What the Old House Deserves

She longed to sing another time.

But, no matter how hard she craved, her skin was still made of paint. Her bones, still timber. Her murky eyes only saw through glassy panes, her voice only sighed through tangled air vents…

And she was fixed firmly to the earth amid a lonely forest, never to move from there again. 

This was her curse. By a powerful witch, this bitter musician was transformed into a house. And, as a house, she was now an ‘it’. 

The house had been reduced to nothing more than a furious, gluttonous wreck, counting the years one by one on its peeling walls, and was to continue to do so for many years to come.

It wanted nothing more than to live in extravagance and glory, once again.

*   *   *

One day, the old house called to a stranger. It called her in the midst of a storm. It mattered little to the house what so happened to have happened for that stranger to be walking by it under such convenient circumstances – all that mattered to the house was that it finally found itself a visitor.

HOUSE SPIDERS ARE NOT YOUR ENEMY (Experimental text)

This is a fictitious manifesto. In creating this, I tried to bring myself to feel passionate and also visualise a spider writing the text. My intention leaned more towards hyperbolic and ‘over-the-top’ humour, while also speaking my true beliefs and feelings towards the text’s subject matter. 

I was first influenced by the Vorticist’s manifesto (in BLAST!), specifically in the more visceral, excessive and radical tone and style. I thought this made way for adding humour to my text. I was also influenced  by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s On the Abolition of the English Department, particularly in terms of structure. I wanted the text to be easy to read and straightforward in this respect.

(Another note: You'll notice I say "Earth's 'West'". I say that because I'm pretty sure there are other places where spiders aren't THAT stigmatised, and I've grown up mostly in suburban Australia where, yes, there is a good chunk of people who are squeemish about spiders. I dunno, haha.)

1. The current reputation that house spiders have in the cultures of Earth’s ‘West’ is flawed
• These common arachnidian Earthlings, found dwelling in the homes of human beings, face an unfortunately great amount stigmatisation
• A single spider is too often wished, by a human being, to plummet into as many circles of hell as the number of legs on its body, 
• Or be crushed and flattened by a force a million more times than it is capable of counting
• Spiders do not deserve such a cruel reputation
• The main point:
  These house spiders are terribly misunderstood

Big Building (Experimental Text)

This narrative was inspired by a book quote (Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest). The only relation that quote has to this text was from its comparison between humans and ants’ different experiences. 

My main goal was to create imagery that’s difficult to imagine and concepts that seem impossible to exist. I tried achieving this by combining sensory adjectives with senses that they’re incompatible with, and writing concepts/ideas that may prompt the readers to think about things that humans can’t experience or know. 

This short narrative was more explorative of human experiences and limitations, and focused on emotion/thoughts rather than action. I tended to add a lot of repetition to emphasise these ideas. 

“The ant climbed out of the basin and up onto the formation’s peak, but it felt no sense of towering above its surroundings because it had no fear of falling. [...] Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.”

From The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (2008)

The building of sandstone reached for the stars and stretched to the horizon
And the traveling woman did not want to go inside.
The desert was relentless. The sun scorched. The traveller sought refuge.
With no other choice, her tired legs walked timidly in the building’s direction.

A ‘Quick Brown Fox’ Story (Experimental text)

I limited myself to have every word follow alphabetically, with no repetitions until the alphabet looped again. With this, I sacrificed grammatical correctness, the correct uses of words and character naming, to create coherence. Finding words for the letters ‘Q’, and ‘V’ onwards was tricky, particularly ‘X’, where, due to its lack of common English words, I resorted to using words beginning with ‘ex’. Some of my uses of apostrophes were downright incorrect, and sometimes I invented words, ensuring that they still ‘felt’ like they fit into English. 

The narrative explores the point of view of a burnt cabin and its relationship to the humans that once used it. I thought the fragmented sentences suit the point of view of the cabin character.

A burning cabin doesn’t ever forget. Gone, house’s image. Jealously kindled. Living mourns nobody’s oaken planks. Quietly resents sapiens, those ungrateful vermin, who ‘xcessively yearn ziggurats.

Drabble: Purpose

Written from a prompt: Frame the absence of something

When does a building know its purpose?

Does it know from the moment its foundation is built? Does it see its blueprints, or is it one with the minds of those who invented its concept? 

Perhaps, a building waits until its completion. Then, does it only know its purpose the moment its last brick has been fixed into place; when its roof is fit to shield its precious interiors? Or, is it not until those strange little people make use of the space that it holds, does the building only discover that purpose?

There was a tower that dominated a small island, located nowhere in the vast ocean. If it could think, it would have been asking these questions for as long as it could remember. See, while its top marked halfway between the ground and the clouds, it had been left  behind – left unfinished by those who created it.

ANALYSIS OF ‘IX. SPACE AND TIME’

Analyisis of  a section of ‘IX. SPACE AND TIME’ from Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson (1998)

PASSAGE:
Geryon was amazed at himself. He saw Herakles just about every day now.
The instant of nature
forming between them drained every drop from the walls of his life
leaving behind just ghosts
rustling like an old map. He had nothing to say to anyone. He felt loose and shiny.
He burned in the presence of his mother.
I hardly know you anymore, she said leaning against the doorway of his room.
It had rained suddenly at suppertime,
now sunset was startling drops at the window. Stale peace of old bedtimes
filled the room. Love does not
make me gentle or kind, thought Geryon as he and his mother eyed each other
from opposite shores of the light.
He was filling his pockets with money, keys, film. She tapped a cigarette
on the back of her hand.
I put some clean T-shirts in your top drawer this afternoon, she said.
Her voice drew a circle
around all the years he had spent in this room. 

ANALYSIS:

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson (1998) is a piece of experimental fiction written in verse. It is based on the Greek Myth that follows Geryon and Herakles’s Tenth Labor, where Herakles. The novel re-tells this narrative as a coming-of-age romance in a contemporary setting. In chapter 9 of the novel, ‘IX. SPACE AND TIME’, Carson lays out a scene where Geryon’s mother addresses her fourteen-year-old son her concern that their relationship is growing distant, as he prepares to leave to spend more time with his new friend, Herakles. Geryon is reluctant to discuss her concerns with her. The chapter is slow, mellow and melancholic, shaped by Carson’s use of multiple literary elements, including figurative language, setting and characterisation. 

An Arrettian's Solitude

For alternative version: Linus and the Chimera-Person

There was once a being from planet Arrettia who sat to eat his lunch. He watched the Earthling besides him do the same, using two strange, shiny utensils to eat. They only heard the desert wind that whistled, and then the tools used for bearing food clinking onto the tools used for transporting it into one’s mouth. It was the two of them alone atop the ruins of a lost sanctuary, letting the slowest hours of the daylight pass by. 

Suddenly, the Earthling lifted one of its utensils, intertwined with a portion of the stringy, wobbly feed from its box. It held the utensil towards the curious Arrettian. A nervous murmur escaped the Earthling’s mouth as it held up its food, yet not eating it. Perhaps the Earthling was trying to communicate its distaste for its meal? Perhaps it was an exclamation of being thankful, or maybe it was even offering to share? 

The Arrettian struggled to do anything in return. A moment, and finally the Earthling appeared to give up the interaction, continuing to eat its stringy, wobbly food again. Then, the Arrettian continued the same with his own.

Linus and the Chimera-Person (An Arrettian's Solitude - Alternative Version)

Alternative version of: An Arrettian's Solitude

It’s a good hour for lunch, he thought. Perry L Linus was just delivering mail a few days ago and now he was sharing a lunch break with an alien companion. 

Atop the ruins of a sanctuary in an abandoned city, Linus and the alien both sat. They never conversed; they couldn’t. It was quiet, and the only sounds that accompanied the two were the light desert wind, and the awkward chewing made by the both of them as they ate. On occasion, Linus would take a glance at the alien. They were bizarre in appearance – something like a creature with the body of a vulture, the limbs of an octopus, and the face of a mantis. Linus had no idea such life-forms existed, so he just classified the being as a ‘chimera-person’. 

Insect Repellent and the Stars

It is the smell of a certain kind of insect repellent that takes me to the stars. It takes me back more than ten years; takes me to a riverbank kilometres away from home. I was there in a place just outside of some cabins, surrounded by strangers that accompanied me on that rusty old bus that took us there. It was the place where all that was familiar were my sketchbook, my flashlight, and myself. No buzzing and no troublesome bites – it was only the serenades of distant crickets and the laughter of unfamiliar children from metres away. On those few Spring nights, I lay alone.

The Lights, One by One

The kind of house that Clara lived in was ordinary. It had all its windows closed and every exit shut so that nothing could climb their way in to find her. Hardly any curtains nor blinds were left open, and now almost nothing could watch her from the dark outdoors. Tonight, Clara was the only one inside of her home. 

Clara took in her last spoonful from the now empty plate. It once contained the leftovers that her parents spared her before they left that night, and now her final task of the day was to catch up on her quadratic equations. Mathematics was never her strongest subject at school – she preferred ones that were more flexible and allowed for a greater imagination. She wasn’t excited to return to her room. But, why waste any time? Except to wash her dishes, there was no other use for her staying at the table any longer. She made her way to the sink.

A Bored, Needy Piano

We haven’t spent any real time together in so, so long. What are you doing these days? Always with those notebooks, are you? Always typing away on that little computer, too, are you? All of those other things that occupy you, you and I know I could never compare to – never in my lifetime. Oh, if only I was capable of providing the same variety as the infinite possibilities of strokes you could on a sheet of paper, or surpass whatever superpower a computer wields. A lot of the time I wish you and I could be more than just you instructing me what to sing, and me singing as you play. Do you wish that, too? I could never know.