r_u_bald (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} r_u_bald) wrote,@ 2007-02-11 17:18:00 |
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English story
Any sujjestions.. ideas?
Act 1 Jan.12/07
It is a constant battle between the wind and my coat. Shortly after a battle well fought, the wind penetrated my old, torn sweater. The wind had won and I could feel the cold start to take over my body. My legs dangling freely over the water, I had nowhere to go, how could they have done that to me? I was a soul, with no body to occupy. I was a ghost. I needed to be set free, and fall into the sparkling water below me, lit up by the streetlights along the bridge. But to every ending story there must be a start, so here it is. My story.
“Next stop, Renfrew”
The sounds of kids laughing mixed with the click of the cameras from Asian tourists. I never understood why they found it necessary to take pictures out the window; there was nothing much exciting, a couple malls, and a shit load of trees, nothing new to me.
I am the one who gets people from point A to point B. I see a lot of different faces, and hear a lot of different stories, from broken hearts to crazy party nights. No one ever seems to notice me listening though. I have no identity. I am who I see, the stories they tell, become my own. I am the soul of the sky train. And that is where this story beings.
After a lifetime of being the soul of a sky train, you start to appreciate the small things in life that most people don’t notice, such as not having to share your space with everyone, free time and music, but most of all, music. My chairs were polka dotted with people’s old stale chewing gum. Graffiti is ubiquitous. “Mike was here”. I didn’t understand why people liked to do that, vandalize things for no reason. For the most part, I didn’t understand people. You would think after years of listening to people’s high, philosophical conversations about society, I would have learnt something. But I just couldn’t grasp the concept of it all.
Every morning it is the same routine for me, leave the terminal at 5:30am, I see some of the same people, and some different ones. It seemed like such a tedious routine, until nov.17.06, the beginning and ending of my life, also her first day of work. The second she walked onto the sky train, suddenly I understood. Love. I was no longer going by the dictionary definition. I had that feeling, the feeling I often hear people talk about. It was no long just a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend *. It was the real thing. Her muscular shoulders seemed so strong I just wanted to hold her. I could see a tattoo poking out from under her cut-up white t-shirt. It seemed to say something in French. I didn’t understand what it said; yet I knew it must have been something poetic and beautiful.
If only I could have talked to her. I had never been good with words, as a matter of fact I had never said anything. She was listening to her Mp3 player anyways. She had it turned up to the maximum volume. I could faintly hear the lyrics,
“The saddest part,
Of a broken heart,
Isn’t the ending so much as the start”
I recognised the song, I don’t know how, or what from, but I did. It was Let it die by fiest. It was beautiful, the instruments seemed to melt together, as though they were making love. It is not everyday I got to hear something that beautiful.
I am often bored with the repetitive sounds of my wheels on the tracks, and the recorded voice informing everyone of the next stop. As one can probably imagine, it got annoying after a while. But I had no choice, I had to endure it. Even if you may not like your nose, doesn’t mean you can just up and leave your body, and go find a new one. That’s how it was with my, I was the soul and the train was my body.
Unfortunatly I suddenly snaped back to reality when I realised what had happened. I had forgoten all about the fact that I had a duty as the soul of a skytrain. The train was now lagging. It wasn't that big of a deal to me. It happened often. I didn’t mind, all the people on the train always got a little frustrated though, people don’t seem to like to be late for work.
After that short disturbance, I started up again. And I was on my way to the next stop, Broadway. That was when she got off. For the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking about her. If only I weren’t trapped in this metal body, I would have asked her out to coffee.
*www.dictionary.com definition of love.
Jan.23/07
Act 2
After a long and weird day I returned to the station where we all go to sleep, only to do it all again the next day.
I was so happy to see her the next day. She looked as beautiful as mysterious as the last time I had seen her. She sat in the corner all by her self, listening to music. She wore almost the same thing as the last time I saw her. Dark blue jeans, with paint-splats, and bleach stains all over, and the same beat up white t-shirt. She had on an old jean jacket, to protect her from the old outside. I figured she worked in construction, or painting or something like that.
Her face was dirty, and her nose ring shone in the icy sunlight. Her eyes were red, either from crying, or her eyes were simply leaking because of the cold air outside. It made the green in her eyes look even more vibrant than usual. Her face was tough; I could tell she did not live an easy life. She was working hard to pass through life. That was probably why she took the sky train everyday. I had heard people complaining about gas prices being insanely high.
“ I work 6 days a week, with a fairly respectable income, and I still cant afford to feed my car everyday” I heard a business man tell his cell phone once.
I had to say I wasn’t opposed to gas prices rising in fact I welcomed it. It meant more people had to sky train places, and I got to observe more people. There was not as much of a gap between rich and poor on the sky train. Everyone has the same goal, to get where they are going, be it, work, school, or the mall.
I enjoyed observing society from an outsides point of view. It was the only way I learnt to understand emotions, through other people’s words. For all I know the world was completely different than people describe. They say, “people don’t talk to reveal secrets, they talk to conceal them”.
At least that’s what I’ve heard. Everything I knew, or thought I knew about the human brain was forgotten every morning, for about 5 stops and approx. 5.23 seconds. I had no thoughts just an unbelievably warm sensation running all over my body. Every morning that feeling would stop at Broadway.
Everyday I noticed something new and beautiful about her. Even though she remained the same, I would stare at her for every second of her trip to work. Just thinking about nothing. Trying to preserve her image in my mind. But it never lasted long.
So it continued for months, she would go to work. I would have 5 minutes of beautiful nirvana. I no longer worried about other people’s small problems. Like who would walk Ed Grossman’s dog while he was away for a week in Nelson visiting his dying uncle Dick. I finally had my own thoughts.
But I had to admit it was difficult. How did people balance all the small problems? All the small thoughts, and ideas running through their heads like a million fruit flies swarming an old apple. I hated it, I just wanted to look at her, I wanted to be close to her, I wanted more than anything to talk to her. I would do anything for her.
I enjoyed the feeling I got when I look at her. That is why Mar.19/07 was the worst day of my life. I was expecting it to be like every other morning we spent together. With the same 5 minutes of extreme happiness. But she did not get at the usual stop she was not there. How could she not be there? She was always there. I was freaking out. I tried to calm my self down she was probably just sick. I decided to wait until next week until I jumped to conclusions.
Weeks rolled by, she had still not showed up. Months past. I was worried I would never see her again. I tried to forget her. I didn’t want to keep thinking about the “ what if-s” anymore. I had given up hope of ever seeing her again. The image of her would not leave my mind. The same image I had tried to keep in my mind for as long as possible would not leave now. I just wanted to forget her!
I was turning into an insane mess I no longer cared about anything, I no longer thought about anything. She was the only thing that would fit into my brain space, her image occupied every last brain cell I had.
My life as the soul wasn’t working out. I no longer wanted to be trapped in that stupid metal body. But there was nothing I could do. I was stuck. I could not lead a normal life on the outside, even if I wanted to.
Suddenly my life made a sharp turn, that day was the start of the end of my life.
I was going on as my own mundane self. Only thinking of her, but going on as normal. I was running fine, until I suddenly stopped for no reason. I figured it was just another lag. And that I would be up and running again in a couple minutes. So I waited around, the passengers gradually getting angrier and angrier.
We must have been there for at least half an hour, until a disgruntled passenger decided to call on the emergency phone.
I recognized the man; it was Ed Grossman he was back from his vacation I guessed. And was yelling into the phone to the operator on the other side.
“You know I have places to go? Just get someone over here as soon as possible”
I could here the soft-spoken woman on the other end of the telephone,
“Sir, we have people on the way now, please just stay calm” I could hear her try to cut in in-between his angry rampages.
“Sir, I’m sor..” He continued yelling into the phone. “I’m sorry sir, we have people on the way now, there is nothing I can do to make them go faster.” He slammed the phone down in a fiery rage.
What was happening? I had never lagged for this long before, I still just assumed it was nothing. Looking back now I realize I was just in denial about what was yet to come.
I realized we had been there for a good long while and it was getting dark out. When the men came to help the people out of the train it hit me hard what was going on. I was done. I had heard stories about old sky trains “retiring” which really meant they were done for, and old.
After a good hour of helping all the people out of the train, it was completely empty, it seemed as though it would have been appropriate for tumbleweed to roll by. It was just empty seats as far as the eye could see.
The officer who was helping people off came up into the car, to check if there was anyone left. “Excuse me sir, you are going to have to get off this train, it is broken” Who was he talking to I wondered.
“Sir, you are going to have to move, or I will have to pick you up and move you myself”. After a while I finally understood. He was talking to me.
Did he not understand? You cannot just evacuate whenever it like. To put it in English, so that a simple human mind would understand, this was my boat, and I was the captain. The captain must always go down with its ship. Except it was even simpler than that, I could just simply not leave.
“Sir, I am going to have to carry you off the sky train”
So, he did just that, and with every muscle I had in my body I held on for dear life. Literally, I was holding on to life. Without my body what was I? Just a ghost wandering aimlessly looking for the light so that I could be sent to heaven, or hell, or eternal nothingness.
Act 3
I could begin to feel the skin on my hands starting to sweat, and slowly slip off the rail. With every figure that slipped off I was like someone putting a bullet into my head.
When He finally pried every last one of my fingers off, he carried me off the sky train and put me down on the ground. “Go home” he said in a soft voice, even though I could tell he felt no sympathy towards me, he thought I was just another homeless drunk.
I stood up off the cold cement. It was pitch black outside, other than the streetlights that lined the empty streets. I started walking. What else was I to do? I was a ghost, aimlessly wandering around the city looking for the light to set me free.
Her image was still embedded into my mind.
As I walked down the icy sidewalk, slipping every few seconds. I could feel a cold line running down my face. Then my eyes started to go blurry. I knew I was crying but why? Its not as though I felt any physically pain. I didn’t want to be crying. People driving by in cars occasionally glancing over and throwing me pitiful looks, I didn’t want their pity. I didn’t want to feel. I had nowhere to go. Where did I belong?
I continued walking until I saw bright lights in the distance. With a lack of anywhere better to go I followed the lights. I walked I don’t know how far, I walked until I could no longer feel my feet.
After what felt like days, yet seconds of walking I came to an extremely brightly light up bridge. The sign read “Lions gate bridge”. I knew what I was to do. I was going to finally going to be set free.
I started to walk slowly up the railings of the bridge. As I climbed higher and higher my heart started to beat faster and faster. The tears where flowing from my eyes like heroin on Main St.
So now here I am, with my legs dangling above the freezing cold water, and my face soaking in tears. I was finally going to be free, so why was I hesitating? All I had to do was let go, let go of the rail, and slip off into the water, slip of in to nothingness and finally stop wondering.
Suddenly the sun started to rise, it was a beautiful sight. The pink and yellow colors all melted into one beautiful color pastel palette, with the bright sun in the center of it all. Suddenly before I noticed it, the Dark was overcome by light. The early morning cars started the flow onto the bridge.
I took a deep breath and focused on her image. I slowly started inching forward and with that, I knew I was ready. I let go and I fell. They say when you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. But that was not the case for me. The only thing I was thinking about was her, that image that had been stuck in my head for forever. I hit the water so hard. It killed me instantly. It was over. When you don’t want to feel, death can seem like a dream. For me it was a dream come true.
Love is extreme happiness pouring forth from the depths of two simultaneously beating hearts, where each heart beats for each other. Yet, her heart was not beating for me, and now my heart was not beating at all.
Any sujjestions.. ideas?
Act 1 Jan.12/07
It is a constant battle between the wind and my coat. Shortly after a battle well fought, the wind penetrated my old, torn sweater. The wind had won and I could feel the cold start to take over my body. My legs dangling freely over the water, I had nowhere to go, how could they have done that to me? I was a soul, with no body to occupy. I was a ghost. I needed to be set free, and fall into the sparkling water below me, lit up by the streetlights along the bridge. But to every ending story there must be a start, so here it is. My story.
“Next stop, Renfrew”
The sounds of kids laughing mixed with the click of the cameras from Asian tourists. I never understood why they found it necessary to take pictures out the window; there was nothing much exciting, a couple malls, and a shit load of trees, nothing new to me.
I am the one who gets people from point A to point B. I see a lot of different faces, and hear a lot of different stories, from broken hearts to crazy party nights. No one ever seems to notice me listening though. I have no identity. I am who I see, the stories they tell, become my own. I am the soul of the sky train. And that is where this story beings.
After a lifetime of being the soul of a sky train, you start to appreciate the small things in life that most people don’t notice, such as not having to share your space with everyone, free time and music, but most of all, music. My chairs were polka dotted with people’s old stale chewing gum. Graffiti is ubiquitous. “Mike was here”. I didn’t understand why people liked to do that, vandalize things for no reason. For the most part, I didn’t understand people. You would think after years of listening to people’s high, philosophical conversations about society, I would have learnt something. But I just couldn’t grasp the concept of it all.
Every morning it is the same routine for me, leave the terminal at 5:30am, I see some of the same people, and some different ones. It seemed like such a tedious routine, until nov.17.06, the beginning and ending of my life, also her first day of work. The second she walked onto the sky train, suddenly I understood. Love. I was no longer going by the dictionary definition. I had that feeling, the feeling I often hear people talk about. It was no long just a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend *. It was the real thing. Her muscular shoulders seemed so strong I just wanted to hold her. I could see a tattoo poking out from under her cut-up white t-shirt. It seemed to say something in French. I didn’t understand what it said; yet I knew it must have been something poetic and beautiful.
If only I could have talked to her. I had never been good with words, as a matter of fact I had never said anything. She was listening to her Mp3 player anyways. She had it turned up to the maximum volume. I could faintly hear the lyrics,
“The saddest part,
Of a broken heart,
Isn’t the ending so much as the start”
I recognised the song, I don’t know how, or what from, but I did. It was Let it die by fiest. It was beautiful, the instruments seemed to melt together, as though they were making love. It is not everyday I got to hear something that beautiful.
I am often bored with the repetitive sounds of my wheels on the tracks, and the recorded voice informing everyone of the next stop. As one can probably imagine, it got annoying after a while. But I had no choice, I had to endure it. Even if you may not like your nose, doesn’t mean you can just up and leave your body, and go find a new one. That’s how it was with my, I was the soul and the train was my body.
Unfortunatly I suddenly snaped back to reality when I realised what had happened. I had forgoten all about the fact that I had a duty as the soul of a skytrain. The train was now lagging. It wasn't that big of a deal to me. It happened often. I didn’t mind, all the people on the train always got a little frustrated though, people don’t seem to like to be late for work.
After that short disturbance, I started up again. And I was on my way to the next stop, Broadway. That was when she got off. For the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking about her. If only I weren’t trapped in this metal body, I would have asked her out to coffee.
*www.dictionary.com definition of love.
Jan.23/07
Act 2
After a long and weird day I returned to the station where we all go to sleep, only to do it all again the next day.
I was so happy to see her the next day. She looked as beautiful as mysterious as the last time I had seen her. She sat in the corner all by her self, listening to music. She wore almost the same thing as the last time I saw her. Dark blue jeans, with paint-splats, and bleach stains all over, and the same beat up white t-shirt. She had on an old jean jacket, to protect her from the old outside. I figured she worked in construction, or painting or something like that.
Her face was dirty, and her nose ring shone in the icy sunlight. Her eyes were red, either from crying, or her eyes were simply leaking because of the cold air outside. It made the green in her eyes look even more vibrant than usual. Her face was tough; I could tell she did not live an easy life. She was working hard to pass through life. That was probably why she took the sky train everyday. I had heard people complaining about gas prices being insanely high.
“ I work 6 days a week, with a fairly respectable income, and I still cant afford to feed my car everyday” I heard a business man tell his cell phone once.
I had to say I wasn’t opposed to gas prices rising in fact I welcomed it. It meant more people had to sky train places, and I got to observe more people. There was not as much of a gap between rich and poor on the sky train. Everyone has the same goal, to get where they are going, be it, work, school, or the mall.
I enjoyed observing society from an outsides point of view. It was the only way I learnt to understand emotions, through other people’s words. For all I know the world was completely different than people describe. They say, “people don’t talk to reveal secrets, they talk to conceal them”.
At least that’s what I’ve heard. Everything I knew, or thought I knew about the human brain was forgotten every morning, for about 5 stops and approx. 5.23 seconds. I had no thoughts just an unbelievably warm sensation running all over my body. Every morning that feeling would stop at Broadway.
Everyday I noticed something new and beautiful about her. Even though she remained the same, I would stare at her for every second of her trip to work. Just thinking about nothing. Trying to preserve her image in my mind. But it never lasted long.
So it continued for months, she would go to work. I would have 5 minutes of beautiful nirvana. I no longer worried about other people’s small problems. Like who would walk Ed Grossman’s dog while he was away for a week in Nelson visiting his dying uncle Dick. I finally had my own thoughts.
But I had to admit it was difficult. How did people balance all the small problems? All the small thoughts, and ideas running through their heads like a million fruit flies swarming an old apple. I hated it, I just wanted to look at her, I wanted to be close to her, I wanted more than anything to talk to her. I would do anything for her.
I enjoyed the feeling I got when I look at her. That is why Mar.19/07 was the worst day of my life. I was expecting it to be like every other morning we spent together. With the same 5 minutes of extreme happiness. But she did not get at the usual stop she was not there. How could she not be there? She was always there. I was freaking out. I tried to calm my self down she was probably just sick. I decided to wait until next week until I jumped to conclusions.
Weeks rolled by, she had still not showed up. Months past. I was worried I would never see her again. I tried to forget her. I didn’t want to keep thinking about the “ what if-s” anymore. I had given up hope of ever seeing her again. The image of her would not leave my mind. The same image I had tried to keep in my mind for as long as possible would not leave now. I just wanted to forget her!
I was turning into an insane mess I no longer cared about anything, I no longer thought about anything. She was the only thing that would fit into my brain space, her image occupied every last brain cell I had.
My life as the soul wasn’t working out. I no longer wanted to be trapped in that stupid metal body. But there was nothing I could do. I was stuck. I could not lead a normal life on the outside, even if I wanted to.
Suddenly my life made a sharp turn, that day was the start of the end of my life.
I was going on as my own mundane self. Only thinking of her, but going on as normal. I was running fine, until I suddenly stopped for no reason. I figured it was just another lag. And that I would be up and running again in a couple minutes. So I waited around, the passengers gradually getting angrier and angrier.
We must have been there for at least half an hour, until a disgruntled passenger decided to call on the emergency phone.
I recognized the man; it was Ed Grossman he was back from his vacation I guessed. And was yelling into the phone to the operator on the other side.
“You know I have places to go? Just get someone over here as soon as possible”
I could here the soft-spoken woman on the other end of the telephone,
“Sir, we have people on the way now, please just stay calm” I could hear her try to cut in in-between his angry rampages.
“Sir, I’m sor..” He continued yelling into the phone. “I’m sorry sir, we have people on the way now, there is nothing I can do to make them go faster.” He slammed the phone down in a fiery rage.
What was happening? I had never lagged for this long before, I still just assumed it was nothing. Looking back now I realize I was just in denial about what was yet to come.
I realized we had been there for a good long while and it was getting dark out. When the men came to help the people out of the train it hit me hard what was going on. I was done. I had heard stories about old sky trains “retiring” which really meant they were done for, and old.
After a good hour of helping all the people out of the train, it was completely empty, it seemed as though it would have been appropriate for tumbleweed to roll by. It was just empty seats as far as the eye could see.
The officer who was helping people off came up into the car, to check if there was anyone left. “Excuse me sir, you are going to have to get off this train, it is broken” Who was he talking to I wondered.
“Sir, you are going to have to move, or I will have to pick you up and move you myself”. After a while I finally understood. He was talking to me.
Did he not understand? You cannot just evacuate whenever it like. To put it in English, so that a simple human mind would understand, this was my boat, and I was the captain. The captain must always go down with its ship. Except it was even simpler than that, I could just simply not leave.
“Sir, I am going to have to carry you off the sky train”
So, he did just that, and with every muscle I had in my body I held on for dear life. Literally, I was holding on to life. Without my body what was I? Just a ghost wandering aimlessly looking for the light so that I could be sent to heaven, or hell, or eternal nothingness.
Act 3
I could begin to feel the skin on my hands starting to sweat, and slowly slip off the rail. With every figure that slipped off I was like someone putting a bullet into my head.
When He finally pried every last one of my fingers off, he carried me off the sky train and put me down on the ground. “Go home” he said in a soft voice, even though I could tell he felt no sympathy towards me, he thought I was just another homeless drunk.
I stood up off the cold cement. It was pitch black outside, other than the streetlights that lined the empty streets. I started walking. What else was I to do? I was a ghost, aimlessly wandering around the city looking for the light to set me free.
Her image was still embedded into my mind.
As I walked down the icy sidewalk, slipping every few seconds. I could feel a cold line running down my face. Then my eyes started to go blurry. I knew I was crying but why? Its not as though I felt any physically pain. I didn’t want to be crying. People driving by in cars occasionally glancing over and throwing me pitiful looks, I didn’t want their pity. I didn’t want to feel. I had nowhere to go. Where did I belong?
I continued walking until I saw bright lights in the distance. With a lack of anywhere better to go I followed the lights. I walked I don’t know how far, I walked until I could no longer feel my feet.
After what felt like days, yet seconds of walking I came to an extremely brightly light up bridge. The sign read “Lions gate bridge”. I knew what I was to do. I was going to finally going to be set free.
I started to walk slowly up the railings of the bridge. As I climbed higher and higher my heart started to beat faster and faster. The tears where flowing from my eyes like heroin on Main St.
So now here I am, with my legs dangling above the freezing cold water, and my face soaking in tears. I was finally going to be free, so why was I hesitating? All I had to do was let go, let go of the rail, and slip off into the water, slip of in to nothingness and finally stop wondering.
Suddenly the sun started to rise, it was a beautiful sight. The pink and yellow colors all melted into one beautiful color pastel palette, with the bright sun in the center of it all. Suddenly before I noticed it, the Dark was overcome by light. The early morning cars started the flow onto the bridge.
I took a deep breath and focused on her image. I slowly started inching forward and with that, I knew I was ready. I let go and I fell. They say when you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. But that was not the case for me. The only thing I was thinking about was her, that image that had been stuck in my head for forever. I hit the water so hard. It killed me instantly. It was over. When you don’t want to feel, death can seem like a dream. For me it was a dream come true.
Love is extreme happiness pouring forth from the depths of two simultaneously beating hearts, where each heart beats for each other. Yet, her heart was not beating for me, and now my heart was not beating at all.
