The First Utterance

Writing Exercise

Pretend you are a recovering alcoholic who falls off the wagon while attending your high school reunion. Start your story with “I hadn’t had a drink in nearly 10 years” and end it with “If only I could remember where I left my pants.

“I hadn’t had a drink in nearly 10 years.” I said to the waitress who was serving me a celebratory beer; just the one mind. “Here’s to many more years of sobriety.” Bottles were chinked and as I finished my first drink I remembered the rush from booze. I saw my cohorts drinking around me, old school friends, teachers and that young nurse from my senior year who hadn’t aged half bad. Looking at my solemn one beer I considered another.

“Can I get you anything love?” said this busty waitress whose breasts had kept my eye contact directly at her face. Of course I’d had a glance from across the room, but now avoiding even the concept that she was a women was key. “Actually, I think I might.” I said. She pulled out a small notepad and got ready to scribble down my order. Proceeding to get my wallet out, my cherished keepsake fell to the floor. I red token with the number 10 engraved on it fell to the floor. As I reached for it I saw the young busty waitress still waiting to take my order, “Just a coke actually.”

‘No problem.” She said, and off she went. Perhaps I would stay on the wagon on this occasion, that while that first beer was a mistake, a recovering alcoholic need not fall completely at the first hurdle. My coke arrived and I drank quietly to myself and watched as my old friends mingled with one another.

A young looking chap sat next to me now as I finished my drink. “I know you don’t I?” He said. I smiled at him and nodded, “Well we we’re in the same year at school.” I think pointed all around to the obvious group of people we were socialising with tonight. The banner above our heads even said CLASS OF 1980. So that was something. “No, I mean, we had math back in the day. I’m not drunk by the way, I’m David.” David told me all about how he was on a sobriety program as well, and about how he had slowly moved off the booze and tonight, like myself had had his first drink or two.

This discussion went on for some time, until eventually the crowd started to thin out and I noticed that David had grown more and more tired looking and dishevelled as the night went on. Had his cokes that had arrived at the table had something a little extra in them perhaps. Yet before I had the chance to ask he stood up from the table and wished me a goodnight and that’s when I noticed something extremely strange. “David, your…” And he cut me off.

“Goodnight ol’ friend. Now off I go. If only I could remember where I left my pants.”

His dreams took grasp, and like a snake wrapped around his throat while he slept. Each visitation became something more fierce than the last. The first was of him, slept in his bed with the girl of his dreams. A girl he’d been educated with, who while he’d never spoken too, he listened to her from two rows behind.  Her name was lost in the dream, but her bouncy brown locks and her warm breast was built upon with each moment. The rest of the dream world melted around the edges, all that was, was the bed. Outside of this were the shadows and with each passing moment of passion, they grew closer.

Lost in his own fantasy he missed the first signs. The coldness of her skin, and the motion from her wandering hands to her sleeping eyes. Met with a kiss to wake her she lashed with the viciousness of a beast. The sting of rejection as she became even more beautiful, and he became so small. The edges of the bed were barely visible at this point. He stumbled away from her in shame and shock, and slipped into the shadow. Each arm of the darkness clasped him until he woke.

The love was broken by his waking eyes, the lust remaining in morning arousal. Turning over from this rather rough dream he found his bed empty; as always.

Beautiful girls,

write poetry

with pain.

Sensitive boys,

delve peacefully

off buildings.

A man sells fish

in a hospital lobby.

Piteously I purchase

it’s sickly scales.

Sky, Fire and Ocean on side.

Wrap tight and cautious,

to enter a cave,

littered with trainers;

and Rockets.

The leader Brock

forged steel and rock.

The fall of bird

was half my herd.

A starting flame

to win the game.

Ground to dust

Turned to rust.

One down, seven to go.

A great burden

that beasts weigh.

Slithers on the ground

but the bird has the worm.

Everything else,

fire consumes,

So does the forest fall.

Beckoned back to

rest from destruction.

If grace would allow it, or had any part in it; I’d at least feel normal. I suppose it all started when you realise that you have this expansive other self. The self that isn’t defined in bone or blood, but in something a little less tangible. This other self is just another part of nature, and while others may use terms like ‘high IQ’, ‘sixth sense’ or ‘intuitive’ it still is something beyond the norm.

It’s the way the others are that make me suspicious though, the way they make me less. They are content with mere breaths as they walk amongst one another. They don’t suffocate, they don’t choke on life. Not like me.

Their own replication leads to the degradation of their own. That others pity their most successful breeders. That those who feel the most apt to lead them forward hold back, and restrict their progeny.

I am but a watcher. I not only fear the interaction, but embrace it. I feel indifferent for their touches of lips and hands. I have grown as a part of their puzzle, but I still only fit on the corners, holding their place.

It is said that it’s wrong to look down upon them. That no human is better than another. I am not human, and I was told not to play god. But still,

I am Nephilim.

My sister is actually a scumbag. She had the chance to send someone asking for money away when they knocked the door, but instead made me talk to them…for 5 minutes, then I had to be the asshole and tell them I didn’t want to help.

Two shadows stood close to one another, yet worlds apart.

“I’d like to forget.”

“Why?”

“It seems simpler, cleaner.”

“Is there nothing you’d keep?” said the second to the first.

“The past was good.”

“So why?” said the second again.

The first would not make eye contact, and the second didn’t ask for it. They both were distant from one another. That the first trusted the second, though feared his face was something unique to them.

“My hope’s for the future.” The first broke off and tried to meet the gaze of the second, but averted at the closest point.

“I just want to know things can get better.”

It was a sad truth that the first’s honesty was only to the second, and that the second would never move against the will of the first. Not to help him, nor destroy him, he would watch as an observer, perhaps to the ruin of the first.

“I just want to know, I’m not alone.”

The second didn’t speak.

“You know?” said the first as he raised his head to meet the seconds eyes, then cover his reflective pane and kill him for one more night.

I’m fairly well read

With hidden emotions

Yet created worlds

With little ink

Grasped uncountable wealth

With nothing but my eyes

Turned from sorrow

With a gesture in the lungs

Growing branches of a storyteller

With gathering whispers

I became myself

With everyone else