Hi miss! I don't know if this message is too late, but just in case you'll still drop by a bookstore, is it okay if I ask for Craig Clevenger's The Contortionist's Handbook? I can't find it anywhere here eh. Thank you, miss!
- Gel
Friday, February 13, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Encounter: The toes in the shower
Flash fiction by Margaret Kawsek
A/N: Hello, this is my second short story. I seem to be having trouble copy-pasting in blogspot, so apologies if you can't see it yet.
I got transported back in time, once. In the shower.
I was looking at my toes, thinking these toes are the result of years and years of evolution. A few thousand years ago these toes were probably some form of jelly extension... probably didn't even have toes, just weird things sticking out of the blob that we now call a foot. I didn't look at them after that. From the strange things to the weird things (Now there’s a difference, I thought) to the beautiful things… it’s really the fascinating things, isn’t it?
Did you know that there are tiny worms living in the pores of every human’s face? They feed on dead skin.
Makes my skin crawl, thinking about it. But then again, it should, what with all those worms wriggling around. It’s not a disease, or anything special. Everyone has worms. Fascinating!
Fascinating things scared the hell out of me.
I reached for the shampoo, careful not to look at my toes. But I could feel them, and I saw my fingers instead. Shivers ran down my back-- could have been the fear, but then again I was naked and it was a pretty damn cold evening, even for January. My nails were painted in an inhumanly way-- there was white on the tips, called french tips, though I read somewhere that they were invented in America. I don't really know. And below the white tips there were more white shapes, curving and spotting and forming a little flower to where the base of the nail ended and became the rest of the finger.
Painted. Inhuman. Years ago they didn't have such things.
The shampoo was in my hand, a strange substance that I was about to put into my hair. Yuck, now that I think about it. A translucent, pearly-white liquid. Almost like--
I washed it off.
What was there to do in a shower other than stand under the water? Sort of like a waterfall, breathe in and out, then hold it to plant your face somewhere in there. When you get out of that stream of water, you step out of the shower and back into clothes. Standing, all the while standing. Why do we need to stand in the shower, by the way?
So I sat down, under the water that started pounding down the curve of my back. Just to prove that it can be done. I sat down and the flow of the water gathered itself around me; converged. I closed my eyes to keep my mind of all the fascinating things. In the shower, of all places.
There was a time, though, when things like that didn't matter. Before philosophy and science, for me, were real. Like a child I stretched out my arms and breathed deeply. I could still feel the fingers, those scary extensions of my flesh with white painted onto them, they became small. My legs shrunk into themselves, and slowly I became shorter, I felt the hair on my head grow back into my skull, getting shorter and longer again and short. All those haircuts.
Blobs. My feet were blobs. And I couldn't open my eyes. I was floating in a sea of water. My eyelids shut tightly. It was like I couldn't breathe, but I could breathe anyway, me leaning lightly against a wall of something soft.
All I could think of was Fuck, I'm naked.
Barely swimming I tucked whatever limbs I felt left into myself, feeling a floating sensation that I barely remember from a very long time ago. So it continued until I was no longer anything but nothing; the tiniest proof of life in the universe. A seed, but so much more, I think, what? So much more but a lot less, am I even human in this form?
So this is what they felt like, millions of years ago. Just twenty-three years and eight months away, really.
Am I human in this form? Maybe, I thought to myself, floating around in a pool of whatever it was I was floating around in. It smelled strange, almost like blood, but less metallic. Not that I could breathe properly in there, if I could have breathed at all. Is there breathing with no nose? No air? Or maybe not. The basic human functions, to feel and breathe and smell and hear, seemed gone. Fascinating! I was freaking myself out. Tried to feel, tried my hardest to feel back the toes and the fingers and the limbs, and the smell, and the beating of the shower on the curve of my back.
Then I was back in the shower. Found myself sitting on the cold tile floor of it, still disturbing the water. Checking my toes, I turned off the tap.
(800 words)
A/N: Hello, this is my second short story. I seem to be having trouble copy-pasting in blogspot, so apologies if you can't see it yet.
I got transported back in time, once. In the shower.
I was looking at my toes, thinking these toes are the result of years and years of evolution. A few thousand years ago these toes were probably some form of jelly extension... probably didn't even have toes, just weird things sticking out of the blob that we now call a foot. I didn't look at them after that. From the strange things to the weird things (Now there’s a difference, I thought) to the beautiful things… it’s really the fascinating things, isn’t it?
Did you know that there are tiny worms living in the pores of every human’s face? They feed on dead skin.
Makes my skin crawl, thinking about it. But then again, it should, what with all those worms wriggling around. It’s not a disease, or anything special. Everyone has worms. Fascinating!
Fascinating things scared the hell out of me.
I reached for the shampoo, careful not to look at my toes. But I could feel them, and I saw my fingers instead. Shivers ran down my back-- could have been the fear, but then again I was naked and it was a pretty damn cold evening, even for January. My nails were painted in an inhumanly way-- there was white on the tips, called french tips, though I read somewhere that they were invented in America. I don't really know. And below the white tips there were more white shapes, curving and spotting and forming a little flower to where the base of the nail ended and became the rest of the finger.
Painted. Inhuman. Years ago they didn't have such things.
The shampoo was in my hand, a strange substance that I was about to put into my hair. Yuck, now that I think about it. A translucent, pearly-white liquid. Almost like--
I washed it off.
What was there to do in a shower other than stand under the water? Sort of like a waterfall, breathe in and out, then hold it to plant your face somewhere in there. When you get out of that stream of water, you step out of the shower and back into clothes. Standing, all the while standing. Why do we need to stand in the shower, by the way?
So I sat down, under the water that started pounding down the curve of my back. Just to prove that it can be done. I sat down and the flow of the water gathered itself around me; converged. I closed my eyes to keep my mind of all the fascinating things. In the shower, of all places.
There was a time, though, when things like that didn't matter. Before philosophy and science, for me, were real. Like a child I stretched out my arms and breathed deeply. I could still feel the fingers, those scary extensions of my flesh with white painted onto them, they became small. My legs shrunk into themselves, and slowly I became shorter, I felt the hair on my head grow back into my skull, getting shorter and longer again and short. All those haircuts.
Blobs. My feet were blobs. And I couldn't open my eyes. I was floating in a sea of water. My eyelids shut tightly. It was like I couldn't breathe, but I could breathe anyway, me leaning lightly against a wall of something soft.
All I could think of was Fuck, I'm naked.
Barely swimming I tucked whatever limbs I felt left into myself, feeling a floating sensation that I barely remember from a very long time ago. So it continued until I was no longer anything but nothing; the tiniest proof of life in the universe. A seed, but so much more, I think, what? So much more but a lot less, am I even human in this form?
So this is what they felt like, millions of years ago. Just twenty-three years and eight months away, really.
Am I human in this form? Maybe, I thought to myself, floating around in a pool of whatever it was I was floating around in. It smelled strange, almost like blood, but less metallic. Not that I could breathe properly in there, if I could have breathed at all. Is there breathing with no nose? No air? Or maybe not. The basic human functions, to feel and breathe and smell and hear, seemed gone. Fascinating! I was freaking myself out. Tried to feel, tried my hardest to feel back the toes and the fingers and the limbs, and the smell, and the beating of the shower on the curve of my back.
Then I was back in the shower. Found myself sitting on the cold tile floor of it, still disturbing the water. Checking my toes, I turned off the tap.
(800 words)
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Just in case...
...you're as clueless as I am about the upcoming writers festival, you can check out the link below:
http://planet.naga.ph/2009/01/28/taboan-the-philippine-international-writers-festival-2009/
Hope it helps. XP
~yana :)
http://planet.naga.ph/2009/01/28/taboan-the-philippine-international-writers-festival-2009/
Hope it helps. XP
~yana :)
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