Here are two of the stories that I've written throughout the Humanities class so far.
Unnerving Thoughts
They were a typical person on the outside. They payed for highly-taxed items at the local store, passed college with a GPA of 3.4, held a semi-stable job in an immigration office. So it made little sense when these thoughts started occurring. It would be nice if they had an explanation for them, something to blame it on, like abusive parents or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There wasn’t, though. They began to think the thoughts were just a way to get attention. Then again, they never shared these thoughts with anyone. They weren’t one to bait a hook and go fishing for sympathy, so they dismissed that pretty quickly.
The thoughts weren’t all that intrusive to begin with, just a tad morbid. If they were sleeveless in a vehicle and had a window seat, they imagined unclicking their seatbelt and leaping out of the door, rolling down the freeway, the skin on their arms flying off. If they didn’t remember to wear a scarf to sleep, someone would come in and slit their throat. This surely couldn’t happen in actuality, they attempted to reassure themselves, but without taking the precautions they now had to, the paranoia would take hold, dragging them into an endless mantra of ‘what if’s’.
They never went out anymore. Everyone was going to slice their throat, cut their wrists while they were on a saturday stroll. It would be a clean, concise cut, they’d imagine, dragging from their palm all the way up their forearm. It would certainly bleed a lot. The pavement of the sidewalk would never be clean again. The nice flowerbeds that Miss Zoloft always watered, they’d surely be stained now. How rude of me, they thought.
Chalky hands scratched at the door, desperately wanting to get in. They can't let it in; their eyes so sunken in into their skull they couldn't even make out the door frame, let alone stop the noise. Their body was so frail, so malnourished, they could snap at the tiniest movement. It's not like they’d be going far, though. The sheets around them squirmed with maggots, fat and bloated from feeding. Mosquitoes and flies dined upon them. They could hear the scrabbling at the door fade out, becoming an overwhelming buzz.
The sun was lighting up the room. They awoke. Thank god that buzzing had ended; the smoke alarm was annoying. They rose from the sheets, brushed their teeth, made some coffee. Oh poo, their overly-priced bread was beginning to mold. Squirming, white, fat, and bloated mold. This always happened to the bread; it was never good quality. They decided to throw it in the trash with the flies and the mosquitos.
They were a typical person on the outside. They payed for highly-taxed items at the local store, passed college with a GPA of 3.4, held a semi-stable job in an immigration office. So it made little sense when these thoughts started occurring. It would be nice if they had an explanation for them, something to blame it on, like abusive parents or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There wasn’t, though. They began to think the thoughts were just a way to get attention. Then again, they never shared these thoughts with anyone. They weren’t one to bait a hook and go fishing for sympathy, so they dismissed that pretty quickly.
The thoughts weren’t all that intrusive to begin with, just a tad morbid. If they were sleeveless in a vehicle and had a window seat, they imagined unclicking their seatbelt and leaping out of the door, rolling down the freeway, the skin on their arms flying off. If they didn’t remember to wear a scarf to sleep, someone would come in and slit their throat. This surely couldn’t happen in actuality, they attempted to reassure themselves, but without taking the precautions they now had to, the paranoia would take hold, dragging them into an endless mantra of ‘what if’s’.
They never went out anymore. Everyone was going to slice their throat, cut their wrists while they were on a saturday stroll. It would be a clean, concise cut, they’d imagine, dragging from their palm all the way up their forearm. It would certainly bleed a lot. The pavement of the sidewalk would never be clean again. The nice flowerbeds that Miss Zoloft always watered, they’d surely be stained now. How rude of me, they thought.
Chalky hands scratched at the door, desperately wanting to get in. They can't let it in; their eyes so sunken in into their skull they couldn't even make out the door frame, let alone stop the noise. Their body was so frail, so malnourished, they could snap at the tiniest movement. It's not like they’d be going far, though. The sheets around them squirmed with maggots, fat and bloated from feeding. Mosquitoes and flies dined upon them. They could hear the scrabbling at the door fade out, becoming an overwhelming buzz.
The sun was lighting up the room. They awoke. Thank god that buzzing had ended; the smoke alarm was annoying. They rose from the sheets, brushed their teeth, made some coffee. Oh poo, their overly-priced bread was beginning to mold. Squirming, white, fat, and bloated mold. This always happened to the bread; it was never good quality. They decided to throw it in the trash with the flies and the mosquitos.
Thoughts on "Unnerving Thoughts"
I'm not too proud of this one, actually. The imagery is nice and descriptive, but there isn't much of a main character. The piece is confused in trying to decide whether to write something with a plot, or focus on descriptions. Thusly, if I were to re-write this, I'd more focus on describing than bothering with characters and a story line. I chose it simply because it's one of the two stories I've made this year.
(This next one doesn't really have a title)
Yo, I am Cori, and I am not going to romanticise the situation here; a lot of people have died recently. It’s not because of some natural disaster or a terrorist or anything like that. It’s because of something we don’t really understand, something that kills anyone who looks at it. Or, to be more descriptive, makes them volatile enough they hurt themselves or anyone near them.
It wasn’t really any special day when this tragedy came upon us. It was a saturday evening, my mom, sister, and I were all outside around the campfire. Our house is really rural, about 35 kilometres away from any large civilisation, so earlier in the day my mom had driven in and bought sausages and marshmallows; the ones we were currently roasting over the fire. Most of our meals were cooked over this little pit, and that’s because we couldn’t afford a stove, or basically anything electric. For example: our water was from a well, which was boiled over this fire when we needed to bathe or cook or wash things, and so on. The only electronic things we owned were our our car and a small bunny-eared TV. It was a surprise that we even got cable, but we did. The two channels that came through were local news and saturday morning cartoons. Most of my sister and I’s days consisted of hanging out in our wooden treehouse while our mother busied herself with gathering firewood or something of that ilk. My sister and I had a rather large collection of classic books. Almost all of the corners of the pages in the books were dogged-eared, that is to say, we enjoyed them thoroughly. We would sit in the treehouse and discuss them, the characters, the storyline, everything about them. We would pretend to be the characters. If we read Peter Pan recently, I would end up as Captain Hook, or if we had read James and the Giant Peach, I would be one of the mean aunts that tormented James. I didn’t mind, but now looking back on it, I was a villain.
While we were seated outdoors with the news running in the background, the speaker's tone of voice changed abruptly, into something of fear. I remember the words exactly: “This just in, some sort of being or something has been creating widespread panic throughout the globe. Not much is known about this ‘thing’, but the government has suggested we either hide underground or stay indoors, drawing the curtains or doing anything to limit your view of the outside world. Further instructions will follow.” It’s funny; not a single newscast came out after then. I guess they were hiding as well.
“That can’t reach us, right, mom?” My sister, Amber, asked.
“Get inside, now.” Mom responded; the urgency in her voice making it apparent that she was terrified. If she was terrified, we were too. Whatever could harm Mom could probably harm us too, so we didn’t argue. We were ushered indoors, then Mom gasped. “We need water. Girls, stay in there, Mom will be right back.” We heard her footsteps, the dropping of the pail, and the grinding of the rope as the bucket was lifted. Her footsteps were quick and rushed as she made her way back. The handle of the door was twisted, but it wasn’t pushed in. There was an eerie silence, a foreboding silence. It was as if it was mocking us of our lack of knowledge of what was to come. There was a clang of the pail being dropped, and an anguishing shriek that was choked off at the end. The door was flung open, and a beast came through, the beast that was once my mother. Her eyes were crazed, wild and looking around in every direction. They locked onto Amber, and mom sprung like a cat, latching onto Amber’s face as her teeth sunk into her eye socket. Amber screamed in pain, desperately trying to pry ‘Mom’ off her by the hair. I was petrified by the sight. ‘Mom’ took her fingers and rammed them into the eye socket, scooping out whatever gore and viscera there was. Amber stopped moving, drawing deadly silent. There was a moment, until ‘Mom’ whipped her head to stare at me, blood dripping down her chin. She was after me now.
My petrification seemed to vanish as I fled up the stairs to my room, the thing behind me in hot pursuit. I could feel her hot, rancid breath on my ankles. She must’ve been on all fours, chasing me like a hunter after it’s prey. I ducked into my room, and slammed the door shut on ‘Mother’s’ arm. She seemed unaffected as she kept clawing at the wooden door, trying to score a blow on me or force her way into the room. Both of those options seemed to end in certain demise for me. I felt the door give a bit, and my foot brushed against a door stopper. Well, it wasn’t really designed as one, it was just a painted rock. I didn’t have time to worry about specifics at the moment, because ‘Mother’ had lodged her face into the door, and she had a handful of my hair. I tugged away and felt my hair rip off of my scalp. At the moment it was adrenaline that was keeping me from feeling the pain. I lifted the rock and smashed the thing’s face. It let out a gurgle and fell, becoming a bit limp. I couldn’t take any chances though, so I brought the rock down again and again on it’s head. All that was left was some bits of skin, a pool of blood, and the remains of her face. I dropped the rock, and fell to my knees, shaking. It was finally starting to sink in, but there was no remorse about killing the thing. It was all about my sister Amber. I certainly felt like a villain; only a villain could be so heartless to have done nothing as their relative was gorily torn apart.
I had to pull myself together. There was no time to mourn their deaths yet. I needed to get rid of the bodies… Wait. My sister might not be dead, after all, she was only hurt in the eye! My heart was filled with hope as I made my way back downstairs, only for it to vanish immediately. She was already becoming a gross shade of green, and was stone cold. I remembered what I had told myself earlier. Soon there would be flies. I dug a pit outdoors, ignoring what my mother had said before she had changed, and threw both of their remains into it. Their mangled bodies lying atop each other almost made me crack, but I wiped away the few stray tears that had begun to form. Since I didn’t know how to drive, I’d assumed I’d be here for a while. That meant I’d have plenty of time to mourn. I grappled with my turmoiling emotions more as I made my way back into our quaint cottage. Next task would be to scrub the insides off of the floor. I retrieved some Lysol and a washcloth out of the cupboard, soaping them up. It turned out that we already had a bucket of water hidden under the sink. So mom had become that thing and had died for nothing, huh? I drew a shaky breath, then banished the thoughts from my mind. No time for that. Yet.
To distract myself I started reading the warnings on the Lysol bottle. It all looked like nonsense cursive, blurred with no purpose. I realised my eyes were tearing up. I couldn’t stop myself. A pained gasp came, and then I was sobbing. Hard. I covered my face, even though I knew no one was watching. My breaths were meek hiccups between the sound of my heart breaking. Why? Why did this have to happen? Wetness was clinging to my knees, and I realized I was kneeling in their blood. I scampered away, feeling gross. The tears were multiplying. I felt like I had to pull myself together, but I couldn’t make myself move. This grief was shattering me. After what felt like days, years worth of mourning, I stood, getting my act together. It wasn’t like me to let my emotions get the best of me. I needed to live, to survive.
Thoughts on the Story Above
The excerpt above isn't the full piece at all. It is part of an ongoing story that I am writing. Try to keep that in mind, since the end is sort of a cliffhanger, and many things in it have further reasoning later on in the story as to why they are discussed so thoroughly. I am pretty proud of this one, especially the description of the "Mother". I'd revise this by making the breakdown near the end more dramatic, so it really sticks in the reader's mind, especially if they were reading the whole story.