Blackcurrant Cheesecake

A Sip of Wine, A Sip of Water

2005-09-03T21:04:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I'm blaming the Cute Canadian entirely for this one, at least for the ending. Not sure what else to say about this little beauty, except that it isn't all that small.

Due to the length and oddity of the structure, I decided to post the full story over at the 'Holm and just link to each section here on the blog. It's not a solution I am totally happy with, and if you'd rather be supplied with a standard document that looks more traditional, I will be more than happy to email you a pdf or .doc version. Just ask.

As ever, let me know what you think.

A note before you read - it is written in two timelines. Read it in the sequence you've been given, but be aware that the numbered sections take place in one timeline, the alphabet-soup sections take place in another timeline. I hope it will all make sense when you get to the end!

To the happy few.

A Sip of Wine, A Sip of Water
A Sip of Wine, A Sip of Water - full story.
Section 1
Section A
Section 2
Section B
Section 3
Section C
Section 4
Section D
Section 5
Section E
Section 6
Section F
Section 7
Section G
Section 8
Section H
Section 9
Section I
Section 10
Section J
Section 11
Section K
Section 12
Section L
Section 13
Section 14
Section M
Section 15
Section 16
Section N

No Worries

2005-08-22T21:54:00.000+01:00

Wrote this back for GCSE English. I've rewritten the ending a fair few times since then, but the body remains the same. It needs... something... Just can't work out what.

He asked for one about hope. This is as close as it gets.

No Worries
She wasn’t sure when she had known. It was just part of her, something that she simply knew, part of her very essence, some innate knowledge inside which had told her the outcome of the shopping trip before the doctors had even come. Perhaps when she had woken from her coma-like sleep, perhaps always. Who knew but she in her very soul? Something had felt wrong that morning. She had known that something would happen to her when she went over that foul crossover on Fisher’s hill. Funny to think really, the last time you use your legs is to go and get some eggs from Safeway. She knew now that the crash had paralysed, ended, her past life. Strange. She felt no anger at the driver of the car for ending one reality, only dismay that her precious Harley was in a hundred pieces on the crossroads. All she felt really was free. As if losing the use of her legs had been pre-destined, ingrained in her DNA, there from the moment of conception, something that she could not, would not want to, remove.

She could still see the ambulances arriving, the paramedics fussing around; still see the driver’s face staring in shocked incomprehension at her through the shattered windscreen. Staring, just… staring. They told her later that she couldn’t possibly have known or seen, but she had. She had known. Known that the old her no longer existed. Gone the plump girl from an expensive public school. Her essence was free to do what it pleased with her crumpled body and she welcomed the changes like a prisoner freed.

The clarity of those first moments was gone. Who was she? No longer the poor little rich girl who had every aspect of her life planned out. Every detail from the name of her possible pets on three typed pages to the place she would marry in, be buried in. All were gone, locked away forever in a person who no longer existed.

She was in limbo. Awake she was like a machine; ate, slept, woke, ate, slept… She did all she was told to, but didn’t really exist, yet. She was an embryo, the un-hatched chick in the egg, the chrysalid caterpillar.

Cards surrounded her bed, strung up like some grim tinsel for all to see. Those who loved, those who felt pity, all the members of her schoolhouse had signed it. Half of them didn’t even know her. It was incredible – every day of her school life she was virtually ignored. A fat girl, great in a pinch, always prepared, good to be the butt of all jokes. She’s there, she won’t mind being the doormat, use her as the agony aunt and then forget she even exists. Now she wasn’t there they all rallied round. “GET WELL SOON” the hippo with the leg in plaster cries – oh! How original, so sensitive!

Beneath the sheets she was a new person. Her body a grim parody of all she had ever wanted from life. Slim, sylph-like even, thin legs. Utterly useless and broken. Don’t try to change who, what, you are, some wise man had once said; you may not like the new you. Of course she did not like the new her – who would? Oh, sure, it got her sympathy and recognition. Cards by the sack-full, flowers, gifts, and pity. But was that all you got with no legs – pity? What a useless sentiment. Given by those with all to those with nothing. I’m so sorry; the word you say when you step on someone’s toe is the same as the one you say when someone can’t use their limbs. Ridiculous. It may provide comfort for those that say it, relieve tension, but to the person receiving the empty gesture it is just that. Hollow and way too late.

The nurses were back. Feeling better, Jannet. How are you today, Jannet. Isn’t this card nice, Jannet. They didn’t want a response; it was just to pass the time that they talked. To fill in the silence where she didn’t speak. Like everyone they were uncomfortable in silence; it wasn’t natural to them. Just like they thought that telling someone your feelings made it all go away. Didn’t they see that she wanted peace, to grieve for her lost life, to think?

Perhaps the nurse had written her name wrong on the card over her bed; she couldn’t see it, but everyone called her Jannet, or Jan. Didn’t they realise she was Jennet, or ‘Genie’? To the hospital staff she just was another lump of meat, taking up room; they didn’t really care what she was called. Or maybe they realised the Jennet was dead, a new life had started and the old Genie was gone, never to rise again. Maybe they weren’t as dumb as they all seemed.

That physio came again today, manipulating her limbs to keep them supple. We must get you walking again, mustn’t we, Jan. What a lovely figure you have, Jan. All these rhetorical questions flying round her head were confusing. Did she even want to get better? Perhaps deep down she preferred this broken doll to the robust Jennet. It all went back to that lost feeling of pre-destination: the new her had some purpose in life. Fate was leading her down a new path to some Holy Grail that was hidden behind wheelchair access signs and smiling therapists. Perhaps she had to brave the rabble of helpers and nurses too truly become Jennet again, and fulfil her life once more.

The staff of the new hospital were more understanding, the first to comprehend that she was intelligent, still had a brain and was not the helpless lump of meat that the old nursing staff felt she was. To the old lot paralysis turned you into a perpetual juvenile with no opinions. Sure she couldn’t use her legs but had her brain died too? She hoped not; she had no inclination to be a vegetable sitting in front of game shows for the rest of her life.

Here, they understood her, which was more than she did herself, realised she needed time; silence. No one forced her to speak, no counsellors came to ask how she was feeling today, and no inane doctors came to ask her to “try and wiggle your toes, Jan”. She was allowed to brood, recover what dignity she could in silence. Being bed-bound stripped you of your dignity; you had to claw back what little you could, piece by tiny piece. You couldn’t go to the loo without help, you had to be washed like a baby, but the day you brushed your own teeth… It was symbolic of a new life.

The wheelchair had arrived today, and with it independence. She could run away from the clinging nurses, run as far as possible, and… survive. They couldn’t understand that. People normally saw the chair as a weight, holding them back. But then, she wasn’t normal. She had proved this already. Normal people didn’t like being paralysed but she had looked over the edge into the abyss of chairdom – and jumped. Head first into the world of invalidism with a rejoicing that startled all. No one realised why she felt this way. No one realised that she saw it as a challenge that had to be conquered. She took the problem like a bull by the horns and held on till something, or someone, snapped. She wouldn’t let go till she had won, succeeded in becoming all she wanted to, whatever that was.

Would she change it if she could? Go back to that morning, stop Jennet Bath from going over that hill, alter her brother’s craving for breakfast scrambled eggs to one for… bran flakes? If the old Genie could push the cork from the bottle, would she let her? She didn’t know. She was happy now, something Jen never had been, and she didn’t worry. That made Sam laugh, the idea that she had used to worry. Night and day, always some nagging doubt that she would fail at something, or fail someone. But then Sam hadn’t known her then, he had only known the new Jen, the paralysed Jen. He loved this Genie, his Genie, as she loved this Genie. The no-worries Genie, the lucky Genie. The free Genie.

Alright?

2005-08-22T21:15:00.000+01:00

Once more into the depths of my hard drive for this offering. Please bear in mind the dedication for this was written near three years back. Boy, how times do change, and at the same time stay exactly the same. Which is more than a little depressing now I come to dwell on it.

This one has been buzzing around in my head for a while now, and finally insisted on being written last night, when I was trying to be doing last minute revision for my finals today… never mind, there are always the resits in September :D
It owes its genesis to an audio clip someone sent me recently. A short message that made my week, but that ended with the one word, “alright?”, and made me realise that it wasn’t all alright. It’s better now, but the idea stayed with me, of how people react to loss and loneliness. He could be dead, have simply dumped her, live the other side of the world from her, or exist only in her imagination. Either way, she’s dealing with it the best way she can.
~Cas~

Alright?
She lay on her side in bed, the covers pulled up, hugged against her despite the warmth of the evening. One arm was free of the covers and she gently touched the picture stuck to the wall beside her head. She could look direct into his eyes without shifting her head on the pillow. Over and over she gently brushed her fingers over his photographic lips, touched his reproduced nose, and stroked his picture perfect hair. She didn’t want to turn out the light, for to do so would mean she could no longer see the picture. Not that she needed it; his every feature was indelibly drawn in her brain. And she wanted to sleep. But she couldn’t bring herself to turn out the light. With the light on she had that tentative link with him, she could look into his smiling eyes. When the light went out, she would be alone with her thoughts and no longer able to fool herself that she wasn’t with him.

The same urge that kept music playing constantly, kept the light burning, and her pen scribbling long after she should be at rest. Every moment, music was playing, or the radio was on, anything to fill the silence she was once so happy in. Once, silence meant time to think, time to dream, time to write. Now it still meant all those things. But now the silence had a name. His name. She ached to touch him, to hear his voice. But when the music stopped, or when she stopped moving, she could no longer fool herself.

There were times, when she wasn’t paying attention, that she could forget him for a moment. Concentrating on a particular problem, or talking to her friends. But then she would remember and bend almost double in pain. It physically hurt, like a punch to the stomach, and there was nothing she could do. So she kept the music playing. And the lights on. And pen and paper always to hand, or the computer on.

She flicked the media player on and, even though she couldn’t see the screen without her glasses, the mouse invariably found the correct file. Open. Play. And his voice filled the room. As the tears started rolling, his voice wrapped round her like a blanket. Soft, honey rich, full of love and life… And she hit play over and over. Five, ten, twenty times. His voice played over and over. Thirty precious seconds. She lived for those seconds.

In the darkness now, she plays the clip once more and closes her eyes against the pain. She holds her hand back from the mouse, ordering herself not to click “Play” again. 20 times tonight. 19 tomorrow.

Crown

2005-08-07T15:20:00.000+01:00

This one got itself written a few years back when a whole horde of things came home to roost in one go and pretty much wiped all capability of sane thought off the map for six months or so. Rather depressingly I seem only able to write when, well, depressed! This was originally posted back on the Once Upon a Time board over at WotC so long ago that there is no longer even a record of it. One of the many casualties of boards-switches no doubt. I sat down to write because Jes commented I hadn't written in a while. Don't think she was quite expecting the end result. Then again, neither was I.

With more than a fair whack of autobiography (and no, I am not sharing which bits. If I haven't already told you, then this is neither the time or the place) this was painful to write and never exactly a joy to read. It has no plot, no real end, and no purpose beyond the fact that, at the time, I needed to write it. Enjoy. Don't enjoy. All I ask is I take over your brain for the ten minutes it takes to read, then you let me know what you think.

Times are, you just have to sit down and write, and this was one of them. Eternal hugs to the usual people for giving me the space I needed to write it.
~Cxxx~

Crown
She asked for a tale of happiness, of desire. Of sweetness and light. Well I guess one out of four ain’t so bad? Desire, I can talk about desire. Talk about what you know, that’s the first thing they teach you. Always, write about what you know. Or, failing that, what you think you know. And I know this, man, do I know this.

Desire:
noun - an unsatisfied longing or craving.
verb - to long for, to crave. - to request.
archaic - to pray, entreat, command.

Kinda dry, kinda innocent, put like that. An unsatisfied longing or craving. Or maybe to pray, to entreat. Yeah, that sounds more like it. To pray. To entreat. Plead.

Please, not now, not like this…
Please, please, just stop.
Please.

It echoes down, what you said, how you said it. No matter how loud you turn the music, you can still hear it, crying away in the back of your mind. In this tiny place where you hoped it was locked away for good. And the littlest thing can make you hear it again, make you live it again. Catching sight of a familiar blond ponytail on a stranger, maybe a tune on the radio, some lyric that just, sets things off.

The arrogant build kingdoms.

Why does it bug me so much? I don’t know. It’s not something I really think about every day. In fact, it’s something that I try not to think about each day. Sometimes I can go as much as an hour, two, without that treacherous thought crossing my mind, then - wham. Back it comes with a vengeance, and I’m thinking about it all over again. I hate to use clichés here, I’m an author after all, it’s my job to be as original as possible, but there are times that the clichés are all that will work. Black whirling cesspool of despair. Sounds about accurate.

It’s hard, knowing I’m all there is. All there will ever be. Hard, to get up each morning, to make the coffee, to drink it down. I stand in the shower and let the water sluice over me, running in a rivulet through the track of the scar, and I try to let the pain go down the drain with the mingled water and the night’s sweat, with the fluff of showergel. But it doesn’t go. Turn round, let the water run down my neck, following the curve of my back, over the tattoo. And yeah, ok, so that makes me smile, thinking of what they would say if they knew I had a tattoo. Somehow, having a thousand pricks of ink in your flesh is a clearer indicator that you are in control, control of the pain, than a thirteen centimetre scar down your stomach. Touch the pearly gates with your palm, and it’s nothing. Get what equates to an inkblot under your skin, and suddenly, you’re brave.

You’ve got to set free what you love, just to bring it back.

But what if you didn’t know you loved it? What if, when you lost it, you didn’t know you even wanted to keep it? And what if it wasn’t your choice that it got set free in the first place? What if you know it won’t ever come back? What then? How do you go on with things, wake up everyday, knowing that that nebulous something won’t ever be in your life?

So Mary, what would you say now?
Or would you even care?

Turn on the TV, pick up a book, look out the window of the bus. You can’t escape it, escape the implicit understanding that one day...

It’s genetic, something so deep, some understanding so ingrained in the consciousness of Society, that you tell people it’s otherwise, and they can’t deal. I’m getting sort of used to it, or inured perhaps is a better word, to that five second blank look, whilst the brain scrambles to think of something appropriate to say.

“I’m so sorry, what a shame, are you sure? Can’t they do anything, surely there are... options?”

And again, that almost comforting stumble at those “...options”. Everyone knows what they are, knows that they exist, knows that certain people have recourse to them. I reckon a good few of you have used it as a dinner party gambit -

“Oh, did you hear about Jane and Jim? They went to the specialist last week”
“Did they? I heard it is frightfully expensive...”
“I always heard it was so uncertain...”
“Mike always said that if you couldn’t naturally, then it was God’s way of telling you not at all...”

Yeah, God. Because he really speaks through the actions of thirteen year old girls, doesn’t he?

Days go by. You find that, after a while. You find that the world keeps on turning despite everything. It’s just you who’s stuck still, back at the start, unable to get going because, well, where’ve you got to go to? Like, why step out the shower, wrap yourself in the fluffy towel, warm from the radiator, when it would be easier just to fall forward? If pride comes before the fall, what comes after? Is this all there is? Reaching for today’s outfit, shaking my hair under the hairdryer till it approximates something of a style, stuffing what’s necessary for the days round of tedium into a bag, and sauntering for the bus? Headphones in, some guitar riff struggling to lift my soul for a fraction, and again that whirl threatens me. What set it off this time? Oh, I don’t know. If I did, you think I would think of it? Masochism really isn’t my style, too much like hard work, darling. Drifting, that’s what I’m doing. I’m good at drifting. Like those ducks you get on park ponds, serenely floating along, nibbling the odd bit of bread some bored pensioner throws them, but underneath, where no-one bothers to look, frantically scrabbling to keep going.

Who’d be a duck?

There’s more of us than you think. Quietly, sitting there, getting on, getting things done. We’re known for that, getting things done. We’re good at it. See, when you don’t really care what happens with your life, you have more time to spend making sure that everything else runs smoothly. That everyone else is happy. Because that’s what you live for, in the end. You’d throw everything you have away, you already have, if only to make sure that other people don’t have to go that route with you. Human beings are built with a capacity for love. It isn’t endless, but it’s there. And when something happens, to screw you over, to stymie one avenue, the traditional one, you look elsewhere. I’m not saying it’s healthy, I’m saying it’s what you do. Pets, friends, goldfish. One’s as good as the other. Well, you tend to have a better conversation with friends than goldfish anyway, unless you forgot the medication and then, well...

I can see myself years down the way, the old cat-lady -

“Shhh, walk quietly past that door, it’s the cat-lady, she’s scary, likes to eat kids...”
“Knock louder, she may have been out the back and not heard, oh hello, Ma’am, Mum asked me to bring round this pie, to check you’re doing ok, sure, I’d love to come in...”

I can see it either way. Whispers in corridors, sniggers quickly silenced as I walk into a room, guilty, furtive looks. I could write the script. Apologetic glances, sympathetic tuts, whispers behind hands. I could write that one too.

Will she one day be born? Will the next generation follow, to be guided on the path of their own choosing? That’s what desire is, to get down on bended knee, and to bargain it all away, everything, for one future. The capacity for love, boiled down to one white-hot moment, saying

“take me, I am yours, just let her be born.”

I would, I’d rather, have the slice of the surgeons knife taken back, so I wouldn’t have to live with this. So I wouldn’t have to make these choices. She doesn’t have to be of my blood, even. I just want to be there when she, whoever she is, comes into this world. I want to hold her in my arms and tell her that it isn’t always like this, that she is loved. That my life is hers. Times are, you don’t live for yourself any more, you live for someone else. So please, I’m asking you, I’m praying, let there be someone else. Let me hold her in my arms. Let me see her look at someone, say the word “Mum”, and then you can take me.

Please, I’m begging you.
Please.

Greetings

2005-08-06T15:56:00.000+01:00

Welcome the Blackcurrant Cheesecake. I set this blog up partly in response to a call from WereTeddy, who asked to see some of my old stories again, and hopefully to see some new ones.

Whilst I am working on the latter, (don't hold your breath. I haven't written anything fresh for about two years now: what little imagination I ever had is being held hostage in a tall tower somewhere; and there is a severe lack of a prince on a white charger to rescue it) I thought I might polish up and re-post a few of my favourites.

As I am not sure of the frequency of additions, I would recommend that you subscribe to the RSS feed listed in the sidebar. Also, check in on Bright Meadow as I will certainly mention updates there.

For more information about me, why I write, and assorted other bits and pieces, go to this page.

Everything on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work under the conditions set out by the license. (Click to view the full text of the license).
.