can you believe it, i chionged this essay in an hour! the plot has metamorphed from drug rings, ghosts and international intelligence. now its a sappy romance piece. i am so not stephenie meyer. well. here it is!
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The house was truly a foreboding presence at the end of the Mildew Walk cul-de-sac. Its crumbly stone walls, slimy with algae and moss, tower over the street it overlooks. They look astonishingly like castle fortifications, designed to keep out unwanted visitors. A crooked “Keep Out” sign, clinging to the barbed iron gate by a frayed plastic twine, defies anyone to approach it. Bottle green creepers grow from the cracks in the wall of the house itself. They snake along the wall; their roots threatening burst the house open from the inside out. It had no garden, only a barren concrete courtyard with a couple of wilted potted plants.
The house had been empty for months ever since its owners, an elderly couple passed on. Not that they had lived in it while they were alive, they had long been sent to a nursing home. The house had already been empty for years before they died. Empty, until a couple of days ago, that is. Unbeknownst to most of the residents in the street, a stranger had come to reside at 13 Mildew Walk. She entered the house in the dead of the night. Not by climbing over the gate, no, but with a key. She locked the gate again carefully as it had been, and nobody knew she was there.
She resurfaced from the depths of the house 3 days after her arrival, again in the dead of the night with a smouldering cigarette gripped loosely between her bony fingers. But this time somebody saw her. Jack was out for his nightly smoke as well. Focusing his bloodshot eyes on her, he swaggered over to the opposite pavement where she sat.
For awhile, they sat in silence, each taking deep drags on their cigarette. Then Jack spoke up. “Susie, so you came back after all.” She looked hard at him. “It’s Susan. What are you still doing here Jack?”
Jack sniggered. “Same thing as you, nowhere else to go.”
“I have a home.”
“Uh huh, a room in some exotic hotel. That’s not a home, Susie. So what you back for? Here to stay for good?”
Susan shook her head, taking another drag on her cigarette. “Maybe, maybe not. With Mum and Dad dead, I have been left with a neat little inheritance which will keep me comfortable for quite a while. I might move on, or I might stay here.” Jack breathed out a cloud of smoke. “Move on? Again? Susie, this isn’t the life for you. You need to settle down sometime.”
Susan is angry. “This isn’t your business Jack. This is my life.”
“But are you happy?”
Susan was taken aback. Was she happy? Years of travel to exotic countries had left her feeling restless and dissatisfied. No matter where she was, she had always felt like she was in the wrong place. What was missing?
Home.
She took another thoughtful drag on her cigarette. Home. Yes, perhaps that was it. She did want to “settle down”, have a go at playing Happy Families. The Big Thirty was looming and she knew she could not lead a life of partying, skinny dipping and drinking forever.
Jack threw his cigarette stub into the drain. “Think about it. Here is a perfectly good home just waiting for you,” he waved towards the house. “I sure hope you’ll stay.” He was about to walk away when he turned back suddenly. “Well if you uh, need help refurbishing the house, you can call me anytime.” He scrawled his number on the back of his cigarette packet before striding away quickly back to his house.
Susan was left staring at the number on the cigarette packet and watching Jack walk away. He had certainly grown during the years she was gone. No longer was he the awkward teenager who never got the girls. Tucking the packet into her pocket, she too walked back home. Not back to the house, HOME.
She smiled. Maybe she would stick around a while longer.
-*-
i don't think this is my best piece actually...i will try to do better!
29 May, 2009
24 May, 2009
Heat
she went outside and felt a breath of cold air against her cheek. it was dark out, the pitch-black, can't-see-your-fingertips kind of dark. and it was cold. shivering, she wrapped her woolen shawl tightly around her bony shoulders. tonight was the night. she shut the door to her squatter home carefully. not that it mattered. after tonight, she wouldn't be able to come back. ever.
not that it mattered.
strange, you'd think living there for seven years would give her a sort of affection for the place. not one bit, she'd always wanted to get away from it. the shattered windows, the crumbling, grimy walls, being within centimeters of the neighbouring squatter...it all repulsed her. more so after her parents died, there had only been bittersweet memories of them lurking in every corner.
lava-like rage bubbled in her. this was her uncle's fault. at the age of seven, her rubber tycoon grandfather had suddenly died. a typed note was myseteriously found amongst his papers, stating that all his wealth was to be inherited by the elder of his two sons, Alistair Vasquez. her father, the younger of the two, and his entire family, were promptly turned out of the family mansion. having always lived under her grandfather's wing, they were practically penniless.
reduced to living in a slum beside the Venezuela city dump (a far cry from Grandfather's five-storey bungalow!), she was unable to continue her education and was made to peddle garlands in the town square. their family of three (her father, mother and herself) lived from hand to mouth for the next few years before her parents had died from the cholera outbreak the week before.
orphaned, uneducated and without a penny to her name, something had snapped in her. by the time she had buried her parents, she had convinced herself of a few things. one, her uncle had no doubt found a way to tamper with Grandfather's will and deny her father his rightful inheritance. two, if not for him their family would have continued to live a life of luxury. then, her parents would not have drunk the tainted water and...oh yes, her teenage mind had rejoiced a this opportunity to blame all her misfortunes on her uncle. still, though her mind was cloudy with grief and anger, one thing burned fiercely in her resolve: her uncle was the source of her suffering and she would see to it that he got his come-uppance. she knew what she must do.
she ghosted through the empty streets of Caracas. she knew the way by heart, how many times had she returned to stare mournfully at what could have been hers? she fingered her cloth bag. it contained only what she needed that night, the squatter has nothing else worth keeping. she stopped abruptly, she had arrived.
she took one last gaze at the sprawling mansion. by dawn, it would be no more. she began to work methodically, splashing kerosene on every visible entrance or exit to the mansion. then she lit them, one by one, like candles to a brithday cake. the fire spread rapidly, gleefully licking at the carpets and mahogany furniture. scream of terror soon filled the air, but died once the mansion's infrastructure began to crumble and the house began collapsing in on itself.
she stretched out a hand. although she was standing about eighty metres from the blazing furnace, the heat against her fingers was still intense. smiling slightly, she shrugged off her shawl. it had suddenly become a lot less cold.
not that it mattered.
strange, you'd think living there for seven years would give her a sort of affection for the place. not one bit, she'd always wanted to get away from it. the shattered windows, the crumbling, grimy walls, being within centimeters of the neighbouring squatter...it all repulsed her. more so after her parents died, there had only been bittersweet memories of them lurking in every corner.
lava-like rage bubbled in her. this was her uncle's fault. at the age of seven, her rubber tycoon grandfather had suddenly died. a typed note was myseteriously found amongst his papers, stating that all his wealth was to be inherited by the elder of his two sons, Alistair Vasquez. her father, the younger of the two, and his entire family, were promptly turned out of the family mansion. having always lived under her grandfather's wing, they were practically penniless.
reduced to living in a slum beside the Venezuela city dump (a far cry from Grandfather's five-storey bungalow!), she was unable to continue her education and was made to peddle garlands in the town square. their family of three (her father, mother and herself) lived from hand to mouth for the next few years before her parents had died from the cholera outbreak the week before.
orphaned, uneducated and without a penny to her name, something had snapped in her. by the time she had buried her parents, she had convinced herself of a few things. one, her uncle had no doubt found a way to tamper with Grandfather's will and deny her father his rightful inheritance. two, if not for him their family would have continued to live a life of luxury. then, her parents would not have drunk the tainted water and...oh yes, her teenage mind had rejoiced a this opportunity to blame all her misfortunes on her uncle. still, though her mind was cloudy with grief and anger, one thing burned fiercely in her resolve: her uncle was the source of her suffering and she would see to it that he got his come-uppance. she knew what she must do.
she ghosted through the empty streets of Caracas. she knew the way by heart, how many times had she returned to stare mournfully at what could have been hers? she fingered her cloth bag. it contained only what she needed that night, the squatter has nothing else worth keeping. she stopped abruptly, she had arrived.
she took one last gaze at the sprawling mansion. by dawn, it would be no more. she began to work methodically, splashing kerosene on every visible entrance or exit to the mansion. then she lit them, one by one, like candles to a brithday cake. the fire spread rapidly, gleefully licking at the carpets and mahogany furniture. scream of terror soon filled the air, but died once the mansion's infrastructure began to crumble and the house began collapsing in on itself.
she stretched out a hand. although she was standing about eighty metres from the blazing furnace, the heat against her fingers was still intense. smiling slightly, she shrugged off her shawl. it had suddenly become a lot less cold.
13 May, 2009
Miss Marple
Meredith Marple was your typical, mousy grand-aunt. pearly grey curls tucked beneath a lace cap, woolen bed-slippers discarded only on market days, she fitted the bill perfectly. her face was egg-like. it wasn't just the fact that it was perfectly oval. and speckled with age spots. you simply felt that she would smash to smithereens if she fell. her meekness was further enhanced by her thin, almost skeletal frame and her quavery twitter.
yet beneath her timid, mousy demeanor, you couldn't help but feel there lurked something else. perhaps it was her eye. such eyes! bright, amber hawk's-eyes, albeit slightly rheumy with age. eyes, you felt, that would be quick to notice fingerprints on her newly polished silverware or cigarette ash on her floral carpet. eyes that bore through your very soul.
-*-
i wrote this description of Miss Marple from the Agatha Christie series. its not cheating because i can't remember if Agatha Christie ever really described Miss Marple. she doesn't usually do that. either she says nothing at all about Miss Marple (even though she is the main character), or its too chim for me to understand properly. but this is really what i imagine her to be.
yet beneath her timid, mousy demeanor, you couldn't help but feel there lurked something else. perhaps it was her eye. such eyes! bright, amber hawk's-eyes, albeit slightly rheumy with age. eyes, you felt, that would be quick to notice fingerprints on her newly polished silverware or cigarette ash on her floral carpet. eyes that bore through your very soul.
-*-
i wrote this description of Miss Marple from the Agatha Christie series. its not cheating because i can't remember if Agatha Christie ever really described Miss Marple. she doesn't usually do that. either she says nothing at all about Miss Marple (even though she is the main character), or its too chim for me to understand properly. but this is really what i imagine her to be.
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