The mark of the years...

Thursday, March 20, 2008

...or not. There's an inexplicable, unavoidable attraction I have had to one idea, over the years, and that is the door. And what it signifies. You know, like walls. Things that hide, protect, etc. Rather a stereotypical concept, but I've been drawn to it.

[Careful readers of previous posts will note that this attraction is probably based in biographical happenings - thus making it a form of self-centredness, but all writing begins with being that, I think.]

So there was this one piece that I wrote - called "The Door", ooh, smart title, eh? ha, ha - when I was 13. I will clench the ole jaw, and put it up here:

--

I turned sharply and saw the door half-open. I stared. I always, always took care to close the door – I wasn’t allowed to lock it – as tightly as I could. Now there it stood, cutting across the emptiness of my room.
My room.
I own it and no one can trespass.
Except, now, the door was doing exactly that.
It stood there in a sneering, challenging way, in its green pallor, daring me to try and close it. I felt panicky. How dare it.
I knew, despite seven turbulent years of science education about non-living things, that the door had opened itself of its own accord. There was no one else in the two-room house. They were out, as they were most of the time. It couldn’t have been the wind – the day was cold, bright, and dry.
I decided that the door had to close. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping I was just imagining it, and prayed hard, hoping it would close… hoping to hear its wooden creak… nothing. I opened my eyes. The door still stood open, exactly as it had stood before.
Revealing.
If that door was open I was open to the world – and I panicked at the thought that everyone could see me. I could hear them screaming in my ears- we’ve got you now! You thought you’d hide from us, did you? Well, we’ve seen you! Seen you! Seen you! The words rang in my head.
No. They can’t see me. Can never.
I tried to convince myself.
But the voices were getting louder now.
More insistent.
Like there were people somewhere in the house, rehearsing what they would say when they saw me…
I realized I was still staring at the door, with my mouth half-open. I had to do something, something… that door had to close. I was sitting on the bare floor of my empty room. I tried to get up, but found I couldn’t move my hands.
The door was open, I was rooted to the place, there was nothing I could do about any of it.
I was more vulnerable than I’d ever been in all my life.
Paranoia gripped me.
For how long I sat there I do not remember. I only remember that at last, with all the energy I’d ever had, I crawled to the door, slammed it shut, locked it, and in my last moment of life, shouted, “Safe!”


---

Ugh, ok, then. You managed to get that over with. Bless you! :P Pardon the irritating self-deprecation, but I don't like it much at the moment.

Anyway, the other day, when I wanted to write in a bit of flash fiction for the record, I actually thought of this piece. Before I reread it, I considered putting it in exactly as it was.

And then I read it.

Haha. At this point I should mention that when I HAD written it, which is, November 2003, I was rather satisfied with the piece. Evocative, and all that. And now, I read it, for the first time in five or so years...and was mortified. Yecch.

But I still clung to the idea. So I did another piece, which I will put you through, beginning now.

--

The door was seven feet away from me. Green and pallid. It would swing open anytime now, revealing me, crouching in a corner. Fear felt me, dimly at first, then firm.

Voices. Voices in my head, chaotic, unfamiliar voices. Amma, Appa. Laughing, sneering.

Now the room is growing dimmer. Louder and louder the voices become.

And now, suddenly, I am running. Smashing into the window.

And falling, free.

--

So thats the five-year-older version of the above. Needless to say, I think it's an improvement: tell me what you think, though!

I know I'm baring a bit of my soul by exposing pieces of writing - and pieces of me - that I know are silly and immature and worth being put away, once and for all - but I have this shrewd suspicion that I might be doing that several times over over the years to come. So what the hell, might as well begin.

The real reason I put both these pieces up is because I like how putting just a bit of space (and I don't mean five years, or anything - like say a week or two) between you and something you wrote gives you so much perspective. You look at your piece with a far less clouded eye, and you see what you can change, and you're surprised at unexpected flashes of brilliance, and so on.

Tell me about your writing, do you go back to things you wrote years ago and smirk at yourself, or wallow in your wisdom? Simply, what do you react like to writing that you've done a good few years in the past?