I wrote this when I was younger.
Rock on rock. Don't bother being someone else, sometimes it's all you know, other times it's all you don't.
I stopped writing then. What was I writing anyway? I held the paper in my hand and dropped it on the floor, it fell into the mud, I felt as it hit. My hand twitched. I couldn't write. I used to be filled with stories, I could keep myself entertained for hours. I didn't need anyone. Now. Everything had changed. I could no longer escape to that world.
From the corner of my eye I saw them watch me. Waiting for some sign of acknowledgement- I could not give it to them. They were scared. They did not understand what had happened to me. Nothing had happened, they just didn't know the real me. I lent against the car bonet. I had no time. I had to think fast but it was difficult with many faces scrutinising me. I pushed out against the car and slammed myself into the front of it, my head rolling forward in a nice flow hitting it gently. They all shuddered. I think she was crying...I made her cry. He helped her because that's what he did, she was his world.
The tree branches around us covered us from the sun, the mud was thick underfoot and the Landrover was pretty beat up. How did I get to this point? I should've been more careful!
*
On my way. Very excited. I didn't know what he wanted, or even if he had wanted me? Maybe the old man had lost it and thought I was someone else. Another of his students. No. He had been one of those people- you know the ones. The ones that mean something to you, to your cause...I'm not explaining this well. It's like, when you have a dream you search for people to help you bask in getting to it. For me, my old Professor, who taught English in a well known college here (in a place you wouldn't know if I told you) was it. All I needed was one person.
I remember the time I knew it was him. It was all very romantic...but not in the way you think I mean! I mean, it was all very lovely and how I imaged it would be. You see I didn't exactly have such a great childhood- Father and Mother fought, spilt and I never saw him again. She soon died after that. I don't want to go into the details because I'm fully aware that it makes me a big cliche, here, in my own story. I notice now that I'm babbling and not getting to the point. That was always a problem of mine.
Let me see where was I...oh yes. This Professor, I call him Ollie because it annoyed him, he was the first person to acknowledge me. It wasn't a very warm day but when I think back to it all I can see is orange hues vibrating all round my mind. I was sat by the window in the corner of the class, the wooden floors/ doors/ chairs had just been polished because I was staying late, writing. I found that I couldn't stand people watching me write so would often find my own little place and stay there. I hadn't even noticed the time. I was into fantasy and had fallen in love with my characters, it was all perfect in my head but Ollie lent over me to tell me that my main character wasn't believeable enough. I was very quiet as was he, waiting for my reaction. All I could think was that in Fantasy it shouldn't really matter and I told him this. With which he replied,
'Your characters have to be relatable, if they are not realistic no one is going to like them. Comeon you can do better than this crap.' Yeah. Harsh, I was angry for a time that someone had come into my world, uninvited and told me how rubbish it was. I am aware it's not really what you think I would tell you about. It wasn't inspirational at the time, no. After a few weeks, after getting to grips with my character and re-writing the whole person, I realised how right he was. And with it I believed, for the first time in my life, that I could become a writer.
So this is were I really begin.
The bus ride was as uncomfortable as I expected. A tight squeeze of lots of sweaty men- all up and ready for work. I kept my head down, scribbling away, I wanted to documment the experience. I looked up for a second trying to find the right words and then realised the person to my right was watching my rambling scribbles, I quickly folded the paper away and put the pen behind my ear. My pen- it was pink with bunnies...the big guy oppisite me was grinning slyly- I realised now, the bunny pen- probably a bad idea, what with where I was headed. I felt extremely small and weak- as if I was made from putty and these men, from stone. An image of a child clutching a rag doll in their arms, squeezing hard, the doll limp between their hands popped into my head. I glupped, me being the rag doll on a bus full of these large children.
Outside it was freezing, the clouds blacked out the sun and it was raining heavily. Although the bus was boiling, everytime I looked out I shivered at the long spanning grey world. Then I saw it. This mass of black on the horizon, the bus jlotted as it hit a rock and with a thud it roared onwards. Towards this monsterous building. The rain was so dense it covered everything like a blanket- I heard a story once, about a girl being eaten by a shark- it wasn't really a comedy but the writer had described this shark as a monster casting it's dark shadow below her in the water...I likened this to the buiding that the bus, my bus, was heading to.
Please let me know what you think, thanks, me.
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