Quick Novel
::: the novel written in seven hours :::
chapter seven
I'm sitting here writing a chapter for quick novel. I have to produce two paragraphs, one hero, one villain, A conflict. In Ann Arbor. The hero is me as a hero and the villain is me as a villain. The hero is the person that I always wish I was and the Villain is the villain the I always feared I would be.
Apples, grapes, oranges, melons is heaps, colors that filled his eyes smells that filled his head. And people, they walked among the stalls. Here was a young woman, red hair, and green silk scarf, stopping at the fruit stall, just in front of him. She stopped and picked up an apple smelled it and put it back. He noticed that her hands were rough, and her eyes were green.
Coffee, I have a cup of coffee on the table beside me and I have just finished eating a donut. The donut was a jelly filled donut, red jelly, covered with sugar. I'm about to fall asleep and I go off and eat a sugar donut, How smart can that be?
Huge. When he walked into the cafe, everyone in the place looked up and stared. It was hard to imagine how he could walk. He was huge. The fat rolled around his face like raw bread dough, his neck was folds of skin that looked like rubber innertubes that did not have enough air in them, his shirt started at the neck and widened as it fell around his huge body until it reached his waist that was almost as wide as the open door he now stood in.
Allen knew that this was the person. This was George.
George had called Allen earlier that week. "Man," he said, "You got to help me. I can't stop eating."
The glasses on the table were off green the...
Oh, damn, I've slipped off.
Well, where are we now... I'm standing on south Main street. It's 2 or 3 in the morning and foggy. I don't hear a sound and I don't see any cars. I'm not sure why I'm here. The clouds and the fog cut out the moonlight and the stars. I know it's a full moon, but I can not see the sky, In fact, I can not see the street corner at the end of the block. The street lamp in front of me, is a glob of glow in the fog and not much more.
The problem is, someone is following me. I can not see him, I am not sure what he looks like, but as I walk, with each step I take, I hear a step of his. At first I thought it was an echo, but just now, I stopped, abruptly, and I heard him take one extra step. No more.
Across the room from me sits an hideous monster. At four feet tall, he is not imposing, but his stature give an added twist to his... green... skin...
Well, what to write about. That is the puzzle. Something in Ann arbor and something about the light and dark halves of my person.
It's like this. I have not idea what I'm doing here. Wait, I have it. I have just finished my first novel. I'm so excited I take it to Jane to read. She...
Writing feeds me. If I do not write, my soul gets green and moldy. But I also can not write without an audience, so when I had finally finished my first collection of poems. I could not wait to show them to someone, anyone.
Open the door. Climb the stairs. The third stair, or fourth, creaks, the wall paper smells of cigarette smoke and cooked cabbage. The landing is warn and dusty. Look down the hall. The window at the end is covered with a faded lace curtain that is covered with a white dust and does not move in the still air. Walk to the third room on the left. Knock. There is a noise on the other side. It must be...
"Hi," she said. Her red hair hung limp out the towel that she must have just been using. Drops of water shown on her face and neck. Her bathrobe sported wet spots on both shoulders.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to get you out of the shower."
"Well, so why did you?"
"Just finished my collection of poems and I wanted someone to read them to."
She sighed, shrugged her shoulders, and turned around. I walked after her, closing the door. "Christ," she said, "at least you could have called."
"Yea, but I knew you'd be here," following her.
She looked at me over her shoulder. It was a funny look. She sat down at the kitchen table with another sigh. I stood in the doorway. Dishes adorned the dish drained on one side of the sink, lapped neatly like scales on a huge white fish. The afternoon sun slanted across the well warn surface of the sink and spilled out over the linoleum covered floor. Outside the window, a bird sang. Charel's robe, a burgundy corduroy, hung on her shoulders with an irresolute indifference. As she crossed her legs, I was struck by the fact that she was probably naked under that robe. I traced the veins from her neck downward, towards...
"Well?" she said.
"Oh. Yea." I pulled my brown leather briefcase up to my chest and tried to open it with one hand, while holding it with the other. It started to slip down my front. I held on to it by the buckle and tried to catch the handle at the top, as it slipped further. Charel stood up to help me and as she did her robe fell open, I looked up. Her skin was a soft cream color darker at the navel and around her nipples. A splattering of freckles covered her neck and chest. her breasts were small but well defined, hand sized, a voice said somewhere in my head. Her pubic hair was a dark red. And I dropped my briefcase.
She leaned over to pick it up, just as I did, and her hair smelled of shampoo, a sickly sweet smell masking an odor that was more complex: a brown summer night, odor, with overtones of sage and wet grass. And I could feel the warmth from her skin. I was stopped by a flash of an image of her in the shower, warm water flowing over her head, shoulders, chest, breasts, belly; her head tilted back with the water flowing into her face. I was still immersed in that thought, while she straightened up with the briefcase in her hand, and set it on the table. She closed her robe, "why don't you just sit down. Can I get you some coffee?"
"Oh. Yes, OK." I sat down; she got up and turned her back to me. The robe fell open again, as she reached up into the cupboard and it flowed around her ankles as she stooped down to get something from below the counter. The afternoon breeze through the window, the sun on the counter, her hair wet against the back of her robe, encased in the towel... Images, phrases, words, tumbled through the mist of a slowly rising desire.
With her back still to me, she filled a cup with water, put it into the microwave, and said, "Well, what did you want to read?"
I fumbled with the briefcase again. Getting the buckle open while trying to watch her. And pulled out the folder. "Poems," I managed to say. "I've finished my set of poems."
"What set of poems?"
"The one I've been working on." I thought I had told her about my project. At least dozen times. "For six months." I was sure I had told her. I mean, how can you not tell someone you know what has taken up your life for months. "Didn't I tell you?"
"Well?"
I set the folder of poems down on the table. "If your not interested, Charel," I said, "why not just say so."
The microwave beeped, and she opened it, got out the cup. Shrugged her shoulders. Put in a spoonful of instant coffee power. Stirred the coffee. Pulled her robe together, turned around, put the coffee in front of me, and sat down. "OK." She said, "If you must read, read on."
"Hey, " I said, "if you're not interested, I can wait; I can find someone else to read to." I took a drink of coffee.
Her cheeks turned a little red. "Like who?"
"I don't know." The room started to feel a little warm. Maybe is was the coffee. "But, if you are not interested..."
"Damn, " she said, " you invite yourself over; you get me out of the shower; you make yourself at home; all so you can read me one of you whiny little poems and now your telling me that it was a waste of time! Shit."
"OK. OK. I'll read you something," but I did not really feel like it, now.
"And who it this, that you where thinking of reading your poems to beside me?" Her cheeks and neck were almost scarlet.
"It's OK, " I said, "that was nothing. Just an offhand comment." I could feel my own cheeks heating up. "Really." I said.
She grabbed my briefcase from the table and stood up. The red color in her cheeks and neck had spread to her chest, making a radial pattern like a second-grader's picture of a sunrise, upside down across her chest.
"Hey." I jumped up, moving towards her, "watch it. My manuscript." She turned and walked towards the front room.
"I know," she screamed, "I know who it is." Her burgundy robe flowed behind her. She yanked open the door to the hall. I raced after her. She lifted my briefcase over her head and flung it down the hall towards the stairs. I scrambled after it, as the manuscript burst out of its compartment like pigeons taking off when you run through the park. I tried to catch the pages, but only ended up tripping and trying to catch myself as I fell with a crash that was echoed by the door shutting.
My knees hurt and my hands were scraped, so it was hard getting up. And as I was standing, trying to decide if I should turn around and knock on her door. I needed to explain things to her. Or if I should pick up my manuscript. I though it might get dirty. When a sound behind me, made me turn. It was the door opening again. There she stood. Her robe open. Her face glowing beet red. Her wet hair wild. And in her hand she held the folder of poems that I had left on the table. The ones that I had wanted to read to her.
I stepped towards her, my hand outstretched to take the folder. She cocked the her hand back over her shoulder. That beautiful breast rising ever so slightly at the motion, and threw the folder into my face, before I though to react.
"And you can tell that slut," she shouted, "that she will never appreciate your poems the way I do."
...on to Chapter Eight...
Any questions? e-mail chris@osric.com