Tag Archives: Creative Writing

Shaken, Not Stirred (Part 2)

22 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Creative Writing, Uncategorized

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Part 1

“Jamal!, what’s taking you so long?” Emmy came bounding through the front door irritated that she’d been waiting for what felt like hours in the car. 

She stopped in her tracks as she took in the breadth of what was before her eyes. Chelle, butt naked on the floor and Jamal standing over her. 

Jamal’s head snapped back to see his girlfriend staring at him in utter disbelief. “It’s not what it looks like” Jamal stuttered. Emmy didn’t respond. “Let’s go” she said calmly. 

Not another word was said and they left.

Chelle had by this point sat upright with her knees close to her chest and her arms in a tight embrace around them. She was not going to move or make a sound. She wished the wooden flooring would open up and swallow her whole, but when has your deepest desire ever come true when you needed it the most. 

She was still there, live in the flesh, watching the entire scene unfold before her eyes like a showreel except she was the lead character living out her worst moment.

Chelle wasn’t sure what would have been worse, the two words said or Emmy going into a rage and beating the absolute crap out of her. It’s like when you’ve done something bad and your parents sit you down and say “I’m disappointed”. Those two words have the power to shift worlds and make any person rethink their entire existence. You’d much rather they scold you, that way they can feel guilty in the end, but no, they won’t give you the power. That’s how this moment felt to Chelle.

She sat there with her back against the steel cold leg of the God forsaken island and sobbed. Her body shook with the memories of all the things that went wrong over the past three years. She cried for her short comings and failures. She wept for her loneliness.

Two beeps were heard from her phone. With a wet nose and hot tears streaming down her face, she crawled over to where it was, hoping it was a message from God saving her from her current plight. It wasn’t. The message read “Be out by Sunday”. 

Murphy’s law was in full effect and Chelle could do nothing but wail herself to sleep. 

The sunlight coming through a gap of the closed curtains woke Chelle up. She stirred but didn’t move a limb. It was two hours later before she moved her body and slowly gathered her bearings. It was at that moment that she realised the mahogany stained floor had been her pillow and bed for the night. As she began to wonder how she ended up there, the events from last night came flooding back. She considered laying back down but the discomfort and aches in her body influenced her otherwise. 

With nothing left to give she walked towards her room. It seemed so foreign to her like she was seeing it for the first time and in some ways she was. She’d outgrown this space. This way of living and feeling hurt too much and she was spent.

Maybe this would be a great opportunity for change. She could have a do over and leave everything behind. She never did belong here, this was a poor attempt to live a life that she knew deep down wasn’t for her.

She picked up her laptop, typed in what she was looking for, done. 

Taking only a few treasured items and passport, she left. Chelle would return home.

Xo

Shaken, Not Stirred

03 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in Creative Writing

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30 something, broke, man less, childless, friendless, in fact everything less.

At this stage of her life, Chelle was sure she would have it all figured out, instead, she was about to buy a meal she couldn’t afford with money meant for rent.

Walking through the absolute white flat door, Chelle dropped her things and started to strip. She was letting it all hang out, the full Monty. Her roommate Emmy was not due back till tomorrow afternoon, she could do whatever she wanted without judgement, well without Emmy’s judgement.

In her birthday suit, she strutted her stuff, sat down on the couch without a second thought about hygiene and ate messily. “Que sera sera, whatever will be will be” she sang at the top of her lungs before hastily taking a swig of her bottled beer which she had opened with her teeth. For her, Thursday was the new Friday.

Chelle was different, six feet tall, cinnamon skin with dusty brown coils cascading down her neck. Most people found her intimidating yet strangely alluring. She never took notice though, she was too wrapped up in her own world that even if someone threw themselves at her, she’d merely sidestep them and carry on walking.

Men looked at her as something to be conquered, as if her presence quietened their manhood saying “I have your balls in my hands”. She had not quite recognised her own unique beauty and behaved very much like her brothers, sharp and rough around the edges. She had admirers but without them outrightly declaring their affections for her, she was completely oblivious.  For that reason and a few others, Chelle was spending another night alone.

With a bottle of barely drunk beer in her hand and a half eaten kebab, she fell asleep, mouth ajar and legs wide open, that is until she heard the rattling of keys.

Jolting out of sleep, she tried to grasp her bearings, was it Friday morning? had she missed work? where is she? where are her clothes? who is at the door? “fuck”. It was too late, he was in.

Chelle had forgotten Emmy’s boyfriend had keys to the flat and every so often he would pass by to do things upon request by Emmy.

Funny, her roommate, never quite understood the concept of manners, but would throw a complete fit when Chelle had a guest over with prior notice given. She was a raging, spoilt and untamed beast.

When Chelle initially stood up her brain said run, her body on the other hand did not quite commit to the command. She and Jamal stared at each other unsure of what to do. She stood there with her unshaven fanny, bed head and beer still in hand, frozen.

After what seemed like hours, Jamal mumbled something that sounded like an apology and turned around to give Chelle some of her dignity back. He needn’t have bothered, Chelle’s dignity had long since left her. She grabbed the kebab, picked up her phone and scurried towards her bedroom.

“Fuckkkkkkkk!” Chelle was now squirming on the floor like a slug they had poured salt on. She had stubbed her little toe on the kitchen island en route to her dungeon. She pinched her toe hoping it would somehow delay the pain or at least numb it. It didn’t.

Jamal hearing the commotion, ran towards her and Chelle shrieked “Don’t come near me!”. For a second he had forgotten that she was still butt naked and for the love of God whilst she was now cradling her foot with two hands, she did not need him looking down and seeing her womb.

“Stay where you are, I’m fine, honest” She grimaced. She wasn’t fine or being honest, far from it.  In addition to being 30 something, broke, man less, childless, friendless, everything less, she was now clothes less and embarrassed, could it get worse?

It did.

_____

I miss creative writing, I’m rusty but will definitely be doing much more of this xo

Who Do You Think You Are?

12 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by in Creative Writing, Experiences, Thoughts in motion

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This is a monologue on identity that I wrote a while back.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Who do you think you are?

I’ll ask again who do you think YOU ARE?

Are you who people say you are or are you what you say you are?…

Every day I wake up to doing the same thing, over and over and over again. I brush my teeth; have a wash and fight to get on the repulsive, germ infested public transport, ONLY to be met by the detestable boss at work.

Oh she makes my life a living hell! Boxed in by the cubicle not having the freedom of communicating with my peers, you dare not speak above a whisper or it’ll be straight into her office to be reprimanded. I wish someone would give her a good stiff kic…argh! Slaving away hour after hour, sifting through documents, to extract, in my mind, useless information for an even more useless cause.

I spend most of my time here, trying to do the best I can and to be recognised for it, but after years of being at this job, that is yet, to happen. I never thought this is where I would end up.

After graduating with a good degree in my hand, I was ready to take on the world! And then somehow, here we are. This was six years ago, now what the hell was I still doing here? Everyone working like busy bees for the honey queen, a vast contrast to what she really was, as she was anything but sweet.

Clocking in and clocking out that’s exactly what I did, watching the clock, tick tock tick tock, hoping that close of business would fast approach but nope only one minute more had past. Damn it!

Once it did come around I morphed into the road runner, one minute you saw me, the next just a whirl wind of paper flying everywhere. Can you blame me?

My love life paahhah! What LOVE life! I don’t know where to begin with that. My ex-boyfriend left me to travel the world and within the space of a year is married and expecting his first child, what a bleeding cheek! I felt like curling up into a ball and hibernating for a few months. 5 years I spent with him, 5 WHOLE YEARS and within a short space of time he has given her what I would have wanted. Well screw him and his wife!

I had a boyfriend after him but that lasted 2 months, he wanted to move in with me, erh no! Too much, too soon. I didn’t want that.

On another occasion, I went speed dating with a friend and boy was that a complete disaster. I met one guy there, who was recently divorced with four kids, now what am I going to do with FOUR kids and an ex-wife? NEXT! Another gentleman seemed sweet at first, but quickly became obsessive with the innermost parts of my life. Where were you born? What time? What is your star sign? When did you lose your virginity? PAUSE …NEXT! There was even a lesbian, a lesbian! Am I running out of options that I have to consider the same sex?! It is a thought though. With my friends getting married, having babies or in thriving and successful careers, it begs the question, what have I got going for me?

To top it off my younger sister just had a baby with her fiancé, so if I thought it was bad before with my parents hounding me about my future and progressing, the stares are even more pitiful now, especially at family gatherings, which I have now come to loathe “Sophie when are you going to get married and have some kids” yeah when you mind your business and disappear from the face of the earth is when, I would think to myself.

Ugh the look on my mother’s face whenever she sees me, I can even hear it over the phone in her voice. What’s a girl to do? I swear the next time I go to my parents’ house, I’m going to hire an escort, just to get them off my back. A good looking guy, 6ft plus with dark hair, maybe someone exotic with a cute accent and *sigh* how sad is that.

As much I want to be in a happy relationship and have kids, I just don’t want to end up with the wrong kind of person. My parents have had a long lasting healthy marriage of 35 years, and I want that! I don’t want to settle for anything less and by that I mean someone with less money. Who wants to have waited all the this time to end up with somebody broke, IM BROKE for goodness sake, two broke people won’t work, so until that time comes ill simply wait, I think…

I am currently renting a place, place is a fair word to use. I have done my best to make the place into a home, but there’s only so much I can do on the peanuts that I am paid. I cannot even fathom the idea of being a home owner. Who has ten to twenty thousand pounds lying around to put down as a deposit for a house? I’d love to meet that person and marry them, man or woman, right now anything goes. OK, I take that back I’m way into men to do that…I think.

Sometimes I don’t know if I’m coming or going. I get home and pick up a bottle of wine, plunk down on my sofa, grab the remote and flick, flick, flick, till I find something interesting to watch and gradually fall asleep with the wine glass in my hand. Sad I know, but what’s a girl to do?

I think sometimes who am I and what I have become, I can barely identify myself when I walk past a glass shop window. Who is that girl with mousy hair, uncool glasses and a poor dress sense?

All these things occurring in my life aren’t me, are they? Do these things define who I am? The no man having- job loathing-barely attractive-penniless Sophie?

Somewhere along the line I have turned into this person I don’t like much-pretentious, depressing and negative. I’m not sure at which point it all changed but the person staring at me doesn’t seem happy. The constant fake smile worn on my face has subsequently caused the lines currently living next to my mouth. God life sucks.

If only my knight in shining armour can ride in on a Mercedes SLK with his dark, shiny but flowing hair and his fluorescent gleaming teeth, as I step out of my penthouse suite having the concierge open the door for me to walk out to my chariot that awaits me. Dressed in a silver sequinned dress, reminiscent of something Diana Ross would wear and my now blonde hair romantically curled like the infamous Ms Marilyn Monroe wearing shoes that Cinderella would be jealous of. To live a life that amazing, no care in the world, no struggle, no cruelladevile for a boss and no more being the butt of every joke amongst my family and friends. Wouldn’t that be great?!

Only that my reality presents a stark difference and pending gloom with nothing to show for it. Is this the life I have chosen to live? I might as well not exist any longer, after all there isn’t much to it is there?

Hmmm let’s consider another thought. Say hypothetically speaking I do get my dreams fulfilled as previously described, will that then be my true self? The real me? Are only the outwardly things a determination of the inward part of me? They say your surroundings are an outward expression of what lies within and if that’s the case then my current circumstance is befitting of my stature. That being said, it has presented food for thought, if that is to be true does that mean I have the power to change on the inside in order to affect what is seen on the outside, kind of like believing is seeing?

Although, I am still struggling with the idea of whether or not that makes me…me.

Will these things be counted as an authentic reflection of the person I am? Or is that all just a superficial covering of what being “you” really is? I have always believed that if I received my deepest most yearned for desires, it will make me a better person, a more respected person, isn’t that what everybody wants?

To have become the person everyone else wants to be, however is too afraid to do so… but wait, hold on. If becoming who everyone else wants to be is the goal, then it draws the question again, is that you? Those dreams are they your dreams or who society tells you, you must be? Search within yourself, what defines you? The you that nobody else sees when you are all alone and no one is watching, you now proceed to remove the mask from your face and what is it you see underneath? A person or a lifeless soul regretfully moving through life, never really experiencing joy or the good things in it because you are too consumed with trying to be the person that everybody else wants to be. People and their fragmented pictures plastered all over social networks, purporting to be living these wonderful lifestyles, whilst you sit there feeling the pang of emptiness because you want to be out there doing amazing things and having others revere the life that you live. Note, it is but a small percentage of their lives they reveal, and more importantly what they want you to see. They post all these glamorous existing’s, then call you to worship and bask in their greatness and ability to have good fortune yet they neither have an extra head or magical body parts, a human is a human is a human. So if everybody is trying to be somebody else…who is actually being themselves? Or am I being completely ridiculous, as being completely you is a myth and has never really existed?

So what is all the fuss about, why try so hard to live up to an unrealistic expectation of only what you have been privy to see, like I said before, they are just humans.

I’m starting to get a grasp on this whole identity thing it doesn’t matter what you, you or you think because in actual fact your ideas and your notions are simply regurgitated information fed to you by your environment, that is your family, your friends, your work colleagues, the media and pretty much anyone and anything you come into contact with so what gives you the right stake claim on the way I, Sophie should live her life.

Everyone is searching and looking for a higher state of being, no one person being better than the other so why do you seek this validation from those who are not entitled to give it? I’m still a fully functioning, breathing woman who has a lot to offer and live for, having attempted to uphold the expectations of those unknown to me has kept me feeling like an unsuccessful and worthless mess but everyone has it completely wrong. I am the one who decides who I am not anyone else.

I am who I say I am and who I wish to be, I have come to realise the only persons opinions that truly matter are those that start and finish with me.