clauiswriting

[clauiswriting]

Sandor Clegane's burns would not be easy to forget, once you saw them. He couldn't hide the scars behind a helm, either; not so long as the helm was made in the shape of a snarling dog. -- Arya X, ASOS

A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar 2024 || Sandor Clegane by Justin Sweet

[clauiswriting]

[clauiswriting]

A Game of Thrones

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“Oh my god you’re a writer? Can I read your stuff?”

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GIRLS 1.05 "Hard Being Easy"

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'Sweet as Summer, Dark as Night' Chapter 45 is now live! Summary - "Sansa welcomes an old friend into her chamber at night."

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The papers on my work desk seem never ending. They pile up high and spill onto the dirty carpeted floor. The pile on the desk across from me is even worse. Papers and folders and boxes of work stacked so high they wobbled and swayed every time the air conditioner turned on. I sighed and wondered to myself who would take on that pile now that she was dead. She being a woman named Marge who’d unexpectedly died last week after her house caught on fire. They said it was a cigarette that burned the place down. Except no one even knew Marge was a smoker.

“I’m so tired,” she would say every day, her eyes so wide you could see all the white of her eyeball. Her irises were tiny little specks of black and brown. “Need more caffeine.”

“You should sleep more.” This was unhelpful and unneeded advice, and I knew it. Her hair was frizzy, big and thick, it looped around her head like a halo. She was a tired angel. Pretty but haggard.

“I guess I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

Off she went to the break room with sunken eyes and bruise like dark circles. Her lips were red and cracked from all the lip chewing she did throughout the day. I thought I should help her, so I did. I took a big handful of paperwork from her desk and added it to my pile. It didn’t help much; I guess. Moments later more papers arrived and there she was, chugging a neon green energy drink while snorting a line of gas station vitamins to stay awake.

“Bring it on,” she cried out. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

Sometimes the others in the office would invite her to go out for a drink. “You should go home and get some rest,” I would warn her. Anyone with the ability to see could tell she was up to her neck in exhaustion. She was a drowning woman, all her work and emotions doing its best to bring her down.

“Look, I’ll sleep when I’m dead. What’s the point of being alive if I can’t enjoy myself?” And off she was to whatever bar, restaurant, or nightclub of the night. She danced and drank and laughed, all the while I watched on as she withered away. A helpless, useless spectator to a horrible car crash I couldn’t look away from.

Then her house burned down, and I went to the funeral. I couldn’t look away from the charred, blackened remains in the pristine white coffin. Her hands and legs curled up like she was a baby again. There was no more skin. No flesh or organs or wide eyes. Just black bones and teeth held up the dress someone had picked out for her. I figured she’d get all that sleep she desperately needed now. She was dead, after all. What else was there in death except sweet sleep? Sleep and rest and relaxation. Maybe that was what heaven was all about.

But the stack of papers on Marge’s desk toppled over onto the carpet and there she was, hunched over in her chair, hair still a wild mess, eyes wide and barely blinking. She held a large coffee from the gas station in one hand, a red pen in the other. She scrawled harsh red marks all over the papers, her hands shaking.

“Marge?” I asked the thing that had to be an apparition. “You should be asleep.”

She didn’t look up, just snorted. Ash fell from her nostrils and covered the papers in front of her. She took a desperate sip from her coffee cup. “I’ll sleep when I’m really dead.”

Someone pushed another tall stack of brightly colored forms onto my desk, so I sat down and picked up a red pen and got to filling them out. Poor Marge. She was dead. That was her only escape, but here she was, still drinking coffee, still awake, still working. Another stack of papers for me and Marge. So many that they fell all around us like leaves in autumn. Except, not very whimsical or happy making.

“Want some coffee?” Marge asked without looking up.

I felt the beginning of exhaustion crawling into my peripherals. Another stack, more marks, more autumn leaves. “Sure, Marge. That sounds like a good idea.”

Your friend always said “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” so much that it became his catchphrase. He says it again today when he came into work, going about his daily routine. This normally wouldn’t be concerning, if not for the fact that you attended his funeral two weeks ago.