I know I said I wasn't going to share this until I was done with it, but it's very late and I've just spent a bit of time working on it… so, well, as a… treat(?) you can see the first chapter of what I've been writing for not-NaNoWriMo so far.
I tend to do creative writing in quite an "improvisatory" manner, so I don't always have a long-term goal in mind for the stories I write. I have an interesting concept in mind for this one, though, so I'm interested to see where my imagination takes it over the course of the next month. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this teaser! (Excuse any weird formatting, this was copied over from a Google Doc, so I'm not sure if it'll do paragraphs and stuff correctly.)
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“I’m bored.”
“You’re always bored.”
“Well, you try living like this.”
It’s been like this for a while now. I can’t seem to find anything that entertains her for more than a few minutes at a time.
It really is just my luck to be lumbered with the one restless spirit that doesn’t seem to have some grand piece of unfinished business left to resolve before she can move on. Instead, she’s just… well, restless. She can’t sit still. She always wants to be doing something, seeing something, talking about something. And these desires are fundamentally incompatible with the sort of person I am.
Let me back up a little, since you’re probably already confused.
Last week, I was the one who was bored. I’d finished all of my outstanding essays and for some reason I didn’t feel like sitting indoors all day as I normally would. The walls of my room felt like they were closing in on me a bit, so I decided to take a bit of a trip.
Nothing grand, mind. You think I can afford to actually go somewhere exciting on a student loan? Don’t be ridiculous; I caught the bus to Portswood.
Portswood isn’t an exciting place, but it is student central. Not only are there lots of student houses and flats there, there are also a lot of takeaways, charity shops and dodgy-looking hairdressers. It’s somewhere you can go to burn an hour or two without too much difficulty, and not spend much money in the process.
This time around, I’d found myself wandering down beyond the main shopping street and towards the area that mostly consisted of grotty pubs and clubs. Tucked away down here next to a questionable pizza place I’d never quite had the courage to order from was a little bookshop that had always looked intriguing. I’d never been in there, but I’d always meant to. So I decided to stop thinking and start doing for once.
The shop had a charming old-school bell on its door, jingling away cheerfully as I walked into the pokey little establishment. I was immediately hit with the distinctive smell of musty old books — an aroma I’d always been rather fond of.
It reminded me of my parents’ bookshelves; shortly before I’d left for university and after they’d paid an impromptu visit to famous “town of books” Hay-on-Wye — the first of many, as it would transpire — they’d become rather taken with collecting old hardback editions of novels from some of their favourite authors. Over time, our hallway had gradually and subtly taken on the scent of an old library; while I didn’t get around to reading any of the books in question myself before I left home, I’d always been an enthusiastic reader, and the musty smell of old paper brought me a certain amount of comfort.
There didn’t seem to be anyone around in the bookshop, and it was silent inside apart from the ticking of an antique clock that was hanging on the wall. There was a strange atmosphere about the place; it wasn’t unpleasant, but it was a little unusual. It occurred to me how rare it was in this modern age for one to be able to stand in complete silence — or, well, near-silence, anyway; tick, tick, tick — and I just stood motionless for a good few minutes, drinking in the calm and letting it infuse into my soul.
I looked around. The place was well-kept, but clearly had too much stock to fit into its limited square footage. The shelves were packed to such a degree it was actually quite hard to pull an individual volume out without the rest of the shelf coming with it, and there were stacks of hardbacks on the floor next to each bookcase. It was clean, though; there didn’t seem to be a hint of dust anywhere, so whoever owned this place evidently took pride in it, however chaotic it might be.
As I wondered what sort of person that “whoever” might be, I heard creaking floorboards and footsteps from somewhere other than the shop’s carpeted main room. They sounded like they were approaching, but also as if they were in no hurry to get here. I admired how trusting the apparent proprietor was; if I’d really wanted to, I could have probably escaped with an armful of volumes by this point.
“Hello,” came a kindly voice, finally disturbing the near-silence as the curtain behind what appeared to be the sales desk silently moved aside to reveal a man who I estimated to be in his early sixties. He reminded me a little of my dearly departed grandfather, and thus I immediately warmed to him. “I’m sorry, I was out the back. Can I help you find anything?”
“Just looking,” I said.
“You’re a student?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t get many of you lot in here. Most of you go to that place up the road.”
“Well, they are cheap.”
The proprietor chuckled. I wasn’t wrong; September Books, as the “place up the road” was called, had an agreement with the university to stock everything from the various course’s reading lists; the university subsidised them a certain amount and, in exchange, they got some regular, reliable business from students and staff alike. The books were cheap and they pretty much always had what you were looking for, which was why most students went there.
I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, though, which was why I was at this place. I wasn’t lying, I really did just want to look.
“Let me know if there’s anything in particular you’re after,” the proprietor said, seeing me looking around. “Fiction’s on that wall, non-fiction on the other.”
“Where do you get all these?” I asked, admiring both the apparent age and good condition of many of the volumes. They looked old but immaculate.
“Donations, mostly,” he said, smiling. “Old folks die and their kids don’t want to deal with something as old-fashioned as books, so they just pass ‘em on. I’m not complaining.”
I nodded. The rapidly advancing technology of the modern world had made books — physical media in general — feel like an obsolete relic of the past to many people. Why would you fill your limited living space with bulky objects when you could just download the complete works of Shakespeare — or that trashy book about kinky sex everyone seemed to be into — onto your phone?
I had a phone — I wasn’t that much of a Luddite — but I still enjoyed having books around. I didn’t have a lot of room for them in my present accommodation, but I’d curated a small collection of publications that were either important to me or required reading for my course. In some cases, the latter had even become the former, which was always gratifying. In others, I’d never wanted to touch the book in question ever again after I no longer needed it for my studies, but I still kept it around for some reason; it felt like it was part of my life that I should acknowledge, even if I didn’t like what it represented. Damn you, Martin Heidegger and your interminable ramblings.
A thick, leather-bound hardback with nothing written on the spine caught my attention for some reason. I reached up for it and, holding back its peers that very much wanted to come with it, pulled it out from the shelf.
This, as it turns out, may have been a mistake.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I retort, acidly.
“I said I was bored!”
“Only boring people get bored.”
“You say that every time. It’s boring. You’re boring.”
I put down my pen and turn to look at her.
“What do you actually want from me?”
She smiles sheepishly.
“I don’t really know.”
“Well, that’s just great, isn’t it? Surely you have something in mind if you’re so incredibly bored. What would you rather be doing right now?”
She pouts a little.
“There’s not a lot I can do, really, is there? What with being dead and all.”
I sigh.
“All right, what would you rather I was doing right now?”
I’d come to understand this somewhat. Her being “bored” actually meant that she wanted me to do something or other. Break the routine. Go outside. Talk to someone. Something that she could watch.
These were not things I generally wanted to do all that much at the best of times but, well, I guess it doesn’t hurt to go a little out of your comfort zone now and again. Sometimes you even learn something.
She ponders a moment, then breaks into a broad grin.
“I want to see you go out and get pissed and try to pull!”
And sometimes… well, sometimes you don’t.
