Something new for a change..

this is a teaser of something I've been working on with josh picco, i'll give you an epilogue and a brief look at the first chapter part i'm certain about keeping. please let your fresh sets of eyes be my guide as to whether or not my writing is on the right track..

bm


...


- Epilogue -

There’s a certain atmosphere created within a party’s headquarters on the night, and particularly the precise moment, of a big win for one of their comrades. The raw electricity between supporters and members of the media lights up a room like the burst of engulfed birch bark on a glowing ember. Common men and women stand side by side with a sense of pride, of victory, of being on the winning side.
Some people could just use a win, so long as we convince ourselves that political wins can compete with any personal win in life. Above the outpouring of joy, tears flowing, signs waving, blood teetering through veins in a manner only seldom achieved, there remains a calming and cooling sense of empowerment for those involved. For the man of the hour, whose campaign of sweat and political strategizing has led to this monumental moment.
Those who are present, who felt the muscles across their chest and every tooth in their head clench simultaneously in anticipation of poll results as they sporadically arrive, remember every moment. They remember wiping their brow and wondering if the drumming in their ears was their own heart beating or the sounds of the thousand hearts around them, beating in a rhythm of strict cacophony.
There’s a brief lull in the crowd as the newly elected successor to Canada’s leadership begins to speak. It was said to have sounded like a rain was falling all around them on this night.

- CHAPTER ONE -

He remembered the cold shiver running up his neck the first time he had heard the rats. This is not where he was intended to be, and he knew it only to be true the first night he would later spend away from the apartment building he called home. An apathetic superintendent, too much turnover in tenants when you lock up the thieves and the vagrants, just a scum-infested shit hole to try and call home.
If you could, that is. Hell, you had to call it something.
Every morning was a gamble. You would set an alarm the night before, but it was only a fail-safe. More often than not, Dean awoke to the beating of single rain droplets as they fell from the festering ceiling tiles to his forehead, as well as into several strategically placed buckets throughout the room. He had decided, long ago, that the position of his bed in the room was the ideal spot to avoid significant water damaging the mattress or rusting the bed frame, save for the one single leak perpetually landing on the tip of his brow. A constant, and somehow reliable, thumping. It made him think of an abacus he had once seen in his grandparent’s den, and the noise it made as he slid the weighted beads from one side to another in time. He felt the seconds of every night creak on and on, as each drip of water hit the bottom of the buckets surrounding him. Thankfully, they only needed to be emptied once every four or five days. More than that, and he would finally bring himself to knock on the door of his superintendent and demand it be fixed.
That, or he would move out. Whichever came first, he thought. Dean was too a timid man to consider making choices that affected his life so drastically.

all we know

There’s a twitch in his leg.
There’s a moment, as he opens his eyes each morning, when he comes face to face with another version of himself. Though it’s alarming in a way only possible when awoken suddenly, it fades seamlessly into a comforting yet alert state.
A familiar state.
He’s always thought it reminded him of someone abruptly pulling a warm set of sheets from the contortions of his body, leaving nothing but a bitter cold to embrace him. It is all that is happiness and near and normal, and as surely as it has always been there, it is not.
But, wait.
All of a sudden, there is a new normal. You’ve re-evaluated your stance regarding the whole matter, and the way things became turns, before your very eyes, into the way things are, have been, and perhaps will be.
And each day of his life begins this way. It assures him to know he will be forced to look into the eyes of all that could have been with him, to him, for him.
He accepts what is, sidesteps what may be, and lives the paradox of, to his dying day, hanging on each moment until the moment a new day begins.
He opens his eyes.

once.

A brand new year! I guess other than the feeling inside of a blank slate before you, today is like any other Saturday afternoon.
Spent sitting inside, most likely in front of the TV with the roommates, either reading wikipedia or trying to finish the ever-loving task I have taken on of finishing The Dark Tower series. Only somewhere in the range of 900 pages to go.
There's a sort of interesting point to be made on my perspective of this series as an over-arching whole. From day one, I've known the final act (and even final line) of the series as a passing fact from before I was even aware of the series. And though its setting was made apparent to me from my first sitting with The Gunslinger, it is only beginning to dawn on me (as I work my way through the sixth, Song of Susannah) what the true significance of this epic finale will mean for the characters I have grown to adore.

Go, then. There are other worlds than these.
- Jake Chambers, The Gunslinger

Besides all this nonsense, I've been on a bit of a roll with writing and developing some compositions I've been working on all fall. The bits and pieces of work I managed to squeeze in have been flowering in this spring of all winters, and as the grass prematurely blooms, so do my thoughts and ideas as to where this year will take me. There are horizons all around me to be expanded, and it's seldom been the task of anyone but myself to explore all possibilities.
It's an exciting time in life, and I couldn't be more thrilled to see where it takes me.

It's really pleasing me to see my friends taking such an active interest in working on all of our musicianship as a collective whole. As Tristan so aptly put it, we all manage our time and control our habits by creating scheduled rehearsals/practice. As an engaged group rather than a passive lone soul, we can work together to get ourselves to a level of comfort with our instruments AND as one single sound made of many.

If I get a chance soon, I'll start discussion regarding Dry Twist Productions. It's a little idea Lisa and I have cooked up, and when there's details there'll be details.

-brad

Following Up

[Note: I decided to adapt the 'flashback' style associated with Pere Callahan's story in Stephen King's Wolves of the Calla. Let me know if it works.]

2

It begins with a whisper.
As though her lips were placed gently against his ear, a warm moist breath floating past his lobe as it crawls deep into the nape of his neck. There's no time to react, and so he reacts as we all would.
His eyes shoot open, while his breath suddenly halts with a gasping whimper. He feels the hair on his arm stand on end, soldiers at attention welcoming a high ranking official.
Someone important. Please enter, and come and go as you please. Make yourself at home.
Jake lays frozen in bed, while an idea makes itself cozy deep within his mind. Though he's sure this has all been a dream, or apparition, he knows where he must go. And so he rises, shaking off his slumber as he dresses himself. Old jeans, grey t-shirt, and a white sweater.
And he goes, as he must.
It was but a dream, of that he is certain.
But if he's right, something really is different this time.
Something wonderful.


3

The hungry hustle of pattering feet on a rocky hill. Boys running faster and harder. Eager to become the men they assume life intends. Peach fuzz on their upper lips and chins, deep breaths rising along broadening shoulders, the newfound feeling of pure testosterone fleeting through their veins.
It began with a promise. This, he remembers.
As one boy falls to his backside, informally requesting a rest, his bookbag shakes against against the terrain of reeds and leaves. Two glass bottles shake lightly against one another.
The other boy plants himself down alongside his pal. As they both gasp deep to catch their winded breath, two bottles of beer are produced and Dean can feel their condensation drip to the ground beneath as he passes one along.
It has been almost six years since this moment, and still Jake can recall the serenity he experienced in isolation from the cares of a waking world.
The grass beneath them, dry and crunching beneath their feet. A cold front has brought an early autumn to their corner of the world, and with it the looming fear of change and all that is to come.
The unknown. A never-ending abyss of seeking direction, pivotal choices, the terror of taking unsuitable routes. And more gravely, being forced to live and die by the route one chose.
One way in, one way only.
One way out.
"The storm is coming," uttered one of the boys, and a silence hung in the air like a hollow knock in the dark. Neither could truly be sure who had uttered those haunting words.
Dean, in a desperate scramble to break the unnerving silence, took a loose cigarette from his ear and searched his pockets for a light. He was greeted by Jake's open palm presenting his father's Zippo. Engraved with care, it showcased two nude ladies sitting back to back in that scandalous pose you recognize from skin magazines and the mud-flaps of eighteen wheelers. Real greasy shit.
As Dean brings its flame towards the cheap dart between his lips, Jake felt an urge to speak. He looked at the beer, resting upon his knee.
"Even the worst storm couldn't take this away," he began to speak, "and you fuckin' believe that. Let it do its worst."
A soft and ominous wind shuffled the reeds against their backs, a tender reminder that this was the most luxurious of views. Dean thought, upon reflection, that he may have even seen the Lower Battery through the low fog bank. One could never be truly sure in this harbour.
"Time'll try and change who we become," Jake added, unsure from where this sudden insight was coming, "but it can't take who we are. You're my buddy, and I've got your back."
The neck of his beer was extended almost simultaneously towards Dean, who returned the gesture with considerable gratitude. As the conversation delved into matter of less significance, Jake knew he would be forever grateful to have a brother blowing life off and grabbing a beer instead. Years later, it would remind him of reading the last line in a novel before you start. It may spoil where you end up, but it's easier to face what's to come when you know where you stand in this world. Or where you will stand.
And Jake enjoyed the comfort of a lifelong friend, entertaining the idea in his head as he sipped cold beer and smoked loose tobacco under a calm aurora sky.
Every star was out, each one brighter than the last.

a start to my writing.

Though he has seen the sun rise over many of the world’s beautiful cities, there was something particularly unique about this.
David sat alone, taking painful gulps from an emptying bottle of gin, on a hillside overlooking the St. John’s harbour. The sun caught the glass highrises, reflecting into his eyes and intensifying the dull ache across his brow. He had stumbled as far as he could before his body and brain ceased to grip onto consciousness nearly simultaneously, and suddenly David found himself tumbling from a gravel train making the ascent into Kilbride. He recalled flailing his arms around his delicate skull in his final rational thought.
And so he remained, until the rising heat (no such effort had been made to remove his sweater or coat) pushed him to the brink of dehydration.
He jolted awake to the sounds of a silent Sunday morning.

The familiar fear and sense of panic swept over him as he planted his weathered palms against the rugged earth below, realigning himself with the horizon. He felt worn and dizzy, thinking incomprehensible thoughts at an nonsensical hour. Time, throughout his night, had taken a backseat to extravagant trays of shooters, cover at nearly four different bars (for himself and two particular ladies, it must be noted), the type of nightlife that one believes only exists in Jazz-era literature.
That is, until one consumes the proper amount of spirit or swill to see things in such a light, dimmed and intimate but still hopeful. It shines without purpose, and yet it remains important that one finds such a light to live under, even if only for a few moments each lifetime. It had been nine-and-a-half hours since David had felt the glow for the first time, and less than three since he lost all sense of his self and fell into a ditch accompanying a high-traffic intersection.
David’s eyes were drawn to the empty streets below and then farther north towards the waterfront. No roaring vehicles, no clicking and turning of cogs and wheels, and even considerably less foot traffic given the nature of this morning. This day was so unequivocally beautiful that it may have been worth the regret to miss such a glimmering dawn.
And it was, as David repeatedly remarked with all of the energy his recovering vitals could muster up, particularly unique. For though the ocean seemed so close one could open their mouth and taste the bittersweet salts against their tongue and teeth, there was no hint of wind in the air. No gust, no sudden woosh of fresh air against his tired eyes, not even a simple breeze to sway the nestles beneath his feet.
Though a rock just large enough to provide shelter and solace from the now blistering sun lay only feet away, he could find no bone in his body nor ounce of his being that would forgive him for shying away from such a once-in-a-lifetime day. Instead, he used it as leverage to take the strain off of his bum left knee, a childhood injury that seemed to have been severely aggravated by the debauchery of the night before. It remained to this day as a reminder to keep one’s wits about them at all times, and as an indicator that moist air and precipitations were on the horizon.
As he slung his body over the large soft stone standing lone on a grassy knoll and pulled himself up to a sitting position, he felt an inflammation in his knee, a subtle swelling. He recalled the warm tingling he would get as storm clouds raced towards him from miles away, and the sudden clusters of sharp pain that would rise from shin to hamstring as he sat waiting for the year’s first snowfall. The subtle drops in atmospheric pressure, the way clouds settled in over his small coastal community; in a way, these were the only things David considered truly constant in his life, tragically familiar and still utterly humbling. His own personal second-nature.
The recurring throb in his left knee this morning, similar to the one across his forehead, was anything but familiar. It was as heavy as a heartbeat and persisted, refusing to be ignored, like a set of knuckles against the oak door of a summerhouse. He pushed the hair out of his eyes, attempting to give himself both a better view and a distraction. Instead, he found a King-sized cigarette mashed in behind his ear. A lingering ghost of the night before, a reminder of his outlandish behavior. At this hour, it remained difficult to recreate any major events of the evening, though awakening on a hillside alone told him something had diverged from all he considered to be the norm only hours earlier.
In his pocket, he found his first clue to understanding where intoxication transcended into the inexcusable. A matchbook, half empty, bearing the words, “Rocky Isle Pub – cheap drinks, no cover, live music”. Reading it gave him a sickly sweet taste in his mouth, reminding him of shot glasses filled with sugary liquors and palate-cleansing whiskeys.
He did not wish to spend this early start to his day regurgitating, and so he looked down in his left hand at the cigarette he held. It was slightly broken in the middle, which was remedied by removing the half he would not be able to smoke without the doctoring aid of rolling papers. He put the remaining half in the corner of his mouth, and lit a match. Watching the burst of flame slowly climb the shaft towards his fingertips, he marveled at its sheer existence.
On any other day, he thought, there wouldn’t be enough shelter in this whole city to keep a match lit. But there was, after all, something different about this day, perhaps even this whole city. It seemed to have expanded and appeared more grand, more complex than he had ever considered.
He breathed inwards, drawing flame to the broken tip of his smoke. David was not a smoker. But if a whole city could change overnight, so could he. And although he knew not where this busted cowboy killer had come from, it was his to smoke and smoke it he did.
As he felt the first rushes of nicotine flowing through his veins, the ache in his leg intensified for a few moments, seeming to call to him as if someone was willing him to see what he simply could not. It finally subsided, leaving him alone on a hill with his thoughts. But at this hour, he had only one thought. A shallow drag of smoke masked his face as his eyes began to change from disillusion to a simple fear of the unknown. Without even noticing, he began to mutter a single phrase beneath his breath.

“The storm is coming.”

my rushmore.

When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.
- Jacques-Yves Cousteau

I just heard this quote, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Although, considering I'm writing this blog, I guess I'm not above sharing what I feel to be my extraordinary life, haha.

I've continued my explorations into reading by trying to accomplish something I've never attempted (successfully) before: reading multiple books at once. This seems as though it would turn out a little muddled, but I've put some minor thought into it. I feel as though .. if I choose three or four books of very different styles/genres, it will be easier to differentiate the plots and characters of each respective piece.

So right now I've started the second part of Stephen King's Dark Tower series entitled The Drawing of the Three. Then there's Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler, a hardboiled crime novel set in Los Angeles some sixty odd years ago. And THEN, there's this crazy Crichton novel named Sphere which I haven't read enough to properly assess where things are heading. And finally, I'm tackling a novel recommended just over a year ago to me by a good friend entitled Travels with my Aunt, which is a beautiful contemporary British story about two estranged relatives.

All in all, I'm making my way through them at a steady pace. Drawing of the Three is moving along a little faster since I'm hoping to advance a little further in the Dark Tower series. The slowest paced read at this point is Sphere, but only because I feel I might need to dedicate a significant amount of time to it in order to truly appreciate it in its entirety.

School is starting again in ten days, and to be honest I'm a weird mixture between nervous and excited. But with nine courses and nine months left to my undergrad, this will be interesting to say the least.

the beginning of the beginning.

I haven't sat down and written anything in too long. Myself and some friends sat around and brainstormed some scenarios for a television series or a screenplay about a month ago.
A couple of round-table discussions was as far as it got. Not that I'm ready to give up on it, though.
The truth is, the last couple of months away from school have brought me around to thinking. Trying to figure out where I'm going to be in a year or maybe five years. I don't have any intention of making a long-term plan of sorts, but I've put a lot more thought into the kinds of things I'm interested in accomplishing. Time is passing, it has occurred to me, and if I don't start becoming the person I want to be right now .. every day from now on end will be a wasted opportunity.

With some pretty serious thought, I've decided that I would like to be able to develop and practice my writing for the coming months. With some experiments into my own expressions of modern poetry, along with devoting a realistic yet significant amount of weekly time to working on my style and consistency, I think I've got a lot of room to grow and all the time in the world to do it.

Whether I'm right or wrong, I've gotten the idea into my head that it would help get my creative juices flowing if I spent a few weeks intensely immersing myself into some novels that I can truly savor and enjoy. Stephen King's The Stand was my most ambitious venture as of yet, considering (and this is embarrassing for the English major in me to admit) I have never finished a book that exceeds 1000 pages. And though it was a slow delve into the first two hundred pages, it quickly changed from an insurmountable task to something I felt couldn't be put down. I was hooked, sucked in, a gravitational pull that I haven't been lucky enough to experience from a book in a long time.
I feel like.. if I absorb enough of the classic narratives that have survived decades and even centuries of academic criticism, then maybe I can start to grasp and understand the existing factors that give them so much relevance in the world I was raised in.

I'll talk more as it occurs to me, but for now, this is a good start at just writing and getting some thoughts out.