Faith Short Story

Faith

Brandon Lazovic

                Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. The church bell rocked back and forth in the church tower, uttering an almost melancholy sound as it marked the time. He looked down, glancing at his watch. 5 o’clock. He looked around and noticed that the streets were vacant, which was abnormal. Usually they were bustling with crowds of people, but not today. It was almost perturbing as he could hear his footsteps echo off the buildings before being whisked away by the slight groan of the wind. He continued on casually, with his hands in the black overcoat which he wore. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the sky filled with dark clouds ready to discharge the water that was held. Some trickled out, creating small splotches in the street. The air was humid, warm, with a scent that only rain water can deliver.

                He finally made it to the doors of the church. His hand hesitated at the door handle before clasping it and pushing the door inward. Just like the street he could hear his steps rebound off the walls and pillars, but it wasn’t as discomforting. In fact, it was almost peaceful. His fingertips caressed the tops of the pews as he walked past them, his mind in a distant place as this brought back memories of the past. A past untainted. Ambitious. Hopeful, optimistic, and, lest of all, ignorant. That was until the cataclysm changed the world. Whispering snapped his attention back to the front of the church, but nothing appeared before his sight. It gradually grew louder and in larger number, raising the hairs on the nape of his neck. A shudder escaped from his spine, but his outward demeanor portrayed a calm, collected man. The candles slowly blew out, one by one, until the chandelier was his only source of protection. He stood underneath it as the shadows charged forward, being repealed by its opposite.

                The voices combined in a cacophony of noise, surging ever forward until… they stopped just as quickly as they had risen. The quiet whispering took its place, the darkness seemingly muffling the sound. While there was still time he reached into the pocket of his overcoat, withdrawing a bottle of holy water, a bag of pinch salt and a golden cross. The cross glistened from the light overhead and the bottle reflected the ember hue of flame. He began to recite psalms, all the while drawing a circle with the salt and splashing it with the holy water. The cross moved up, down, left, and right several times before finally being moved down to his side. All he had to do now was wait.

                He sat down, crossed-legged in the center of the circle, eyes closed and cross folded between both hands. The voices cried in anguish and fury; the chandelier rocked in place, swinging wildly. After several moments it stopped moving, returning to its normal position. He continued on praying in his trance. Finally the voices returned to whispers again and with their combined effort blew out the candle light, enveloping the room with darkness. They screamed into the abyss. 

Fiction Packet 11/6/13

Fiction Packet #3

Brandon Lazovic

                So we had a few packets to read for our creative writing class this week. The first set of stories was from the book The Singing Fish by Peter Markos. My interpretation of the stories would have to be a mixed response. It feels like tribal myths, the way it is written, the elements, the way things happen and are all explained are a lead example of this. The last story that was written could also justify how children age and grow up, learning and how they try and explain things in life. The word ‘mud’ is used in large amounts throughout the stories, which could allude to that tribal age of misunderstanding about the world, or possibly refer to skin color and African culture. It would make sense because of the way the stories are written in an unlearned dialectic, but it’s just a shot in the dark.

                The next story is called The Falling Girl by Dino Buzzati. The story begins with a girl falling down a skyscraper. The story itself, I feel, alludes to life. At the top of the skyscraper you are young, and when most people are young they try to grow up as quick as possible, passing by all the imagery of life (evident as this girl moves quickly from all the people she passes as she falls). There is a sense of freedom and independence that young people tend to have. It isn’t until the age begins to creep on someone that they realize that they aren’t alone and there are people out there with better things than them, better looks, better material objects, better lives. This stage is similar to a mid-life crisis, and this girl experiences that as she sees other women dressed in better clothes falling just like she is. Then the story alludes to only seeing old women fall to their deaths at the bottom of the skyscraper, which reinforces the transitional stages of life as they make their descent. They tend to hear thumps at the bottom, which I feel represent someone’s worth in life. In this circumstance, however, they don’t hear anything as this girl hits the cement.

                The story August 25^th, 1983 by Jorge Luis Borges is about a man finding himself in his hotel room, aged. I feel as though the man is a representation of himself, the younger of the two being the optimist and the older one being the pessimist. A reference to the stoics was made, adding to a philosophical aspect to the story that might support the split personalities of the narrator. The pessimistic side died the night in the story, but it took a piece of the optimist with him. In this sense maybe the pessimist won out in a duel of the personalities, influencing the other half more than the other half influenced it.

                Lastly, The Fifth Story by Clarice Lespector is actually quite interesting. It describes various scenarios in which to kill cockroaches. However, with each story the thought process into killing them gets more intensive as the narrator puts more thought into their actions. It likens the cockroaches to Pompei as the volcano buried the town alive. This story might actually be explaining the human psyche and how we think into things so heavily. Everything is intrinsic, the pathways into thought every branching away as every action that we take has a reaction and another action. It kind of makes me think of Nietsche where nothing matters, having a nihilistic attitude. There’s also a theory that for every action somewhere in another parallel world you perform the opposite choice, so nothing you do technically matters. Not sure if this correlates with this story, but it makes me think of those two things.  

Fiction Packet Analysis

Blog Response 10/30/13

Brandon Lazovic

               

                To begin with, we were given three packets to introduce us to fiction. The first packet that I read was Writing Fiction by Burroway. Fiction is all about show vs. tell, and we are to tell through our own personal experiences and make the reader feel. The purpose of fiction is to allow the reader to feel things in which there is no negative price to pay for feeling them, such as love, condemn, condone, hope, dread, hate, without risk. We are to rely on the five senses to convey these emotions to the reader, as well as provide definite and concrete details to add to the validity of the story being told. Those details, however, must be relevant and significant. If we were to write about every single detail throughout the day it wouldn’t relay to the reader at all. In the end, emotion is the physical reaction of the body to react to information. In the packet it’s also touched upon that verbs can add to writing, but can also detract from the energy in using them with what is known as the pathetic fallacy (attributing emotions to man-made objects) if used too often. Adverbs can also express emphasis or suddenness, but slow the sentence down so it dilutes the force of the meaning in the sentence. Rhythm, prose, and punctuation are used to great effect as well when writing as it helps take the reader beyond just the words on the page. In the packet the story Everything that Rises must Converge by Flannery O’Connor demonstrates everything that the packet stated, tying it all together.

                The next packet, Polaroid, discusses characters and plot. It states that no one really knows how a draft will go, or what twists and turns it will take, but eventually a story will come out of it. The author discusses a special Olympics meet that they went to and eventually got an idea for their story. Again, emotional output is important to flesh out a character. Each person gets their own acre of land in an emotional sense, and we use that to make them come alive as we write about them. No person is exactly the same. It also says in the fiction packet that a likeable narrator is key in a story, and to this effect I’d have to agree. They use the analogy of, ‘if you enjoy someone’s company, even if they ask you to a garbage dump you couldn’t think of anywhere else you’d want to be, as opposed to having a boring or annoying person ask you on an expensive dinner date that they would pay for and you would rather stay at home.” Narrator’s also must be reliable and trustworthy. We have an obligation to telling the truth even though we are making up characters. We have to listen to our characters and give them justice on the page.

                The packet then moves on to plot and the main rule that I got out of it was write about the characters first, and the plot will soon follow. Don’t work so specifically on the plot scheme because in the end it just won’t work. Keep it vivid and continuous and have people read it to work out the kinks from a neutral standpoint. Dialogue becomes a topic and for me I consider dialogue to be extremely important. In a sense, having bad dialogue in an otherwise good story is like watching a B-list movie with horrible writing and acting, but the exposition is good. It just takes the reader out of the story and dissolves a character. Again, time will help flesh out the character. Dialogue requires a little finesse, only because you can’t jam words into the characters mouth. It has to come naturally, which will happen once your familiarity with the character becomes realized. The final packet, syntax by Goldberg, I feel ties in a lot with the previous two packets and reiterates the same things to varying degrees, so I’m not going to go in depth about that packet. But in all these three packets are a lot to take in, but really give good advice to aspiring writers that I’ve never thought about before when I’ve wrote stories, and I’ll come away from this with a good amount of writing tools to help expand my stories. 

Mechanical

Mechanical

Brandon Lazovic

               

                His heart was throbbing in his chest, the steady beat pounding against his rib cage. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Blood was rushing throughout his body as he moved rhythmically without much thought. It was almost emotionless, without much passion. The only sound that he could hear were his own ragged breaths intermingled with her pleasure filled ones. Her nails dug into his bare back, leaving red marks that he would never see. His body was stiff, tense, focused on that one motion. Their hips grinded into each other more forcefully with each and every thrust, the creaking of the bed joining into the moans uttered from her mouth. A cacophony of passion fallen upon deaf ears. She tilted her head back, lower lip clenched by her pearly teeth, eyes tightly shut as pleasure flashed upon her imagination, painting a silent picture on a black portrait. He continued to look on, his mind completely blank. The only thing that he was aware of was his phallus, pulsating and hard. Even the shallow pleasure that he could feel was numbed by his indifference. He pushed harder, the rocking of the bed and louder moans adding to the impromptu melody being created.

                They were both coming close now, her hips moving up and down in a more erratic pattern. He tried keeping pace, but couldn’t quite match hers. They were arrhythmic, no longer one. Separate entities vying for their own gains. The little enjoyment that he had was now gone and the thought of taking hers away flashed upon his mind. He didn’t go through with it and pressed harder, his hands gripping into her shoulders just as hers sank into the flesh of his back, pulling him closer. She screamed in bliss, colors flashing across her vision, all sound distant and her mind focused on the singular, immense pleasure that she felt. As she was lost in her own world he felt a sharp climax, his phallus distinct for one final moment before softening. He stared off into the corner, unfeeling, devoid of emotion. Just as quickly as it had begun it ended and her grip slackened, her arms plopping onto the bedspread without control. He rolled off beside her, his hands tucked behind his head. As her breathing returned to normal she nestled up beside him, her head in the crook of his shoulder, arm wrapped around his chest and leg crossed over his thighs. She could feel his heart beat and he could feel hers. She was everything that he could never be, but loving was the most prominent one. Where she was light, he was darkness. Where she was whole, he was broken. Where her heart still vibrantly beat, his died long ago, shattered beyond repair. In a way they were two sides of the same coin; she was alive, while he was mechanical.