Writing Circle (18 August)

These transcriptions or somewhat delayed, but here they are. This is from a writing circle on Thursday. If you were unaware, I've been thinking often and writing regularly on the Vincenzi story. If you are just now visiting my blog and are from the writers' circle, welcome and I hope you enjoy yourself.

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First Prompt: "I've had something to tell for a long time."

Sabeen came into the shop after almost no sleep. Her girlfriend had kept her up in the worst way. The aroma of yesterday's roasting hung in the air effecting her like a tonic. The night had been long but the morning promised to be short, even a blessing if she let it. She had not started but caused a rebirth, an unpleasant renaissance the night before. She had said, "I've had something to tell for a long time," and Sam had quieted down like a mouse caught in the stares of twilight. Her tone - it is always tone - had been painfully uncertain, but definitively unhesitant. Now though, there was only certainty. She knew the moves, the quiet morning dance of checking the drawers, the mugs, the shelf of leftover baked goods all wrapped for day-old discounts. And it all felt just that much sharper, jittery and faintly painful from lack of sleep and unresolved sentiment. She had begun that way and Sam was quiet as a mouse. They both were for longer than they ought to be. Their relationship had never been one of words, always one of actions. A dance interspersed by tones either fiery or warm. Never were they cold, just hot and dangerously hot. Sabeen filled the mill with the beans roasted the night before, the bottom-most still sultry and welcoming. She thought they must slumber there, rest all together in quiet, innocent joy. She wondered what that was like. It had evaded Sam and her, the two taken to more hazardous comforts. Sabeen had, breaking the long, creeping silence spoken first. Sam had been waiting through the painful silence for the words, for the tone, for the shift in their movements. Sabeen had explained as best as words allowed, what she wanted. With the mill running, she slipped her hand into that warm undercurrent of roasted beans and loved it, loved it with an unadulterated certainty. The beans didn't argue - though they might keep her up - and were nearly always patient. She had tried to speak of patience [end]

Second Prompt: Take the last line of the previous write, include three colors observed outside.

Her mother had tried to speak of patience. A woman who had never acted with quiet or reflection or even much experience spoke of patience. Alecia preferred the weird certainty of the dark, of hidden spaces and the secrets that might remain so (I think I intended "might be revealed") or might remain enshrouded despite being inches from them. The black, the shadow, the slip of stealth not of darkness but of others' refusal to see. Her mother had always acted like lightning, like the white hot electric current. She coursed through a room like a wave, causing hair on men's necks to rise, cheeks to flush, and women to whisper. Not of secrets - where Alecia was certain were black - but of lies which were brown. Brown. Brown was both a blessing akin to secrets, akin to the miracles of soil and emergent life, but also of shit or waste. Alecia knew, despite growing up in the city where such things are preferably kept from young girls' eyes, that shit awlays held growth, fertility, life. Lies, she though, must hold that same necessity of emergence, of potential. Lies were carriers of nonsense but also of creativity of something birthed into existence - sometimes quietly and sometimes with dire cacophony that never managed to vanish again. Lies took what wasn't and made them what was. Isn't that the miracle of soil? That in the black patient dark dwelt a nothing, a no-thing that may just - given enough time and enough madness - may shatter the surface into solar brilliance. Her mother - all light and fluidity - had created dark. In that nothing that secret, sat a quiet, certain starlight. [end]

Third Prompt: "No I won't tell your story."

My heart beats crazy
Not any sense or order,
just now now now now.
(Originally written with commas on the last line.)

You have spoken with
the same words, saying nothing
but me & me &

Where am I left now?
With your hate, your anger, that
does not stop with me.

You threw my chair out,
but that was not me or mine;
it was you, I think.

My room, my doorway,
with you & your fist in it;
& thunder ends us
(The semicolon was absent in the first draft. This is also when a catastrophic weather even "happens" during the prompt.)

When the rains came in
& swept away furniture,
what did our words mean?

The door crashed in, the
window shattered, & I
thought it was you.

(Rewritten for appropriate structure:
The door crashed in, the
window shattered, & I thought
you'd come back again.)

Lightning split the roof,
burned the earth, turned air between
us into ozone.

After the water
cleared, our bodies in macabre
embrace, flowers bloomed.

I am left with my heart still beating but feel that healing & calm are beginning in me. What is shit & what is black earth?

Final Prompt: "The feather fell from the sky" (or something like that)

It fell from the sky, whispering in movement, without a bird in the sky. I thought of wise, trickster Rave & of the God-King Horus. The Swan of midnight & of spirit, of royal & unattainable brilliance. Then, there was the eye, the eye of Peacock (originally "the peacock"), innumerable and all-seeing. It was this feather, the father or mother of these feathers, the Platonic ideal of "feather." It was all & it was nothing. Which bird flies with such a feather? Which struts? Which sings?

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Note: I have been contemplating short story-style character sketches for various characters involved with Vincenzi. These are mostly to allow me a greater understanding of the people I am dealing with. Sabeen and her coffee shop - called Araby - are important in the story and Alecia - who befriends Alecia during her visit - will become integral in future plots concerning these characters. The haiku are about conflicts with one of my roommates, something I had attempted to set aside for the evening but came up immediately with the prompt. In other news, I have been fumbling through a few chapters of Vincenzi and may just yet hit my draft deadline if I keep at it.

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Edit, Post-Script: I recently had a conversation with - how shall I say... - the inspiration for the haiku. For those in the know, this was a positive conversation that required some waiting out before having. It was a relief, but one that was obviously on its way as of two days ago or so. This is good news and I want to thank those who have been attentive and supportive.