>___< I got through it!!!!! Glad though, this writer has a really good way of describing things… once your in, YOUR IN! and you feel emerced in something. BETH MAKE FILMS!!!
Tough for an illustrator in some ways because something being more descriptive means that it can either build a real strong image. but everyone will have different ways of seeing this especially the writers and artist. interpreting or improvising on your thoughts is a good way to get personal with it….
on the other hand, being really descriptive is a MASSIVE PLUS, people there for UNDERSTAND things [hehe donut moment there wumi ¬_¬]
Muse by Beth Kircher
When he stood in the doorway, his silhouette towered above the rickety wooden frame so that all I could make out was the darkened figure of a lanky man wearing a gentleman’s coat and a shy, boyish smile. He waved his hand shyly and my feet rushed towards him, as if pulled by strings, and I threw my arms around his neck. Drawing him down, I kissed his cheek and laughed happily, nervously, using the blatant panic in his pale green eyes as fuel to feed my confidence. ‘I’m so happy to see you,’ I chirped at him, grabbing his hand in mine and leading him away from the building. ‘What are we waiting for? Let’s get going!’
As we walked to his car, my arm linked in his, my lips sputtered a stream of words and sentences that came out in puffs in the cold winter air, and he nodded his head every so often and glanced nervously at me from the corner of his eye. He was nothing like I had envisioned he would be – this quiet, awkward creature beside me, barely able to mumble even the simplest of words – but I wasn’t bothered by the striking differences between my ideas and the reality. All I cared about was having a laugh and a good time with this elusive person who had thrown such bold words to me in letters, on the telephone, in songs that I had listened to fervently and nodded my head in agreement with. He had spoken to me long before he had ever said anything in my direction, and for that, I forgave him of the disappearing act he played in person.
I jumped up and ruffled his hair with a sly grin, feeling the sudden need to reach out and touch him, comfort him, let him know that there was nothing to be scared about. I wondered what was going on behind that knitted brow of his – the silent words he was weaving together into unspoken dialogues – but I knew that his voice only ever came out in conversations on paper. We were only several minutes into our first meeting, but already there was a knowledge in the back of my mind, hidden beneath layers of mindless chatter and instinct, that he was busily creating a character of me out of every look and smile and word I offered to him. I had seen and heard the way he had done the same to everyone else in his life, and it was my turn now to be pigeon-holed and characterised by the calculated verbs and nouns that swam around on his tongue. I was excited by the prospect of it, even, and played up to every dramatised aspect of my personality which existed, and even some that didn’t.
We walked to his car, a little yellow Fiat which resembled a lemon by his own description, and got in, headed towards the town centre in pursuit of an adventure. At that time in my life, everything was about finding an adventure: making it, creating it, taking bold leaps in the dark even when there was to be a guaranteed lack of footing at the other end. I drummed my fingers on my knees, the seat, the window, and peered out at the rain-speckled lights and shadows as we drove past them. He drove carefully, keeping his posture firm and hands steady at the wheel, breaking his stance only to occasionally point to a building or street out the window in a polite attempt to introduce me to his surroundings. I had to hold my breath to hear him when he spoke, biting firmly down on my tongue to keep from interjecting, despite that I had already been wandering around the town for hours previously and was about as familiar with the surroundings as I would ever be. His voice came out in a barely audible whisper, compared to the rushed frenzy of my own, and I could sense his struggle to hold down the conversation whenever I paused to allow him to continue speaking. He seemed almost not to recognise the sound of his own voice; each word was cautiously chosen and spoken with delicacy, as though it would shatter in front of him the moment it left his body.
That night, we ate and drank and danced, and I watched him as he began writing his story about me behind withdrawn eyes. Sometimes he made observations aloud, allowing his lips to speak the words he was thinking. ‘You’re dancing out of rhythm,’ he said as he sat in the corner of the tiny nightclub, watching me move freely in front of him in my own time to the music. ‘Yes, but at least I’m dancing,’ I responded with a grin, kissing him on the cheek again. ‘Your skirt keeps riding up,’ he commented, patting my leg and pulling the thin black cotton down. ‘Who cares?’ I asked, throwing my head back and laughing gaily. ‘You’re drunk,’ he said pointedly, remarking on the swig of the drink in my hand before I had even swallowed it. ‘I might be,’ I said, taking a seat upon his knee. ‘Why not?’
There were criticisms written all over his face, waiting to find an excuse to blame them on, but I chose to overlook them as he escorted me back later that evening. Along the way, we detoured down a deserted path, and he placed his jacket over my shoulders as we walked alone together in the darkness. ‘Look at the moon,’ he said quietly, stopping in his tracks and pointing with one finger. The moon was full and round, beaming down at us from a clear black sky, and we both gazed up at it for a moment. For a sheer glimmer of a second, the world held its breath as we stood there, transfixed in the stillness and unwilling to break the beauty of a single moment. But after the moment, it was broken and it was gone.
I chose to remember him, months and years and experiences later, as the shy man whom I once took the hand of and held in my own palm, urging him to move along when his own feet were barely moving. I didn’t know where my feet were going, either, but I had the sneaking suspicion, even then, that we were both just two lost souls looking for something to make us feel alive. There must have been an unspoken hope in each of us that we would find that something in each other. It wasn’t until I finally heard his written words about me, such soft words of kindness transformed into sharp daggers of mockery and cruelty for all the world to hear and read, that I discovered the truth behind his aim.
He was already alive and breathing. All he needed was a muse to bring his own voice to life.
alot like what this beddow n battini project is all about.
