Thursday January 15th, 2015

The exercise:

Write about something or someone that is: uninvited.

After putting it off for far too long, this afternoon I drove into Penticton and bought a new, much larger memory card for my camera (my current one will now serve as a backup) and a memory card reader. Both items I'll need if I want to get deeper into this product photography business.

The reader is especially overdue, as something went wrong with either the camera, the memory card, or the USB cable quite a while back that made transferring files from my camera to my computer in large batches incredibly unreliable. Random files wouldn't be moved, fun things like that.

So I'd resorted to moving them one at a time. Which, while painful, was manageable when I was only moving a handful of images. On a larger scale, however...

Anyway, glad to finally have that taken care of.

Mine:

Now is not the time,
You are not welcome here.
Can't you see the game,
Can't you smell the beer?

I'm out with the boys,
This time is meant for me.
So could you please go
Find somewhere else to be?

I don't need your voice
Buzzing inside my head;
Just give me some space
And leave these things unsaid.

I cannot escape,
You're everywhere I go!
How much booze to kill
A conscience? I'll soon know...

4 comments:

Greg said...

That does sound like a very painful way of getting the photos into longer term storage! I hope it was either the memory card or the cable with the problem though, as the camera is the expensive problem!
Heh, nice punchline with your poem, I definitely didn't guess that that was what was bothering your narrator! The poem itself is quite deceptive too, I was expecting something or someone physical, so nicely done with the misdirection.

Uninvited
The hotel was an Art Deco box sited on top of Fellowes Hill. Fluted columns flanked the grand entrance, and the theme continued inside with the furniture, all Art Deco, being mostly antiques from the 1920s. It was called the Uninvited Guest; the signs pronouncing this were situated at both ends of its softly-gravelled driveway.
Maud sank into the chair in her bedroom; it looked like a sphere that had been neatly cut in half at an oblique angle and then scooped out and filled with cushions. It was odd at first, but after a minute or two she just felt warm and safe. Across the room from her was a bed with a headboard that struck her as looking much like the Empire State Building, and to her left was a dresser that was all corners, lines and hard angles. She tucked her legs up inside the chair and wondered why she felt like a cigarette, preferably in a cigarette holder.
When she opened her eyes the room had sunk into gloom and she sleepily realised that she must have been more tired than she thought. She was pleasantly warm though, and it felt as though someone had put a blanket over her while she slept; clearly housekeeping had been in. She wondered if they'd turned the bed down and put a chocolate on the pillow. Deciding she might find out, she stretched her legs.
They didn't move.
She tried again, and realised that something heavy was pressing down on them; perhaps housekeeping had gone a bit overboard on the blankets? She tried again, pushing harder this time, and something next to her ear growled. A warm, moist fug of breath rolled across her face, and though she couldn't identify the smell it made her think of blackboards, Escher-esque cubes spinning in black space, and lizards with too many legs skittering over walls that leaned the wrong way. She turned her head away from it, feeling a headache spontaneously building, and something clutched her. She realised with a start that made sweat break coldly out all over her, that there was an arm, or... some kind of limb... wrapped around her chest. She tried to scream, but as she opened her mouth the thing clutching her squeezed and the breath escaped in a gasp instead of a scream.
Someone tapped on the door, and pushed it open. A hand scraped across the wall and turned the lights on, and with the suddenness of sight the pressure on her disappeared. Maud sat up, suddenly free and unpinned, and swung her legs down.
"Housekeeping," said a voice suggestive of ancient marble tombs and centuries-long dessication.

Anonymous said...

Marc, I thought your poem was going in a completely different direction until the last stanza. Good job keeping the reader guessing.

Uninvited:

The whistle that blew in the distances was high and haunting. The sound carried over the soft blows of the winter wind causing another layer of shivers to wiggle down her spine as she stopped dead in her tracks to listen to the sound. That whistle sounded as though it came from the watch tower.
She felt her eyes widen. That was impossible, though. No one had seen them for years. She thought it had become common knowledge that they had gone completely extinct or, according to some of her more skeptical friends, had been myth and folklore along.
The melodious whistle blew again.
Abandoning her parcel of beast under her arm, she gathered her coats around her and sprinted towards the town cellar in the center of the market place. Every time reason tried to tell her it wasn’t happening, the whistle again would call through the mist, silencing any protest she thought up.
They weren’t extinct. They were real and alive. They were dangerous.
And they were coming for the town.

morganna said...

Greg & Ivy, you are out-doing yourselves with creepiness today. I've got shivers down my spine.
======================
Little black bugs
Crawling in my sheets, my hair
How do I get clean?

Marc said...

Greg - eh, I'm sure I'll end up upgrading my camera as well, sooner or later :P

Good lord, that's some great atmosphere and tension. You really do shine brighter as your writing goes darker!

Ivybennet - thanks!

If you're not writing about dragons I shall be disappointed :P

Great details, and you've left me wanting more yet again.

Morganna - ugh, speaking of shivers. Now I don't want to go to bed :(