Author's Note: This is a focused stream of consciousness on the idea of Living between the bright light of self-awareness, and the deep darkness of fear -- the unknown. I got the idea at night when I was brushing my teeth. The lights were off in the hallway, but on in the bathroom, so I just stood in the doorway so the light wasn't too bright in my eyes. Then the idea came to me that this is how people are in life, scared of the darkness, but don't want full light, or truth.
Dark, black nothing.
I know not where I am, who I am, or even if I am. The limits of my surrounding are unseeable to
me, striking my thoughts with fear. Blackness attacks my eyes like an angry
mob, pounding at their subject. My body convulses with evil images in my mind,
the most horrible imaginations becoming more likely each second. I can't move,
for where will I go?
Gradual confusion.
Sudden dots of distortion appear if I blink my eyes fast enough. The darkness
fades, or lightens, perhaps, and the world begins to reveal itself. I am safe,
in a meadow. My feet stand on something soft and squishy; moss, maybe. I look down
at myself, and yes, I'm alive. There are others here, too, in a wide ring
around me. The silence of before turns from one shout to another, and
eventually a chattering crowd. The shapes and shades around me become more
diverse and many, but my eyes are still trying to adjust. I feel as though I'm
in a cloud of mist, slowly fading around me. A large sigh pours out of my
lungs, perhaps the first since the deep darkness.
First light after
darkness. But it grows brighter and brighter, till I become paralyzed again.
The squinting of my eyes, the burning of my skin, all brought on by this bright
light. The chatter around me becomes laughter and yelling. After my primary confusion,
I realize that the noise directed at me. I'm suddenly self-conscious, thinking Are they laughing at my mistakes? And
Yelling at my wrong doings? I wonder if they can see my past, all the
bad things I've done or if they can read my mind, and see all the terrible and
fearful thoughts I am thinking.
So I just stand
there, wishing for the limbo, where the death of darkness and birth of light
held me so content. And though living in between is a horrid torture, I still long for it, as all men do.
Moon
Author's note: This is my short stream of consciousness to the word "moon". I am focusing on creating a visualization for the reader. It is a short post again, but very descriptive.
Meandering through
the meadow at night, a luminescent glow illuminating everything around me. I
like to pretend I'm far out in the country, on a long journey to a far off
place with dragons and centaurs just lurking around the corner. In reality, I
am just in a field behind our complex, but for now, I am happy. Only in this
light, the faint glow, does everything
look okay. The lights don't shine so harshly upon my broken life. I hold my
hands out in front of me, palms down, and swaying them with the movement of the stirred grass,
as if I control the wind. As if I am the wind. Far beyond the edge of the small
enclosure, I still see the lights of a few cars heading down the freeway. They
must be important if they're still out driving at this hour. I rarely get out
of the town, let alone so far out that it would be this late.
Stone
Author's note: This is my first stream of consciousness of my freshman year, using the word stone. It is a description of what I gradually thought of. It cuts off abruptly because I could not think any further without adding a plot, which I really didn't want to do. I wanted to keep mine a description of the setting and the character's emotions.
Walking along the dark passage, my hand dragging against the cold stone wall, I see nothing more than five feet ahead of me. The glow of the torch emits only enough warmth to make me shiver, wanting more. I'd be better off without it. Step after step, the tunnel keeps sloping, its continuity never wavering. I don't know how far it goes, only that I can't go back. I gradually fall into a state of delirium. This seems like a dream, for it just keeps going. Nothing is happening. There are moments when I don't remember how or why I'm here.
I love the vocabulary here especially. It is a short piece, which makes sense for a stream of consciousness so early in the year, but at the same time the quality is really quite high, which is great to see. Well done.
ReplyDeleteI want to recognize for a moment how much you continue to improve. I am, perhaps, too quick to comment on what could be improved. Let me take a moment to tell you a t the same time how impressive your writing has become.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I am convinced you need to look at these stream of consciousness exercises as true pre-writing, using the material produced as raw writing, used later as it is reshaped and purposefully formed into something with more intention. That is how real authors use these types of exercises. You should do the same. Re-work the block of writing into a form that matches what the intent is. Let yourself be free to expressively create a form if necessary that matches your purpose. Otherwise, we may all just as well give up and write academically for one another -- a distasteful prospect.