Ladies and gentlemen... the WrongPlanet writing showcase

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Oh good god, let it go. I'm not going to get as involved in this as I did last time, because you know my opinions already. But seriously. Keep it to yourself. You seem to have a personal issue with the poor guy.

You guys play nice, I'm out.

Edit: Well, Ackman, you slipped a post in ahead of me. It's directed mostly at the one before your


Now, on a new note, did anyone have constructive thoughts about that short story I posted? Is it worth putting my own time into refining it? My professor seemed to think it was pretty good, although parts of it do seem way too contrived. I was trying to meet a deadline when I was revising the original issues, so I didn't have time to do it properly.

Jaded

Beauty fades,
laughter fades,
anger fades.

We accept our destiny.
Steel our souls,
harden our hearts;
All to survive in a world
of jagged edges and harsh realities.

Jaded is what they call us.
Stains on society is how they see us.
Is it really worth it?

Once proud hearts,
now bundled in the coldness of winter.
Left to ponder time
and it's inevitable axe
just waiting to come down on our heads.
Deterioration our worst fear.
Is it really worth it?

First part of a new short story-in-progress:

Second part:

I realise this isn't a great story and the formatting is wrong. It has indented paragraphs on the Word version. It's my first SF short and I plan to write better.

Barely a year had passed since Pa’garn was forced to join a religious order. A fortnight earlier, he had received his ‘gentle’ expulsion from that order. Sleeping in the wilderness of this remote province had proved neither enlightening, nor restful. The wind blasted every inch of his skin and every muscle in his body ached from fatigue. Vegetation grew scarce as he scaled the mountain. It was night, but the largest moon was full and he carried his torch carefully, as if it was his own dear life.

He felt attached to so many things: chiefly, his former clan, his former wealth and his former lover. He still despised the gods for taking these away from him. Hundreds of dawns spent prostrating to the pillars, as the eastern side of them became illuminated, had not altered his feelings. Living on flat fungus and stream water was not conducive to Galmanian health or sanity. Therefore, for a Galmanian, he was neither healthy, nor sane.

Any more of this lifestyle, if you could call it a lifestyle, would cause him to perish like a Taapi. Those fools thought that self control would protect them, when irrepressible lust is what conquers worlds. In that respect, Pa’garn was exemplary of the Galmanian race. Unfortunately for him, the irrepressible lust of one often conflicts with the desires of another; thus, the duke had thwarted his ambitions. Pa’garn had possessed too much of a good thing.

Now, all he possessed was a dirty-yellow robe made out of dreb fibres and a bag made from the same material. Inside the bag was a flint, a water bottle and a Tablet of Resignation. His name and glory had disappeared amongst the thickets of the thorny ritonka shrubs. Still, somewhere amongst his sun-bleached memories and dreams was a sense of destiny. This sustained Pa’garn and guided him towards his destination.

Behind a pile of dark, reddish rocks, he saw the opening of a cave. He thought he could, perhaps, make his hermitage there, or maybe just sleep for the night. Entering, he was relieved not to hear the sonar clicks of nocturnal creatures. Other life-forms would only have got in his way. The cave interior was so vast that his torch would only shed light on a tiny portion of its glistening red walls. For the first time since childhood, he felt small and vulnerable.

His peripheral vision was met with a darkness so black he could have fallen into it and lost himself. His narrowed gaze focused on the spotlight cast by his torch, which showed that the rocks seemed almost blood-soaked. Inside this cave, there seemed to be some wisdom in the Taapi saying that the gods speak only through silence. Feeling awestruck for the first time in his life, he passed a minute, which felt like an hour, walking slowly in the dark. In this heightened state of sensitivity, he felt the slightest of touches, barely even a fingertip, touch the back of his robe.

Turning round, he saw a smooth, brown face and neck, which were outlined by a maroon shawl that tumbled over a pair of slender shoulders. Flickering in the torchlight, he saw that her skin was covered in shiny, black speckles and that her nostrils were ringed with white, metallic jewellery. She was a Taapi and Pa’garn was too young to remember a time when her race lived freely on this world. His father had personally killed thousands of Taapi, so Pa’garn knew what they looked like from hearing his father’s tales. He did not make a sound; he had no desire to, until she spoke.

‘From what do you require refuge, if you are here in this cave?’

‘You speak Galmani! How old are you?’

‘It’s not polite to ask such things of a lady.’

‘You are no lady. You are from a feeble race, a dead race.’

‘Strange, I feel both strong and alive, though I am of the noble Taapi and older than you can imagine.’

‘I have gone mad in the wilderness. You are not real!’

‘Your life has been madness and here you may find sanity. I would also welcome any attempts you might make to prove my reality.’

Pa’garn tried to swallow but his mouth was dry. He tried, instead, to draw a deep breath to calm himself but the air felt like hot sand. He touched her face with his large, fleshy hand and then pulled it back shakily. He had touched a creature such as legends are made of, the last survivor and a lost relic in the mountains.

‘So, this is real. I would be greatly rewarded if I informed my people of your existence and whereabouts.’

‘You would never be believed. They would think you have gone mad in the wilderness.’

‘You try and trap me. I should destroy you. My people spent three hundred years destroying your race; now I should finish the job.’

‘Good luck in doing so without the aid of weapons. You know even females of my species are stronger than the males of yours. We can also see into the night, where all you can see is darkness. For three hundred years we hid in the night, hoping to delay the time when you would find every last one of us. Plus, I am trained in all the arts of unarmed combat. No, you only have two decisions before you; neither or them involve my death.’

Her face betrayed no thoughts or feelings. It occurred to Pa’garn that she was no ordinary Taapi. Part of him wanted to find out more; the other part of him wanted to wake up back in his hometown and hear his lover calling him for breakfast.

‘W-what are you talking about? My decisions?’

‘Your first choice involves doing a favour for yourself and I. You don’t have offspring.’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Nor do I. You would never have been forced to join a religious order if you had…’

‘How do you know I was forced?’

‘The only ones they send into the wilderness are not monks by vocation.’

‘You know a lot about my people.’

‘Please, I’m Taapi. I’ve had to become very intimate with the workings of your people,’ she said with a smirk on her smooth, oval face.

‘I know where this is going. How ridiculous of you…’

‘The continuation of the bloodline is important to both our peoples. For us, it is a duty to the ancestors and the gods. For you, it is the crown of your ambitions and the whole purpose of your short and vicious lives. Given your urge to populate and dominate the whole world, monasticism with celibacy is the second greatest punishment for you, after death. Since for Taapi, procreation is a religious rite, only the monks and nuns may procreate. I am a nun.’

Her large, black pupils were ringed by honey-coloured irises. Inside those pupils, Pa’garn could see both his destruction and rebirth. A strange feeling that his lover was present came over him. She was distant and forbidden, yet always with him. The Galmanians are not without love or sentimentality, only they never admit to such emotions, not even to themselves. Then, it clicked; this Taapi woman was sending him suggestions. This form of mental warfare was common amongst the Taapi. The Galmanians trained for centuries in order to block these transmitted thoughts. The war had ended thirty years ago but Galmanians were still training future generations, just in case.

‘You streedscum feeder, get out of my head! Just what do you think you are? Crawl back into the volcanic stinkhole you came from and never have the audacity to look at another being from my race again!’

‘Our races share a common ancestor. Many thousands of years ago, when this whole planet was a volcanic stinkhole, we were one people. Our prophets say it is our destiny to eventually reunite the races,’ she said with a little nod of the head.

‘That is the superstition of a weak and very nearly extinct people. The Galmanians were created especially by our gods. We were formed in their image. That is why we are superior to you. You have your worldly ancestors but we have direct descent from the gods.’

‘Once the races are united, the resulting species will be closer to the gods. Anyway, if your people were magically created separately from all other life on this world, how come your people can successfully procreate with ours? Two animals must be very similar for such a thing to happen.’

‘I am not an animal. Even if some of our people created abominations with yours, all the half-breeds have been eradicated.’

‘Are you so sure? So long have our people had contact that there would not only be half-breeds, but quarter, eighth, sixteenth and so forth, breeds. My race continues to live within yours, maybe even within your own person.’

‘I would kill myself if that was true. If that was true, we would have to kill our own people; only the gods know how many we would have to kill.’

‘Maybe it’s time you stopped killing out of an arrogant belief in your own purity.’

‘I will not be lectured to by a Taapi; nor will I create an abomination with one.’

‘Then you have a second choice that you could make.’

‘What?’

‘Leave.’

‘Just, leave?’

‘Yes, forget this whole encounter ever happened. Go on, find another cave to sleep in; there’s another one up the path. You never have to see me again.’

‘Thank the gods. I will do just that.’

He stumbled through the darkness towards the cave’s exit, his torch leaving a small trail of light behind him. That was the last time, alive or dead, that he would ever be seen by an intelligent being.

Drenell knew that her pet had been hungry lately; she had very little to feed it. Finally, it would get a decent meal. Kartufe are large, predatory animals but Drenell had lived on this mountain so long that she had grown friendly with the beasts. She sat down to record the night’s events on a tablet. She drew the hieroglyphs for Galmanian and the number seven. Beyond the cave’s opening, she could see the stars, too many of them to count. She wondered when the gods would deliver the one who would fulfil the prophecy.

late butterflies mate
slapped flowers and motion blur
my boyfriend's photo

somewhere on black sand
under midnight ocean clouds
are my flip flop prints

a crow hops again
on frost sharp grass and again
the world starts and ends

a runner on snow
blooms and blanches a whole year
passes in his skin

Staffordshire forest
and late winter's sun reflect
on a black bald head

all smooth wet black trunks
and a moonless sky watch me
watching them all night

by a mossy birch
a jogger stops to yank socks -
those stippled white legs

I tend to follow the writing style of an acrostic I wrote:
Lovecraftian Horrors invading the Earth
Orwellian cities where man has no worth
Comedies, and tragedies, and the apocalypse' nigh, even
Rings for nine men who are all doomed to die.

I mainly avoid emotional poetry
My logical mind thinks it strange to be
Told that a poem on farms and wheat grain
Is an emotional metaphor for prosperity and pain
It says
"Surely you jest, jest at scars, sorry about that
how can this be a metaphor in complex format?
Yes, it works with some works, as even I can see
But you're digging too deep into the poetry."

smoke from a fire
shadows under palms
seagulls perched at the tip of land
white upon green
lit by the moon

wind through the trees
sways the shadows
seagulls spread their wings
lift
and fill the sky

and i hear the sea wind
blowing across the land

Write Write Write Write Write
Write Write Write Write Write Write Write
This is a haiku


Orwell made Big Brother
Inspired politics.
Lovecarft made Cthulhu
And scared some from their wits.
S. King, he made the Tower
Now 19's everywhere.
Pratchett made the Discworld
With humor left to spare.
What will I contribute to this world?

Write Write Write Write Write
Write Write Write Write Write Write Write
This is a haiku

Orwell made Big Brother
Inspired politics.
Lovecarft made Cthulhu
And scared some from their wits.
S. King, he made the Tower
Now 19's everywhere.
Pratchett made the Discworld
With humor left to spare.
What will I contribute to this world?

First chapter of my latest short story:

January 8th, 1908



The hospital room was dark, the curtains shut tightly. Inside the room, under a heavy hospital blanket and atop a low hospital bed, lay Rose Bukater. Her hair, once free flowing was now wound tightly in a braid. Her eyes, once a brilliant blue were now dull and gray. How pathetic she looked. This worried her mother so. "No little girl, let alone any child should have to be in this prison." Ruth thought to herself as she looked at her child and saw the torment in her face. Rose awoke to find her mother there beside her. Rose looked up into her mother's cheerful eyes, and said albeit rather weakly "Good morning mama." Ruth smiled at her, while reaching out a hand to stroke Rose's cheek. "You must be hungry Rose." Rose simply nodded. Ruth fed her breakfast, and an hour later they were finished. "Good Rose, you ate all your breakfast. This is what I like to see, you're getting better; I know you are." Rose turned away. Ruth sensed something was wrong. She tried to talk to her daughter, but she kept turning away.

"Rose, what on earth is wrong with you? You were so good for me at breakfast." To which the child turned her head and faced her mother. "Go away, I don't want you here. You're just like my friends. They've abandoned me. I suspect you'll abandon me too." Ruth looked stunned at this remark. "Rose, don't push me away, don't shut me out. Your friends have not abandoned you. They wouldn't." But Rose would have none of it. "Just go away!" Rose said rather harshly. Ruth knew what she had to do. "Rose, if you're not going to accept visitors today, then I'll just go home, but you'll be sad because I won't read to you today." This just added fuel to Rose's fire. "Fine, seeing as though you treat me as though I'm some sort of accessory; I don't need to be read to, besides isn't it time for my feeble sister to go on her walk?" Ruth was taken aback by this. "Why is Rose acting like this?" She thought to herself; "Rose, don't talk about Elizabeth that way. She never did anything to you." This however, was a mistake on Ruth's part. "Oh really? She hasn't done anything to me? She has taken up my room. MY room for the last ten years of her life. She's pathetic. She won't even talk to people; Sadie has to get it out of her." By this point Ruth had turned to the door and walked out.

Rose didn't know how long it had been since she started crying, but the tears were very, very real. She missed being read to. If it weren't for her broken legs and ribs, she could read to herself; but no, she depended on others. She was a true invalid, and she hated it especially seeing other children her age run and play, while she had to lay about broke her heart and in the worst way. She didn't really have bad feelings about her little sister, it's just that she was the closest thing in her mind. Around lunchtime, Rose grew frantic. "Where is mama?" She thought to herself. She began to call out, but to no avail. Inside, Rose began to feel abandoned. She began to cry again. She wished she could be like her twin, Emily and have a doll to hold while she slept, but she had never thought of that, at least in her mind. By now her wailing became more intense. The feeling of abandonment having been placed firmly in her heart.

I'm writing some short stories based on every two lines of the poem, "Fairy-Land", by Egdar Allen Poe. It's going to be interesting.

The Death of Fairy-Land


Story 1: Ah, Shadows!

"Walking around in this swamp is terrifying, ain't it, Max," inquired a man, with a sleazy appearance, to a friend while walking through the distant swamps of what is supposed to be a Florida bog.

"Johnny, ya big wuss, we didn't go all the way from New York to here in the big South to wet your trousies, didya, boy?"
"N-no, boiss, but---"
"Shaddap with your whinin'! We're supposed to con a sucker, not be one!"
"I just---"
"What, you wuss?!"
"Look!"

Johnny swiveled around Max's large, protruding head to catch sight of his marvelous find, two shadow-like girls dress in the swamp-attire, singing a somewhat frightening song:

"Dim vales, and shadowy floods and cloudy-looking woods! Welcome stranger, welcome sir, to our noble land! It's nice of you to drop and stay, come play with us awhile! But look out--oh, sirs, look out, for the capricious wild!"

Max stared at the two girls for a long while, studying them and their song.

"Whatya talkin' about, you loons?! What's a wild?!"

After this, the twin girls looked at him and gave him a small giggle. "Those who don't believe what a wild is....will surely die in a moment!"

The two, frightened, started to run, only to find that they were both grabbed by an object.

"What's goin' on, Max?" Johnny, in a state of panic and desperation, asked in a tone of fear, and, to his dismay, his partner replied, "I dunno! But it's eatin' me!"

And in a moment, the men were just shadows of themselves. They didn't move, as if they were statues, but had some sort of transparency to them. And the men, oh, the men, just stayed there.
---
"Ah, Luminesence, wasn't that an easy job," Nobility, one of the Fairy-Land residents, said in her constantly self-satisfied tone.

"Pff," Luminesence, the older of the two, scoffed, "they were the first ones to break."

"Yes," the pair said in unison, "only fourty-four more deeds 'til the ruination of this wasteland."

"More ruination, more ruination, of this dastardly land, and let them suffer, and the beating of our hands."

A smile crept up on their faces....they knew what to do.




Well, how was it? This is only Chapter One!

Poem: Passion's Storm

Clouds of slate now cross the sky,
A storm is rolling in;
This time I fear I won't survive,
I can't do this again.
Each time the rain beats down on me
And lightning streaks the sky,
I know I am no longer free,
My passions rage inside.