Flesh Wounds- last installment

Well heres the last part. I will work on editing now I have the basic structure of the tale. Il try to re post the entire thing in coming weeks. Its still all needs a lot of work. If you have no idea what this is about check my earlier short story blog posts.  Enjoy.

Then the ground falls away and I realize that this was the last time I will ever see my parents again. I surprise myself about how easy I am taking this. It almost doesn't matter anymore.

"You can enter now" says a disembodied voice from inside the room. I am standing facing a large corporate brown oak door.  Slightly unhinged it opens easily and I begin to walk inside. The light is low. I can see windows showing no view of outside apart from what looks like clouds, wispy and thin. I feel like I am on an aeroplane and if I look outside the window I will see a city in the dark, house lights acting like little beacons in the night sky.

I dutifully walk in and the woman sitting behind the desk lets a small smile escape her lips as she beckons me with a slight wave of her wrist to sit across from her.  She opens up a small drawer from beneath the desk and takes out a envelope. I know immediately what it is.

"I am afraid we cant accept this" She pushes the envelope across the table and I reach for it. I open the letter and I read.

To anyone that cares

I cant go on like this anymore. I have grown so used to fear that I have to make it stop. I go to bed every night wishing I didn't wake up. I cant cope anymore and I hate him so much he deserved to die. I don't feel proud of what I did to him. He was helpless, like a baby when I crept into the bedroom and stabbed him until I was too tired to keep stabbing.  Tell my mother and father I wont stay around to embarrass them. I guess I'm like my mother. I put up with it for so long that a little bit of me died every day. I don't want to be like her anymore.

I will punish myself. I'm sure even after I'm gone I will keep on being punished. So what does it matter if I stay or if I go.

I know what's coming now. The room spins. I no longer have any control over this.

A woman is shining a torch into my face, I am disorientated, petrified. I'm lying on the floor of my bedroom, my dead husband lying in a pool of congealed blood on the bed, arms flayed. Dead eyes looking straight at the ceiling. Our cat licking his face and purring. The paramedics are holding a pressure pad against my neck so hard I feel like I am choking. My legs are elevated, a person takes my pulse.  Its at this point that I realise its not worked. Its just not worked. I cry so hard the tears start in the pit of my stomach and resonate through my whole body. A kind looking paramedic wipes my tears, looks straight into my eyes. "Your going to be alright love" she says.  "Its just a flesh wound".

I hear my father and my husband laugh.

The day when she rediscovers poetry...

William Blake wrote:

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy. 

So its about the corrupton of innocence... Im sensing the theme of sex and decay. Glorious evening time reading. Im now thinking of reading T S Elliots stuff again, not because I was remotely intererested in him, but I was mildly facinated in his wife Vivienne, who led an extrodinary life.

If your interested -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivienne_Haigh-Wood

Most noteble quote which says it all "Vivienne ruined Tom as a man, but she made him as a poet."

Short story part 2

Im starting to know where its all going now...Second installment.

I recoiled for a moment, clicked her fingers and I was gone. For now I wouldn't be back. I was now standing in my mothers front room, I guessed the late 1970s if the gaudy orange flowered curtains and the tan bean bag chair that had seen better days were anything to go by. I tentatively looked around and saw the room through the eyes of my 7 year old self. From the kitchen I could hear the kettle boiling, the radio blasting out Bonnie Tyler's its a heartache. My mother singing quietly along. Upstairs I caught the familiar sound of my father snoring, and suddenly none. Silence. I heard my mother turn the radio down, and remembered how she always did that if she though she had awoken him. Hoping to get 20 minutes more reprieve. No such luck. The sound of his two feet hitting the floor.  The sound of the plates been snatched out of the cupboard and a meal hurriedly dished out.

The living room door opened and I saw the face of my father for the first time in 4 years. Younger here, less lined, fuller face, thicker head of hair. He stared at me and shook his head, looking confused.  He walks slowly to me holds his freckled hand out and with one finger runs the tip down my cheek, I mistake it for affection. The finger follows my chin, down to my neck. His finger rests at the gash across my neck and after pausing he pushes the finger inside the wound. It doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt me at all. As I stare into my fathers eyes I want to tell him so much. I have a lifetime of words I need to share with him. As he gently pulls his finger from my neck my mother enters the room with two plates of rissoles, potatoes and garden peas and a bottle of daddies brown sauce tucked under her arm. She also fixes her look on me for a moment, just enough time to look straight into me and at the same time through me. I hear her sigh and  she sets the plates down. She hurries back into the kitchen for the plate of sliced white bread. As I watch her go, my father cups my face in his hands and turns my head to face his. Pulls me close so our noses nearly touch. He whispers in a voice that doesn't sound like his  "Its only a flesh wound love".

An old Poem..

In stark contrast to this cheery little number below (A poem I wrote some 2-3 years ago), I am shocked at how low and down in the dumps I was. Like Alan Partridge I have "Bounced Back" AHHHHHAAAAA

Right here, right now (3/6/2008 12:41:00 PM)

I dont feel like when I knock on my own door, that I am in anymore Im hiding behind the sofa, putting the phone on mute I want some silence but Im the noisest thing around So I hold out my hands for liquid redemption, and its so sweet, its so kind, its so forgiving and it loves me. It puts me to bed and wraps the blanket over my head, safe inside the dark, safe under the problem It takes the phone away from me, it hides the bottles at the bottom of the bin bag. It makes me feel closer to dad

Whats all this about the bunnies?

The meaning behind my blog is two fold. Firstly going back to around 1998-2000 I was a die hard Buffy the vampire slayer fan. I bought all the dvd boxsets and to be honest they were very pricey back then. I was enthralled by the bittersweet nature of the relationship between Buffy (Stalwart defender type) and Angel (bad guy trying to find redemption). Later when, in my opinion did the right thing and wrote in Angels demise at the hand of the one he loved the most, Buffy. They introduced a new love interest- Spike. BTW my cat was named after him. Just some random trivia for you there.

Well Spike was the opposite of Angel, cockney blood lust vampire looking like a young billy idol. They had some mad filthy rip your clothes off savage sex a couple of times and then the producers of the show decided to play the hot tension down by introducing an episode written as a musical. It was sheer brilliance, and for the record I know all of the song by heart.  The line...Theres nothing we cant face, except for bunnies was sung by Anya- A demon.

For your enjoyment I have linked the song here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW20AlC0IbA

The other reason is I was born in the year of the rabbit.  I think I suit the definitions too,,,

Characteristics of The Rabbit
The three words that best describe the rabbit? Calm and gentle, but persistent.
Quietly charismatic, thoughtful and calm, rabbits are admired for their tactful and considerate dealings with all who know them. As such, they are most often depended upon for their wise counsel, or as someone in which to put valued trust in a personal friendship or a business dealing.
One of the most cautious signs in the Chinese zodiac, they are the chess players who take their sweet time before making a move. Yet, they are also the ones most likely to win any intricate game of strategy!
This most obvious of rabbit personality traits also spills into their romantic dealings, and rabbits will not commit to any one person right away.
Once they are settled down in a domestic relationship, however, no truer or more sweeter spouse is likely to be found.
In dealings with family and friendships, they can always be counted upon for a sympathetic ear or a gentle hand to hold.
Their highly developed natures can also be found in artistic pursuits. They have an impeccable eye for color and line that is evident in their thoughtful fashion sense. The rabbit is usually on anyone's Best Dressed list.
Despite (or because of) their outwardly calm demeanors, rabbits are extremely shrewd In business dealings and may never show their hand until just the right moment. They are also quick to bolt from any perceived danger and intuitively know when to fold - and run!
Famous people born in the Year of the Rabbit
Albert Einstein, Leon Trotsky, Frank Sinatra, Pope Benedict XVI, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, David Beckham, Tiger Woods, Whitney Houston.

So there you go, cheesy but its the truth. 

Short story writing...

No idea where this short story is going but have a read of a little bit..

I was dead and much to my amusement, the afterlife was remarkably like life had been. I awoke, or what ever it was that I did after "it" happened to me, to find that I still had a basket overflowing with laundry and a pile of bills propped up behind the roses tin. I sat across the breakfast table and stared into the face of the very man I tried to get away from. It was impossible to escape the sheer irony of it.

My eyes became fixated on the stubble on his chin, the salt and peppery collection of sprouting hairs. I grimaced with disgust. I really hated this man.

It wasn't as if he liked me very much either. We had lived like this for some years, simply because of the convenience. Rental prices been what they were, not to mention the flat was so near our respective workplaces meant it was a solution. to suit us both. So I thought.

It was just as I stood to put the breakfast bowls into the sink, that I caught my reflection in the mirror. Staring back at me was the face of a dead woman with a gaping knife mark severing her neck. My neck had stained rusty, I caught the scent of my own blood, metallic and musty. The gasp I took drew his attention. He looked at me as if it was an effort to fix his eyes on me and simply said "Its only a flesh wound", and with that continued with his cornflakes.

The line the cross and the curve

As the mood took me, I was watching the music video for "The Red Shoes" by Kate Bush.

In this tale, Bush plays a frustrated singer-dancer who is enticed by a mysterious woman (Miranda Richardson-If you ever watched the Black Adder series you would know exacty who she is- and the Frida Kahlo inspired monobrow) into putting on a pair of magical ballet slippers. Once on her feet, the shoes start dancing on their own, and Bush's character must battle Richardson's character to free herself from the spell of the shoes. It left me thinking how much more we might do if people interfered in our lives more. The role perhaps of the devils advocate, an usurper, a mentor or just a plain old interferer.

Bushs character was fighting for her life in the video but in her eyes you could see she had never felt so alive as her ordeal (or rather tricked into by Miss Monobrow) had made her dance harder then she had ever danced before.

Take a look at these lyrics:

And this curve, is your smile
And this cross, is your heart
And this line, is your path

I think we need more people to put us on the path. Havent we become too dull, too eager to live the safe life. To not risk danger, to live in our little boxes that we pay dilligently for each month until we slip into the smallest boxes of all?

I want a Miranda....make me do something I havent done before, offer me a dance with the devil or an offer I cant refuse...

There simply has to be more then work, my home and world of warcraft...LOL

and if intrerested this is the link to the video that inspired my blog post today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9_UsAlu9K0

A look behind with one hand gripping the door to the future..

My divorce came through last Friday.  I came home from work, and saw the letter with "Salens" stamped across the top and I knew. I tore it open eagerly and there it was. The Absolute.
I felt a surge of relief and I became a little bit more me. I was no longer someones wife. I was Miss Redmond, the woman. Since last Friday I have been rediscovering things that made me Claire before the marriage. My love for the singer /song writer Kate Bush, my upstairs downstairs drama fetish, my sense of humour... Just a few things there. I dyed my hair from blonde to Brown... Im sure theres a deep psychological meaning behind that, but the truth is I wanted a change.  Hope I enjoy it!