“I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round” Watching The Wheels – John Lennon
3:56 The orange numbers blazed through the darkness of the room. Bright but not blinding. A beacon of dread. A painful reminder that I should not be awake. Yet I can’t stop staring at them wanting to forget the haunting dream.
This was a new one that felt very real despite how outlandish it seems as I try to remember it. It was night and I was driving home by myself from one sleepy town to the other. Snow covered the road and the wind continued to throw obstacles into my path. In a flash I was home after barreling my big black truck through mounds of snow, shopping carts & cinder blocks. I was safe but yet was more nervous than ever. My wife was still left at her folks with our small car. Why was she left there? I called her, I pleaded. Yet she would not stay, she wanted to come home to me.
Deep sweat wetted my pillow. I turned it over for now hoping that side will dry before this one becomes unbearable. Being awake at in between times is the worst, not late enough to just get up but too close to get a good sleep back before the alarm. You just lay there stressing yourself to go to sleep before you lose more time. Running the debate over in your head trying to forget the obvious reasons for this insomnia.
4:00 I watch the clock make a drastic change. So subtle this whole time until a new hour approaches, numbers moving in unison to start it all over again. Maybe if I roll over, stretch different that will help me relax back to sleep. The covers don’t reach and the cold stings my body. The memory comes right back of that chilling wind that would cause doom to any passers in the night. Why wouldn’t she stay there?
Sure I’ve had my close calls in the past, survived a pretty good crash with only mild scars. Picking that glass out of my scalp for months on end, a stinging reminder of how close I was. Yet that doesn’t bother me much anymore, I worry more about my wife and child. There is almost 1 million dollars waiting for them should something happen to me and she is much stronger than I. I am sure the thought is probably just the opposite from the other side. Still I can’t imagine it, the thoughts, the what ifs circle round and round in my brain.
4:04 That damn red light is on in the corner of the cable box. The company wanting to remind me of some pay-per-view event that I have no intention of watching. It hurts more too. Stinging my eyes looking so out of place in a sea of soothing orange, like an asterisk in a record book. I hope the baby wakes up before my alarm, she is better at getting me out of bed. Man it is gonna be a long day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
8 comments:
This is the polar opposite of the last post you did about hate. Here you describe a very real fear without coming out and saying fear. Think about how you could write about hate without saying hate. I bet you come up something more real, more tangible.
Good visuals. I was wondering if your wife was right next to you the whole time?
Writing tip #1 - always take long looks at direct addresses. Those are when the word "you" pops up into the sentence. They're not necessarily bad, but they need to be used with a very good purpose or they stick out like a sore thumb.
Take a look at the paragraph starting with "Deep sweat wetted my pillow." One, I am not sure what "Deep sweat" is. Do you mean sweat wetted deep into my pillow?"
Two, go to the direct address, the fourth sentence down and then again in sentence five. How can those sentences and maybe the rest of paragraph be reworked keeping "Your" fear and anxiety as the main subject.
This is the first one I actually typed out in word before I posted it. I really worked hard to paint more of a picture here doing my best to describe the visuals as i saw them. I tried to purposely not say she was next to me but let you figure out when i rolled over and lost the covers. i guess my attempt at suspense. I think with the sweat i was just trying to show the worry it caused in me while adding in the element of my physical world being uncomfortable too. Maybe if I just added " A deep sweat wetted my pillow" idunno it makes sense to me obviously but i dunno. I think I moved to the word you as sort of talking to myself but rereading it i could easily remove the you's and it would sound more like internal thoughts then. I even tried to be cute at adjusted the post time, did you notice that?
I didn't notice the post time. Usually I will look at those, but I didn't this time for some reason.
The tough thing about writing sometimes is that things sound good in your head and look good on the page, but may not make sense. You can say "Sweat wetted my pillow" and I don't think you lose anything.
You can say "A deep pool of sweat wetted my pillow," or "Sweat from deep inside beyond the pores wetted my pillow." "Sweat soaked deep into my pillow."
"Deep sweat" though could mean all of these and none of these and generally doesn't mean anything to the reader because the adjective "deep" doesn't really modify the noun "sweat" accurately.
I get it, i think i was gonna maybe go with wetted deeply into my pillow, a way to still mean that i was sweating pretty bad i guess. i think in everything i usually do my main problem is slowing down. i am always driven to get from point a to b, to cross it off the list.
Every writer does it. That's why every writer needs an editor. God knows I do.
what did you think of the title? i was wondering what you thought about that. maybe i will send you a refined version too.
I thought the title was fine. Probably play with the idea of time if you wanted to. But sometimes that can get a little too cute as well.
I thought the title was fine. Probably play with the idea of time if you wanted to. But sometimes that can get a little too cute as well.
Post a Comment