Flash fiction! Stream of consciousness assessment piece

So, this is the edited, extended version of the Virginia Woolf-inspired stream of consciousness piece which I have submitted for the Urban and Contemporary Creative Writing textual response assessment, I hope it does ok!

Anyway:

Locked Out

The filament sparks to life above my bed, I turn my head to cut out the glare. I hear the curtains being thrown back as I stare at the wall. It’s the same every day, an 8 o’clock start, even on weekends. Even on days when the rain is throwing pebbles against the window and the leaden light barely bothers to show itself at all. Days that, in my previous life, I would have pressed the snooze on and burrowed down for an extra half hour. Not anymore.

“Morning Jack,” they say as they throw back my duvet. I feel my carefully cultivated warm air dissipate, I get cold so easily nowadays. I see them stood at the side of my bed, hopefully a woman but sometimes a man. I have my favourites, I tend to like the older ones, the ones with the soft hands and maternal touch. The younger girls make me nervous, they aren’t quite so confident and I harbour suspicions that they gossip secretly about my package, or wrinkle their noses at my nightly bowel movements. I sometimes think I catch them indulging in a side-long glance at each other, ‘He’s gone again’ they imply, or ‘it’s not much use to anyone now is it? I wonder if it works at all’.

Before I got really bad I used to get embarrassed in front of someone like this, as naked and helpless as a baby, lying prone in all my dilapidated glory. I used to wince when they put their hands near my manhood. Something which I used to wield as a divining rod in my 20s, which I used to jokingly refer to as ‘the Devastator’, now reduced to just another meaty piece to clean around. Now I barely care. I sometimes wonder why they bother dressing me at all.

We go through the routine: pyjamas off, Depend off, hoist sling on, into the bath (which is always a little on the cold side, but hey, who’s judging), hair wash, shave (I used to leave a designer stubble, but that appears to have fallen by the way-side), onto bed, dry and dress (they take my nice clothes and dress me like a twat, and my socks never match).

Breakfast is usually chosen, although not by me, from a riveting selection of sloppy Weetabix, mashed banana or flavoured porridge. Sometimes I think that I could never look at a Weetabix ever again, I’m surprised they don’t notice the wide-eyed, pleading expression on my face as they spoon it into my mouth. I eat it, of course, against my better judgement it’s easy to swallow, and it really is simpler to just comply. They dab at my face like a toddler before feeding me my thickened coffee through a straw. After breakfast comes meds, and after that it’s ‘activity time’, an expression so ludicrously pre-school that it used to really grate me.

It usually involves them driving me somewhere and then wheeling me around for an hour or so, laying out my ineptitude for all the public to see. A big flashing sign over my head;

 ‘Look!’ it says ‘this man can’t walk anymore’,

 or ‘Attention! I changed this man’s nappy this morning’,

or the old favourite ‘He may look young, but he hasn’t had an erection for years!’.

On one particular day, I was parked in the corner of the cafe, that one which we always go to. They like it because it looks out over the lake, plus there’s a nice covered outside area where they can take it in turns to chain smoke.  They bring the stink back in with them, clinging to their Primark polyester. I can smell it on their breath as they lean in close to bring the straw to my lips or wipe the dribble off my chin. It turns my stomach.

They were discussing one of the other carers, who they suspected to be shagging one of the bosses. 

“Jenna seen ‘em in town holding hands”, one said.

“She’s a right slapper anyway, she is. I heard that one time she were caught on a Fanta crate round the back of the Legion. Letting three guys take turns on her, she was.” said the other.

“And now she’s strutting around like she owns the place. Slag.”

I had zoned out and was letting my eyes wander, when in walked Benny Marlon, the Marlonator, Slimy Marlon, Benny Benny ‘got a blowjob from his sister’ Marlon. I recognised him instantly, he looked exactly like he did in school.  He even dressed the same, as if he just rolled around in the bargain bucket at Sports Direct.

Benny fucking Marlon.

A guy who, in year 9, was caught peeking in round the back of the girls changing rooms with a hole in his pocket. Who, when 16 years of age, was almost (he wasn’t, but should’ve been) convicted of raping an unconscious 13 year old down the park after plying her with Mad Dog 20/20, and who, rumour has it, did indeed have more than a good time with his younger sister. He’d dropped out of school when he was 15 and started peddling sketchy batch drugs to kids, earned the delightful monikers Benny ‘K and MDMA’ Marlon and Benny Brain Mangler.

Yet there he was, standing gloriously upright, walking and talking and skiing and roller-skating and whatever else took his fancy. Hell, he could even turn his life around and become a Ballroom champion if he wanted to. And furthermore he had little Marlonites, a veritable herd of them. How delightful for him, his own ready-made target market.

I prayed he wouldn’t come my way, but of course he did. I averted my eyes as he shuffled past, all Lambert and Butler and Lynx Africa. I stared at a passing swan with such intent that you’d think it was about to turn inside out. My body still pointed his way though, it was ludicrously obvious. I could feel his eyes locked onto me, laser pointing the side of my face as he passed. Oh yes, he’d recognised me all right, he’d probably sent some texts about it; ‘Guess who I jst seen. Jack Smith! Luks like a right spazz. Lol’, or some other retarded, text speak wank. I could hear him hissing about me as they unceremoniously snapped off my breaks and wheeled me out the door.

Twat.

Christmas

The view was awe-inspiring from that part of the woods, high up on the hill. I could look out over row up row of peaked pines, the light breeze prodding the reluctant clouds into a morning stroll. Yes, it was a good day. 

And then, I heard it. The omenous drone. They were coming. They arrived in their uniform of scarves, with their mocking, bright colours, a whole group of them. I tried to blend into the background, but they pointed me out, they picked me. They had decided that I was the prime candidate for what it was that happened to us when we were taken away. Whatever it was, they never came back. Not once they were taken.

It was my time.

I didn't want to go. I watched them bring out the it out, the thing that made us fall.

I pleaded as they brought it closer and closer to me, tried to brace myself. I screamed in silence, as the metal teeth made contact and then cut into my exposed flesh, biting and hacking. My dead air agony fell on deaf ears. They didn't seem to care at all.

I fell heavily to the soil, before looking up at the sky for the last time. Then I lost consciousness.

I woke up in a strange room, propped in a corner, my nakedness strung up to be judged and leered over. They had adorned my broken body in baubles and ornaments and knotted me in lights. Condemned to a slow, lonely death under the searing bulbs. The humiliation had been furthered by branding me with a star, a garish reminder of my shame.

They looked on my dishonoured body with satisfied smiles, seeming to care little for the sap I bled onto the carpet...

 

 

x

The Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson.

Herro!
 
So, The Powerbook is a rather strange book accounting two people falling in love over the internet through stories which they write concerning themselves. Well, that's my interpretation of it anyway. It's described on goodreads.com as this:
 
'Adding to an already astounding body of work that explores the nature of love and desire, Jeanette Winterson (Sexing the Cherry, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, The Passion) presents a stunning novel that probes the boundaries of the Internet. Ali writes stories on email for anyone who wants them. She promises “freedom just for one night,” but she does not do so without a warning: the story might change you. Ask for an epic love story and you will get one, but Ali will be cast in it, too, and the lines between the real and imagined may blur. Plucking characters from history and myth, Winterson journeys through time and stops in London, Paris, and Capri, all the while melding the language of love with that of computers. In The PowerBook she has found a brilliant conceit through which to showcase her increasingly bold voice.'

So, our writing prompt exercise this week was to right about a contemporary couple in a historical setting or a historical couple in a contemporary setting.

So I wrote about

In:

In the style of:

And here it is:

“Ok, now open your eyes.”

She looked around her, attempting to distinguish the objects in the gloom, they revealed themselves gradually. There was a barrel of fermented berry juice, a heap of mushrooms, some of those dried leaves which tasted like burning, a couple of dehydrated adders and more than enough lines of crushed beetle dust. A bloated toad croaked flatulently from inside his cage, cautiously eyeing a batch of frogs’ skins. They looked suspiciously...toad-like.

“Do you like it? I thought we could have a night in, you know, just the two of us, get a little sideways.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“I even got some new stuff in” he added, producing a small leather pouch from his belt, “it’s dried toad. You rub it in your gums like this, see?” he demonstrated, revealing his crumbling teeth. The toad wheezed audibly. “It’s new, from the continent. It tastes like hell but it has a kick to it, makes my eyes point in different directions.”

She was disappointed. They were supposed to be having a relaxing night in, kicking back by the fire. The last time he had got this much gear in, she had spent half the night trying to coax him off the battlements, scraps of his trousers were still caught in the big tree outside. The villagers were beginning to talk. She sighed.

“Come on, just do a couple of lines of beetle. You know how I like it when you get a little bit loose.”

She looked at the toad, who looked back at her through narrowed eyes.

“Oh ok,” she said “but just one line.”

                                                                       x