Tagged: Writing

Peak Hour

 

It was peak hour traffic, crammed into the three lane roadway. It was raining heavy, the screeches of the windscreen wipers like screws tightening further and further. He switched lanes to avoid the traffic lights, where the right turning cars halted the thoroughfare and he pulled out and accelerated past then another car pulled out in front of him and he jammed on the breaks. The seatbelt choked against his chest and he sat up and raised his hands, looking at the car’s rear view mirror. The silhouette of the driver held up his middle finger over the shoulder of his seat, then accelerated off. He gripped the steering wheel and scraped the gearstick into first, rammed the accelerator to the floor.

He got up as close as he could behind the other car, a yellow car with a large sticker across the dark tinted back window. He chased, his right hand on the wheel as his left hand searched in the back seat and he looked over into the back seat, then back at the road, then into the back seat again. He gripped his hand round the rifle muzzle, hidden under an oil smelling old blanket. The yellow car stopped at the traffic lights and he pulled up close behind and pushed the gear stick into neutral and cranked the handbrake then he opened his door and rushed out to the other car. He fired a shot at the driver’s side window, burst the tinted glass like a bubble, then he fired again, like a camera flash inside the yellow car. Then he fired again. A woman in the passenger seat of a car in the next lane screamed, smacked the door lock down hard as she could, leaning towards the middle of the car. He rushed back to his car and lifted the gun over the front seats and put the car back in gear. The lights switched to green and he rammed the yellow car into the intersection and peeled off onto the left hand turn and accelerated away.

The right lane moved slowly, cars continuing past, shattered glass spilt onto the bitumen. People looked in, then covered their mouths. Other drivers had got out, were standing around and leaning down to see into the yellow car. Then they covered their mouths too.

 

Home

The man and the woman sit across from each other at the cafe table. There’s a storm outside, they’ve stopped in to avoid the rain and while they’re there they’re drinking coffee and waiting. The man reads a newspaper, the edges damp and shaded. The woman looks at the man, smiles.

‘Do you know poetry?’ She asks.

‘I know of it.’

‘No, but do you know any?’

The man doesn’t look up from his paper.

‘Poetry.’ The woman says.

‘No. I don’t know any.’

The woman watches his face as he reads, his eyes moving across the words. She looks out to the rain, the headlights of the cars washing by. Dark clouds pulled across the sky like a blanket, a cubby house from when she was a kid, over the whole world. She looks back to the man, touches the back of his hand on the newspaper. His fingers wrap over hers.

 

Active creativity

Hagakure

One of the hardest things, for me, is staying creative. That’s why I have to try and write 1000 words a day, to keep my creative mind open, so I can continue to see opporunities in every day life, every day things. It’s easier to ignore that imaginative side, just get on with reality, but when you’re doing something creative, you have to keep it open as best you can. I do this by watching films, reading books, writing as much as I can – sometimes making visual art pieces like the one pictured. I’ve heard that ‘1000 words a day’ target mentioned by many writers over the years, and it is true – the more you push yourself, the more you’ll find the words will come to you. There’s always hard points, times where things just won’t work no matter what you do, but writing every day, keeping that creative part of the brain active, it definitely helps.

 

Escape

 

‘As a kid I used to dream about being put in the bins, escaping from things, without my mum knowing she’d put me out in the bins. So I’m in a black plastic bag outside a building, and hearing the rain against it, but feeling alright, and just wanting to sleep, and a truck would take me away.’ – Will Bevan, aka ‘Burial’