Well blogging, we meet at last. I’ve had mixed feelings about the practice of blogging since I first heard of it and thought “Really? That’s the name you’re sticking with?” But it has finally reached a point where I think, well why not? Now I’ve never kept a blog, and I don’t actually know that much about them despite being part of “that generation” that should apparently have a manual of some sort in their brain for all basic computer programs and functions, in which case I don’t know if there’s some sort of formula to blog posts or some kind of blog management etiquette, but I’m sure I’ll figure things out. I only mention it so that if there are accidentally 20 posts in a row of the same thing or something you’ll be forewarned of the experimentation and learning period in progress.

So, the theoretical point of this blog is to be somewhere for me to post things that I write. And I do mean ‘things’ because I tend to write short snippets of fiction, though sometimes there are short stories and such too. I suspect most of my posts will come from an intriguing book I have which is called ‘642 Things To Write About’. It’s simply a collection of short (anywhere from a couple of sentences to just a word) starter phrases designed to get you thinking and writing. For instance, “The greatness of sandwiches” or, “Go to a café and closely watch two people interact. Then write a scene about to people in a café” or “Create an imaginary friend (human or not)” (I have high hopes for a hedgehog being involved in this one), and so forth. As you can see, they’re diverse, so posts on here could be pretty random. Just the way we like it I say. I imagine there will also be some first-person posts from me, who can say? But when things come from “the book” I’ll use the prompt as the post heading and then my writing about it as the body of the post (I say confidently, like I’ve already mastered my heading/post functions).

I’m not sure yet how often I will post something because I’m not sure yet how this blog and I will feel about one another, but I will try to post with reasonable frequency because, really, it’s just stagnating and taking up space in the ether otherwise. That being said, welcome to my blog invisible people!

Wednesday 30 January 2013

Start a story with the line "When I confronted him, he denied that he'd ever said it"...

When I confronted him, he denied that he'd ever said it. He lied to my face, standing there on the train platform in Thailand, facing each other through the haze of humidity. He stared at me, his expression, genuinely perplexed, or just sheepish and uncomfortable? I couldn't tell. "But that's what you said, I thought this is what you meant... that I should join you, that we'd be together, travel together, forget everything else!" I didn't like the note of desperation in my voice and if I could hear it, so could he.

"Well, hey it was great, we spent a great couple of weeks together but we knew this was coming, right? I'm going on to Laos and you're...going home". He let it linger there between us, this divide in our lives which as soon as he got on that train would grow wider and wider, spanning whole continents and years ahead of different, separate experiences. But we didn't know this was coming; I didn't.

We had met just over two weeks ago, me at the beginning of a short holiday seeking sand and sun, him in the midst of his long term travels, his world wandering he had called it. We had felt an instant connection, but I had resisted because it wasn't practical to get involved with someone on such a short holiday and because I still had a slightly complicated situation to sort out with someone back home... but he had been so charming and attentive... we had a whirlwind affair, two weeks spent under the sheets and at the beach, having deep conversations about our lives, our hopes and plans for the future. They were lazy days of sex and swimming, eating and talking. It had been wonderful, and he'd said how much he would miss me, how he wished I could stay longer, how much fun we would have travelling together... could I have misinterpreted what he meant? What else was I to think?    

I had believed him, and on our last day, after an emotional and fond farewell, when he had left for the train station, and I was meant to be headed to the airport, I changed my mind. I chose him, I chose adventure, I chose to take a risk. And now here we stood, him looking surprised and not pleased to see me, telling me I had misunderstood, thanks but no thanks.

"Look the trains about to leave... I've really got to get going... I'm sorry, it was wonderful, it really was but.....take care of yourself and have a safe trip home!" He touched me lightly on the arm before hopping on the train just before the doors started to close. I could feel the tears on my cheeks mingling with the sweat. I held my arms across my middle like I'd been punched in the stomach and tried to breath, gasping breaths of warm, thick air.    

When the train started to pull out of the station, it felt like someone had attached my heart to it with a rope, because as it rolled away, I could feel it rip it out of my chest.

I watched the train get smaller and smaller in the distance, and eventually my breathing slowed and came back to normal. I felt a flash of anger, in the midst of my ache, and I looked around at the other platforms.

"Screw it" I said, and started to make my way to the nearest train, going wherever. I'll make my own adventure. 
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