Re:Jael's Ramblings

[Jael]

This was my first attempt at a story without conventional structure. Apologies if it seems really stupid.

Abide With Me

“Ashes to ashes. . .”

[size=0.2]"So tragic. That poor girl’s family.”[/size]

“Dust to dust. . .”

A pearl of liquid, seeping from blue orbs, dripping down silken membrane. A tear.

“We are here today to farewell our beloved child. . .”

“Are you all right?’”
“I’m fine!”
“You’re not.”
“Just leave me alone, okay!”

Silence.
Breathing.
Footsteps.
Running.[/size]

“Cherished daughter. . . ”

Another tear. And another. Trickling hopelessly down a broken face.

"Something’s wrong. I’m your friend. I care about you. Please just talk to me.”
“Shut up! Just shut up!”
Silence.

[size=0.5]“So young and so beautiful. An absolute tragedy.[/size]”

“Treasured sister . . .”

Pale hands grip the program uncertainly.

Breathing.
Parklands.
A well-worn path.
Running.[/size]

“Esteemed friend . . .”

[size=0.5]“I can’t even imagine how her poor friend must be feeling.”[/size]

A hand reached out and touched her shoulder. Dead to the world, she barely noticed.

“Don’t you get it? You’re my problem! You are!”
Silence.

Breathing.
Woodlands.
An unpaved track.
Running.[/size]

“A beautiful, kind and vibrant spirit. . .”

Silent sobs wracked her shaking body.

“Why can’t you just go away?!”
Silence.
Wounded silence.

Breathing.
Hilltops.
Pathless.
Running.[/size]

[size=0.5]“You can only wonder why these terrible things happen.”[/size]

“I’m sorry. I forgive you.”
Silence.
Screeching tyres.
A scream.
Terrible silence.

“So cruelly taken from our midst . . .”

Grief. Overwhelming, unbearable grief. She fell to her knees.

Breathing.
A graveyard.
Resting.[/size]

[size=0.5]“Gotta trust in God’s grace in these times. It’s all you can do.”[/size]

“Forgive me.”

“Please rise and sing with us.”

Breathing.
A fresh grave.
A rose.
Redemption.[/size]

The hymnal felt strange to her hands. Proof that she and it were real. That it was all real. It was no waking dream.
She sang.

[size=0.5]“Just gotta trust God’s grace.”[/size]

“I forgive you.”

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

[Louisiana Night]

I rarely post(or read) in the plot section(because it's KQ related). I'm surprised at the first one, it's good.

I have trouble completely understanding the second one, but that's just me. I tryed something like that before, compared to what I write, you're a best-selling novel writer. Even wheh not compared, you seem like you're studying/working to become a writer(as in professional).

[Jael]

Thanks, LN. I realise that the second sounds a little random, so I'm grateful for any criticisms. I don't want to explain it fully, but if it helps: normal, small and italicised text are all present tense. Bold is past tense. Large/italic is future tense. Does that make it make any more sense?

[Louisiana Night]

It makes far more sense. It's just that I rarely read things like that, outside of school.

[Jael]

Yay, more from me. And, if you're wondering, yes, I was feeling rather depressed when I wrote this . BTW, "tomorrw . . . signifying nothing" is a quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth, just to spare any confusion.

Heart of the Artist[/u]

Orange. Yellow. Mix. Paint.

It’s so cold. The wind is whipping through my hair, through my clothes, like they don’t even exist. Can it really be so late? How long have I been out here? All for the pointless obsession with capturing just one moment in time. Why? Why has this become the empty longing in my soul? My endless search for peace?

Yellow. White. Mix. Paint.

Some people say that in a work of art, the painter visibly takes the world to pieces and puts it together again on the same canvas. I guess it’s true. But when I pick up the brush and dip it into the paint, not even I know what’s going to come out. The best I can do, the best I can offer people, is an empty, shoddy portrait of what already exists.

Orange. White. Mix. Paint.

I heard it said once that there are over 10 to the power of 15 grains of sand on the planet earth. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s still 100,000,000,000,000 grains. I can feel them, between my toes, in my hair. How many must there be in just one single handful? In one single, clumsy brushstroke? Is it arrogance to assume that I can tame this world into a single canvas? Is it right just to want one thing, just one thing so badly? And what does it mean when you give your entire life in the search for some meaning in this cruel, empty world?

White. Blue. Mix. Paint.

I don’t like the sea. I don’t like being here. I’ve never been able to see why people can have so much love for it, or why they find it soothing. Even now, the gentle lull of the waves sounds terrifying to my ears. It represents vast unknown, an untamable cruelty. That is all I know it to be. And then there are those who enlighten my ignorance, and show me that this great mystery is not mysterious. Just molecules, atoms, chemical reactions. I’ve seen a picture of a water molecule. It was so . . . pretty, almost like a flower. But what does it mean? Is it just a drop of water, one drop in an ocean? Or a grain of sand, just one of the 10,000,000,000 others? Can it be that truth can no more be found under a microscope any more than it can on a canvas?

Blue. Yellow. Mix. Paint.

I’m afraid to look up, afraid to look away from my canvas. Because I know what I’ll see. Why is it always like this? Why do I fear the long shadows of sunset? This is when the world comes alive, when the sky explodes with colour and life. But I’m afraid to look because I’m so afraid I might start crying and I won’t be able to stop.
It’s just a time of the day, another endless part of this thing they call life, but I reach upward and the ache I just can’t stop reawakens. It’s almost as if in some way the beauty of the setting sun echoes this inexplicable empty longing in my soul. Or is my soul echoing the cry of the world?

Green. Blue. Mix. Paint.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Why do they say Shakespeare is outdated? Four hundred years later and those words could be my own. Signifying nothing. Is that truly life’s ultimate?

Green. White. Mix. Paint.

I see a bird. A single, lonely bird. It swoops to skim the water and is battered mercilessly by dusk winds. Yet still it struggles, fights the gusts and bathes itself in the lasts rays of long sunlight that sink across the horizon. For the first time, I smile. A twisted, wry smile. Bitter. Ironic. Lonely.

Blue. Black. Mix. Paint.

They say that a painter visibly takes the world to pieces and puts it together again on the same canvas. I guess it could be true. But if I could indeed be that painter, my canvas would show an explosion of golden light fading across a gentle ocean that laps at a tender beach. What has flowed from my hands is a bleak sky where lonely birds skim over a ferocious sea, fighting for the few bleak rays of light that filter through dark clouds above.

I paint the world that I know.

[Rosedragon]

Jael, I'm just so amazed at the power of your writing. It's not KQ related but you've captured some very important qualities of life. The first story nearly brought me to tears. The emotions and trauma people go through and put each other through, you put it into words and expressed it like I couldn't do. I mainly right in fantasy and it's like escaping from reality for me, I'm not really good at expressing emotions. The second one about the artists and the futility of life reminds me of Eccesiastes in the bible how everything falls into the dust of the grave. The story about suicide was so sad, suicide has become a major cause of death among youth, I have thought about it myself. From the words the reader can tell the pain and the abuse the girl had been through before her attempt with the blade.

[Louisiana Night]

I wrote it about a girl who was self-mutilating, but a lot of people who read it thought she was suicidal.

Well that explains a lot. I was confused with that 3rd paragraph.

[Jael]

I personnaly don't care for the theme(that could be a sign that you're a great writer  ).

Please don't apologise for criticising my work. I really don't mind if you don't like it, it's probably a sign you're a lot more sensible than I am . I realise my work can become extremely repetitive, but I insist on subjecting other people to it. Sorry

You seem to have a very unique writing style

Random thought: "unique" has many different interpretations, don't you think. Lol, I'm kidding. I appreciate the compliment.

If you didn't catch it, I was hinting that I'd like to see the finished version, when/if you finish it.

Don't hold your breath. My hiatus from writing is bodering on 7 months. Much as I'd like to see the thing finished, I'm not sure I'm ever going to see the end of it. I might take it up again in the future.

Thanks for the input

[Louisiana Night]

Thanks for the input

NP

Much as I'd like to see the thing finished, I'm not sure I'm ever going to see the end of it.

At least you got that far. Anything I write, tends to become a jumbled mess, after a couple of paragraphs.

[Rosedragon]

I like Langamothe. Reminds me of Elysia, my own magical world. I'm not good at critiquing, so it's good LN's done the work. Um, Jael, LN, would you do me a favor and read my KQ fanfic epic called Daventry's Children? It's after MOE and is about what happens during the wedding of Rosella and Edgar, how the baddies try to prevent it. it's getting really long and it's starting to flunk. I need help! I need someone to read my story and help me with it, critcize it and tell me what's wrong. I already have a plan as to the plot and what the villains are going to do and what the heroes do to fix it, I just need help getting there.

[Louisiana Night]

I'll read it, and post about it.

It might take a while, but I'll post about it.

[Shadowfax]

(storms into thread with a cry of "Well if no-one else shall resurrect this thread then I, the Great Shadowfax take it upon myself to do so.")

Since Jael is currently logged on:

I don't know if you will see this but I would like to say I think your so called "ramblings" are actually very lovely stories. I myself write about the darker aspects of life a lot and so I can see what angle you are coming from. Anyhoo, don't be ashamed about them, they are excellently conveyed with a simple, direct emotional rawness that I struggle to achieve!
So, I just want to say well done and thankyou for sharing them with us all!  

[Jael]

Thanks! I always appreciate input, and its especially nice when being told how incomparably wonderful I am  . Excuse me a moment . . .

*deflates ego*

I hope to start up on Langamothe again, or work on some more short stories/ poetry at some time, but I'm often to caught up reading textbooks to bother.

Since you mentioned you write, I'd love to see some of your work, if you'd like to share

[Shadowfax]

Don't worry, I do like to share! (I cannot as much as I like for various restrictions prevent me from sharing too much material as it could result in anauthorised publishing of my work  )

I am considering posting some stuff up (mostly stuff from my KQ IX screenplay) but I cannot post everything as two of my novels are actually...well...based on brutal pseudo-political power struggles, titanic wars etc... mixed within a combination of fantasy, Sci-Fi and near future contexts which are unprintable here due to forum rules!

Hmm, I will see what I can do. As I said before your work is very good and you should be proud of it (my stuff is the type to be ashamed of due to the extremely dark nature of the texts!)  

[awesomeasapossum]

The Dove was really good. The emotions seemed to pour out of the writing into a river of swirling descriptions and hope. You could have a future in righting. (Maybe inspirational...)