That work I promised...
Sep. 13th, 2005 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conjure_lassOkay...here's a little piece of work. I wrote it in...an hour. I need opinions here of whether or not its okay. It's not really a story, not a beginning to anything, just a small space in time. I think it could become a story, but thats not what I was going for.
With Love
Orchid.
*~~*
The smell of blood is unmistakable, like a twisted mix of copper pennies and salt that makes your head turn and your stomach wretch. You can smell it, whether you realize what it is or not, from a mile away. It pushes aside other smells, and yet mingles with them at the same time so that you can only taste it on the breeze. Only smell it if you’re at the right place at the right time. It’s a primal force…something that everyone possesses. Something pure in a world that most certainly isn’t.
It was this smell that invaded my dreams…and I somehow knew that this was a dream. The walls were too white, the marks from the ‘strike anywhere’ matches that I’d run along the ceiling were absent. The wallpaper, strawberries and vines, was so crisp that it looked as though it had been put up the previous day. And the floor…gone were the numerous stains of cat puke to be replaced by shining red carpeting the color of blood. Brilliant red. I had loved it as a child…I hated it now. If it hadn’t been for this absolute perfection, I would have never known I was dreaming. Never known that the soft bed that my body rested upon was in fact a dream, never known that this time and place were simply a memory and not the reality my mind was painting for me.
I rose from the bed slowly, unsure of my footing in this dream world. Much to my surprise however I found that it was very similar to walking in any other setting, except that no matter how many times I looked down…I never saw my feet. Outside the covers the world was cold, and instantly my bare legs were assaulted with goosebumps that made the hair on my thighs stand out. I sighed as I had just shaved…how annoying. The door to my right was shut, as it had always been. I had learned as a child to always shut your door at night, never allow anyone to think you were awake. It led to bad things…it led to chaos and screaming in the middle of the night.
Fingertips ran along the wall as I walked towards the door, marveling at the fact that I could feel the bumps on the walls, the slightly damp feeling that beaded up upon them. Amazing what the human mind can recreate for you, amazing what it can make you believe is totally real when it wants to show you something. Only I wasn’t interested in what my mind had to tell me, and I was tired of it constantly trying to work out its issues on my time. I wanted to be rid of all of it, my memories, my feelings, my responsibilities, everything that reminded me of the lie that had once been my life. Besides, what was left that I hadn’t thought about? What was left that I hadn’t cried for?
Apparently my mind wasn’t ready to forgive and forget, though I begged it to almost every night before I went to sleep.
The doorknob was like ice, but warmed up almost instantly as I pulled the door open and looked out the hallway. All was quiet. It was almost as though time had frozen in a place that I was familiar with but didn't want to be. I walked down the winding stairs that I had slid down as a child, my dream self smiling over the memory. My mother had told me not to do it, told me I would hurt myself, but I still slid down that set of halfmoon stairs until my butt was so sore that I could barely sit down anymore. But i'd had fun.
Finally, as though i'd been walking for hours, I reached the bottom of the stairs. All was quiet again...and i was suspicious. Nothing was ever quiet in this house, nothing was ever quite what it seemed, as though this were the eye of the storm. The quiet, the peace, would only come within these walls when everyone inside was dead and gone, and even then I had my doubts about the sanity of those who came later. This sort of hate and abuse, it stained the walls, sunk into the very fabric of what made home...home. Everyone would feel it...the house would be hard to sell.
It was in this moment, as I decended the hallway towards the kitchen, that I felt it. The feeling that something was slithering down my legs, that I was warm in an unnatural way. As though in slow motion, my eyes finally found my feet, only to discover them covered with blood...so much blood that it couldn't have come from me. My feet, clothed in a pair of fuzzy neon green slippers, were now a vile shade of brownish red, like clay unearthed from the ground. My legs dripped with it, as though i had been shot in the stomach. And a trail of bloody footprints trailed behind me like children to the pide piper.
A twisted mix of copper pennies and salt that makes your head turn and your stomach wretch...
With Love
Orchid.
*~~*
The smell of blood is unmistakable, like a twisted mix of copper pennies and salt that makes your head turn and your stomach wretch. You can smell it, whether you realize what it is or not, from a mile away. It pushes aside other smells, and yet mingles with them at the same time so that you can only taste it on the breeze. Only smell it if you’re at the right place at the right time. It’s a primal force…something that everyone possesses. Something pure in a world that most certainly isn’t.
It was this smell that invaded my dreams…and I somehow knew that this was a dream. The walls were too white, the marks from the ‘strike anywhere’ matches that I’d run along the ceiling were absent. The wallpaper, strawberries and vines, was so crisp that it looked as though it had been put up the previous day. And the floor…gone were the numerous stains of cat puke to be replaced by shining red carpeting the color of blood. Brilliant red. I had loved it as a child…I hated it now. If it hadn’t been for this absolute perfection, I would have never known I was dreaming. Never known that the soft bed that my body rested upon was in fact a dream, never known that this time and place were simply a memory and not the reality my mind was painting for me.
I rose from the bed slowly, unsure of my footing in this dream world. Much to my surprise however I found that it was very similar to walking in any other setting, except that no matter how many times I looked down…I never saw my feet. Outside the covers the world was cold, and instantly my bare legs were assaulted with goosebumps that made the hair on my thighs stand out. I sighed as I had just shaved…how annoying. The door to my right was shut, as it had always been. I had learned as a child to always shut your door at night, never allow anyone to think you were awake. It led to bad things…it led to chaos and screaming in the middle of the night.
Fingertips ran along the wall as I walked towards the door, marveling at the fact that I could feel the bumps on the walls, the slightly damp feeling that beaded up upon them. Amazing what the human mind can recreate for you, amazing what it can make you believe is totally real when it wants to show you something. Only I wasn’t interested in what my mind had to tell me, and I was tired of it constantly trying to work out its issues on my time. I wanted to be rid of all of it, my memories, my feelings, my responsibilities, everything that reminded me of the lie that had once been my life. Besides, what was left that I hadn’t thought about? What was left that I hadn’t cried for?
Apparently my mind wasn’t ready to forgive and forget, though I begged it to almost every night before I went to sleep.
The doorknob was like ice, but warmed up almost instantly as I pulled the door open and looked out the hallway. All was quiet. It was almost as though time had frozen in a place that I was familiar with but didn't want to be. I walked down the winding stairs that I had slid down as a child, my dream self smiling over the memory. My mother had told me not to do it, told me I would hurt myself, but I still slid down that set of halfmoon stairs until my butt was so sore that I could barely sit down anymore. But i'd had fun.
Finally, as though i'd been walking for hours, I reached the bottom of the stairs. All was quiet again...and i was suspicious. Nothing was ever quiet in this house, nothing was ever quite what it seemed, as though this were the eye of the storm. The quiet, the peace, would only come within these walls when everyone inside was dead and gone, and even then I had my doubts about the sanity of those who came later. This sort of hate and abuse, it stained the walls, sunk into the very fabric of what made home...home. Everyone would feel it...the house would be hard to sell.
It was in this moment, as I decended the hallway towards the kitchen, that I felt it. The feeling that something was slithering down my legs, that I was warm in an unnatural way. As though in slow motion, my eyes finally found my feet, only to discover them covered with blood...so much blood that it couldn't have come from me. My feet, clothed in a pair of fuzzy neon green slippers, were now a vile shade of brownish red, like clay unearthed from the ground. My legs dripped with it, as though i had been shot in the stomach. And a trail of bloody footprints trailed behind me like children to the pide piper.
A twisted mix of copper pennies and salt that makes your head turn and your stomach wretch...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-14 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-14 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-14 12:10 pm (UTC)This was well written. The flow held suspense without dropping the ball. You KNEW something bad was going to happen, just not what or when. I personally thought something was going to happen when the door opened. It just made everything more tense when nothing did. Pacing was very good. Not rushed but you didn't drag your ass either. The description were detailed enough to paint you a picture but not overdone so you "skipped the boring crap".
All in all, I think this little...snippet? was very good for something that you say only took you an hour. And I will remind you again...I don't say things I don't mean. To much effort to remember who I've told what to.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-04 07:58 pm (UTC)Played me like a lute with this dream. It's an excellent opening.