Hey there! It's been a little while since I've posted something. Anyway . . .
For Writers Workshop (school club), we were asked to do a little thing about keeping a character, well, in character. Relatively. So here was my try . . .
I was quiet and watched the world with bitter eyes. I hated the idea of becoming close to anyone; there was no controlling others. All you had the power to control in the world was yourself, and even then you could have moments in which you had no control.
I found a certain amount of control in aspects of life. For instance, I could control the wiles of all the silly little girls. That was a certainty, but I disliked the idea that that was my only current true power over the behaviour of others.
I spent my time dark and angry, and found myself interrupted by one thing and one thing only. This thing came in the form of one sunny, golden individual. He was boisterous and obnoxious, and any other –ous's that you could discern, and had this innate ability to anger me greatly.
I behaved according to my feelings, and did my best to insult him and provoke him at all turns. I tried my best to make it less than obvious, but he always fell for it and he always fought with me. I reveled in the idea that if he hated me, he wouldn't try to affect me.
He had a true ability, there. He could manipulate other people. He could make them happy, he could anger them, he could make them laugh, and he could make them respect him.
I found that I feared him, in some respect, because of all of this. He made people feel, and I didn't want to feel, not now, not ever again. I couldn't afford fear, which meant I couldn't afford feelings and friends, and all of the things tied up with those things.
I found no rationality for friends. I had no comprehension of the term, as I had never really been taught it fully. A friend is a person who is attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. I was stricken with curiosity one day and discovered that that was the actual definition of the word. It meant nothing in the furthering of myself, and therefore, I had no use for it.
I lived only for certain things. Control. Power. I couldn't help myself. That was what I was instructed to learn. That is what I want to learn. That is what I will learn.
That ray of sunshine questions this. He questions me, my motives. He simply asks why? He has no regard for me, what I want to tell, what I won't tell. He just wants to know why.
Having no regard for me is the same as having no personal regard, isn't it? That means he isn't anything like a friend, by definition. At least, not to me.
I don't know why I would do it. Why would I save someone who, by definition, was not my friend? I can't think of it rationally; it isn't a rational thing.
I had no one but the pestering girls who all claimed me as their own; he had friends, whatever that meant to him. Friends are not rational, which invalidates my whole reasoning. So that meant that I had no reason for my actions. No reason meant no control, no power, and that in itself was unacceptable.
My actions were spurred by something I didn't know, and this spurred him to question me more. Why? Why? Why?
I had no answer for myself, so I had no answer for him. Not that I wanted to answer him. My only reaction was to try to distance myself from him. I hated him more, I fought with him more. I resented myself for my lapse of control.
I hid my resentment behind cuts and scars, ones hidden and ones visible. Some I wanted people to see. I received them in fights, therefore they meant something; I was learning, gaining the power I so wanted. Others I didn't want people to see. They couldn't be battle wounds, they were weakness; small pricks that let forth my cowardly blood. One day, I knew I'd be able to rid myself of my cowardice. That would be when I finally had everything I needed. No longer would I have room in my life for cowardice; I would be brave. I would be strong.
He watched me, still sunny, still ever curious. He fought back, but it was muted. He said I know what's wrong with you with his eyes, trying to be profoundly understanding, profoundly accepting, without really understanding or even knowing what he should be accepting. He was profoundly stupid, and no number of friends could change that.
Coming home worn and bloodied, he stopped me with his ever emotional eyes. Why do you do that?
I was confused and exhausted and bitterly angry. I had reason for everything I did, and I had no reason to tell him why I did anything. So I ignored him, continuing upon my bitter path.
He stopped me with a single, low blow, felled me and trapped me. He stared unceasingly, angrily caring.
I found I couldn't lie. Not to that. That emotion. I was a coward, and now he knew. Now he was better and knew.
We fought bitterly after that, in another time and place, for new reasons. I didn't fear him; I hated him in such a way that I couldn't explain. He took from me my ability to have my own power, so I took it from elsewhere. He didn't like that, and I could never explain that.
I fought him in the rain with true anger. I loathed him with a killing intent, up to the end. And then I couldn't kill him. Not him; he showed me everything that I couldn't show to anyone.
He laid motionless where he'd fallen, and I stood in silent agony. How can you try . . . Why? I felt true confusion and something that I wanted to remain nameless. But I knew what it was, and therefore I knew it was something rational. Maybe not reasonable, but rational. Sorrow. How I could feel sorrow, I didn't know.
On my knees in my weakness, I could do nothing but stare at that familiar, golden being. I didn't know what to feel and what to not feel, so I felt it all. The neat little emotional bundles I hid away and hated poured out in a few spare moments in the rain. I'm sorry.
I couldn't stomach the thought of seeing him. I wanted to leave, and now I had reason. If he asked, I would tell him. I knew he never would ask why, but I still would tell him some day.
That was something I wasn't familiar with. The idea of some day. The idea that I intended to see him again. I couldn't and yet I wanted to. For the first time, in the dark I lived and breathed, the dark now covered in filth and self-loathing.
I shuddered at dead fingers against my skin, slithering tongues and slippery snakes, and longed for golden sunshine. This was against my better judgment, wanting what I'd once wanted to kill, but that loathsome beacon was more desirable than death and that which I lived with in the dark.
I emerged from the dark after spending my entire life there. I blinked blindly in the radiant light of life, utterly changed, unquestionably different. I was a creature of the moon, the goddess of darkness, striving to survive in the sun, the god of light. I was feeble beyond belief and immensely strong, completely different than before, but nevertheless the same person.
My golden sunray found me, surprising himself and myself with the discovery. He was older, wiser, warier. He saw me as the waifish specter I'd become, deceptive to the eye, but not to his.
He seemed confused and approached me with questions in his eyes. Why? he asked, stirring old feelings I'd long since locked away. Why do I pity you?
I came close to devastation. That in itself was something I'd felt once before, before my darkness, in a faraway time when I used to feel. I was empty save my longing for this sunshine, and those words were a crushing blow.
Pity was something I hated; I made myself who I was, and that should draw no pity from others. My sunshine knew all emotions, though, and I knew only a few, so if he believed one should feel pity, then it was true. I was truly pitiful.
My agreement halted him in surprise. He gathered me close and I stayed, not quite strong enough to fight him. Even if I had been, I would have stayed as I was; docile as a kitten, for I was finally near the radiant creature I'd so longed to be near. He clung to his tenacious hold, concern and fear and something that made him glow happily flashing across his being in moments.
Thus, he reintegrated me. To his life, to my life. Not my old life. A new one I was beginning, a normal one not overshadowed by bitterness and darkness. He watched me proudly, not ashamed, not angry, rarely pitying, glowing with something I couldn't put a name to months after I'd been revived.
There came a time and place to name this feeling. He came to me once, to bid me farewell until morning. I sat upon my bed, comfortable in the darkness, and gave him a tiny, coy smile, something I rarely gave anyone. He sighed then and approached me, kneeling on the bed in front of me. I . . .
I shook my head of the idea, blearily confused and now wary. A light pressure against my body, my chest, and I fell back upon my pillows and blankets. I . . .
I blocked the words and was caught in a flurry of motion set forth to bare our bodies in the darkness. Calloused hands softly touched my trembling sides, lighting in me a newfound fear of the power my sunshine held. I shivered and pleaded and cried out against him. I had felt this pain before, much worse in the darkness, which I wanted to forget. I took comfort in the gentleness of his arms around me, his whisperings in my ear, and the warmth of his breath against my neck time and time again throughout the night.
I didn't want those horrid feelings; his body against mine, that friction, my heart racing, my breath catching, my head filling with that mind piercing something. But it was all there, a hundred times better than perfection, and I lived for it all, thrived on every moment. I found in that time a concept I'd long sought to complete and understand.
Life is like falling; no control, but no regrets.
What do you think? Any good?
