#fridge rambles pointlessly

[strangephiti]

Control

Written for University last year. Prompt: A wager (mild violence, some swearing)

Control

I am timeless. I did not begin in the Garden and I will not end with Ragnarök. I am everything and nothing. I am one of you; And I am so much more than you can ever conceive. 

I watch you, all you dull, unimaginative people. You’re lives are so... pointless. I blink, and you are gone. So many of you sit there, wishing your lives away. You  watch successful people and wonder: “why them, and not me?” Most of you have never even picked up a guitar, or sat down with a brush, or planned your wonder emporium. But still: “why them, not me?”

I listen to you. You think that it’s all luck. You struggle to scrape together the months rent and so you think: “why work so hard for nothing? The rich are only rich because they got lucky.” You mope about lost time, and sit around, wishing for a better tomorrow.

I have nothing but tomorrows. 

I feel so very little for you all. And yet you fascinate me. I envy you. I envy your limited days. I envy the ticking clock that pushes your peers to achieve, to grow.  Without the pressure of mortality I have no ambition, no desire. So I have had to get creative with my time.

...

Kyle Hawkins isn’t a bad person. He is polite, takes care of his parents as well as his senile, happy, Nana. He is the youngest of five children - but his eldest brother got the best of both parents: the looks, the smarts, the luck. As it filtered down through the siblings the gene pool began to dry out, leaving Kyle with nothing but the dregs. At least, so he believes. What hope could poor Kyle have in a world where “like only goes to like?” 

He goes through the same drudgery day after day. Works at 8am, completes the same chores; eats the same sandwich at the same sandwich bar; the same shops on the way home – groceries for him and groceries for Mum and Dad. Then home for dinner, and streams of videos.

Weekends aren’t much better. On a Sunday he visits Nana. She makes him laugh with her confused ramblings, and breaks his heart when she forgets his name. He cheers himself up with a pint at the local, where he and the boys talk the same rubbish each week.

Even the successes of his friends don’t inspire Kyle.

“It’s alright for some,” he scoffs into his pint.

So narrow is his sight that he scarcely noticed me slip into his peripherals and from there on into his life. I’ve sat across from him for many years now, listening to him whine about his lot. He likes to talk to me because he thinks I am just as worthless as he is: No wife, no kids, no hope. We just sit and drink and talk. And I wait. I wait patiently for him to say those fateful words:

“What I wouldn’t give...”

I shrug at at him. “Nah mate. Opportunity could come dancing through that door with neon lights and a siren blazing, and you’d still be sat there on your fat arse, looking at your phone.”

“Ye ‘hink so? Listen… If Ah’d been given the chances some folk have...”

I don’t listen. Never do. It’s the same excuses again. And I’ve heard them before. Different voices, different faces, but the excuses are always the same. Then I say to him:

“Wanna bet?”

He scowls at me but says nothing. I take a coin from my pocket, a shiny silver American dollar. I tell him I got it on a family holiday when I was twelve, when dreams still lived, and that I told myself I would go back to this “land of opportunity” and make my fortune. I kept the coin to remind me. But I still hadn’t gone. It hadn’t helped me. Maybe it would help him, I said.

“You think it’s all about luck? And Fate? Why not let my little coin decide for you?”

I turn the coin between finger and thumb, making sure to let it catch the light above us, and trace it across his drunken, hazy eyes. As he watches I say:

“Chances are all around us, all the time. But you just sit there, fat, forty and failing.”

He grunts at me. He knows I’m right. So I go on.

“It’s easier to do the same thing everyday, every weekend, because you don’t have to try, don’t have to fail.”

His eyes start to glaze as he watches the coin. I twirl it, effortlessly, between my fingers, the light dancing across his face.

“But what if something else made those choices for you? Would you grab those opportunities?”

I know when I have him. The light from the coin fills his eyes. Letting this thing decide for him appeals to his lazy nature.

“We can start now,” I say. “Loser buys the next round. Heads I win, tails you lose,”

“Heads,” he slurs pointlessly. I try not to sigh at his idiocy. I toss the coin high, its streamlined edges whipping the air with a soft zing-zing-zing. The light flashes across his face with each rotation, and his eyes can’t seem to focus on anything else. I smack the coin down on the back of my hand.

“Tails,” I say. “You lose. Get us a packet of crisps when your up, mate.”

With a grumble he drains the last of his pint and shuffles off to the bar. I call after him, equally as pointlessly:

“That’s half the trouble with you, mate: You don’t pay attention!”

We begin immediately, before he has time to change his mind. I take him out the very next day.

“Chances aren’t given. They’re taken,” I tell him. “You have to pay attention. You have to make a choice. Either you or the coin.”

The coin takes all responsibility away from him. It is a thought that appeals all too much to Kyle.

We start small: a new sandwich at the shop? Heads. It’s tasty, that’s all. No regrets. No real interest. Scratch card? He wins £10. He chuckles a little. He’s not that impressed, but the seed has been planted. It’s Sunday. Visit Nana or not?

Tails. Not.

That doesn’t sit well with Kyle, so he goes anyway. He can’t not see Nana. She waits all week to see him. They sit for hours and, mostly, he listens. His heart is heavy when he leaves. She thought he was the man come to fix the television. She kept asking him when the Queen’s Speech would be on. It is not the best state of mind for Kyle to be in for a chance encounter with his ex.

Sara.

She looks so good. Kyle swears she sparkles. They talk awkwardly for a bit: Hubby is doing well; The kids are growing so fast; work has her snowed under. She smells like summer fruits. He remembers that scent from when she used to squeeze her body next to his in bed. She could have been his if luck had been kinder. But of course, it wasn’t. He wasn’t “ambitious” enough for her. 

“You could make so much of yourself...” she told him.

He scoffed. Fat chance. So they took a break. He gave her space and time - in truth he wallowed on his couch, eating and drinking and moping. Then Mr Perfect rolled up in his perfect electric car, spouting about his perfect carbon footprint, and she was hooked. Off they went together to live the “organic” life, climbing hills, and furrowing their brows at the “serious issue of austerity” - while planning another holiday abroad. They even took to the front line soup kitchens. Kyle found that strangely sickening. The idea of ladling spoonsful of cheap soup to the less fortunate, a factitious smile on their faces, knowing they’re going back to their cosy three bedroom house, and their fridge bursting  with food and shelves sagging with their weekly Waitrose groceries.

He hates that about them. He loves that about her.

My voice cuts though his thoughts: You could follow her.

There is a beat. I hold out the coin. Kyle hesitates.

“No.”

We go a for a few drinks to chase the day away. We forget the coin. I leave it dormant on the table. But somehow, it manages to slip into his pocket, as if by chance.

When he crawls out of bed the next morning, cursing his luck and blaming me for that fifth pint, he finds the silver dollar on his kitchen counter. He is still not sure how it got there. Such a silly little thing. Completely worthless here. But then, hadn’t it won him a tenner? And if he’d listened to it and not visited Nana, he wouldn’t have bumped into Sara – Beautiful, glowing Sara. It wouldn’t have brought the memories back. Or the pain.

Always a man to blame his circumstances, Kyle pondered. Anything he did as a result of this coin toss wouldn’t really be his fault. Would it? Blame free. It wouldn’t be his fault. It would be the coins fault – my fault.

He flips the coin. It hurtles and zings.

“Go to work today or not?”  

He smacks it down – heads: no work today. He smiles and makes his way to the couch. With remote in hand his finger hovers over the buttons - but then he stops and thinks.

“Stay home? Or go out?”

Flip, zing, catch – tails. Better get dressed then.

Kyle has no idea where he is going. He tells himself how stupid this is. Opportunity isn’t going to suddenly leap out at him. But there is a voice in his head, now, that isn’t his, and it whispers:

What if?

He goes to the newsagents to peruse the photography magazines – another would-be hobby he had given up on. He reaches into his pocket for change. The coins feel dull, chalky and thunk against each other, indistinguishable one to the next. Then there was that silver dollar, pushing it’s way between his fingers. Its cold face presses into his palm and sends a shiver up his arm. It seems to whisper to him.

“Buy it?” or Steal it?

He trembles. Like a naughty child he gives the shopkeeper a few fervent glances over the magazine. Flip.

It’s surprisingly easy to walk out of the shop. His heart is thumping so loud he’s sure someone must be able to hear it. But no one hears. No one sees. He’s terrified. He’s thrilled. He wonders if he could pick up a camera that easily as well!

He parks himself on a bench, contemplating. The chills of excitement soon leave him as he flicks idly through his ill-gotten magazine, barely noticing the words. It’s only his stomach protesting that makes him get up, and his feet carry him to the sandwich shop.

Bad move and just his luck! His supervisor is here, picking up his own lunch. Usually he’d have someone else pick it up for him – usually Kyle. But Kyle hadn’t gone to work that day. Stupid mistake! He knows he should leave... but he doesn’t. The coin finds it’s way into his hand once more.

You’ve always wanted to tell him want you really think of him, it whispers.

Flip. Zing. Heads. He smiles.

The profanities that he lets fly seem unsuited to the gleeful grin on his face. Everyone in the shop has frozen, listening to this tirade. Time itself is holding it’s breath. Kyle, once begun, cannot stop. Electricity is buzzing throughout his body, powering his words. His supervisor is too stunned to respond, his face white. When twenty years of bitterness has been exhausted, Kyle wishes his former supervisor a nice day and leaves.

He can’t keep the smile from his face. He wonders what else could he do?

Zing! Zing!

Kissing the beautiful girl at the bus shelter was a big mistake. His throbbing cheek could attest to that.

“Not right. Not worth it.”

But I got I kiss out of it, the coin whispers in a voice that sounds like Kyles.

What was that saying? Regret the things you do and not the things you don’t. He took a chance. He got what wanted out of it. She got her revenge and moved on. What harm was there?

While he contemplated this, three young boys walk by. They were typical lads, hoods high and trousers low. Their height suggested age, but their gangly limbs betrayed them. Fourteen? Fifteen? If that.

Wham! An explosion of white, viscous liquid erupted against the glass, barely an inch from Kyles right ear. Milkshake spattered across his face and seeped grotesquely beneath his collar and through his shirt. The lads cackled.  

“Fat Fucker!” One of them shouted.

Normally Kyle would hang his head and walk away. But today was anything but normal.

Flip. Zing! Bam!

Blood spurts. He knocks out two front teeth from the closest boy. Who knew he could hit so hard?

The boys reel. They hesitate, gesticulate. But in the end they simply grab their friend, his bloody face in his hands, and drag him off down the road, hurling foulness back across their shoulders and threats of “next time.”

Kyle’s smile grows broader.

“That’ll teach them.”

Will it?

“They’re just boys. Just kids doing stupid things.”

They’re just stupid boys. Someone needs to teach them a lesson.

Zing. Zing. Zing.

He follows. 

There are a lot of bricks and broken bottles in the alley beside the liquor shop, where the boys have chosen to regroup. There is a loose fence post, long and heavy. Kyle unhooks it from the chain link. It fits perfectly in his hand.

The boys are making too much noise to hear him approach, the one cursing through fat lips, the others jabbing him with jibes of “you got clocked by an old git!” 

Kyle tightens his grip.

The metal bar knocks the laughter out of the tallest boy, the next boy folds around the swinging fence post as it hurtles towards his gut, and the third boy receives a crushing headbutt. The boys are a little tougher than their skinny frames suggest and land a good few blows on Kyles flabby body. The pain feels exhilarating! Even when the boys are writhing on the ground he finds he can’t stop.  

“That’s enough!” He hears himself scream.

Is it? Aren’t you enjoying it? Asks the coin.

“No.”

Yes, Kyles voice answers. They’ll think twice before they shit on me again!

He leaves the boys crying and bleeding.

I can do whatever I want. His heart beats in his ears.

“What do I want?”

Sara.

Sara is always pleased to see Kyle. She thinks it’s wonderful that they can still be friends. Kyle thinks he hears a glimmer of regret as she speaks of “still being close.” But her face isn’t glowing today. It pales as she answers the door. Her eyes trace the line of blood dripping from the corner of his swollen right eye, follows it to the fat lip, the scratches on his neck. When she reaches out to touch his arm, her face concerned, Kyle feels that spark once more. It pulses through him stronger than ever.

Zing. Zing.  

He kisses her. She reels away. But she doesn’t react the way the girl at the bus stop did. She understands. She smiles. It is her pity smile, her soup kitchen smile, the one reserved for “poor unfortunate souls.”

“You’ve had a rough day, haven’t you?” She sweetly coos.

She pities him. She has no idea! He is better now that he has ever been! She pities him? How dare she? Everything was her fault anyway! She was the one that left! She was the one who fell into the lap of luxury and left Kyle in the gutter!

You were mine first, his strange voice growls.

Zing. Zing. Zing.

You’re mine still!

The look of pity vanishes from her face as her back slams against the wall. She screams, but he muffles the scream with his own mouth. Her flailing arms are no match for his strong hands as he slaps her hard and pins her to the floor. The voice in his head is stronger than ever.

Regret the things you do.

As they struggle, the silver dollar rolls from Kyle’s pocket - as if by chance. Kyle doesn’t notice. But as it trundles away, the scrape of it’s edges on the wooden floor growing fainter and fainter, he suddenly begins to see her face.

She is glowing. A red glow. Her cheek is welted; her mascara smeared. She looks at him as if he is a stranger – a monster. He reels back.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in his own feeble voice.

She runs. He runs.

There is no light left in the day and no life left in Kyle’s voice as he tells the officers everything. He confesses about the girl and the boys. He confesses about Sara, with a catch in his throat. He even confesses about the magazine, as if that mattered at all anymore.

The boys’ parents have already filed their report. They had stormed the station en masse and had not long been satiated and sent on their way before Kyle arrived. 

Sara had not been seen.

“When she does come in, or calls,” he croaks, his throat dry from crying. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

They won’t. 

He doesn’t really want them to. 

He doesn’t want to be forgiven.

...

Kyle Hawkins wasn’t really a bad man. He was lazy and unambitious. He refused to accept responsibility for himself and was too stubborn make good choices. Now his choices are made for him. He sleeps and wakes at the same time every day; Eats the same food from the same plastic tray; Completes the same chores; Stares at the same walls and faces day after day after day.

Who will he be when parole comes around?

Flip. Zing!

Heads I win. Tails you lose.

#Horror supernatural short story

[rottenbrainstuff]

The Six Thatchers: coherent thoughts

So I’ve calmed down a bit and I’ll post some actual thoughts about The Six Thatchers.

I did not like that episode. Spoilers under the cut.

Let’s get it out of the way right now: yes,a great deal of it was because of Mary’s pointless death, pretty much a textbook example of fridging. I also had a very strong emotional reaction to John cheating on Mary (whether it was actually physically consummated or not), it made me ill, and John Watson can go to hell. It’s possible the writers are building up to some stupid twist and this will all just be some complicated misunderstanding, but in the meantime I wish I could see Sherlock deduce what happened and curb stomp him.

Sure. Fine.

But besides that, I really thought it was a bad episode. I thought it was oddly paced, rushing rushing rushing to the next point without much emotional resonance, pointlessly complicated, and not taking advantage of the themes it presented. I think back to the earlier eps which were smart and snappy and resonating. I find it difficult to actually even remember much of the plot and puzzles of this episode, except for the visual motifs, which were amazing as always.

Moffat is a really strange writer. He writes some really brilliant, sparkling stuff, and he also writes stuff that is flawed and boring and lazy. I think particularly about his writing on Doctor Who. He wrote some of the best, most clever episodes ever, so witty, so smart, they would make Douglas Adams proud, and I don’t say that lightly. And he also wrote complete garbage, overwrought season arcs with pointless plot twists that go nowhere, and I am still shocked to my core that man who wrote Blink was the same man who wrote Matt Smith’s miserable final episode. (an episode so badly written it felt like highschool fanfiction, with painful pacing and characterization problems that the teacher would have suggested they edit.) After watching too many shit episodes and too many disappointingly boring season arcs, I finally lost my interest in it and I don’t watch it anymore. I don’t watch it anymore, do you guys even understand how crazy that is? I wasn’t on tumblr during my Doctor Who obsession so you guys have no idea how much I liked that show. I was *OBSESSED*. I was that annoying fan who watched every single one of the old episodes and talked about it constantly and wrote endless rambling metas and comparisons and what-ifs. And I went from that, to completely and utterly not giving a shit about the show, because I got fed up with Stephen Moffat’s writing.

So, I have always been extremely nervous with him writing Sherlock. This episode is the exact same kind of slide in quality that used to make me mad watching Doctor Who.

One last thing I didn’t like: it’s always nice to see Molly, but she was doing nothing but babysitting today. First Sherlock and then Rosie. I know people are saying, well, Molly takes her godmother role seriously and caring for a baby doesn’t necessarily detract from your job and blah blah blah, these are good points, but I just wish I could have seen her doing a bit more. That’s not what I want to see my girl doing.

But there were things that I liked. The positives from the ep:

It was amazing to see Sherlock insist so frequently and passionately how much he cared for Mary and how serious he was about protecting her.

I loved the interactions with Sherlock and Mycroft. The two of them struggling with the phone like kids fighting over a toy was the only thing I really really enjoyed.

And as I mentioned above, the visuals were beautiful, as always. This show always has the very highest production values. Lovely edits, beautiful water and shark motifs.

So, I don’t know. I really don’t mind SAD things. I love sad things. But I hate hate hate bad, lazy writing. I’m worried about what the rest of the reason will be like, and I’ve lost a bit of my enthusiasm. We’ll see.

#sherlock #the six thatchers #spoilers