Writing with Pathos

[Erythr]

We as writers, usually create books that portray scenes much more bizarre and fascinating than what occurs in our lives. Despite drawing upon inspiration from our ordinary lives, we still prioritize showcasing the beauty of the scenes in our story. Following something which happened in my life two days back, I was tempted to come up with this:

Recall an event/ memory from your life that happened for a few brief minutes or seconds but had left a lasting impact on you. Now describe this event with the same amount of finesse as you would writing a scene from your book and now give life to that piece of work by instilling the single most powerful emotion you felt that time. Title your story after that emotion (repetition is fine) and the number of words is irrelevant.

My hand in trying this--: (I am still a fletching writer so reader's discretion is advised)

Envy

Painful light and exploding emotion. It was around 8 in the evening when I had decided to take up my friend’s offer to visit "Creekside Park" for the scheduled fireworks exhibition. After about fifteen minutes of wrestling with my feelings of abandoning the comforts of Mr. Potato, my bean bag, I managed to arrive on time and meet my friend at the entrance of the park. With barely any trouble my friend and I found ourselves a place atop one of the highest points in the park to see the fireworks.

For a second the moonless sky was dark and peaceful, the only noise that filled the air was that of the buzzing crowd awaiting the show and the occasional chirp of crickets. Suddenly, a tiny silver of light shot up into the air and blossomed into huge fiery red petals which grew in size before dissolving into green and blue sparks as they faded. The sharp bang of the exploding fireworks reached my ears only after their colors registered in my eyes. The initial display was followed in quick succession by numerous small white flares that branched into the sky like reverse shooting stars, setting off an array of colors--blue, green, yellow, red, and orange-- in a performance worthy of a sensory overload. The once black night was now as bright as day with beautiful multi-colored dandelions filling my view.

For some odd reason, my eyes drifted back down to the ground and to a boy seated on a park bench by a lamppost, not far from where I was standing. Unlike the other fifty or so people scattered around the park, his eyes did not follow the colors that filled the atmosphere. A thick black rectangular object in his hands seemed to have grasped his entire attention. He was aware of what was happening around him but his gaze never shifted even for a second away from the beige pages. It seemed like the words it held painted a far more magnificent picture than the one across the sky.

At that moment envy rang true in my heart resonating with the crackle of the fireworks. Envy towards someone I never knew and was never present. The creative soul who commanded the attention of the young boy, trapping him in a world far more colorful and bewitching than the one before him. As the sky faded into darkness,
I stood enraptured by the sight of the boy, his book, and the absent artful hands of a brilliant author.

Side note: Yes, this is a true story (with certain locations and names left out) and yes, it is a little dramatized.

 

[Astro Pen]

Insignificant signifier

As a boy, sixty years ago, I was travelling on the Cambrian Coast Express between London and Aberystwyth. It was, in those days a steam train, full of sounds and excitement.

Rail lengths were shorter back then, so the rhythm of the rails and the locomotive pulsing kept in phase as I absorbed the dark wood, the patterned upholstery of the carriage interior, the netted luggage rack and the posters for the Cornish Riviera with their wonderful graphic style.

Strange, then, that my abiding memory of that journey should be a fleeting glimpse of a small electrical junction box, for a lamp, on the side of a house that flashed by in the window for maybe two seconds.

I just saw it and made the decision that I would remember it for the rest of my life. A task I have, thus far, accomplished. Why? You may reasonably ask. Because I could. It was an assertion of control. Seizing a moment of complete insignificance and owning it forever.

Maybe ultimately Alzheimer's will be the failing point, though older memories tend to be the ones that stay. It is where you put your spectacles, (On the landing window sill for some reason), that falls through the bottom of the memory sieve.

Is that junction box still there? I have been tempted to take that route again in a quest as irrational to outsiders as the decision to remember the thing in the first place.

But a life prisoner will remember every fleck of peeling paint, imperfectly laid brick and plumbing sound from his cell. The punctuation, not the sentence.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

My story is eerily similar to that above. A train, a window, but this time a long journey through a dark night.

Long Gone

It was a slow train. Twelve hours from Budapest to Krakow, stopping often - sometimes for stations and sometimes for no obvious reason. Did the train keep getting ahead of itself? Even at that slow pace? There was a boy with me - there usually was back then. Polish I think; friendly, firm. I remember his tattoos but not his name (am I awful?). I dozed in my seat between him and the window, waking every time we stopped and looking out at an empty rural station platform or at nothing at all. Until I opened my eyes and there was a gravestone, so close I felt I could reach out and touch it if only the glass had not been there. And on the stone, which looked a hundred years old, a single candle burned. Since then, I’ve often wondered if someone will light a candle on my grave when I am so long gone.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

The plumbing in heaven

'Howya', the man said.

I knew who he was. I'd seen him around. In my own sketchy view of the world I'd labelled him as 'harmless'.
A colleague once called him 'the village idiot'. It bugged me. Why do some people just need to share their prejudices?

'Where ya after coming from?', the man had asked.

'I've been in heaven', he said, answering his own question.

We were on a train. The sky outside was darkening. The heating had broken in the carriage, and the air was damp.
There were people seated all around us but nobody else seemed interested in talking.

'Uh, is that a fact', I'd mumbled back.

'I'm so happy, it's greater than you can imagine', he continued.

He was wearing a wet blue anorak that hung open over a tea stained white shirt that was also open, and an inch high silver crucifix dangled from a chain around his neck.

'It's the greatest place you could ever see.'

He smiled as he spoke.
I can't remember the full conversation. When I try it's mostly just an image of a grin and damp white hair poking out from under his cap. One thing he said has always stayed with me though.

Radiator fittings -they are solid gold in heaven.

It was an odd detail to mention, the sort of thing that's too random to be contrived.

I half know the man now, years later.
He's a writer who uses a very old publishing method. He writes his stories on pages and tapes them to lampposts. People read the stories.
I've seen them do it.
Every so often I wonder if he'd really been to heaven.
It'd be a hard thing to prove -I think he had.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Radiator fittings -they are solid gold in heaven.

It was an odd detail to mention, the sort of thing that's too random to be contrived.

You're right! Almost impossible to make that up! I'm going to have to start reevaluating my disbelief in an afterlife. I wonder what the archaeologists will say in three thousand years when they dig me up and find all the radiator fittings I'm going to have buried with me.

 

[Erythr]

Wow, it's a hattrick of stories with train rides. It would be really cool if the trend carried on in the next stories. I never actually traveled in enough carriages to remember a story from them. Anyway... Great stories.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

dig me up and find all the radiator fittings

Yep -it must be cold enough in heaven to need central heating. It was too much of a one way conversation to dig much into that. He was talking flat out, but was sincere, so bringing a few joins and some plumb tape with ya into the afterlife is probably a good plan

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

Wow, it's a hattrick of stories with train rides.

Great exercise, fair play to you. I dunno if @Astro Pen 's cracker of a piece sowed the seed for the train memories to surface, of if trains by their nature give ya time to sit and think. Good fun, and great to read the pieces -thanks.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Self deleted. Catharsis is no excuse to bum people out on a sci-fi forum...!

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

I couldn't add a 'like' to that as it was harrowing, but really really well written -can't add anything more than that.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

I couldn't add a 'like' to that as it was harrowing, but really really well written -can't add anything more than that.

Yeah, think I was just getting it all out. Deleted in the end.

 

[Erythr]

Self deleted. Catharsis is no excuse to bum people out on a sci-fi forum...!

I guess I missed out on something that may or may not have been for my viewing pleasure It's a pity really. Catharsis only works if others are able to witness your words. This writing exercise was created for expressing your unadulterated emotions through writing. Still appreciate your decision. If you believe it wasn't for the internet's eyes, then you are probably right. Feel free to share another piece if you'd like.