Young Writers Society

1

Need more towels.
The thought occurred to Jacob Thompson as he stared blankly into his reflection. Bright lights from a source somewhere in the other room shined at the corners of his eyes. He briefly forced a smile so that his creasy eyes contracted, miniscule beacons in a square, imperfect face.
He lived in a dirty, highly cluttered three-room condo in the midst of New York City. You have an agenda all your own, he thought, licking his dry, broken lips. He felt and examined the grizzle spread across the lower portion of his face. His fingertips entered dark red crevices where he had accidentally cut himself shaving. Trivial mistake, no biggie. Men did it frequently, particularly those who worked for high-tech corporate firms. Constantly in a hurry, they had precious little time to spare shaving. Though of course, appearances must be kept.
Jacob owned a total of five towels – two small white, two large blue, one large (and comfortably fluffy) red. Their correspondence to the colors of the American Flag was completely coincidental.
The white towels were reserved for his feet when he stepped out of the shower sopping wet, thick clouds of steam filling the cold bathroom. The water on his feet soaked into the cloth, permitting the avoidance of potential slippage on the sleek tile floor. Once he had his bearings, he would grab a blue towel from the hanging rack and dry himself off. These towels were thin, rough, and uncomfortable. On occasion, the coarse texture caused pimples on his back to burst. This was a great nuisance because it forced him to hastily rip a piece of toilet paper, hair dripping ubiquitously, and slap it to reddened area of disturbance, applying gratuitous amounts of pressure in effort to stifle the bleeding. Meanwhile, there would be an unsightly blood stain on the towel.

2

You see the girl of your dreams lying naked on the sidewalk, blood pouring from the back of her head. What do you do?

Like a poet, he became aware of his surroundings. He noticed the saliva dripping from his mouth and the puddle that had developed on the floor next to her head. Blood has a beautiful, unique quality. This writer finds particular amusement in liberally employing its image in his short stories, if you could even call them that.
The ignorant masses – especially gothic faggots – cannot understand violence. They’re too smothered in red lipstick and black lipstick and fake melodrama and real melodrama. I hope to God they have sex in a massive orgy and choke on each other’s semen.
Doves flew overhead. She had long hair, silky blonde, and the fairest of complexions. When the car hit her, blood sprayed evenly across her face. A door seemed to slide closed on her consciousness. She licked her lips once and then blacked out.
She dreamt of rainbows and unicorns. She saw her first boyfriend lying naked in a palm tree, unsightly rashes all over his body and a beige telephone cord wrapped around his neck. He looked slightly Asiatic as he spoke volumes of dialogue in a tongue she couldn’t comprehend. White-green mucus dripped periodically from his nose.
Suddenly,
a slab of skin
fell on
her face.
She screamed until her voice became hoarse. “Here. It’s yours. You can have it back.” The boyfriend snarled in English, then snapped his fingers and disappeared.
She felt healthier than she had ever been.

He carried a volatile, uncompromising nature.

3

How can you claim to understand me? How can you claim to understand anything about anything about me? We’re completely different. We have nothing in common. Nothing. All you do is rattle on about fucking bullshit. Every fucking day. Bullshit. It’s bullshit. I’m sick of it. And you’re such a confused person. I don’t understand anything you fucking tell me, but then again you don’t tell me anything. You give vague hints and I’m supposed to pick up on them. What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck is wrong with you? You wait for me to make the decision to breakup. Why? Why did you wait? What is gained? You didn’t want to hurt me? You don’t think this hurts? You don’t think this hurts worse? Did you think about how I might feel? Do you think about anybody besides yourself? Jesus Christ, what the fuck.

You lied to me. I’ll never forgive you for that. I can’t forgive you for that. It’s like you took this pencil, this pencil right here, and you stabbed me, right here. In the heart. POP! Right there, like that. And I’m bleeding. I’m fucking (begins to laugh) bleeding. This is unbelievable. You don’t care, do you? It all comes down to this. And this is… you don’t care. (chokes back sobs) You don’t love me anymore.

3

I’ll admit it. I obsessed over things. I’m an obsessive compulsive freak. Except not. Heh. I don’t know. You know? I don’t know. I just… wanted everything to be perfect and things turned out not to be perfect. I didn’t know what to do, you know, I was confused. Confused about things. Confused about you, about me. All this bullshit. You know, that’s what it is. Bullshit. Everything about me is bullshit.

I really loved you. I really did. I really wanted, I really want things to work out. But I know it’s too late. And that’s sad. You know. To me.

Matt. Matt. Don’t cry. It wasn’t going to work out. You have to realize that, Matt. There was nothing either of us could’ve done. We’re two different people. Too different, and I just couldn’t take that. I know you couldn’t take that either. Right? (more softly) Right? I mean you were perfect, the perfect boyfriend, the best boyfriend I ever had by a long shot, but I am so, so, so retarded. You know what I mean? I just…couldn’t be happy… and…god, I don’t know. I don’t know what I want.

I’m really sorry.
About what?
Everything.
Don’t be. It was mutual.
I know… but still.

Just shut the fuck up and stop thinking you have the upper hand here. I know this relationship didn’t mean shit to you. So shut the fuck up. Just shut up.

Heh. There’s nothing to be sorry about anymore. It’s over.
I know.
I know.
I’m sad.
Me too.
It’s over.

Well...I liked this...sort of. I liked the first part. No, the second part. The one AFTER the suicide note. It's the only one that made any sense to me. I'm not sure if you're going to tie these together eventually, or if they're just short snippets that you wanted to get out of you and so you wrote them down and kind of though they were pretty and so you posted them here.

This writer finds particular amusement in liberally employing its image in his short stories, if you could even call them that.

Ugh...no...please no. You do it again a sentence or so after this one, and it just doesn't sound good. I mean, it sounds fine by itself, but it doesn't fit into the context of the story and breaks the nice flow of that section. (Which I liked.)

Then, there's the

(more softly

.

I don't think you should do this either. It just doesn't fit in a prose piece. It's fine in a monologue or dramatic piece, but not just a short story. Like I said about the above, it breaks the flow of the story. It's not good to break narratives. If the narrative you're currently writing in is first person, then try not to disturb that. Say something like, "I'm speaking more softly now."

You see?

I like your style, it fits well into that neo-modern-emo thing that's erupting from young writers everywhere thanks to Dashboard Confessional and the likes of Bret Easton Ellis. Right. Good work, keep writing, and post some more stuff. I'd love to read it.

-Sarah

Eh, I never was fond of categorization. The last bit is supposed to be dialogue, though, between a broken couple.

His fingertips entered dark red crevices where he had accidentally cut himself shaving. Trivial mistake, no biggie. Men did it frequently, particularly those who worked for high-tech corporate firms. Constantly in a hurry, they had precious little time to spare shaving.

i liked this.

This is pretty good, honestly. Though you confused me on the last bit... There was just lots of swearing, and on the first bit I had no idea what you were saying.

YAY! I posted a comment... YAY! I read something...