Light (Pt3 at last!)

[I'm Murrin]

I somehow feel that the following is related to my piece Experiment in Madness - despite there being no real connection between them I think there may be a thematic link.

This isn't finished - I think it might just be a tiny fraction of the whole piece, I won't know until I'm done. I'm not ready to write any more tonight, however, so I'll give you part one, and write part two tomorrow (is my tendancy tend to do this a good or bad thing, I wonder?). This part is in first-person present; I can't keep it up. The next bit will probably switch to first person past tense.

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The light glares harshly from the end of its cord on the ceiling. It hurts my eyes. I do not know how long I have been here. The light shines constant, unfading; it never goes out. Staring at the light above me, all sense of time is lost. Spots in my vision fade reluctantly when I look away. I do not know how long it has been since I stopped sleeping.
When they first put me in my cell, I had tried to sleep, and had even managed to snatch a few hours rest at times, but always the light shone on, defying my efforts. When I close my eyes, the light is still there; it passes through the flesh of my eyelids to flood my retinas with a reddened glow.
My cell had walls when they first put me in here. White; so smooth it was hard to believe you were touching them at all. Under the unwavering gaze of the light they fade to nothing, and I sit in an empty white expanse, and the light is all I can see.
The last time I moved, the shadow my body cast (dark, menacing; an evil blotch that marred the empty white landscape of my prison) startled me. I have not moved again. My sense of space is fading - time is long lost. The light is all there is.

-------------------------
(this covered most of a page on paper - it's much shorter than I realised.)

[The Laughing Man]

ver nice, Murrin, lot of imagery there.

Sometimes it

helps

if you

space the pieces

of your sentences
and paragraphs

to reflect the

individual

ideas

each

one

represents.

[The Laughing Man]

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The light glares harshly from the end of its cord on the ceiling.

It hurts my eyes.

I do not know how long I have been here.

The light shines constant,

unfading; it never goes out.

Staring at the light above me, all sense of time is lost.

Spots in my vision fade reluctantly when I look away.

I do not know how long it has been since I stopped sleeping.

When they first put me in my cell,

I had tried to sleep, and had even managed to snatch a few hours rest at times,

but always the light shone on, defying my efforts.

When I close my eyes, the light is still there;

it passes through the flesh of my eyelids to flood my retinas with a reddened glow.

My cell had walls when they first put me in here.

White;

so smooth it was hard

to believe you were touching them at all.

Under the unwavering gaze of the light they fade

to nothing,




and I sit in an empty white expanse,




and the light is all I can see.

The last time I moved,

the shadow my body cast

(dark, menacing; an evil blotch that marred the empty white landscape of my prison)

startled me.

I have not moved again.

My sense of space is fading - time is long lost.

The light

is all there

is.

-------------------------

[lucimay]

yeah! i don't know how Murrin feels about it Ez but i think it works well! nice job. you can "see" the piece with the spaces in it. nice job Murrin.

[sgt.null]

i like the spacing,
helps to communicate
the ideas.

[Avatar]

I like it.

And the spacing too, but then, I'm a fan of paragraphs.

Even if they're only a line long.

--A

[I'm Murrin]

The light goes out, and they come for me in darkness. The change is so sudden I cannot comprehend - I am thrown back into a continuum where I am locked in a tiny cell in darkness, with invisible walls looming near. After so long a time in the light's stark luminence, I am left blind without it. I hear sounds in the blackness - a bolt - a swinging door - footsteps. Someone grabs me roughly by the arm and tries to drag me from my cell. My struggles are weak; my captor drags on mercilessly. I hear others moving around me. A second hand takes hold of my free arm, and I am maneuvred into some kind of chair. They hold me down while the restraints are tied.
All at once I am alone again, in darkness now instead of light. All I have is the chair, hard, beneath me; indiscernible noises around me; and the sensation of being in motion. I strain my eyes to see something, anything - I think I see shadows moving in the darkness, but I expect them to be phantoms conjured by my mind. I know that I am moving, but without my sight I cannot make sense of it, I cannot understand the twists and turns that mark the path along which I am being taken. There is nothing but the chair, the footsteps of my gaoler, and the darkness.
Then ahead I see a light. Faint (ever so faint) but more than I could hsve wished for after this journey in black obscurity. I wonder now if this is to be my torture, unending light and unending blackness, forever changing from one to the other until my mind can no longer cope. Could this be my own cell that I am returning to now? I cannot yet believe they would be so cruel.
The light approaches, and finally I enter another room - empty, white, lite by a single glowing bulb - but it is not my cell. I hear movement again, and know that my gaoler is leaving me. I am left alone in this new room, this new cell with its new, white light (blissfully less bright than the one that came before it) and I wait for something to happen. I sit there in my white chair waiting, staring at the white wall ahead. I sit, and wait, and stare, until I am longing for something to change, until-
I hear a voice.

----------------------------------------------
Please take note: I am making this up as I go along, and suspect I may lose headway on the next part, because I still don't know why this guy is in this place, or indeed, what or where this place is.

[CovenantJr]

I'm enjoying this. It's well written and it draws me in. Nicely done.

I know what you mean about losing headway. There comes a time when you must explain some things, which is very difficult if you've been carried along by a vision or emotion or some such, and have no explanation

[ur-bane]

I don't visit the Hall very often...but I should.
Excellent work, Murrin. Like CJr, I was drawn in from the start, and didn't want it to end. I am looking forward to the next installment!

[sgt.null]

very nice, awaiting more.

[Prebe]

Awaiting more. Indeed Murin. You better not stop you cliffhanging SOB!

Only one line was a problem:
(dark, menacing; an evil blotch that marred the empty white landscape of my prison)

To many adjectives in the same sentence. You paint excellent pictures without them.

[The Laughing Man]

dark and menacing is already "implied" in the previous line "shadow"

(crouching, hungry; an evil blotch that stalked the empty white landscape of my prison)

[I'm Murrin]

Less is more:
(menacing; a blotch that marred the empty landscape of my prison)

Fits a little better with the bare-bones style of the rest of the piece, perhaps. Opinions?

I think I'm picking up a couple of habits from reading M John Harrison's work - not sure if that's a good thing or not - and bits of that sort, in parentheses, are one of the things I've noticed in his writing.
I've always been easily influenced, I think. My short pieces 'Faith' and 'Untitled' came from Goodkind's Soul of the Fire (where he had some short chapters that ended with the character dying).

[I'm Murrin]

Somehow it's suddenly becoming difficult to keep rack of all the things I've been meaning to post about, heh.

I missed a tutorial this morning because I couldn't find the room (I've since learned that "TB" stands for "East Wing" ) and went to sit in the physics department reception until labs started. While I was there I got out my notebook and wrote another short piece which it turned out brought 'Light' to a conclusion - but i'm not satisfied with it. I need to go through it and add a lot - there's an ending, but no explanation. I need to drop in a bit of backstory to explain things. I'll post it once i'm done.

[I'm Murrin]

Seems I've been neglecting this too long. I'm going to rewrite that ending bit tonight and post it up. It won't be complete, but it's better than nothing, and good enough for a first draft.

[I'm Murrin]

I hesitate to call this a 'placeholder', but I'm really not satisfied. The long break means that I seem to have lost my hold on the voice of this piece - I'm using material from a month ago, but much of it has been added to or modified. Still seems too short for an ending, though. Tell me if you think it disappoints, and I'll try to remedy that.

---------------------

The sound of it is harsh, metallic. It ask questions which at first I cannot understand, and then -
"Name?"
I want to scream at it, I do not know! - they have taken even that from me. Instead I struggle to recall the name they have assigned me.
"Name?" the voice repeats inexorably, awaiting my response.
"Prisoner Five Nine Ee Six Alpha," I croak at last.
"Charge?"
I feel sweat running down my skin. I know that refusal would be useless. An image comes unbidden, a fragment only, yet it is all I have left. I see a red stain; I see blank eyes staring. "M- Murder, first degree." I wait nervously as the machine processes my details - calls up files, older interviews; analyzes my speech and body language for signs of my thoughts.
The voice resumes.
"Plea?"
The sharp, metallic noise of that syllable echoes in my ears. In my mind, another fragment surfaces - a shape moving in the shadows; a hand withdrawn from dark-stained flesh; a movement in the corner of my vision. The question I have been dreading. "N-not guilty."
I know what will happen now.
"Subject not yet ready for correction. Return him to his cell: interview will resume in four days."
No. "No!" I shout - not the cell again, not the light! I know that left again under that stark white gaze I will break - there will be no more interviews. I struggle and shout and rail against the coming loss of my mind, as they enter the room once more aand begin to wheel me back towards my empty cell and its lone, white, bulb.

[Prebe]

I thought it was a part of a novel (I saw it as a beginning). As such it would have been good I think. But as an ultra short story, the problem is, that you don't really seem to want anything with it. No message, if you catch my drift.

[I'm Murrin]

I don't believe I've ever used a 'message' in my writing. I just don't think of it that way. Art for art's sake, you might say.

And as I said, I'm unsatisfied. There was supposed to be something deeper, more sinister to this that I just couldn't pull off. Another story, lying underneath it all, that was visible through the cracks. Those 'fragments' I put in the last piece, that was my attempt to at least put a little of this into the story, but it's not enough, and doesn't give the desired effect. For example, I'm fairly certain noone would realise from the story as it stands that the man is innocent?

[CovenantJr]

His innocence certainly didn't come over. Having said that, I like it. There should be more, as you've said yourself, but I like the way you wrote this conclusion, and the "interview" made me quite uncomfortable. I always take discomfort as a good sign - it means the piece has emotional potency.

I'd like more - a lot more - but what there is of it is impressive.

[I'm Murrin]

On further consideration, I think Prebe is right - this is a beginning, and there is a lot more to it. One seemingly small element leapt out at me today, and gave me the material to continue this.

I want to scream at it, I do not know! - they have taken even that from me. Instead I struggle to recall the name they have assigned me.

My idea? What if they release him? What if they replace his lost memories with new ones, and let him back out into the world, "rehabilitated"? What if he cannot even trust his own memory?
I need to run over this in my head for a while, get some things sorted out. Meanwhile, there's a piece I wrote half an outline for a few weeks ago that I need to finally get around to writing.