Length: 1100 words
Tense: past
POV: 1st
Today's story is some more bad poetry (sorry), sonnets this time. I had some fun with an unreliable narrator and a little meta. Still, it's bearable. It's very revealing for anyone interested in the sort of super-plot that has been running through these stories, but without that it might be somewhat cryptic. There are certainly things our narrator isn't telling us.
I should stop doing these. They take a disproportionate amount of time for a relatively low word count. It's against the spirit of NaNoWriMo.
The Reader
I
To me she came, of far unknown land
Where darkness, monsters, creatures built of fear
Across a white expanse walk hand in hand,
And call the minion Sadness ever near.
I saw her first with tears upon her eyes,
A book so low between her pallid wrists
Her pupils scanned the words that terrorize
Her soul, while angry palms were clenched to fists.
Her I approached, then knowing nothing less
Than all the world of loveliness and charm
Was I naive? Perhaps, I may confess,
but I told her, “You will not come to harm,
If you will close the book, it is a choice,
And hear instead the story of my voice.”
II
We were together in a coffee shop,
A table in the corner of the room.
She looked at me, and said, “I cannot stop.
This novel holds my doom, and yet its gloom
Uplifts my spirit high, reminds my soul
That others like me suffer, that my life
Is but the part of a much greater whole
Of emptiness and hopelessness and strife.”
“Now that will get you nowhere! Set it down,
And let me know your name, and why you’re here,
And let our conversation wipe the frown
Off your sweet face, and let me see some cheer!”
She said, “My name is Reader, of the lost,
And by some greater fate our paths have crossed.”
III
But wait! Before you quit upon this tale,
(For surely now, you see it is contrived
To fit some rhyme or meter) – do not bail,
For through a language warped this form survived.
The sonnet is the loveliest of forms
With epic content, meaning in the thread
Of life, and beauteous images the norms,
And valor even for the lowly dead.
Our conversation didn’t rhyme, of course
And “Reader,” I confess, was not her name,
But her real one would fit the meter worse
And to the poem it is all the same.
So if convention forces tragedy,
Perhaps the truth is not told to a tee.
IV
But hear, I took and set aside the book
And stared into her soft astonished face.
She quailed before my harsh and loving look.
“Now Reader, live,” I said, “so bright a place
Where happiness is not just but a dream
And joy will follow joy, and comfort, pain,
Now feel, outside, the warm and golden gleam,
And listen to the patter of the rain!”
“I live,” said she, “In realms faroff and cold–
In silence where the pages crease from age.
A thousand times I’ll read ’till I am old
The title is my name; cover, my cage.”
“Then marry me,” said I, “and freedom get!”
There was more courtship surely – I forget.
V
We built a house together on the edge
Of my peculiar town so bright and free.
Around our house she built a little hedge
And in the middle set an ancient tree.
Upon the branches wide she lay and read
And over her the sun resumed its arc
The hedges shriveled and the tree grew dead
And still her soft pale fingers gripped the bark.
Her eyes, surveying pages, gazed afar
Beyond our house, our life, our future, past
Her nose now glued in volumes laid ajar,
A door into a landscape bleak and vast.
“Now read with me,” she said, and once, I read,
And cried. “Now read again!” “No way!” I said.
VI
“Until you give me some degree of force
To fix the lives the writer, harsh, destroyed.”
“Then write, and let me tread your story’s course.”
And I with wanton happinesses toyed.
The final pages of each tome I took,
Reformed the letters and the gloomy words,
Appended tales forgotten by the book,
Becalmed volcanoes, dulled the blades of swords.
“Now let me read,” the Reader promptly said.
And I let her, and she received my tale,
And angry, yelled, “You’ve killed this story dead!
I cannot feel when I no longer wail!”
VII
That year while she in words of sadness grieved
She bore a son to me, so light and cold,
And I knew not if I should be relieved
Or worried, that already, he seemed old.
Let’s call him Benny – better fits the rhyme.
She chose his name from pages of her books.
And with him read, long past our suppertime,
Upon her tree, within the shadowed nooks.
He drew from her the essence of a life
That was not his, but poached from characters
And settings, plots, all dark with sadness rife,
And Reader fed him with that pain of hers.
And Benny drank the stories from her breast,
And Reader laughed and put him to the test.
VIII
As darkness filled my firstborn’s empty heart
My wife grew heavy with another son.
I vowed, “This one she will not tear apart
With images of countless tales undone!”
(And let us call him John, it fits the verse.)
I kept him from his mother and her tree,
And from her voice, soft music so adverse,
And from her black despair and destiny.
She cried, “Just let me see him, please!” but I
Said, “No, until you bring sweet Benny down
From your abode so lofty and so high,
Where, from the ground, I, quiet, watch him drown.”
“But no! He loves me, and he loves the pull
Of story’s sweetness growing in his soul.”
IX
But pause, a minute, and take time to doubt
That I, today, can faithfully recount
What I remember little now about:
Those days before to death this will amount.
Now take a tangent, say, instead, ’twas I
Who read the novel in the coffee shop.
“Why read?” my future wife perhaps would cry,
“Is not the world’s full sadness ample crop
For loneliness, catharsis, pity too?”
“No woman, read, escape into the book!”
“But is it not of life a grim outlook?”
“What else is life beside? Let it take you!”
But here I broke the rhyme, I must be wrong.
So sorry to divert you for so long.
X
She parked the car along the highwayside
While others sped and honked and shone their light,
And on the bridge the door she opened wide
“Come now, my dear, hear stories of the night.”
“Why have you brought me here,” I dared to ask.
And she then tutted softly, soft she laughed
“I have up here a sad and lonely task
That I with you would share – it is but daft.”
“But what?” “You taught me first to read,” she said.
“And in a story meaning comes to life
And glory to the gloriously dead
And soft relief to those beset by strife.”
Back then I thought The End was all in all.
My wife then leapt; I, silent, watched her fall.
To me she came, of far unknown land
Where darkness, monsters, creatures built of fear
Across a white expanse walk hand in hand,
And call the minion Sadness ever near.
I saw her first with tears upon her eyes,
A book so low between her pallid wrists
Her pupils scanned the words that terrorize
Her soul, while angry palms were clenched to fists.
Her I approached, then knowing nothing less
Than all the world of loveliness and charm
Was I naive? Perhaps, I may confess,
but I told her, “You will not come to harm,
If you will close the book, it is a choice,
And hear instead the story of my voice.”
II
We were together in a coffee shop,
A table in the corner of the room.
She looked at me, and said, “I cannot stop.
This novel holds my doom, and yet its gloom
Uplifts my spirit high, reminds my soul
That others like me suffer, that my life
Is but the part of a much greater whole
Of emptiness and hopelessness and strife.”
“Now that will get you nowhere! Set it down,
And let me know your name, and why you’re here,
And let our conversation wipe the frown
Off your sweet face, and let me see some cheer!”
She said, “My name is Reader, of the lost,
And by some greater fate our paths have crossed.”
III
But wait! Before you quit upon this tale,
(For surely now, you see it is contrived
To fit some rhyme or meter) – do not bail,
For through a language warped this form survived.
The sonnet is the loveliest of forms
With epic content, meaning in the thread
Of life, and beauteous images the norms,
And valor even for the lowly dead.
Our conversation didn’t rhyme, of course
And “Reader,” I confess, was not her name,
But her real one would fit the meter worse
And to the poem it is all the same.
So if convention forces tragedy,
Perhaps the truth is not told to a tee.
IV
But hear, I took and set aside the book
And stared into her soft astonished face.
She quailed before my harsh and loving look.
“Now Reader, live,” I said, “so bright a place
Where happiness is not just but a dream
And joy will follow joy, and comfort, pain,
Now feel, outside, the warm and golden gleam,
And listen to the patter of the rain!”
“I live,” said she, “In realms faroff and cold–
In silence where the pages crease from age.
A thousand times I’ll read ’till I am old
The title is my name; cover, my cage.”
“Then marry me,” said I, “and freedom get!”
There was more courtship surely – I forget.
V
We built a house together on the edge
Of my peculiar town so bright and free.
Around our house she built a little hedge
And in the middle set an ancient tree.
Upon the branches wide she lay and read
And over her the sun resumed its arc
The hedges shriveled and the tree grew dead
And still her soft pale fingers gripped the bark.
Her eyes, surveying pages, gazed afar
Beyond our house, our life, our future, past
Her nose now glued in volumes laid ajar,
A door into a landscape bleak and vast.
“Now read with me,” she said, and once, I read,
And cried. “Now read again!” “No way!” I said.
VI
“Until you give me some degree of force
To fix the lives the writer, harsh, destroyed.”
“Then write, and let me tread your story’s course.”
And I with wanton happinesses toyed.
The final pages of each tome I took,
Reformed the letters and the gloomy words,
Appended tales forgotten by the book,
Becalmed volcanoes, dulled the blades of swords.
“Now let me read,” the Reader promptly said.
And I let her, and she received my tale,
And angry, yelled, “You’ve killed this story dead!
I cannot feel when I no longer wail!”
VII
That year while she in words of sadness grieved
She bore a son to me, so light and cold,
And I knew not if I should be relieved
Or worried, that already, he seemed old.
Let’s call him Benny – better fits the rhyme.
She chose his name from pages of her books.
And with him read, long past our suppertime,
Upon her tree, within the shadowed nooks.
He drew from her the essence of a life
That was not his, but poached from characters
And settings, plots, all dark with sadness rife,
And Reader fed him with that pain of hers.
And Benny drank the stories from her breast,
And Reader laughed and put him to the test.
VIII
As darkness filled my firstborn’s empty heart
My wife grew heavy with another son.
I vowed, “This one she will not tear apart
With images of countless tales undone!”
(And let us call him John, it fits the verse.)
I kept him from his mother and her tree,
And from her voice, soft music so adverse,
And from her black despair and destiny.
She cried, “Just let me see him, please!” but I
Said, “No, until you bring sweet Benny down
From your abode so lofty and so high,
Where, from the ground, I, quiet, watch him drown.”
“But no! He loves me, and he loves the pull
Of story’s sweetness growing in his soul.”
IX
But pause, a minute, and take time to doubt
That I, today, can faithfully recount
What I remember little now about:
Those days before to death this will amount.
Now take a tangent, say, instead, ’twas I
Who read the novel in the coffee shop.
“Why read?” my future wife perhaps would cry,
“Is not the world’s full sadness ample crop
For loneliness, catharsis, pity too?”
“No woman, read, escape into the book!”
“But is it not of life a grim outlook?”
“What else is life beside? Let it take you!”
But here I broke the rhyme, I must be wrong.
So sorry to divert you for so long.
X
She parked the car along the highwayside
While others sped and honked and shone their light,
And on the bridge the door she opened wide
“Come now, my dear, hear stories of the night.”
“Why have you brought me here,” I dared to ask.
And she then tutted softly, soft she laughed
“I have up here a sad and lonely task
That I with you would share – it is but daft.”
“But what?” “You taught me first to read,” she said.
“And in a story meaning comes to life
And glory to the gloriously dead
And soft relief to those beset by strife.”
Back then I thought The End was all in all.
My wife then leapt; I, silent, watched her fall.
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