So I'm currently taking a writing course in my spare time, just an attempt to try and better myself somewhat. This is just a short story I've been working on over the afternoon. Normally I wouldn't post this sort of thing, but I'm honestly interested in what other people think of my work (ie how shit it actually is). Any feedback would be a huge ego boost, and hell...it can't be worse than some of the stuff which has been posted here before.
Betwixt life and death the old mansion hangs. So foreign to life that it is now more mausoleum than home. If divinity was in the eye of the beholder then this abandoned testament to 19th century construction could easily be a man’s own private hell. In Christopher’s case that was as literal as it was figurative.
Christopher dropped his cigarette onto the frozen ground before stamping it out. The sky was grey and heavy, the clouds bloated with celestial melancholy threatening the snow so many pined for. Christopher came from a world of hopeless romantics, people who chirped for balmy summer days and a bit of snow at Christmas. Christopher had lived with snow at Christmas, it was neither magical nor spiritual just painful. Almost out of habit he pulled a fresh cigarette out of the packet in the breast pocket of his jacket.
A spark of flint and Christopher was back to his chain smoking ways. He dropped the heavy brass lighter back into his pocket before buttoning himself up tightly. It disconcerted him how well his father’s suit fitted him. He’d raided the wardrobes before going into town for supply, now the only piece of clothing that was his was the silk scarf wrapped around his neck. It felt more like a noose than an item of clothing, but he liked having it close. It reminded him of civilisation. He picked a red can up out of his car boot and slowly marched up the drive as the threatened snow slowly started to descend. It was a thick fall, strong but soft. It’d cover the ground in no time which meant that his time at best was limited.
The door was unlocked, as it always was. His dad had always figured that if a thief had the gall and tenacity to scale a mountain for his robbing he was welcome to whatever he found. Unsurprisingly no thief had ever taken his father up on that offer. Even with new SUVs it was a motherfucker of a drive and it was hardly like the family had anything remotely stealable. Having a television was a kindness his father would not have tolerated. As such it was with great pride that Christopher plugged in his portable CD player and let the empty house reverberate with the sound of some obscure Canadian rock band.
He put the kettle on the hob and set it to boil, the idea of an electric kettle far too much a luxury for this household. His stomach rumbled with disdain as the kitchen clock reminded him that he hadn’t eaten for at least ten hours. He grabbed the large loaf of bread from the cupboard and went to draw the bread knife from its block. It took a few grasps at thin air before Christopher remembered what he’d done with the bread knife, suddenly he didn’t feel quite as hungry and instead set about making himself a drink.
He sat down at the dining table and took slow methodical sips of his coffee; he answered his mobile and gave slow methodical answers to the questions his wife asked. In the end he promised her he’d be back home by the end of the day. She said she loved him; he hung up and slid the phone across the oak table. He must have thrown a little hard as the phone careered off the edge of the table and dropped onto the chair opposite Christopher.
He just stared at the chair, lost in thought. He wondered why his father hadn’t hid it like the rest of Jessica’s things. Burying her memories with her casket had been his only solution. When Christopher had been twelve and Jessica had been nine Uncle Bill had built them these wonderful yew dining chairs. Their names carved into the headrest with the kind of paternal pride their father so obviously lacked. The only gift their father had given them was a denser bone structure, and in Jessica’s case a final escape.
His mind flashed back to the winters he spent here a cruel stipulation of his father’s Machiavellian divorce settlement. A self confessed genius, with a team of crack lawyers against a woman who had long since slipped past the verge of a nervous breakdown had resulted in a rather one sided custody battle.
As Hades stole away Persephone for the winter months so did his father steal Christopher and kin from their mother as soon as the days turned short. They were little more than a weapon to him; he cared little for them outside of how much damage their departure did to their frail mother. As his thoughts started to dwell on the image of his mothers shoes hanging in the kitchen Christopher forced himself to stop thinking.
He got to his feet and grabbed his chair by the headrest before smashing it against the hard kitchen floor. He lurched across the kitchen and did the same with Jessica’s chair before picking up the splintered wood and throwing it into the open fire.
The newly lit fire roared with incandescent glee as Christopher fed it more and more fuel, his rampage leaving no piece of wood unscathed. Lamps, tables, sofas, books; all were fed to the fire. Damn Hades, damn the rage, damn the depths of this conscious daze.
The fire boomed greedily now, its flaming tendrils threatening to devour all they could find and encroach past the bounds of the fireplace. That was for later, not for now. Christopher embraced this new found fortitude ran to the door and picked up one of the cans before opening and throwing its contents all across the walls and floors. The smell of petroleum stung his eyes and nose as his inescapable rage compelled him to continue. More containers were opened, more was doused. The flames salivated at their feast, the petroleum laced banquet but minutes away.
Two cans left now.
He picked up one and dashed upstairs. He walked past his father’s favourite paintings (all slashed from corner to corner), his father’s bookcase (the books plucked of pages and meaning), his father’s whisky cabinet (its contents long since used to numb various pains) and finally he arrived at the kicked in door to his father’s bedroom.
He had seemed so big in life, a devil made flesh with hands of steel and a heart of coal. The intellect trapped in the cruellest shell, caring more for books and his own perversions than those around him. He had been a spellcaster of sorts, able to entrance those around him with the books he read, the wines he drank and the art he knew. But there was no passion for flesh beneath it all, just cold disciplined intellect tempered with the cruelty of a sociopath.
Now he was just a man and in his death he was remembered by none and pitied by even less. The thing that had once been father was little more than an object, a monument to hatred. His mouth was agape, his eyes frozen with absolute terror (understandable considering he had had a bread knife thrust into his chest) and the only life to him were the insects which flocked around his rather appetising corpse.
Christopher had survived sixteen winters with the man he called father before he had escaped his family forever. His return was no joyous reunion; it was simply the settling of unfinished business. His new family could not flourish without the ashes of his old life.
Christopher opened the can and threw it at the corpse, the liquid fuel leaking onto his father’s bloody shirt. Below the fire had caught hold and was ripping throughout the house. He pulled the lighter out of his jacket pocket, lit it and threw it onto the corpse.
The effect was glorious.
Betwixt life and death the old mansion hangs. So foreign to life that it is now more mausoleum than home. If divinity was in the eye of the beholder then this abandoned testament to 19th century construction could easily be a man’s own private hell. In Christopher’s case that was as literal as it was figurative.
Christopher dropped his cigarette onto the frozen ground before stamping it out. The sky was grey and heavy, the clouds bloated with celestial melancholy threatening the snow so many pined for. Christopher came from a world of hopeless romantics, people who chirped for balmy summer days and a bit of snow at Christmas. Christopher had lived with snow at Christmas, it was neither magical nor spiritual just painful. Almost out of habit he pulled a fresh cigarette out of the packet in the breast pocket of his jacket.
A spark of flint and Christopher was back to his chain smoking ways. He dropped the heavy brass lighter back into his pocket before buttoning himself up tightly. It disconcerted him how well his father’s suit fitted him. He’d raided the wardrobes before going into town for supply, now the only piece of clothing that was his was the silk scarf wrapped around his neck. It felt more like a noose than an item of clothing, but he liked having it close. It reminded him of civilisation. He picked a red can up out of his car boot and slowly marched up the drive as the threatened snow slowly started to descend. It was a thick fall, strong but soft. It’d cover the ground in no time which meant that his time at best was limited.
The door was unlocked, as it always was. His dad had always figured that if a thief had the gall and tenacity to scale a mountain for his robbing he was welcome to whatever he found. Unsurprisingly no thief had ever taken his father up on that offer. Even with new SUVs it was a motherfucker of a drive and it was hardly like the family had anything remotely stealable. Having a television was a kindness his father would not have tolerated. As such it was with great pride that Christopher plugged in his portable CD player and let the empty house reverberate with the sound of some obscure Canadian rock band.
He put the kettle on the hob and set it to boil, the idea of an electric kettle far too much a luxury for this household. His stomach rumbled with disdain as the kitchen clock reminded him that he hadn’t eaten for at least ten hours. He grabbed the large loaf of bread from the cupboard and went to draw the bread knife from its block. It took a few grasps at thin air before Christopher remembered what he’d done with the bread knife, suddenly he didn’t feel quite as hungry and instead set about making himself a drink.
He sat down at the dining table and took slow methodical sips of his coffee; he answered his mobile and gave slow methodical answers to the questions his wife asked. In the end he promised her he’d be back home by the end of the day. She said she loved him; he hung up and slid the phone across the oak table. He must have thrown a little hard as the phone careered off the edge of the table and dropped onto the chair opposite Christopher.
He just stared at the chair, lost in thought. He wondered why his father hadn’t hid it like the rest of Jessica’s things. Burying her memories with her casket had been his only solution. When Christopher had been twelve and Jessica had been nine Uncle Bill had built them these wonderful yew dining chairs. Their names carved into the headrest with the kind of paternal pride their father so obviously lacked. The only gift their father had given them was a denser bone structure, and in Jessica’s case a final escape.
His mind flashed back to the winters he spent here a cruel stipulation of his father’s Machiavellian divorce settlement. A self confessed genius, with a team of crack lawyers against a woman who had long since slipped past the verge of a nervous breakdown had resulted in a rather one sided custody battle.
As Hades stole away Persephone for the winter months so did his father steal Christopher and kin from their mother as soon as the days turned short. They were little more than a weapon to him; he cared little for them outside of how much damage their departure did to their frail mother. As his thoughts started to dwell on the image of his mothers shoes hanging in the kitchen Christopher forced himself to stop thinking.
He got to his feet and grabbed his chair by the headrest before smashing it against the hard kitchen floor. He lurched across the kitchen and did the same with Jessica’s chair before picking up the splintered wood and throwing it into the open fire.
The newly lit fire roared with incandescent glee as Christopher fed it more and more fuel, his rampage leaving no piece of wood unscathed. Lamps, tables, sofas, books; all were fed to the fire. Damn Hades, damn the rage, damn the depths of this conscious daze.
The fire boomed greedily now, its flaming tendrils threatening to devour all they could find and encroach past the bounds of the fireplace. That was for later, not for now. Christopher embraced this new found fortitude ran to the door and picked up one of the cans before opening and throwing its contents all across the walls and floors. The smell of petroleum stung his eyes and nose as his inescapable rage compelled him to continue. More containers were opened, more was doused. The flames salivated at their feast, the petroleum laced banquet but minutes away.
Two cans left now.
He picked up one and dashed upstairs. He walked past his father’s favourite paintings (all slashed from corner to corner), his father’s bookcase (the books plucked of pages and meaning), his father’s whisky cabinet (its contents long since used to numb various pains) and finally he arrived at the kicked in door to his father’s bedroom.
He had seemed so big in life, a devil made flesh with hands of steel and a heart of coal. The intellect trapped in the cruellest shell, caring more for books and his own perversions than those around him. He had been a spellcaster of sorts, able to entrance those around him with the books he read, the wines he drank and the art he knew. But there was no passion for flesh beneath it all, just cold disciplined intellect tempered with the cruelty of a sociopath.
Now he was just a man and in his death he was remembered by none and pitied by even less. The thing that had once been father was little more than an object, a monument to hatred. His mouth was agape, his eyes frozen with absolute terror (understandable considering he had had a bread knife thrust into his chest) and the only life to him were the insects which flocked around his rather appetising corpse.
Christopher had survived sixteen winters with the man he called father before he had escaped his family forever. His return was no joyous reunion; it was simply the settling of unfinished business. His new family could not flourish without the ashes of his old life.
Christopher opened the can and threw it at the corpse, the liquid fuel leaking onto his father’s bloody shirt. Below the fire had caught hold and was ripping throughout the house. He pulled the lighter out of his jacket pocket, lit it and threw it onto the corpse.
The effect was glorious.
