20 themes, continued
Nov. 5th, 2004 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of St. Sylvia
The uniforms came in so now nearly all our beginners are decked out in hakama and gi. It was kind of cute (in an "aw, look at the frosh, they're all grown up now" kind of way) to see them lined up in blue today. ^_^ We practiced kata, and now Jenny and I feel almost at home with the first one. I think it's because we practiced it the most often (during demonstrations while recruiting at the freshman activities fair at the beginning of the year). We've started to judge the distance more correctly too. Hey, with a little more practice, maybe we'll even get the hang of the third one! (Hah!) But tomorrow we return to regular practice, and after being warned to bring our wristbands, I think this means we're all going to develop new huge bruises on top of the old fading ones from last week. >_>
I think I've permanently resigned myself to the fact that I just can't get any serious work done after kendo on Friday nights. I haven't given up on Saturday, but Fridays from now on are going to be for Korean homework, room cleaning, and manga reading. (Oh, the temptation of the Evangelion CDs sitting just...out...of...reach...;_;)
More of the twenty Weiß Kreuz themes, a little more straightforward (I think) this time. For some reason I decided to switch to present tense and dabble in alliteration. O_O Don't ask me what goes on in my mind because I don't really know myself. Also, I have a perverse streak in me that takes a theme and decides to interpret it in the least logical way possible. Which makes me wonder what the point of themed writing is in the first place, but hey, somehow it gets me writing. ^_^ First three themes are here.
IV. Wire
They keep him in a cell, with pure white walls and endless light, his arms wrapped around his chest in a permanent self-embrace. For weeks, he has not felt the healthy pain of blades against his skin; instead he lets his eyes roll back and he screams and screams the frantic frenzy seeping through his mind. They watch him scream through their little white cameras and whisper to one another, a soft susurrus of sound that tickles its way into his ears and makes him, just a little bit, more sane. He falls momentarily silent, then resumes screaming.
Once a week--they are not cruel--he is led down a white corridor to a door that lets him into a sooty little courtyard fenced in by barbed wire. A woman waits just inside the door, her dress as white as the rooms within, and watches him with blank, benevolent eyes. He paces along the courtyard, noting the rubble of broken bricks, the dull green of weeds within the concrete cracks, the torn and twisted wire. The sky is gray and the sun shines luminously white behind the thick veils of clouds, but here, the ground is painted with faded yellow lines that crisscross and go nowhere. These shadows of colors fascinate him, and he tries to remember the color he liked best--
"No, don't touch that," the woman scolds as she snatches his hand back from the sharp jagged edge of the fence. "You would have hurt yourself, sir," she tells him, taking a firm grip on his elbow. "Perhaps you should come back inside."
They strap his arms back into the jacket. He starts screaming when they close the door behind them.
V. Fluid
/Today,/ he writes in his journal (he still keeps a journal after all these years), /I woke up to find the tree outside my window turned red overnight. I think it's a maple./
He poises the fountain pen against his cheek, oblivious to the ink slowly staining his skin. He crosses out the last sentence.
/This morning, I delivered arrangements of acacias and chrysanthemums for a cherished daughter's wedding, a bouquet of roses for a grandmother's birthday, and a corsage of carnations for a young girl's first dance./ He sets the period and lets the pen rest there, the edges of the blot forming rivulets along the fine fibers of the page.
Somewhere, beneath the cloud of ink, lies the words he cannot write: the father's last words, the grandson's frozen eyes, the first love's bright blood.
VI. Thoughts
Once a year, he returns to the /dojo/ where he learned how to kill. He bows as he enters, kneels and bows to the empty room, stands and bows to the invisible opponent. His sword is not strapped to his back but held at his side, and he draws it deliberately and slowly from the sheath. With this enemy at least, there is no element of surprise.
When he exits, his hair is damp and his breath comes in sputtering gasps, though he has not moved.
"Where did you go?"
"To clear my mind."
"That's not an answer."
He does not reply, his hands still clenched.
After an awkward pause, "Did it work?"
He swallows an inarticulate cry of unspoken confusion, and he replies, his voice steady, "It never does."
TBC
I rather like writing short scenes like this. Mostly because it spares me the effort of thinking up a plot. Anyway, I don't know if I can do a drabble-a-day challenge like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tokyofish, but I thought perhaps I could do a drabble-a-week project. (I never get any work done on Friday night, anyway.) Will think on this some more later. (The NaNoWriMo participants on my friends list awe and impress me to no end, and somehow I get enthused into wanting to write something, although I never know what. >_> Ah well, I don't mind being a wannabe. ^_^)
Now onto cleaning the room and bathroom! Swiffer mops are my friend. >_<
Yours &c.
The uniforms came in so now nearly all our beginners are decked out in hakama and gi. It was kind of cute (in an "aw, look at the frosh, they're all grown up now" kind of way) to see them lined up in blue today. ^_^ We practiced kata, and now Jenny and I feel almost at home with the first one. I think it's because we practiced it the most often (during demonstrations while recruiting at the freshman activities fair at the beginning of the year). We've started to judge the distance more correctly too. Hey, with a little more practice, maybe we'll even get the hang of the third one! (Hah!) But tomorrow we return to regular practice, and after being warned to bring our wristbands, I think this means we're all going to develop new huge bruises on top of the old fading ones from last week. >_>
I think I've permanently resigned myself to the fact that I just can't get any serious work done after kendo on Friday nights. I haven't given up on Saturday, but Fridays from now on are going to be for Korean homework, room cleaning, and manga reading. (Oh, the temptation of the Evangelion CDs sitting just...out...of...reach...;_;)
More of the twenty Weiß Kreuz themes, a little more straightforward (I think) this time. For some reason I decided to switch to present tense and dabble in alliteration. O_O Don't ask me what goes on in my mind because I don't really know myself. Also, I have a perverse streak in me that takes a theme and decides to interpret it in the least logical way possible. Which makes me wonder what the point of themed writing is in the first place, but hey, somehow it gets me writing. ^_^ First three themes are here.
IV. Wire
They keep him in a cell, with pure white walls and endless light, his arms wrapped around his chest in a permanent self-embrace. For weeks, he has not felt the healthy pain of blades against his skin; instead he lets his eyes roll back and he screams and screams the frantic frenzy seeping through his mind. They watch him scream through their little white cameras and whisper to one another, a soft susurrus of sound that tickles its way into his ears and makes him, just a little bit, more sane. He falls momentarily silent, then resumes screaming.
Once a week--they are not cruel--he is led down a white corridor to a door that lets him into a sooty little courtyard fenced in by barbed wire. A woman waits just inside the door, her dress as white as the rooms within, and watches him with blank, benevolent eyes. He paces along the courtyard, noting the rubble of broken bricks, the dull green of weeds within the concrete cracks, the torn and twisted wire. The sky is gray and the sun shines luminously white behind the thick veils of clouds, but here, the ground is painted with faded yellow lines that crisscross and go nowhere. These shadows of colors fascinate him, and he tries to remember the color he liked best--
"No, don't touch that," the woman scolds as she snatches his hand back from the sharp jagged edge of the fence. "You would have hurt yourself, sir," she tells him, taking a firm grip on his elbow. "Perhaps you should come back inside."
They strap his arms back into the jacket. He starts screaming when they close the door behind them.
V. Fluid
/Today,/ he writes in his journal (he still keeps a journal after all these years), /I woke up to find the tree outside my window turned red overnight. I think it's a maple./
He poises the fountain pen against his cheek, oblivious to the ink slowly staining his skin. He crosses out the last sentence.
/This morning, I delivered arrangements of acacias and chrysanthemums for a cherished daughter's wedding, a bouquet of roses for a grandmother's birthday, and a corsage of carnations for a young girl's first dance./ He sets the period and lets the pen rest there, the edges of the blot forming rivulets along the fine fibers of the page.
Somewhere, beneath the cloud of ink, lies the words he cannot write: the father's last words, the grandson's frozen eyes, the first love's bright blood.
VI. Thoughts
Once a year, he returns to the /dojo/ where he learned how to kill. He bows as he enters, kneels and bows to the empty room, stands and bows to the invisible opponent. His sword is not strapped to his back but held at his side, and he draws it deliberately and slowly from the sheath. With this enemy at least, there is no element of surprise.
When he exits, his hair is damp and his breath comes in sputtering gasps, though he has not moved.
"Where did you go?"
"To clear my mind."
"That's not an answer."
He does not reply, his hands still clenched.
After an awkward pause, "Did it work?"
He swallows an inarticulate cry of unspoken confusion, and he replies, his voice steady, "It never does."
TBC
I rather like writing short scenes like this. Mostly because it spares me the effort of thinking up a plot. Anyway, I don't know if I can do a drabble-a-day challenge like
tokyofish, but I thought perhaps I could do a drabble-a-week project. (I never get any work done on Friday night, anyway.) Will think on this some more later. (The NaNoWriMo participants on my friends list awe and impress me to no end, and somehow I get enthused into wanting to write something, although I never know what. >_> Ah well, I don't mind being a wannabe. ^_^)Now onto cleaning the room and bathroom! Swiffer mops are my friend. >_<
Yours &c.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-05 07:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-06 01:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-06 07:12 am (UTC)We only know 1-3 for kata so far, so we're not particularly much better off. (And 3 is kind of hard--has the most complicated footwork system--so I don't even know if I can say that I know it all that well.) You already have bokken though, right? I need to buy a set...::sighs::
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-07 11:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-07 12:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-07 11:22 pm (UTC)but I digress
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-08 08:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-09 12:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-09 05:37 am (UTC)As for jodan...er...quite some confidence you've got going there. ^_^;;; Well, I guess as long as you don't try it in competition or against an instructor, it should be fun.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-09 10:27 pm (UTC)