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wrightfiction-blog · 6 years

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I have slammed head first into writer’s block so here is a very unfinished “Trip to the Woods”

“Trip to the Woods”

Light leaked through Trajan’s bedroom window. He lay sprawled on his bed, face down, one arm dangling off the side. Amongst massive tufts of hair shooting this direction and that, drool dripped from his open mouth wetting his pillowcase. Blissful morning silence encased him and his room. Groggily, Trajan raised himself up. He needed to get up and get ready for the day, but that seemed like a lot of effort. Within the next ten minutes he had managed a sitting position, his hair in a messy bun. Lifting a backpack from the rubble dispersed over his floor he cavalierly discarded several mammoth textbooks that would only weigh him down later on. In their place he carefully tucked a small package away.

Now fully dressed, Trajan bounded down the stairs to the calls of his mother informing him of the danger of being late for school. Trajan heard her, but even the most liberal narrator could not say he was listening. Amidst his turning thoughts he caught a few words here and there, ‘school’, ‘late’, ‘nipple’, ‘eat’. Trajan stopped just before the final stair and grimaced. He had forgotten to wash his nipple. The right piercing had been irritated lately and soaking it kept infection away while it healed. He got them pierced not long ago and for no particular reason. His rationale was, “Why not?” and “I’m not doing anything else with this hundred bucks.”

Darting through the kitchen fast enough to dodge his mother’s whatever, he snagged a stray pancake. Rolled up into a burrito, it hung in his mouth like an obscenely large cigar while he fastened his pants. He jabbed his key into his car door, jiggling it for fifteen seconds or so until it cooperated and turned, unlocking. It was a twenty year old black BMW. It ran fairly well; it had occasional problems; it generally got him from A to B. After a minute or so of gentle coaxing the engine started and Trajan peeled out of his driveway.

Trajan headed down Winchester Boulevard, hooked right onto Impala Drive, and parked. A text message bluntly informs Christ that he needs to get his ass outside and into the car. Now his friend’s name was Jacob. People had started calling him Christ as a joke because of Christ’s mother. You see, whenever Jacob’s friends hung out at his house they only ever heard his mother call him Christ: like, “Christ, what’s the matter with you!?” or “Christ, could you give me anymore trouble!?” and “Christ, you’re on my last nerve!”

Christ himself now appeared, his curly brown hair and the head attached to it poking out of his bedroom window.

“I’ma be right down,” he hollered.

“Hurry up man, we don’t want to be in the woods after dark.”

Trajan drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, looking at the day for the first time since waking. The air was cold and crisp and stirred his blood. The sky was somewhat overcast today with sparse gray clouds ominously hovering about. He jumped when Jacob rapped on the passenger window.

“Christ, you scared me,” Trajan said, unlocking the doors and letting Jacob in.

“What were you even staring at, man?”

“I was just looking at the weather,” he said

Jacob looked up at the sky, then back at Trajan, “Why?”

“Nevermind man,” Trajan spoke as he began to drive, “Hit up Miles and tell him we’re on our way.”

Miles was in his house eating a muffin. He had just gotten off the phone with Jacob. Miles was the shortest of the group, standing about five foot six. Most of his head was shaved; a band of blonde hair about two inches wide rested on top of his head. For a while he had styled it into an impressive mohawk, but he gave up on it after about two weeks as it took too much effort. Miles was pumped about skipping school for the woods. He said as much:

“I’m so pumped.”

Randy was less enthused. He had kind of a long drawn out horse face that was oddly tan. It’s not that his tan was uneven, it was just too tan. Several shades too tan actually. Made him look kind of funny. The horse face didn’t help either though. He was not particularly excited about going to the forest, but he wasn’t dreading it. He was just sort of coming along. He did that a lot, following others just because. One day he had just attached himself to the group (Trajan, Miles, and Jacob). He was not very popular at school; maybe it was the horse face, made him look kind of funny.

Randy and Miles were waiting at the corner of San Tomas and Stevens Creek. Moments later brakes squealed, tugging back on an old BMW, bringing it to a halt in front of them.

All four now together, they cruised down Pacheko Highway towards the outskirts of town. There the remnants of a once mighty and enveloping forest sat. It took them a little over an hour to reach the treeline and they passed the time with Boston, Kansas, and Europe. They sang along to every song. Few things made Trajan as happy as that.

There was no official parking for the woods so Trajan rooted his car on some grass and was content with that. The four young men appreciated the woods for the privacy it offered. Only Trajan felt anything for the forest itself. In some corner of his mind he saw it for what is was, rather than merely a retreat from society. Opening his backpack Trajan produced the small package from earlier that morning.

“Alright, you guys ready?” he asked.

Miles grinned.

“Sure,” Jacob replied.

Randy said nothing. His eyebrows drooped downwards and his forehead wrinkled. Everyone knew he was nervous, it was obvious.

“It’ll be good man.” Trajan said reassuringly.

“I’ve just got butterflies is all.”

“We’re only doing one tab and we have all day.”

“Yeah, and if we have to we’ll just sit down someplace,” Miles added, “There’s always that old town house.”

Each one reached into the package and retrieved a tablet of LSD and swallowed the drug. It would take about half an hour before any effects were felt and after one hour it would really kick in. Before leaving, everyone left their wallets and phones in the car. None of them wanted to worry about keeping track of them. Together they ventured into the forest.

It was a pleasant walk that they all knew well. Nearly every child in town had visited the woods a few times in their lives. It was a fantastic place to play, facilitating a child's imagination in ways few other things could. They reminisced about the woods as they went, but gradually the conversation fell off and they walked together in silence. Trajan’s sense of balance was beginning to fade; the world seemed to rock back and forth and he swayed his head with every motion. Colors were brighter, sharper, they popped out at him.

“Trajan,” Randy stammered, “It’s starting to hit me.”

“You’re good man,” Trajan said, “It’s hitting me too.”

“Everything is all ripple-ey.”

“Yeah, it is for me too. Just chill man, we’ll stop in a bit.”

Trajan was on his stomach pawing at some grass. The grass fascinated him; it was by far the most impressive grass he had ever come across. In the back of his mind he registered a noise. It was some type of screeching; he didn’t pay attention to it. It was just a vague din passing through his mind while he examined his grass; such excellent grass it was.

“Trajan?”

Someone was calling him.

“Trajan?”

The name sounded like an unfamiliar and distant echo. A hand, firmly grasped his shoulder; he was pulled back into reality.

“Wha—what is it?” Trajan asked, dazed.

“Did you hear that scream?” It was Jacob talking.

Trajan’s head swiveled back and forth on his neck. He was trying to hear Jacob; it was so hard to listen though.

“A scream?” Trajan asked.

“I heard it too.” Miles said. He was sitting on his knees rubbing his eyes, trying to focus.

Randy was sitting up against a tree.

Trajan tried to take stock of what was happening. He had no idea how much time had passed since entering the forest. It was still light out, so it was sometime in the afternoon. He looked around and saw a clearing, and in that clearing had been built a mansion.

“I heard something… I don’t know if it was a scream though.” said Trajan.

He was trying hard to stay coherent; Jacob and Miles, they were trying equally as hard. That he was able to see properly told Trajan that it had not been too long since dropping. And having a vague handle on the time comforted him.

“It didn’t sound good,” Jacob said, “I think it came from the house.”

“It sounded like someone dying,” Miles was talking very fast, “Like some woman being killed.”

There was a delay between hearing what everyone was saying and being able to understand it. Trajan was now on his knees staring at the ground trying to process what his friends were saying to him. The acid had to be hitting him faster than Jacob and Miles; it was the only way they could still be so coherent.

Miles was talking even faster now, “Dude I have such a bad feeling about all of this what if it’s some serial killer or…”

Miles was panicking; he was breathing quickly; paranoia was setting in. Trajan flopped onto to him.

“Chill dude, chill.”

“It was probably some loose window shutter being blown by the wind,” Jacob said.

“It didn’t sound like that at all man,” Miles sputtered.

Trajan began to ask, “Randy what do you…” but Randy was zoned out where he stood. A slap to his thigh brought him back to the world.

“Randy what do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know,” he said meekly.

Miles stood up, “We have to go in and see what’s going on and make sure everything is okay; it could be like 127 hours in there or something.”

Randy’s face froze, “We can’t go in there,” he barely moved his lips, “its huge and run down. We weren’t allowed in there as kids because it was dangerous. We’d kill ourselves going in there.”

“What would you do?” Trajan asked.

“Let’s go back to the car, get our phones, and we’ll call the police”

“Are you fucking kidding?” Jacob yelled, “Call the police because you heard some random noise from some shit building?”

“I didn’t hear it,” Randy said defensively, “Trajan said he heard it.”

“I heard something,” Trajan said, “Miles is the one who thought it was something to give a shit about.”

“We can’t waste time going back to the car!” Miles interjected hysterically, “The killer could get away!”

For a dull moment the others stared at each other. Then, “We are on acid, of course we’re hearing things.”

“Yeah, let’s just chill.”

“We need to go check it out.”

“Let’s go back to the car, please.”

They stood there for a good few minutes, slowly melting towards the ground like a tall ice cream cone on a hot day.

“I’m going in,” Miles declared and he marched towards the house.

“Ah fuck.”

“We can’t leave him, man.”

“No, no, we’re not going in there.”

Trajan and Jacob helped Randy off the ground.

“It’s okay man, we’ll be in and out.”

Walking towards the dilapidated mansion Trajan noticed that everything seemed to shimmer and glisten, but with a kind of matte texture. Also it felt like at least one of his knees had disappeared.

The front double doors of the house hung from rusted hinges and despite their eroded state they would not budge. They had stubbornly eroded into the fabric of the doorway.

“Let’s find another way,” Miles said.

They traipsed around the structure and quickly found a jagged window.

“We’ll cut ourselves on that,” Trajan said. Towards the rear of the house was an empty window frame, “This one looks safe. See, there’s no glass stuck in it.”

“All right, I’ll go first,” Miles said as he clambered into the opening. He more fell through rather than stepped into it and thudded to the floor with a cry of pain.

“Be careful, there’s a bunch of broken glass here,” he called out.

“I think maybe the window was broken from the outside in,” Jacob said blandly.

Trajan sighed, “I’ll throw my jacket down to protect us.” He started to let it roll off his shoulders, then he tugged at it and pull at it, “It’s not coming off. Fuck, help it’s stuck, Christ help me, Christ.”

Jacob took hold of the jacket with both hands and pulled as hard as he could.

“No, no,” Trajan said, “Pull it off me.”

“Right, yeah. Okay.”

After another minute Trajan was untangled, “Thanks,” he said as he dropped his jacket on the grass. “Okay, let’s get in there.” The two scrambled inside and slipped on the shards of glass.

“Fuck!” Trajan yelled, bringing his cut hand to his mouth, “Where’s my jacket?”

“Where’s Miles?” Jacob asked squinting around the room.

The sunlight which shone through the shattered window was the room’s only illumination. The room was enormous and possessed an expansive ceiling. A long ornate wooden table sat in its center and was surrounded by ten chairs of a similar style. Trajan and Jacob moved cautiously along the wall towards a set of white double doors, the only exit they could see. On the other side was a large sitting room with three moth-eaten couches and other furniture. A large staircase was on the left hand side. When the adjoining doors closed behind them they were enveloped in darkness. Only the very dimmest light crept through small fissures in the walls. Standing in that darkness, with nothing for their eyes to train onto—Jacob vomited. With extreme violence he doubled over and belched out his insides. Trajan’s face drained of blood. The black of the room shimmered and bubbled, and then dazzling streaks of light smeared themselves over every surface. It was spiraling, it was all spiralling. Like he was staring at the point end of a great drill. It wouldn’t stop spinning. Someone make it stop spinning! There was no depth there was no physical space just reality flat as paper and spinning like a hideous drill! Then the sounds came. Creaks and bends of worn out warped wood echoed through his ears like a woodshop from Hell. Footsteps, footsteps, footsteps, footsteps from someone that made the floor groan in agony. A crash, a shout from above.

“Miles!” Trajan screamed as he desperately made for the stairs.

#wrightfiction #short story #unfinished story

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wrightfiction-blog · 6 years

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*has two followers, both of whom are dear friends who have seen me many times*

Me: Better add a picture of myself for my avatar so fans know what I look like.

#wrightfiction #writing #writer's life

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wrightfiction-blog · 6 years

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“Axl and the King”

This is a short story I wrote in March of 2017 and it seems like a good way to start off this blog. Inspired by the work of Lewis Carroll.

Axl, for that is what we must call our protagonist, was flailing about. This may seem odd until we know that they were all tangled in a Sunday dress which very much refused to come off.

‘Alexa!’ an adult’s voice yelled, ‘You had better not tear that dress!’

'I don’t know what we’re going to do with her,' another adult sighed.

'She’s nearly a teenager, this is just what happens,' the adult voice said, 'She’ll get over it.'

The dress still would not come off, it was snagged just too tight round Axl’s neck. ‘Get off!’ they cried at the cursed thing. Axl hated dresses; hated that they were not pants; hated how they felt in a dress, how they looked in one. This dress though was particularly heinous, they thought, with its lace and bow, and finally it came off. Axl then put on boxers, sneakers, cargo pants, and a t-shirt. Now properly dressed, Axl bounded to the garage and soundly shut the door behind them. Stuffing an assortment of tools into a backpack (which I neglected to inform you Axl had), they climbed upon a bike and shot off towards the Ditch. The Ditch was part of a dead creek which ran just off the side of a nice park where babysitters brought their kids. Coming upon the chain link fence which sectioned off the bank, Axl lifted up a flap of fence which had been cut loose (by them) and slid underneath it along with their bike. Planting down at the bottom of the Ditch where the steep banks offered some privacy, they dumped out the backpack of tools and set about to make alterations to the bike. The bike was not in need of repair, but Axl enjoyed tinkering with the gears and chain and liked to keep everything good and oiled.

In the Ditch, Axl carefully removed the bike chain and set to cleaning out grease from its links with a small metal file. Hanging it from a handlebar to keep it from dirt, they then checked if the chainring or gear were warped in any way, which can happen from the pull of the chain. Seeing everything in order, Axl decided to replace the chain. The grease from between the links of the chain, however, had gotten on Axl’s fingers and would smear the clean chainring and crankarm. ‘Darn it,’ they said, ‘I’ve nothing to clean with. If only there was some water I could’—but wait, there was water in the creek. Axl looked down at the bed and saw a small but steady stream of water running just a couple of inches below where he sat.

‘There’s never been water here before,’ Axl said. Indeed there had not, at least not since they had first started frequenting the dead creek, which Axl supposed must now be called the live creek. Leaning the bike gingerly against the bank, they went to investigate this strange occurrence.

Axl began to walk alongside the stream in the opposite direction to which it was flowing. Going further and further, the stream became larger and larger. Quickly it was no longer a trickle but something resembling a proper creek, with the water maybe sixteen inches across. Then, quite suddenly, it went no further and Axl stopped at a sizable puddle.

‘This must be where the creek is coming from,’ Axl said, ‘But where did the puddle come from? There’s nothing on the other side of it! It had to have come from somewhere, so how do creeks begin?’ and Axl sat to thinking on this question. It might have been caused by rain, only there had not been any recently. Axl knew lakes and rivers were fed by mountain snow, only there had not been any snow and they did not live on a mountain. ‘Perhaps someone spilled a bottle of water, only it would have to have been a very large bottle. It looks like bottled water though, it’s so clear,’ Axl said looking down at it. In fact, it was so clear that they could see directly through it! On the other side of the puddle they could see an oval (it was properly an ovoid, as the puddle world did exist in three dimensions). ‘If I could just see a little better,’ Axl said peering down, when then Plop! they tumbled head forward into the puddle and was spit out the other side, landing with a great Thump! Not at all hurt, but a good deal damp, they sprang up and looked round. ‘Now where did… Ah! There’s the oval,’ (ovoid), Axl said walking up the bank to it. ‘Oval,’ they asked, ‘why are you crying?’

‘I’m not an oval, I’m an egg. My name’s George.’

‘Why of course you’re an egg. I’m Axl.’ Then after a pause where George continue to cry large droplets which fell down into the creek bed and which, Axl supposed, must have been what formed the puddle, they asked again, ‘Why are you upset?’

‘It’s because of Humpty Dumpty’s wall,’ George said.

‘Humpty Dumpty? You mean from the rhyme?’ And Axl recited it:—

‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.’

‘That does sound somewhat like it,’ George said sniffling, ‘Only you’ve got the words wrong. It should be:—

‘Humpty Dumpty sat on his wall;

Humpty Dumpty would never fall.

All of his donkeys and all of his men

Wouldn’t need to put anything together again.’

‘That doesn’t sound at all right,’ Axl said, ‘What happened to the king?’

‘He sat on the wall. It’s in the first line.’

‘Well why does his wall make you cry?’ Axl asked.

‘Because my family and friends are on the other side of the wall and I cannot cross it.’

‘How did you used to cross the wall?’

‘There didn’t used to be one,’ George said, ‘And besides, I lived on what is now the other side of it.’

Turning round, Axl saw a massive wall built along the floor of the creek. ‘It must be twenty-five meters high!’

‘I should think it larger than that,’ George said somberly.

‘Wait here, I’ll go and see if there’s something to be done about it.’

Scampering down the bank, Axl ran to the far edge of the wall which was still under construction. There was seen the strangest sight in perhaps all of their life. A great number of eggs were working with donkeys to set bricks. The donkeys all wore suits, which had gotten filthy from the dirt of the bank and the dust of the bricks. The eggs were stranger still. On either side of each egg, and atop their heads, were pieces of construction paper pasted onto them which gave them a strange pseudo-cube shape.

‘Excuse me,’ Axl asked one of the eggs.

‘Very well,’ the egg said and continued working.

Axl stood a moment, then turned to one of the donkeys. ‘May I speak to you?’

‘What an intriguing question!’ the donkey exclaimed. ‘What do you think, Marge?’

‘Hmm, it does need consideration. What do you think, Karl?’ Marge replied.

‘I think,’ Axl said interrupting, ‘That I may speak with you.’

‘Now that’s just conjecture,’ Karl said.

‘I was wondering,’ Axl pressed on, ‘What exactly you are doing here.’

‘That I can answer,’ Karl said assuredly, ‘We’re building Humpty’s wall.’

‘We’re surveying it,’ Marge corrected, putting down a wheelbarrow of bricks.

‘Yes, surveying it,’ Karl said, mixing cement. ‘We’re surveying the proposed building site.’

‘You’re building it right now,’ Axl said. ‘Look, you’re both adding bricks to it.’

‘Not at all!’ said Marge. ‘We’ve yet to even vote on the wall you silly—’ Here Marge stopped arranging the bricks and stared at Axl. ‘What exactly are you?’

Axl froze. ‘I… I’m’ their heart was pounding and a dizziness was setting on. ‘I’m…’ They bolted past Marge and Karl, leaping over the low unfinished portion of the wall and sprinting up the opposite bank. ‘You ca’n’t cross!’ an egg shouted after. Ignoring the incredulous screams coming from behind, Axl bounded over the top of the bank and carried right on through a field of bright green grass until there was no more breath left to carry on any further. ‘Stupid, stupid!’ Axl admonished themself harshly, ‘All I had to say was “My name’s Axl and I’m a… I’m a:”—ohhhhh’ Axl moaned, casting down onto the grass. ‘What am I to do now? I surely ca’n’t go back the way I came, but I need to see about that sad egg.’ They thought for a moment. ‘I shall just keep heading the way I was until I meet someone I can ask for directions.’ Thus resolved, they set forth at a determined pace. However, the strangest thing occurred. Not more than twenty minutes had past when Axl came up against the wall again. ‘I was sure I had been heading away from it. I shall just have to turn around and go back the other way.’ But again, after not very long at all, they were back up against the wall! ‘Stop following me!’ they shouted, running away again. And again the wall appeared, looming tall and ominous, it stared down with judgemental eyes and said in a deep voice, ‘You do not belong.’ Axl whirled around, preparing to take off, but slammed headlong into an egg.

‘My goodness!’ the egg exclaimed, ‘You might have cracked me!’

‘I apologize,’ Axl said getting up from a bed of daisies which they fell into.

‘I should hope so,’ the egg said. ‘Now where were you off to in such a hurry?’

‘I was trying to get back to my friend at the creek, only—’

‘The creek?’ said the egg, much agitated, ‘Why would you go to such a dangerous place?’

‘What’s dangerous about it?’ Axl asked.

‘South of the creek is where the Penedesenca Eggs live.’ said the egg matter of factly, as though that explained everything. ‘I myself am on my way to be shaped,’ the egg continued proudly. ‘Your shape seems a bit off as well, now that I examine it closely. Perhaps you would care to join me?’

‘All right,’ Axl said, supposing that they might learn something helpful about the wall. ‘But I ca’n’t stay long, my friend is waiting for me.’

‘Excellent,’ and with that the egg, whom I forgot to mention was Meredith, walked up to the wall and rapt on the bricks. All at once the blocks gave way revealing a door, inside of which was a passage and a long staircase which led to the top of the wall.

Stunned, Axl said, ‘It’s hollow.’

‘Why of course it is,’ Meredith replied, ‘How else would we go up to the top if not from inside the structure?’

Climbing the steps together Axl asked, ‘Why be atop the wall anyway?’

‘It’s where all the good eggs go, everybody knows that.’

‘Is that why it was built?’

‘You certainly ask a lot of questions,’ Meredith said annoyed. ‘One should be careful about overindulging. The wall was built to maintain order. Before everyone was all jumbled up together, then Humpty proposed we should get organized and tidy. It’s what he ran his campaign on.’

‘And people voted him to be king?’

‘Most did not,’ Meredith said. ‘It’s a good thing he won the election anyway.’

Now coming to the last stair Axl and Meredith exited onto the wall. Looking out from that vantage point, Axl saw that there was not one wall, or two walls, but eighteen all laid out in an eight by eight grid. It was all called ‘the wall.’

‘Isn’t it grand?’ Meredith said.

All along the wall, which were very narrow, were buildings and constructions of all kinds. Just ahead an enormous building balanced atop the wall with its sides spreading out maybe twenty meters in either direction. That was the house of parliament, Meredith explained. Axl needed to be silent when passing through so as to not interrupt their session. One could not go around the building, as the wall only ran in one of two directions, except where it intersected and ran in two more, but one always arrived in the same place as the wall was a closed circuit. Inside of parliament there were donkeys on the left and a great many more eggs on the right, all jittering about as traffic passed between the bisected building. Despite being used to hardships related to passing, Axl fared no better in navigating past opposing traffic. The wall was so narrow it allowed only the smallest margin by which to move by one another. It was even harder for Meredith, whose round shape made keeping balance almost impossible. ‘That’s why we need to get shaped.’ she explained.

As Meredith dealt with quite the commotion, the result of another round egg having tipped over and rolled along several desks belonging to members of parliaments—‘Why we need to be shaped!’ Axl could hear her yelling from amongst the commotion—a donkey named Eustace leaned over and asked, ‘Could you stand a bit more to the other side?’

‘Certainly,’ Axl responded, stepping over a few paces. ‘Why must I though?’

‘There’s a very careful balance in parliament which must be maintained,’ Eustace said, ‘Ca’n’t have too many on one side or there’d all be a mess.’

Axl looked from side to side, examining parliament. ‘You say it must be balanced?’

Eustace nodded.

‘And does each member only vote once?’

‘Indeed,’ Eustace said.

‘Then why are there many times the number of eggs as there are donkeys? That’s not balanced at all.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Eustace quipped, ‘There must be more eggs for parliament to be even.’

‘How so?’ Axl asked.

‘You really know nothing of government at all,’ he scoffed. ‘Donkeys may weigh upwards of thirty-five stone, whereas eggs are as light as fifty grams. That is why there must be a standard four thousand four hundred forty-five eggs per donkey to keep parliament balanced so that it doesn’t tip over.’

Before Axl could tender a response, Meredith scurried them on and out the building, saying, ‘Must be getting on now. Oh, there’s Humpty now!’

Just outside parliament, sitting on the wall, was Humpty Dumpty. He had a small, bunched up mouth and beady eyes which squinted down on at the ground below. He was shaped entirely like a cube.

‘Humpty!’ Meredith greeted.

‘Ah Meredith, good to see you, good to see you. Glad you could make it, very important you know, all the good eggs—having a wonderful time you know—all the good eggs are making their way up. I knew it would be a success, the wall—best wall by far, that’s what they all say, all the good eggs you know—I knew it would be a success. Nobody builds walls like me.’ Humpty carried on like this for sometime, until he took notice of Axl. ‘Ah, a newcomer I see! Everybody wants on the wall. We’ll have to make sure you’re good you know—safety is very important, I’m always looking out for safety aren’t I? Everyone agrees—that’s why we’ve got to separate the good eggs from the bad you know. Now Meredith, which shape will you be going with?’

‘I’ve given it a great deal of thought, Humpty,’ Meredith said, ‘And I think shape number two should suit me the best.’

‘An excellent shape Meredith, excellent shape. My second favorite. Almost went with it myself you know.’

‘Pardon me—’ Axl said.

‘I suppose I can,’ Humpty said.

‘What I meant was—’ Axl began.

‘I knew very well what you meant!’ Humpty said excitedly, ‘And don’t go trying to say that I didn’t. I’m very good at meaning out words, why just the other day—one of my strongest suits—just the other day I was reading a law about about railways which said: “The king may authorize the creation of railways for essential national interests provided there be a parliamentary approval of budgets.”’ Here Humpty nodded to himself very satisfactorily.

‘And?’ Axl asked.

‘And what?’ Humpty asked offendedly.

‘What about the law?’

‘You ask a lot of questions you know,’ Humpty said, ‘Not one of those troublemakers are you? They’re always—I tried to work with them. Nobody’s more willing to compromise than me—always trying to trip me up in their schemes. Well the law you know, when I read it I said: “Well what are railways but horizontal platforms? Vertical railways, that’s what we need. No reason a railway couldn’t be built upwards. And national interests, really only a king can determine what is of interest to a nation. And parliamentary approval of the budget, that of course does not apply when someone else is paying for the rails.”’

‘Who’s paying for it?’

‘Parliament,’ Humpty said soundly.

Just then Meredith came back from being shaped. Shaping, Axl found out, was when the eggs were put into one of two compression machines which squared off their sides making it easier for them to sit on the wall. ‘Isn’t it marvelous!’ Meredith exclaimed. ‘I can balance much better now.’

‘Very excellent, very excellent. Now then,’ Humpty said turning to Axl, ‘Which shape will you be having?’

‘I don’t think I’ll have either.’

‘You don’t mean that you’re happy with that shape?’ Meredith put in.

‘Well…’ Axl looked down at their body; the body which was supposed to fill out the dress they’d worn earlier; the changing body which more and more allowed others to confidently label them as:—‘I don’t want either of the shapes you have.’

A veneer dropped from Humpty’s face. ‘You wo’n’t stay on the wall without one of them.’

‘Then I wo’n’t stay,’ Axl said crossing their arms, ‘I need to get back to George at the creek anyway.’

Humpty’s face shrunk and twisted with rage until it looked like it might fall in on itself.

‘Lies! Treason!’ he screamed, stomping up and down. ‘I want that, that shapeless thing off my wall! Throw it off!’

For a brief moment panic seized Axl, but this gave way to a rapid succession of thoughts on what action to take. ‘Backwards, through building, down stair, gone,’ was what Axl’s mind ran. Pivoting on their heel, Axl moved back along the wall as fast as they could, which was no easy feat given that Humpty’s furious stomping was shaking the entire structure. Coming to parliament, there was chaos. Its members were frantically dashing from one side to the other trying to keep it level as it wobbled on the shaking wall. Axl ran through it all, being careful to dodge the flying eggs the donkeys threw to one another to quickly adjust the weight on each side.

Out the other side, Axl went into a full sprint as a party of eggs pursued. In the best conditions the wall could fit two eggs abreast, and these were not the best conditions. The round eggs especially were having a time of things. ‘Why we need to be shaped!’ Axl heard a shrill voice yell from behind.

Coming to the stairwell, Axl all but slid down it and once in the passageway slammed against the inside wall and tumbled out the other side. The sounds of pursuit still came. Splashing through thick mud, they took cover behind some dying hedges and waited. There came the sound of murmuring voices from the base of the wall, then cruel laughter. While waiting to be sure the eggs had gone, Axl looked round. This was not the field from which they had entered the wall. ‘I must have gone out the other side by mistake,’ they said. Stretching out behind them was a wasteland. The thick mud spread out in congealed pools, suffocating the flowers which seemed to have once grown here; craters pockmarked the land as far as Axl could see.

After waiting several minutes, Axl slowly rose from cover and approached the wall. They were going to find the door, cross the other side, then cross again to the creek. Feeling the wall, they checked for anything. A button, a groove, a handle or knob—there was nothing. Axl began to tug at the brick seams, then push all their weight against them; nothing. ‘I’m trapped,’ they muttered. ‘I’m trapped!’ they cried. Sinking down to their knees, covered in that awful mud and surrounded by the corpse of a garden, they began to sob.

A gentle hand placed itself on Axl’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’ a voice asked.

Turning their head, Axl looked up into the soft eyes and concerned face of a snowball. ‘Let me get that for you,’ the snowball, whose name was Mabel, said. And taking a small piece of snow from her body she dabbed Axl’s eyes and cheeks. The cold felt wonderful on their puffy eyes and their tears leapt from their face to be with the snow. Axl’s face now quite dry, and them giggling a bit, Mabel placed the snow back on her body and helped Axl to their feet.

‘Thank you,’ Axl said.

‘You’re welcome. But why are you here crying all alone?’ she asked. ‘If one is going to cry, one should do it with friends.’

‘I was trying to find the door to get the other side of the wall,’ Axl explained, ‘only I couldn’t find it.’

‘I am sorry to tell you this, but that door only opens from the inside. You ca’n’t go back that way.’

‘But I need to get to the creek!’ they exclaimed.

‘Here now,’ said Mabel , ‘We shall go and speak with Connor. I am certain he can help you.’

At first look one might not have known Mabel to be a snowball, given the mud and waste which had accumulated on her, but she was indeed that. Now wading through the mud with Axl she became even filthier, but was no less the snowball for it.

Not far away they found Connor, an icicle, who greeted them cheerfully.

‘Connor, do you suppose you could help this one get to the creek?’

‘Absolutely!’ Connor exclaimed. ‘I can take you this moment.’

‘But how?’ Axl asked. ‘The door won’t open.’

‘I’ve chiseled a hole in the wall, you see,’ Connor said, ‘You can crawl right through.’

‘But I don’t understand, if you’ve made a hole, why are you two still here?’

‘We could never leave without all the other snow and ice folk,’ Connor said, ‘And if we were to all leave together, why we’d just be rounded up again and put back here. I made the hole just to be able to visit with my dear friend, George.’

‘But that’s who I’ve been trying to get to this whole time!’ Axl yelled with joy. ‘I found him crying, but then got separated.’

‘Are you the one from the puddle-world then?’ Connor asked. ‘Why, you’re the very first thing George told me about when I saw him.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘As all right as one can be, given the circumstances. He was very grateful for your offer of help.’

‘Only I’ve not been able to do anything. I couldn’t help at all.’

‘Thank you all the same,’ he said. ‘Let me take you across and you can return to puddle-world.’

‘I ca’n’t leave you all though, there must be something I can do,’ they said.

‘We have always depended on the kindness of strangers,’ Mabel said with a forlorn smile, ‘But so long as the wall is there, I am afraid nothing can be done.’

This was not good enough for Axl. Something had to be done. ‘Why ca’n’t it be torn down?’ they asked.

‘I would surely break before getting far at all,’ Connor said, ‘And there aren’t enough icicles to do it. It’s just too big.’

Axl thought for a moment. ‘Have you seen Humpty get angry?’ they asked.

‘Often,’ Connor and Mabel said in unison.

‘When he got angry with me, his stomping shook the entire wall.’

The others, who had never seen Humpty atop the wall, as they were not allowed on it and could not see the top of it from the ground, took Axl’s word at this.

‘Suppose you make a hole in the wall right under where Humpty sits, and then I shall go back up and make him so angry that he will stomp the entire thing down!’

It sounded a marvelous idea to the others, and after pointing out that Humpty was just one side of the parliament building, which was large enough to see from the ground, Axl crawled through the hole to the creek as Connor began chiseling a new one.

Once on the other side, to Axl’s great relief, they found George.

‘George,’ Axl called, rushing over.

‘Why hello!’ George said. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be coming back.’

‘I’m sorry, I got a bit lost.’

‘Then I am very glad you found yourself,’ George said.

‘I met Connor and Mabel. We made a plan to get rid of Humpty’s wall.’

Axl explained what was to be done as they walked along and the pair soon found the place where Axl had first crossed over. This portion of the wall was still incomplete, its construction having been significantly delayed due to the fact that Karl and Marge had fallen into an intense discussion about whether the stranger they had met could have crossed the wall despite the fore-egg’s clear exclamation of “You ca’n’t cross!” As they talked, Axl and George stepped across once more into the field.

‘Now there’s new evidence what needs consideration,’ Marge said.

The two experienced a bit of difficulty retracing Axl’s steps in the field, but did eventually locate the bed of daisies Axl had tumbled into before. From there they felt along the wall until happening upon a button which opened the door. In no time at all they were atop the wall.

Moving quickly along, Axl and George soon came upon Parliament. They at first feared that the members might impede them, but the members were too absorbed in a discussion as to whether the wall should have an official doctor. From the snippets they caught, the prevailing opinion seemed to be yes.

On the other side sat Humpty and Meredith, whose surprise at Axl and George quite disrupted their conversation about microwaves.

‘Come crawling back I see,’ Humpty said, ‘Well I’ll have none of you or that bad egg either.’

‘They ought to be put on trial,’ Meredith added.

‘Yes! Spies, that’s what you are,’ Humpty blustered, ‘You shall be sentenced at once!’

‘There hasn’t even been a trial, let alone a verdict,’ Axl protested. They were not actually trying to reason with Humpty, something they considered highly improbable, but wanted to draw him into an argument.

‘There ca’n’t be a trial, I’ve fired the Chief Crown Prosecutor!’ he boomed. ‘But there shall be a verdict! I say guilty!’

‘Excellently adjudicated,’ Meredith applauded.

‘Well I say we’re not guilty,’ Axl put in, ‘And in fact, I say that you’re guilty.’

‘That’s nonsense! Utter, complete rubbish!’

‘Why is it only nonsense when I say it?’ Axl asked.

‘Because I say so!’ Humpty screamed.

‘Who cares what you say. You’re nothing but a buffoon.’

‘Off my wall, you nasty, nasty thing you!’ Humpty screeched as he began to stomp furiously up and down. The wall shook violently, and though they could not see it, directly below a crack began out of the hole which Connor had just finished burrowing. Upwards and upwards it crept, splitting the brick, until it reached right under Humpty’s feet. Axl and George saw it and they watched as Humpty’s feet came down one last time. Crack! The brick crumpled beneath him, and then the brick below that, and the one below that. Humpty plummeted downwards, tearing through each layer until he smashed the entire foundation. This spread more cracks along the wall in every direction, and then those bricks began to break, which made still more cracks. In a moment all eighteen sections of Humpty’s wall were covered in fissures and crumbling to dust. As the portion which Axl, George, and Meredith stood on began to give way, the three fell down to the earth. Losing sight of the other two, Axl saw only the hard ground rapidly getting closer. They shut their eyes and waited for the inevitable. But Axl was not hurt.

They sat up from a pile a snow which had completely cushioned their fall.

‘Mabel?’ they asked.

There was no reply.

Sitting there, Axl surveyed the wreckage. Nearly every bit of wall was gone. The only part which remained was Karl and Marge’s, which they later decided would not make sense to finish. Not far away, Axl spotted Connor and George holding hands and walking towards them.

‘You’re all right!’ Axl said to George.

‘I am indeed! I rolled when I hit the ground.’

‘It’s a good thing that eggs are round,’ Connor said. ‘Speaking of which, Axl, could you please move?’

‘Of course,’ Axl said, getting up.

Connor leaned over and began to scoop the snow up and pat it into a ball. Mabel was back to her old self.

‘I would have said something,’ she said, ‘Only you landed on my mouth.’

‘Thank you so much for catching me.’

‘We have a lot of cleaning to do,’ George observed.

‘I could help,’ Axl quickly volunteered.

‘You’ve done so much already,’ Mabel said, ‘We can handle tidying up.’

‘I suppose I had ought to get home anyway,’ Axl said, ‘There are things there I should take care of.’

‘Always feel free to visit,’ Connor said, ‘We’ll certainly never let this wall be put together again.’

The four of them headed back towards the creek, where Axl said goodbye to three of them and three of them said goodbye to Axl. And stepping back into the puddle, Axl came up once again in the world they had come from. Gathering up their bike they set off towards home. ‘I need to talk to my parents,’ Axl thought.

The End.

#wrightfiction #short story #political allegory #lewis carroll

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wrightfiction-blog · 6 years

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My favorite way to refer to Donald Trump is “A Person, Being As He Is, Who If I Were He I Would Throw Myself Away”

If I were at all competent with programming I’d make an ad-on that replaced his name online with that.

"A Person, Being As He Is, Who If I Were He I Would Throw Myself Away, made disreputable remarks about anyone whose skin is darker than a new jar of mayonnaise.”

#wrightfiction

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wrightfiction-blog · 6 years

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“Axl and the King” Essay

I wrote a critical analysis of my short story. I wrote it as part of my pre-writing planning. I used it as a way of explaining to myself what I wanted the story to be about. The story changed when I actually wrote it, so I went back and made some edits to the essay.

My short story, “Axl and the King” is a political allegory for child and adult audiences. Its content focuses on aberrant identities, state oppression, social justice and activism, and the normalization of the absurd. The story itself is modeled after Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There. In Carroll’s texts, the protagonist Alice travels to fantastic locations and engages lightheartedly with a variety of characters and political figures, while offering commentary on how nonsensical these places and people are. Her engagement derives from either her curiosity surrounding the white rabbit and Queen of Heart’s garden, or her personal desire to become a queen herself. While she achieves both of her goals, her activity occurs within a politically insignificant sphere, the context of which mitigates the ability to call her an active protagonist. In my story I have sought to alter this by creating a narrative centered around a political conflict that my protagonist Axl engages in. I have incorporated the nursery rhyme character Humpty Dumpty, also used by Carroll, and adapted Humpty’s fall into a story of causal significance while also engaging with contemporary politics and issues of gender.

The major political figures in these Carroll texts are the Queen of Hearts, White Queen, and Red Queen. Each of these women, none of whom wield meaningful authority, display the illusion of power in different ways. While the Queen of Hearts might seem to be a dominant figure given how often she issues commands, the reader discovers through the Gryphon that her power is “all her fancy” and that nobody is ever executed (83). The lack of weight that queenship carries is also seen when the Red and White queen readily accept Alice’s desire to become a third queen. This introduction of a new monarch creates no political tension, indicating the triviality of the position. The domains which these queens inhabit is also female. The Queen of Hearts resides exclusively within a garden, while the other two are initially found within a child’s playroom, later a garden, and then a dinner party. These are definitively domestic spaces that reinforce a feminized idea of power. A woman’s power over a domestic setting is insignificant when considered in relation to their exclusion from legislative, judicial, martial, and academic systems. The three queens’ authority is the same as Alice’s in that their authority over irrelevant domestic spaces is comparable to the authority which a child wields over her kittens and playthings. This brings into question Alice’s possession of agency. While she is active throughout both texts, her motivation is often not tied to any broader political significance. For example, when Alice takes away Bill the Lizard’s pencil, she does so because the pencil’s squeaking annoys her and not out of a desire to subvert the trial of the Knave of Hearts (93). When she does engage specifically with the novels’ power structures, any effect produced is by default insignificant as the context in which she operates is that of negligible domesticity.

Carroll’s texts explicitly engage with contemporary issues of monarchy and gender, as well as with questions of agency which may or may not have been intentional. “Axl and the King” likewise engages with these topics as part of an intertextual dialogue. By interacting with Donald Trump, transgender identity, and political activism, the story adapts core aspects of Carroll’s Alice texts to fit the year 2017.

The absurdity of government plays a major role in “Axl and the King”. In the story, Humpty’s administration has constructed a massive structure known as “the wall”. Meredith explains that the wall was built to maintain order, though no anarchic state existing previously is ever described. The only demonstrable effect of the wall is its ability to segregate communities into squalid environments. These points indicate that there is no reasonable cause for the wall to exist. However, the government inconveniences itself in order to accommodate it. The parliament building is built on top of the wall, requiring an inefficient and unequal legislative body to literally balance the structure. Additionally, the round shape of the eggs presents an obstacle to safely remaining on the wall, which leads many of them to alter their bodies into cubes. The wall is a symbol of nonsensical government with the contortions made to accommodate this bureaucracy being presented as both normal and necessary. In the story, two shape options with no identified difference exist in order to make sitting on the wall more easy. The normalization of shaping one’s body to fit within an artificial structure would inevitably lead to the naturalization of this idea. This is a critique of an Anglocentric gender binary and its corresponding gender roles. The belief that there exist only two genders, and that those genders exist according to a particular set of Anglo-American standards, has been normalized to the point that many believe this to be a fact of nature. In these contexts, popular perceptions are so warped that many believe the artifice which demands their conformity is natural, as well as their conditioned behavior. Dissidents who threaten this model are then labeled unnatural, mentally ill, or perverse for existing outside the artifice. This is why Axl is presented as having a nonbinary gender, as implied by their use of gender neutral pronouns. Just as Axl challenges the literal structure of the wall, they also challenge the cultural structure of the gender binary by refusing to accept one of the two shapes offered to them. This rejection of the artificial is what leads to Axl’s expulsion into a garden. The garden, dead and covered in thick mud (oil) and the craters left from drilling, not only represents the death of the natural, but also the death of the domestic space which Alice and the queens are relegated to. Axl and their allies (reminiscent of Dorothy’s companions in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) engage in political activism which helps topple the state from within the space that in Victorian England represented the exclusion of women from politics. So while Axl is expelled due to resisting one type of gender oppression, they rise by resisting another.

The actions of Axl and their allies is important not just as a means of demonstrating the existence of agency, but also in stating that political activism is crucial to one’s liberation. The wall does not come down without Connor chiseling away at it or Axl and George antagonizing Humpty. However, Humpty aides in his own destruction, allowing his anger to sabotage him. This is to say that while activism is needed, the oppressive systems which are being resisted are not sustainable to begin with.

In “Axl and the King” I have interacted with what I identified as the major points of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There. I have corrected Alice’s lack of agency by having Axl take action against an abusive state for the express purpose of fighting oppression. I have also reproduced core elements of Carroll’s texts in my inclusion of issues relating to gender and politics in 2017.

#wrightfiction #axl and the king #lewis carroll #story #write #writing #essay #analysis

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