Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Ink Notes #1


This is in response to Ink Notes #1

Obviously, I need the practice. Listening to the music, I saw water dripping from branches and went from there.


Sadie was crying and she wasn’t quite sure why. The tears welled up one after the other, and she watched them fall into murky pond. The clear drops slip off the end of her nose and she watched them with an almost curious detachment. A wind rustled the bare autumn trees around her, and the dark clouds rumbled. Sadie looked up, the muted light of the stormy sky reflecting in her clear eyes, and adding a glow to her pale skin. It was a thoughtful face with clear, blue eyes. People sometimes remarked to each other that it was a shame that Sadie was not really pretty. At the moment, Sadie was not thinking about being pretty or plain, she was watching the rain, her tears now dripping from the end of her chin, her willowy arms wrapped around her long legs. Like the sky, she had been gathering the tears drop by drop for sometime, little sadness and irritations until she could hold them in no longer and slipped out to the old garden to let them out privately. Letting her dark auburn hair fall over her face like a curtain she sobbed into her knees, feeling that she was a part of the weeping sky, that nature had drawn her there to fill her with its comfort and sympathy. Even as she cried, she relished the strange loneliness of it, the sound echoing sharply back from the stone pavilion in which she sat. At last, the tightness in her chest eased.

Sadie wiped her face with the edges of her sleeves and drew her long hair back, tying it in a knot to keep it out of her way, scooting the edge of little stone pavilion, cupping her hands and letting the runoff fill them, and washing her face with the refreshing coolness of the rain. The cool water soothed her eyes, irritated from her personal maelstrom, and she took a long deep breath, listening to the wet dripping of the leaves around her. The air was cool and tasted sweet and sharp and damp. The soft green arms of algae in the stagnate water was obscured again and again by the jump of the drops as they hit the glassy surface.

Across the pool a black statue, a dancing pan, looked to be crying from mirth as water dripped down his pointed beard and curly hair, as it made a river of his wavy goat legs, and a made a fountain of his little pan pipe. His expression was witty and wise, and there was a look in his eyes as if he knew what was troubling Sadie better than she herself did, as if he could see the woes and triumphs of the woman she was soon to become.

“Being thirteen is harder than I thought it would be,” she said softly, ordering her thoughts into words and then trying them out in the open air, the sound of them veiled from the world by the patter of the storm. The clouds rumbled again, but this time the sound was softer. The summer storm was leaving her, and the tears had been poured out. Curiously, she reached down to dip her fingers into the rain fresh water of the pool at her feet, enjoying the feel of the water against her fingers.

“Sadie!”

Sadie looked up to see mother standing just beyond the trees. “Sadie!”

Sadie stood up and shook out her clothes, running her hands over her face, as if to smooth away its expression. “I’m here mother!”

Her mother was beautiful, her face a little wider, her brow a little higher, her blue eyes clouded with maturity. “What are you doing out there, Sadie? Is . . . is someone with you?” The woman peered further into the trees, her brow momentarily furrowed.

“No one, mother,” Sadie replied, her face a picture of innocence, picking her way through the trees up to her mother, who embraced her impulsively.

“Of course there isn’t,” replied the woman, looking into the young face, sighing softly and then adding to herself, “But soon enough.”

8 comments:

  1. Yes, the lady and the green pool is an odd coincidence :). Do you write a good deal? This sounds like a novelist's style :).

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  2. I have to agree with Jason, there is an intimacy with person/place that is quite honest. I also really like the setting. Of correction. 'Pan' is a specific sprite who has no beard, if I am correct, I don't know. (Oddly, I don't read much.) I think you wanted to say, "Satyr" with the Pan Pipe, goat legs, and the pointy beard. On that note, I do have commend you, this is really focused, and intense! can't wait to see more!

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  3. While it's difficult toargue right and wrong when discussing a
    nonexistent persons facial features, I will submit that most representations of Pan do, in fact, sport a beard, and in aetistis usage are pretty much indostinguishable from a satyr.

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  4. I love the picture of pan. He's what really came alive to me in this story, a central focus indifferent to the characters around him. I also like the ambiguous comment Mom makes at the end.

    I had no idea this was a 13 year old girl. I pictured a woman in her early to mid 20s until she speaks. That changed my whole perspective and I had to go back. I like that, I like that it makes it feel more universal (age-wise), like it could be a woman of any age out there crying by the pond.

    (Sorry it took me so long to read this. I wanted to write my own story before I let any of you guys influence me.)

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  5. Jason- Wow, thank you. Most of my writing is blogging and short stories, but I would like to write a novel.

    Chris- Thank you very much! I wasn't sure if it would make sense. I based the statue on one I saw in one of the museums in Balboa park in San Deigo, I can't remember what is was specifically labeled.

    Amanda- Took you so long? It was only a day! I was slightly influenced by the fact that I am reading "Wives and Daughters" and the strong theme of coming of age there.

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  6. My definition of "too long" (for me, not others) is not reading it the moment I got the link. Yes, I know, I'm insane. :) I just feel like I'm disappointing people if I don't respond IMMEDIATELY. It's a habit I need to work on. Calming down, that is.

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  7. I was at The Zen Leaf, and saw ur post about 'What dreams may come', and I got to say I looove that movie, my fav movie of all time!

    Robin Williams ate the cake on that one. He is a terrific actor.

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  8. Your use of imagery is very moving. Simply beautiful! I enjoy how everything ties in at the end but still leaves me wondering at the same time.

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