Arcadian Empire
11-24-2010, 09:47 PM
Felt the need to write, so what do we think?
An Exercise in 'Proper Writing'
Light filtered down from the moon in photon form, and hurtled toward the Earth at the speed of light.
The moon's reflected light was not the only source of illumination, but also from the stars that glistened in differing tones from silvery white to a speck of grey that could be mistaken for an overhead plane. The clock struck eleven, and though no sound resonated throughout the house - the cold walls propagated the silence in the realms of the dark, as no light is on within. The silence is broken - though not by a bird in flight, nor the neighbour's sleep, nor the familiar noise of a car that sometimes is heard by those, who like owls and bats, congregate in the night.
A laugh made its way through the house, and two figures emerged from the darkness. The laugh was a womanly one - that of a girl, no older than twenty. She, and her friend casted shadows upon the cupboards and tables in the home as they made their way about around the chair, under the doorway frame, to the left of the bedroom and through to the living area where the moonlight was more prominent. Their faces were slightly more visible, as the friend of the girl was found to be a boy, also no older than twenty.
Footsteps added to the sound of the mise-en-scene, which already featured a car that passed by on the street nearby and the continual, monotonous whir of the neighbour's air conditioning unit. The couple made their way to the doorway. A latch unlocked, and the sound of the sliding door as it movied was deafening in comparison to the sounds common at that time of night.
It was a warm Wednesday in November, a humid night had been forecast and a humid night had been correctly forecasted. The clouds were nowhere to be seen, which allowed these two people a glimpse of what was fabled for centuries as 'the heavens'. But their attention was not to that - it was to the swimming pool.
Dressed in their swimwear, the door was heard to shut - a latch clicked - but no-one else heard it, for mostly all others were sleeping - oblivious to this couple as they trudged silently for a sneaky late night dip in the pool. The water was clean, as they could see it. No bug, nor impurity tainted the surface of a body of water that would have been crystal clear on a bright summer's day.
Slowly and swiftly the two drifted into the pool of water, relishing the coolness of the it - delighting in how this could relax them as such. A far cry from the light gust and humidity above the surface of the water - under the surface was a world of refreshment, a world where one could live peacefully and happily - though in reality, this ethereal experience could only be taken a few moments at a time. As their heads rose up from the water, the sound of inhaling emerged in tandem with the familiar trickling sound of water drops that fell back into the pool.
This almost primeval and ritualistic dance continued for a while. And as the two slowly immersed themselves in this haven of harmony, the horrors of the day and the stress left them, as quanta by quanta of relief built in themselves, alleviating their pains and soothing their souls. And as their dance continued - closer and closer they came to each other, as the vigour of the dance wore off and the inclination to something else grew. By this time, they were already closer than close - their sole concentration and sole vision was of the person who had joined them in this almost private and illicit time, where only few roamed. Affinity and affection formed.
Gently and surely, in the heat of the night and the cold of the water, they closed their eyes and...
Kissed?
What? Who wrote this thing? Oh, I did. Anyway, I'm really sorry that my story ended up that way. If I knew it was going to end like that - I wouldn't have bothered.
So what to do... what to do... ah yes! So let's take it from the last sentence, shall we? I have an idea.
Gently and surely, in the heat of the night and the cold of the water, they closed their eyes and... the sensor light beamed its harsh white light straight into the boy's face. So instead of gentle words like 'I love you', which is what you may have expected, instead the girl's ear was filled with a harsh, ear-splitting scream of a boy who didn't expect something to happen and was reeling in pain and shock from it. She recoiled back into the water, her head and nape of her neck just missed the edge of the tiled grounded pool by mere centimetres, while the boy's face could not be seen as he tried (and failed) to rid himself of the pain of the light.
Of course, you may be wondering why the sensor came on. In fact, a bird of some sort had flown by to inspect the racket of the two frolicking about in the pool, and upon departure as the dance died down, flew in front of the active area of the sensor, thereby activating it. And why was the male not looking at his supposed lover? Well, I could get into the mechanics of it - but to put it simply, his attention was to this bird which he had spotted with his peripheral vision. And due to this, his eyes were directly in the line of the light.
Anyway, as the racket died down and the neighbour next door tussled in bed due to the unexpected noise at eleven-twenty at night, the two had realised they had done something they shouldn't have and it would awkward to begin proceedings again from this point. They arose from the pool and rushed to the house, as a cold gust set in, forcefully pelting their bodies with painfully cold air that forced them to shake, shiver and shudder. In their absent-mindedness of the past, they had somehow misplaced the key to the house and therefore spent ten minutes looking for it until they found it in the pot of a cactus that the girl's family had been growing. With a few cactus needles firmly implanted in his arm (and a face contorted in pain), he fumbled the key and rushed inside the house where the girl's parents were waiting (the girl's father ready with a baseball bat wondering what idiot had been using his pool at eleven at night). It turned out that the idiot was his daughter.
But still, the revenge of nature and the author did not stop there, as they both caught a cold and there was a mother-to-mother chat, thereby banning the male protagonist of this story to go to the female protagonist's house for two months. And due to the utter embarrassment of seeing their nineteen year old daughter doing 'God-knows-what' (to use what the girl's father said several minutes later), her family eventually decided that she was unfit to be part of modern society and they moved in with their Amish relatives in the United States.
Well, not really. What actually happened was that the male declared his love for the daughter at that time. However, because he had not paid attention to English at school and felt that English was something he did not need, his English was severely limited and that made the father want to burst out laughing instead of feel awe that some other soul in the world had found solace and a soulmate in his daughter. Here are some exerpts from the declaration of love: "I really, really, really, really love your daughter", "She is like soooo [sic] hot", "She is so beautiful, I want to be with her forever and ever and ever", "I love her so much, I really do. She is perfect for me, she is my other half" and "She is so perfect and amazing".
While the daughter was enveloped by these words of love and became starry-eyed, the father was less than impressed - as stated before. And so he kicked him out of the house (not really, because there would have been a lawsuit) and called the boy's mother and informed her in more sophisticated words that her son was not welcome in his residence anymore. Later on, the girl caught a cold the next day and had to drink cough syrup for a week and told to keep her dignity in such situations - and getting 'the lecture' which also included an expressing of disappointment that her parents felt that she had stooped to such lows.
The boy was egged on by his father for his almost successful chance of 'winning' a girl (as might be said) - though his mother was much less pleased. And such, as the boy's mother was like most modern mothers in that they had control over most things domestic and as the boy had a history of switching his preference of girl quite often, he had to wear a Miley Cyrus T-shirt to school for four weeks, hang posters of Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors and other Japanese anime on his wall, profess on Facebook he was the #1 fan of Michael Bolton, paint his bike a nice shade of pink and had to attend Tupperware parties with his mother and as his English was horrible - had to read at least twenty books of Mills & Boon Harlequin Romances.
But that may be a bit too extreme - and since the last ending is usually one that is taken away by the audiences... I'll leave you with that last one.
An Exercise in 'Proper Writing'
Light filtered down from the moon in photon form, and hurtled toward the Earth at the speed of light.
The moon's reflected light was not the only source of illumination, but also from the stars that glistened in differing tones from silvery white to a speck of grey that could be mistaken for an overhead plane. The clock struck eleven, and though no sound resonated throughout the house - the cold walls propagated the silence in the realms of the dark, as no light is on within. The silence is broken - though not by a bird in flight, nor the neighbour's sleep, nor the familiar noise of a car that sometimes is heard by those, who like owls and bats, congregate in the night.
A laugh made its way through the house, and two figures emerged from the darkness. The laugh was a womanly one - that of a girl, no older than twenty. She, and her friend casted shadows upon the cupboards and tables in the home as they made their way about around the chair, under the doorway frame, to the left of the bedroom and through to the living area where the moonlight was more prominent. Their faces were slightly more visible, as the friend of the girl was found to be a boy, also no older than twenty.
Footsteps added to the sound of the mise-en-scene, which already featured a car that passed by on the street nearby and the continual, monotonous whir of the neighbour's air conditioning unit. The couple made their way to the doorway. A latch unlocked, and the sound of the sliding door as it movied was deafening in comparison to the sounds common at that time of night.
It was a warm Wednesday in November, a humid night had been forecast and a humid night had been correctly forecasted. The clouds were nowhere to be seen, which allowed these two people a glimpse of what was fabled for centuries as 'the heavens'. But their attention was not to that - it was to the swimming pool.
Dressed in their swimwear, the door was heard to shut - a latch clicked - but no-one else heard it, for mostly all others were sleeping - oblivious to this couple as they trudged silently for a sneaky late night dip in the pool. The water was clean, as they could see it. No bug, nor impurity tainted the surface of a body of water that would have been crystal clear on a bright summer's day.
Slowly and swiftly the two drifted into the pool of water, relishing the coolness of the it - delighting in how this could relax them as such. A far cry from the light gust and humidity above the surface of the water - under the surface was a world of refreshment, a world where one could live peacefully and happily - though in reality, this ethereal experience could only be taken a few moments at a time. As their heads rose up from the water, the sound of inhaling emerged in tandem with the familiar trickling sound of water drops that fell back into the pool.
This almost primeval and ritualistic dance continued for a while. And as the two slowly immersed themselves in this haven of harmony, the horrors of the day and the stress left them, as quanta by quanta of relief built in themselves, alleviating their pains and soothing their souls. And as their dance continued - closer and closer they came to each other, as the vigour of the dance wore off and the inclination to something else grew. By this time, they were already closer than close - their sole concentration and sole vision was of the person who had joined them in this almost private and illicit time, where only few roamed. Affinity and affection formed.
Gently and surely, in the heat of the night and the cold of the water, they closed their eyes and...
Kissed?
What? Who wrote this thing? Oh, I did. Anyway, I'm really sorry that my story ended up that way. If I knew it was going to end like that - I wouldn't have bothered.
So what to do... what to do... ah yes! So let's take it from the last sentence, shall we? I have an idea.
Gently and surely, in the heat of the night and the cold of the water, they closed their eyes and... the sensor light beamed its harsh white light straight into the boy's face. So instead of gentle words like 'I love you', which is what you may have expected, instead the girl's ear was filled with a harsh, ear-splitting scream of a boy who didn't expect something to happen and was reeling in pain and shock from it. She recoiled back into the water, her head and nape of her neck just missed the edge of the tiled grounded pool by mere centimetres, while the boy's face could not be seen as he tried (and failed) to rid himself of the pain of the light.
Of course, you may be wondering why the sensor came on. In fact, a bird of some sort had flown by to inspect the racket of the two frolicking about in the pool, and upon departure as the dance died down, flew in front of the active area of the sensor, thereby activating it. And why was the male not looking at his supposed lover? Well, I could get into the mechanics of it - but to put it simply, his attention was to this bird which he had spotted with his peripheral vision. And due to this, his eyes were directly in the line of the light.
Anyway, as the racket died down and the neighbour next door tussled in bed due to the unexpected noise at eleven-twenty at night, the two had realised they had done something they shouldn't have and it would awkward to begin proceedings again from this point. They arose from the pool and rushed to the house, as a cold gust set in, forcefully pelting their bodies with painfully cold air that forced them to shake, shiver and shudder. In their absent-mindedness of the past, they had somehow misplaced the key to the house and therefore spent ten minutes looking for it until they found it in the pot of a cactus that the girl's family had been growing. With a few cactus needles firmly implanted in his arm (and a face contorted in pain), he fumbled the key and rushed inside the house where the girl's parents were waiting (the girl's father ready with a baseball bat wondering what idiot had been using his pool at eleven at night). It turned out that the idiot was his daughter.
But still, the revenge of nature and the author did not stop there, as they both caught a cold and there was a mother-to-mother chat, thereby banning the male protagonist of this story to go to the female protagonist's house for two months. And due to the utter embarrassment of seeing their nineteen year old daughter doing 'God-knows-what' (to use what the girl's father said several minutes later), her family eventually decided that she was unfit to be part of modern society and they moved in with their Amish relatives in the United States.
Well, not really. What actually happened was that the male declared his love for the daughter at that time. However, because he had not paid attention to English at school and felt that English was something he did not need, his English was severely limited and that made the father want to burst out laughing instead of feel awe that some other soul in the world had found solace and a soulmate in his daughter. Here are some exerpts from the declaration of love: "I really, really, really, really love your daughter", "She is like soooo [sic] hot", "She is so beautiful, I want to be with her forever and ever and ever", "I love her so much, I really do. She is perfect for me, she is my other half" and "She is so perfect and amazing".
While the daughter was enveloped by these words of love and became starry-eyed, the father was less than impressed - as stated before. And so he kicked him out of the house (not really, because there would have been a lawsuit) and called the boy's mother and informed her in more sophisticated words that her son was not welcome in his residence anymore. Later on, the girl caught a cold the next day and had to drink cough syrup for a week and told to keep her dignity in such situations - and getting 'the lecture' which also included an expressing of disappointment that her parents felt that she had stooped to such lows.
The boy was egged on by his father for his almost successful chance of 'winning' a girl (as might be said) - though his mother was much less pleased. And such, as the boy's mother was like most modern mothers in that they had control over most things domestic and as the boy had a history of switching his preference of girl quite often, he had to wear a Miley Cyrus T-shirt to school for four weeks, hang posters of Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors and other Japanese anime on his wall, profess on Facebook he was the #1 fan of Michael Bolton, paint his bike a nice shade of pink and had to attend Tupperware parties with his mother and as his English was horrible - had to read at least twenty books of Mills & Boon Harlequin Romances.
But that may be a bit too extreme - and since the last ending is usually one that is taken away by the audiences... I'll leave you with that last one.