“lost in the wild
so come to me now
I could use someone like you“
lyrics to psycho by muse
(for wordpress weekly photo challenge – muse)
*enough said*
muse
dark | side | thursday | six
Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.
Do you have a dark side?
Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.
Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday
Share your dark side?
I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.
dark | side | thursday | six
The pain seared through his arm.
He woke, in fright. His eyes would not, could not, open. Cold cracked tiles lining the floor of the corridor did not make for a comfortable resting place. And he was wet. Very. And cold, so cold.
Twisted fleeting fragments flashed through his mind as his tortured senses fought to deal with the pain, the cold, the wetness. The emptiness he felt.
Her emptiness.
Blackened branches bruised his mind, a collapsing corridor. A moment when he slipped. Through.
And oh Hid, her voice. Her voice. Oh, that voice he wished not to remember, to erase.
He had heard her voice. Soft and pleading, seductive and terrifying.
“Don’t let him, don’t let him take it, not now, it’s so close. Please…hear me…”
His fingers had grasped the bottom of the flight of stone steps. Cold, slimy and old, like that thing that twisted inside him. Then, nothing. Cold, dark, empty, breathless nothing.
The voice, her voice, still echoed inside his head. She had been there, in his mind, in his soul, although he no longer imagined he possessed such a thing. Not now. Perhaps she’d always been there. Deep inside. Each time it happened he felt this. The cold, the emptiness, the desire, the sorrow. The terror.
His back was sore, bleeding. From the blackened bark? His eyes, now open, looked around. Blinking, swollen and sore. Taking in the dark corridor, the tiled floor, the damp concrete walls, the ceiling scored with deep cracks like aching distended veins.
No trees, no steps, no voice.
And the door. The door, leading back to his table, and the box.
He stood, began to walk, his breath ragged, thready and broken, pain flashing along his arm with each step. His eyes widened, dry and swollen, when he heard the door click and swing slowly open.
He walked to the door, paused at the threshold. Would anything have changed had he stopped at that point? He walked in. Did not look at the box. Oh, he wanted to.
He stopped at the shelf. Dust covering the few books that lay there, unread. He picked up the leather bound journal, walked back to his table, pulled back the chair, sat down, took his flask, hungrily downed another harsh shot.
The journal was old, the leather cracked, stained and unloved, it was held closed by a thin leather strap, tightly wound around the yellowing pages.
His belly warmed as the shot flared deep inside him. His fingers, shaking now, took hold of the leather strap binding the book and he began to unwind it slowly.
He opened the cover, the pages stuck together with the dust of ages past. He quickly the found the page he wanted, began to read, again, he knew the words, but.
She lay still, after she fell. Her waking fingers tracing the edge of the cold stone that marked the top of the stone steps.
Through her pain she tried to speak.
“Don’t let him…”
The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.
six | fiftytwo
escape
there is no
escape
from the
web.
that we weave
(for laura’s literary lion)
poetry 101 rehab: found
she found that, as though broken
about everything beautiful, nothing mattered
as she looked, over the bridge
her young body, quivered
as she thought about attempting the leap
or showing him the door
wanting freedom, or imaginary rights
it was sad beyond belief
good, not ever had she imagined
regions of death, would
be found to break her
(for mara’s poetry 101 rehab – found)
*the words in italics are the last three words of the first ten of the longer stories included in the random house / vintage collection of the complete short stories by kafka*
project 365 mobile | mono | square | week 1
empty table
both ends
#omlegging
podium
anti mosquito
bright idea
B+W haze
On Sunday, 14 June 2015, I launched my Project 365.
You can see all the images as they are posted to the mobile | mono | square album on my flickr account.
My plan, let’s see if I can stick to this, is to post a weekly update here each Sunday.
roygbiv
red cooked pig’s tripe with ginger (page 977)
orange sorbet with tokay (page 653)
yellow beans (page 140)
green papaya and peanut salad (page 986-7)
blue eye cutlets with cumin (page 459)
indian inspired spice paste for small birds (page 814)
violet oon’s chilli lobster (page 873)
(for wordpress weekly photo challenge – roy g biv)
(and for lucile’s photo 101 rehab)
*shot right now with nikon d700 and nikkor 70-200mm f/4 lens at 145mm, ISO6400, f/4 and 1/125s, no edits, no indigo food in index*
dark | side | thursday | five
Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.
Do you have a dark side?
Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.
Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday
Share your dark side?
I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.
dark | side | thursday | five
The door closed behind him.
The dark corridor stretching out ahead.
That damned box. The box that wanted him to press the button, slide his fingers inside, release the key, release it. That box now waited behind that door. Release, waited behind that door.
He could not think of that now.
He knew if he did, he would be lost. Again.
He walked on down the hall.
He felt the pain. In his arm. It hurt, as it always did. And the corridor narrowed. The ceiling, the walls, the floor, dark, shifting, coalescing. And the pain. Oh, that searing pain.
Dark, so dark. His chest tightened. Air, he needed air. He felt the walls closing tight around him. How could that be?
The sound of stone, stone slowly scraping over stone. The dull heavy thud. No light. No light. No light. Only dark remained.
His lips had touched hers. She kissed him back, wanting him, hungry for release. She felt his need, his fingers.
Then. Darkness. Again. Blue eyes twisted. Gone. Empty.
She could not breathe.
The pain twisting, growing inside her. His lips cold. She pulled away. The light gone again. The emptiness remained, engulfing.
He shivered as his eyes blinked open. He was not in the corridor. The air damp, musty. He could hear water flowing nearby. Flowing swiftly, darkly.
Light began to filter through the crooked, leafless, blackened branches of a tree. He struggled to remember where he had been, where he was.
The corridor. He had walked through the door, entered the dark corridor.
Which now appeared to be formed from the bark of a forest of ancient black trees.
He struggled to sit, the pain in his arm intensified, his breathing ragged. He sat with his back pressed hard against the rough bark, not caring about the scrapes he would suffer from later. Reaching into his pocket, he grasped the seductive slick metal of the flask. Unscrewing the cap, he pressed it to his lips and felt the harsh liquid burn down his throat.
She had pulled away. Could not face those empty, not blue, eyes for now. The pain in her belly gnawing and churning inside her. He had turned away from her. His eyes averted for now.
She walked, slowly at first, then began to run.
He did not follow. He had turned, those empty eyes watching as she ran.
She had tripped. Fallen. Her hands reaching out.
That was when she had seen the steps. Rough stone steps, descending in front of her. Cold and damp. The emptiness inside her churned again as she looked down the steps into the shifting darkness below.
The harsh jolt of the shot revived him a little.
He turned his head. The pain in his arm screaming and raging.
He bit hard into his lip, rose unsteadily to his feet.
At that moment, he saw them. Ahead of him, through the trees. Rough stone steps rising into the darkness.
Then, oh Hid. Then, he heard her.
The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.
five | fiftytwo
poetry 101 rehab: sleep(less)
(for mara’s poetry 101 rehab – sleep)
*written with iawriter pro, screenshot with skitch, edited with analog efex pro 2, can’t sleep*
project 365 mobile | mono | square
andy townend 