Exercise: Reach For It

Another exercise I found at The Periwinkle Pen.
This one is based on the Machine of Death, where people can get a slip of paper that tells them how they will die. What's on the paper is not always literal though, which doesn't solve questions about death, really.

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[Reach For It]

Stampede.

Lukas squinted at the small slip of paper in his hand. Eight simple letters that foresaw his death. He told himself that looking at the paper in the safety of his own home would eliminate the spook factor, but his home gave him little comfort.

"What does it say?" Red asked, jumping up and down and trying to snatch the slip away.

Lukas held the paper above his own head and sneered, his eyes narrowed and stare genuine despite his his quickly beating heart. "Only if you can reach it from my hand, short stuff."

"Not fair!"

Lukas chuckled, but then slowly stopped and frowned as Red began pointing and laughing. The paper with the single word dangled in front of Lukas' face, black fingernails dully shining from the ceiling light.

"You really should be careful when I'm around," a girl smiled, lightly yellowed teeth greeting him. "I may not be as tall as you, but I'm sneakier than your dead cat instincts can handle."

Rolling his eyes, Lukas tried to grab back the slip. "Now that is what I call unfair, Maroon."

Maroon shrugged, pulling away the paper. "I don't see how it's unfair. You told Red and I that you would show us what that silly Machine would say about your so-called 'future death.' As your friends, Red and I are allowed to be curious. God knows you'd want to see my foreseen death."

"And mine," chimed Red.

"Don't make me wrestle you for it," Lukas said, smiling more and more to himself. Wrestling did not sound so bad in the least, a nice distraction. He eyed Maroon up and down--

"Stampede."

Maroon's eyebrows rose as her gaze switched from the paper to Lukas. She flicked the paper back at the cranberry-haired man and flipped her towering red Mohawk. Red blinked at Lukas, who quickly snatched the paper with a slightly pink face, as his sister said, "Well, what do you make of that?"

"Nothing."

"You're kidding."

"Not really," Lukas said, itching his shoulder and stuffing the piece of paper in his back pocket. Unconsciously he rolled his shoulder and realized how lucky he was to have hair covering his forehead sweat. "We don't even know if this freaky voo-doo is even legitimate. They say the Machine never fails, but you know propaganda. They could claim so just to get our money."

"I heard otherwise from some guy," Red said, throwing himself at Lukas' recently-made bed and rolling on his back, letting his head hang upside down. "He said that some other guy he knew got a prediction that read 'gunshot.' His friend swore he'd stay in the house to avoid any conflict with guns. Five days later, he was watching a movie, a man shot a gun, BAM. Had a heart attack. The gunshot caused the man to have a heart attack! It's not totally bogus!"

"So they're cryptic," said Maroon, now looking at Lukas. "So maybe this is a symbolic stampede."

Lukas stretched his back and arms. "My first thought was a human stampede."

When the Grupp siblings just stared, Lukas pressed his lips together, halting any chance of nervous lip-quivers. "Is that so wrong of me?" he mock pouted.

"Only famous people get trampled by people," Maroon shot mockingly right back at the man.

Lukas shook his head and smiled, a new thought coming to his head--and said though eased his beating heart. His eyes shone. "You see, my dear Maroon, I will become famous. The girls will love me so much that they will be moved and rush to me in the wild passion of obsession. And that's how I want to die. Plus, once I die, people will become so depressed, their mangled emotions will drive them to kill themselves just to join me in death."

One of Maroon's eyes twitched and her lips tightened. "Are you really supporting mass suicide?"

"If it's in my name, then yes."

"You're horrible."

"Horribly beautiful."

"Lame," Red called, now laying on his stomach with arms dangling over the edge.

"What I find lame," Lukas said, picking his words tastefully, with a smug smirk across his mug, "is how you two didn't get your own little prediction from the Machine."

Red smiled and fixed a shining gaze at Lukas. If Red's thick black eyebrows were ten times thinner, and if all his facial piercing disappeared, he would look like an  middle school child looking up at a teacher. "I don't need a piece of paper to drive me deeper into insanity. I've got the psychosis for that."

"And I really don't care how I die," Maroon said. "And after your little remark, I don't think I care how you die either." She pushed past Lukas and out the door, offering a small backwards glance.

"Ouch," Lukas said, rubbing his chest. "That hurt. Talk about an emotional blow."

When Lukas turned to Red, the short man only stared at him with clouded eyes. From the looks of it, Red stared not at Lukas or the wall behind him or even into space, as cliches go. Tilting his head, Lukas said, "What's with that trippy look on your face, Red?"

Red offered a light smile. "I think I know what kind of stampede will cause your death."

"Oh really? What do you say it is?"

"Only if you can reach it from within my mind, tall stuff."

Exercise: Quicksand

This is just a strange story all in itself. I'm not sure what to say about it.
The exercise: write a story about a dream, describing the familiar as if it were unfamiliar.
Exercise taken from The Periwinkle Pen.

Fun fact: the story alludes to a song. Honestly, the song helped me finish writing it from heavy doubt. & the song does not belong to me, obviously, and full rights belong to the owner(s).

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[Quicksand]

Not even in the midst of December was the weather cold. Chilly floated into St. Louis and repelled the long-lasting warmth somewhere in November; I don't remember exactly when the change occurred. But all that matters is that the weather didn't keep people confined indoors and that I could walk outside without wearing a ridiculous fluffy coat that made my body appear thicker than it already was.

I felt my lips curl into a smile as I walked up a plain sidewalk, staring ahead at the upper end of a large pavilion. In my vision I saw two buildings connected by an over passing roof that blocked off rain, hail, and snow. To my left, long stretches of trimmed green grass were fenced into rectangles by dark green chain fences. To my right were plain bricks of yet another building with a few trees scattered every few feet (to be earth-friendly, to make the place look better, to quench the thirst of parched environmental activists who wouldn't shut up). Neither of the sides were much of an attraction unless sports teams practiced in the fields, but even then, I didn't care. Sports wasn't my thing, and not because I was chubby either. I could play ultimate Frisbee longer that the next guy and keep trucking even from sweat and fatigue. The scenery wasn't the source of my smile.

The sidewalk cut at a right angle near the overhanging roof, jutting off into a different direction. I sharply turned with the sidewalk and met people who were sitting on steps outside of doors. The majority of them were males, all of them wearing faded blue jeans with holes and tears in them. Graphics tees with assorted bands promoted by Hot Topic covered their chests, and above the tees were jackets. One male in particular stuck out to me, one wearing a gray over his long locks of curled gold hair that rivaled Goldilocks’. He waved at me, and I nodded in reply.

Only one person was standing up, and she stood across from the group against a separate door with no steps. She glanced at me with her freckled face and smiled, her teeth peeking through her lips. As I reached her, she wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer. "Hello," she said, her voice like a preteen boy's voice hitting puberty.

The crowd of the guys smirked and chuckled. "You look like boyfriend and girlfriend," one of them called out.

"Whatever," the girl dismissed as her voice hit a rough undertone, waving the remark away with her hand. My face warmed as she rubbed my shoulder. I wanted to glare at the speaker, to bite back, to show discontent. But the girl stayed calm and collected, so I blended with her atmosphere--to keep her from embarrassment--

A hot breath hit my ear as I heard the rubbing-sandpaper voice whisper, "Wait here a bit, I left something in my locker." Before I could reply a simple "okay," she retreated into the doors behind her.

I was left with a bunch of rowdy boys she hung with, most or all of them most likely stoners (hinting to one who wore a beanie with hemp leaves on it).

One perk of physical flawless is the inability to keep people's attention for long. The boys turned to one another and chatted among themselves, their interest flipping instantly like a light switch: on to off. The beads of sweat, ready to develop, halted and shut down. The responsibility for entertaining them wasn't on my shoulders.

The curly-haired boy heaved himself to his feet and walked to a dull brown-painted pole, the same color as the buildings' doors. He leaned an arm against the pole and kept his feet inches from the pole, an attempt at a "cool" pose as far as I could tell. He motioned with his head to join, using the same movement people used as a substitute for "'sup." Joining him, I wrapped an arm around the pole, my arm distanced from his, our faces closer than first anticipated.

"So."

"So."

Our heads slightly nodded back and forth. I continued to let my head metronome forward and back to invisible music as the boy looked behind him, quickly surveying the area and the other guys. When his eyes locked with mine again, the corners of his lips twitched upward, and after another second, restriction crumbled, letting the smirk reveal itself. "So how far have you two gone?"

The slight static sounds of the other guys diminished like a candle out of wax. The boy didn't speak loudly, but somehow, he caught everyone else's attention.

I shrugged and said, "Not too far, I guess."

"Have you thought about sex?"

A choked chuckle tumbled from my mouth, and my hand flew up to cover it. One of the boy's eyebrows arched upward, his eyes unmoving. His growing grin deceived his nonchalant cover up. Clearing my head, I tried to recompose myself, brushing my hair to one side. "If only I knew how to properly screw a chick."

The boy's body began to shake with the background sound of a low rumbling laughter drumming into sound waves. He laughed, ducking his head to hide his yellowing teeth fully exposed, and he beat his arm against the pole. He turned to the crowd and shouted, "Did you hear? She doesn't know how to screw a chick!" Immediately the crowd of boys exploded into laughter like a live audience crowd waiting for the "applause" card.

My lips caved inward, hiding them, and felt my cheeks burning. Laughing faces stayed constant, mocking and pointing, knee-slapping and beating at their legs, falling to the ground and shaking their heads.

Wiping an invisible tear from his eye, the boy's laughter swindled to pants and sighs. "That is hilarious. What a laugh!"

Before I could utter anything, the girl returned, arm around my shoulder again. She glanced over at the boys catching their breath and then turned to me, smiling. "Shall we go?"

I nodded and smiled in return. We walked toward the building opposite of the crowd, and the girl dropped her hand, allowed some space in between us, and then took hold of my hand. I pushed the door open for the both of us, and once the door closed behind us, locking out the howling laughter of the boys, the warmer air brushed past our faces.

We walked into the building smiling, but after a second’s look, the smiles dropped to frowns.

People bustled throughout the hallway, packed tight and walking in opposite directions. The girl and I exchanged looks before gaping on. The day was late, and never have people still inhabited the hallway during such an hour. Clubs and activities caused no such commotion nor have they dug deep into the day. In other words, there was no apparent reason why—if it was possible—every student who attended school still loitered about.

The girl next to me muttered under her breath and squeezed my hand. Without explanation she dragged me into the crowd as I tried to keep balance in my boots. People made way for the girl like the seas parting for Moses with only a glance behind their shoulders while pressing the crowd into the walls. We turned into another hallway known as the senior hallway, one with less people. I expected the girl to stop since the particular hallway was her favorite, but instead, she continued her pathway throughout the hallways. On one entire side were windows that revealed the beautiful courtyard laden with walkways and big bushes. On the other were large red lockers hiding a door to a library in their midst.

Questioning could have helped me, but I decided to just go with the flow. As long as we could do what was planned, it didn't matter. Like Machiavelli wrote, the end justified the means. But the masses of students still flocked in the hallways sealed my mouth shut for the moment.

The main hallway of the school also burst to the seams with students. I couldn't help gaping as the girl continued to lead me. "You've got to be kidding me," I murmured, but the girl either couldn't hear over the people's buzzing chatter or could care less about a pointless comment.

We elbowed people out of the way disregarding the polite manners in order to reach the cafeteria, which was—you guessed it!—filled to the max by people. Bright and dark colors of clothes and skin and bags and backpacks hid the dusty blues of the cafeteria. Now the people surrounding us glared and shouted at us as we pushed on, creating a pathway of compressed teenagers.

With a great effort we finally made it through the cafeteria and into the school's kitchen. The area, devoid of people, was occupied by rows of ovens, stoves, fryers, microwaves, storage shelves, the general supplies expected in kitchens—except for a white silo, taller than humans (and standing on stilts) but still fitting in the room that stood against a wall to the side. No odors hung in the air, and no staff members were in sight. The kitchen was abandoned, wrapped in solitude, and we ripped away the paper and hid from the world.

The girl eyed the short white silo, her eyes resting on the silver ladder up the side. I looked at it as well with little interest, but my eyes widened when the girl jumped onto the latter. As she began climbing I asked in a harsh whisper, "What the hell are you doing?"

"There shouldn't be anything inside this thing, which means this can allow us some privacy."

I bit my bottom lip, just watching the girl continue climbing higher until she dropped down over the edge. She then swore and shouted, "Christ, what is this stuff?"

A gasp escaped me, and I threw myself at the ladder, scrambling up the silo. My heart skipped a few beats, still tumbling around from the previous fantasy of privacy and now from what could have gone wrong; what was in the silo that caused the girl to curse so?

I peered over the edge to see the girl, arms raised above her shoulders, face twisted into a scowl, soaking in white-yellow liquid that appeared to have lumpy materials in it. Cringing, I said, "That looks like some sort of soup or chowder."

"Yeah, I think so too. Come in."

I stared. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. Close your eyes if you must."

If the girl could endure standing in food—and, I thought, the school better not try to sell the concoction the next day at lunch—I supposed I also could. After all, we were alone in the kitchen. No one could tease us for standing in some nice, warm soup.

So I sucked in some breath and heaved my legs over the edge, letting them dangle for a moment. They were suddenly jerked down, pulling the rest of my body with it, and I squealed in surprise as the white-yellow liquid smothered me. When I felt my feet hit a surface, by body untouched from the waist-up, I heard the girl's boyish laugh ring and echo in the silo. If I was not aware of who was in the silo with me, I would have assumed that a twelve year old boy jumped in with me.

She took my arm and led me to a rounded edge of the silo, and once her back made contact with the wall, she wrapped both arms around my body. I returned the gesture with a smile on my face. Mentally I sighed with relief, but the stress soon returned. I could swear that something from within the soup grabbed at my legs, slowly edging me down. Yet the girl did not move one bit.

A fear hit me: what if I would be pulled down and lost forever, never to see the girl again? Never to see my loved ones, the school, the millions of people roaming the halls, or never to taste soup? Did the pulling mean that my time was limited? My body shook, and in my mind, I thought of a farewell.

"I cannot believe how lucky I am."

The girl looked at me with a curious stare, and her thin lips parted as she said, "What do you mean by that?"

The sensation of my feet being dragged down shot through my legs stronger than ever. I tightened my grip around the girl, sucking in a breath. She pressed me closer, her hands hardening against my back—to my surprise, it felt like a comfort—and our eyes met. Releasing all the breath from before, my voice quivered as I said, "There are many reasons why I am lucky. Months ago, the helpless notion of my lonely future gripped me. I felt undesirable, horrendous, all the bad adjective that you could think of. On top of that, I thought that my parents would disown me if they knew about my secret crush. What my friends would think of my secret crush. What everyone else would think about my secret crush. But now here I am, standing with said secret crush, happier than I can put into words, even if we are standing in food. For this reason I hope you're as happy as I am."

"I am happy," she started, "very happy. Don't ever doubt that—ever. If I was unhappy, we wouldn't be together anymore. Drink some confidence juice, stop being scared of what people think of us, and let us keep having fun with smiles on our faces."

I tried not to laugh. The girl was never good at pep talks despite her hearing it constantly from playing sports, but nonetheless, my heart began to feel lighter. With our eyes still locked, I smiled. "I guess I'm just nervous. I wasn't sure where this relationship would lead me—us."

Then I thought of something.

"You’re right," I said, taking her hand and straightened my back. The pulls on my feet stopped, and then the soup's sinking reversed, leaving me standing normally, eye level with the girl. Once the sensation completely left, I grabbed the girl's other hand and stepped back, pulling the girl away from the curved wall and to the middle of the silo. For a moment, we leaned forward and let our foreheads touch, drowning out the soup's smell, replaced with the girl's cologne.

Then the girl broke eye contact, her eyes fleeting to the direction of the kitchen's door;  thumps of shoe against ground leaked through the door's edges. I released one hand and reached for the top edge of the silo. The girl smiled, like she knew what I was about to do, and proud of it.

We stepped out of the silo, the soup dripping off our ruined clothes, and walked out of the door and along with the others.

Exercise: Your Personal Hell - Level 1

This exercise is called "Your Personal Hell," which can be found on The Periwinkle Pen. Copied and pasted from the thread (because I'm feeling lazy right now):
"Like Dante's Inferno, a fictional Hell is created. In Hell, according to Dante, there are separate levels labeled by numbers, and sinners are sent to the level that corresponds with their worst crime (1 being the least horrible to 9 being the most intense). Certain types of people are sent to said levels.

The task of the exercise is to build your own personal Hell. It doesn't require 9 levels ("circles," Dante called them). It needs, however, as many levels yours would hold, be it three, five, seven, nine, or eleven. Describe what lies in each level with the scenery, the punishment, and the people that are sent to the level. Be as creative as you wish with the scenery and punishment, even if it's stuffed with gore that surpasses the average morbid scale. It's Hell, after all!"

The theme I'll be using is the seven sins. I've arranged the sins in order of which I personally find to be least evil to greatest offense. The first level is Gluttony. I attempted to write this exercise in second person because I felt second person would be more effective. This particular level was written on November 21, 2010, during NaNoWriMo, and the other levels haven't been started yet.

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[Your Personal Hell - Level 1]

An imp takes you by the hand and leads you down a corridor with luscious walls licked by hungry flames. At the end of the corridor, you see a door labeled "1" in splotchy red, some areas darker than others, the bottom lining of the number having a dripping effect. You wonder to yourself if it was painted with blood--it's Hell, after all.

You watch as the imp opens the door with ease, its red tail flicking back and forth, purposefully hitting your legs. Luckily you are unaffected since the tail is not a great mass, so you show no expression of pain on your face, which naturally displeases the imp. Nonetheless, almost ignited by your actions, the imp tugs you into the room.

The first thing you notice is that this room is misty and murky, blurring your vision to the point of obscurity. It doesn't help that there is little to no light in the entire room, making the task of observing most difficult for you. One step into the room and you step on something, and it does not take long for your ankles to be submersed in the same mushy material. The uncaring imp continues to pull you along, distracting you from watching your feet drag in the substance, and it directs you to one of the walls. A shape starts to emerge, and from what you can tell, the object is hanging. A few steps later and you see it's not only one object, but numerous of the same one. The same shape even appears away from the wall, and you deduct that the hanging masses are in more than one place.

The imp lets go of your hand and roughly pushes you forward, and you almost fall--only barely catching yourself by flailing your arms about like a maniac. Once you are completely balanced, you squint at the silhouette in front of you. As the image becomes clear, your eyes grow wider and wider until the sight is completely revealed, and you turn heel and run from the grotesque sight of a decaying, bloated human corpse gutted with its intestines spilling onto the floor.

Then the squishes and splunks of the floor material (after seeing the corpse, you now know they are more intestines) become unbearable as well. You immediately stop running and stand in place, eyes welling up in horror as your body trembles from the trauma. You cross your arms and clutch onto your opposite elbows, trying to comfort your stomach; to no avail, as everything currently in your stomach now joins the intestines on the floor. Your body continues to convulse when the imp returns to your side, gripping a shoulder and pushing you ahead.

You shake your head violently, shouting out no in protest, but the imp's hold is unbreakable. From the distance, the sounds of cracks, chewing, and complaints reach your ears. The mist clears, and what lies before you is a field of humans shackled and bound like farm animals, their leashes held by dark red devils with sprouts for horns, laughing maniacally. In their other hand you see a whip of which they struck at the humans. They barked commands at the humans, ordering them to eat, eat, and eat. Eat the intestines, eat the innards, and eat the remaining flesh on the corpses. While staring at the sight you chance upon someone biting into a succulent chunk of purpled intestines.

Your stomach empties once again, but unlike the other chunks of your disgorgement the fresh batch is not alone. Other patches of human regurgitation spread out like puddles. You completely sympathize with the tortured gluttons, for you understand that the corpses and viscera is by no chance a pleasant sight to see, that anyone, in your opinion, would feel their stomach churn and choke in this atmosphere, not to mention the scent, of which was heavy with decay and rotten materials.

This place, you are sure of, would be the most horrible place to wind up in, but as you know, you are not a glutton. You are not required to walk through this level, but even though you don't know exactly why, you just suppose sadistic Lucifer wants to revel in your misery, and indirectly gets his kicks by commanding this imp to give you a grand tour of the evil lord's palace.

Finally you cannot bear to look anymore, so you turn your head from the suffering. The imp grins and pushes you in a different direction, and your feet keep trudging through the human entrails and waste until another door is approached. This door, you see, has the number "2" scrawled upon it. You then realize this room is only the first level, and if you thought this level was bad, how would you fare with the rest?

Exercise: Text

I made up this exercise out of nowhere, the exercise being: a character gets progressively mad to the brink, but something happens (very vague) that simmers them down, maybe to the point of a happy smile. This is simple, but it was fun to write anger! This exercise intentionally continued from the previous morning routine, to later in the day. There's no "night" routine with these characters because 1) I haven't thought of one and 2) they would just eat and have leisure time, then either sleep or have sexual intercourse, then sleep. The exercise was started around mid-October.

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[Text]

Hands clenched into fists, a vein here and there becoming visible. The teeth inside his mouth gritted against the other row. Nostrils flared, and if he were able to, smoke would shoot from them. The laptop in front of him was set to a page of a client’s financial information, but it wasn’t the root of the anger. Abel glared at the screen nonetheless, the screen vicariously suffering unspoken, silent wrath. What Abel wanted to do was to grab the damned piece of technology and transfer his anger into it; he wanted to feel it all drain out and let the area be claimed rightfully by content, as it had earlier. And to prevent the anger from doubling back, he would chuck the laptop at the wall and watch it fall apart, bringing the anger down with it.

But that wasn’t rational.

If only people weren’t so dumb, he wouldn’t have to suffer so. Pointless questions (which could be answered with common sense) spiraled endlessly, drilling into his head like a child’s slide hours a day. Dumb looks that reflected no logical skills faced Abel, who was not fortunate enough to have a client who had a vague idea of what they were going to do. Meetings would be arranged and wasted by either cancellation or the client not following advice, pushing them deeper into their own problems. People would screw themselves over and blame him. “Why,” Abel thought to himself, "must I, who is smart and successful and stressed, have to deal with all these imbeciles?!”

They made his job hell.

Abel took a deep breath and exhaled. It'd do absolutely no good to blow up while at the office. If someone heard, he could get in trouble or fired. Control over emotions was always a struggle. All the emotions wanted to do was to pour out and rebel against the ego's better judgment. Needless to say, the emotions always won, no matter how hard he tried to cage them in. It didn't help that the emotions were always consisted of anger and rage--which is why people believed he had anger issues.

The impulse to destroy circulated throughout his body. How simple would it be to launch the object and watch it shatter? Watch it fall apart? Become broken? Too easy.

"You'd be an idiot to do it," his ego told himself. "You didn't succumb to such savagery any other time, so why now?"

"Everyone's pissing me the fuck off!" the id said, "Why can't I?"

"Because you'd have to pay consequences," spoke the superego.

The ego didn't want one side to be displeased. "Why not take it out on something insignificant?"

Instead, Abel's eyes were drawn to a stapler. It couldn't cause too much damage to the wall, and the noise wouldn't attract roaming people who would jump at the chance to get a co-worker fired. The cost of replacing it wouldn't be high, either. Definitely a step up from the laptop.

He reached to it and grasped it in his hand--

His leg left a vibration, and he released his grip. He withdrew his phone and glanced at the screen. A new text message.

Only one person ever sent texts to him.

Abel slipped the phone under the table--even though he was the only one in his office--and checked his messages. Naturally, as he assumed, it was from Mark:

hope ur having an ok day so far I love u and I’ll be waiting for u when u get home. :)

Somehow, neither the laptop nor the stapler looked appealing to throw at the wall.