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NEW YEAR NEW CONTENDER I'm in
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Jan 1, 2014 02:23
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:40 |
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Faded, Jaded Dweller (1,241 words) Enter the small room in the back of the house to find a table, two chairs -- one occupied -- a couple of open windows with drapes billowing as the sharp October wind smacked against the wispy tendrils of a dying flame. The lone man kept solemn vigil while rolling a cold vajra over the calloused fingers pads on his right hand. It had been a gift long ago from a friend that had taken up with a wife and traveled as far west as one could without crossing the great Rocky Mountains: a lasting reminder of man’s conquered domain restrained beneath railroad tracks. The seated man had declined the invitation to journey on the road in lieu of working long days under a man for whom he felt a mix of love, admiration and fear that could only be from a father, his father, the architect. For his father, the architect, had claimed that no better education could exist outside that gifted to a student from their master and so had compelled his eldest son, our seated man, to join his practice as an apprentice. This had come as a shock to our man as his life, though filled with buildings rivaling the creations of God’s splendor, had been devoid of the architect. The young architect had set his children in a playroom right below his home studio, and once it was completed never went back inside; it is true that the architect sees his design as perfect until people enter it and this architect did not discriminate in this practice. The seated man shivered and looked upon his hand to see a red impression from the eastern tool and so he laid the tool upon the table where it tumbled for a short while before resting on an envelope. He stood and began towards the open window, unaware of the interim of each foot’s journey from spot to spot on creaking floorboards; he was satisfied in being upright and moving. The standing man pressed his warm tongue on chapped lips and raised his shoulders and lowered them. Often he had hunched when he had sat so he could extend his arms to the top of the drafting board and get a lead pointer so as to be precise; it is important, when drafting or even more when rendering, so that the client can see how you’ve articulated their needs which they could be shockingly unaware of when demanding book-matched granite. His father, the architect, had taught him never to let the foundations of design escape his mind when conjuring the living spaces of a client’s home. There are necessities and these must be met and from these the rest of the plan will arise like the leaves on the bush do before the roses can bloom. A building is a system made alive by its inhabitants but it is crafted by its architect. All these learned in years spent in the studio surrounded by pretenders to his father’s legacy: the stock of person who arrives in the midsummer and talks of his conquest of the challenges of last year’s winter to prove his readiness for the continually longer nights which are encroaching on warm days. Our standing man had been vigilant in keeping the rituals of the day during the time of that tempestuous night’s darkness: the news of his mother and sisters being slashed with the firewood axe by a servant in the dim luminescence of iron fixture gaslights. There had been no sign of discontent when our man had left with his father, the architect, the master, to oversee the mining of a new rich granite vein. It was gorgeous Dakota Mahogany granite and his father, the master, had been awaiting slabs for a nearby office complex -- a tall structure which stood as a monument to the company’s owner, a man from the soil of South Dakota itself who now reached a comfortable height of success in his late middle age -- and it was beautiful. Our man began again -- away from the window -- welcoming the chill on his back as tufts of hair fell before his eyes. He pushed them with his right hand back on top of his brow and tucked the strands neatly in the crook between his ear and temple as if it were a pencil in waiting. He hadn’t written much after the decimation of his family, not even to his friend now out west in Colorado -- the type whose only offering of condolence would be a few belts of scotch -- and so remained monolithic in the face of his shattered father. He gave pieces of his own individual spirit in the name of his father’s legacy. He galvanized his father, the architect, into pursuing a long abandoned masterwork. They found solace. The man met the table and tucked the chair underneath, hands grasping the wooden back as a tether to the solid ground he felt quake beneath him. The Arcadia he carved out of the dreams of his father, the architect, the master, alienated their practice from a public determined to remain steadfast in its trajectory. It spurned his father away from the designs that had attracted our standing man to study the master’s work. The architect now made cynical structures bankrolled by aristocrats living off the new old money of their dead. He played word games in stone that weren’t understood but oft talked about by his patrons who wanted Dakota Mahogany granite in their New York coastal home because of the way it rolled off the tongue. Our standing man reached for the envelope weighted down by the vajra. Inside was a card detailed with gold leaf that listed the name of his father, the architect, the master, along with his death date and his funeral date. It was sent by the architect’s new daughter and had been sealed with the architect’s monogram. This was the first time our standing man received a letter bearing that stamp in quite some years. Our man had pulled away from his father, the architect, the master, and his current practice to pursue that betrayed idealist style. He was starting to gain some recognition outside of his surname but was still unable to land any big clients. A plastics manufacturing company had sought our man to construct a space in Michigan that was to be made striking enough to give it global appeal and an interior that would be photographed to show this plastics company as a purveyor of future designs. The meetings had been going well and the immaculate renderings had them on the cusp of selecting our standing man, our architect. His father had been in town, visiting our man to show our man the new fiancé. He sat in on the final presentation as a proud man that wanted to see what his protege could achieve. As the meeting came to a close, the clients applauded but all turned to the father to see his reaction: he was a formidable name even in his decline. He congratulated his son on the design before looking the head of the plastics manufacturing company right in the eyes. “Yes, his work is impressive: it will set you far ahead of your competitors. But is he going as far as he could? Is he making this office as grand as your name necessitates? Why hire the son when you can hire the master?”
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Jan 4, 2014 10:00
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In. Hoping to bring a magically real element to it. (I don't know what that means. Maybe just two characters walking around a table for 1000 words??)
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Jan 10, 2014 07:02
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Charles walked into the room where his wife and the only other human on the mining research station in the throes of passion. He shouted in a resigned desolation at the sight and leapt towards the man. He shoved Charles into a bookcase, causing a bookend to fall and strike Charles, crushing his head.. It would be several minutes before he would begin to regenerate and so his wife fled with the man. His wife had become cold towards him as they focused less on each other and more on completing their testing with atomizing minerals for long distance transportation. The finished tasks were the only way they could track the progression of time ever since the Preservation Event kept them eternally young. He approached the vaporizing cannon’s cage and disabled the safety locks. It hadn’t its preliminary testing, but it completely destroyed the last few chunks of metal. Charles hooked it to a battery and mounted the cannon on his suit. Destroying everything in his path, he rampaged through the station until he found the lovers. Two blasts from the cannon wiped them from existence. Time passed. Charles was at work in the silent lab. He felt a chill and the air was ripped from his lungs. He heard his wife’s voice speak, “I told you before: we’re here forever.”
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Jan 13, 2014 06:00
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Hustled 221 wordsFeste posted:Charles walked into the room where his wife and the only other human on the mining research station in the throes of passion. He shouted in a resigned desolation at the sight and leapt towards the man. He shoved Charles into a bookcase, causing a bookend to fall and strike Charles, crushing his head.. It would be several minutes before he would begin to regenerate and so his wife fled with the man.
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Jan 13, 2014 06:36
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:40 |
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crabrock posted:signing up now in case some sort of stupid limit gets instituted. This, in.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:27
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