I know, I know, it's been forever. I've been busy, stuff like that. I completely failed to get the 50K words needed to finish Nanowrimo (end count was somewhere around 12K), and the following story is very short too. But hey, it's something.
The story is based on my favourite song by my favourite band: Forward or Crazy by Call It Off. You ought to check them out ^^ Anyways, enjoy. I wrote this in both third person point of view and first person pov, but I like the latter more. It just gives more room to express emotion. Prompt: Forward of Crazy by Call It Off I ignored my shaking fingers as I lit another cigarette. It was a terrible habit, and I really should have quit a long time ago. I just couldn't find the energy for such things lately. I stared at the blank screen in front of me, the document that was still disappointingly empty for something that had to gain 3000 words within the coming six hours. Because for some reason the deadline was at 9AM, which was absolutely ridiculous. It proved that my incredibly boring lecturer probably had a life as boring as his voice, and he’d never finished a deadline the night before. Something which I did frequently. And it was never a problem, if deadlines were at midnight. You could easily finish it and still get a somewhat decent amount of sleep. But this time I started somewhere around midnight… Well, I hadn’t been sleeping for weeks now, so I might as well add another night. If I ever was going to finish this essay. Even my usual last minute savior, wine (you really could write the most amazing things when slightly drunk, but you needed to make some time for a thorough spelling check the next morning), hadn’t worked this time. It had been one of those cheap bottles of red wine that cost me less than the pizza I had ordered earlier, and I really shouldn’t have been surprised that I ended up with a headache. Next time I was drinking beer again. But first, I had an essay to finish. I mean, I knew this was entirely my own fault. My sleeping schedule had been fucked for weeks now. If you could still say I had a schedule. I just slept whenever I could; that meant rarely. I’d never slept through classes before, since I usually was quite the responsible student (except when it came to deadlines obviously) but lately I’d happily skip if that meant a few hours of sleep. It’s not like I never had time to sleep; I just wasn’t able to fall asleep. Last semester had been terribly busy. I had a thesis to write, and on top of that, I made more hours of work than I had ever before. My life consisted of class, work and thesis; and if I had a spare hour, I needed to get groceries. Do some laundry. Take the trash out. My social life had been reduced to occasional calls with friends and family. It had paid off, somewhat. My thesis came back with an 8.5, which was higher than I ever expected to get. But my boss fired me at the end of the semester; she felt like I wasn’t ‘making an effort anymore’. I left without a word, figuring that she’d find out how much of an effort I had made when I was gone. But when I called my best friend to rant about it, she didn’t pick up. And as I checked her social media, I realized that I’d been neglecting my friends way too much. So much, that I hadn’t been invited to parties (maybe I shouldn’t have been late to Katie’s party) and they had changed the day for our weekly coffee dates without telling me. It was a hard blow, but knowing that I was entirely responsible for my own despair made it even worse. I’d fallen into some sort of rabbit hole without even realizing it. While I would have given anything for some hours of undisturbed sleep the previous semester, I now couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. Last semester had been exhausting, but satisfying. This semester was exhausting, but miserable too. I spent most nights up on the roof of the building, watching the night life in the city, blanket wrapped around my shoulders. It was calming, looking at all these people that were awake on ungodly hours too. But tonight I couldn’t exchange the bright screen for the flickering street lights. I had a deadline, and so far, I wasn’t getting anywhere. I sighed, shoving my chair back too loud. The guy living downstairs was bound to complain again, but I didn’t really care. Nobody liked him anyway. His 'culinary diners' could be smelled everywhere in the flat. I made my way over to the coffee machine, my last resort and my only friend lately. While the machine was running, I made an attempt to tidy up my desk. There were articles and books everywhere, with random marked pages. It seemed like I was some sort of genius, but really, I was just as much of a mess as my desk was. I sorted the articles by subject and brought my coffee over to my desk, wrapping my cold hands around the mug as I opened Spotify. Perhaps some good music would help; I couldn’t focus without, and Muse always helped me focus. I glared at my screen, muttered some very inappropriate words, drank my coffee in one gulp (which was a mistake since it was still very, very, very hot) and took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to fail this course. No matter how tough things had been, most of that was my own fault, and if I wasn’t going to do something about it now, I might never. 3.54AM on a Sunday night was as good a time to get myself back together as any. I picked up my book, and suddenly it hit me. In bold letters, I typed “The restlessness of the American people portrayed by Jennifer Egan”, and the hours that followed were one blur of words. But at 8.55AM, Monday morning, I stood at the office. Bloodshot eyes, hands trembling, a worse headache than before, but a finished essay in my hand. I handed it in and went straight back home. Time to catch up on some sleep.
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February 2017
About meWelcome to my blog! This is where I post my stories, occasionally accompanied by personal thoughts. I always post short stories, as I keep the longer ones for myself. My stories are often based on songs. I listen to music a lot (mostly pop punk / punk rock), and often get inspired by melodies, lyrics, or music videos. |