Writing practice: just write any narrative
“What does it matter anyway?”
The bum spoke despondently, averting his eyes, saying it to the ground, to no one. His eyes were unfocused. Perhaps he was thinking of his past, the series of days which led him here. Perhaps he was thinking of his present – a present without end in a gray future where every day was sameness.
The bum had asked Nathan for some change, barely lifting his gaze above a wilted cardboard sign which read “Anything helps. God bless.” as though the sign itself were too tired of life for anything more. For some reason Nathan had engaged instead of ignoring. Whenever anyone was asking for handouts, he’d walk without looking, dismissive of him doing nothing for society, for not earning the money he requested. But there was something in this bum’s expression which made him stop – a look not of self-pity, but of questioning.
“Having a tough time?” Nathan asked. Yes, blame the “tough time”, not the bum’s choices, his mistakes, his ignorances.
[it’s ok to be bad – you’ll be bad for quite a while before you’re better. just keep writing]
“For now,” the bum said, effortfully trying to paint a hint of a smile on his face. “Even lifting of muscles of his face is hard,” Nathan thought.
“Well, I hope things improve soon,” Nathan said, handing the bum some money.
Nathan saw in the bum’s response less a self-assessment than an examination of the world in general, not of the bum’s life but of life in general.
“I understand,” Nathan said. “We’re ants on a pale blue dot in the far corner of the universe. What does it matter anyway?”
The bum half-smiled and gave a brief glance up to Nathan. It wasn’t a cynical smirk, but the expression of a brief moment of emotional levity, the fleeting relief of finding someone to whom he could relate. “You think so, too?” he asked.
“In a way, yes,” Nathan said. “Ultimately everything humans ever do will be destroyed, whether by a fiery explosion of the sun, the crushing immensity of a black hole, or the cold infiniteness that our universe will eventually become.”
“I keep thinking that to make myself feel better. My life, my situation, whatever future I have left, and everything else for that matter – it all goes away, so what does it matter?” The bum sat up a bit straighter, as though the engagement of the conversation were an invigoration, a rising above his present condition to something intangible but concretely beneficial. Nathan noticed.
“You’re not religious?” Nathan asked.
“No, but I suppose I should be. But to be honest, it’s almost as comforting to think there’s nothing than to think there’s something. Either way, though, none of this really matters.”
“I see what you mean. Good luck,” Nathan said, then walked away.
[this blog software has suggested auto-finish of the sentences. now i’m judging how predictable my writing is by how often it tries to finish my sentences. like that, it wrote ‘sentences’. oh well, keep working]
“But is that really true?” Nathan thought to himself as he walked. “Is it really as comforting between nothing than something? Of course not, at least for so many believers. They believe for a reason, for reasons that might have nothing to do with reason, but for important psychological reasons nonetheless.”
[this is tiresome. let me try a different approach]
Nathan often enjoyed walking with precision and purpose, but not tonight. He slowed his gait to feel the heel strike of each foot – heel strikes sidewalk, applies pressure to sock which in turn applies pressure to foot. Roll the foot through, push off with the toes.
[just keep writing, even though it’s bad. you have to practice]
He heard the faint buzz of electricity in the power lines above, and wondered how the birds could perch without harm. A car passed [just try writing without stopping, just get it out], its tires splashing a puddle in a low spot in the road. Nathan looked down to avoid the puddle and noticed a shiny object [of course, how cliche]. Well, not exactly shiny [better], but pulsating with light generated within [ok, that’s definitely better. why is it pulsating? can he see inside or is it opaque?]. He bent to pick it up and thought he heard a whisper nearby, saying “Wait.” He disregarded that and lightly pinched it between two fingers, feeling its warmth which pulsed with its light. [what does it look like? what is he thinking?] It was shaped like a smoothed river stone, just barely large enough to skip but not flat enough. And though the object pulsed with light, it didn’t look like it was made of a translucent material. It was as though a stone were pulsating, and whether the light came from within or was generated on the surface of the stone, he couldn’t tell. He had to hold it in different parts of his hand because the heat it generated became too much to bear after ten seconds or so.
“It can’t be alive,” he thought, “it seems to be made of stone. And yet the pulses aren’t regular like he’d expect from an electronic device.” He grasped it firmly in his other hand, and noticed that the pulse rate slowed and the temperate cooled. If he held it with little pressure, it became too hot to hold, but if he squeezed it then it cooled to allow his to continue squeezing it.
[make someone walk by] A father and daughter walked by – and as they passed the girl looked back and stared at the stone. The father took her hand and said, “C’mon Katie,” as he looked back with an inquisitive suspicion at Nathan. [what is an inquisitive suspicion? the world may never know]. Nathan noticed neither the people nor the speech.
[keep writing, don’t think] “What is your secret?” he heard himself think, over and over again. But it seemed to him he was repeating the very question the object was asking him. “But I don’t have a secret,” he thought. “You do now” was the only thought he had.
Nathan kept walking, the object closely held in his left hand, then in his right. He didn’t know where he was going, but it felt purposeful. It wasn’t as though he were being led [that would be too predictable], but that he was remembering where we should have been going, and headed there without hurry.
He noticed that things looked differently to him. The traffic lights, the lighted windows, even the stars seem brighter, but the buildings themselves, the parked cars, the street and sidewalk seemed darker. He had the thought that he would need to watch carefully where he was walking, but at the same time felt he could sense every crack and slope of the sidewalk just before he stepped [oh, good way to tie in his perception of pressure on his foot? a better writer would do that maybe 30 pages from now].
The static of the power lines grew louder, while his ability to feel his limbs grew weaker, and though he were going numb physically but certain senses grew sharper, more alive. [when does he get beamed up in the mother ship. I know there’s a mother ship, there always is and you don’t have an original cell in your brain right now]. He looked up and saw, not the mother ship of an alien race intent on abducting him, but a giant grapefruit the size of a dumptruck! [ok I didn’t see that coming, but don’t be farcical just to be unpredictable]. No, his eyes deceived him. As he kept walking, his surroundings grew darker, the stone grew warmer and brighter, and a few blocks away he noticed a pulsating light coming from one of the alleys. At this point Nathan couldn’t see anything but light, but somehow knew where to step and that nothing would obstruct him. As he got closer to the alley light, he felt the same kind of warmth as from the object [let’s call it a stone since that’s what it feels like and object is so useless a word], I mean the stone. I mean he means the stone. Whatever. [don’t get frustrated, just move on, and take yourself out of the narrative, nobody wants to hear from you]
As he approached the entrance to the alley, the light and warmth from the stone and the alley both grew in unison, while the pulse rate continued to drop [ha, auto-finish suggest ‘increase’ but I wrote drop. 1 point for mr. unpredictable]. When he turned the corner, the stone was drawn toward the light, as by a magnetic or gravitational pull, lifting his left hand toward the light. It was as though the stone were leading him closer.
As he approached, he heard whispers coming from the light, and noticed that it was a portal [ok, this is like Ultima VI, a computer game I played 30 years ago, but it’s ok to borrow while one is practicing. the most important thing is that I keep writing.]
[ok, that’s 2 hours spread over most of the day. I keep a timer and start and stop when I need breaks, sometimes long breaks. Good job today.]