I recently applied to a Creative Writing degree in England, and they asked me to send a sample of my work. I chose this one. It's out of context a little, so just keep in mind that this is part of a longer, more complex draft (120 pages).
We
visited Simon every day since the accident happened. Everyone started calling
it an accident so I conformed. Even though I was next to sure she didn’t accidentally fall on those scissors with
her radial artery.
One day, when I was ten, I was
waiting for the tube with my then-male-caretaker. I never called them ‘dad’; it
just didn’t feel right. Anyway, we were on the platform and it seemed to me as
if the tracks were a little too accessible to the general public. I was wondering
why there were no railings; anyone could just stumble and fall right before the
car pulled in. As the wind started picking up and the rails began to shudder
under a combination of metallic weight and speed, I felt my blood rushing – if
I jumped right then and there, would it be quick and painless or would my body
just grind along, pieces of me falling off until the car would eventually come
to a halt and I would be trapped in underground limbo for eternity? Or, at
least, until someone decided to scrape me off the hot tracks. I was ten. Ten. Ten year olds shouldn’t have thoughts like
these.
I
had replaced my coffeshop visits with hospital visits. I felt a weird
responsibility for Simon now – as if my presence there had anything to do with
her waking up. She had fallen into this
deep sleep that nobody wanted to categorize as a ‘coma’, even though it was on
everyone’s tongues. But one day, one day she did wake up. It so happened that I was on my watch-Simon-sleep
shift, so I witnessed the event.
“Good
morning,” I told her.
No reply.
“You and your kingdom slept for
quite some time there,” I went on.
“Did you kiss me awake?” she asked
after a while, her voice husky and dry.
“Why of course,” I lied. “I’m the
prince, nice to finally meet you. We thought you’d never wake up.”
“I had the loveliest dream,” she
said. “There was a beautiful boy, and he hugged me. But I couldn’t quite figure
out who he was. So I didn’t… I didn’t want to wake up. Not until I knew. But he
never told me who he was. I… I need to go back,” her voice was a little
panicked, as she pressed her eyelids together and tried to force herself back
into the oblivion of sleep.
“It doesn’t work that way you know.”
She was endearing, really.
“Now stop acting all silly. Your
parents will want to know you’re awake.”
“No…” her eyes suddenly flew open.
“Please don’t.”
“They’ll find out eventually, you
know. You can’t play Sleeping Beauty forever. Even she woke up in the end.”
“In the end…” she repeated. “Is it
the end, though?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then why should I have to wake up?”
I had no answer to that. Fragile and
unstable she might be, but stupid she was not. I had grown to like her, in a
weird sort of way… That was my problem. I either cared too little or I cared
too much.
One
day, when I was seven, I went to the seaside with my then-caretakers. I knew
how to swim but had never seen so much water before. I was scared to go in.
They took me on one of those rental boats, to show me that there was nothing to
be afraid of. The jellyfish are innocent creatures, they said. There are no
sharks here, they said. All I could think about was sinking and ending up at
the bottom of the sea, where all the fish with big teeth and no eyes wait
patiently for drowned people. I have no love for deep, almost static waters. I
prefer the quick, shallow ones. I guess that pretty much defines me as a
person.
The next day, she looked a bit
better. I had reading to do for my Old English class and I was incredibly
behind, what with tending to coma patients and all, so I had brought Beowulf with me. Her face lit up when
she saw the book. “Is it in original?” she asked. “I’m not that fluent in
Anglo-Saxon,” I replied. “Oh. So it’s translated.” “Yeah.” “Read to me?”
“Okay.”
“Attend!” I started, completely in
character. “We have heard of the thriving of the throne of Denmark, how the
folk-kings flourished in former days.”
We spent that afternoon taking turns
in reciting, trying to surpass each other in style and drama.
“I’ll say, you’re quite the bard,
Sir Andrew,” she clapped delightedly as I closed the book.
“Ah, please milady, I am no Sir. I
have no sword.”
“But your tongue is sharp.”
“Not enough to be a weapon,” I
played along.
“I hear tongue-fighting is quite
pleasurable.”
Was she flirting with me?
“I fought many a match, but none
satisfying enough.”
“Maybe I’ll challenge you to a duel
one day,” she smirked.
“I might consider that offer.”
She was most definitely flirting
with me. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Broken things danced around
other broken things in a crazy attempt to fix each other. I guess that’s what
we were doing. Trying to fix each other.
That same day I went to the café for
the first time in a week.
“Customer.”
“Waitress.”
Our greetings varied from meeting to
meeting. The last time I saw her it was “Milord” and “Wench”.
“Long time no see.”
“Likewise.”
“Were you busy?” I sensed a hint of
tension in her voice.
“Yeah, you could say that. Can I get
a coffee please? Oh, and some company. Some company would be nice.”
She smiled over her shoulder and
disappeared behind the kitchen doors. This was insane. What was I doing? First
of all, I didn’t even know her name. Secondly, I hadn’t really talked to her
much, not even during my once daily visits. Thirdly, a twisted girl with suicidal
tendencies might or might not like me, despite obvious impediments. What. Was.
I. Doing. I pulled out my tattered notebook and opened it at random. The page
fate chose bore the many marks of erasing and furious rewriting, something I
was in the habit of doing quite often. Of course, I could’ve easily chosen
technology over pen and paper, but where was the pleasure in backspacing?
She sat down opposite of me after
having placed two big mugs of coffee on the table.
“Oh, whipped cream,” I exclaimed.
“Special occasion?”
“My favourite customer is back,” she
shrugged.
“Your only customer, from the looks of it.” The place was empty once
again. I honestly wondered how they kept it going, without any clients to bring
money in.
“Oh don’t flatter yourself; there
are plenty of people who love this place. They just have a different schedule
from you, that’s all.”
I seriously doubted that. The
whipped cream now floated in chunks in the still steaming coffee. I phased out
for a moment but then my eyes refocused firmly on her. “What’s your name?”
“A little late for introductions,
don’t you think?”
The maple tree next to our window was
almost bare now, a few leaves stubbornly dangling from the top branches.
Mid-November always came with strong winds.
“Mine is Andrew.” I focused on one
particular leaf. The one that always looked like it was about to fall but never
quite did. I wondered if that was what Simon felt like. A perpetual state of
about to but never quite.
“Mine is Mira.”
“Pleased to finally make your
acquaintance, Mira.” She took the hand I extended over the table and shook it.
“Likewise, Andrew.”
“Please, call me Drew.”
“So, Drew, tell me something about
you.”
“Like what?” I took a sip of the
coffee. It was so delicious I almost forgot I hadn’t had proper coffee in what
was way too long, judging by my coffee-drinking standards.
“Like what your last name is, for
example.”
“I’ll tell if you tell,” I grinned,
taking another sip.
“Deal. You first.”
“Rivers. Andrew Rivers.” She looked
as if I just told her she had won the lottery. “Your turn.”
“Murray. Mira Murray.”
“Quite the alliteration you got
going on there.”
“Oh, wait till you see the
symbolism,” she laughed.
“I’m sure it’s incredible.”
“Better hidden than yours, that’s
for sure.”
When she smiled, her entire face
transformed. Her deep-green eyes sparkled and crinkled at the edges, her cheeks
dimpled, and her lips somehow became fuller, despite all the stretching smiling
involved. I had studied her many a time, while writing at my table by the
window. I had paragraphs dedicated to the way she looked, classified in moods
and times of day. Mira was beautiful and, most of all, didn’t seem broken in
any way. That was a little disconcerting. How did you approach something that
was perfect?
“Say, are you musical in any way?”
“Me? Oh no. No way.”
“Aw, that’s a pity. I had such high
hopes for you.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Oh no, it’s fine. You write. That’s
more than enough.”
She got up and walked to the back of
the room, signaling me to join her. Once there, she grabbed a heavy drape from
what I thought was a weird table and revealed a shiny black piano. Sitting down
and opening the case, she flexed her fingers. “I hoped to find someone to play
with,” she said, sliding her index finger over the keys.
“Should I play something for you?”
I grabbed the nearest chair and sat
down, folding my hands in my lap.
“Very well then.”
What happened next was nothing short
of magic, as her fingers swept the
keys with such fluid grace I half-thought she was a mermaid washed ashore. All
I could do was stare in amazement and wonder if her voice was even half as good
as her piano playing. When she was done, I asked what the song was. She smiled
from the corner of her mouth.
"A River Flows in You."
I
bit my lip, trying my hardest not to make a bad joke and ruin the moment.
Getting up, she regarded me with a
half-smirk, perfectly aware of her musical superiority.
“Your turn.”
“I thought I just told you I can’t
play any-”
“No. Your turn. Show me what you
wrote.”
I had to get out of this fast. It
wasn’t like she could take the
notebook from me. The notebook I guarded better than my wallet, the notebook
that was now… conveniently lying on the table that she was heading towards.
Shit. I took inhuman leaps across the room, slamming it shut moments before she
reached it. She shot me a side-glance.
“Why’d you do that for?”
“Matters of national security,” I
nodded gravely and slid the notebook back in my bag.
“Are you one of those people?”
“Who are these those people you are talking about?”
“You know… those people. Who don’t show their work to anybody. You scared I
might judge?” Before I could even sketch a response she went on, “I’m just
curious, that’s all.” I might have seemed unconvinced. Maybe because I was. I
wasn’t in the habit of showing off. Or showing at all, as a matter of fact.
“You’re always scribbling in that thing…” she said, a dreamy look on her face.
I wondered if I should tell her that some of the poems were about her. But then
again, the other ones were about this other girl, and let’s just say that the
percentage wouldn’t really favour her. Then again,
I could always play it safe and show her one of the many short stories I had
begun but never finished, most of which were set in a badly-constructed
dystopian universe of my making. But then again
again, those were kind of shit, so why would I? I judged my work more harshly
than anyone else, I didn’t need to add to that. Once you decided you only
wanted to write for yourself, there was no more pressure. You sat down and you
just sort of let it happen. It was kind of like breathing – you did it to
survive.
“Can I see?” Simon had asked one
afternoon, while I was scribbling in my notebook thinking she was asleep.
“No,” I replied, closing it and
smiling at her.
“Stop that, it’s scary.”
“Fair enough. I’ll just stare at you
angrily from now on. Is this better?” I was aiming for the get-off-my-lawn
look. She started laughing. “You’re silly,” she said. “Not as silly as you if
you think I’ll share my most intimate thoughts with undeserving mortals.” “A
mortal I may be,” she lifted her arms that had various tubes coming out of
them, “but undeserving I am not.” She caught my hesitation by the neck and played
its strings. “Please. Can I see?” I sighed and ripped out a page, handing it to
her. “Here. Keep it. It’s about you anyway.” I didn’t like looking at people
while they were reading my stuff. If they seemed unimpressed, I was hurt; if
they seemed excited, I never believed them. It was a lose-lose situation. So I
turned around, pretending I was really interested in the painting of a hot-dog
that was hanging on the white wall opposite to her.
“She walks on needles,” she started.
“Stop it.”
“Fragile blades that almost fail her-”
“Can’t you just read it silently like any other normal
person?”
“And quiver over a sea of red.”
I sighed. Fine. Recite my blasted poem. Make me want to
puke. That’s fine by me.
“You’ll fall in if you’re not careful, they said
You’ll fall and drown. She didn’t listen.
She kept walking, every step a paper cut
from pages from her favourite books.
She was always walking as if on needles.
Almost
falling but never quite.”
Then there was silence. I didn’t
even turn around or ask her if she liked it. I just grabbed my things and left
the room, shutting the door quietly behind me. I had no idea what she did with
the poem afterwards and I didn’t even care that much altogether – all I wanted
was to get away from the blood flushing my cheeks. Note to self: you can’t run
away from yourself.
One
Christmas, the one which coincided with me turning thirteen, I got a book of
poems as a present. My angsty pre-pubescent self denied its existence at first,
and then reluctantly accepted the fact that it was as good a gift as any.
Always one gift, even though I was born on the 24th of December. Who
cared about Andrew and his silly
birthday, right? The presents I got were courtesy of Jesus being born, not
Andrew. I didn’t want two presents. I wanted people to say ‘Happy Birthday’
instead of ‘Merry Christmas’. I wanted a bike, but got a book. One couldn’t
ride a book to school, but one could ride a book down the yellow brick road,
beyond the secret garden and straight to Neverland. I went down that road the
Christmas I turned thirteen, and never really came back.
