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.

Neon Disasters (Experimental Text)

I chose to experiment with multimodality. Before this text was written, I drew abstract shapes inside of a circle, intending to represent nothing. After its completion, I observed it from different rotations and found images from the shapes and colours. With those findings, I decided to write a narrative that followed along what I saw while rotating the circle anti-clockwise.

My writing process was a mixture of describing the first ideas that came to mind, while also trying to keep them consistent with each other. Because I wrote primarily from feeling, the imagery, world and narrative all became surreal and dream-like. I was especially fond of my use of personification of objects like the moon, the sun and the sky.

Despite the text’s surrealness and nonsensicality, it vaguely explores some of the consequences of curiosity and the unknown.

And then a rock from outer space struck the eye of the atmosphere. The sky cried until its colour faded from blue to pink – an uninviting kind of pink that the sky should never be the colour of. The world shook like zig-zags and spirals. 

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.

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’.