Life is just one long scream…literal or otherwise.
In the literal sense, we arrived screaming. We may well go out screaming. And lots of screams in between might be the mark of a life well lived, in my humble opinion.
In the sense of the metaphor, our life is a scream against Life. What matters is what you’re screaming about, and more to the point what you’re screaming at.
Sometimes we scream in plain old fear.
I had a heart
First a flutter,
a false first love
Then a taste of reality,
or so I thought
Lies exposed soon after
Heart shattered once
Then someone to help me pick up the pieces
A someone of brutal honesty
The only antidote to the assassination of trust
But just not quite meant to be
Heart shattered twice
I had a heart
Now I need a new one
This one’s broken
Even the above statement is not original. (No, really…you’ll see…)
All writers are influenced by what we read, whether conscious or unconscious. For example, my writing style takes several cues from Terry Pratchett, sometimes very deliberately.1 And there are no doubt countless unconscious influences feeding into my life in ways I don’t even realise.
So in that sense I am in no way original. But in that same sense, it doesn’t matter.
Pun very much intended. The fire metaphor for relationships suits me damn fine too. A recent rambling conversation with fellow Capital-J Junkie Where Angels Fear1 produced many kernels of stories. This is one…
what happens when I meet someone who says “HELL, yeah! Let’s do it YESTERDAY!” rather than “No, that really is a step too far this time — even you’ll die if you do that!” ?We both agreed that meeting someone more than someone who was also on our Wavelength would be dangerously fun, emphasis on the danger.
Foreword: My fiction muscle is horribly rusty. This is the first step towards knocking the rust off and as a result I am not proud of it. The fact it was written with minutes to spare before the deadline does not help. Regardless, I’ll publish it anyway. I might come back and rework the concept. Equally I might not. I am at the mercy of my Muse (she too rides a horse)
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies…The man who never reads lives only one.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
Why settle for just one life. Why settle for just one world. When you can live lives, explore worlds that you might not otherwise ever have imagined.
If I can make just one person pick up a book who might not otherwise have done so, then all this writing — all this *Scribbling — *was not for naught.
That I honestly don’t know is something I always kept close to my chest. But no more.
Because…I write. I write and write. I just do it. Only occasionally do I pause to search for the right word. Only some of my pieces are edited for more than a basic spelling and grammar check.
Not all is calm sailing on a river of flow, mind. Poetry, for example, takes me far longer to write.
I stand, hesitant
Before me, the path splits
Splits and splits again, dividing a myriad times
The tangled web of choice pulsates gently
A dull glow, alive and breathing
I glance back, a moment
See the path behind me
Threaded in shining silver
A halo of darkened paths around it
Shriveled tendrils of choices not taken
I tear myself away, return to looking forward
Out over the future in all its perfect, fearful uncertainty
I don’t want the future, bright but so uncertain
If only it weren’t so, but it is.
I want the warmth of the past
Time I spend is gone, forever
If only there were any way to wind back the clock
Bright memory fades as time grows longer
Looking for you, always
Looking back, always
My heart yearns
My neck twisted to face you
My will not enough
Past torn away, present snaps back
Society is built for morning people. A lot of people swear by the first few hours of their day as their most productive. Many writers, including lots here on Medium, advocate an early rise.
But I say to hell with that.
I am not a morning person and that’s okay. My best work is done not at the break of day, but as it draws to a close. The only hours of the morning I’m truly interested in — truly productive in — are those shortly after midnight.
So many times have I been asked ‘how do you spell that?’ I reflexively suffix ‘My name is Arona’ with ‘spelt A..R…’.
Having an unusual name is both a blessing and a curse. It singles you out from the crowd.
To be singled out from the crowd is itself a double edged sword. Throughout my school years I was subject to torment with rhyming nicknames. Each group seemed to delight in discovering a particular schoolyard slang that rhymes nicely with Arona.