Alone With Truth

I discovered this on my hard drive whilst repairing it. I had no idea I still had it.
I wrote this long ago (so long ago I cant even remember when, but at least ten years I reckon) and having nothing better to do with it I thought I'd bung it here.

Depending on your point of view its either an art piece dealing with the philosophical issues of existence, or as my friends who read it at the time preferred, "a load of arty-farty pretentious rubbish" (Its probably the latter, but I have somewhat of a soft spot for it if only because, as the good Doctor said, its good to remember all the people you used to be.).

It was borne out of my experiences with psychotropics in my misspent youth (as opposed to my misspent middle age!)

Anyway make your own mind up.

Alone Before Truth



Players:
The man- a man
Voice 1- a masked figure
Voice 2- another masked figure
Woman- death

A bleak dawn. A cold sharp wind cuts through grass and reed beneath a deep grey sky. Across an open space of tussock grasses between two dense woods a man comes running.
He stumbles, catching a foot and falls sprawling to the dewy ground. He looks with panic and terror back at the way he has come and then looks ahead and up, beyond the trees, to a hilltop rising before him into sunshine. He scrambles as quickly as he can to his feet and charges for the line of trees ahead.
As he passes beneath the outer eaves he looks back again and in so doing misses his footing and slips down an embankment. Tumbling wildly down the slope he splashes into a body of water at the banks foot and submerges.

Scene 2

The man breaks the surface gulping for air. He is in a dark bath room, lit by candles and he is naked in a bath of steaming water.



Voice 1 (questioning face)
Did you think you could outrun us?
To where?

Voice 2
Tell us. Confide in us.
Don't be afraid to share.

Man
Home. I wanted to go home, but I’ve forgotten the way.
Can't you tell me? Please, say.

Voice 1 (smiley mask)
You cannot go home. From there you flew.

Voice2 (sad face)
You cannot go back, you know this to be true.

Man
No! Leave me in peace, what do you want with me?
Speak, or set me free.

Voice1 (frowning face)
You ask the wrong questions.
Tell him what they should be.

Voice2 (questioning face)
The correct questions are simple,
"Why are you here?
What did you see?"

Man
I don't know.


Voice1
You must remember, let your mind go.

Man
I remember, I was running, running to a hill.

Voice2
You were being pursued, remember,
something was moving in for the kill.

Man
Was it you?

Voice 1 (laughing face)
Ha Ha. No, we’ve always been here, we two.

Voice2
Something else entirely was coming for you.

Scene 3

A grassy hillside with a steep incline. The man is struggling up it.

Voice 1 (Questioning face)
Who are you? Answer me?

Man
I don't know, so let me be.
Do you not know my name?

Voice2
We cannot for its loss only you are to blame.

Man
What does that mean? What was my shame?

Voice1
That most from their life learn of the world all around.

Voice2
But you came full circle and only doubt have you found.

Voice1
There is nothing left to you now,
no pleasure, no colour,

Voice2
no passion in life, no power.

Voice1
You've seen the unseen, gone the distance.

Voice2 (sad face)
And now at the end you doubt your own existence.

Man
The things I’ve seen, the unknown which I have touched and felt.
Enough to doubt.
For who can withstand finding God out?

Voice1
You are hopelessly lost.

Voice2
We know that’s the pain that has the greatest cost.

Man
No. I know who I am. I’m a man.
I am aware. I know that I exist.
So have a care,
for I have seen beyond the wall of mist.

Voice1
Tell us of the wall.

Voice2 (questioning face)
Yes tell us. How did you make it fall?

Scene 4

The bath room. The man is still in the bath.


Man
I broke through. I stopped it all.
I made a silence, here in my head.

Voice1
And in silence you went,
to a place where nothing need ever be said.

Voice2
And if silent, how are you sure you're really here?

Voice1 (questioning face)
Perhaps you are still running upon the hillside filled with your fear?

Voice2
Maybe you are incarcerated, insane,
or lie comatose in a hospital bed?

Voice1 (questioning face)
Or maybe you live inside a dream
in which you are already dead?

Man
I’m no dream, I was a man,
I know I had a name,
but beyond the mist I forgot,
for all created there are the same.

Voice1
You are a fog. A thing of infinite parts.

Voice2
Bound by a universal force which you tore apart.

Voice1
From afar you are a man. You exist.

Voice2
But close to you spread into mist.

Man
I dared look close? Didn't I? That’s it!
Yet I have my mind still, my wits!

Voice1 (smiling face)
Do you really? Look down,
you've pissed yourself through.

Voice2 (laughing face)
You see, you’re so far gone
even basic functions elude you.

Man
I was not content to be one of His slaves.
Oh God forgive me if I entered your domain.

Voice1
You see, when the mist spreads the man fades.

Scene 5

The man struggles up the last slope of the hillside and reaches the rounded summit.

Voice1
What did you see from up here that so filled you with fear?

Man
I saw it all. Everything there is.
I saw everything clear.

Voice2
A reward for you efforts,
a moment in bliss.

Man
No. You don’t understand,
I was everything there is.
I was flower, earth and tree,
Everything that can be in my search to be free.

Voice1
And now you are empty,
filled with terror at the notion,

Voice2
a single drop in an endless ocean

Voice1 (sad face)
spreading thinner, and thinner.

Man
But I'm still me, I may have trespassed but I’m not a sinner.
For why did God not make the wall stronger
If man was not meant to seek Truth any longer?
I made a silence without a thought,
and inside it God I sought,
but those that seek the thought of God are doomed
for by it they are bound to be consumed.

Voice2
Without words there can be no thoughts,
without thought no action.

Voice1
Without thought there is no perception.

Man
And yet I still perceive.

Voice2 (smiling face)
The chase has not yet ended, don’t be deceived.

Voice1 (sad face)
We’re still with you. Soon you will be alone.

Man
No. Please, stay with me, I cannot yet atone.
And no man is truly alone.

Voice2 (laughing face)
The sea of humanity?
Of that you have no longer certainty,
We know the reason why it makes you forlorn

Voices together (sad face)
It is because you know for what’s coming every man must stand alone.

Voice2
And you will be utterly alone,
with not even your sense of self left within whom to confide.

Voice1
Just alone, unavoidable, confronted,
with nowhere left to hide.

Voice2
It’s what you found up here.

Voice1
The truth you always sought.

Voice2
The root of all your fear.

Voice1
It is the truth of loneliness with which you are fraught.

Voice2
For the cage you constructed was made of your own thoughts.

Man
But I broke free!

Voice1 (questioning face)
So what will you do now?
Now you can see?

Scene 6

A woman in crimson crests the hill. Her hair and eyes are dark her skin pale.


Man
I’m everything and nothing,
I’ll not carry Gods burden onward,
I cannot any longer continue forward.
I’ll run no more
for the path now into time goes ever winding.

Woman
You have found me.
The chase ends here in the finding.

Man (weeping)
Yes, it’s true;
it was you I was always looking to.

Scene 7

The bath room. The man is in the bath, the woman stands at the end of it.

Woman
Long have I pursued you.
On the hilltop you beckoned to me,
you overcame your fear.

Man
Did you then bring me here?

Woman
You forget, you brought me,
indeed compelled me with a powerful force.

Man
Why?

Woman
To give you this of course.

The woman hands the man an open razor blade.

Man
Yes. I remember now.
Will you be waiting, when I cease to exist?

Woman
You are alone now. Release yourself,
become everything.
Be the mist.

The man slits his wrists lengthways. The bath floods with his blood.

Man
I love you. Oh God!

Woman
Foolish.
For the price of Deaths love none can afford.

Scene 8

The top of the hill. Rushes rattle in the foreground, the sky is bleak and a melancholy wind blows.

The End.

Golly, very profound. Whirling round in depression were you ? I found Poetry is the best way to release my feelings, pains, demons whatever you like to call that nasty feeling. Depression is as real a pain as any other. Feels as sharp as a cats claws tearing you up inside.

I am not sure, despite the tone, that I was actually depressed at the time, so much as trying to find my way through the matter of my own mortality and what it means both personally and in a wider sense.

Don't think I found any answers mind you, and it one of those weird things that when I read it back now its as open to interpretation to me as to anyone else, like it was written by someone else.

Probably explains why Ive been drunk ever since though, some places psychotropics take you , you never really leave.

As you say, looking back on past writings, you see it & hear it differently & wonder if it was really ever you writing that. At the time its all you can feel or see & it makes sense to you whilst everyone else is trying to either shake you up or obviously ignoring you.People get tattoos on the outside, I think Ive got a few on the inside.As you say, some things are never forgotten, we learn to shuffle them away.

People get tattoos on the outside, I think Ive got a few on the inside.- Azriel

Thats beautifully put Azriel.
Rather sums up in one perfect sentence what it took me that whole piece to try to summarise.

(I'll have to nick that line and use it somewhere!    )

Why thankyou old bean ! You are more than welcome to pinch my half arsed words   

If my best words were half as good as your half arsed words, I'd consider myself a writer.

I can see what you were pondering at the time Petty, but I don't follow it all. I think it's one of those personal bits of writing that are more for the author to himself than to the great wide world.

Of all the literature pondering life and death, the one I find I go back to every few years is "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius. It's just the personal notebook of a 2nd century Roman Emperor to himself about just such things. I find it comforting that so little has changed in almost 2000 years.

Glanced at it, looked deep: yelped and scurried out of the way.  

Will come back later, right now trying to figure something out, so would prefer to watch things mindlessly explode. Will go look at the US midterms election page - that should be the ticket.

Read it.  It had a chase scene, it had a death of someone not named, it had an impossibly beautiful woman...Petty: you've written an American movie.

 I hadnt thought of it like that.

If you could remove the deep and meaningful stuff, it would be an American movie. Evey now and then I write stuff like that. Is it a Universal Writers Urge? I didn't find it all that pretentious, just a mix of personal thoughts done creatively.   

I read it in a rather hurried way between doing something else, so the meaning of it may have slipped by me. The actual sequence of events was interesting at least. But I found it too jumbled to get the point across. As others have said in far better terms, it may be more a personal work.

To make proper judgment I need to know what you were doing, Forest.

Decided to bung this here as I dont think it warrants a whole thread for itself, and because I have a vague feeling I may have put it up before long ago but this mornings fog put me in mind of the incident.
I was also going to edit and tidy it up a bit, but instead I have decided to present it 'raw' as written at the time.
I wrote this about 6 years ago I think, must have been about that as it was when I stayed in my previous rather unpleasant and scummy flat block.
I set it down immediately following the events described-


The knock at the door was timid and with the tv hooked to the surround sound I only half heard it. I had been expecting a friend but had given up hope a good hour earlier that he was actually coming round, it would be unusual for him to come so late now. I hesitated; the neighbours were young, loud and offensive, the close often reeking of the cannabis smoke from their joints and homemade buckets. It had been unusually quiet tonight though, for a Saturday night.
I turned down the tv volume, waiting for a second knock to be certain of. Instead I heard footsteps going down the stairs in the hall outside my front door.
Thinking that there was still a chance it could be my friend I hurriedly got up and unbolted the door.
Glancing down and to my left I could see the stairwell leading down round the corner to the ground floor but no sign of anyone, but I heard the footsteps halt. The hall was dirty, cigarette butts littered it and discarded crisp packets, an empty bottle of Buckfast sat on the window sill where the stairs went round the corner. Cobwebs covered everything.
And then a voice drifted up, unexpected because it both had a frightened tremble in it and because it was a young girls voice.
A thin pale faced girl of maybe nine or ten years old came up the stairway. Her face was streaked with tears and indeed she was crying still and her arms were shaking as if cold or fearful.
"Can you help me?" she asked.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I'm r,really scared," she stammered and I detected an English accent in her voice, "I want my mother," she pleaded, "Do you have a phone?"
"No, sorry, at least not one with any credit in it," I replied and her face fell in fresh floods of tears.
"It's ok," I said, immediately trying to calm her, "What's scared you?"
"There's a noise in the flat," she said and it was plain she was absolutely terrified, nevertheless she had moved further up the stairs. I stepped out of my flat into the full glare of the close lit with its naked bulb so she could see me clearly and that I was not threatening her in any manner.
"I'm sure it'll be alright," I said, then realizing the implications of her fear asked, "Are you on your own?"
"Yes," she replied rather helplessly.
"It's ok. I'll come in and see what it is" I said.
I stepped across the hall to the facing door. At some point in the doors past someone had tried to force it open at the key hole and the metal all around it was buckled and battered. Indistinct graffiti, scratched or written in black pen was scrawled all over it.
I had never been in here before and I hesitated at the threshold. If her mother was to come back and find me in her flat with her ten year old daughter the wrong opinion could be formed, and with these people being how they were that would mean real, possibly life threatening consequences. But I could hear her sobbing behind me, hell I could feel her fear radiating from her. Any man that finds himself faced with such a choice, if he is a man, does not have choice. What else was I to do? Shut my door to her? Having thus reasoned myself to a decision with these arguments I went in and she followed cautiously a few paces behind.
The living room was sparse. There was a couch with a bundle of blankets on it in a heap and against one wall a heater with two red glowing bars, though the room was not warm. A large television set sat beneath the window. 'An Audience with Al Murray' was on, the comic barman was trying to entice three of Britain’s sleazier female tabloid fodder in his audience so say the word "filthy" to each other whilst he filmed them. The joke of course was a satire both of the barman character himself and of the British Institutions which these three upheld on their chests. I doubted a ten year old would understand that though.
"Where does the noise come from?" I asked, deciding it was better not to patronize her but to act until I knew otherwise as if the noise were real. I fully expected to find it would be real, just not malevolent.
She pointed towards the window repeating only again, "I want my mother."
I moved over to the window and leant in towards it. The garden outside was large and the road was therefore set back, but I could clearly hear the cars as they past in the dark up and down the hill outside. But apart from that I heard nothing else. I waited a moment or two then said, "It was most likely downstairs, they can be really noisy sometimes. Especially at the weekends."
She didn't reply but just shook her head negatively. I strained to hear anything which could have so scared her; the screech of an owl, or a wailing tom cat, but still nothing came. I opened the window to better hear and she must have thought I was doubting her for she suddenly said with an insistent passion, "It'll come."
I gave it a few more seconds then said, "What did it sound like?" I was just buying a bit more time for the noise to occur, I could sense she was getting worried I would not believe her.
"It was horrible. It was vibrating," she almost whispered.
Vibrating? That was odd. I put my hand onto the window ledge to see if I could feel any trembling. Just at that moment the fog horn from the distant shore sounded in the night. Blaring its' long, deep sonorous tone in warning across the misty water. Its resonance made the window sill vibrate in harmony with it beneath my fingers.
"There it is!" the girl squealed, "What is it?" she almost shrieked, seeming near to hysteria.
"It's ok," I said gently turning to her, "That's just the fog horn," I explained but she looked a little blank and I sensed she needed more, "It must be foggy on the sea, they blow the fog horn to the ships to warn them away from the rocks. It's ok. It perfectly normal, it’s supposed to sound like that."
Comprehension appeared in her widening eyes, "We don't have seas and things were I come from," she explained, wiping her tears away, "I've not been here long," I guessed she was probably feeling a little silly right now but it was not her fault, she should never have been left in here alone.
"It's a scary sound if you've never heard it before," I offered and was relieved to see a weak smile in response. Goodness knew with what fearful form her child’s imagination had clothed that strange, melancholy and foreboding noise with.
I was about to ask her how long her mother had been away when the blankets on the couch moved. I had not paid the furniture much heed up until now but crossing the room to it revealed my worst fears.
Underneath the heavy heap two toddlers were uncomfortably curled up, one at either end of the couch there legs partially entwined in the middle. The little boy who had thick dark hair had taken up the best parts of the couch, but the little girl at the other end had her head at an uncomfortable angle, her blonde hair held up in a pony tail was pressed awkwardly against the arm of it.
I could not believe anyone would leave a frightened ten year old in a strange place to look after two toddlers. I was incredulous, angry and filled with a sense of complete hopelessness all at once.
"Do you have a pillow anywhere?" I asked the girl.
She nodded and went out whilst I readjusted the blankets as best I could without waking the children.
When the pillow was brought through I gently raised the girls head and eased the pillow beneath it, she grunted a little but did not waken.
"Will you be ok now?" I asked.
"Yeah, but I still want my mum," she replied, and though no longer afraid she was no less sad.
"If you get scared again, or you have any problems with the little ones there, you come over and knock on my door. OK?" I said in the most reassuring voice I could.
"Ok", she nodded.
I went back out into the hall and she closed the door behind me. I opened my own door went inside and closed it behind myself and my heart was heavy. I realized I did not even know the little girls name, I had not asked though the thought had momentarily flashed through my mind. It was only now I realized why I had not asked. It had seemed too personal, as if it were somehow possibly open to misinterpretation for the same reason I hadn’t offered to sit with her until her mother came home. "What a society to have built. What a horrible world," I thought.
I sat gloomily on my own couch, Al Murray was entertaining me too tonight, right now he was getting humour at the expense of the French and as always, the British. I did not feel much like laughing any more though.
My cat (though in truth she is still only a kitten) leapt up onto my knee and I stroked the fur behind her ears and she purred happily, pressing the flat of her head up against the palm of my hand.
"At least I managed to rescue you, Kiera," I said affectionately, "it's a shame its not so easy with people."
In the end Al Murray did manage to raise a laugh in me before his rousing farewell and eventually I went to my bed with the video clock displaying 1:17am.
There were no more knocks at my door before bed but as I slipped into sleep her mother was yet to come home.

Very heart felt, & disturbingly all to common a problem. Its a wrestle of the conscience of to do or not to do. how far do you push your luck in getting a response from this girl before she clams up completely. Her fear of reprisals maybe more than her fear of you ? I truly believe we, (in general, as humans ) will never change. It sounds negative but, this behaviour has gone on before recorded time, no doubt, & will continue. A large degree of humans are selfish & thru being selfish comes bad things, bad things only ever happening to the innocent victims of the selfish persons actions. What to do ? how far to impose ? keep an eye out ( & an ear ) but, & this is were the sad part comes in, safe guard yourself ! people always want to throw rocks, they like to hear the worst, anything good or righteous is boring & for some unbelieveable.You spend more time proving your innocent then they do proving your guilty. As far as the right "authorities" to contact go, huh ! they are just not able or capable to help, at all ! sometimes animal instincts are all thats left. Selfish people are bullies, how do you counteract a bully ? we go back to logic & tactics. Cute fluffy kittens & puppies grab your attention & things are done to help, sometimes for others ( children, adults) its not like that at all. Humans are cruel, they are the cancer spreading over this planet, happily destroying all they see & touch. There are two types of human, one dedicated to saving all that is precious & loving nature etc, & one that truly does not. its ying & yang, good & evil, God & the Devil exist, they are us, every day.

Years ago I was walking along the road when a girl of about 5 or 6 fell off her bike on the pavement and landed badly with the bike coming down on top of her, and of course she started howling.
I was approaching her and there didn't seem to be anyone about, and as she was on a bike I didnt know where she had come from or far along the street. So naturally I stopped to check she was ok and not actually hurt. I didnt touch her, I just spoke to her and assessed her injuries by eye- a skinned knee and nothing worse- and was telling her it would be fine and asking her where she lived when her mother came hurling out a nearby front gate demanding I leave her daughter alone.
I tried to explain she had fallen of her bike and I was just seeing if she was ok, but the mother was having none of it and snapped the kid and the bike up like I was about to steal both and went in slamming the gate behind her.

Whats a modern man supposed to do? Walk on by passed a crying child out of fear your actions will be immediately misread if you stop?
And in a small town talk is dangerous. It didn't happen but all it could have taken would have been for that mother mentioning it to  someone else, and they sort of know me, or know someone in my family and then mention I'm in my forties and not married yet or even living with anyone, and little seeds get planted and weeds of gossip and rumour grow.
Its a real risk you run as a man in the paranoid pedophile infested modern world the media have made people believe in to stop to help a crying child. And that depresses me no end.

If we end up in a world where men are to afraid to even help an others child that they don't know, what view of men do those children grew up with? Dangerous strangers? Unfeeling and unmoved who walk on by and don't even stop to help when your hurt?
I grew up in a small village where even the people who didn't know you directly would always have stopped to help. Or to give you into trouble for doing something wrong.
I got more than one clout round the ear from adults who saw me up to some mischief, and then they'd march you home whereupon your dad would ask them what happened, they'd tell him, then your Dad would say 'Did you give him a clip round the ear for it?"
And when the answer came back yes, your Dad didn't get furious and phone the police on the person for assaulting their child, he said ' good, and I'll give him another one to remind him then offer the persona drink for their trouble.' (Worse if a woman saw you up no good, they didn't need to march you home, even in a time when almost no one had a house phone, somehow by some unseen woman village communication, your mum would already know everything you'd been seen doing by the time you got home, even if you ran)
What happened to that? When did we get scared of everyone and suspicious of them?

And I don't think its just because I lived in a village. One of my earliest memories is escaping my garden and going for a wander far from the house, and half way to the US Navy base on the shore front. Where I met a US Navy sailor coming the other way. He was the first black person I ever spoke to. Talked to him nonstop all the way apparently as he got out of me where I had come from and took me home.
I told that story recently to a woman in her mid twenties and she responded with the words "You were lucky."
Which says it all. I wasn't lucky. Luck implies the odds we stacked against me. But they weren't. the odds of me getting abducted by a wandering pedophile were infinitesimally smaller than the odds of me meeting a perfectly normal, decent human being who would find out where I lived and take me safely home.

Somewhere down the line we all got separated form each other, and made everyone we didn't know an immediate figure of suspicion. The tradition used to be that you gave the stranger the benefit of the doubt until you had cause to think otherwise. Now it seems the new tradition is to immediately suspect a likely threat from the stranger from the off. We think the worse of people people we consider the possibility of considering the better in them.

Um that ended up longer and more rambly than I meant but you have rather touched Azriel on an aspect of modern life I find deeply troubling for all its future ramifications.

- reading that story back I think I must have written it more than 6 years ago. I still had a video recorder! Also, I definitely wrote it during my period of HG Wells immersion, weirdly I can clearly see where his style has influenced the writing, particularly the style of In the Days of the Comet.

I agree with you Petts old bean ! I shake my head in the sadness for days gone by, for that is what they are, Gone by. there was trust when I was a child. me & my friends never thought of "bum boys", that resounding little nickname came to me about 1969 ? up till then the only one we feared was the local Bobby, we knew mum or dad would clobber us if we were caught scrumping fizzy pop by the crate from the back of the newagents, we knew instinctively that other 'grown ups' were gonna give us a dam good telling off but, not once did we think we'd get raped, rogered & dumped in the woods, mutilated beyond belief ! I was the same, chatted to all & sundry if they spoke to me but, the world IS different. People are easily brain washed, we know that. you tell a person often enough something ( anything) & they WILL accept & believe it till you have to brain wash it out of them.I agree some of the fault might be to do with the media. All they show is bad news, wouldnt it be great to hear GOOD news ? I now think thats so unlikely that its now absurd but why should it be ? I never watch TV now mainly for that reason ( plus Im a tight old jew who wont pay for the license !) We need re-education. we need to build up trust. I can imagine how hard & how it tugs at the conscience of a man who only wants to be a decent person & help ! Having support groups & charities aimed specifically at victims of crime merely highlights that there is crime out there you need protecting from, & whilst that IS a good thing so that people know they can get help now & arent abandoned, laughed at, ostracized etc its also sending a message that this is all that goes on in life & Men are at the root of it. Sadly, some men ARE. When I was a LOT younger, I believed men were protectors, an arm to shield you, you could respect & admire & trust a man.Marriage or partnership was sharing & pulling together & you were happy to do so even if times were shit, you were in it together. Now, its arse about face.We are constantly on the look out for "weird ones". Schools drum it in, police do school visits, Mum & dad remind you before you go out with your mates, let alone the media ! So yeah, times are certainly different ! You got me ranting now you haggis swinging Scotshobbit you !

nice story Petty. I always think true stories resonate more than fiction, if you write about true experiences somehow it feels real to the reader and I guess thats what makes for good writers. Write about what you know or something that really happened but slightly changed makes for more interesting stories I reckon. Truth is sometimes weirder and more wonderful and heartfelt, than fiction.

Excellent point Mrs. Figg!
I read this short story of yours Petty some time ago, and it didn't particularly grab me.
But your paragraphs about your experiences with strangers and community and growing up and seeing things change was interesting and made me think about life. The difference is pretty great, and not only because of how abstract your short story is.
I think it's just how people work: when you hear something that has actually happened, or sounds like it actually happened, you react more strongly to it than if the person is inventing some story about something they have little real experience with.

Thanks Figg.
I suspect myself, you and Azriel probably sound like a lot of old farts pining for the good old days to the youngsters on here!


I think when you write from experience it definitely gives an extra depth to what you write.
I often write short pieces like that about actual events that happen, as they can be utilized later.
That piece could for example easily be incorporated into a bigger story, some spooky tale set in the flat block or something perhaps.
The writers equivalent of an artists sketchbook where you try to capture a moment or a mood or a feeling and worry about how to use it later.


Forest are you referring to the first play or the second short story when you say abstract? The first definitely is, but I would not have thought the short story to be abstract.

Yeah, I do let my old noggin float back to a past time, but thats what memories are & why they are called "memories". I dont think anytime is better, each period may look grand but, underlying it people are still the same, its only fashion that changes ! the outside shell of humanity, ie: we now have hybrid cars, they had horses or donkeys, stuff like that. In the future todays yobs ( )...(love you really ) will be saying " remember when we had fiber optic internet ! pfft "...." cars that ran on water ?"......and will the future generations be the same self absorbed, greedy, lustful,bullying, nit pickers etc that are here today ??.... I guess so. Maybe the "do gooders" will out weigh them, the "save the planet " brigade, Things seem to move in cycles so, praps good manners, pride, wanting to be more resourceful & helpful might swing back, for a while.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:
Forest are you referring to the first play or the second short story when you say abstract? The first definitely is, but I would not have thought the short story to be abstract.

Well of course it's abstract! I read it as an attempt to put into metaphorical terms the abstraction of society and devaluation of moral normalcy amid geopolitical turbulence and restratification!


No I had missed that short story. I guess I should read through old threads all the way to check what I might have missed next time.

{{{And yes it does smack of nostalgia around here}}}

I am not nostalgic. the 70s and 80s were a bit shit, apart from the music and kids being allowed to be kids.

I am not nostalgic about the past! Except for when I am.
-Mrs. Figg


{{{just teasing}}}