Wednesday 12 January 2011

Started stories - another one...

Sometimes words just pour out of me. I don’t know how it happens it just does and suddenly I have something in front of me wanting to become something else. A story, a book maybe? I don’t know. Sometimes I pursue it, building on the theme until I run dry, usually I don’t though – best to avoid disappointment.

I’m not going to count the number of started stories I have hanging around the place. They all have starts, some have ends, a few have ends but no middles, mostly they have starts, middles, but no ends. It really is a dilemma because when one of these ‘starts’ pours out of me it absorbs me and for a while I even believe it might come to something until it doesn’t.

Here’s the latest. I know how it progresses from here for a while, but I don’t know about the middle, and I have no idea about the end. I do know it’s about a journey, but I don’t know where journey’s end is or what happens on the road along the way.

If you read it and you know how it progresses please let me know.

Maybe I should get on and simply write it, just let the words pour out and see where it goes.

I don’t know.

What do you think?

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Hi. I’m Tobias. Tobias Pilgrim. Tobias Adam Pilgrim to give you my full handle, but most people just calls me Tobe. Yeah, it was my Dad’s idea, Dad was a real joker. Sorry? Oh, you don’t get the joke. Well, don’t worry you will do, you’ll work it out. Stick with me.

I’ve been sat here the best part of an hour and a half now. Just sitting, looking around, this way and that. I’m pretty sure I’m not waiting for anything, pretty sure I’m not waiting for anyone either. But what would I know? You see I don’t know how I got here .One moment I was – well I’m not exactly sure, but the next I was sitting here on this milestone by the side of this road.

One thing I do know though is that before I arrived here, dumped down like a hikers backpack on this stone, I was somewhere else, somewhere else entirely. I just don’t remember where. I don’t think I have amnesia, well not completely; I remember my name, my Mum and Dad, my age (thirty-six), my birthday (February 3rd). I remember the town where I was born – Milford, a nice little town not too far from the city but far enough way for it to still be in the country, my dog ‘Chokie’ and how he likes for me to throw him a stick so that he can jump in and fetch it. I remember that my collar size is sixteen and I take a size nine shoe. I remember that I broke my arm when I was fourteen, that I can drive, but not what car I drive, or even if I own a car at all.

Yeah, I remember a whole bunch of inconsequential stuff. But the big stuff, the stuff that really matters, the stuff that if I could remember it would tell me how I got here and maybe even why, I simply don’t remember. I’ve been trying for the last hour and a half, sitting here on this stone, but I simply don’t remember any of it at all.

Somewhere between ‘whatever and wherever’ came before this stone I seem to have lost something. If only I could remember what.

5 comments:

  1. Tricia Kitt commented on Facebook: gotta meet a stranger....

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  2. Catherine Halls-Jukes commented on Facebook: not sure what happens next, or what should happen next......but please tell me

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  3. Tony Payne e-mailed:

    Hi andi, again I've had trouble posting so have done it the old fashioned way!
    Hope you're ok, have you left yell by the way?

    As to blog, can you create more clues for him? E.g blood nearby or odd socks, wedding ring perhaps. Diary full of intrigue....today's date when he was about to finally do 'it' whatever that may be. A tattoo, maybe an address on some stained hanky...the plot thickens. A service card for his own funeral. A newspaper dated 90 years ago..

    Also - Would He say a word like 'handle'?

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  4. I'm not so keen on the word 'handle' either I'm afraid.

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  5. Al Spence:

    Use the beginning as the end and the end as the beginning and the middle through away.
    As a great big cigar man once said 'this is not the beginning of the end it is the end of the beginning'.
    Or was it the other way around, or is that just completely wrong.
    Now look what you've done!

    Alan

    ReplyDelete