Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Tokyo Pt. 1
As a child I believed I could move buildings by closing one eye, than the other. Not an optical illusion, but the force of sheer, childish will. The ultimate joy of youth is possibility, and here it was returned to me twenty year later. As I weaved through the streets of Shiba, the trees adorned with glittering lights in lieu of cherry blossoms, I scattered the crowds with my eyes.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Such Great Heights
This is my second creative writing assessment from last semester. I scored pretty high for this, but was marked down a little because it was overwritten in places. The title comes from a song by The Postal Service.
-------
(The Loneliness of the Stripper by Orly)
Such Great Heights
It is ten to midnight and he is slumped in the first row, watching the dancers above him. He squints at their mechanical rituals through sewn-eyelids, the culmination of one too many rum and cokes and the displacement of his contacts through incessant rubbing. The air reeks of Bourbon, ash and sweat, compressed in these hollow four walls. Everything is velvet: red velvet lights, chairs and smiles. He gropes for his glass with one hand, brings it to his lips from compulsion rather than thirst. It is his sixth and he might as well be drinking from an ashtray at this point.
Above him, the illuminated stage pole stands untouched while the dancers sway around it like some false idol. From where he sits, one figure catches his eye: an olive-skinned, faceless beauty, her legs hooked around the pole in skilful recklessness. She is topless, little hips veiled by a thin pink G-string and balancing on six-inch heels that appear to defy the laws of gravity. She looks like a child playing dress-up, too young, far too young to be in this sort of place, this haven for broken marriages and grinning men, young and old alike. But from where he sits, he muses that she could be the most beautiful woman in the world.
He is transfixed, a grown-up catholic boy who has felt nothing since the age of six and that was for Jesus and now even he was just an absence of spirit in his crossed heart. As a child, he prayed nightly for escape from his father’s bitterness, a shield for his mother’s pain but over time, he shed this religious intensity and prayed for the trivial instead. A pay rise, a reprieve from the burden of debts. He made smart decisions, except for the ones that mattered. He married for love, which over time, became inconsequential. His biggest fear was to turn out like his father, but eventually he realized, this life, this racing circuit of maroon ties, parking tickets and sleepless nights, was far worse.
It is seven to minute and he shouldn’t be here. He should be at home with his wife, his kids, their bickering and expectations. He should be at home because tomorrow he has a 5am start and he has to iron his own shirts since his wife started smelling other women on them. He shouldn’t be here because it is ten to midnight and he is an empty shell.
He peers into his bottomless drink, waits for the answers.
----
When people ask, she tells them she’s a stripper. She would like to tell them she has a sick brother who needs a heart transplant, a mother on welfare, and she’s doing this to pay the bills, but frankly, she’s just another run-down college kid who likes nice things. When she dances, she thinks of Jimmy Choos and Barbados and strawberry daiquiris. She envisions them in that glittering neon from her stage of great heights, where she spins and shuts herself off to the world for five hours a night.
She has come to a stop, and the world seems a little less bright. The flurry of neon lights and stars, the distant coils of cigarette smoke and glazed eyes generate the inertia-induced euphoria of her five-hour shifts. When her body slows to a stop, this ephemeral happiness becomes the relic of a time long past. She can’t imagine being this happy ever again, yet she is every time, and in this simple act she surprises herself.
She pushes away from the pole and saunters centre stage. Like a metronome, she sways to the pulse of twenty greedy men. The heat of the stage lights devours her. Rivulets of sweat collect at her forehead, threaten to wash away her well-preserved mask, but she brushes them away in a swift movement. She drags her quick fingers through her hair, downwards over her breasts, onto her taut stomach, then lower - before turning her back to the stage with a playful smile. Five to midnight. Her rotation is over.
Yet she still needs another fifty dollars to make rent. She steps off the stage and walks, hips swaying, to the corporate suit at the front. He is baby-faced, but looks mid-30s, probably has a family and a nice house with a double garage and a Labrador. He looks hopeless. Not dead, but comatose, caught in the rut of middle-aged boredom. She sees that type often, more often than the sleazebags and deadbeats who frequent this fine establishment.
She pulls herself onto his armrest, tiptoes her thin fingers onto the Rolex on his left wrist.
---
He forces his lifeless eyes onto hers. He doesn’t have the heart to say no.
She is close, too close. Near-sightedness affords him her true form: a pallid face, thinly-arched eyebrows and mascara that hung in thick globules on her eyelashes. Disappointment hits him in quiet waves. She shifts closer to him, barely touching but staring into him, seeing past the unironed clothes, the Rolex, the unspoken words. He feels like crying because she sees more in him than anyone else and he hates it. He feels like crying, but he doesn’t.
He licks his upper lip, and detaches his fingers from his drink. He reaches for his wallet, pulls out a fifty. She smiles demurely.
“Hello lady luck,” he says finally.
The clock strikes twelve.
---
-------
(The Loneliness of the Stripper by Orly)
Such Great Heights
It is ten to midnight and he is slumped in the first row, watching the dancers above him. He squints at their mechanical rituals through sewn-eyelids, the culmination of one too many rum and cokes and the displacement of his contacts through incessant rubbing. The air reeks of Bourbon, ash and sweat, compressed in these hollow four walls. Everything is velvet: red velvet lights, chairs and smiles. He gropes for his glass with one hand, brings it to his lips from compulsion rather than thirst. It is his sixth and he might as well be drinking from an ashtray at this point.
Above him, the illuminated stage pole stands untouched while the dancers sway around it like some false idol. From where he sits, one figure catches his eye: an olive-skinned, faceless beauty, her legs hooked around the pole in skilful recklessness. She is topless, little hips veiled by a thin pink G-string and balancing on six-inch heels that appear to defy the laws of gravity. She looks like a child playing dress-up, too young, far too young to be in this sort of place, this haven for broken marriages and grinning men, young and old alike. But from where he sits, he muses that she could be the most beautiful woman in the world.
He is transfixed, a grown-up catholic boy who has felt nothing since the age of six and that was for Jesus and now even he was just an absence of spirit in his crossed heart. As a child, he prayed nightly for escape from his father’s bitterness, a shield for his mother’s pain but over time, he shed this religious intensity and prayed for the trivial instead. A pay rise, a reprieve from the burden of debts. He made smart decisions, except for the ones that mattered. He married for love, which over time, became inconsequential. His biggest fear was to turn out like his father, but eventually he realized, this life, this racing circuit of maroon ties, parking tickets and sleepless nights, was far worse.
It is seven to minute and he shouldn’t be here. He should be at home with his wife, his kids, their bickering and expectations. He should be at home because tomorrow he has a 5am start and he has to iron his own shirts since his wife started smelling other women on them. He shouldn’t be here because it is ten to midnight and he is an empty shell.
He peers into his bottomless drink, waits for the answers.
----
When people ask, she tells them she’s a stripper. She would like to tell them she has a sick brother who needs a heart transplant, a mother on welfare, and she’s doing this to pay the bills, but frankly, she’s just another run-down college kid who likes nice things. When she dances, she thinks of Jimmy Choos and Barbados and strawberry daiquiris. She envisions them in that glittering neon from her stage of great heights, where she spins and shuts herself off to the world for five hours a night.
She has come to a stop, and the world seems a little less bright. The flurry of neon lights and stars, the distant coils of cigarette smoke and glazed eyes generate the inertia-induced euphoria of her five-hour shifts. When her body slows to a stop, this ephemeral happiness becomes the relic of a time long past. She can’t imagine being this happy ever again, yet she is every time, and in this simple act she surprises herself.
She pushes away from the pole and saunters centre stage. Like a metronome, she sways to the pulse of twenty greedy men. The heat of the stage lights devours her. Rivulets of sweat collect at her forehead, threaten to wash away her well-preserved mask, but she brushes them away in a swift movement. She drags her quick fingers through her hair, downwards over her breasts, onto her taut stomach, then lower - before turning her back to the stage with a playful smile. Five to midnight. Her rotation is over.
Yet she still needs another fifty dollars to make rent. She steps off the stage and walks, hips swaying, to the corporate suit at the front. He is baby-faced, but looks mid-30s, probably has a family and a nice house with a double garage and a Labrador. He looks hopeless. Not dead, but comatose, caught in the rut of middle-aged boredom. She sees that type often, more often than the sleazebags and deadbeats who frequent this fine establishment.
She pulls herself onto his armrest, tiptoes her thin fingers onto the Rolex on his left wrist.
---
He forces his lifeless eyes onto hers. He doesn’t have the heart to say no.
She is close, too close. Near-sightedness affords him her true form: a pallid face, thinly-arched eyebrows and mascara that hung in thick globules on her eyelashes. Disappointment hits him in quiet waves. She shifts closer to him, barely touching but staring into him, seeing past the unironed clothes, the Rolex, the unspoken words. He feels like crying because she sees more in him than anyone else and he hates it. He feels like crying, but he doesn’t.
He licks his upper lip, and detaches his fingers from his drink. He reaches for his wallet, pulls out a fifty. She smiles demurely.
“Hello lady luck,” he says finally.
The clock strikes twelve.
---
Monday, December 5, 2011
Ephemeral
This is my 1st creative writing assignment piece from last term. It's quite short, but I only got marked on my reflection for it (which I'm not posting because it's quite boring.)
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(Paper Cup Phone by zitosqu on flickr)
Ephemeral
Somewhere above the heavy clouds, a thousand strings stretched, long and distressed. They travelled for miles connecting each skyscraper to the next, an entanglement of wires and words that ended with a tin can or paper cup and a pair of strained eardrums and chapped lips. These ears and lips relied on the strings to safely carry their words across distances their limbs could not reach. Whispered pleas, excited chatter, yelling matches between lawyers and divorcees, tears of sadness between widowers: The cat destroyed the curtains today – I love you! – She weighs seven pounds and her eyes are like stars – I won’t give her a cent even if they send me to jail. These were the last words of a dying race, and the strings proudly held them in the air, with the fleeting sadness of possession, like a letter about to be sent.
Sometimes the strings tired. Their once eclectic colours frayed and dulled under pressure. Sometimes words were lost. Sometimes they collected at unknown points, or were scrambled in the crowd of sounds. And one night, without warning, as if in resolute protest, they began to droop under the weight of emotion. They sank through the clouds, perspired under its blankets of moisture. A storm stirred in the belly of the sky. A single bolt of light, loud and crackling, tore through the streams of string, breaking its hold from their puppeteers. Their last dance showered with the ephemeral vivacity of sparks.
Smoke filled the air, and sadness.
The lightning had carried through the string and into thousands of mouths that had swallowed fire. They croaked and clutched their throats but their cries went unheard, because they were now deaf to each other. And the string fell a thousand times over, in victory, and in silence.
-------
(Paper Cup Phone by zitosqu on flickr)
Ephemeral
Somewhere above the heavy clouds, a thousand strings stretched, long and distressed. They travelled for miles connecting each skyscraper to the next, an entanglement of wires and words that ended with a tin can or paper cup and a pair of strained eardrums and chapped lips. These ears and lips relied on the strings to safely carry their words across distances their limbs could not reach. Whispered pleas, excited chatter, yelling matches between lawyers and divorcees, tears of sadness between widowers: The cat destroyed the curtains today – I love you! – She weighs seven pounds and her eyes are like stars – I won’t give her a cent even if they send me to jail. These were the last words of a dying race, and the strings proudly held them in the air, with the fleeting sadness of possession, like a letter about to be sent.
Sometimes the strings tired. Their once eclectic colours frayed and dulled under pressure. Sometimes words were lost. Sometimes they collected at unknown points, or were scrambled in the crowd of sounds. And one night, without warning, as if in resolute protest, they began to droop under the weight of emotion. They sank through the clouds, perspired under its blankets of moisture. A storm stirred in the belly of the sky. A single bolt of light, loud and crackling, tore through the streams of string, breaking its hold from their puppeteers. Their last dance showered with the ephemeral vivacity of sparks.
Smoke filled the air, and sadness.
The lightning had carried through the string and into thousands of mouths that had swallowed fire. They croaked and clutched their throats but their cries went unheard, because they were now deaf to each other. And the string fell a thousand times over, in victory, and in silence.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
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