Blueborough

An Unillustrated Guide to Monsters

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:46:21 GMT

This was supposed to be the spiritual follow up to One Day for Maria as everyone loved it so much... not that you would realise from the results.
Originally it was about the narrator (Samantha) going to meet her boyfriend, finding out he was cheating, and somehow finding a positive side involving crows trying to protect her or something. Yes, that makes no sense. In reality, I was just watching crows outside the window, and decided I wanted to write something involving them, and somehow THAT was what I came up with. Those who read the draft might remember the boyfriend thing; that was a hangover from the initial idea. It's not there any more though; the ending's been totally rewritten since then.

There were certain things in the submitted version that I wanted to change before posting it. I did change a few things, but I got a bit lazy. I couldn't quite remember some of the things I wanted to fix, or rather I couldn't remember HOW I was going to fix them, so I left those as is, so it might feel a tad cumbersome in places, I'm afraid. I'll fix it some day.

Oh, yes. In case you're interested the title was originally 'An Illustrated Guide to Monsters', which was lifted from the name of one of the Napple Tale soundtracks (the other is 'An Illustrated Guide to Faeries', in case you're wondering). It got changed to Unillustrated a bit later, because I thought it was silly to call it that when it didn't have illustrations. It was also a title I was going to give something else, but somehow it fit this better.

Anyway, enjoy, I guess.

An Unillustrated Guide to Monsters

A flock of crows lives around my block of flats. Well, not my block of flats obviously. The block of flats where I live, that’s where the flock of crows live. I’m sorry, that’s incorrect as well, isn’t it, on two counts? I’m supposed to say ‘murder’. Mind you, no normal person would say that; it’s a flock of crows. Beyond that, that second thing I said is somehow incorrect too, as it makes it sound like the crows live in the block of flats. They don’t live in the flats, though that could be funny; they could rent the flat next door where old Mrs Prowse lived until she died, then they would have their own little mailbox in the foyer, and if we were to meet on the landing, we could engage in awkward conversation.
Getting back, they live around the block of flats; that is, outside. At least, I assume it’s outside that they live, I guess they might have a little hidey-hole somewhere that would qualify as indoors, within the block of flats, but I don’t know about that, I’ve never seen them indoors, wandering around the hallway.
I often see these crows out and about should I decide to look out my window for whatever reason someone might have to look out their window; off hand, I can’t think of any reason why anyone would look out of a window, unless there was a fire across the street or something like that, you know? Though you probably wouldn’t see any crows in that case anyway; they reckon crows are really, really smart, so they’d be off like a shot, rather than standing around gawking out the window like you or me. More to the point, sometimes I feed them, because you’re supposed to feed birds. Mary Poppins said so, and she should know; that is to say, she said so in the film. Mrs Prowse, on the other hand, she never liked me feeding the crows, much like evil Mary Poppins from the book probably wouldn’t. The joke’s ultimately on her though, what with her being dead and all. As awesome as her death could be, with the crows busting on in through the window and wrecking up the place like a bunch of teenagers might in a story from The Daily Mail, then proceeding to get all ‘Tippi’ Hedren on her, in real life she slipped and fell in shower, bashing her brains on the tap. You know those stories where some oldie slips in the shower and dies, and then they’re found days, weeks, months later all swollen up like one of those packets of mozzarella that you buy, but you keep forgetting to use, so it just sits around in the fridge getting bigger and bigger, until I assume it explodes (I’ve never kept one long enough to find out), on account of them having left the water running? It wasn’t like that. How boring, wouldn’t you agree? No, she slipped getting out of the shower, so the water was off. Furthermore, they got to her in about a few minutes; they could’ve at least waited until she started to smell. Then again, I did say she died, but that could be a lie, come to think. It happened a couple of months ago; an ambulance was called, and she went off to the hospital. I haven’t seen her since, and I don’t really feel the need to check up on her.
Anyway, I have a story about these crows: it was some day… which day was it? I think it was Saturday, the one where it was sort of foggy; not bad foggy, mind you. It was one of those days where the fog’s forever something like a hundred metres away on any given side, no matter where you are (I don’t know how far away exactly it seems, but a hundred metres sounds fairly plausible, right? Anyway, the point is, it’s was near enough for me to see down the road, but not down other roads… or something like that). This was Saturday, right? It was the day that guy fell under the train. You know, he was actually my boss; that thing’s eating up all the space in the local paper. It’s getting quite boring. I did actually see him before that, you know, but I’ll get to that later; I hate it when someone telling a story goes off on lots of tangents, don’t you?
Anyway, it was that day that was probably Saturday, and I was going to go to town to buy some bread. Mama always said that it’s silly to do your shopping on a Saturday if you can help it, as it’s always really, really crowded in town, but I like going about my business when it’s busy, because, you see, it makes it seem like I’m living in some sort of huge city; it’s pretty romantic, no? Though Papa doesn’t like me living on my own (actually, Mama didn’t either, but it doesn’t really affect her anymore), he doesn’t really think I’m up for it, and should have stayed at home with him; back in the day, it was “so I could look after Mama” or something of that ilk, though with her gone, I wonder why he’d want me there?
Anyway, so you see, I was off to the supermarket. I couldn’t go to the local one though, because it’s closed. They’re refurbishing it. Apparently it’s because there’s asbestos in the ceiling and some guy died as a result… tenuously. I expect he died somewhere else. He could’ve gotten sick from going to the hospital or his kids’ school or something; Asbestos doesn’t bother me, as I don’t go to either of those places. But they’re rejigging the whole ceiling anyway, just to be safe unless a fire breaks out. Anyway, I had to go to the next closest one; lots of people go there anyway, because it’s one of those big ones. It sells clothes, and pots and pans, and all that sort of stuff. I hate it actually, it’s so… unintimate. If you’re going to try and die there, you’d have a hard time. They have trained staff on hand to help; I saw it, because this woman once fell in the fruit aisle. It was made painfully unexciting. No tension. No drama. Zip.
To get to this place, though, I have to take the train. Well, I could take a taxi, or something, but people who take taxis to the supermarket are weird, don’t you think? No, I take the train, like any normal person, or any normal person who can’t drive. So anyway, I took my bag and coat and all that, and took off to the train station and the supermarket beyond.
I’d just left the flats, and I was making my way to the train station, as I’ve said I was, when, all of a sudden, crows came and fluttered all around me. It startled me quite a bit and made me drop my handbag, and all my stuff fell out. On the average Saturday afternoon, it takes precisely nine minutes to walk from the flat to the station. I’ve timed it lots of times, so on a Saturday like this one, I always set off twelve minutes before my train, so I can get my tickets and that; although this time, I set off an extra minute earlier, because I had to post some letters for my boss. Now I had dropped my stuff, like my purse and my chequebook and the letters and the compact that Nana gave me that I don’t use, but I have to carry it just in case, you know; she said it was lucky or something like that. She had it with her on the night she got engaged. I guess she wouldn’t have gotten engaged if she didn’t have it with her or something; I don’t know why though. Maybe she had terrible skin or something. She was old, so I wouldn’t notice. It seems to me there are better people she could have given the thing to if it is lucky, like my brother or something, so he wouldn’t have had his ‘across the street’ slip up. Anyway, I had to pick everything up before all the people in the street trod all over them; it was quite a nuisance and took me a good minute or so, so I knew I’d have to try and get to the station super fast.
So I did the sensible thing and picked up the pace, weaving in between all those sorts of people who mill around town on a Saturday, like Krishnas and giggly teenage girls and that. This was pretty hard work, as town was packed, which I suppose brings me back to Mama’s claims about town on a Saturday; I can’t really remember if she was prone to dropping stuff. I suppose it might explain her aversion to busy places though. Then when I least expected it, the crows had another go at me. I stumbled and, wham, my foot went headlong, or maybe heel-long would be better, into a grate and my shoe got stuck. Ah, it was so embarrassing; I had a bit of a go at trying to get it out of there, but only managed to break the heel off. I would have gotten really angry, but by now the train was going to be at the station at any second, so I just let the shoe go and wound up sprinting to the station barefoot.
I finally made it to the station two minutes late, but by the most fantastic coinky-dink, the train was running four, so I just had time to get myself a ticket and make my way to the platform. There, waiting for the train, was my boss from work, Mr Eccleston. He’s always coming in late, fresh from his eighties power breakfast, like Papa used to be into. It was rather less annoying at the time for me, but now I think I feel bad for his staff, wherever they are. You know, this one time, he had this lunch date with his wife, and he wanted to blow it off in order to go out with some girl from accounting, so he had me delete the thing from his agenda and deny it ever being there. Then when the time came to face her, he shifted the blame onto me and my “incompetence”. Honestly, what a nuisance; my poor CV. Ah, I put in so much work, and live on bread and cheese, like some turn of the century type (actually, I like bread and cheese, I eat it through choice, but that’s beside the point); where does he, with his naughty sherbet and champagne, get off? …Or rather did he get off? But I’m a polite sort, so I conversed with him properly as you do. Then (wouldn’t you know it?) the crows came back again in force. They were making a super effort this time, I swear they were like pulling at my dress and everything; I thought it would rip, and it was expensive, and in all the confusion, it’d seem they knocked poor Mr Eccleston onto the tracks and under the train. Ordinarily, this would be a fascinating sight, I’m sure you would agree, but I was growing quite weary with delays to my trip to the supermarket.
Ah, there was such a commotion around there then. Everyone else was over-reacting like they were mad or something. You’d think they had never seen a dead body before. Mind you, going under a train is quite an annoying way to die. It inconveniences everybody, don’t you think? I mean I just wanted to buy some bread, something that was already made excessively awkward, but now I couldn’t get the train either. No, it’s such a hassle; lots of points for style, but none for forward thinking. If you simply have to die, you should be more considerate about it, like my brother was. He just used a knife, like any normal person would; mind you, he made a bit of a mistake, they do say about going “down the road, not across the street”, but it was his first time and all, so I forgave him, even if it took an age and he did ruin my favourite dress. All the Stain Devil in the world couldn’t seem to get that much out, or so Mama said; I half expect she just didn’t want me wearing it. She was no fun. She and everyone else got all upset; people are so selfish, don’t you think? I mean, whose happiness, is it? Not that Mr Eccleston really had much of a say in his, but it was all very annoying none the less. People were all milling about and getting in the way, and shoving, and screaming, and I think I lost my hat around then. Maybe it was more when the crows attacked me, or when the train came along? That’s rather unimportant, though it was a nice hat; I got it in Italy after I got my A-levels. It was all very hot, as it was summer, so I decided I had to buy a nice hat; now I’ll never see that hat again.
Anyway, by now I was getting frustrated, so I ran off and got the bus to the supermarket. I finally got there an hour or so later, at something like four o’clock, and they were all out of fresh bread already, you know, so I had totally wasted a day. It struck me then that maybe that was what the crows were doing, and trying to tell me about. I mean, they do say crows are smart, right?

XX/YY/ZZZZ: Ms Samantha Stahlbaum, age 29, was brought into police custody as part of the inquisition into the death of Mr Edward Eccleston on WW/YY/ZZZZ, to whom she was a secretary. Ms Stahlbaum was seen with Mr Eccleston in the period immediately preceding his death, and was seen hastily evacuating the scene. According to information gleaned from her co-workers, she has been alleged to harbour animosity towards her employer; it is claimed that foreign objects, such as drawing pins, have been found located in food delivered to him. However, such claims have yet to be proven, and no charges were filed at the supposed time of incident. However the deceased was confirmed to have been receiving death threats postmarked around the area of her residence, and she is thusly suspected of playing a role in his demise.

© Niall Somerville 2008

The Tale of the Maiden who wore a Mermaid

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 01:53:44 GMT

Un-friends-only-ed now that LJ-gate is apparently over for the time being.

I've been meaning to upload something for a while, but haven't really written anything new, so instead here's some old crap!
This was supposed to be all fairy tale-ish, but the tutor at uni didn't like it. In retrospect, I don't really much either.
Among other things, I was told that it wasn't enough of a "myth rewriting", which wasn't actually a concept that we had covered at that point in the course, but anyway the gist which seemed to be that you aren't allowed to write new myth/folklore/marchen styled things, you can only rewrite existing myths/folklore/marchen (a la Angela Carter or the Shrek movies... and I just compared the late Angela Carter's work to Dreamworks'; I am shocked and appalled with myself). Personally, I call this a crock (so, it would seem, would they're beloved Angela Carter, seeing as the Magic Toyshop is labelled as a fairy tale, which while using lots of marchen-esque plot devices isn't derived from any specific existing ones).
To be fair, this doesn't really use many fairy tale devices, nor does it really have the language down I don't think; rather it's a series of over-romanticised descriptions and imagery leading up to a silly punchline (which was the bit the tutor liked). Actually, if I think of it like it like that, it's not that bad...

So yes, bad marchen, decent joke.
Well, anyway:

The Tale of the Maiden who wore a Mermaid

At last, at last, at last it was hers.
A shaft of light came in from the window to illuminate it, and oh how it sparkled. She knew it was by far the most frivolous purchase she was ever likely to make, but it was so beautiful; her dress made of genuine mermaid scales. Yes, with this pretty piece of wonderment, this fantastic phantasm of the bourgeoisie, an ordinary woman such as her could be catapulted into the glistening world of the beautiful.
She would catch everyone’s eye, and word of her beauty would spread throughout the land. It mattered not that her savings were lost, nor that she had to live on porridge until such a time when it would happen; this was a small price to pay in order to escape her dire state; that of a girl trapped in a charmless and dirty country burg. No, no, of this she was well aware, and so she was not at all concerned. Her desire to escape to the glamorous realm of the lords and the ladies that it was no blow to spend her life savings and miniscule inheritance upon a dress of such a fine and rare material. One gets what one pays for, and she wasn’t about to scrimp and save on that!

And so it was that word did spread, not just across this land but across the neighbouring countries too, of the maiden in the glistening dress. They said it was made of the hide of a mermaid and that it was sure to grant the girl a long life and eternal beauty, much like the old wives’ tale about mermaid flesh. Some chose to run further with this story and say that she made it herself from a beached mermaid she found on the lake. Some took it upon themselves to run even further with it and claim that she herself was a mermaid in human guise. And some people were cynics and said that there was no such thing as a mermaid and that the whole thing was silly.
Anyhow, she was delighted at the impact she had had on the world around her, and her joviality reached its zenith when she was invited to the royal court to meet, of all people, the crown prince of the realm. She arrived at the palace that evening and crowds gathered to see the famed maiden in the siren’s dress, so many that the guards had to hold them back and escort her in to the palace and to the prince. Oh, how happy she was when she arrived in the court. The lords and ladies all watched her intently, and there, in the middle of the floor, was the handsome prince of our realm. She glided gracefully up his royal highness and curtseyed in the daintiest of manners…

…To which he responded: “Can you smell fish?”

© Niall Somerville 2007

The Gift

Thu, 17 May 2007 01:33:33 GMT

Formerly known as 'Allegro Cantabile', this is the other thing I submitted the semester just gone.

The story to behind this one is... different, I guess; Once upon a time, madamluna had to write some kind of sort story from a load of suggested plots. And they were all a bit lame.
This is my warping of a particular suggestion, as mentioned.

The first draft went down a treat with other people when it was read in class. And the tutor, for some reason, thought I'd spent a ton of time on it, as opposed to writing it in a couple of hours... at around 1 a.m. I have no idea why.
As such, a few drafts later, it went on to be the weak link of my 2nd semester portfolio.
...no, wait, that's a bad thing.

Well, anyway...-

The Gift

Aunt Joan left us her house, and a fine house it is too. For a childless spinster, the old girl did pretty well for herself, I would say, and we’re all eternally grateful for everything she’s done for us. So now we live here in her old house, the three of us… I suppose that’s a lie, we lived here anyway as she took us in a while back. We had no where else to go, so it seemed like a decent idea to us all at the time.

Every morning, Sophie goes out with Pete to earn money, while I stay home and look after the house; cooking, and cleaning, and protecting it from invaders who want to take it from us and all that. Her preferred way of working is to steal people’s wallets and take their cash, though she reckons less people are carrying money with them now, so it’s not as profitable as it used to be. I did suggest she turn the wallets in to the police afterwards in hope of a reward, but she said that they’d get suspicious of someone who stumbles on lost, empty wallets on a day to day basis. Her technique is to just drop them again afterwards in the vague area where she took them. I was never any good at pickpocketing, so it makes sense that I’m the one who has to stay home. I have no problem with that though, it’s like we’re a married couple or something. I did joke about this with her, but she was all “you’re an idiot, Will”. I can but dream, I guess.
In the evening, when they come back, Pete and I generally go shopping with the money she’s earned, leaving her to hold down the fort. Pete doesn’t like staying in the house much. I would say “anymore”, but I don’t think he liked being there much even when Aunt Joan was there as she was pretty mean to him.
Ironically I suppose he’s one of the main factors as to why we moved in with her in the first place; he’s not really cut out for our old life. He’s pretty frail seeming… sensitive… roughing it, living for the day; we could see him trying to, but it was clearly taking its toll. He needs some sort of stability in life, rather than that. I suppose life here with Aunt Joan was that if nothing else. As deeply as she disapproved of Sophie’s and my behaviour under her roof (the one time she did catch us, it seemed as though the world was about to end; after that, we avoided her wrath with careful planning and some self-control), she was more actively bothered by his apparent weakness, and saw fit to try and put some sense into him whenever something happened, like if he wet the bed or if he started crying for whatever reason, say from falling down the stairs or something like that. The day she left though, we found him huddled in the corner, caked in vomit, sobbing. He won’t go in that room anymore.

After a week or so, I managed to get the smell out of the room. We don’t actually use it anymore, seeing as Pete refuses to go in there point blank, but it could seem strange to someone who got in somehow if it smelt as bad as it did, so I felt determined. (I’m here most of the day, so I suppose it’d be my fault if someone did sneak in somehow, of course though I’m ever vigilant, so it’s never happened on my watch.) I also got the stains off of the floor and walls, more or less. I worked solidly at that. The lace doilies weren’t so lucky; we hid them with the woodpecker bookend…
If push comes to shove, we’ll probably have to start trying to sell off the old furniture and ornaments. Aunt Joan seemed to have quite poor taste, so I don’t know how much luck we would have selling her ornaments. There are a lot of china figures; china figures of deformed looking children. I have to wonder who in their right mind would buy such crap. I guess there’s a market for it though, which is a scary thought in and of itself. Sophie said she had a look in town at them and they were expensive, and therefore Joan must have had quite a lot of money hidden away somewhere; “if only there were a way to get at that, then we’d be set for a while,” she says. I suppose we’ll be living on her findings and whatever’s leftover until then, or until she relents and says we can start pawning stuff; when I suggested selling the figures and china and all that, she said it could be viewed as suspicious. The bookend… It was on TV, or something like it, wasn’t it? (Sophie says yes) Professor Yaffle. That’s what it was; the bookend in the bedroom. It was pretty nice, pretty heavy. Pete broke it though. That could’ve fetched a pretty penny, I’m sure. I’m very nearly tempted to dig it out to try and fix it and sell it, but to do that would be even worse than selling the other ornaments, as it got stained too. We panicked when we found it like that, Sophie and I. There were some loose floorboards in the room, so we hid it under them, along with some other things.

Anyway, as it is now things are barely a step above our old life; we have a home now, but Sophie had to go back to doing what she does best, although with the climate changing, I sort of worry. She vaguely talks about how she might have to change tack; take ‘that’ up, which would upset me more than anything. A cruel part of me reckons that if anyone should have to resort to it, it should be Pete for breaking the bookend and getting us into this situation in the first place; it’s not as if he seems good for anything else anyway; but then I remember that I have to be forgiving, although it’s hard sometimes.
That day when we found him like that, there was a lot of screaming and yelling; I think he wet the bed again. In all honesty, I think her reaction to it only made it worse. She would have a go at him, and he would get upset, so she would get even worse, upsetting him even more, eventually culminating in her giving him a clout for his childishness. She came in to wake us up for breakfast and found him, so Sophie and I made a hasty retreat to the kitchen. There were times before when we tried to help him, but it only ever made things worse for all concerned, so later on we just went off and ate. The noise filled the house, and we just carried on as if nothing was happening. Then it just ended all of a suddenly with a thud. It was strange, but we just kept on going. Maybe we were just scared to go see. It was a good half hour or so before we decided to look in. Aunt Joan was gone, and Pete was in the corner, foetal position, with vomit down his front and blood spatters all over, and the Yaffle bookend on the floor, sans head, covered in blood.
We didn’t know what to do, but Sophie said that we had to do something. I took him to get cleaned up, while she hid the bookend and anything else that seemed too stained, like the doilies, the tablecloth, a couple of the books and his clothes, under the floorboards. From there, we were at a loss.

In the end, I came up with the idea. I cut it up, I cleaned it and I cooked it. Sophie was desperate, Pete was distraught, I had to do something, we had to get rid of it somehow and it was the first thing that I could think of. It’s a horrible thought, but it was all we could think of at the time. Pete wouldn’t touch it at first, but as it was all that we could offer he eventually came round. He knew it was all for him really, and we were trying our best to sort it out, to protect him, but I suppose it was most difficult for him overall. We picked it clean, and put all that was left with everything…
The decapitated woodpecker, the crimson arabesque in lace, the bloodied Harlequins, three battered Hummels’ proof of evil… poor Aunt Joan… she really did have awful taste.

© Niall Somerville 2007

One Day for Maria

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:51:55 GMT

I meant to do this a couple of days ago, but whatever. My portfolio's back, so here for your viewing(?) pleasure(??) is One Day for Maria once again. For the curious, actually my tutor's response was more favourable than it was originally, despite not much overall being changed (notably the ending she didn't like originally is totally intact). Yay!

Ordinarily, I'd put in more background blurb than is necessary here, but I have a stomach ache at time of writing so I can't be bothered, so I'll some it up in bullet points for convenience for all concerned.
- The orchestra idea (and its location) came from a dream. I found it amusing, so I wanted to use it.
- The title comes from a song; it's the theme song to the film Tamala 2010. That's pretty much irrelevant though, as I haven't seen the film, and only heard snippets of the song. I just wanted to use it as the title for something though.
- As such, they both got rolled together.
- It needed an actual plot though; the resulting one likely being inspired by Nodame Cantabile, which I was following intently at the time (I've slacked about though; I've only seen to about episode 7. I really need to watch the rest.).

Okay, with that out of the way, on with the show!

One Day, for Maria

My grandfather told me that you go down the high street from the book shop, through the terminal scaffolding of the old town hall and all the way to the little bridge over the disused canal. From there you should swim down to the south-south-east for a couple of hundred yards until you reach the overgrowth covered lock, then you should climb out (ideally on your left as there are stinging nettles on the right) and just past the lock is the clubhouse; the clubhouse of the Imitation Dog Orchestra.
Therein you will find the Impresario, one Claus Fitzclarence, and his child bride, April, and, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and alternate Thursdays, his marvellous, magnificent orchestra. The I.D.O., as they like to abbreviate it, is a long standing traditional music society, founded by the Fitzclarence family in 1851 and has been headed up by them ever since. The founder, Sir Henry Fitzclarence, I believe had hoped it would skyrocket him to national acclaim, but alas their debut was overshadowed by the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, condemning them to relative obscurity. When asked about it, Claus will say something to the tune of “of course though, we’re still here. That’s not.” I suspect they’re responsible.
But, I hear you ask, but what is the Imitation Dog Orchestra? The name should tell you all you need to know, but should it not, I will tell you. They are group of people who imitate dogs and perform a capella. If we get into semantics, they are therefore an opera society rather than an orchestra. You should not mention this fact to Claus should you value your knees. While their ideals were originally “music (to use the term loosely) for all”, following their lack of success back in the day they are now more of an esoteric society; reclusive while not performing. The reason for this is apparently because an old impresario couldn’t get into the Freemasons, so he just turned the I.D.O. into his own secret society. Of course though, it was not for this reason that I paid them a visit.

Everyone has one talent. Mine is that I can juggle. This isn’t the talent I want though; I’d much rather have a musical talent. I’ve tried to take up some instruments before now; the piano, the guitar, even the glockenspiel, but it’s never worked out. I’ve been accused of giving up too soon, but that only begs the question of “how soon is too soon”. When are you allowed to say “I can’t do this” without being called a quitter?
Why do I want musical talent so badly? That’s a good question, isn’t it? I know the answer, but I don’t think it’s a very good one. In fact, I think it’s downright pathetic, but if you’re still interested, it’s for that person. What person? That person with the long auburn hair, with the pale skin, with the green eyes hidden behind the thick frames; the pretty cellist and my star of the music academy. Name? Is a detail you really need? But that is why I hope to find some sort of flair for music hidden within myself. If I can do that, perhaps she might take notice of me. Perhaps she will like me, perhaps she will laugh at me, but in the end, so long as I can make her happy, it’s alright.
This all leads us neatly back to the I.D.O. I have no hidden talent for instruments, nor for singing, so my only hope now, it seems, is that I might have buried within me some skill at imitating dog noises to a tune. This may sound to you like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel, and, well, you would be right; but the road is still one that I haven’t walked, so I must try and pursue it.

Claus is a strange man. I had expected him to be old and sort of creepy, I suppose. An eccentric old man of the variety that has no concept of sexual harassment laws, if that makes sense at all. Instead however he’s some sort of ruggedly handsome type in his mid-twenties and a devoted husband to his very-nearly-jailbait. He seemed quite enthused by my interest in joining, if a bit suspicious. I suppose you would be if someone suddenly turned up, sopping wet in an algae covered suit, to your secret yet profoundly moronic society and demanded to join, so I tried to explain my situation to him and why I wanted to join his stupid orchestra. There were a couple of false starts here, as I felt I should try and disguise my motivations and make it seem like I actually care about pretending to be a dog and warbling out classical music. It didn’t really work, so in the end I told the truth. He seemed to be a proud man, so I thought he might get mad about it, but instead he seemed oddly delighted.
“Well, my boy,” he said, ignoring that he’s only a few years older than myself, “that is splendid. Yes, yes, that’s why most people join. And it works too. How do you think I met my wife?”
I resisted the urge to say “through being an old money public school boy”.
He continued: “Yes, we could do with some new members. Some of the older ones keep dying on us. Incredibly poor show, wouldn’t you agree?” I nodded to humour him. “Yes, why, it was just this morning, wasn’t it, darling? We got a phone call from old Mrs Russell saying that her husband couldn’t make it to practice tomorrow or the day after. Coronary thrombosis apparently; terribly selfish, no? He was our toy poodle and had been for since my grandfather’s time as impresario in the 40s. So now we’re in a bit of a tight spot, what with needing a new toy poodle and all. Not that I’m saying you can be our new toy poodle obviously. Have you been practicing dog howling long?”
I shook my head; I think I could feel it haemorrhaging as I did it.
“Ah, well. It takes many years to perfect the sound of a toy poodle, so I fear that may be out of your league. Old Mr Russell was a natural at it, which I suppose is to be expected having done it for a good 60 years; few people could live up to him. Why, he could do it all. A toy poodle howling from loneliness, from hunger, from being run over by a combine harvester; marvellous, he was. But I’m sure we probably have other roles that need to be filled; you’ll need to audition though, of course. We can’t just give dogs to just anybody who wanders in off the canal. April-Darling, what positions do we need filled?”
She came up with a list: Red Setter, Shiba Inu, German Shepard, Belgian Shepard, Swiss Shepard (apparently they’re each subtly different), West Highland Terrier, Irish Wolfhound and, of course, the aforementioned Toy Poodle.
“Well, young feller-me-lad,” he said, “let’s get to it, shall we?”
And so my humiliation commenced.

That was all six months ago. She’s still working hard on her violoncello; I’m amazed she needs to work as hard as she does given how good she is at it already, but she keeps it up. It’s truly admirable. I got a spot on the orchestra as shiba inu. I feel an idiot, but Claus says that I’m a natural. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Today, we’re performing a special concert in the park for charity. I could make a point about how if the Fitzclarences are so rich, why don’t they just give away their money to the needy, but that would be wrong. Instead I’m just going along with it, imitating a dog and howling to the tune of Pomp & Circumstance. I’m sure Elgar’s grave could be used to power a small city, what with all the spinning he’s doing.
It was I’m sure a foolish, foolish idea, joining the I.D.O. in order to win her heart. I can imagine her laughing away at me, at the moron who has no musical talent and has to content himself pretending to be a shiba inu belting out Blumenwaltzer. Ah, I can feel myself burning a bright red whenever we perform; I have to close my eyes and try and imagine I’m somewhere, anywhere, else.
I decided I’d take a chance today, so I’ve opened my eyes for a bit, and I noticed her. She’s there in the crowd, watching. Oh, for the want of a heart attack. She’s not laughing though, she’s smiling; a soft kind sort of smile. Is she smiling at the act? I think she might be smiling at me, but I’m not sure. I never can be really, but maybe Claus was right when he said that it worked. I don’t know, but I’m sure I will one day, for Maria.

© Niall Somerville 2007

Constantine's intro (Director's Cut! ^^;;)

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:34:49 GMT

Ahoy! I've been a bit thin on writings lately, so here's some old crap to act as filler until I write something new, or get my portfolio for the semester back... whichever comes first. I wanted to upload the only other piece of writing of mine that's on my Deviant Art account, so here it is! With Extras! ...or rather an extra!

This is part of a sci-fi-ish story I am/was writing. I still come up with ideas for it sometimes, therefore meaning I haven't abandoned it completely, so it's almost like I'm still writing it, right? Right? No. No, it isn't. I'll write more at some point I'm sure.
Anyway, yes, sci-fi...-ish. This isn't really sci-fi; I want to try and avoid including any psuedo-science, but I'm a bit crap with regards to real science, so I figure the issue can be avoided completely by keeping all science to a minimum. I'm sure this is a terrible approach to writing. Then again, the whole story's a bit crap, and I'll probably regret posting it in a couple of days. Oh, well, la-di-da.
This is actually the second story written in this non-sci-fi world; it'd probably make more sense to post that one first, but... uh... it isn't exactly finished. It's more or less done, it just really needs wrapping up; I'll do it some day, there's some other stuff I want to finish up first though.

Anyway 2: Electric Boogaloo, I suppose I should explain the universe or concept a bit before getting into the story, what with it throwing you in the deep end and all. Ostensibly, Armageddon occurred about a century ago, scorching the land and all that. As a result, the church gets more attention and thus power, like back in the day. Despite this, everyone seems to be carrying on as normal, much to the chagrin of a certain character, who seems to long for them to be trampled at its feet, so as she can save them.
...Why's it set in France? Uh... because. To be honest, the original idea was dream based, and for some reason, all the writing in the dream was French. This seemed like a good enough reason to me.

(Constantine's Intro (working title))

Constantine was once a sullen boy, who lived a plain and relatively easy life in a northern fishing village with his aunt and uncle. His father was a member of the navy and had left with a crusade a couple of years prior, and he never saw him again. Several months after his father’s departure, his mother, for reasons unknown to him at the time, suddenly up and committed suicide, resulting in this living arrangement.

He wasn’t at all enamoured with his life with his new guardians; indeed, they had lost their own child a few of years before his arrival and, by an odd coincidence, he bore a resemblance. As a result, it wasn’t uncommon for him to be called “Richard” in moments of absentmindedness. Suffice to say, this made his stay all the more uncomfortable, due to a feeling that they thought of him as their own son come back in the form of Constantine. This was made all the more obvious, to him at least, with their apparent feelings that he and their late son had much in common. Richard had a number of interests; he was learning to play the guitar, and was fond of things such as sports and bird-watching. All Constantine did really was read; even back when he lived with his parents he didn’t enjoy an active lifestyle. Whenever he had met with his cousin, it always struck him how irritatingly happy-go-lucky and energetic he was, a fact compounded by his diary, which Constantine made a special effort to seek out very shortly after he moved in. It struck him as a good thing that he had died, or else his life would be made all the more miserable by having to associate with him on a day to day basis. While Richard was ever eager to help with his father’s fishing, Constantine preferred to have as little to do with fish as possible, and actively refused to help his uncle with such affairs. As a result, he wound up helping, in the loosest sense, his aunt run the fishmongers, above which they lived; ironically, this quite probably having more physical contact with fish than actually fishing for them.

His aunt didn’t seem terribly fond of being a fishwife either; indeed, she would have rathered she could have had a nice job surrounded by pretty things, such as a job in a flower shop or a jewellers or perhaps even a café, but alas she fell in love with a fisherman some twenty years ago, and so her fate was sealed; after all, when charming gentlemen from the city come to seduce fair village maidens, the fishmongers is rarely high on the list of places they choose to stop by. The idea that she could set out on her own apparently failed to come to her.

The town itself wasn’t much to his liking either. The town had expanded from the seaside to about a kilometre over the sea in a rather desperate attempt to get closer to the best fishing zones. This didn’t strike him as being terribly safe, but more than that its incessant bobbing up and down made him feel quite ill. On the positive side, the fishmonger’s had been passed down from generation to generation long prior to this expansion, so he didn’t have to experience it too often.

Anyway, a couple of years ago, a couple of months before his fourteenth birthday, the town played host to a glorious occasion. The newly appointed Hierophant, Nathalie I, was paid a visit to the town in order to consecrate the new bethel; the previous one having been destroyed by a particularly bad storm; yet another minus point of having half your town floating over la Manche in Constantine’s view. During this visit, he saw a girl in the Hierophant’s entourage who struck him as quite beautiful. As it turned out, she was in fact the Hierophant’s daughter, the Lady Evangeline. He didn’t get a chance to talk to her, of course, but he was able to find out from minister the next day. He assumed anyway, the minister seemed to have consumed much alcohol the day before and didn’t seem terribly in the mood to talk. Life went on as normal regardless. However in spite of the mundanity, Constantine couldn’t get the image of this girl out of his head. She was all he could think about, and when he did so he had a strange feeling in his chest and his mind raced a mile a minute. He came to overlook his surroundings, much as he hated them, and became somewhat dazed in appearance. While this did worry his aunt, the fact of the matter was that it made him much more help around the shop and in general, so she didn’t complain. Of course though, in actuality, he was unhappier than ever.

Then, on his fourteenth birthday, he ran away.

A couple of years later, Constantine was a happy young man. He had, in fact, fled to Bourgogne and the Papal Palace, where he had come to work as a servant in the hopes of getting to meet the object of his affections; of course, this was something he kept secret. His plan had gone far better than expected, and he had actually become the Lady Evangeline’s aide-de-camp. For some reason, most people who took on this role left fairly soon after, and as a result he was quickly accepted the position at the first opportunity, some eight months after his arrival. Constantine couldn’t figure out why everyone kept leaving the job. The Lady Evangeline was kind and courteous, and she got prettier everyday, at least in his eyes. He noticed all kinds of peculiar mannerisms within her which enamoured him with her all the more; the way she would bite her thumb knuckle while deep in thought, or the way that she would run her hair through her hands when she was distracted. It was certainly worth the more painful aspects of the job.

Once he brought her her dinner, but he forgot to specify that she didn’t want any pepper on it. She took one bite and then promptly threw the plate at him. It hit him squarely in the head, and he had to wrap his forehead in bandages for a while, but it was his own fault really. After all, his mistress said so: “I don’t like black pepper, and you know I don’t like black pepper! What? Are you trying to poison me?!”
Another time, he was to fetch a clean set of clothes for her to wear, however he tripped when he entered the room and the clothes wound up creased. Evangeline responded by slicing his cheek with her obsidian dagger to teach him to be more careful.
Most recently, he brought her some afternoon tea. No sooner than he had given it to her had she thrown it over him, with the qualifier “I don’t want that anymore. Get me some coffee instead”. He had some burns on his waist from it, but he really should have anticipated it.

For he loved her; her happiness was his own and he would take whatever it did to ensure it.

And so, here we have the original ending, which tied it into the first story more. When I originally posted the story though, I felt it needed to be more self contained, so it all got cut and replaced with a single sentence. If/when I finish the first story, I'll might switch them round, but a more sensible thing to do would probably be to rejig the whole damn thing.

Then on the night of the anniversary of Popess Nathalie’s Ascension, he went to see her. On Ascension Day, the entire staff, regardless of function had to help with the celebration, so he didn’t get to see much of her that day, he didn’t even run into her while he was waiting on the party, and he expected she would be upset, so he wanted to see if he could do anything for her. However, upon opening the door to her room, something was amiss. Her window was wide open and her nowhere to be found. He quickly ran off to search the palace, and discovered that his own room had been ransacked and a line of his clothes was hanging outside the library window, and then ran to tell the Hierophant of his fears.

Upon arriving in the Hierophant’s boudoir, he found her appearing rather irate. It seemed that she already knew.

“Milady,” He said, nervously, “Your daughter… she’s gone!”
“Gone, you say?” She responded irritably. “What the devil are you talking about?”
‘Oh, good. It seems she hasn’t noticed yet.’ He thought, for fear of getting punished for reporting something redundant.
“She’s not in the palace.” He said, trying to remain calm. “I fear that she may have escaped through a second floor window while everyone was distracted this evening.”
“Oh, really?” Nathalie didn’t seem terribly concerned. “Well, these things happen.”
Constantine was aghast. He wondered how anyone could be so callous towards such an event, then thought back to his aunt and uncle, for the first time in over two years, and wondered whether they too took such a flippant attitude towards his disappearance; after all, he was far from the son they seemed to want. He felt like breaking down into tears, when suddenly the Hierophant’s own butler appeared in the doorway.
“I’m sorry, my lady, but I’ve had everyone search over the palace, and I regret to inform you that he’s not here.” This served to make Constantine more confused than ever.
“Oh, damn! What a nuisance!” The Hierophant sighed. “I expect she took him with her. Did you know she’s up and left too? That boy over there just told me.” She gestured towards Constantine. “How very inconsiderate. Do try and get me a new one, will you, Camille?”
At this point, Constantine could take no more and ran off to his own room, locked the door and started sobbing on his bed.

The next morning, Constantine woke up to find damp patches on the bed under his eyes. He’d spent most of the night thinking about the sudden turn his life had taken, making it more unbearable than ever. He got up and washed his face, which was sticky from tears. Then he went to lie down again. “With Evangeline gone”, he thought, “I have no reason to stay here… Perhaps I should see if Aunt Fanny and Uncle Albert would take me back…” His mind turned back to Evangeline again. “I wonder though… will she be alright on her own out there? Her Holiness and Master Camille’s conversation reckoned she took some guy with her… but what if his disappearance at round about the same time was just a coincidence? Maybe I should go look for her…”

With that he got up and rooted his bag out of the cupboard. It was a large satchel with the Star of Life on it, and he kept his first aid supplies in it, although it was a bit large for what he had. As such though, it made a good bag for him take travelling. He shoved what few clothes he had into the other side of the bag and then ran to the kitchen and took whatever food he could fit into the remaining space. He then dashed out the palace gates into the beyond he last traversed two years prior, to find his lost love.

© Niall Somerville 2007

Fleur's Boy

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 02:29:58 GMT

'One Day for Maria' has to go into hiding for a while, as I've submitted a newer draft as part of my portfolio for this semester; fear not, for the revised draft of unimaginable destructive power will be likely be uploaded over the summer... unless I forget. Anyway, thanks to everyone who commented. That's very few people, single digits what, so these get to be ultra special thanks, rather than that watered-down spread-to-thin variety.

In the mean time, here's what is apparently the best of my portfolio from the previous semester, featuring the recurring character of Roosevelt "Rosa" White, and, to a lesser extent, his friends and family. This is the piece mentioned in the preface to 'Cat About Flowers' down below.
I hope you enjoy!

Fleur’s Boy

Roosevelt’s 17th birthday was coming up that Saturday, and his father told him the good news: his mother, who was nearly always away on business, would be back for it; the first time since he turned 13, and only the third time he’d seen her since the accident. While many would be overjoyed, he was not.
Before the accident, he was one of the shining stars of the school. Skilled athlete! Captain of the team! He was proud, his brother was proud, his father was proud and, most of all, his mother was proud. What she wanted, he’d gathered from listening in on his parents’ conversations, was for him to follow in her footsteps. He had no idea what her job actually was, but if doing what he enjoyed was as big a part as it sounded, then he could hardly wait to be in on it.
And then it happened.
Afterwards she always looked upon him with a sort of melancholy. It seemed to him that he had filled her with a sense of disappointment so profound that their relationship could never be the same ever again.

He cut his hair and had a shave, and he left his glasses on the cabinet. He didn’t want to wear them, though he’d gotten rid of his contacts after he’d stopped wearing them. He didn’t take his cane either; to do that would be admitting defeat. He went to school, trying to be what he would be if only…
It didn’t go well. On the way there, he had to support himself by clinging onto his brother, who seemed incredibly embarrassed by the whole spectacle and immediately ditched him at the first available opportunity. When he got to class, he couldn’t read the board, so his friend had to dictate everything to him. The two of them quickly got into trouble for talking. He felt humiliated, and his friend scowled at him for dragging him into the mess, especially over doing something as stupid as “forgetting” the things he needed every day and had remembered every day for as long as he knew him. They wound up not talking for the rest of the day.
During the break, he sidled his way into the toilets and locked himself into a stall. Then he collapsed onto the seat and started to cry. What he really wanted was a cigarette to try and calm his nerves, but the old Roosevelt never smoked; he detested idea entirely. His mother would never stand for it if she knew he did now.
When he got home that evening, he locked himself in his room and didn’t come out for anything except food (and only when everyone else had gone to bed) for the rest of the week.

The next week, he was back at school, with his glasses and his cane and his secret pack of cigarettes. He seemed pretty cheerful again, as though nothing happened, so they just assumed that last week for a spontaneous bout of teen angst. No one really knew nor cared about what had happened.

In truth, his mother’s flight was cancelled.

© Niall Somerville 2007

Springtime at the Academy

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:21:43 GMT

Ah, my first foray into the horrible demimonde of slash fiction. A friend somewhat encouraged me to do so, so I guess this goes out to her. *fnar*

I say "first", but that's a lie, kind of; I had a go before I wrote this. That one was Haruhi Suzumiya themed! (despite there being like one possible pairing there that isn't even all that great IMO) I never finished it up though; I thought the fun thing to do would be to write it in the style of the original novels, but I could only find a translation for the first chapter or so, and I didn't really want to wing it using the TV series as reference. So... I guess it'll have to wait until an official English translation of them comes out. It's practically guaranteed, you know. Haruhi Suzumiya's a hot property at the moment.

Anyway, yes, this post is not about my failings at writing Haruhi Suzumiya slash. It's about something else entirely; that is to say the first slash thingy I finished, which is themed around Canis Canem Edit instead. It isn't smut, which no doubt is a disappointment to some. It's more me trying to be cutesy and romantic (oh, and angsty) with characters who aren't particularly (Apart from that last one). It probably helps a lot if you're at least somewhat familiar with the source material; it's not great at all, but people more into the scene than I seemed to like it which I guess is a step in the right direction.

Go for it!

Originally posted at bully_bl, to where I have lazily cross-posted.

Story © Niall Somerville 2007
Original characters, etc. © 2006 Rockstar Games, Inc.

Cat about Flowers

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:16:43 GMT

A short short written for my Creative Writing class. It was originally shorter still, but people liked it, so I extended it a bit with the intent of submitting it as part of my portfolio. However the tutor reckoned it was too much of a fragment of something bigger, so I needed to turn it into something more self-contained. I couldn't think of how to do that, so I just wrote something completely different with the same characters at her suggestion and submitted that instead.
I'm not uploading that one just yet (I don't know when I can deem it "safe" to upload stuff that's been submitted), but here's the original piece in the mean time. It's a bit rough, so I should probably give it another going over at some point, though if I ever will remains a mystery.

Cat about Flowers
I went out and picked a bouquet of flowers, so now I suppose I have to give them, but I’m not sure now. I’m not sure what any of these things are, I should’ve just went and bought some as I’m sure I’ve probably went and put something poisonous in there anyway and, oh god, this whole idea seems far more moronic than it did this morning. Why did I ever listen to dad’s advice? It’s not as if it’s much use to me here anyway. Perhaps I should just bin them and go on with life.

Though if I do that I’ll be admitting defeat to that stupid gimp Roosevelt and his oh-so-special brand of advice; “You know he’s totally oblivious and the only way he’ll get it is if you come right out and tell him how you feel, but I know you don’t want to do that. Though if you don’t tell him and someone else does (unsubtly referring to himself there), he’d probably go and confront you about it, and given his lack of anything resembling a brain I think he’d (I especially like how he knows what I’d do, but only thinks as to what he might do) do something stupid, like do it in public or something, and I know that that would humiliate you both”. Translation: ‘give up, you stupid fuckwit, and wait for something easier’. Yes, well, it’s all fine and good for dear sweet Pollyanna there. 'I'm happy, so everyone else is happy too'. It makes me sick. He doesn’t understand anything I’m going through.
I can’t just click my fingers and get people to pay me notice. Even before the accident he had everyone at school eating out of the palm of his hand. Hell, if I were the one who got flattened by a truck people would probably pay no mind. I’ve tried all sorts of things to stand out from the crowd, like when I took up boxing, my sister always wound up in hysterics whenever I came home with black eyes and I think that time I got a cauliflower ear and had to go to hospital is evidence enough that she’s going to hell, but I was so painfully mediocre that it made little odds. I wasn’t even bad enough to be noteworthy. And there was that time when I tried to reinvent myself: I bleached my hair and pierced my ears, using a safety pin as an earring (like I saw in one of my sister’s crappy magazines. I thought it could be neat). Mum’s reaction was hilarious and the damage the bleach did to my hair upset Roosevelt; he always had a weird affinity for my hair; but under it all I was still me, a worthless shell of a person. People could evidently tell. I’m just not one of those special people. How dare he have the gall to tell me that I shouldn’t look for happiness just because he doesn’t need to…-

Damn. While I was thinking the flowers wilted… well, I was being stupid anyway.

© Niall Somerville 2007