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Nepfreak

Nepenthesian
The title says it all. Any other informal amateur fiction writers out there?
Here's something related to plants that I wrote for Creative Writing. I was kind of hyper when I wrote it.

Monologue of a Mistreated Tropical Houseplant -- Why Plants Became Carnivorous

It’s so dry in here… haven’t these people ever heard of humidifiers? For godssake, the relative humidity is like 20% in this room. And the roots – ugh! It’s like being crammed into an elevator with 50 obese sick people. And where are the drainage holes? I feel like I’m sitting in the Great Flood except there’s no ark to save me here. Some jerk poured a gallon of UNDISTILLED cold water into this ridiculous holding cup. How dare they treat a majestic tree fern from the hills of Borneo this way? Idiots. I’m going to drop a few of my beautiful leaves and see how they like it. Maybe then they’ll actually do some RESEARCH on my natural needs and get me a bigger freakin’ pot. Maybe it’ll even have drainage holes…
Oh god. More water. Now there’s a flood floating ON TOP of a flood. Rootball disturbed! Panic! Moving into operation shrink to soggy crust at bottom of pot. Just gotta remember to leave some green so they don’t throw me away. But mark my words; it’ll be a very shriveled, weak, form-crippling green, not the lush verdure they see in their stupid gardening magazines. How could they pour more water on…? I can imagine the scene now: “hmm… looks like our little palm tree thing is wilting a bit. I gave it a whole bucket of water… so let’s add more water.” Whoever’s taking care of me probably has a horticultural experience consisting of the wave petunia and the half-dead African Violet. And for your information, I am not a “little palm tree thing.” I am a Cyathea, a skyscraping fern from the heart of the jungle taken out and put in this craphole. Unbelievable.
Did I mention how dark it is in here? I require approximately 4,000 lumens to photosynthesize properly. Now my chloroplasts detect closer to 400. I’m probably next to a north facing window in the darkest corner of the room. And every day it gets darker. The sun turns off earlier and earlier. It’s cold, too. Not even seventy degrees… I can’t process proteins anymore! This never happens in Borneo…
My roots are getting dryer. Well, at least the imbeciles that bought me from the store seem to have stopped watering now. Time to get some root growth in. Maybe I’ll put out a little offshoot just to let them know “hey, idiots, you do good thing!” Maybe I can photosynthesize a bit with that and build from there. But no, I know any minute now that another flood is coming. But wait… A day has passed and they still haven’t watered me! Oh look, there goes another day, and another… Soil’s getting a little firm, nothing I can’t handle, there’s another one without watering. Now I’m getting slightly pissed. When I wanted less water I didn’t mean I wanted the Sahara desert. They’re supposed to wait until the top is dry and then pour in approximately four cups of DISTILLED warm water. Well, the top of my soil is dry. I’m waaaiting…
I’M THIRSTY!!! The tonicity of my cells is moving towards hypertonic! They’re releasing water! The firm, rigid cellular structure that supports my stately frame is collapsing into a heap! How dare they neglect me!! The idiots are probably entertaining guests right now and sucking on beers at a soccer party. Don’t they know their beautiful fern is dying? Help me. Cannot… go on… like this…
AAAAUGH!!!!!!!! JESUS CHRIST!!!! THEY’RE EATING ME ALIVE!!! DAMN YOU, TETRANYCHUS URTICAE!!!! Stop sucking on your beer and get a freakin’ pesticide! I need something systemic, quick! And I’M STILL THIRSTY!!! I’m going to die. This is not just a lament. It’s a threat. Water me and get a pesticide or I’ll do it.
Hey, somebody’s watering me. It’s not a gallon of water this time but it’s STILL NOT DISTILLED! Come on, a gallon of distilled water costs like a buck at stop and shop! And wait… something else is coming… Am I being misted?
OUCH!! Not a contact insecticide, imbecile! Didn’t you read the instructions on the bottle? ONE tablespoon per gallon, not twelve! I asked for something SYSTEMIC. That means that I can absorb it into my system and then kill all the stupid urticae at once. Instead, they gave me some stupid soap-based Schultz thing. Humans screw up everything they try to do themselves. They might as well have rubbed Vaseline on my leaves. Now I’ve got leaf burn over 90% of my foliage. They’re asking for it now. How the hell am I supposed to photosynthesize with all my leaves burned off? Starting from scratch AGAIN. Damnit.
What’s this? I’m being watered again, but this time there’s something good. Something real good. I like it. I want more. My cells detect additional nitrogen, some growth enhancers… hey, it’s a fertilizer! Keep pouring keep pouring…..... . . . .. . . ..
Hmmm? Is anybody there? Hey, I’m back in Borneo! The trees are beautiful and shimmering. Oh look, here comes a squirrel. He’s smiling. For some reason this is confusing. What? He’s giving me some water. How nice. Lots of water, lots of water, lots of water. I like water. Water is ggggrrrreeeaaaat.. mmm hmmm. Reeaally greeeeaaat. I really like water. Can I have some more water, Mr. Squirrel? Why, of course I can. Quick, before the evil owl comes and chews on my flower scape… heyyy, I have a flower scape…… I am one sexy devil, yes I am… Look at those priddy flowers. Priddy flowers….. priiiidy flowers…………………………………..
Huh? What happened to my flower scape? Where’s Mr. Squirrel? Hey wait… I’m in some stupid house, aren’t I? And the guy pouring the ferts in. My roots! Where are my roots? OH MY GOD I CAN’T FEEL MY ROOTS! They’re… dissolving!......can’t…..obtain…….essential……phosphates…………………..
I need nutrients. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. Feed me. Feed me. Feed me. FEED ME! FEED ME!!!!!!!!!
 
Haha, that was really great! I loved the attitude of the plant. xD I might write something tomorrow or Sunday, we'll see. I tried writing a story once and I got to about 30 pages, but there were too many errors that I didn't bother fixing it and...eh, it just got messed up. I'm thinking of writing another story now that I've been wanting to write.
 
Ha that was good, here is mine.

H-Day Diary of a ventralata

I still remember the darkest days of my shipment. Days where water was scarce, humidity suffocating, and light nonexistant. As far as I know I am the only one that made it out alive. There were three hundred of us, all fresh from the explant in Holland. We thought that we were going to heaven. The first plastic cup should have tipped me off. We spent a dark week in transit. The venus flytraps began to wilt because some idiot did not pack them properly. Finally, we got our first peak of light. But is was not the sun, only the weak glow of flourecents far above. After being repacked and jostled about we were shipped out again. Box 10 containing the Judith Finns was crushed in transit. We were dropping like flies. Some began to pray for the warm tc medium back in Europe. Many suspected sabotage. Finally we made it. The survivers let out sighs of relief. We should have known that it was only the beginning. Shortly after being unpacked we were put under the shade of some palms in a suffocating greenhouse. The orchids sneered at us and we were separated from our brothers. From my position I could see the torment of the venus flytraps as they closed their traps again and again even though there were no bugs. The Purp division had a tough time too. The were specialist at low light, but this, this was certain death. they grew more spindly as time moved on. The venus flytraps sold out first, going off to sadistic bipeds that seemed to enjoy watching the traps close. A few purps and several plants from my division went in the next couple of weeks. By now more than half of my division went to fungus, mold, and now water. The effects were showing on me too. All my pitchers had dried up and My internodes had become unnaturally long. Two months into my occupation of the shelf showed a sorry sight. Almost all my brothers had died, I was the only healthy one left. The rest had blackened their growth tips and died. Three months into the shelf occupation a person stops to look at the shelf. He seems different from the others. The way he looked at my leaves and stem reminded me of the flask back home. Suddenly he grabbed my pot and brought me to the register. This time I was in a cup holder as I was spirited away from that slaughter house. I will forever remember the name of that place. Home Depot, the root of all evils. It was the first day in months that I got fresh air, water, and sunlight.
In remembrance of my brothers I tell this story. This day is forever called H-Day.
 
Fun stuff guys! It's great to see people doing some writing!

I've got two plant related short stories / novellas in progress. One centers around CPs from space being worshiped along the Sepik River (New Guinea) and the other involves mummies, mycologists and evil mushrooms but neither are presentable yet. If you know me, you know I've always got far more things "in progress" than "done"!

Here's a snippet of a chapter from one of my works in progress. A bit of background this particular book is a look into various people involved in their own revolutions or conspiracies based on their ideologies and how they are blinded by them. Almost everyone's ideology I can imagine (including my own) gets a poke in the work. This particular routine is between a black power kid working at the convenience store and some skinheads...

Prejudices Bagged While you Wait

“Hey Boa, think ya kin bag dem growshrees annuh fastuh? Mah ahs creem is a mettin’!” this old southerner stands there spouting off like it’s still 1940.

“Sixteen seventy three” I tell him in my most robotic voice. I do my best to detach from my human body and watch from “outside“ myself at times like this. I learned this trick in Granny's old hand written religious book that I found in her attic when we were sent to clean out her house. She died in the church when the Klan firebombed it. This trick helps when I have to deal with people like this when I really just want to tear him to pieces. Hassan I Sabbah X told me her books were the best training I could have done for myself.

“Heeeey Booooy!” A fat skinhead in a greasy Skrewdriver tee shirt saunters up to the counter with a six pack of beer. He’s already drinking one of them.
“Yeah, hey Booooy!” says his scrawny little partner in a rather generic White Power teeshirt and Rainbow suspenders…? Could it be a ****** Nazi?… A Fagzi…? A Naggot…?

“Well if it isn’t the terror of Nagasaki, Fat Man and Little Boy! You two are gonna have to tell NAMBLA to stop sending your mail here, the boss is worried about having the mail watched.” I enjoyed this moment when the words were working their way into their rubbery brains, then I see the sneer and ah, there it is…

“You ****in’ N***r!” Fat Man bellows through his two or three teeth.

“If it wasn’t for the cameras all over this place I’d make you bite that counter as I stomp on your ****in’ skull!” Sweat beginning to break out on his sweaty face as his temple veins pulsed.

“I hate to do this fellahs, but it’s five forty for the beer, condoms for later are extra.” I held out my hand.

“**** ya!” Fat Man throws six ones in the air and stomps towards the door as they flutter down to the floor.

“Yeah!” Yells Little Boy as he scampers childishly after Fat Man. The door on it’s back swing hits him in the face. As he turns away from me he spits out a couple of teeth.

As I mopped up the blood Little Boy spit out I pocketed the teeth after remembering something I read in one of Granny’s books about using the teeth and hair of your enemies. Certainly, Hair is out of the question with these idiots but I had teeth and a bloody napkin probably work just as good. Anyway, Hassan I Sabah X would probably like to examine them. He has the biggest collection on White Power, Eurocentric Philosophy and Jew Magic (something he calls “Kebballeh”) but when I showed him Granny’s old books, he had all his other books boxed up and he went into seclusion for weeks. At the end of the seventh week three copies had been made. He gave me one, he kept one and the other is in hands unknown to me. Granny’s original book I donated, I guess, cos when Hassan I Sabah X returned to me the large leather bound copy I asked where was the original? He had said that it was being mounted in a brass and glass case that was devoid of oxygen and filled with a heavy vapor that would never allow it to decay past the stage which it already had. Thus Granny’s book would remain “eternal” and in the movements HQ, holding the place of highest honor. Future copies could simply be made of these copies he’d hand produced.

I only wish I’d had enough time to read all of Granny’s book before being given this "copy"...


--------------------------

Here is a bit of unreleased bardic prose from my days creating the Cernunnos Woods ambient music & narrative project. This must be from 1995 or so, it was to be on the album entitled Folklore which was the follow up album to Awakening the Empire of Dark Wood. It's intent is to be a statement of self-affirmation by a dryad or little forest spirit.

The Ancient of Days
I stand as a ripple in the ocean of time
I stand as a thread in the knotted fabric of time
I stand as a breath in the flowing wind of time

Before the churning sea of Annwnn am I
Before the time of legends am I
Before the sands upon the earth am I

I stand as a leaf on the Beech of time
I stand as a stone on the plain of time
I stand as a wolf in the forest of time

Before the opening of the Cruachan am I
Before the Cad Goddeu am I
Before the wandering glaciers am I

I stand as a brick in the keep of time
I stand as a blade forged in the fires of time
I stand as a raven upon the Menhir of time

I wove with the spiders their spells
I taught the bees their craft
I watched the first birth of a serpent stone
-the last I now hold
I rose rings with the goblins
-by song of wind, rain and snow

I am the ancient of days!


He's one proud little pixie! ;)

--------------------------------------------------

Here is some of my strange poetry. I'm working on an 8 or 10 page collage booklet to go with it. A few lines on one side, images on the other. I'd like to put together all my stuff this way competing images and words. One could look through the book reading only the collage images (right hand pages) or just reading text (left hand pages).

The **** Parade

A civil defense siren screams
Outside my window
An old Cadillac topped with bullhorns
Drives through neighborhoods
Tapes of William Burroughs
Blare out over the rooftops
“Nothing is true -
Everything is illusion”
School boy marching bands
Blurt obscenities out of their trumpets
The mayor and the bishop
Marching side by side
Carrying a silver platter
Topped by a crowned turd
As I watched the parade pass by
I wondered
What did that piece of **** ever do for me?

---------------------------------------------------
Yes Virginia I do have too much time on my hands! :D
 
haha, the H-day diary felt like I was reading wiesel's Night or something. Swords, did you submit that last poem or get it published anywhere? I could swear I've seen it somewhere as an example of a certain type of poem or something at school.

Here's another monologue, this one of Cerberus (the three-headed guard dog at the gates of the Underworld in Greek Mythology). Some words (red) changed to fit forum rules :X . And yes, this is even more messed up than the plant monologue, which is why I was hesitant to post it.

Hello, we are Cerberus, guard-dog of the underworld. If you’re not dead, we’ll fix that for you. If you are dead, yay for you because we can’t rip your soul into a billion bloody pieces. …So, you’re dead? Darn…we mean… good! Would you like to stay here at the gates and talk awhile? We get very bored with each other sometimes. It’s a dull business, this gate-guarding thing.
Sit down, sit down. Mind the Styx – it’s full of fiery acid… good. So, as you know every character in this deranged mythology has a job. Zeus hangs out in the sky having children with random women and seeing what pops out (and let us tell you, some strange stuff can happen when Zeus hooks up with those mortal women. Take Medusa, for example.) Athena flies around the sky saying “wooooo, look, I’m Athena!” while doing basically nothing and Poseidon plays battleship with traveling boats. What do we get to do? Guard a stupid gate. Every second of every day it seems we’re hearing the brain-blending squelch of the gate opening and closing, opening and closing. The only funny part of this job is when somebody accidentally (hehe) falls in the Styx.
The funny thing is we’re older than Zeus. We are direct spawn of the land. Zeus is some jerk a titan puked up. And yet Zeus claims rulership over us because we’re ugly. What kind of reason is that? We can’t help it. The thundering idiot doesn’t look too hot either, with his stupid white sideburns and poorly-kept beard. The only reason he can even control us is with his stupid ******* lightning bolts.
And then there’s Hades. What a jerk. Get this: one day, he saw a hot lady picking flowers so he broke through the ground, grabbed her King-Kong style, and pulled her back into the Underworld. Persephone is her name -- Strange, gothic looking girl. Then he made her eat a pomegranate so she could never dump him and forced her to marry him. But then – and this is the best part – Persephone’s mom, this bossy old stick, came down on Hades in a rage. Boy, did she let him have it. Finally she succeeded in getting Hades to let Persephone return to the mortal world for half the year. It was the only time we’ve seen Hades give in to anyone.
That reminds us of the time some mortal pretty boy came to the Underworld. He looked all classy, with a tux and wavy blond hair. It’s insulting enough when a mortal human comes to the underworld, but when they’re all classy it really fires us up. We were about ready to crush his monstrous head in when he started playing this annoying, repetitive melody on his lyre. It was so loud and so obnoxious that we immediately got a migraine and collapsed, letting the idiot pass. We still have marks where Hades whipped us for that, they’re right… what? You don’t want to see? Well, okay. Anyway, apparently the little gentleman was only going in to rescue his woman. Mortals will go to great lengths to be the hero.
Then there was Hercules or Heracles as some people say. The legend says he beat us up with his bare hands. Not true at all. That muscly jerk brought not only a sword and a rifle, but also about 50 soldiers. They made us lie down and look dead for the pictures, but not before we pushed a few into the Styx. That was fun.
But enough about us, what about you? Have YOU been good this lifetime? Are you headed for the heavenly fields of Elyria, or are you just going to stand in water unable to drink with a branch of fruit just out of reach for eternity, like that guy who tried to steal Zeus’s sacred nectar? You’d better hope you were a good boy. Sometimes if you’re really bad and Hades is in one of his drunken rages he’ll just throw you in the Styx. If you’re lucky, he won’t take you back out again to see you squirm.
You don’t seem very talkative. Are we intimidating you? Who’s afraid of the big bad Cerberus? You know, we can actually be pretty sweet when we want to. See? Look at these sweet puppy eyes. If you can ignore the fact that there are six of them they’re almost cute, don’t you think? We’ve been practicing for the girls, except there are no girls out there that can satisfy one heterosexual male head, one bisexual head of the neuter gender, and one heterosexual female head. We would need some kind of hermaphroditic gender-changing wonder. Or maybe Zeus could come down here. There you go. We could have Cerberus puppies!
Ah, how we wish there were more of us! Our race is forgotten, but we are ancient. Older than the almighty pimp or his woman Athena, older than all the pretty boys with golden wings and bows, older than Hades or that sunuva***** down the river, Chiron. Did we tell you about him? He’s the one that will be guiding you across the river in his old rickety boat. He is one strange person, mark our words. When you see him, tell him to say hi to the juggernaut for us – he’ll know what you mean.
But we interrupt ourself. We are the bones of the earth, the last of our race, and most people want us dead. It sucks to be a Cerberus. Hydra can always grow more heads but it looks like we’re headed for extinction.
Oh god. You look intimidated and we’ll look fierce – here comes Persephone on her quarterly inspection. Don’t look, but Chiron’s over there on the opposite bank talking to her. Old Chiron’s got a thing for Persephone. There goes the juggernaut…
Here she comes. Grrr! We are the guard dog of the Underworld! Fear us, mortals! (Hey, that’s a really good scared expression). Oh! It seems you are not a mortal! You may pass! (Now go through the gates. You don’t want to ever get Persephone mad. Goodbye, dead person. It was a pleasure talking with you.) Oh, hello, your majesty! We were just letting through a few dead people… good morning to you too. Yes, good bye now. Have a great day… mm hmm. Bye.
Alone again… hey middle head, I’m packing a suitcase with I don’t want to play that stupid how about solitaire no you idiot we don’t have any cards who you calling idiot I, left head am calling you I’ll rip your throat out I’ll throw you in the Styx we have the same body moron oh I’m to tired to fight me too me too.
*sigh*……………………………………………………………………….
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waiting for the Bus -- A sestina in Iambic Pentameter.

I wait here in the folding coil of night
as landscapes fade away to shapeless dream
white winds sigh silent melodies of thought
they call me into wild freedom of dark
But still I wait, my mind a shapeless blur
I wait for fate to lead me to my doom

The speeding force of demonhearted doom
comes closer, ever closer through grey night
I wipe away the crust of bleary blur
and long for soothing liberties of dream
My eyelids fall, surrendering to dark
and windswept worlds of long-forgotten thought

Disjointed strings of strangely bumbling thought
fall numbly to their frigid, snowy doom
Alone I wait, the son of breathing dark
So cruel, so fierce, the fiery blood of night
ambassador from thoughtless realms of dream
and silver swaths of uncommitting blur.

Dim lights flash past me, speeding flakes of blur
like frozen eyes incapable of thought
Dead, frosted lanterns float a soulful dream
of mindless hours unknowing of their doom
on silent whiles of warm, forgiving night
resplendent through transcendent veils of dark.

I wait these whiles in solitude and dark
the mortal eyes shut tight on worlds of blur
and bleary scapes of ever-fading night
to fogged domains of calmly writhing thought
in silver twisting swaths of coming doom
What happened to the formless bliss of dream?

It flies still closer, enemy of dream
the breaker of sweet aching folds of dark
its feral roar cries fierce imposing doom
dead scrapmetal tears swath of soothing blur
A demon lacking any form of thought
comes swift to violate the peaceful night

Through formless blur, the dead breaker of dark,
The death of dream, the shatterer of night,
The yellow bus of thought leads me to doom.

===========================================================

And just for fun, Ode to my Little Toenail, making fun of people who base their musings on everyday items. Actually, I was making fun of a specific person's poetry, someone from my school.


O pinhead-sized square of enamel
I pray from high above to the ground
where you humbly sit, a loyal servant
steadfast and true to your cause.

Each day you shrink farther into the skin
like bleeding hearts sinking into sand
I weep for you -- O, the irony!
Good life's cold shoulder has caught you unawares
and nobly, like wizened monks
you fall to your resting place
buried, buried ever deeper
in swaths of tough skin, never to be revealed.

And so as I slowly fall
through layers of people, interactions
love, hate, betrayal, trust
I think of the little sentinel
solemnly receding into the quicksand of evolution.
to become extinct; but peacefully you go
no fight, no words, no aching hearts--
and when you are gone
you will only be
one less toenail to clip
 
I like that Cerberus rant! I like narratives by uncommon sources.

I posted The **** Parade on the web in a number of places but never submitted it to any publications. It was written at a time when I'd been reading almost nothing but Allen Ginsberg , Jack Kerouac and other "Beat Generation" poetry. It would be neat to find out it had made it into print somewhere!

Do you belong to any online writing forums? All the ones I've found (even fantasy & sci-fi writing forums) generally only concentrate on by-the-book Strunk and White tribune writing style. I find S&W techniques fancy pants and formulaic, soulless and dead. You could hardly tell one piece from the next or even one writer from the next once pieces were critiqued and "corrected". That's fine for a newspaper or people who like to frett over "rules" but not for anyone who likes to consider themselves an artist - at play in the fields of language. I think the few of us who've posted in this topic have shown more variety than I saw in a year on those other forums. I believe that variety and difference is what makes something worth reading or looking at. Not whether if falls into a dogmatic formula someone dreamed up.

An actual fun online place to play and re-charge your creative writing mind or just experiment is here:

http://languageisavirus.com/

They have more than enough name generators though... time to get more activity widgets!
 
i see i am not the only one writing in my spare time!
 
Below is a poem I wrote in 6th grade, which we had to submit to a poetry book.
I found this online a few weeks ago after losing it on my old computer.
The last 3 lines, or so, are the only good parts. lol :(

A Crystal Of Heaven
A delicate light flake of white
gently falls
from the gray abyss of the sky.
Slowly hovering about,
in the air so cold.
I reach out my warm hand
to catch the white gem.
It gently tickles my palm.
But then all too soon,
it changes.
No longer a light flake,
but a delicate drop of water.
Like an innocent child's tear.
I am now left with nothing but a small tingle
of what once was
a crystal of heaven

Please let me know how you could change this, to improve it.
I'm trying to make a modified version of this, that possibly has some sort of rhyme scheme or rhythm to it. That could take a while, though...
 
It's only my opinion but I don't think it should be changed at all. That's how it came out - that's the real poetry! I think refinement can be good for stories and narratives, like making sure all tenses are the same, and descriptions of the sky don't run off into their own chapters, etc. But for poetry I think it's the spontaneity that really makes it the "voice of the soul".

If you really want to write a rhyme, my method is to get into a state of repeating some rhyming poetry / song lyrics that you like and write a new poem to the "beat" or the timing and cadence of those other rhymes. Using your own words, your poem will be different but what I'm saying is that it's easier to carry over the "rhyming habit" by starting off with a rhyming example that you enjoy.

If you're interested check out The Poetry Dictionary by John Drury for hundreds of styles and examples of widely varied poetry. Very few poem styles rhyme so you don't need to even worry about it - lol! :)
 
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