Hubris...a drabble of sorts

[Kieli]

I hate not being able to sleep. What I hate most is not being able to sleep b/c I'm sick. The insomnia bogey comes in and sets himself on my shoulder, bugger that he is. Makes himself right at home and says to me "What shall we do tonight, my dear? How shall I entertain you?"

I can't help but think that he's a dodgy bastard and really just want him to go away so that I can close my eyes.

"I know!" the little cretin exclaims. "Why don't we start with a story...not just any story, mind you. Something simple, not quite esoteric. Why don't we see what's in your insides, luv. I've been hearing an insistent knocking in your brain, it needs getting out, you see. So...let's have a look, shall we?"

And before I know it, I'm up in my office, ink-stained fingers, torch in hand, writing this:

He sat on my bedpost, staring at me with those marble black beads that could be eyes.
Waiting
I had woken up from a dead sleep to find him there.

"What the devil do you want?" I asked, a bit cross at seeing him in my bedroom, just as cozy as you please.

"You know what I want," he murmurs in the lulling monotone that I've come to love and hate alternately.

"Bloody--"

"Now now, mind the language, mah duck." He stuck out a grubby, crooked hand. "Won't do no good to dodge. They'll only send another."

With a resigned sigh, I stuck my finger through the hole in my chest, turned once
twice
It popped open with a barely audible click and I opened the creaky little door, letting the contents ooze into his crippled appendage; the seeping darknes made me feel lighter already.

He examined it with a haughty sniff. "My my, we have been busy, haven't we?"

"What do you care?" I spat, annoyed with the judgement of a demon of souls, a thief of hearts.

"Not a bit, mah love, not a bit."

His arms then twitched and writhed, toenails and hair shed; he flew through the open window of my tiny West End flat, soaring into the humid miasma of summer that hung over the city like toxic ether.

**"What price salvation now?" the remnants of his voice echoes sibilantly in my sleep-fogged mind.

Funny...I never felt that I was saved
For he always returns
The price remains the same.

**A bit of a nod there, to Sir George Bernard Shaw and his redoubtable Major Barbara.

[Boschi]

I've returned to this three times now. Finally up for a small bit of coherent fb.

Your works of late seem intensely personal. Or perhaps they always are and I simply don't have a good notion of what and how you write. At anyrate, that thought leaves me a little tentative in my critiquing. Still, I think I'd rather say something than not (it's a horrible habit).

The hollowed out feel that still leaves you there, summing up yourself, is caught well. There is also this underlying bitter shame to your narrator by my reading.

The resigned sigh and the annoyance read distinctly as covers - I mentally see the narrator turning eyes away or down, then forcing them back to the visitor at least briefly, just long enough to feign disregard.

You used so few words, but I have clear notions of what the visitor would look like, or at least how he would be depicted: dark and smudgy with sepia tones and charcoal over. Familiar somehow.

Ah. And that would be why - I'm thinking a little of:

http://www.swimmingonweb.net/abruzzo/Escher/fuseli_nightmare.jpg
Hmmm, this other versions better (different painting):
http://artyzm.com/obrazy/fuseli-nightmare.jpg

Although I do see yours as leaner, darker, more deformed. Also with more intellect/personality.

Regards,

Boschi

[Kieli]

Boschi wrote:

I've returned to this three times now. Finally up for a small bit of coherent fb.

No worries. I always value your observations. And as you can see I've no place to go in a hurry wink

Your works of late seem intensely personal. Or perhaps they always are and I simply don't have a good notion of what and how you write. At anyrate, that thought leaves me a little tentative in my critiquing. Still, I think I'd rather say something than not (it's a horrible habit).

They usually are personal to some degree. Everything I write has some element of me in there somewhere. No need to be tentative. Say whatever comes to mind.

The hollowed out feel that still leaves you there, summing up yourself, is caught well. There is also this underlying bitter shame to your narrator by my reading.

Excellent! That gives me hope that maybe I can actually convey my feelings a bit better than I have in the past.

The resigned sigh and the annoyance read distinctly as covers - I mentally see the narrator turning eyes away or down, then forcing them back to the visitor at least briefly, just long enough to feign disregard.

Well that's the rub isn't it? The visitor IS a bloody annoyance, but the author is afraid because she knows the ugliness he feeds on is the worst parts of herself. She can't help but have that bit though and it makes her ashamed, yet resigned to her nagging humanity. Jealousy and envy are not things we all want to own up to.

You used so few words, but I have clear notions of what the visitor would look like, or at least how he would be depicted: dark and smudgy with sepia tones and charcoal over. Familiar somehow.

Ah. And that would be why - I'm thinking a little of:

http://www.swimmingonweb.net/abruzzo/Es ... htmare.jpg
Hmmm, this other versions better (different painting):
http://artyzm.com/obrazy/fuseli-nightmare.jpg

Although I do see yours as leaner, darker, more deformed. Also with more intellect/personality.

Regards,

Boschi

Interesting. That's a fairly accurate description of that little bugger. LOL! Thanks for taking the time to review. As always, it is quite a pleasure to read your thoughts.