I've been very busy tonight... I've actually written TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS. go me!
so here are chapter the fourth and chapter the fifth
Chapter the Fourth
William began the journey home, dragging his feet, staring at the grey ground. After a fight, he usually felt elated, energised. But today, he felt nothing – just an overwhelming sense of exhaustion.
He wondered what his mother would say when she found out that he’d been drawn into yet another fight. She probably wouldn’t care, probably wouldn’t even register that he’d told her, that he was even in the room with her.
For seemingly the hundredth time that day, the sea of emotions within him threatened to rear its head and consume him. He looked up at the blue sky suddenly, gravity doing its part in keeping his dignity. He lowered his gaze slightly, and found himself staring into a window which had the head and shoulders of an old man protruding from it.
* * * *
Basil gently moved the pile of newspapers away from his window. They were from the spring of 1963, yellowed and crumpled, yet still intact and perfectly readable. He leaned over his window sill, breathing the fresh air, purging the scent of newspaper from his senses.
He craned his neck out the window, wanting to see everything. He did this often – watched the people on the street, trying to gain an insight into random individuals’ lives. Some people he saw on a regular basis, some never again. Basil always liked to invent lives for them – the elderly lady pushing the shopping trolley was actually a mafia heavyweight, the tall, butch man was a the owner of a florist, and the young girl skipping along holding her mother’s hand was a dwarf spy working for the CIA. He smiled inwardly. It was little things like this that kept him sane, negated the need for him to go out, except for when he needed to purchase necessities.
He suddenly espied a teenage boy staring determinedly at the sky, as if his eyes were magnetically drawn there. Basil was intrigued. Something was familiar about him. Basil had no idea what, however. He was fairly sure that he’d never seen the boy in his life, but there was just something.
Suddenly the boy dropped his gaze a little, and stared straight into Basil’s eyes. Basil involuntarily stepped back – there was such power, such ferocity in that gaze that it hit him like a punch to the face. He quickly started to weave a life for him…
By the looks of him he was about sixteen, probably had a girlfriend, judging by his looks, and had the look of a troubled teen about him. Basil imagined that he had just got himself into a fight, been sent to the headmaster, and was on his last warning. Now he was on his way home to face his parents, which was why he was going so slowly, dragging the toes of his shoes as he went, scuffing up the dust. Basil didn’t know how close to the truth he really was.
He drew his head back inside, as the boy had looked at him again. Again, his green eyes had seemed to penetrate Basil’s skull. He slammed the window shut, replaced the newspapers into their original position, and shuffled off into the kitchen, weaving his way through the crinkly paper maze.
* * * *
William stared at the closed window. What the hell was the old man doing staring at him? Weirdo, he thought. Probably some sort of perverted pedophile or something like that. He shuddered, and cleared the thought from his mind. I don’t want to know.
He shuffled onwards, coming to his driveway. He stopped outside his front door, and bent to smell the roses that were blooming beside his front door. Their scent was always comforting to him – it reminded him of his mother. Or at least, his mother when she was still herself. Now she just spent her entire time in her darkened room, a small, crumpled version of the determined woman she used to be. He sighed, pushed the door open, and entered, ready to face the music.
Chapter the Fifth
The house was dark when William stepped inside. His mother would be in her room, as per usual, and his grandmother, he assumed, would be out shopping or something. He climbed the stairs slowly, anticipating each creak as it came. He walked quietly over to his mother’s bedroom, and opened the closed door a couple of inches, enough to let adequate light in to let him see his mother. Her tiny frame was only just visible, curled up into a tight ball amidst the sheets, blankets and pillows that crowded her bed like bystanders around an accident. Her breathing was regular and slow – she was asleep. Not wanting to wake her, William closed the door softly, and went into his room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
He was faced by what resembled a war-zone. There were magazines, clothes, school books and other various bits of junk strewn all around his room. I really should get round to cleaning this up, he thought. Nah. I know where basically everything is, Granma won’t set a foot in here, Mum’s the only one who cares really, and she’s not going anywhere, and Emma’s gone. The sudden thought of Emma hit him like a sharp stab between the ribs, right into his heart. Her memory always evoked a physical pain like this.
When he’d first met Emma, they had hated each other with a passion. He was the typical rebellious guy with issues, she was the stuck-up rich bitch from England. They couldn’t stand each other, and everyone in the class knew that, including their teacher, but they’d still been paired up by their teacher to do an assignment together. William had a feeling that this was done purposely, to try and create some sort of truce between the two, who would often disrupt the class with their constant arguing. Reluctantly, they agreed to put aside their differences only so as they could get the assignment completed. As the assignment progressed, so did their budding friendship. One night, when they were over at William’s house putting the finishing touches on their assignment, the power went out. William had gone downstairs to find some candles so they could continue working. As they worked by candlelight, Emma kept slowly but surely moving closer towards him, until he could feel her breathing gently next to him. He turned slowly towards her. They were frozen for a moment, and then almost as if in a dream, their lips brushed lightly, like two moths clumsily dancing over a candle flame.
They did eventually get their assignment completed, and their relationship continued. It had often make William smile when he thought about how their relationship had progressed – from complete and utter loathing into what it was now. It was probably the biggest cliché he’d ever experienced, like something out of a B-grade movie, but to him, it was perfect. Everything was perfect for a time – William finally felt like his life had some sort of direction.
Then, as suddenly as she’d come into his life, she was gone. Her father had been offered a business proposal he simply couldn’t pass up in England, so he decided to uproot the entire family, and move them across to the other side of the world. The day she left was the blackest day in William’s memory. They’d clung to each other at the airport, neither one able to bear the thought that in a matter of hours, they’d be separated by thousands of kilometers of ocean. It had felt like his heart was being torn out of his breast as he watched her walk slowly down the gangway, out of sight.
He fell back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling where he’d stuck a picture of her, right above his bed where he slept. He sniffed. What is wrong with me today? Since when did I become the emotional type?
As soon as Emma had left, his life had seemed to spiral out of control, spinning down, down, down, until it left him empty at the bottom of an abyss, without the strength to pull himself out.
He sighed and sat up so suddenly his head spun. He roughly pushed all thoughts of Emma out of his head, and set to work on the mountain of homework he’d been set for that night.
whaddya think??? by the way, once i've actually finished writing the whole thing, i'll send the finished copy to anyone who wants it so they can actually see what it turned out as.
it's 3 546 words at the moment... i'm slowly but surely getting there... yyyeeeeeeeeewwww!
luv austin