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It has been the format of the short-story which calls to me most when writing; there is just something about it that makes it more interesting and appealing to me as a writer. How exactly this came to be, I cannot fully say, yet it definitely originates from some of Poe’s most famous stories, as well as the «Erlkönig» from Goethe. `Twere these stories, the type, the style they shared, that I found, and find, rather magical, in a way, that inspired me to write, and alas write these stories. As main inspirations for my writing style, I´d name Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft. `Tis their style, their way to tell stories, especially Lovecraft´s, that I just share so much and strongly enjoy; leaving things ambiguous, telling barely enough to comprehend what is happening, to get a glimpse of a world hidden behind what is put onto the page. The mysterious and macabre, the occult and the ever-present, those things are what drives my stories; yet it never surpasses an artistic project, I never really write something too metaphorical and full of hidden meaning, that I leave to the reader, as it has to be. Yet remember always that intent and interpretation are two very different things, both equally valid, yet not to me confused.
Art is something amazing, it drives the human and the artistic expression is something undeniable, I call to everyone to atleast try it, find yourself and express yourself through art; ´tis just me personally who choses to do it via the written word.
The pit
Air rushed around him, blowing his hair into every direction like the branches of a willow in the storm. His eyelids flapped, giving him a glance of his surroundings. His coat blew open like the sail of a small skiff, making his fall slower, yet not slow enough.
Suddenly he twitched lightly, but his sail turned just enough that he was thrown around, turning in the air like a seed of the field maple, which grew not far from his house.
Now his hair blew around his head, no longer getting into his eyes, which, as the wind stopped blowing them open, had a minute to rest before he opened them, fully conscious of his doing.
Far from him he saw a small dot of light. Even though far away, it still blinded him, making him blink, trying to see what that was, so far away. Maybe it was the sun, maybe a candle. But why was it getting smaller?
He felt his body lose strength again, and slowly his eyes went shut once more, the spot of shine becoming smaller, before darkness finally filled his vision.
A pick, then another. Something sharp hit him on the face, piercing his skin lightly. It felt like a small, sharp rock was gently hammered against his head.
Then it pinched his nose, pulling it back. In a shock he got up, his hair blowing around his head and his coat like a shield around him. He felt the same feeling as before, his position had not changed.
Awaiting to see the same, miniscule spot of light, he blinked slowly, before opening his eyes to see what had woken him. But there was just darkness, no small sun to be seen, no headaching strike of light, just the empty nothingness of a starless night.
Though the air thundered at his ear, rumbled as it pounded against his eardrum, he heard that the thing that had picked on his, sat on his chest, and it moved.
The small feet jumped from one side to the other, before picking at his vest. Angry he moved his arms, trying to get it off, yet, due to the fall, they just went over it.
Mockingly, it laughed in a raspy tone, ridiculing him for his try, hacking at his chin, telling him that it had the control over the situation.
As he had not much strength, he dropped his arms again. Yet he tried to hush it away, the same, mocking laugh came as a response.
Not sure how he was going to get it off, his brain puffed like the engine of a train, while the small feet still walked over him, and some picks grabbed his vest and shirt. Yet he could not think as he had once though, his head still aching from before.
Then he felt his coat dance in the wind like tall grass in a morning breeze, remembering him of earlier. Grinning at the thing, he let his right arm blow to the left, using the force to turn over.
Quickly his coat became a sail again and he felt the fall slow down. The harsh wind hurt his eyes, so he shut them again. His hair thumbled in every direction.
Yet the best thing was: it had gone off. No longer did the small feet trippeled over his chest, no longer was he picked on the face, no longer did it try to tear his clothes open.
Relieved he tried to turn around again, as falling with his back down was more pleasant and his face would not be harassed by the strong wind.
So he did. He swung to the side, his coat blowing him around and bringing him back to a more gentle fall. He sighed in relief and looked up, yet he still saw nothing. But there was a sound, the sound of feathers…
Suddenly it landed on him again. This time the feet held tight on his clothes, the small claws piercing the fabric. It exclaimed raspy and loudly.
Then it grabbed the button of his vest and tore on it. Whirling his arms around, he tried to get it off, yet it still tore fiercely.
In the blink of an eye the thread ripped and the button flew off, the thing with it, pulled back by the momentum of the action.
He awaited a second attack, yet it did not come, at least not directly… As he started to doubt, it rushed back at him, this time ramming against his head.
Air rushed around him, blowing his hair into every direction like the branches of a willow in the storm. His eyelids flapped, giving him a glance of his surroundings. His coat blew open like the sail of a small skiff, making his fall slower, yet not slow enough.
Suddenly he twitched lightly, but his sail turned just enough that he was thrown around, turning in the air like a seed of the field maple, which grew not far from his house.
Now his hair blew around his head, no longer getting into his eyes, which, as the wind stopped blowing them open, had a minute to rest before he opened them, fully conscious of his doing.
Far from him he saw a small dot of light. Even though far away, it still blinded him, making him blink, trying to see what that was, so far away. Maybe it was the sun, maybe a candle. But why was it getting smaller?
He felt his body lose strength again, and slowly his eyes went shut once more, the spot of shine becoming smaller, before darkness finally filled his vision.
Ghost-train
They don’t want me here, I know it, though I have not been directly told so. How could I have? For their mouths do not move, their tongues do not flicker… They are as good as motionless, nearly at least, or maybe… maybe they are motionless, maybe I am the strange one, I doubt it though, there is not much difference between us.
I entered the train against my better judgement, stories had been told, myths and legends whispered, yet I had not paid enough attention, of course I had not, how could I have? I was a man of science, of God, alas, yes, but these stories fit in neither view, an image incomprehensible through my lens… And alas, which tale of old lumberjacks and nannies had ever been truly real?
Frankly, I am unsure if this is even real, yet what is reality? For what I see around me, hear, feel, is, to me, real, for I can sense all of those things, does that not make them real? Is the delusion of a paranoid man not real, if it drives him mad and kills him? I know not…
Yet alas, I was wandering anight, looking at the beautiful night sky, decorated in sparkly jewels, when I heard a train. Not the thundering and rambling of the ground and the railway one normally hears, no, I heard it´s horn, I heard the smoke escaping the pipes, yet that was all…
And then, oh, and then I saw it, not the most elegant, no, not the most modern, neither the biggest, no, ´twas only a… well, it was not normal in the common sense, yet it looked like a normal passenger train.
Except, naturally, the fact that it was somewhat transparent, though that work makes it no justice, for I could see its interior, the engine, the burner, the driver, the passengers… those passengers… I could see all of that, I could see through the metal walls, yet at the same time not, at the same time it was an ordinary train, the wagons as robust and solid as anything else.
My mind still tries to comprehend this, yet I reckon that it shall never be able to, it… it must look like something we cannot comprehend, something which our minds cannot process, yet truthfully this helps me in no way.
It held afore me, just suddenly it stopped, and I… I decided to go aboard, I held my bag in hand and walked over to it, where I noticed that it ran on no tracks, it just… rolled? floated? Above the ground, a foot, maybe, yet regardless I went up the small iron prongs next to the third wagon and then I was on this odd train.
I sound delusional, I reckon that I even am, for I can’t explain to myself why I came aboard, it makes no sense, every rational thought speaks against it, and yet… Here I now am, on the ghost train of so many stories, which I have heard.
Another thing that strikes me as… peculiar, is the fact that I had no reaction to the passengers, as to the train, the same thing happened again, for when I saw the passengers, I thought naught of it, I took what I saw like an everyday occurrence, for in truth I was struck with strange things.
These passengers, the dead, as I know, and knew at that moment… I have, and you have surely too, heard folk talk about ghosts, the remaining shape of the once living, often describes either looking just like them before passing, or transparent, ghostly in some sort of way, white glows, you know how it goes, yet these… Here on the train I saw shapes, shapes so terrifying in any other situation, that I would have run, been paralysed in fear, yet on this train, I just walked past them, feeling somewhat strange, of course, yet naught much more.
There is only one analogy which I have found to describe them: as you know, when you tell a child to draw an animal, to which they do not have much access, though usually regular access is too not proving rather good results, they draw a creature so weird, it could not exist, yet given the context of what they should have drawn, one can see, how this thing came to be.
This is how I would describe these shapes, just for the sake of understanding, for they are not explainable. How am I to explain something, if I cannot comprehend it?
They look as if someone, not very gifted in the arts, would have tried to sculpt a human, from a reference of having seen one only once, and rather shortly. They are hunched, contorted, stretched, and just fundamentally wrong, they are so horrendous that the only reason I see, why I could know that they are the dead, is their… well, not mannerism, yet the way in which they sit, like passengers departing from their loved ones, sad in their way, motionless, completely still.
Yet that is the other thing… none of them ever moved, at least not, while I was paying attention, not even looking. I noticed this when I turned towards the other wagon, not too long after having gotten up, by this time the train had already taken off and was rolling away, I had taken mental note of the fact, that none of them seemed to look at me, minding their own business, lost in thoughts, sleeping, one might say, yet when I turned, there I saw two of them distinctly different than before, they looked at me, or that is what it looked like, for I could find no eyes, nor heads even in them, nothing truly resembling those at least. And so it happened many more times, they just turned towards me, yet never moving, whilst I looked at them.
When I had finally taken a seat, I started experimenting with this, turning away slightly, so that they were just out of sight, yet they never turned towards me then, only, when I was focusing on something else, my mind not occupied with them, and my gaze them wandered around, seeing them once more, had they turned towards me, all up to a point, where everyone of them looks at me.
Through the window I saw the land passing by, afar cities and towns, always at a distance, and it did not bother me, does not bother me now, though I know it should, for they do not want me here, for this is a train for the dead, and I… I was alive when I boarded.
Once he first few of them had looked at me, I heard their whispers, not in a language I knew, not even in the rhythm of speech itself, yet it were whispers, distinctly they are whispers, a constant noise, now dying down somewhat, yet constantly there, from different ones too, for sure, that I could make out, yet such an odd noise, yet carrying something so familiar too…
They were angry, for a living man had come aboard a train for the dead, yet they did not do anything, for which I suspect the reason to be that if they would harm me, I would turn into a dead man and be therefore part of the passengers, yet it’s just weir, no other word comes to mind.
Yet, whilst I write this, the whispers have nearly ceased, I would be glad, yet I know why, sadly, for I cannot recognise my hands anymore, and should I look into a mirror, I am sure to not see a man there, truth be told, I think that I was damned from the second I neared this train, as all the passengers around me look so lovely, I can somehow see myself in them.
Afore closed doors
Cold drops, felt like ice, they drenched my coat down to my skin, yet it was not cold I felt, nor warmth, mere indifference. Everything was grey, colourless, emotionless. One might have said, that this was due to the weather, that the clouds threw a cloak of grimness over the land, yet I knew differently, many others too, even those hypocrites who had been here the evening before, dranken a parting glass to an always sinking ship, which had finally found its end.
This place had not been robbed of colour and joy, it had never had it. Never had a smile been smiled here, never had a laugh been laughed, broken the dooming gloom of flickering candles and lead bulbs or the crack of a whip, no matter what those liars had pretended the night before, no matter to what they had cheered to, they too knew deep down, that this was no place nor memory worth any festivities, only maybe if it burned down.
I looked up the small hill, glanced past the grassless ground, looked at the small hut which surprisingly still stood, even more crooked and closer to falling than all those years ago, the tip of its rotten planks nearly pointing towards the ground.
In it sat the same old and ugly creature as always, its malevolent eyes closed, probably slumbering its maleficent dreams. I remembered how it had looked at me the first day of my arrival, a stare of disgust and entitlement, frightening to a small child, in memory merely pitifully idiotic and nonsensical, I had gotten away, that basilisk was still rotting in the crooked hut.
Then the rooster opened its eyes, two red dots piercing through the grey rain, protruding from its blackness, a colour, darker than shadow. It was not the stare that I remembered, it was now different, not surprised or baffled, more the egotistical eye-smile of someone who has won, someone who had always known that this would happen, someone who had told you that it would turn out a certain way, and when this had happened, that someone looked at you like that beast looked at me in that moment.
Disgusted I looked away, that foul thing was not worth my stare. I looked up to the building, crooked and old, likely dusty, had it nood been raining, the bricks of the roof had to a great number fallen off, the frames broken, the windows shattered, like broken in doors to a hollow soul, the massive gate, oddly big, like the mouth of the beast that had swallowed Jonah, was slightly open, likely to come down as to properly close, or ignorantly left open by those fools who had passed it anight.
So there I stood, the icy drops drenched my coat, piercing through my skin, yet it was not anger I felt, nor joy, mere indifference, facing the old orphanage, whose haunting doors had let the last child leave not too long ago, never to swallow another one ever again.
Alexander W. (ES5B)