Now Writing

Onhell

Infinite Dreamer
I've been hit by a wave of creativity lately and written a few things. I was surprised to find that I began writing poetry even though I don't know the first thing about it and I rarely if ever read poems. However recently I've found them the perfect vehicle to express a specific feeling. I figured it would be cool to share something other than killed dreams and invite you all to share some writings of your own.

Like I said, poetry isn't my strong suit, but I still found this one worth sharing. The original is in Spanish so forgive me if the translation sounds clunky.

I miss
The life that your lips give me when you kiss mine
The peace caused by a caress of your fingers
The ecstasy that springs forth when we make love
The trembling of my body and yours when we lay in an exhausted embrace
I miss you
I love you

I also wrote this little essay, playing around with punctuation a bit.

The party was uneventful. We sat around the kitchen table, my friend, a gracious host, got us more beers as we related funny anecdotes. It felt good. Being around people again. A person can only be isolated for so long before they forget what it is to be human. Then there was that knock on the door and our friend and host invited two more guests in. We were introduced, he seemed nice, and her and I exchanged pleasantries, but we both made nothing of it. The night went on and as she told her awkward story of the night that’s when I noticed her for the first time. She gestured with her hands, using them as physical points of emphasis and punctuation. Her entire body rocked back and forth with the rhythm of her words, she was alive while the rest of us were rooted to our plastic chairs. She was wearing knee high black boots straight out of a Marilyn Manson video. Unconventional, I thought. Her skirt, however, bore a floral pattern and it rested halfway down her thigh. Elegant, youthful. Her leather jacket was unzipped revealing a bared shoulder, low cut, black top. The combination would have looked ridiculous on anybody else, but she managed to exude a mystery though welcoming, I felt I should approach with caution. I told a joke, a pun, childish and simple. My friends smiled, chuckled. She threw her head back and let out a laugh as alive as her gesticulations. It was hearty, genuine. She released her shoulder length hair from her librarian ponytail and as she ran her fingers through it I noticed the natural golden highlights in her otherwise auburn waves. Her square framed glasses concealed perfectly arched eyebrows and muted a pair of big, vibrant, brown eyes. She pulled out a cigarette and as she lit it I realized a cigarette hadn’t looked so sexy since Casablanca. She exhaled slowly, deliberately and as the smoke hung in the air she looked at me through the haze. Her lips wore a playful smile, her crimson lipstick shining in the kitchen’s light. Her eyes, half closed, twinkled, and despite the veil of the smoke and her glasses the world around us vanished. Plunging into their depth I witnessed a fire I had only seen once before. A fire of passion. Of madness. One which snapped. Crackled. Betraying its intensity. Its all-consuming hunger. In that moment I knew, she’d be the death of me. So of course, I smiled back.
 
So here’s the second part to the previous writing. Honestly, I didn’t think there’d be one, but here we are. Now I’m seriously considering expanding on it as a whole:

“I miss you,” I whispered.
“I’m right here,” she murmured back, the contour of her figure barely discernable in the dark. Even that would be impossible to see if it weren’t for the trickle of moonlight breaking through the bedroom curtains.
“I know,” my voice cracked.
“I don’t understand,” the confusion was obvious, but she accentuated it with holding on to my hand even tighter.
“Neither do I.” I was having difficulty expressing the void that was consuming me inside. How to tell her about the oppressive weight on my chest keeping me from functioning. Even though I was at a loss for words I tried. “I feel like I’m, losing you, like you’re slipping away. I know you don’t leave on your trip for a few more days, but part of me feels like… you won’t come back.”
There. It was out.
“Why wouldn’t I come back?”
Doubt. That sinking feeling in the back of my mind that was all too familiar. That’s when I saw them. All of them. Just standing in the dark around the bed, those familiar ghosts of girlfriends past. I decided to tell her exactly that.
“They all leave eventually.”
The silence hung between us as her eyes searched mine. She still held on to my hand and finally she said, “I have no reason to leave. I meant it, you know?” We hadn’t been dating long, but we knew each other well enough to have unspoken understandings.
She was alluding to a specific time we laid in a rare embrace and she was brave enough to confess to me that I might be the one for her.
Yet here I laid now feeling empty, lonely and worst of all, unworthy. Still I nodded. I took a quick look around the bed. Sure enough they were still there, in fact, they had moved closer. I wish I had met you long ago, said one. You’re perfect, hissed another. One leaned in close to my face and whispered, I’ll never leave you. The venom in her voice angered me, but I was too lost and apathetic to react. Still, all those pretty promises, they all hid the same insult. Unworthy. And selfish, I realized.
She had had a bad day too. Bad enough to not leave the house and spend the day in bed. “I’m sorry,” I sighed.
“Sorry? For what, my love?”
“For being so selfish.”
“Why on Earth would you think you are being selfish?”
“You had a shitty day too and here I am only thinking about my own hang-ups.”
“Oh sweetheart,” she moved in closer, and as she ran her hand through my hair she gave me a kiss. Her lips were soft and warm. “Sometimes you have to put yourself first, OK? I’m here for you just like you’ve been here for me.”
The flashback to when I held her as she worked through a panic attack came and went like a lightning strike. I smiled and moved in closer to her. I kissed her as softly as she had kissed me. I looked in her eyes and that initial fire I had seen the day we met still burned, but I no longer saw it as a death sentence. It was shelter. Protection.
“I love you,” I said still looking into her eyes.
“And I you,” she said as her lips broke into a smile. We kissed again. What a pair, I thought. Both broken in different ways, but willing to do anything for each other. The kiss morphed into an embrace and as we became one I forgot about the ghosts. For good reason. They were gone.
 
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So of course I can't keep things too serious for too long. I had nothing better to do on the bus the other day, so my mind wandered to what I would name my non-existent twins.

What I considered naming my non-existent twins:
1. Go and Nads so I can look for them at the mall, “Go Nads! Where are you?!”
2. Name the first “Alvin” and the second “Simon Theodore” so I can introduce them as “Alvin and the Chipmunks”
3. Name them “Bruce” and “Richard” to introduce them as “Batman and Robin.”
4. Name them “Burt” and “Ernie” and to fuck with them just say, “Well if it isn’t the Ambiguously Gay Duo,” whenever they enter a room together.
5. If they are a boy and a girl, “Lilo & Stitch”
6. Timon and Pumba hoping one is pencil thin and the other fat 'like a young warthog!'
Good thing I’m not having any kids
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:p
 
I've been writing some short stories lately, in an absurd comedy sense. Their translatability to English is questionable, but I might give it a go some day.
 
Part III:


Uncertainty. That’s what really drives people crazy. It’s like swimming in open water. At first you can keep yourself afloat, but slowly obsession takes over, you get tired and literally begin to drown in your own madness. Thus I felt an odd relief as he stood in my kitchen as we shared a smoke and a drink. The embodiment of my suspicions. I had noticed it before her trip, when she came back it had only gotten worse. She had become distant and began to say the strangest things. “You love me too much, more than I deserve.” Or, “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you, or worse, break your heart.” It had only gone downhill from there as when I tried to get close her answers were cold. Like when I complained about having to sleep in separate beds due to her sister being home. The night before I couldn’t sleep and told her I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep again that night.

“Why?” She asked, not looking up from her phone.

“Because you won’t be there.” I said, the sadness in my voice impossible to hide.

“You shouldn’t depend on me for that sort of thing,” was her reply, again not looking up from her phone. In fact, she had been on her phone all weekend messaging back and forth with who knows who. I checked mine… she hadn’t seen my last message from two days ago, much less replied to it. So who could it be?

Not only had she grown cold and distant, she began ignoring my messages for days. I knew the behavior and the pattern. She had been doing that to her ex since we started dating.

“Are you bored with me?”

“No.” She replied, wide-eyed.

“Am I smothering you?”

“No.”

“Do you still love me?”

“Of course! What’s with all the questions?”

“I’ve noticed you rather distant and cold lately. What is going on?”

She shifted her eyes back and forth and shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know.”

“That’s the thing sweetheart. I’ve been probing for a while now, I know something is wrong, but I don’t want to harass you or turn this into an interrogation. However, whenever I ask you all I get is ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘nothing.’ What is it?”

She sighed, “I guess it could be that finals are coming up, or that my mom is pressuring me to start that business I told you about with my sister…” She gave me another excuse that I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. They were all lies. Had it been something so trivial she would have told me like she had done in the past.

“Is that it?”

“Yes,” she said with unwavering certainty.

“Ok.” I left it at that. But of course that wasn’t the end of it. When this behavior continued, coupled with her cancelling plans literally last minute I had enough. I had seen this movie before and it never ended well. I was certain there was somebody else and she was unwilling to tell me, but I was unwilling to stick around long enough for this to turn ugly. Little did I know it would turn ugly anyway.

I laid in bed looking at the MEME my friend had posted. The same friend who had hosted the gathering where her and I met. There’s nothing more painful than seeing a friend head over heels for someone who isn’t worth it. I messaged him wondering if it was meant for me.

“Hahaha, no man, but you’re not the first to ask. Why? You having issues with her?”

“Yes.”

Not even 5 seconds later the voice message came, “Dude, I owe you a beer, I think it is only fair you know the whole story.”

“She’s seeing someone else, isn’t she?”

What came next I did not expect, “It’s waaaay more complicated than that.” What could possibly be more complicated? I found out that Sunday. We met up for the beer and my friend asked for my version of events. As I told him how we began to see each other after his party I noticed him getting increasingly upset as I related how things were starting to go south.

“Ok, now I’m pissed.” He said, gripping his beer as though he wanted to choke it to death. “Remember the guy at the party?”

“The guy she showed up with? Yeah, the ex-boyfriend.”

“He isn’t the ex-boyfriend man, they have continued to see each other and all those trips she’s told you about? That she’s taken with ‘friends,’ or with him ‘as a friend?’ They’ve been with him, and they’ve been having sex every single time.”

“Wait, what? How do you know this?”

“Because he’s told me! Him and I are friends, and he’s been at my house crying over this woman and how she’s been playing him for close to five months now.” Apparently they had broken up, but gotten back together, kind of and since October she’s been playing with his heart saying they weren’t together, yes they were, no they weren’t, well maybe they’re just having sex.

Uncertainty. It was driving him mad. I, however, marveled at the bittersweet feeling of having my suspicions confirmed. Relief at the fact that I was right coupled with an inescapable sadness that i had been played.

“She told me they broke up in October and they haven’t been involved since.”

“I can guarantee you they continued seeing each other in every way. You need to walk away from this, she isn’t worth it.”

“I was already planning on breaking up with her when she comes back from her latest solo trip.”

“Good for you man, best thing you can do.”

Indeed it was, little did I know she’d want to talk to me, desperately. Upon her return she hounded me for hours as I gave her a taste of her own medicine and ignored her calls. Finally I called her back. She wasted no time in dropping her bomb. “I’m two weeks late.”

“I have to ask you, I’m sorry, but I just have to. Am I the only one?”

“Yes,” came her reply immediately.

“You sure about that?” I pushed.

“Yes, you’ve been the only one.”

“You know I’ve pulled out every single time well before finishing,” I said calmly.

“Then how do you explain it?” Was all she came up with.

“Great question.” Great question no doubt. Knowing what I did I wondered why she had come to me.

“I want to see you this weekend, spend it with you.”

“Definitely,” I agreed knowing it was a perfect opportunity to confront her.

After the exchange I called my friend to let him know she had finally surfaced as no one knew where she had truly been for the past three days. Not even an hour later I got the call.

I recognized the voice inquiring if it was me.

“Yes.” I replied as he confirmed his identity. The not so ex boyfriend. “I’m glad you called, I was going to talk to you Saturday at the party, but now works too.”

“Yeah, our friend insisted I speak with you, that you’ve heard from her.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Listen, I have my suspicions that she might be pregnant…”

“She just told me she’s two weeks late,” I interrupted him.

“We need to speak in person, can you meet up?”

“I don’t have transportation of my own and the busses stopped running a while ago.”

“I’ll come to you, what’s your address.”

Thus here we are, sharing a smoke, a drink and apparently, a girlfriend. We exchanged versions of events. Filling gaps in timelines.

“And then she told me she was going to go out with a friend,” I said.

“Yeah… that was with me.” He confirmed, “She told me that the second week of February.”

“Yeah… she was with me.” We looked at each other and chuckled realizing she was playing us both selling us the same story. Out with “friends” or “a friend.”

We took another drag of our cigarettes and a sip from our drinks and he finally broke the silence. “We have a problem on our hands, man.”

“Yes, we certainly do.”

“Who’s the father?”

There it was again, Uncertainty.
 
I've been meaning to write this for a few days, but I'm still very out of it. Saturday I went to another Ayahuasca ceremony. Going into it I was pumped, excited. I could not wait to be surrounded by the music, enter the nether-world in black and white, disappear into eternity and see the pretty colors while feeling nothing but pure love. Yeah, well... it was nothing like that. The complete opposite in fact.

For starters, this time it was outside where it normally takes place since it wasn't raining. When we took the drink it was still light out and that was not helping. It started to hit as it was getting dark and then, there I was, back in the black and white nether-world. However, I never disappeared due to a couple of our members being very voicetrous the neighbors turned on their own music... reagetton, on loop. It was the same song over and over, after a while it beame it's own mantra. But I never became one with the Universe. Quite the opposite. I kept feeling a nagging isolation and a sense of suffering. It only got worse from there. I did take a plunge, but into the Abyss. Not only did I stare at it, I was in it. I saw the worst nightmares, felt the most unbearable pain, confronted the most intimidating monsters and witnessed the most horrifying fears. I felt like Roy Batty in Bladerunner. "I've seen things... you people wouldn't believe." The sense of suffering only intensified and I became aware of everyone's suffering. I began to see exes and friends again, specially those going through difficulties. I decided to take it all, make it mine. Like Heath Ledger in The Sin Eater or Rasputin. As I took their pain and suffering I said their names as they appeared to me and then just kept repeating, "You don't have to suffer anymore." I contemplated suffering, both needed and needless. Suffering and pain forge character, give strength. But I was well aware that they had suffered enough, they were stuck in a loop, lost in their pain.

Towards the end of the night I started coming out of it. One of the caretakers was making rounds and told me to start approaching the bonfire as the night was coming to a close. I grabbed my blanket and made my way over. I was there not even two minutes and I began to feel light. I went back to my spot and laid back down. I was overcome by the need to go to the bathroom. I got up and made my way to the nearest one. It was towards the back of the yard in an unfinished guest house. I close the door, lock it and go about my business. It felt great, but as soon as I was done I began throwing up violently. I don't know how long I stood there after I was done, but it finally dawned on me maybe I should zip up my pants. I slowly go about completing the task as the bathroom's pink walls close in on me. I flush the toilet and sit on the floor, covered in sweat, snot and tears. I wondered why no one came to my aid. Then I realized the neighbors were still blasting their music. No one could hear my hurling, moans or cries. Once again I felt a vast lonliness and realized that most of my lowest, most painful moments I had gone through them alone. My suicidal moment, unemployment, my arrest, my divorce, etc. In that moment I reafirmed my strength, my reslove. I got up and left the bathroom finding my way back to my blanket.

When I finally came out of it I was still in shock. I felt dirty. I kept staring off into space trying to process all the ugliness I had witnessed. I felt like I was hit by a truck. I told my brother I felt existentially exhausted. That was Saturday. Still now, three days later, my body feels sore and beat. Sunday I felt as though I literally had the world on my shoulders. That heaviness has lifted, but I still feel very tired. The trip wasn't all bad. I had a couple of happy visions and I kept laughing at the concept of time, so meaningless. All in all a positive experience. I learned new things and reafirmed others.
 
The past month or so I've been talking to several friends and I came to a couple of realizations. I will write a more formal/structure post in the (hopefully) near future, but here is the gist of it. While having coffee with one of them she said, "I wish I knew the secret to happiness." To which I instantly answered, "there isn't one. The key isn't to be happy, it's to be at peace." Happiness, like all emotions, is fleeting and momentary. To be "happy" all the time is just as bad as being sad or angry. They are responses to attachments, expectations, moments... no more, no less. In the last decade or so I've read many articles, which I can't name, but I'm sure Googling something similar would bring them up, but the point is, I've read several articles stating that the biggest lie sold to the "west" was happiness. We're obsessed with being "happy," while really we're just being manipulated by big corporations into buying shit we don't need.

I was on the phone with another friend of mine and at one point she asked, "Hello? You still there?" "Yes, I'm listening." "Oh, I was done, I was expecting some sort of reaction." I paused for a second, giving it another thought then said, "Nope, sorry, I got nothing worth adding to the conversation." That reminded me of other articles I read in which Eastern philosophers are baffled as to why people in the West are OK with a "noisy" mind. We think it is OK and normal to constantly be thinking, for our minds to be constantly working. They think that's madness. You wouldn't be fine with your neighbor blasting music 24/7, why are you OK with your mind doing the same thing?

These separate conversations (mainly) made me realized that for months now my mind has been quiet, I'm at peace. I don't feel the need to say/do unnecessary things. I can tell this frustrates a few of my friends since, as some of you here know, I used to talk/post a lot for no reason or just to say my 2 cents whether it was pertinent or not. Now, 9 times out of 10, it is not worth the effort. Interesting place to be, I'm enjoying it, that's for sure.
 
Noah and the Platypus. Story about how Noah not only had to collect a pair of each but take them back afterwards as well, discovering Australia (and America, but that's irrelevant to the platypus) meanwhile but modestly never mentioning it at all, ever.
Been on it for quite some time and doubt I'll ever finish it.
 
I have several short stories and "novels" half-started, some, like the one in this thread, one or two sections away from completion, etc. I feel your pain. Sometimes it's nice to have an eternal work in progress. In a way it is reassuring, something you can always add to, change, rewrite. It makes little sense, but that's how it is with most of my ideas. I've been working on a stand-up routine in Spanish, now that I'm in Mexico, and I keep reworking it fearing it is not good enough, when I didn't have that problem in the States.
 
I've been working on a stand-up routine in Spanish, now that I'm in Mexico, and I keep reworking it fearing it is not good enough, when I didn't have that problem in the States.
Jokes about fence jumping don't play the same anymore, do they? :(
 
Jokes about fence jumping don't play the same anymore, do they? :(
Oddly, it's their favorite. It is safe to say I do have a collection of "greatest hits" and the favorite BY FAR is exactly about that. Now, my friends here are bilingual so I haven't had to translate it lol.
 
Here's a short story I wrote a couple of months ago. Translated from the Turkish original.

Mushfiq the Backgammon Master

Mushfiq was a passionate backgammon player. As the son of the Chief Backgammonist Melahat Khatun, he was involved in the game from the very beginning. After graduating from Brothers' Coffeehouse with honours, he attended Sierra Leone Polytechnic University for his master's studies in Backgammon. He then received his doctorate with the thesis entitled "Gammoned on Mars: An Astronomic Take on Backgammon", which became a hit not just within the backgammon community, but also among construction workers and aristocrats. Upon receiving his doctorate, he returned to his home nation and established his life goal as "To teach the game of backgammon to every soul he comes across, and then beat the crap out of them." To get a head start, he picked Rıza the Philosopher, known for his knack for lowering the IQ level of his neighborhood as his first target and they went to a coffeehouse together. Upon being introduced to the game Rıza quipped "Backgammon is a social construction wholly reflecting the banality of our monotone lives." Then the game commenced. Mushfik intended to end the game early by embracing an aggressive style of play. Accordingly, he collected the checkers on the table, opened Rıza's mouth and forcibly pushed all checkers down his throat. As Rıza began to choke, Mushfik ruthlessly hit him in the face with the table fourteen times. In his last breath Rıza commented "Your pragmatistic approach to the game has led me to questioning my idealism." and dropped dead. Mushfik ordered two cups of tea, drinking one himself, and pouring the other one over Rıza's corpse. He turned to the shop owner and told him "It was good to see you pal." and left the shop with the shop owner, who was sitting on top of a teapot, gazing upon him with shock visible on his face.

Not long after, Mushfik was stopped by the police. "I want to play a round of backgammon for my freedom", he told the officers. After the officers told him that they did not know how to play, Mushfik promptly began to explain the game. He placed the table, which he used to beat Rıza moments ago, on the floor and started placing his spare-checkers on it. "This is nonsense!" cried out one of the officers, to which Mushfik responded by closing the table, looking him dead in the eyes and saying "No, the fact that your mother didn't abort you is nonsense". A fight broke out and Mushfik easily took care of the officers. He declared "Backgammon gods have bestowed upon me this gift for I am the chosen one!" and left the scene. In the months following the clash he beat the goddamn feds as well as Hamdi the Squirrel, the leader of the largest drug cartel in Bayburt* and the Dalai Lama, who had been trying to convince Hamdi the Squirrel to cut the crap and dance with him on the Tibetan Mountains. He was a well-renowned and respected figure, with someone believing him that he was the second coming of Christ.

After his rise to fame, Mushfik returned to Sierra Leone Polytechnic, where he was greeted by his consulting professor, Marcel Checker-Okey**. Proud, Checker-Okey, who was a few days short of his 176th birthday, had tears in his eyes. "I'm proud of you, son", he told Mushfik and then gave him a hug. Mushfik responded by saying "I played with everyone, I beat everyone, but I never got the chance to play with you, master." Checker-Okey smiled, brandishing a backgammon table from the bag he carried around him. As soon as he opened the table, Mushfik grabbed him by the remaining hair on his head and slammed him on the table. He slammed him, slammed him, slammed him and the 176-year old stud died of brain hemorrhage. Mushfik took a deep breath and uttered the words that went down in history: "I wish I played chess instead."

* Bayburt is the smallest province in Turkey.
** Okey is a popular table game in Turkey.
 
99.9% of the crap I post on these forums is complete nonsense ;). I enjoyed it, keep sharing!
 
I'm writing a horror story and the view from my desk window is a bright full moon with clouds moving in front over a night sky. Very fitting. Also listening to "Haunted forest sounds" ambience.
 
I'm going to post two short sketches that I've written as school assignments. I would like to get some feedback on the content, don't mind the formatting. In other words, do the scenes give you the slightest chuckle, the faintest pain? Would these be watchable in a movie?

V.O. - voiceover
O.S. - offscreen

Comedy: "A Bumpy Ride"
d0402a203459f2cc810ae079e804c628.png


Tragedy: "Crumple"
066fb63f6635cf1890858360bba2c3cb.png

905c0f7fadd621fb90606b8d85153f4b.png
 
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I'm going to post two short sketches that I've written as school assignments. I would like to get some feedback on the content, don't mind the formatting. In other words, do the scenes give you the slightest chuckle, the faintest pain? Would these be watchable in a movie?

V.O. - voiceover
O.S. - offscreen

Comedy: "A Bumpy Ride"
d0402a203459f2cc810ae079e804c628.png


Tragedy: "Crumple"
066fb63f6635cf1890858360bba2c3cb.png

905c0f7fadd621fb90606b8d85153f4b.png
Crumple, yes.
But that hardly matters, wait for @CriedWhenBrucieLeft 's opinion.
 
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