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Writtin' Thread

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jodizzle:
Jimmy that was sad :(  I liked it alot!  You are good at this!

Oli:
I just wrote this, but I'm not 100% happy with it. I will post it anyway I suppose. One bit I am not really happy with is the switch between the first and second paragraph. There's supposed to be a noticeable difference in the writing but I think it is maybe too obvious, or maybe the first paragraph is too short for the difference to be effective. I don't really know.

Title.


When I was eight years old I wanted to be a detective. I set up my own dectective business in my bedroom, with a desk, some pens and a copy of both The Young Detective's Handbook and Secret Codes - the latter came with an incredibly handy invisible ink pen. No dectective's office is complete without a brown detective's jacket hanging from the door so I bought one, easily twice my size, from a jumble sale to hang from the door while I sat and waited for the inevitable crime wave that was set to sweep the countryside.

   And now I write bad poetry and worse stories and I read too much into everything and I don't want to do anything aside from work for myself and live off what I love. Of course you knew that already. I don't think you knew me when I was eight, so maybe you don't know that I wanted to be a dectective. Maybe all you know is that I want to write bad poetry. I probably won't mention it though. Not tonight.

   We're almost ready to leave and I can't help but think; but I don't have time to think because we're out the door and on the stairs and we're out the door and the street is cold. I put on my jacket. The air is sharp. There's a broken corona bottle at the corner of my block. I stop.

"Why is that there?" I ask and you turn, quickly, and say.

"What?"

and I say "it doesn't matter" but it does. There's no lime.

   So we get to the club, which is only a ten minute walk from the corner of my block, and there's no queue. £5, because it's after midnight, and we're in. Another £1 to put my jacket in the cloakroom. The ticket goes in my wallet, I think. I go to the bar and I order a vodka and coke and a jack daniel's and coke. At least, I ask for a jack daniel's and coke and she asks if Louisiana Pride or Mississippi Pride or something Pride is okay and I nod, she pours and I take the drinks. £1 each. I'm walking back to you carrying the vodka and coke and the jack daniel's, but not really jack daniel's, and coke when I see a guy drinking a corona with no lime. He's about my height. a little skinnier and with shorter and darker hair. He's wearing a white polo shirt with a brown stripe, the collar popped up, along with some dark pre-faded jeans and some chunky white adidas shoes. So I sit down next to you, give you your drink and sip mine while watching this guy. The club is fairly dead, but everyone's paid £5 to get in so no-one is quite ready to leave.

Four drinks later I say "When I was eight..." and you say

"Hang on I'm going to the toilet." and I say
   
"Okay" and keep watching that guy.

   You come back from the toilet, via the bar, about 5 minutes later. I've not moved. You hand me a drink and I ask what it is and you tell me it's jack and coke but I know it's not jack and coke. Unless she lied to me, which after all is possible so it might well be jack and coke. You've got a bottle of Corona. There's no lime. You normally have lime in your Corona , don't you? I'm fairly sure you do.

"Don't you normally have lime in your Corona?"

"Uh-huh, but there's no lime."

"Oh." and then "So when I was eight..."

   By the end of the night I've lost my cloakroom ticket so I have to describe my jacket to get it back. I can see it on the rails behind the counter so I point towards it and say:

"It's that long, brown, beat up overcoat."

KvP:
Paging ZJGent to this thread

ZJGent, to this thread.

Patatat:
My hands shook aflutter as I sat there, staring at the food I had previously eaten. The dry sands soaking up the warm liquid as if the land was thirsty. A strangle smell floated through the air, and the stench crawled its way through my nostrils. The vile smell making me recoil back, as I tried to shake it out of me. Snapping forward as I gazed onto the blazing fire, and slowly I crawled back into reality. My hands fell into the sand as I tried to stand, and couldn't just yet. Taking a deep breath, forcing myself to stand. Looking on, at the vehicle I had just been in illuminated the dark night. I stumbled forward towards it. I don't know what guided me forward, or what brought my hands into the flame trying to pull them out. They were ,but silhouettes in the red, and orange. With all my strength I tried to tug them out, not that I hoped I could save them, but I felt like I had to. I kept pulling, and pulling. Till I was pulled, straight back down to the ground, and away. What was dragging me away, why were they dragging me away? I need to be there, I needed to get them out. My body was flung forward, falling hard into a ditch.

"They're dead Corporal!" A large shadow screamed at me. Who was he? Was he death, why was he telling me they were dead. Was I dead too, and just didn't know it. Was this hell?

As more shadows surrounded me, and water splashed my face. I realized this wasn't hell, this was Iraq. I looked down at my hands they were burnt, and some of the sleeves of my uniform were singed and blackened. Slowly the events that had just occurred were piecing themselves together. People were talking to me, but I was lost. It took me a second to realize that the medic was bandaging my hands.

"Hey! Stay with me, man. You gotta snap back into reality." the medic said as he slapped the top of my helmet. Bright lights started flying over the top of us, they were beautiful. Then I remembered what they were.

"Whe...where is my rifle?" I managed to spit out the sentence, as one of my brethren handed me the cold black weapon. I clinched my teeth in pain, as I gripped it, then put the pain in the back of my head. I had to, I had to forget about the pain. I had to keep moving. With help, I stood up and nodded: "I am... I am okay now."

It was a lie.

Three months later, I stepped off the airplane. Family waiting for me elated with joy for me to be back. They hugged me, and kissed me and sung my praises. It was all bullshit, aside from my Mom none of them wrote me. None of them cared how I was for the past year. They probably never even thought of me. My friends were the same, when I met them at the bar later that night. They all talked about how they missed me, and it wasn't the same without me. It was a lie, all of it was a lie. They all told me how sorry they were about Annie, and how it was wrong that she left me. I didn't even know about it till then. To think I had kept her picture with me always to keep me safe, and keep me happy. While she was naked in some other guys bed. That fuckin' whore.

After I left the bar, and a friend dropped me off. I sat in my room, a place I hadn't been in what seemed an eternity. This place hadn't skipped a beat with me gone, in another world. I wonder if it was the same for the guys I left behind in the humvee. Jimmy's family, and friends they cared. They always wrote to him, they always talked to him, his wife must of sent him a million letters. We would always give him a hard time for it. I left him behind in the humvee, just like Carterson, Matthews, and Eric. I am sure their families, and friends missed them. Why was I the one that sat in the rear passenger seat, the one that was flung out of the humvee when the IED went off. I was spared, and they all died in the fire.

There was a loud popping sound, and my Mother rushed in. She was crying, I knew she would be, and I felt bad for her, but I knew no one else would care....


-------------------------

Hm, I just kind of started writing that right on the spot. I kind of started with a basic idea, and it just kind of mutated into something completely different. I kind of like it. I actually wrote a totally different story, and then erased everything up to the "I am okay now" part, and just kind of did something else from there.

Leinad:
Hmm, that is actually a nice bit of work right there. I like the general flow and the tempo, while different, is nice. It is something of a used up story line, featured in a lot of writing, but I guess it is pretty damn relevant these days, so it can be excused.

The whole idea of "soldier returns home to family who don't understand" but with a twist, a twist of "no one really cares" is different, in that I haven't read too much of that, and I like this piece. Sure it is depressing, but I have had friends go away, and I can relate to the "this place hasn't skipped a beat with me gone". I noticed that too, people always say they miss people, but humans have a way of separating those feelings from everyday life and moving on, prioritizing and just keep rolling. Sad, and I think you captured that very nicely.

Also the mom caring, crying, writing to her son, but the son still taking his life, that is another interesting element. It suggests that in Iraq he brewed a sense of detachment, not a sense of "no one cares for me." I think a lot of people think "they'll regret it when I am gone" but he knows for a fact at least one person will, yet he takes his life anyways. Maybe this was influenced by his girlfriend leaving him? He feels that women don't really love him, simply use him as a depository for their affection, possibly explaining why he disregarded that his mother wouldn't want him gone, would miss him? He says he felt bad about that, but not bad enough to stay alive, apparently.

All in all it seems like you captured a lot of different emotions in a compact piece of work, good job!

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