journal writing
Jun. 29th, 2007 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardOne of our assignments for Creative Writing is, as the first thing we do every morning, to handwrite a minimum of ten lines in a journal. Not necessarily journalistically, but anything. And it's actually been pretty interesting to see what crawls out of my brain early in the morning, so I thought I'd post my entries every three days or so.
They always take the young ones. For most of them, "why" has never been explicitly stated. All they know is the "always." It has always been done, so why stop now? After all, if you take them young they never have a chance to learn anything else.
That's the "why", of course.
*
When I woke up, James was screaming.
That's not why I woke up -- the sound, I mean. The truth is that we're all so accustomed to hearing screaming by now that it's ceased to mean anything to us, except maybe to the same extent any loud noise nearby can be when you're not expecting it. It's just been that kind of year, and it would suck if there weren't other things more pressing than just screaming. Like, for instance, the war. And the occupation.
*
I passed the tests when I was fifteen, and that was too young.
-- and oh, this is great: the one where he kind of looks like a turtle.
*
I think I fucked up my leg. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to do shit like this.
*
Zsuzsu didn't see Nakin come in, not until he leaned on the bar next to her, forearms on the counter and expression grim. He eyed the stormtroopers with distinct distaste and a whole lotta dislike and disdain mixed in there. For a moment Zsuzsi thought of Hellsbane, of Anakin Skywalker -- of the man Nakin had been when she met him, young and angry and oh so dangerous -- and then that passed away and there was only Nakin, a thick smear of grease on one cheek and a condescending expression that could have been any Rimmer's when presented with Core world stormtroopers.
"How long have they been here?" he asked finally.
Dean screams and scratches at Sam, ripping strips of skin off his arms, his back, his chest -- blood sprays wetly across Dean's face and he doesn't flinch, but Sam grunts with the pain and effort of holding his brother down when all Dean wants is to go, go, go. Sam can't let him do that. He'll die -- or wish he had.
*
"Sailor," James says, and his voice echoes oddly. "Sailor," he says again, "how far to the nearest port?"
The man does not answer. James sighs his impatience and trudges toward him, struggling to lift his feet free of the clinging white sand that he sinks ankle- and knee-deep into with every step.
"Sailor," Norrington says again, reaching out to grasp the man's shoulder. All he can feel is bone under salt-stiffened cloth.
The man turns suddenly, only a bleached skeleton after all, dressed in rags that look suspiciously like the remains of a naval uniform. Norrington flinches back despite himself, remembering a moonlit night and blood on his hands, on his face, the dead and the living and the dying and the undead crowding the deck of the Dauntless.
"No port," the man says dolefully. "No port for miles yet." And he crumbles away to nothing beneath James' fingers.
*
The truth is we all know how this story ends.
I think it's clear that most of what falls out of my brain early in the morning is fanfic. I see: Star Wars, Supernatural, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I wrote Harry Potter today. And some of this is original, and some of this is just bitching about what I feel when I wake up, and some of it is just random lines.
They always take the young ones. For most of them, "why" has never been explicitly stated. All they know is the "always." It has always been done, so why stop now? After all, if you take them young they never have a chance to learn anything else.
That's the "why", of course.
*
When I woke up, James was screaming.
That's not why I woke up -- the sound, I mean. The truth is that we're all so accustomed to hearing screaming by now that it's ceased to mean anything to us, except maybe to the same extent any loud noise nearby can be when you're not expecting it. It's just been that kind of year, and it would suck if there weren't other things more pressing than just screaming. Like, for instance, the war. And the occupation.
*
I passed the tests when I was fifteen, and that was too young.
-- and oh, this is great: the one where he kind of looks like a turtle.
*
I think I fucked up my leg. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to do shit like this.
*
Zsuzsu didn't see Nakin come in, not until he leaned on the bar next to her, forearms on the counter and expression grim. He eyed the stormtroopers with distinct distaste and a whole lotta dislike and disdain mixed in there. For a moment Zsuzsi thought of Hellsbane, of Anakin Skywalker -- of the man Nakin had been when she met him, young and angry and oh so dangerous -- and then that passed away and there was only Nakin, a thick smear of grease on one cheek and a condescending expression that could have been any Rimmer's when presented with Core world stormtroopers.
"How long have they been here?" he asked finally.
Dean screams and scratches at Sam, ripping strips of skin off his arms, his back, his chest -- blood sprays wetly across Dean's face and he doesn't flinch, but Sam grunts with the pain and effort of holding his brother down when all Dean wants is to go, go, go. Sam can't let him do that. He'll die -- or wish he had.
*
"Sailor," James says, and his voice echoes oddly. "Sailor," he says again, "how far to the nearest port?"
The man does not answer. James sighs his impatience and trudges toward him, struggling to lift his feet free of the clinging white sand that he sinks ankle- and knee-deep into with every step.
"Sailor," Norrington says again, reaching out to grasp the man's shoulder. All he can feel is bone under salt-stiffened cloth.
The man turns suddenly, only a bleached skeleton after all, dressed in rags that look suspiciously like the remains of a naval uniform. Norrington flinches back despite himself, remembering a moonlit night and blood on his hands, on his face, the dead and the living and the dying and the undead crowding the deck of the Dauntless.
"No port," the man says dolefully. "No port for miles yet." And he crumbles away to nothing beneath James' fingers.
*
The truth is we all know how this story ends.
I think it's clear that most of what falls out of my brain early in the morning is fanfic. I see: Star Wars, Supernatural, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I wrote Harry Potter today. And some of this is original, and some of this is just bitching about what I feel when I wake up, and some of it is just random lines.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-30 02:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-30 03:41 am (UTC)You can totally tell the ones where I'm making funny thoughts, because that's the turtle one. Um. Yeah, I got no idea where that particular phrase came from.