Mrrrr. *Shudder*
Jun. 17th, 2005 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pacificpikachuYour Brain is 73.33% Female, 26.67% Male |
Your brain leans female You think with your heart, not your head Sweet and considerate, you are a giver But you're tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you! |
What type of Bishounen are you? Find out at artificial-soul.net by Rin.
I just wanted to say that I feel bad that I write absolutely nothing intelligent in this LiveJournal. Here I am, an aspiring novelist, and what do I write in my LiveJournal about? Nothing interesting. Is it even well-written...even slightly? Heck no.
I think I will post that story I did for Creative Writing, even though I don't like how it turned out really...
Chain
~~
All is connected. Every breath, every flicker of an eye, every movement, will affect something, somewhere, someday. When we are young, it is possible we know this. We can sense the innate connectedness of all that exists. We are fascinated by animals, plants, everything that lives and thrives under the same sunshine and the same rain as we do. We can make friends with anyone we meet, for we are all human and we all share that common thread, regardless of how different we are.
As we grow up, however, we learn about differences, intolerance, hatred, and pain. We learn that everything can’t be considered equal—children are less than adults, dogs are less than children, bugs are less than dogs, and plants are less than bugs. We learn that the world is not a nice place, and we learn that we must fight in order to survive. Though the occasional, quiet voice comes along, suggesting that peace is right, and that everything can indeed be equal, everyone is fighting so hard as not to lose their way that they will not listen. Or they will agree, but they won’t act on it.
Perhaps, though, eventually, we can find our innocence again. Perhaps through seeing through the eyes of many, we can find light. Perhaps through the pain, through the sadness, through the maze that is life…we can find happiness.
Perhaps, though, it won’t be in this lifetime.
~~
Al was a child like any other, in the beginning. He had turquoise eyes that shone like the insides of abalone shells and hair the color of a stormy sky—almost black, but not quite. In the dawn of his life, he was shy and loved animals. He caught butterflies in a little butterfly net his father bought for him. His father suggested he make a collection out of them by pinning them to a board, but Al was horrified at this suggestion and gently released every butterfly he captured. He’d watch them wobble away on the breeze, so free and bright against the sky that he couldn’t think of anything more beautiful or more delicate.
He went to kindergarten, like everyone other child his age. He liked it when they went on nature walks, and, for a time, he delighted in the simple joys of learning.
As he grew older, he began to come out of his shell. He found other boys his age and, instead of playing in the meadow with the butterflies, he’d go cause mischief with his friends. He became more of a typical little boy—playing pranks on his mother, yelling with his friends, playing tag and Godzilla games and coming home at near-dark splattered with mud.
It wasn’t long before he discovered that he had a gift for speaking. When he talked, others listened. With this newfound power, he climbed the social totem-pole with ease, commanding small armies of boys in games of Capture the Flag and becoming the idol of all of his friends.
Still, trouble lurked behind the shining turquoise eyes. His parents, who had initially been delighted at the personality change, began to notice a decline in that gentle spirit that had set him apart when he was little. The wide-eyed enthusiasm was replaced with cynicism, the love for learning replaced by loathing for it.
Around the time he was eight, he began showing signs of a learning disability. He had trouble reading and therefore had trouble with everything else, too. He frequently went into temper tantrums, begging his parents to tell his teachers to give him good grades. His parents tried to help, but it seemed futile.
As he grew into the lanky body of a teenager, his problems escalated. He was good-looking, so, starting at age thirteen, he almost always had a girlfriend or at least a love interest. In a sense, he became dependent on this focused adoration he received from them. His relationships never lasted more than three weeks, however, because he simply wasn’t emotionally mature enough to handle them. Always looking for a cheap thrill, he became interested in drugs and alcohol, though he never became addicted.
He dropped out of high school when he got his newest girlfriend pregnant in the middle of Junior year. For a while, some of that gentle side of his shone through. Though he wasn’t sure if he actually loved her that much, he married the girl and vowed to help her raise their child.
When their child was born, he was overjoyed, though he was only seventeen. It gave him something to focus his attentions on, and, he hoped, his new little boy could give him some hope. They named him Tyler, and raised him as gently as they could.
Al got a job at a nearby bank and excelled in his job. In fact, as time went on, his promotions stacked up and he started making a hefty sum of money.
At least he had something. His relationship with his wife deteriorated quickly. One night he came home to find two-year-old Tyler screaming and his wife gone. She left a note that merely had “Bye, don’t look for me,” scrawled across it. Some of the money from his safe was gone.
He looked for her for a time—a stretched, deluded amount of time that was more necessity-based than love-based. He never did find her again. He missed her occasionally, but it was more a hollow ache than an actual sadness.
So he raised Tyler alone. His parents helped him some, but a child is a big emotional burden for a 21-year-old to handle.
As Tyler grew up, he became more difficult. Al tried to be patient with him, tried to control his temper, but sometimes… Sometimes he couldn’t help but yell. Every now and then he slapped the boy. A couple times he really hit him. But he couldn’t help it—if Tyler wouldn’t stop crying, if it had been a hard day at work, if Tyler was whining about what was for dinner.
He noticed that Tyler became quiet, withdrawn, and artistic. He was a little emotionally troubled, and became depressed easily. Tyler had his mother’s face and his mother’s red hair, and the same piercing, green eyes as she did. Al loved him, but Al couldn’t handle living his life like this. He took to drinking again. The abuse got worse, and Tyler would go hide under the deck to avoid it. Both he and his forlorn father would weep silently at night, alone in their own rooms, without a person in the world to ease their sorrows.
One day, Tyler found a stray dog. It was a perky little corgi who he named Jack. Al thought it would be nice to have a dog around the house, though the dog never did bond with him, and followed only Tyler.
The stress of Al’s life eased slightly as Tyler grew old enough to take care of himself. The abuse—at least, the physical abuse, ceased almost completely, though the damage was already done. Tyler was a quiet kid who didn’t want to face any sort of confrontation. Even at the age of fourteen, Tyler cried when people yelled at him.
Al’s life went on and on. The stress continued. He married twice after Tyler’s mother and divorced both times. Neither marriage survived past its two-year mark. And, at the age of sixty-two, he died of a drug overdose. An intentional drug overdose.
~~
Though Al had believed, in his previous life, that he might go to heaven or even hell, or there might just be nothing at all, thing don’t always turn out the way you expect them to. He was born again—the same soul, wiped clean and without memories—into a new body to experience life anew.
It is hard to say exactly when he realized who he was, but early on, he began responding to the name ‘Tyler’.
He spent a lot of time at home by himself while his daddy Al was out working. Or drinking. He’d sit in his room and do drawings. He had a box of crayons and some printer paper his daddy brought back for him from work, and with his colors he made a prettier world than the one he lived in. He used to draw butterflies all the time—all over everything. Once, even on the wall. He spent all day on that butterfly. The prettiest butterfly you’d ever see, and it took up a big piece of the blank white wall. So pretty, he could almost see it flying away in the breeze.
Daddy didn’t like that butterfly. Daddy hit him for writing on the wall that time. Even though Tyler cried and cried, he made Tyler scrub the butterfly off the wall. Even though he spent so many hours on it… It wasn’t fair.
He went to school and became the opposite of his Daddy. He was the best reader of any of them, and he loved to read so much that his Daddy couldn’t supply enough books for him and he sometimes had to read the same bboks over and over again.
Because of his father’s mistreatment of him, Tyler was people-shy. He could even have been considered afraid of other people. He never asked questions in class, and he never talked to the other students unless they talked to him. Even if they did talk to him, if they sounded threatening at all, he’d hide wherever he could until he felt the threat was over. He was like a scared animal.
His teachers felt bad for him, and so they helped to find him some psychiatric help. This was met with only limited success. He became slightly more social as a result of the psychiatrists helping him to realize that not all people are cruel, but he never truly opened up to them about the roots behind his fear. They could guess what the problem was, based off his symptoms, but because he wouldn’t admit to the abuse (and even blatantly denied it), there was only so much they could do for him.
He started to realize that other kids had mothers and he didn’t. He’d ask his Daddy what happened to Mommy, but he never answered and instead stared off into the distance as if he had never asked. Tyler decided she was dead. He didn’t know if it was true, but it was true to him and that was all that mattered at the moment anyway.
Eventually, Tyler made a few friends by chance. Three of them—all gentle individuals, all quiet and smart like Tyler. All came from broken families like his. Some were even worse off than he was. He still didn’t talk about it, and neither did his friends. But they had each other, and that was enough for the moment.
A while after he began making friends, he found Jack. Jack was a stray corgi who followed him home from school one day, and Tyler instantly took a liking to the little short-legged dog. He tied some string around his neck and asked his Dad, gently, if he could keep him. He was surprised when his dad said that would be fine.
He and Jack became the best of friends immediately. He talked to Jack, smoothed his fur, and took him for walks after school. Jack could always be counted on to be upbeat and listen, and, because he couldn’t talk and was smaller than Tyler, it was hard to be afraid of him. Jack also made him more friends than he had ever had.
But things always change. Tyler had been on a good path—albeit a downtrodden one—until high school rolled around. He was so submissive as a result of his childhood that he could hardly fight back when he was picked on, when he had his homework stolen, when he was the victim of other peoples’ frustrations. He took on their stress. People made friends with him just so they could yell at him, push him around, embarrass him to make themselves feel better. All the while he would react with dull eyes and seem to not care.
But when he got home after school, he’d cry. Most of his friends he made in elementary and middle school had abandoned him by now. Their reason: They didn’t like the people he associated with nowadays.
He became angry. He’d go home and kick Jack around, though it wasn’t Jack’s fault that everything in his life kept going wrong. Jack would whine and hide under the chair, ears flattened against his head. He didn’t really know people other than Tyler, though, so he stuck around and took the kicking and yelling and screaming that inevitably came. Tyler did to his dog exactly what the kids at school did to him—victimized him and called him names.
After about a year, Jack could no longer take the abuse. He couldn’t take the pain any more. He slipped out of the door during a particularly violent beat-up and never came back.
It hurt Tyler so to discover that his pet had left him. He cried and cried, and cried himself to sleep that night.
He grew up in a listless way. He tried to become an artist, and ended up as the stereotype said—starving. He tried to become a writer. Managed to write a few dreary short stories that were published in some magazines. Took up drinking like his father. Married a girl who only loved him for his submissive nature. Never really loved her. Didn’t have children. It was better that way—abuse is a cycle. Didn’t ever mention that abuse, except fleetingly. All he really wanted was some help, but he never got it.
He died naturally at seventy-one an unhappy, unaccomplished, broken man.
~~
When Tyler died, he was wallowing in questions. He didn’t know where he would go, as he never really had a religion or any ideas that seemed reasonable. Perhaps it is better he didn’t know, for it is likely he would have objected…
Next time around, when he became old enough to be aware of who he was, he realized he was a short-legged puppy with a mother and three littermates. He lived in a nice, expensive house with lots of carpets for him to make a mess of, and he was treated well. He was a pedigree Welsh Corgi, and he was going to cost some family a lot of money.
His earliest memories were those of a room, pastel-colored and with a fluffy carpet, with butterflies painted on the entire walls. He couldn’t see their colors because of his black and white vision, but they were beautiful and fascinating to him.
He was a carefree puppy, and he was looking forward to a happy future.
He had the heart of a wanderer. If the door was left open, he could always be seen flying out of it, taking off into the street and yapping at passing cars or trying to herd children’s ankles.
One day, just as he was reaching the prime age for him to be sold, he ran off and they never saw him again.
He wandered the side of a railroad for a while, sniffing the strange, perplexing scents scattered there. When this failed to interest him, he used his sharp ears to point him to a school, where there would clearly be plenty of entertainment and companionship.
There was one boy there who stood out to him for some reason. He first saw him sitting on the slide, all by himself and looking dejected. When he spotted the boy a second time, walking along the side of the road and kicking rocks, he ran up to the boy and trotted at his heels.
The boy looked back at him for a while—eyes cold and distant looking—but with a puppy panting and staring up at him with big brown eyes, it wasn’t long until the boy’s expression softened. He took a piece of yarn out of his blue backpack and tied it around the puppy’s neck. He gently pulled on the string so as to ease the puppy to his speed. The puppy quickly complied, trotting forward eagerly despite young age and short legs working against him.
“Who are you? Do you belong to someone?” The boy puzzled, seemingly to himself. “You don’t have a collar… I wonder if Dad would let me keep you.”
The puppy kind of understood, and he yapped up at the boy to try to let him know this. The boy smiled vaguely at this.
“You sure are cute, aren’t you?”
When they reached a little run-down apartment, the puppy rushed forward and stood at the door. He would’ve been wagging his tail if he could’ve, but since he lacked a tail he just wiggled his butt instead.
“How did you know this is my house?” The boy questioned gently, just before he started laughing at the puppy scratching at the door.
The truth was, the puppy could simply smell a higher concentration of the boy’s scent in this area, but it seemed mysterious enough to the boy.
The boy opened the door and the puppy rushed in before the boy could even get a chance to restrain him. “Dad, I’m home!” called the boy, a little quieter than most kids would call for their parents. He pulled back on the yarn-leash that held his eager new friend.
His dad appeared in the doorframe of the kitchen, studying the puppy yanking on the string. The father’s hard eyes—like diamonds—softened a little when he saw the puppy, as if some sort of a distant memory had been remembered. “What’s this?” he said, but the question wasn’t cold or uncaring at all.
“I found this puppy on the way home. Can I keep him, Daddy?”
“Sure! Are you going to give him a name, Tyler?”
Tyler’s face lit up, unbelieving that his father could be so yielding. “Really? Let’s call him… Let’s call him… How about Jack?”
“That sounds good,” his father replied, leaning down to pet Jack.
Tyler couldn’t believe that moment. For a second…for a second, he almost thought they sounded like a normal family. He giggled and petted Jack, too, asking him in an affirming manner, “Hey, do you like that name, Jack?”
Jack barked on cue, and then proceeded to lick Tyler’s face.
Jack was so happy to have someone to go on adventures with and hang out with. When Tyler went to school, Jack would follow him all the way to the school and then walk back to the house, waiting outside in the sun for the time when Tyler would get out of school. When Tyler went for walks, Jack always came, and when Tyler did paintings in his room or took naps, Jack was at his side sleeping or watching intently.
However, Jack couldn’t help but notice—with slight alarm—the relationship between Al and Tyler. He noticed the abuse and the distance between them. By this point in Tyler’s life, most of the abuse was verbal and not physical, but Jack was disturbed by the loud voices and the imminent tears afterwards. For a long time, Jack tried to comfort Tyler after these confrontations. Most of the time, he managed to make Tyler feel a little better, but he could only do so much for such a troubled child.
Tyler changed when he was a teenager. He’d come home and curse and yell, but deep down, Jack could tell he was just depressed. Jack whimpered and tried to comfort him, as he always had. This was a mistake, though one with good intentions.
Jack would never forget the day when Tyler came home, quivering with rage, and Jack came up to greet him as he always did—hind end wiggling back and forth with glee.
“Stupid dog!” Tyler yelled, lashing out against the corgi. He kicked Jack straight in the ribs, sending the dog flying a few feet with a yelp. Jack’s side was throbbing, but he wanted Tyler to be happy, so he crawled back over to him submissively, flattening his ears.
“Get away from me! You’re worthless!” Tyler cried, tears running down his cheeks. He picked up the corgi from the floor by the scruff of his neck and threw him at the place where the linoleum met the wall. The impact hurt Jack so much he couldn’t even make a sound at it. He found he couldn’t get up for quite a while after that, so he whined from his place on the floor. His back ached and he felt dizzy. Tyler stormed off after that, sobbing.
This abuse continued, too, in the cycle that abuse creates. Tyler had power over Jack, and this was the first power he had ever had over anything since his paintings. It felt good in a sadistic way—a release, of sorts. It didn’t really occur to him how much he was hurting his loyal dog, who still tried to follow him to school some days even when he could barely limp to his water bowl.
He just knew it felt good to release that anger on something, anything.
One night made all the other beatings look like nothing. Tyler came home late—angrier than he had ever been in Jack’s memory. He tried to hide under the chairs, but Tyler spotted him last moment and took out a knife.
He grabbed Jack by one hind leg and pulled him out from under the chair, wielding the knife in the way that someone who is about to carve a pumpkin does. Jack yelped and yelped and yelped, hoping someone—even if it was Al—would help him, but no one came.
When he finally managed to struggle his way out of Tyler’s grasp by way of biting his arm as hard as he could, he already had a deep, bloody gash in his neck and a less deep, but long cut down his back. He was in excruciating pain.
He managed to drag himself out the door, where it was snowing a little bit. The icy air assaulted his nose, but it was a passing thought compared to the blood freely streaming down his neck and back. He had left scarlet puddles behind in the house, and everywhere he walked, red trailed him.
He knew, from the lightness in his head and the shallowness of his breath, that he was dying. He continued dragging himself along, hoping to find any shelter at all where he could die in peace. He fell down the stairs that lead up to the house, and tumbled down a hill a little while. Biting back the pain, he managed to pull himself into a standing position again and drag himself a little farther. He found a dark, quiet alleyway where some garbage cans were obscuring the wind and snow. Hauling himself just a little further, he soon noted that there was a single, ginger tabby kitten, shaking with cold and wet in the alleyway. It was afraid of him, and if he wasn’t dying he probably would’ve respected its wishes and left it alone.
But it looked so cold…
Communicating in the nonverbal way that only animals can, he told it not to be afraid of him. He told the kitten that it would be okay, and that he was dying anyway. He told it he would help it.
The kitten went into ease and relaxed. Its fur, which was making a halfhearted attempt at bristling despite the weight of the water, flattened over its tiny body. It looked like it could die in this cold.
Jack walked over to the confused kitten and curled up around it, allowing his body to warm the kitten. He was wet from the blood streaming from his wounds, but despite that his warmth felt like a sanctuary to the frightened kitten. The kitten mewled thankfully, and that was the last thing Jack heard as he faded from his life.
It was, perhaps, the first time that Al, Tyler, and Jack had been truly, purely happy.
~~
Jack was a dog and did not wonder where his soul would end up. He had lived for the moment, and did not worry about what was to happen in the future to him.
Perhaps—and it is hard to say—he may have been surprised if he had known, for when he was reborn, it was as a ginger-tabby kitten. But animals are often wiser than people, and it is possible that he would have smiled in his own doggy way, knowing innately the connection that we living creatures have to all those beings that we touch.
As Race the kitten, he lived on the streets for a while, and was saved by a dying dog who kept him warm in a snowstorm.
After that, when the snowstorm ended and spring eventually came, he spotted a blue butterfly, wobbling in the breeze above him. So free and bright against the sky that he couldn’t think of anything more beautiful or more delicate. On a whim, he followed the butterfly, racing after it on springy kitten legs. This butterfly lead him to a child, who smiled and took the kitten in his arms. And that is how he finally found a home where he could live as he wished—innocently, purely, and with more love than he had received in all of his other three lives combined.
~~
And so the cycle ended in the same way it began. Only when we can overcome the cruelty of our surroundings and reach out to those around us, can we find the true happiness within ourselves. For when we harm others, we never will know if we were indeed, harming only ourselves.
Read it or don't--I don't really mind either way. I'm more posting it so I don't feel like this LJ is nothing but boring narration.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 10:19 am (UTC)This is... this is... just... wow.
I'm going to make a sincere and admirable attempt forming a coherent opinion, I am.
...
It honestly took my breath away. The rhythm flowed throughout, and was consistent enough to maintain interest and keep the reader going. The ending was something like a kick in the teeth, but in a good way -- like the moral to a fairytale, I suppose.
A fairytale. Is that the sort of feeling you were going for? Because it's there, but somewhat vaguely -- like a modern fable.
*takes off her nonexistent hat* I love you for this. Marry me? ♥
no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 05:51 pm (UTC)This is kind of the type of story I've taken to writing. Sort of simplistic fable-type stories with twists at the end. :) I love writing them. I've done about...fifteen of them in the last year.
Sure! I'll marry you. XD I marry most of my friends anyway, and a lot of cosplayers. I'll bring some extra rings to AX, and we can get married. XD;;
no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 09:33 pm (UTC)Now, I left the printout on my table, so maybe my mother will read it and it will allude to your existence! XD
no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 09:35 pm (UTC)Bwahaha...that's funny. Tell me what her response is, okay?
no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 11:19 pm (UTC)Well, here's a minor typo..."sometimes he had to read the same bboks over and over again." (Doesn't really matter, I just noticed that right now. ^^;)
I can't remember which part exactly, I think it must've been around "Tyler's face lit up, unbelieveling that..." I think that little section is too limited on Tyler's emotions when it's part of Jack's "lifetime." In other words, it seems too much from Tyler's point of view when it is Jack who is seeing it. I don't know if that makes sense, I don't really know how to word it. ^^;
Also, it seems to me that Tyler took out his stress on Jack just because Jack was there. It didn't seem to me that he would deliberately seek out Jack and try to do something like slit is throat (very sad, by the way ;_;), but I could just be misinterpreting his character.
Another minor typo near the end. "As Race the kitten..." I believe it's supposed to be "as for." I was a little confused there. ^^;
I also meant to ask, was Jack inspired by Ein in any way? ^^;
no subject
Date: 2005-06-20 03:46 am (UTC)I agree on the point of view part... I was trying to reveal further things about each character in their next life (ie, learn more about Al by seeing him through Tyler's eyes, etc.), but I got a bit carried away at times and started talking too much about characters I shouldn't be. ^^;;
Tyler was so stressed he had to find some output for the stress, hence why he sought Jack out. @_@
I'm obsessed with corgis on account of Ein, so kind of. ^^;;
no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 11:28 pm (UTC)