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| Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - Modern Art - Feel like listening to a story? |
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Slay Level: 25 Posts: 60/339 EXP: 85592 For next: 4028 Since: 04-28-05 From: Threshold Between Heaven and Hell Since last post: 1 day Last activity: 1 day |
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| I'm lazy when it comes to my writing. I'm content with leaving the stories I think up in my head, I don't often find motivation to write any of it down. But I can't live forever, sooner or later I've got to start getting these ideas on paper. So I'm going to start jotting down a script here. I say jot, but it'll look more polished than that. I don't know why, but when I put something online, I feel an urge to continue, as opposed to when I'm writing things in my notebooks, I figure, if I already know this stuff and I'm writing to myself, what's the point? The basic plotline here can be summed up in one sentance. "Four realistic and dispirited teens philosophize about life." There's a bit of rough language here and there, but it's not for the sake of it, so I don't think it's a problem. I'll be posting sporadically. You can post comments if you like, you don't have to. "Do you think I'll ever get out of this shitty town?" She asked, pacing around the kitchen, waiting for the microwave to ding. "I don't know." "You think I'll ever fall in love?" "I don't know." She glared at him. "Do you think it rained yesterday?" "I don't know." "Em, you bitch, pay attention." "I was testing you, I wanted to see if you were...seeing if I was, that I was listening or not." "You were trying to see whether I was paying attention to whether or not you were paying attention?" "Yes." He responded in a cool tone, as if the answer was obvious. He flipped the channel on the twelve-inch television. "Weirdo." She always called him that. The microwave stopped, and she retreived from it a bowl of corn and wild beans. She never cooked, and swore by the microwave. The house wasn't very big - one story, a half-kitchen, living area and two bedrooms - but both of them liked it that way. Em and Jane, friends since middle school when she moved into town. Em hung out at Jane's house a lot, where she lives with her little brother and her dad. Mr. Rivera treated Em like a son, basically. He was at odds with his own family. "You know what sucks about being a man?" Em asked suddenly. They often did this of each other. "Yeah, but why don't you tell me." Jane said as she plopped down on the other side of the couch, putting her feet up on the coffee table. "Facial hair. It's really annoying. There's nothing like waking up every day and scrapping a cold steel blade across your face." "Boo hoo, women gotta shave their legs, same thing." "No, women don't have to shave their legs, and men don't have to shave their faces. You can survive without such luxuries. I simply choose to. My desire to remove the hair from my face slightly edges out my desire not to drag a razor across it. It's the razor that sucks, it's not like you can wax your face." "You can, it would just burn really badly." They both paused after that for a few moments before Jane continued with, "I love our little conversations." "Me too. Let's go to school." It was six in the morning, Em had spent the night on the couch. He had problems with his family, but not normal ones. There was no violence, no drug use or alcoholics. He simply disliked his family. Didn't hate them, he just couldn't relate to them. It was obvious to him from the time he was five or six that he was the proverbial black sheep of the happy white sheep family. He just didn't fit in with them. The bus ride was uneventful, Em sat with Angel, who completed the trio, as Jane sat across the aisle and stretched her feet across the bench. The entire town was soggy, not even wet, but soggy. Dark clouds hung in the sky and everybody seemed depressed. Everybody but Em, at least. To him, this was glorious and uplifting weather. "People used to praise the rain. They dropped to their knees and thanked God's mercy so that their crops wouldn't wilt for a few more days. Now look at us. Pathetic." He ranted calmly. "It's just cultural change. Joe American isn't worried about crops these days, he's more worried about whether he's going to have to carry an umbrella or drive through the rain." Angel commented. His real name was Angelito, most people called him Lito. Em had a class with Jane, and Lito had one with her too, but the guys only got to see each other during lunch. Lito lets things get to him, he's a really stressed-out kid, so he tries to keep conversation as light as possible at lunch. The two of them sat together at a half of a circular table. Jane joined as they were in the middle of talking. "How about her?" Lito asked, pointing across the room at a fellow classmate. Em grunted, "No." "Okay, what about her?" Pointing again. "She's not my type." Em said, obviously annoyed at the questioning. "Hi." He said to Jane as she sat down. Lito just nodded towards her. "Well what about Melissa DeNuco?" "Not my type." "What the hell is your type, then?" "Don't have one." "What the--?! How can she not be your type if you don't even have one?" Lito questioned. Em grunted again, "I dunno, it's a response that people are familiar with." "Just say what you mean, screw people." Lito demanded. "I'm just not interested in romance right now. I've got enough shit to deal with in my life, without all the trouble that keeping a relationship together brings. Plus, highschool romance is a sham. It's all about status, bunch of gossipy twits blabbing about who's going out with who. It's meaningless. That's the long answer; I shorten it to not my type." "I'll bet I know Em's type," Jane started, "I'll bet he likes older women. He wants someone to spank him and call him naughty boy." Though she was speaking to Angel, she was looking at the subject of her words, with a wicked smile on her face. Em let out a single chuckle as he shook his head in amazement and disbelief, before simply saying, "Wow." He was used to Jane's verbal abuse. It was endearing, though, not spiteful. One of those quirks between friends that seems weird or vindictive out of context. "I'm gonna go get some food." Jane said. She got up and headed to the opposite side of the cafeteria, where the rich kids eat. They knew what she meant by get some food. She was gonna con some gullible rich kid out of his lunch, she couldn't afford to buy. None of them could, really, Em at least brough some stuff from home. He tended to carry things in his pockets, though, so his friends usually turned down his offer of half a warm granola bar. "You know why she's so mean to you, don't you?" Lito asked clandestinely as he leaned towards Em. "It's 'cause she genuinely likes you. You're not just buddies, you two are like...soul mates or something." "Don't say that. I don't need that crap, from you of all people. We're like siblings. She's like a sister to me." Em responded quickly. People thought he and Jane were going out, despite their protests, and have teasted them since middle school for it. He seemed terribly offended by the notion. "But you actually do have a sister." Lito noted. "You know what I mean, it's just a saying." "Alright, don't get your panties in a bunch." "You know he wears a thong." Jane said, correcting him, as she returned with a cafeteria tray and some grub. "Woman, you are laying it on thick today. Jeeze." Angel noted, laughing slightly. He called her woman out of playful contempt. When the two first met three years earlier, they hated each other and fought all the time. After a fistfight that sent both of them to the hospital, they gained a mutual respect for one another, and after finding out that they both had a friend in common, gradually became pals. "He loves it. Don't 'cha?" She replied. Em just smiled and looked away. The three were quiet for awhile. They didn't really chitchat a lot, it was usually the case that if they were talking, it was important. The three had that kinda bond where they didn't need to bullshit each other to enjoy each others company. After awhile, Jane suddenly asked of Em, "If there was no such things as STDs and there was no such thing as AIDS, and if it was the social norm to have...free love, or whatever, would you have sex with me?" Em kinda shook his head and made a grimmace at the weirdness of the question. "Okay, first of all, it would be called permissive sex not free love. Love doesn't equal sex, and sex doesn't equal love, even if the two are often joined. Secondly, no." "Why not?" Em thought for a moment, then smiled to himself before he answered. "You're not pretty enough." Lito bust out laughing. "You want a smack?" Jane asked, eyebrows raised and hand drawn back, ready to inflict injury. The two stared at each other for a moment, smiling. It was only in the presence of their third friend that Em returned insults joshingly towards Jane. "If someone kills me tomorrow, don't let them eat my heart." Em announced without provocation. "What?!" Angel asked as he bust out laughing again. "I won't." Jane said seriously. This was the template of their discussions. Thoughtful comments dispersed, like sprinkles upon a cake, throughout weirdness and randomness. They never got too heavy or deep during school. None of them trusted the rest of the student body. Each of the three had been almost without friends until middle school where they all met. They've been inseperable since, branding themselves the "loser table" of the cafeteria. It was a title they bared proudly in the midst of the peers they despised so much. That's enough for now. I'm trying to do this chronologically, or I would've just jotted down the more thought-provoking conversations they have. Plus, the more interesting conversations require you to know the personalities of and relationships between the four characters. And I did mean four; another is introduced soon. EDIT01 (1 Year, 85 Day, 0356 Hour) Hmm. That's good, but you should really warn people. I tried adding a reply, I'm typing up more to the story. I hit Preview Reply and a screen flashed by, then I was taken back to the topic. I had lost what I spent time typing up, now I have to re-type it. It took me a moment and a screen capture to realize that you're disallowed from posting a reply when you've already made the last post in a thread. This is good, it prevents redundant posts, multi-bumping and flooding, but you should really warn about it in the Newbie or Board FAQ. Especially since this is an originally programmed board. Anyway... Diary Entry the first - INDIVIDUAL Em (b) : My full name is Moonfly Tapir Reynolds. Shut up. My mother is a total hippy, she named me. A flower child who never grew up. I aspire to be a completely self-contained unit, and am well on my way. For what it's worth, I raised myself. My parents clothed me, gave me food, some luxuries and a place to live, but that's where it ends. They never instilled in me any morals, any ideals. Everything I stand for I do in my own name, I am completely independant. In this sense, I'm free. I am free. More so than anybody else I've ever known. And I rely on myself. Not parents, not an athority figure, not any god. I am me, and that's all you need to know. Music is my niche, though I'm no prodigy, nor is my tale typical. I didn't grow up with music, I haven't been playing since I was four. Hell, I didn't even start listening to the radio until two years ago. But where others have a superior timeframe, I have a superior passion for the art. I've got no money, so I can't exactly go out and buy or rent equipment. For now, I'll have to be content with thinking up tunes in my head, and leaving them there. That's one thing I love about myself. The beauty that my mind produces. I suppose I can't make any claims of greatness yet, but in time, I will achieve all that I desire. College is where I'll bloom, I'm going to a university for the arts, and plan to spend hours upon hours in a mad trance, zipping around the music room from instrument to instrument, mastering them all. No, that's not right. I don't aspire to become the best or even a terrific player of any one instrument. Instruments to me are simply tools which I can use to express that which cannot be spoken, but can be felt. So long as I can achieve that, I'll be happy. EDIT02 (1 Year, 87 Day, 1220 Hour) "So I was soaking in the morning Tuesday, and watching the birds as usual when I came to quite the revelation. Well okay, nothing so dramatic." He paused, and lit up a cigarette. The pause was calculated, he wanted Angel to ask for more. As always, he didn't, so Em was forced to curb the silence with his own voice. "There was this brownish bird, I dunno the names of them or anything. Up the yard a little was a chipmunk. Two different species, coexisting perfectly. I wondered why. Guess." "I'm not in the guessin' mood, man." Angel announced as he tied another trash bag and threw it in the bin; the last task assigned to him before his twenty minute break. He worked at a bar, his mother owned it, otherwise at fifteen he wouldn't be allowed. He was the short order cook. Em dropped by three or four times a week to chat him up during the recess. Em gave a fatal shrug, acknowledging his friend's notion. "Did they respect each other? Did they enjoy each other's presence? Were they consciously contributing to some...some..." He got stuck and began gesticulating. "Natural order or, or natural balance? Or was it much simpler than that?" "Well, I'm gonna guess it's much simpler than that, seein' how you saved the best for last, and like to build up the drama." Angel said, playing into Em's second calculated pause of the discussion. Em offered a knowing smirk in return, as if to say "Yeah, yeah." "Okay well...it was simpler than that. They didn't fear each other. The chipmunk thinks to himself, I want to collect and eat nuts. I don't want to be eaten. Correspondingly, the bird thinks to itself, I want to seek out and eat worms. I don't want to be eaten." The conversation was interrupted. Sleazy E, as they called him, the manager of the bar, was barking. "On break!" Lito yelled in return. "God, the least he could do is learn my scheduel. Break at nine. Twenty minute break at nine." Em went on. "The two saw each other, and stopped for a minute; birds and chipmunks being the skittish creatures they are. They had to stop and consider, Is this thing going to hurt me? Will it try to kill and eat me? They sat like statues, their primitive minds figuring, If I'm not moving, they can't see me. And after a moment, they both came to the realization that they didn't pose a threat to each other. The chipmunk could eat his nuts, the bird could eat it's worms. They could share the same space, neither laying claim or demanding special treatment. They could coexist." "Alright, I indulged you enough. Where's 'is goin'?" Lito demanded. He was impatient with Em's grand manner of speech, he only tolerated it to a level, and that level severely dropped when he was working. "Humans." "Ahh, humans. They're tall pinkish to brownish fleshy creatures, they stand upright, omnipotent, speech-capable, high level of intelect." He was imitating Em, poorly, but purposefully so. "That's omnivorous." The shorter of the two corrected with a smile and a scowl. From the outside, this would look less like a chat between friends and more like a calculated game of wits and words between adversaries. Not allowing further interjection, he continued. "Humans have a problem with this. The concept of coexisting. We move into a place, gut it, institute our own rules, our own claims, massacre the wildlife --" The rest of the sentance got garbled and cut off. "We're not doin' this again, not in the grind." That was how Angelito refered to his job. The grind. Verbally emphasizing the grueling conditions of being a low-paid, short-order cook at a neon-signed bar on the side of a highway. "Sorry, got carried away. You get the point, though. We need to think like the chipmunks and the birds. Coexist. I think we're probably the only creatures who automatically think of one another as a threat. We don't think, Ahh, I can live here, and Whoever can live here, and we can live in peace." "Man, who's we?" Angel asked, irritation in his voice, but not his heart. Em just shrugged and stamped out his smoke. "Hey! Pick that shit up!" Em started laughing as he poked at the cigarette some more to stamp out the heat before picking it up and throwing it in the giant, rectangular, deep green trash bin. That shape, that size, that color...it represented the atmosphere. The trash bin was there for a purpose, and it served that purpose. It wasn't pretty. Come-as-you-are, that was attitude of the nowhere town of Dell Ridge. "Anyway, I gotta go." "No you don't, faker. You just say that to sound cool." "True. But anyway, I'm leaving now. Here's the stuff." Em put special emphasis on that final phrase as he set a suspicious looking brown paper bag down on the ledge of the window he was standing next to throughout this rendezvous. "Later." He walked down the side of the road, smiling to himself. The artificial-yellow street lights in the middle of the darkness that is night seemed poignant, perhaps seedy. But to Em and Angelito, this was home. Lito grabbed the bag, turned against the wall and slid down it to a crouching position. After looking around suspiciously, he pulled out the stuff. A Tupperware container with a fork taped to the top. Three-Cheese Chicken Lasagna, one of Em's specialties. EDIT03 (1 Year, 93 Day, 2128 Hour) "Fame would tear me apart, you know." He stated, abruptly as ever. "Where's this coming from?" Jane asked. "I just saw an interview. Just thinking. I'd never be able to cope with, if people were constantly asking me things and analyzing what I said, giving me money that they expect me to spend on a lavish house and have agents or whatever tell me what to do. I'm a very private person, you know?" "Only somewhat." She replied flatly. He turned his gaze up from the small square table they sat at. His head jerked reactively, it wasn't a conscious thing. This happened whenever he heard something that didn't automatically make sense. She continued after his acknowledging gesture. "I often contemplate the fact that you know a lot more about me than I know about you." "You think so?" "I do. What's my favorite desert?" "Banana Brulee with Orange Sauce. I made it for you last year when Travis forgot your birthday." Travis was her boyfriend at the time; they broke up over the summer. "What's my mother's maiden name?" "Ducelli." "How old was I when I broke my leg?" "Five, but your actual, literal birth date was only a few hours away." "I can't answer any of those questions about you." Jane said, satisfied that she had proven her point. Em paused for a moment to think about what she was implying as he laid down another letter on the board in front of him. "But I -- don't get me wrong. It's fine, it's how you are. Just a thought." She laid down a few letters to make a word connected to three others. When she looked back up at him, Em had a contented grin on his face. "What? What's smile-worthy?" "When we're out at...the mall or school or something, and there's other people around, you're so rutheless with me. But when it's just us, you're such a doll." He made it a habit of telling people exactly what he was thinking when they asked him, not giving them a half-assed reply. "Watch yourself." She said, forewarningly. "No I'm serious, don't speak at me, gimme an honest answer." "I haven't been asked any question." She was beating around the bush. Em's never really figured out whether she did this to delay the conversation, or to torture him. He grimaced at her. "You want to know why I act the way I do? And why it changed depending on whether we're out in public or not?" "Nah, forget it." He was mocking her; she always replied thusly when asked a question which she was expected to answer with yes. She frowned fatally at him. Ignoring his poking fun at her, Jane continued as if he had said yes. "Because we're real. You and I as individuals, we're too real for most people. This world is completely full of phoneys, they can't handle people like you and me. They aren't honest, they're not good people." "What the hell does that have to do with the way you act? If the public at large is such a menace, why let them affect you?" "Because they're part of my environment, I can't avoid them, so I have to appease them or make my existence hellish." "So it is just because you don't want people to think we're...together." Em concluded. Jane stopped herself from snipping at him, and thought a second before she spoke. "Pretty much, but it's not as opportunistic or shallow as you make it sound." "I'm not trying to make it sound shallow or opportunistic. I think it's perfectly legitimate." "Well, as long as I have your approval." Jane replied, sarcastically, moving her hand in a passing manner. Em laughed at the display. "You know, you act cool, but you're still here playing Scrabble with a dork every Friday night, instead of out partying like a normal person." The conversation was over. It just happened like that, you could never control when a discussion began or ended. It was sporadic for them. Em was the most troubled by this, he wanted to linger over sentiments, nobody else did. "Six hundred forty points." "Whaaat? Bullshit!" Jane exclaimed. Em picked up the little wooden squares that spelt out "nasturtium" to show the point scorers under them. "You suck." She stated in dismay. "Yeah? Suck like a...computer. Which would be...s--martly." He was never good at making retort. Yes, there is actual plot coming at some point. I have most of the story thought up, it's just tedious for me to put into words. The actual plot is interspersed with numerous dialogues between the characters, as you may have guessed. Conspicuously, Em is the main character in that the story is told mostly through his eyes. This is actually the story-version of a script, but I may have already mentioned that. You might notice me making up words here and there. Accept it or ignore it; it happens. (edited by Slay on 05-16-05 10:57 PM) (edited by Slay on 05-19-05 07:21 AM) (edited by Slay on 05-25-05 04:25 PM) (edited by Slay on 05-25-05 04:28 PM) |
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MathOnNapkins Math n' Hacks Level: 67  Posts: 1838/2189 EXP: 2495887 For next: 96985 Since: 03-18-04 From: Base Tourian Since last post: 1 hour Last activity: 32 min. |
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| I read through some of it, Slay. And it was pretty good, fairly realistic. Though, some of the dialogue I thought was stock, like using "boo hoo". I dunno, I just never hear anyone say stuff like that in real life. "Boo hoo, women gotta shave their legs, same thing." I'm no writer, but if you want your dialogue to sound better, it seems to me you should go back and imagine a group of people having a conversation and saying these words. Would it seem natural or forced. Is it in character or out of character? Stuff like that. Also, you'll get more replies if this is moved to the story forum. I'm surprised I didn't think of suggesting that earlier. I'm also surprised a mod hasn't already moved it there. |
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