balance with quick writing right where we want it – popular enough to nurture well-read online platforms and the occasional publication, but not quite sufficiently “it” to have the “real” authors scrambling for it?

Since there’s still quite an amount of criticism out there on the topic of flash fiction and extremely short form poetry, the phenomenon will likely be safe from the establishment for now. And should it ever be hijacked by bestselling authors and Nobel Prize laureates – imagine the things J. M. Coetzee would tweet -, I trust that aspiring writers in online hide-out will come up with something else.

Fe Toussaint

The Waiting Room – Creative Fridays

Every Friday we publish your short stories and poems as part of our new feature, Creative Fridays! This week, we feature a story by Online Books Editor, Rory Morgan..

The smell of hand sanitizer lingered in Alex’s nostrils and the bright lights of the waiting area kept his heavy eyes alert. The place was eerily quiet and the common maladies were strangely absent. Alex picked at the dry skin on his hands and realised he had been wearing the same clothes for three days now. Thankfully he did not smell too bad. He looked at Millie and was once again confused. She had arrived about thirty minutes ago and had not said a whole lot. The last he had heard she was in Manchester working at Amnesty International, he was not even aware her and Will were still close. Her presence was a little bizarre. Millie broke the silence.

“How long have you been here?”

“Bout three days I guess, the foods a bit shit. You look like death. Do you wanna coffee?”

“I actually don’t do coffee anymore. The coffee trade is actually REALLY corrupt. So many South American farmers are exploited by Nescafe and Nestle. People who drink coffee are just as bad as people who wear fur to be honest.” Hannah folded her arms and pursed her lips.

“Haha yeah. Hospital coffee is a bit crap, its all cold and stuff. Need something to keep me up though.” Alex got out of his seat and mulled over the coffee machine. Millie and Will had never really made much sense to him. A holiday fling almost three years ago that had developed into an at times intensely close friendship. They didn’t really share that much in interests and Will had always shown great contempt to girls like her back at home. Alex sipped the lukewarm liquid and instantly felt somewhat boosted. He had a little smile to himself and sat back down.

“I’ve actually completely stopped dairy products too. Those products can release really horrible toxins, and the way they are sourced can be soo inhumane. I am more into soya now, I think I actually prefer the taste anyway.’

“Ahhh soya that’s like goats milk isn’t it? Or is it some kind of plant? I think I might of smoked it before. Wouldn’t eat it though, goats give me the creeps.”

A white coat walked towards them. Instinctively they both got up. The man passed them. Once again it was just the two of them in the corridor. Millie fiddled with her silver watch, partially disappointed with the lack of updates.

“God its late. You know its just fucking typical of Will to pull something like this. We were supposed to be booking our trip next week. The flight prices are going to skyrocket.” Millie said, breathing heavily.

Alex looked at her with moderate disgust and turned away. Millie continued seemingly oblivious to Alex’s disinterest.

“We were going to do a tea house trek in Nepal. Fat chance that’s going to happen now. I knew I should of just signed up for volunteering again, at least that’s reliable.’

Alex gritted his teeth and counted to ten.

“Maybe if he wakes up soon we could book it on my IPAD. I’m determined not to waste another summer in the city.” Millie pulled a case out of her bag and began to apply a layer of lipstick to her pale lips.

“I am just going to kill…” Millie suddenly felt a large lump form in her throat. “I mean I’ll be really angry with him for this.” Trembling Millie reached into her bag and pulled out a small thick pencil.

Alex sighed and stared at the small drops of coffee left in the cardboard cup he held in his hands. He had never known Millie to talk so much before. She always seemed purposefully aloof. He was beginning to long for the return of the Millie he knew and felt ambivalence towards. He felt uncomfortable pitying her.

He clapped his hands on his knees and pushed himself up.

“I’m hungry, lets get some food. I’m pretty sure they have some vegan shit in the cafeteria.”

Millie finished lining her eyes and snapped her mirror shut.

‘Sure. I guess I could probably eat something.”

The pair got up and headed for the cafeteria.

After a questionable looking plate of Chilli Con Carne and an incorrectly labelled tofu salad (the tofu really being chicken), they were back. It was late but at the same time early and Millie felt a nauseating regret for coming. She could not help it. She felt a magnetic pull to Will and despite her frustrations with his behaviour she would not let him wake up without her being there. If she hadn’t come, her mind would have anyway. Whenever these things happened, though they had never been on this scale, she felt pain. She could not understand the how or the why, and secretly did not want to. The whole thing scared her, but it was a demon that came with getting close to Will. A vice of his otherwise flawless friendship.

“You know, he never used to be like this. Six years ago Will used to rant about how selfish this kind of shit was. ‘An insult to those in the world that truly suffer’ he used to say. If he could see himself now, I don’t know what sixteen year old Will would do.”

“Probably blog about it most probably.” Millie scoffed, in a vein attempt to lighten the dismal mood.

Alex turned to her. “You know you didn’t know him then so how bout you shut it. You don’t have any idea. Why are you even here? Don’t try and spring that Nepal bullshit, I may be me and have not slept in three days but even I ain’t that dim.”

Millie looked uneasy. “It was a joke, obviously not a very good one. Lets just avoid this topic ok?” she sighed. Alex took a long expressionless look at Millie and turned his gaze to the floor. There was a small Snickers chocolate bar wrapper on the floor. It was the sort of size you would get in a box of Celebrations. Alex pondered what anyone could possibly celebrate in this part of the hospital. Maybe some lucky bugger had got to leave and his friends and family had rewarded his recovery with sweets. This thought comforted Alex but at the same time seared him with intense envy. He hated this corridor. He hated the hospital’s shit coffee, hated that Millie was here and was even beginning to hate Will. He picked up the small wrapper, scrunched it into a small ball and thrusted it into the bin. This gave Alex a bizarre sense of satisfaction.

“Where are his family? I thought his dad and sister lived in London.”

“His Mum’s flight got stuck in Athens, she only found out yesterday. His Dad was here yesterday and has gone to Wales to get his Gran. He doesn’t have a sister.”

Millie frowned. “Yes he does. I’ve met her.”

Alex’s throat closed a little. He gave a shy smile, with puffy eyes. “You might of. But Will doesn’t have a sister anymore.”

Millie’s frown dropped.

“Oh.”

A flash of memory overcame Millie. She was sitting on a sofa at Will’s house, discussing their next big adventure and being offered a cup of tea from a pretty blonde girl she had just been introduced to. Millie felt her cheeks sting with salt. She didn’t know her well, but this did not change the fact a young girl who had once given her homemade biscuits was no longer here.

“When?”

“Three months ago.”

Millie ran her fingers through her hair pushing it back from her face. The corridor felt colder and the seat was harder than before, her body felt almost weightless. The un-replied text messages, the phone calls unanswered, the deactivated Facebook profile. ‘Stupid. Stupid. Stupid’ ran through her mind. A sudden wave of fear washed over Millie. She had not spoken to Will in almost six months and was starting to forget the sound of his voice or the shape of his smile. Straining herself to remember conversations they had, expressions she had made Millie’s worry became a large rock firmly placed in the abyss of her stomach.

“What was the last thing you talked about with him?” Millie turned to Alex biting her lip and keeping her eyes from his.

“I don’t know, I think it was something about a goat video he had seen online. Still haven’t watched it. Have you? It’s the one with the Taylor Swift song and the goat singing along.” Alex replied with a certain careless tone.

Millie shivered a little and felt all the muscles on her body quickly tense and release. She didn’t want the last… She would have to invent something more representative of Will’s intelligence and complex character.

Alex turned his head. He could here a murmur of footsteps approaching. Holding his breath he saw two white coats come towards them. They failed to pass by them this time.

One of them was short and plump. Clutching a clipboard she stood in front of Alex.

“You are the family and friends of Will Power?” Her wide eyes pierced into Alex.

“Yeah, minus the family bit.” Alex shot back.

Millie bit her tongue, She didn’t want to delay any news she had waited so long for.

“His condition has changed.” The plump woman paused. ‘Why was she hesitating?’ Millie asked herself.

“Your friend is stable now, but he’s going to need to stay with us for sometime.”

Relief breathed a sigh from Alex.

“When can we talk to him?” Millie cautiously asked.

“When he wakes up. He’s spent the last four days fighting and the fight isn’t quite over. I suggest you both go home, get rest”, the doctor looked at Alex, “freshen up and come back in a few hours.” With that she left.

Alex clasped Millie into a hug. For a moment all mutual discomfort was gone. All both of them could feel was warmth and mild happiness. They released each other and left the hospital.

Rory Morgan

Forum Film Pitch Box: Exeposé Screen picks your Top Five ideas!

Everyone loves free cake. If you turn down free cake, it’s a definite sign that something’s wrong. You’re an alien in disguise as a human, with no understanding of this wondrous offer. Or you’re so upset about something that you don’t really notice, which is distressing because free cake would almost certainly help ease your worries. Maybe you suspect that the makers, bakers or purchasers of said cake have tampered with it, maybe they don’t look trustworthy at all…

Image Credit: Craig Browne

Exeposé Online occupied the Forum last week to promote the website and force students to participate in silly games, like Guitar Hero, which certainly doesn’t seem that heroic to us. Anyway, the free cake has already been widely publicised but you could also get involved with the Screen section by coming up with an idea for a film or TV show and dropping it in our Film Pitch Box.

We wanted your imaginations to be as crazy and colourful as possible. My feeble powers of creativity are evident from the opening paragraph of this article. I mean seriously, aliens disguised as humans? Already done to death in the Men in Black franchise and elsewhere. It’s really hard to conjure a truly unique idea for a film or TV programme out of thin air!

When we set up camp in the Forum then, we were looking for nothing less than genius. Below are the entries that you submitted in our box, followed by our Top Five picks, including our winner. All the suggestions have their merits, but obviously the Top Five have the potential to spawn lucrative movies or shows.

Enjoy! (We accept no responsibility for some of the disturbing ideas submitted…)

• I got a fever and the only cure is more Christopher Walken

• ‘Being Nicholas Cage’ a remake of ‘Being John Malkovich’

• Big Brother in the Forum

• Marketplace comedy skits – “who took the last ham sandwich Barbara?”/”Johnny. From Cricket. Thinks he’s a big cheese”

• The Dark Knight + cooking show = Ready, Steady, BAT!

• Zombies invade school – one young boy raids the sports cupboard and fights back, killing one undead bastard at a time

• Everyone takes drugs and does Takeshi’s Castle

• Cumberbatch and Fassbender making sexy eyes @ the camera

• Biopic of Ellie Swingewood

• Ben Affleck talks about beards for 2 hours

• Fifty Shades of Grey – both the guy and girl are played by Emma Watson

• Remake of Schindler’s List with every character played by Samuel L Jackson

• A soap set in a museum

• Bryan Cranston tries on hats for an hour

• Period Drama (meaning ambiguous…)

And now, the Top Five!

5) Christopher Walken is Jane Eyre – he’d be brilliant, wouldn’t he?

4) Boobs – extra points for originality. This pitcher understood that sex sells!

3) Craig Browne trying to score a slam dunk – an endless struggle against circumstance and life itself. Only an Oscar-winning actor could do this idea justice.

2) Topless Men Baking – a brilliant high concept idea, easy to summarise to potential investors and even easier on the eye for the ladies. Simon Cowell might get hold of this one.

1) War film from the perspective of a maggot – an ultimately disturbing but irresistibly dark and different idea. War films all look the same these days, but this one wouldn’t. A visionary filmmaker could make this into an abstract study of battlefield horror. Or Pixar could make it into a fun adventure story, about one maggot escaping from his grim destiny to the delights of a peaceful world…

Congratulations to Jessica Cath for submitting the winning idea. Maybe watch a comedy DVD to banish some of your demons though?

Behold a poster for your film…

Image credit: soil-net.com

ECWS: The Sculptor – Peter Tse

Exeter’s Creative Writing Society continue to impress as Peter Tse submits yet another beautiful poem…

The Sculptor

My friend crafts ice sculptures,
a daily struggle with science,
with cold irreconcilable facts:
Ice thaws at 0.1 degrees;
actually at anything over zero.
For scientists that’s zero to the power of whatever,
For my friend it’s removed from the arctic room.

I’ve seen him poised in concentration,
beads of sweat falling, despite the cold.
Take that science.

They are gorgeous, glinting in the light,
but to touch them is to ruin them.
It numbs your fingers too.

Once they’re done, served their purpose,
he melts them down himself.
Days to make, moments to finish.
There’s no sign left of his endeavour.
Except for the perfect image in his head,
in the recesses of his memory,
soon to be his sub-conscious.
Where science keeps its distance.

By Peter Tse

ECWS: The Invisible Man – Charles Bowen

This week we chose a dark and mysterious piece of writing to showcase Exeter’s creative writing talent. Read on and see what you make of Charles Bowen’s invisible man…

Photo by kevinrwalsh via Flickr.

Sifting through the gentle susurration of the masses, I am a ribbon of smoke in a wilfgire, unnoticed and irrelevant.
I scream, but only I hear it, the world beyond living, its life unfettered by thoughts of mine. No one sees me, though I may strip to the pale flesh which strives to give me presence.
I have struck, I have clawed at the fresh throats of the ephemeral pawns who pass me by, yet still I am just a wisp, creating nothing save my thoughts and my vacant sentimental pain.
So it has always been, I against the world and the world continuing on its weary way. Some may see me, I cannot tell, but only as far as I consider the banalities of solipsism can I entertain this life; their minds are as lost to me as their bodies, and perhaps I cannot know what I cannot feel, but as I wallow untouched beneath their trampling feet I must face the reality that bitter reason presents.
I have no thought of an end, just as I have no memory of a beginning. I can live only as I am; I must forgo the mirage of solace or resolution, and face the apathy under which my cruel lot has been drawn.
Sifting through the gentle susurration of the masses, I am a ribbon of smoke in a wilfgire, unnoticed and irrelevant.

By Charles Bowen

ECWS: Dying in 50 Pound Nike Sb Vulc Rod Men's Shoes – Frankie Plummer

Following a society workshop session on the subject of “Silence”, we asked Exeter’s Creative Writing Society to send in their inspired work. What follows is a moment of silent pain and humiliation…

Dying in 50 Pound Nike Sb Vulc Rod Men’s Shoes

He stood in the backstage area which consisted of a room, a chair and a mirror in which he looked at himself. He began to doubt whether he felt “funny” in his shoes, and whether the audience would think he was good. His face was perspiring constantly.

A man came in and gestured that it was his turn. The room was vibrating as he walked on stage. The audience stared at him, judging him. Their smiles from the previous act faded. His hands were shaking and he could feel the sweat on his palms. He clumsily adjusted the microphone to his height and took a sip of water so he could speak.

He said “Hello” while looking down at his £50 Nike shoes. The audience said “Hello” back. This was a good start, he thought.
He started doing his act, hoping the audience would laugh in the right places and not heckle him. He really didn’t want to get heckled.

Two minutes into his act no one was laughing and he felt like everyone in the room silently hated him. He was shaking a little more now and looked nervous. He realised this, which made him shake even more and look more nervous. He realised this too, which made him shake even more and look more nervous, and so on.

He continued with his act even though he was the only one self-consciously laughing. He became distracted by a woman at the back of the room having a phone conversation. Not because it was rude, standing on a stage demanding people listen to you is rude, but because people seemed to be more interested in her than him. He wished someone rang him so he could answer his phone and talk to someone – Samaritans, preferably.

He didn’t feel bad really. He felt sorry for those who were listening; it must be very uncomfortable to watch a man die a social death. He wished that someone would come on stage and hug him and say “It’s okay” repeatedly, while the audience would feel bad for not laughing.

At the end of his five minute set he walked offstage to insincere applause as a fat man shouted “gay sex” at him. He sat in the dressing room in silence. “It’s the shoes” he thought.

By Frankie Plummer