Nanowrimo - Day 1
Nov. 1st, 2009 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
major_kerinaBeen fun so far ^^.
Links to other days
Day 2
Paranosis
Chapter 1 – Keep in Line
“Keep in line,” said the man at the counter.
I groaned out a sigh as I stood in line at the drug store checkout. Only one person was at the counter. Five people were ahead of me and only one behind.
The one behind was a tittering young woman dressed in a black pantsuit. She hugged her phone like an extra appendage and said, “You just need to keep doing what you’re doing...”
I shut my eyes a moment. The lights felt too harsh.
I’d just come in for some headache medication and lens clearer for my glasses during my lunch break. My legs twitched under me and my back gave a little spasm. I couldn’t believe I was less than halfway through the day.
The young woman continued talking but I couldn’t make out all her words and it just became a rush of incomprehensible jabbering. I stopped trying to listen. Not like I’d glean anything useful from it anyway.
I kept in line behind a tall, middle-aged black man. He smiled at me and said, to no one in particular, “Just gotta wait…”
I gave him an automatic nod and felt the headache coming back.
I evened a bit of my thick, graying hair with my hand and wondered to myself the last time I’d really had fun. The memory that thought stirred up made me wince.
It was two weeks ago. I was doing my normal data entry work. The names and information passed my eyes like graphical noise. My brain felt numbed. It felt like something was terribly wrong with it. But I told myself the work was good. I was glad to have job, especially with the local recession, even if it was about the same sort of job I always remembered doing.
Then, something felt different inside of me, I looked at the name and I had a different sort of feeling when I saw them. I could imagine them. I could see them and as I saw them, I saw myself doing terrible things. I saw myself squeezing them till they stopped breathing. Then their names would vanish from my list.
The thought felt so terrible but I also felt so satisfied. I felt a rush, like a blood lust. It made my every thought tremble.
Then, Mike rapped on my desk and said, “Hey, Curtis…Curtis L. Ryan…you around?”
I looked at him and it took me a moment to realize he’d said that to me. When I came to my senses, I was felt terrible but tried not to show it. I gave him what he came over for and we just exchanged the minimum pleasantries about the weather.
Just remembering left a sickly feeling deep in my stomach. It wasn’t the first time I’d had randomly violent thoughts like that. They came around every so often, usually with a strange, sudden panic attack. I took medication for those.
As I stood there, the sickly feeling became a strange warmth. I took a deep breath but it just accelerated the feeling. I imagined blasting tossing away everyone in line and just taking what I wanted…
But I pushed aside the feeling before it could do much to my mood. I wished that the drugs I took could help more with these feelings. I didn’t want or need them. They made me feel like there was something wrong with me. What normal person imagined such violent things?
I’d never had any wish to anyone any real harm. My foster dad Major Hayward Rogers pressed that into me at an early age, along with discipline, organization, respect of authority. He told me so many stories that left my entranced but horrified. I didn’t want to end up like the boys in his stories.
With my best efforts, the feelings faded to the point I couldn’t even imagine them. I felt relief. In the same moment, the man behind the count said, “Sir? You’re next in line…”
I feel a doubling of relief to finally be done waiting. I walked out with my purchases and aimed myself back towards the office. With my car in the shop for three days, I’d have to be quick to make it back before the end of lunch break. I still needed to grab a sandwich somewhere along the way, preferably something cheap with a satisfying amount of grease.
I did an impromptu little flex which didn’t do much for my band of belly fat but I could imagine it shrinking a little despite the fact it was probably getting larger. I walked with bigger steps till I tired of that after a little ways.
I looked around. The new super store was going up across the street from the drug store. Currently, it was still a gray, unfinished box. I reminded myself that this was an area of boxes. Boxes all over. The drug store was just a smaller box and the businesses beside it were smaller still.
It seemed like there were new stores opening all the time, new boxes all in a row. But, lately, it seemed like all the stores were ones I couldn’t find myself to care about or just the same old thing. So many things felt like the same old things.
I walked even with the curb and followed the middle of it. No trailing onto the edge of hugging the grungy weeds along the inner half where boxes gave way to seemingly endless dust and stagnant plant life.
I didn’t even know what people saw in the dark brown mountains that filled every horizon. They jutted so sharply that they had no appeal for housing or any other use. In winter, they became walls of white emptiness.
I clutched my fingers and pressed them into my side as I walked. I wished I could just enjoy things more. I wished I could find little joys like some people did. I wished I could giggle like that woman on the phone and smile like the man before me in line. All the came out was a grimace.
I walked past the box businesses for car repair and made my way under the freeway overpass. I slid my plastic bag up my shoulder and tried to think of any music I could hum to pass my walk. My head was entirely blank of songs.
I sighed and put one foot in front of the other. I passed a gas station of the other side of the underpass and briefly considered settling on something from there for lunch. But my mind drifted from lunch as I noticed a strange tent set up ahead towards the curb side of a dusty, empty lot.
The tent itself looked much like the ones I’d seen set up for selling cars where the paperwork and financing was all drawn up. The color was a pleasant purple that glimmered with bright patches in the noonday sun in spite of a passing cloud overhead.
I waited on the crosswalk light to change. And waited. And waited.
Three cycles passed and, despite the fact I held down the button, the “Don’t Walk” refused to change. The nearby, perpendicular crosswalk remained almost constantly green. I had to wonder about my luck. I looked at the curiosity of the tent and slowly turned away when I heard someone hit the light pole and exclaimed, “Accused thing!”
I whirled around to see young. red-headed girl pounding on the pole with his fist. She wore narrow-oval, gray-framed glasses. She glanced over at me and gave a little lift of her eyebrows.
I blinked at her till she clapped her hands and gestured with her head. I turned to find the light had suddenly turned to “Walk”. The girl, who looked to be in her early 20’s to my eye, said, “Sometimes things just need a little nudge, don’t you agree?”
Before I could say anything, she seized me by the hand and walked me across the street. When we made it to the opposite end, she released my hand and walked on ahead. Even without her holding me, I still felt compelled to follow her. I paused when she turned into the empty lot and approached the tent. I kept my feet in the middle of the curb and watched.
After a little ways, she turned around and looked back at me. Her eyes were brown and looked strangely vast. The red to her hair was so bright and vivid that I could only figure it was somehow dyed to give that tone. It was guided into a vast ponytail by a scrunchie and even then it settled far down her back. She was dressed in a pair high, tan boots that rose with feathered trim almost to her knee. Her shirt was a dense gray and her jeans vivid blue. She smiled.
I felt so pale and shadowed before her. I tried to summon forth some typical words of thanks but she gripped my hand again and dragged me clear from the curb and onto the dirt. Before I knew it, I was at the threshold of the purple tent. I glanced within.
From the outside, I would guess the tent to be no larger than a modest, two-car garage. But, looking into it, it felt twice that size. I saw artifacts and insignia all around the area. I didn’t recognize a single thing. In the middle was a large, oaken table with two chairs facing one another.
I gave a little nod and expected that to be it but the redheaded girl led me to the nearest chair and sat me down it in. I finally found words to protest. “What’s going on? Who are you? What’s the meaning of this?”
She leaned on the chair on the opposite side and traced the top of the back like a crown. She leaned forward and said, “How about I start by answering the easiest question first. My name is Ananya Novikov. Welcome to my home.”
Links to other days
Day 2
Paranosis
Chapter 1 – Keep in Line
“Keep in line,” said the man at the counter.
I groaned out a sigh as I stood in line at the drug store checkout. Only one person was at the counter. Five people were ahead of me and only one behind.
The one behind was a tittering young woman dressed in a black pantsuit. She hugged her phone like an extra appendage and said, “You just need to keep doing what you’re doing...”
I shut my eyes a moment. The lights felt too harsh.
I’d just come in for some headache medication and lens clearer for my glasses during my lunch break. My legs twitched under me and my back gave a little spasm. I couldn’t believe I was less than halfway through the day.
The young woman continued talking but I couldn’t make out all her words and it just became a rush of incomprehensible jabbering. I stopped trying to listen. Not like I’d glean anything useful from it anyway.
I kept in line behind a tall, middle-aged black man. He smiled at me and said, to no one in particular, “Just gotta wait…”
I gave him an automatic nod and felt the headache coming back.
I evened a bit of my thick, graying hair with my hand and wondered to myself the last time I’d really had fun. The memory that thought stirred up made me wince.
It was two weeks ago. I was doing my normal data entry work. The names and information passed my eyes like graphical noise. My brain felt numbed. It felt like something was terribly wrong with it. But I told myself the work was good. I was glad to have job, especially with the local recession, even if it was about the same sort of job I always remembered doing.
Then, something felt different inside of me, I looked at the name and I had a different sort of feeling when I saw them. I could imagine them. I could see them and as I saw them, I saw myself doing terrible things. I saw myself squeezing them till they stopped breathing. Then their names would vanish from my list.
The thought felt so terrible but I also felt so satisfied. I felt a rush, like a blood lust. It made my every thought tremble.
Then, Mike rapped on my desk and said, “Hey, Curtis…Curtis L. Ryan…you around?”
I looked at him and it took me a moment to realize he’d said that to me. When I came to my senses, I was felt terrible but tried not to show it. I gave him what he came over for and we just exchanged the minimum pleasantries about the weather.
Just remembering left a sickly feeling deep in my stomach. It wasn’t the first time I’d had randomly violent thoughts like that. They came around every so often, usually with a strange, sudden panic attack. I took medication for those.
As I stood there, the sickly feeling became a strange warmth. I took a deep breath but it just accelerated the feeling. I imagined blasting tossing away everyone in line and just taking what I wanted…
But I pushed aside the feeling before it could do much to my mood. I wished that the drugs I took could help more with these feelings. I didn’t want or need them. They made me feel like there was something wrong with me. What normal person imagined such violent things?
I’d never had any wish to anyone any real harm. My foster dad Major Hayward Rogers pressed that into me at an early age, along with discipline, organization, respect of authority. He told me so many stories that left my entranced but horrified. I didn’t want to end up like the boys in his stories.
With my best efforts, the feelings faded to the point I couldn’t even imagine them. I felt relief. In the same moment, the man behind the count said, “Sir? You’re next in line…”
I feel a doubling of relief to finally be done waiting. I walked out with my purchases and aimed myself back towards the office. With my car in the shop for three days, I’d have to be quick to make it back before the end of lunch break. I still needed to grab a sandwich somewhere along the way, preferably something cheap with a satisfying amount of grease.
I did an impromptu little flex which didn’t do much for my band of belly fat but I could imagine it shrinking a little despite the fact it was probably getting larger. I walked with bigger steps till I tired of that after a little ways.
I looked around. The new super store was going up across the street from the drug store. Currently, it was still a gray, unfinished box. I reminded myself that this was an area of boxes. Boxes all over. The drug store was just a smaller box and the businesses beside it were smaller still.
It seemed like there were new stores opening all the time, new boxes all in a row. But, lately, it seemed like all the stores were ones I couldn’t find myself to care about or just the same old thing. So many things felt like the same old things.
I walked even with the curb and followed the middle of it. No trailing onto the edge of hugging the grungy weeds along the inner half where boxes gave way to seemingly endless dust and stagnant plant life.
I didn’t even know what people saw in the dark brown mountains that filled every horizon. They jutted so sharply that they had no appeal for housing or any other use. In winter, they became walls of white emptiness.
I clutched my fingers and pressed them into my side as I walked. I wished I could just enjoy things more. I wished I could find little joys like some people did. I wished I could giggle like that woman on the phone and smile like the man before me in line. All the came out was a grimace.
I walked past the box businesses for car repair and made my way under the freeway overpass. I slid my plastic bag up my shoulder and tried to think of any music I could hum to pass my walk. My head was entirely blank of songs.
I sighed and put one foot in front of the other. I passed a gas station of the other side of the underpass and briefly considered settling on something from there for lunch. But my mind drifted from lunch as I noticed a strange tent set up ahead towards the curb side of a dusty, empty lot.
The tent itself looked much like the ones I’d seen set up for selling cars where the paperwork and financing was all drawn up. The color was a pleasant purple that glimmered with bright patches in the noonday sun in spite of a passing cloud overhead.
I waited on the crosswalk light to change. And waited. And waited.
Three cycles passed and, despite the fact I held down the button, the “Don’t Walk” refused to change. The nearby, perpendicular crosswalk remained almost constantly green. I had to wonder about my luck. I looked at the curiosity of the tent and slowly turned away when I heard someone hit the light pole and exclaimed, “Accused thing!”
I whirled around to see young. red-headed girl pounding on the pole with his fist. She wore narrow-oval, gray-framed glasses. She glanced over at me and gave a little lift of her eyebrows.
I blinked at her till she clapped her hands and gestured with her head. I turned to find the light had suddenly turned to “Walk”. The girl, who looked to be in her early 20’s to my eye, said, “Sometimes things just need a little nudge, don’t you agree?”
Before I could say anything, she seized me by the hand and walked me across the street. When we made it to the opposite end, she released my hand and walked on ahead. Even without her holding me, I still felt compelled to follow her. I paused when she turned into the empty lot and approached the tent. I kept my feet in the middle of the curb and watched.
After a little ways, she turned around and looked back at me. Her eyes were brown and looked strangely vast. The red to her hair was so bright and vivid that I could only figure it was somehow dyed to give that tone. It was guided into a vast ponytail by a scrunchie and even then it settled far down her back. She was dressed in a pair high, tan boots that rose with feathered trim almost to her knee. Her shirt was a dense gray and her jeans vivid blue. She smiled.
I felt so pale and shadowed before her. I tried to summon forth some typical words of thanks but she gripped my hand again and dragged me clear from the curb and onto the dirt. Before I knew it, I was at the threshold of the purple tent. I glanced within.
From the outside, I would guess the tent to be no larger than a modest, two-car garage. But, looking into it, it felt twice that size. I saw artifacts and insignia all around the area. I didn’t recognize a single thing. In the middle was a large, oaken table with two chairs facing one another.
I gave a little nod and expected that to be it but the redheaded girl led me to the nearest chair and sat me down it in. I finally found words to protest. “What’s going on? Who are you? What’s the meaning of this?”
She leaned on the chair on the opposite side and traced the top of the back like a crown. She leaned forward and said, “How about I start by answering the easiest question first. My name is Ananya Novikov. Welcome to my home.”
