drownedinlight

 People talk about Friday, like it's God's gift to mankind. But really...really it kind of sucks when you are trying to get work done.I mean, I have so much to do, and with the exception of one thing, I got everything done for Thursday, and I did have this point in my day where I was doing like almost nothing, and I just couldn't focus. I guess this means that tomorrow will be the buckle down thing where everything must get done, or so help me, I might have to with hold Tangled from myself, and I really, really want to go see Tangled. So I'll just have to get everything done.

And another thing that sucks: when I have writers block, I start telling things instead of showing them. You'd think this would be perfect for the script, but I'm not sure the script is really happening. Maybe it's because I decided not the write it in the scripped.com online software (that's really cool, because it formats everything for you), or because I've already started this script and I really like the way it goes. Maybe it's just a matter of continuing, and not starting over. And maybe that's something to try for tomorrow, because seriously, this was all I got for today:

PAGE ONE
PANEL ONE
KEIRA stands her eyes closed, in a tree pose, her hands pressed together over the center of her chest, her foot resting against her thigh. In the back there is a tall concrete wall that goes off of the panel, a pool chair that sits just behind her, and there are pool tiles close to the bottom of the panel.

Yep, that's it. That is quite literally all I wrote. Well that was before I saw that Merlin was on Sci-fi (or Syfy, which is something like Finnish slang for sifilous, or however you spell that disease), which inspired me to write a little something about Magic, (full of telling rather than showing like I said), it's not very good, but hey, it's there, and I'm writting everyday, which was the whole point of this exercise.

It also kind of inspired me to write something called Suspension. I'm not sure what it's totally about yet, but I do know that it's about magic and suspension of disbelief. THis springs from Merlin, but also from the fact that apparently about half of my creative writing class really has trouble doing this for science fiction and fantasy pieces. Someone actually asked me to write something more relatable to the whole class. Well, a. that doesn't really work, because we have a class full of very different people, and I don't really know how to relate to everybody, b. writing is a big escape for me, and I do it, because whatever springs out of my head is probably a large coping mechanism for somethign that happened in my childhood, or from the bad things that go on in my daily life. And I figure, what's the things I could change about life that would make them more interesting. Stick a dragon in the back yard (...fantasy version of burn the house down? I think so). Many fatasy and supernatural stories are often what inspired me and helped me escape as a child, and still do now. And one of the important things that I've learned and am learning from this project is that I have to write what I want to write. Not everyone will like that, but I'm not writting to please everyone. I'm writing because some crazy idea popped into my head and it needs to be written something major (why does writing only have one t, but written has two?). Writing about the drama of daily life does not seem like an escape for me. It seems like drama invades more of me than I want.

That being said, I do actually have an idea about a girl who receives an inheritance from her father whom she never knew and uses it to get away from her less than kind family and step family, and retrace a journey her father took at her age. It's realistic fiction (sort of, I'm not sure how many people get million dollar inheritances). That's something I think I might actually like to write, and I even thought about sharing it with the class, but now I kind of don't want to, just to spite everyone ever. Ah, well, here's a story which may become more:

Magic is not like it is in the movies. It takes much more control than waving a wand, or even saying words. The words never helped me. And I don’t think I have superpowers, it’s just this energy that keeps following beneath my skin, and I can push it free of me and make it do things. It’s been that way ever since I was a kid and I was not really able to control much of it. There was one time; I made a bucket of pain explode because my brothers wouldn’t let me play with it. The explanation our parents came up with was that they left it in the sun too long, and they had to clean up the porch.

That part, the part where I feel like I can’t tell anyone, that’s true.

But anyway, it’s a difficult thing to control, and sometimes, it leaks out when you don’t want it to. It wasn’t until I started doing martial arts that it really calmed down. Before mom and dad enrolled me, whenever I would get the slightest bit emotional something would happen. I nearly lit the kitchen on fire once. I think it was also because before I started the meditation they taught us at my school, I was never quite sure if I was causing things to happen or not, but once I let myself go, and focus on my body I could feel it there.

I don’t think I could ever really quite explain how it works. It’s one of those kinesthetic things you just have to do. And anyway, this story doesn’t start when I was little. This story starts when my great uncle Wally died.


I never knew Great Uncle Wally and Mum met him but once when she was “just a tiny thing,” as she says. I am actually still not sure what Wally was short for, having heard Wallace, Waldo, Walker and Walter all in the same breathe at his funeral in Great Britain.

But all the same, he apparently left her and many of his family members small things in his will, and Mum thought it would be rude to ask them to be sent by mail, and she was missing Wales. She gave Dad a ton of excuses to fly over and actually attend the funeral, and finally he gave in, took two weeks off from work and put us all on a plane (except for Emmerich, who was doing a summer internship he could not just drop to go see a dead guy, his words). But I did have to put up with Malachi for the two hours he was awake. During which I tried to turn my music up extra loud, not to blow a hole in one of the plain walls, and pretended I was asleep.

We were only allowed a few hours of sleep at the hotel, before we had to get ready for Great Uncle Wally’s memorial. Mum made us wear the nicest clothing we had, but I think my shirt was a size too small, because it itched as it lay tightly against my skin. She corralled us into the cab, when we all felt extremely tired (even Malachi, who had slept for nine hours).When she read the address at which his wake was being held, which was neatly written out in her day planner, the cabby gave the oddest look, especially after he asked why she wanted to go there. Mum explained and he still gave her the strange look, but decided to focus on the road for the rest of the trip.

“Why are we doing this?” Malachi groaned. Mum gave him a look like she had sincerely wished she had left him at home. I tried not to grin over my copy of The Inferno.

“Because he was family,” she said. “And it would be wrong not to go and pay our respects. And the woman I talked to on the phone said that he intended for the will to be read at this ceremony.” Apparently it was a little less wrong when we ended up in the wrong part of town for a funeral. Mum and Dad hummed and hawed about their location, for seemingly ancient minutes after the cabby drove off and left us on the side of the street.

That was until the door we stood in front opened, and a woman dressed in a long sweeping dress, purple and fuchsia and red, trimmed with black standing behind it.

“You must be Asphodel Powell,” the woman said in a sultry deep tone. She looked to be about fifty or so, a young kind of fifty, mostly, you can tell because even though they don’t look old, they feel it.

“It’s Daffodil Bachman, actually,” she said. “Powell was my maiden name, and really I go by Dafne,” she explained. The woman regarded her for a moment, and said,

“A shame, they really are two very different plants. But no matter you must we here about Wally. Please come in.” Mum hesitated a moment, but strode inside, Dad followed after and then Malachi, muttering under his breathe about weirdos. I waited, taking in the building, feeling something I hadn’t felt before the woman opened the door. “Is something wrong, child?” the woman asked.

“I just, I didn’t feel it there,” I said, knowing that I probably was not making sense. “But it’s there now. How did you do that?” She blinked her long, colored lashes, before she smiled at me.

“Come in, young man, I believe all will be told with time,” she said, holding out her arms inside the door. I walked into the frame, feeling her close behind as she shut the door behind me. “I did not think the gift had passed to anyone else in Wally’s family, so you must forgive my surprise.”

“I haven’t really known anyone like me before,” I said. “So I’m kind of surprised too. What about Uncle Wally?” she held a finger to her lips and I realized that my family was around, as were a few other guests. There was a large man, sitting on a box, talking to Mum at a rapid pace, calling her Asphodel, like the woman had, a woman who sat stroking a cat, a man playing what looked like solitaire, and a tall, dark haired man who stood in the corner.

They all felt like they had the same energy bubbling beneath their skin, just like I did, but to varying degrees. The large man on the chest felt like he was the weakest, and had a hard time keeping himself contained. The man with the cards felt like he had the smallest energy, but the densest, compact inside of his shell. The woman with the cat, swayed back and forth like a breeze through trees.

The man in the corner clutched his can tightly, and felt like nothing I had ever known. It was beautiful and so frightening all at once, I felt like I could vomit and sing at the same time. The woman took my hand and I instantly felt calm like fresh earth weighing down droplets of soil on my skin.

“We um, never caught your name,” Dad said to the woman.

“I am Proserpina,” she said. “This is Edvard Jurgson,” the cards man, “Linnea Cooper,” the cat woman, “Kepler Newton,” the talking man. “And Dunstan Engelson.” They greeted us each in turn, and when he man standing in the corner nodded at me, I felt shivers run down my spine and goose flesh raise on my skin. “This of course is Wally’s niece, Mrs. Bachman, her husband, and two of her sons. And now that we have all arrived. I suppose we can get started.”