Scrawltober 2018

=><= (colour: orange)[####s c r a w l t o b e r] a compilation of various writings by (colour: purple)[Fallon Braddy] ((colour: blue)[@falloneus]) written (colour: orange)[October] 2018 (colour: orange)[Happy Halloween!] --- <== (colour: orange)[**Day 1 - Poisonous**] I can't take it anymore more. If I get up it'll all come out at once. Foam in the back of my throat. Pain draws a line from my gut, through the base of my spine, into my echo chamber of a skull. The party was supposed to be fun. I suppose it was for them. I didn't even drink that much. I could've left hours ahead of time. Everyone I met had gone without saying goodbye. My friends are nice for letting me sleep here, but really they're just not assholes for kicking a brooding hunchback out to the street. I miss when sleepovers meant we all cram onto your bed or pile up in the living room. Don't say pile. Cider. Stout. A really expensive tequila. Not a drop of trash and now here I am, President Trashbag. I'll slide off the couch, try not to ooze all my waste. Please, continue to rot within. Worm my way over toward the bathroom, only ten pathetic fucking feet away. The party was supposed to be fun. I don't want to cry on a Friday night. --- (colour: purple)[**Day 2 - Tranquil**] It’s last week. I’m living in Michigan, a place I’ve called “my favorite” quite often when describing my former life as a touring musician. I’m working on a group project for some unknown class alongside my friend, who we’ll call Dee. His girlfriend, who we’ll call Lisa, is also in the group. A few other faceless, nameless entities are apart of the group as well. We finish the project early and decide to take the weekend off and celebrate. We consider inviting the whole group, but instead, we turn it into a double date, bringing along the one cute girl, I’ve been joking with while we worked. We’ll call her “Naomi” (in quotes) for the sake of the story, though I must say she had no name or face, much like the others. The blue Subaru hatchback pulls into the muddy driveway of a wellkept cabin, fully modernized with sealed windows and electricity. A lack of cell reception amid the surrounding forest keeps our escapist sensibilities in check. We had to follow printed directions to make it out here. We unload a ton of food and supplies for the weekend. We will cook well and feast like the admirable people we wish we could be. It's already getting late, but the party is excited and begins surveying the site. There's a swampy little lake connected to a sizable river, moderate in tempo. It's too dark to see the edges of either body of water. We disturb bouts of tranquil silence with gigglefits as we breath in our surroundings. Dee finds a canoe. He wants to take it on the water. “Naomi” wants to go too. Lisa wants to make food. I decide to wait for our pioneers to return. There’s this awkwardness now draining me. I know they’re all comfortable, but the gender roles given to me bring a great fear to be alone with another man’s significant other. So they leave. And I wait there, occasionally stirring up the bravery to explore the corners of the embankment beyond where we had established first contact with the lake. It's within eyeshot of the cabin, so I know I can go back if I hear a bear or something. About half an hour goes by. It gets cold real quick, fog now lifting off the edges of the moonlit lake. This is ridiculous. I start calling out their names. They don't answer. I listen for them. Nothing. It’s another half hour of microcosmic pacing around the embankment before I think to tell Lisa. I stride and stumble through thick muck back to the cabin. “Hey— Lisa?” Why the fuck is she not answering? I check the cabin. She's gone. I start panicking, thinking about all the times the Dee and I had together in Michigan. Driving through sleep deprivation and rain. An impossibly good DIY show in a church whose Sunday service we couldn’t bear to sit through. I start calling out. “Where are you?!” “Please!” “PLEASE.” I’m really sobbing now. “My Michigan friend…” I gasp and choke out between arhythmic, syncopated breaths Dee could probably turn into some shitty noise music. I can picture the two of them returning unexpectedly, mocking me as I weep for them not calling back. An inverted visage of the kindness I know them both for. I lose track of time. I reek, drenched in sweat. Lisa strolls up to me, I assume from the cabin though it is too dark to be certain they all haven’t just been sitting in darkness, watching me. Lisa’s got a look of deep space. She doesn’t say anything. Inexplicably dazed, refusing to be comforted by my trembling gesture to convey that Justin and “Naomi” are missing. She mutters syllables that project an utter lack of concern. Her speaking was enough to appease my senseless state. We agree to head back to the cabin. She wants to sleep, says I should make food. Stuttering through my panic attack, “When they get back I'll do it.” She goes to bed. I peer out the windows of the cabin. Flashing my phone light out to beckon them, despite the obstructing glare it refracts into the panes. I still try to see. Feeling sick. I decide to try and lay down before I become totally delusional. My legs were aching from my vigil at the window. I go to lay down in the living area. I hear Lisa restlessly turning over, moaning in distress over in the other room. I consider what scandalousness friends would think returning to the two of us alone in the cabin. I theorize an alibi. "Her door is probably locked." A demonaic wind runs through me. Cold sweat sears my palms and eyelids. What if they really don't come back? What if I wander down the road for help and they suspect me for their disappearing? What if Lisa never lets me into that room as she conducts a sick sort of suicide? I envision trying to break the door down, screaming her name. I imagine, if I even get that far— her bled out body, or worse— nothing. --- (colour: orange)[**Day 3 - Roasted**] Roasted pumpkin seeds Salt sticking to the foil Warmth from the oven --- (colour: purple)[**Day 4 - Spell**] Incantation— Exhaled. Pulled into clusters of supermicro blackholes Spiraling circuitry, where void and cosmos are interwoven Brewing stardust, mostly compressed by singularities Atmospherically insulated to maintain a certain stasis of energy Astral projection: absurdist medicine Incense eating oxygen Couple knowledge with limitation Their love, a mystic's mindfulness resolution Emptiness: make manifest Existence: expand into infinite Enchantment, and be contended --- (colour: orange)[**Day 5 - Chicken**] "A chicken mount?" "Yeah, you said I could do whatever I want in this game. I want to ride a chicken." My eyes rolled back into my head and completed a full revolution before returning to face my brother once again. "Okay fine but don't expect to have it too long! This is a grimdark, lowmagic campaign setting; everything dies, all the time." "What?! Why? I don't want it to die already, I haven't even named it yet!" He's young, I think to myself. It's his first time playing. I know I wanted to do a bunch of crazy stuff when I made my first character. When I got mad and quit, that's when I started DMing. And I definitely don't want him as my DM. "It's not going to die right off the bat, goon. I'm just warning you: survival is not a given. This is just like reallife." "That doesn't make any sense, you can't ride chickens in real life." "That's not what I meant, obviously!" "Then how is this like reallife?" "Well has the same problems as reallife. People that lie, tragic accidents, groups that are always trying to control everyone else. But that's why it's so amazing. You get to be whoever you want, make whatever decisions you want, and overcome all the stuff that's horrible about life." "That has nothing to do with me wanting to ride a chicken though." "I know." "So then what's even the point of having me play your game?" My elbows quiver. Eyes, darting around for any sort of explanation, now to convince my little brother that I think he'd really like the game. Maybe it's not even worth explaining. "Well, I just thought you— um. I just. I just wanted you to" This is that same feeling that comes about when the teacher yells at me for someone trying to talk to me during class, except worse. I don't have another adventure we could play, and he's already frustrated and bored. If we quit now, he'll never give it another chance. --- (colour: purple)[**Day 6 - Drooling**] Staring at my droolstained pillow I decided to become a medium Though my only embrace can be a comforter and clean sheets My mind is already wholly possessed Sleeplessness will soon be solace As I am entranced by my newfound patronage No longer will I seek the perfect dream It will make manifest within me Permanent bends in the center of the mattress I become an amalgamate of my longing --- (colour: orange)[**Day 7 - Exhausted**] The dog toy lay, slain I heat up some leftovers He gets a treat, too --- (colour: purple)[**Day 8 - Star**] I took about 6 deep breaths and exhaled, long and gentle. The melodica is what I'd imagine a good dream sounds like to a bee. My words usually come crashing down from the coldness of deep space Piercing the atmosphere, catching fire, breaking apart If they land there's always smoldering And that ain't me So I breathed And the rock bound out Skipping across the land like a creek Long arcs rising, the Earth, a trampoline, scaling mountains tall— Tumble down into oceans deep Wash ashore begin to crawl toward family Nightfall --- (colour: orange)[**Day 9 - Precious (1)**] Precious as you are to me My art could find no vacancy Disheveled, I sent you to the hedges To settle suitcases and make your bed in An earwig's namesake, the final straw And so began our ceaseless brawl I would paint and pray and ink In sincerity, of you, I could not think Except for a single flickering flame Which only burned, now scarred in shame I will stop Speaking so much But please Love me --- (colour: purple)[**Day 9 - Precious 2**] Your words are precious So I will be pleasant A ghost— Something you are welcome to believe And bridge the gap where you are impatiently In pursuit— Confident and selfcontained Account for days when dark will wash your brain Remember me— Pivot on wonder into things more sensible Our frame: a mirror, most ostensible I might— Materialize Share a time— Of blight— Is this when presence— Becomes fullyphased malevolence? Ground me I will loose my share— To serve, to care— Move away Be free Leave me --- (colour: orange)[**Day 10 - Flowing**] When Spike says to "Be like water." in regards to violence. That meditative exercise, where I ascribe my stressors to falling leaves, blown into a flowing river. Purple curtains, too thin to keep out the cold. They made a gorgeous filter for hermit daylight. When I feel comfortable enough to speak freely. Two separate occasions in much older writing: how sheets can have meaning; the motion I imagine as my fingers slid down the back of an escapist, secretive lovefantasy. Transit between pos and negat ivity. Train ride feelings. --- (colour: purple)[**Day 11 - Cruel**] Sweet memories. A happenstance reunion. Puppies. Children. A sixpack to yourself. Keeping in touch. Wealth. Hands clutched. Wellplanned escape. A wise investment. Raisin. Resurrection. --- (colour: orange)[**Day 12 - Whale**] "For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me;" Given a mirror for a magnifying glass Poor me, how it's cracked --- (colour: purple)[**Day 13 - Guarded**] Shield with lock and key I chose to build up no walls Diplomats dancing --- (colour: orange)[**Day 14 - Clock**] I didn't make time today To write anything I wanted to That wasn't obligatory Dammit --- (colour: yellow)[**Day 15 - Weak**] Wiping the yellow lipstick off her face, all she could think was how the tissue looked like someone spit up sunshine. She tossed it and the $4 tube into the trash bin. "Thank God," she thought, "that the bedroom clock runs a bit ahead." The sky reflected her trailing pace, the sun melting into the purple mountain's majesty. It stung, to remember patriotic choruses from first grade. "Now here we are: a grown-ass woman deciding she has a new favorite color." She interchangeably passed between internal word vomit and declarative musings aloud as she walked down the center of empty streets. Leaves hailed her passing, a brief interlude as they fight their way out of green into amber, threatening to leave the branch should the wind come back around. Early, somehow. And sweating. The line only wraps around one corner of the building, which is somehow more disappointing than the cancellation text her friend had sent. "I was coming here anyway." The relief that she wouldn't have to expose Ronnie to her natural scent was quickly challenged by the faces that would not meet hers. "Time to practice my introvert." the chant began. She considered the late teens, their faces glowing with blue-lit Snapchat cycles. She took a deep breath, imagining it as a cigarette, her neck craned opposite of her peers. Up above, a gaggle of moths having a ball on the world's hottest dancefloor. --- (colour: orange)[**Day 17 - Swollen**] "Your cheeks are swelling." "And?" "This must be uncomfortable for you to talk about." " I don't appreciate being read like that. All the people I know who operate on that level are always working an angle." "If you thought that about me you wouldn't say it out loud. Intuition is a tool, not a mark of Satan." "you've got me on loose gravel, dude. Is the heart of vulnerability chasing a rebound?" "What do you think?" "I think you're handshake is strong and it terrifies me. It's strange that we are different people when we say goodbye. Have you ever really listened to someone say goodbye? It's some strange cross of programmatic metagarble and an actor out of costume." "What's wrong with that?" --- (colour: purple)[**Day 18 - Bottle**] A matter containment vessel forged of refined sand. Though it is capable of holding most any properly stored solid, liquid, or gas, it is somewhat fragile and susceptible to fragmenting into shards if damaged. Though limited in its practicality, such a versatile human tool has been known to take any shape or color conceivable. Another fine example of primitive ingenuity and its minute refraction of the birth of Order from the chaotic void of existence. --- (colour: orange)[**Day 19 - Scorched**] Pumpkin seeds I'm in Love with you sorry I o Ver cooked. Still tastes great --- (colour: purple)[**Day 25 - Prickly**] A moonlit desert Joshuas line the highway Saguaro shadow I met a man who fixed up my flat real quick. When I found the chance to light a torch I could only the shadows of needled giants. Saguaro Man, I find it strange you're not a folklore in a million; the one off the highway that doesn't parallax quite right. I suppose if the trees are similarly sparse to prove animate I will shrug it off as outsider ignorance. Yet still, Saguaro Man, you reconcile your kind. Perhaps as a peace treaty to the parasite you freeze from. --- (colour: orange)[**Day 30 - Jolt**] "Why is your profile picture a rotting pear?!" "Well, why not? It's that time of year again." I respond. "I'd join you," he said, "but I don't think I can get my groceries infested with maggots in time." "I'm not that cool." I replied, "Here's my secret: type 'rotting fruit' into the search bar. Go wild." There is a brief pause that crescendos to a fit of laughter. He'll laugh at anything. "How do you even come up with this stuff?!" I shrug. Whether a bite into that foul spot on a pear or the premise that he likes me, it's the same bewilderment that gets my mind going. "Look." He urges, his phone in my face. A melon, discolored and infested with grubs.