Monday, January 19, 2009

Updates!

Okay, just to clear some stuff up heres a post just before beddy-bye time. I am going to finish Saviour Machines and publish it eventually but it seems like a much bigger project than my meager writing skills can handle right now. It'd be like painting the Sistine chapel with crayons. I need to get better by writing small stuff first.
I suppose I can give away what I'm working on right now since whats really keeping me going is feedback I get on here. I'm writing seven short stories, each one based off a different deadly sin, which is probably going to be called Seven Deadly Stories. Most of them are going to be pretty loose like the rough cut of the one I'm posting now called Sloth which has nothing to do with the sin. I just took the word and ran with it. It's only about little over 1000 words so far and I think it needs to be expanded, but here it is spelling and grammar errors and all:

Sloth
I remember it all so well, like it happened yesterday. Maybe it’s because lately I’ve been having nightmares about it, about him. It’s not something you would forget quickly though and I do still have these scars…but I’m getting a head of myself.
I grew up in a small town. We were small town people with small town values and everyone knew everyone else’s business, or thought they did. Everyone had their secrets too though. Ours was hidden away in the cellar. I remember how we’d be sitting down eating dinner, making small talk about how our days went when that noise would come up from down below, that low moaning cry that sent chills up my spine. I would look down at my plate and pretend I didn’t hear it but then Dad would glare at me tell me to go and feed it. Then I would slowly get up, taking as much time as I could and go into the kitchen to get it’s bucket of old potatoes and table scraps. What’s “it” you ask? Well I call it “it” since I don’t think it was quite human. My parents had named it Lawrence but I had nicknamed it sloth.
It didn’t look much like a sloth, in fact it didn’t look much like anything God in his wisdom had created on this earth, but that’s the closest thing I could compare it to. It had this nasty matted white fur and these long sharp claws, like sloths have but it wasn’t slow, in fact it was damn quick. It’s face was this horrible scrunched up mess of scraggly sharp teeth and it’s eyes were this horrible red color. That was the thing I hated the most about it, those damned eyes. It didn’t like the light so we kept it as dark as possible down there, and when I went down to feed it all I could see were its eyes glowing as it moved back and forth, scraping it’s claws on the ground, watching me.
It hated me and I knew that if it ever got loose it would kill me. Dad told me that was nonsense, that the thing was harmless and he would go down with me to pet it. It always played nice when Dad was around, it would innocently sniff at my hand and let me pet its horrible matted fur but when I tried to grab its scrap bucket away it would snarl and snap at me. One I got too close and it swiped my forehead. I had to get 5 stitches. Dad acted like it was my fault, like I had been teasing the horrible thing. I tried to tell him what really happened but Dad never listened to me. He loved Lawrence more than me and I never could understand it. Even after it got loose and…well, I’ll tell you what happened.
I had horrible stomach cramps that night and couldn’t fall asleep at all. I rolled around in bed holding my stomach till almost three am when it finally let up and I started to fall asleep. That’s when I heard it. That horrible scraping sound coming up the stairs. It would go up one stair and stop, like it was listening for something. It was so quiet that I could hear its breath, a slight pant, like a dog. I sat straight up in bed. There wasn’t going to be enough time to turn on a light, I rolled out of bed quick and grabbed a baseball bat that was leaning on the wall. Then I stood and waited and listened as that scraping noise got closer and closer till it was right outside my door.
It was hot that summer and I hadn’t closed the door tight so once it got up the stairs all it had to do was push it open. In my nightmares I can still see those eyes floating in the darkness, those damn red eyes staring right at me. Then it came for me and before I could react it was on top of me, scratching at my body, trying to get at my face. I screamed and above the its awful slobbering breath and throaty snarls I could hear my parents come running. My Dad slammed the door open and flicked on the light, the thing didn’t like light so he was able to pull it off me easily, dragging it back down to the basement.
Crying and in hysterics I yelled at my Mom, “Why don’t we just kill it? It’s horrible and I hate it, why don’t we just kill it?”
My mom just stood in the doorway and looked at me, her 12 year old daughter sitting on the floor covered in white foamy spit and blood and said “because your father loves it that’s why. Now go get cleaned up and get back in bed.” Then she walked off, probably to go smoke a cigarette outside.
I didn’t sleep for three whole nights after that.
I told my Dad that I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t sleep at night, I was scared that he was going to get me. My Dad just smiled and said that he had put a stronger chain in, that he couldn’t break this one. He even said I didn’t have to feed Lawrence anymore. This wasn’t very heartening to me. I had to get rid of the thing and I had to do it soon…
I waited till a few days later when Dad was at work and Mom was at the grocery store , then I grabbed Dad’s 12 gauge shot gun and headed down the dark cellar steps. I think it knew what I was doing, it seemed restless, pacing back and forth and snarling at me. I pointed the gun at its head and it ran at me, hitting the end length of its chain and choking itself. Suddenly I didn’t want to kill it. It didn’t seem fair, it was like shooting a dog in a cage. Then the chain broke and it hit me full force, knocking me to the floor. I was screaming and it my head, I could feel its teeth trying to rip away flesh as its claws tore and scratched. I still had the gun in my had but I couldn’t get in position to fire. That’s when I heard my Dad yell and come running down the stairs.
“Don’t hurt him, Oh God don’t hurt him please!”
Then he came running and he started kicking me in the head. He was kicking me because I was punching it in its ugly face trying to get it off of me. I got my legs up under it and give it a hard push, landing it on its back and giving me time to get the gun back in position before it jumped on me again. It jumped and I pulled the trigger.
I heard Dad scream as the gun went off blowing a large hole in the thing’s midsection, spraying blood and flesh and bits of spinal cord out its backside. Sloth lay on the ground trying to get up, trying to get back at me. Before my Dad could get over to it I had put the gun to its head and pulled the trigger, turning its ugly face into a mass of brain and blood and skull fragments. Then I stood over it, breathing hard, blood running in my eyes.
“I hate you,” I whispered, “I hate you you stupid ugly thing.”
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder turning me around and then someone hit me full on in the face knocking me down. It turned out to be my dad, tears streaming down his face.
“You stupid girl!” he screamed “You stupid small minded girl do you know what you just did? Do you have any idea?”
I yelled back “Yeah, I saved my own life no thanks to you, you and your stupid fucking thing!” It was the first time I had ever cursed at anybody and I didn’t even realize it.
“You stupid girl, you killed your brother! Lawrence was your brother, Oh God!” Then he threw up on the floor.
A week later I went to live with my Aunt out in the country. I asked her why Dad had loved Sloth so much. She said she didn’t know but she thought it might have had something to do with a puppy he had when he was a little boy that had a messed up leg. That didn’t seem like a very satisfactory answer to me.
Oh I remember, I remember alright. Some things you can’t forget no matter how hard you try. And I still have these scars…

So yeah...its total poop right? Certainly not something anyone would buy to read, yet anyways. I can't stay awake any longer, good night.

4 comments:

Justin said...

Kurdt, it's definitely not "total poop". It's brilliant and I'd buy the book if you put that in it. PLEASE don't do one of those web-books. DO A REAL BOOK!!

I don't think an illustration would do this story justice. I would do a book cover illo, though.

Er-- if I did the cover would that get me a free copy?

Anonymous said...

Kurdt, you sell yourself short! This is phenomenal work. At the moment, I'm working on a cartoon-type storyline. I'll get back to ya.

Kurdt said...

Lol, yeah if you were nice enough to do an actual cover you'd get a free copy. Thanks for all the encouragement, its been tough starting up writing fiction again after stopping cold turkey for so long.

Justin said...

Don't EVER stop writing!! NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER!!!!