Friday 27 June 2008

Rock

Blah! Wrote this for a 15 minutes, short story thingy based around a keyword. The keyword was "rock"


"Don't rock the boat," he murmured swaying from side to side in the tattered green chair he had claimed as his. With both arms he gripped his head, barely covered with what remained of his now balding blond hair, as a streak of lightning brightened the room.

"Don't rock the boat," he muttered again.

After the sound of the thunder faded into the night, he decided there was no harm in braving a quick peek. Picking his head up, he looked round quickly through the room he had spent the most part of his thirty plus years in relative safety. It was a small single room house with a tiny kitchen and bathroom, but he had spent most of his life in it and he couldn't imagine being anywhere else. He glanced up at the windows - they were still boarded up. A storm was coming! That was what the nice man on the radio, Andy "with the manly voice" Dominics, had said. A storm was coming! At that point, the little house shook violently as a wind blew.

"Don't rock the boat, don't rock the boat...don't rock the boat!" He chanted over and over again, rocking, head in arms, until the wind stilled for a while. Sure that the house had stopped shaking, he picked up his head again. "My chair, my radio, and my bear," he thought to himself, "should be able to take care of themselves, but my books may get into some trouble. I don't think they can withstand any water battle. I have to keep them safe." He looked round again, trying to see if he could count the number of books that were strewn in a wild mess all around the room. He gave up at the next indication of the beginnings of the sound of thunder. He waited a while, until he was sure it was a false alarm. Silence reigned.

Then, just as he was feeling more assured, the wind picked up. Rocking the house as if to rip it from its foundations, it roared. Rain splattered heavily against the boarded up windows, coupling occasionally with hail.

He shrieked and resumed rocking, murmuring "Don't rock the boat," over and over. This time there was no reprieve: no letting up from the raging storm. There was a crash on the roof of the house, as though something heavy had being hurled against the building with some force.

"Don't rock the boat," he continued to moan, continually rocking. "Don't rock the boat."

The house continued to shake violently. He heard rumblings from what seemed to be every part of the building.

"Don't rock the boat!"

New sounds permeated the air: the force of things striking, sometimes shattering against the heavy iron front door; the wind finding different pitches with which to resonate; the roof, corrugated, trying to withstand the objects battering it. And each new sound scared him more and caused him to raise his voice so that his mantra was now even louder: "Don't rock the boat!"

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Reading list for June

Wake up, wake up, wake up, it's the first of the month...oh, wait, where did the days go? I guess I lost a couple of days there, uh! Oh well!

So, what are my plans for June? I don't rightly know, but these are the books I have decided to read this month:

The Time Traveler's Wife
Murphy
by Beckett
Catcher in the Rye
The Lacanian Subject
by Fink

That's all I can think of for now. So, yeah.