Dark Fairytale

We were told one day to tell a scary story in one of my pitch classes at VFS but since I didn’t know any, I wrote a poem.

Dark Fairytale
Once upon a time

There was a girl with long blonde hair

Her looks were just to die for

And her beauty was oh so fair.

 

Up and down she walked the paths

At every waking day

With all her lovely joyful friends

She just loved to play.

 

And in the shadows came a figure

From the depths of dark

He swayed with every step he took

His face all riddled with marks.

 

“Come with me” he said to her,

As he offered out his hand.

“But who are you?” she politely asked

And he said “They call me the Triangle Man.”

 

And so they skipped, down the paths

Not once ever looking back

Until they stopped at a broken light

And frightful house of black

 

He led her in through the door

While she felt a little fear

But the Triangle Man calmed her down

“It’s just you and me here, my dear.”

 

She followed him up, up the stairs

Floorboards creaked with every step

He opened up a door for her

Saying, “This is where my pretties are kept.”

 

And when he opened that fateful door

She cried a terrible cry

For on the bed lay five little dolls

Girls who had been previously alive

 

The girl with long hair tried to move

But he made her want to play

A scream she tried but oh, despair

As he scooped her voice away

 

 

Her tongue he simply pinched it out

As he grabbed her life and her bones

He bent her pretty face in two

And her body became cold as stone.

 

With his long thin arms, he plunged his hand

Into her soft body with ease.

He licked the remnants of liver and lung

As he proceeded to pull out her knees.

 

A bucket was set aside

Containing a feast of her entrails

He tasted all her fingers

Till the blood ruptured through the nail

 

The long golden hair was all sliced away

Her scalp hanging off like a flap

And after that he took her spine

Chewed on it till it snapped.

 

A polka-dotted dress, a bow for her new hair

To her cheeks, a touch of red

And she finally took her rightful place

With the other dolls on the bed.

 

There was a girl with long blonde hair

But it doesn’t really matter

‘Cuz with the Triangle Man in the house of black

They all lived happily ever after.

Homeless

There is no title, no indication of when I wrote this, but judging by the inconsistent verb tenses and meh writing, probably in my creative writing group in high school.

Homeless

“Next,” I thought to myself as I put the lid back on the garbage can.  I casucally strolled over a few feet away and lifted the next lid.  The stench of seemed to be a combination of eggs, cigarettes, and diapers greeted my smell receptors.  However, I was immune to the stench now; there was nothing I hadn’t smelled before.

If I sound like some kind of hobo, you’re wrong.  I prefer the term homeless person, a person simply without a home.  It was about 3:3 in the morning and yes, I was going through people’s garbage.  Well, actually, I enjoyed spending time around this certain house so much that I would consider it to be my “neighbor’s” house.  So far, the only items of any value were a half eaten banana, a pair of socks with small holes and of course, cans for refund.

So anyhoo, I was going through my usual garbage when I spotted something sparkling in the moonlight – or rather, streetlight.  I carefully shoved aside the piles of garbage and suddenly stopped.

It was a butcher’s knife.  And not just any butcher’s knife; it was covered in a red liquid and had a faint odor of copper.  Could it be blood?  Maybe?  Could it be ketchup or tomato sauce?  Maybe, but why would anyone cut ketchup?

I told myself I didn’t see anything and just continued on with my routine.

Hallway

Something I wrote for my poetry class.  It feels like a complete departure from what I usually write but I like pushing myself to explore different subjects.

Hallway

Florescent lights, like a hospital patient room
Sanitized floors, trying to hide scuff marks
A crimson neon exit sign hangs above my head,
Me, a grim reaper with a gun

Number 1 and 2 fall soundlessly,
their hands in the other’s like I’ve always seen them
Always clutching, touching
3 screams before a silver reply pierces her lungs.
My devilish hands, puppeting my sight, spy 4, eyes closed
as if content for having lived only sixteen years.
I must turn away as my demon fingers pull the trigger
After wounding 5, she crawls on elbows, reduced to a human rowboat
But as I gain on her, cannon in hand, the boat sinks, a hole too many, liquid rushing out instead of in.

A sound startles me.

6 sits slumped, rocking back and forth, a pendulum
fingers creating trenches behind a crying face, moaning like a siren.
The sight slashes into me, deeper than any round I’ve fired
I nod in recognition of the pain he endures and will endure and continue
At the end of the hallway stand two white doors,
and before I pass, I turn around
It smells of death:
Blood tainting the floor
Flickering lights, like a morgue
They lie there, sleeping kindergarteners
Sons and daughters.  People’s children.
Suddenly, pain surges and I unleash a fury of gray tears upon myself.

It started with a bullet.  It will end with one.
My hands, still possessed, perform one last sin.
“How did it come to this?” I wonder as I christen myself number 7.

Meaningless Conversations

A variation on my short story Conversations with a Ghost.  This was written during my VFS year, again for Style class in which we had to take the short story we had written and develop it into a different kind of writing — cereal box information, travel brochures, flyers… any kind of other medium that has writing on it.  I chose to do mine in a police report format and it was definitely an interesting process.

Meaningless Conversations

OFFICIAL POLICE TRANSCRIPT

1  Jeremy West Interview
2
3  Detective:  What’s your name?
4
5  West: Jeremy West.
6
7  Detective:  Do you know why you’re here?
8
9  West: I can’t imagine why, no.
10
11  Detective:  We found the body of a Sean Lee.  Did you know him?
12
13  West: Yes.
14
15  Detective: How?
16
17  West: We go…went to the same high school together.
18
19  Detective: Were you a close friend?
20
21  West: No, not really.  I liked him, though.
22
23  Detective: What do you mean?
24
25  West: Well, I just thought he was a nice guy.  Good-looking too.
26
27  Detective:  Okay.  Did you ever talk to him?
28
29  West: No.  I was too shy.
30
31  Detective:  Why was that?
32
33  West:  I was… intimidated by him, I guess.
34
35  Detective:  What was so intimidating about him?
36
37  West: I don’t know.  He was just… one of the popular guys around school.  He had
38  had bunches of girlfriends, he was on a bunch of teams.  You know, your typical jock
39  kinda guy.  But…
40
41  Detective:  But what?
42
43  West:  He also had this mysterious vibe to him.  Even at such a distance, I could tell
44  that he wasn’t like all the other guys that he hung out with.
45
46  Detective:  What do you mean by ‘vibe’?
47
48  West: I’m not sure.  I just felt he was… different.
49
50  Detective: Could it be because of his looks, like you mentioned?
51
52  West: No, that’s not what I meant.  Even though he didn’t get the best grades, I could
53  tell he was smart.
54
55  Detective: Uh huh.  You watched him often?
56
57  West: Sort of.  Every now and then.
58
59  Detective: You do anything to him?
60
61  West: I wrote things and put it in his locker a few times.
62
63  Detective: What did you write?  Death threats?
64
65  West: No.  Just little poems and things.
66
67  Detective: Why did you do that?
68
69  West: I told you, I’m shy.  If I couldn’t tell him things in person, I’d just come up
70  with other ways.
71
72  Detective: Right.  Did he know it was from you?
73
74  West: No.  I never wrote my name on any of it, and I only delivered my notes when
75  no one was around.
76
77  Detective: I bet you hid around a corner to watch his reaction when he found them.
78
79 West: You’d think that, but no, I never did.
80
81  Detective: Why not?
82
83  West: Because if he thought it was creepy or whatever, I didn’t want to know that.
84
85  Detective: Ah, so the old ‘ignorance is bliss’ thing, eh?
86
87  West: Yeah, I guess so.
88
89  Detective: You do any other sorts of crazy things to get his attention?
90
91  West: Well, I did used to play this game—
92
93  Detective: What?  What kind of game was this?
94
95  West: It was perfectly harmless.
96
97  Detective: Can you explain this ‘game’ to me?
98
99  West: Sure.  If I was on a bus with an empty seat across from me, I would just
100  pretend that Sean was right there, sitting across from me, and we would converse.
101
102  Detective: So you’re telling me that because you’re too shy to talk to him in person 103  you just… make him up?
104
West: Yes.105
106  Detective: That’s really screwed up.
107
108  West: But it was the only way.
109
110  Detective: So… what did you guys talk about?
111
112  West: Basically, I’d just tell him everything I could never tell him in person.
113  Sometimes I would pretend he was my boyfriend.
114
115 Detective: Now that is screwed up.
116
117  West: Like I said, it was the only way.
118
119  Detective:  What kind of things did you guys talk about?  Can you remember any
120  conversation?
121
122  West: Just little things.  There was this one time when I was having a bad day and he
123  was there, making me feel better.  He said things like, ‘Hey, Jeremy, I’m here now.
124  Everything’s alright.’  And then there was this one time…”
125
126  Detective: What happened that time?
127
128  West:  Well, it started off just like any other time.  I had this deal with my friend to
129  ask someone out in a week, and I talked to Sean about it.
130
131  Detective: And then what?
132
133  West: And then… things got a little out of hand.  He became hostile and attacked
134  me.
135
136  Detective: You mean, physically?
137
138  West: No, verbally.  Words can be powerful things.
139
140  Detective: What did he say to you?
141
142  West: He told me that I was too much of a coward to talk to me, and because of that,
143  I had to resort to fantasizing conversations with him.
144
145  Detective: But that’s the truth.
146
147  West: Yeah, but when I’m playing this game, I don’t want to be reminded of reality.
148
149  Detective: I see.  Is that all he said to you?
150
151  West: He told me no matter what I do, no matter how hard I’d try, I would never be
152  able to get over him.
153
154  Detective: That’s harsh.
155
156 West: Yes.
157
158  Detective: How did this happen in your own fantasy?
159
160  West: I don’t know.  I just… lost control.
161
162  Detective: And what happened after that?
163
164  West: I snapped out of it, cried a little.
165
166  Detective: You were crying because this game?
167
168  West: Yes.
169
170  Detective: I guess words can be powerful.
171
172  West: Yes.
173
174  Detective: So what happened after that?
175
176  West: Nothing much.  Some fat lady in a hideous outfit started talking to me.
177
178  Detective: [laughs]  What did she say to you?
179
180  West: She just offered me a Kleenex and then…
181
182  Detective: And then what?
183
184  West: And then I swear her face melded with Sean’s face when she said the word
185  ‘Never’.
186
187  Detective: Okay.
188
189  West: And that was then I knew I needed to kill him.  To kill Sean.
190
191  Detective: Are you confessing to the murder of Sean Lee?
192
193  West: Yes.
194
195  Detective: Why?
196
197  West: Because I feel better about it, saying the words; knowing he’s really gone.
198
199  Detective: You realize that you’ve only killed him in your head, right?
200
201  West: Yes.
202
203  Detective: And you realize that this entire conversation is also in your head?
204
205  West: Yes.
206
207  Detective: So why are you doing this?
208
209  West: To make things seem more real, I suppose.
210
211  Detective: I’ll make things more real for you, then.  You’re going to wake up after I
212  count down.
213
214  It’s been nice talking to you.
215
216  Detective: 5…4…3…2…1…

END OF TRANSCRIPT