Day Two: Bloggilicious

Writing down my dilemma yesterday helped me to focus on the problem. I now know what to do, and have in fact begun.

Heng is the project closest to completion. It fits in the thriller genre if I remove the frankly unneccessary Sci-Fi moments. This is the genre most of my work falls into, and it is one in which slightly futurisitic inventions are quite welcome. The fantasy work will take years to perfect and my surreal fiction can wait till I'm established.

I want to make it in the big bad world of publishing - I'd better think about the fact I'm manufacturing a product for commercial consumption!

Here's a short excerpt from the first chapter:

Frank sighed and wiped a bead of sweat away from his brow.
As the door closed with a quiet click behind him, Frank noticed how damp his palms were.
“One more thing for her notebook,” he said quietly to himself, smiling at the irony.
Frank made his way across the wildly patterned floor to the front entrance. The door was of a heavy wood, thick and reassuring in its bulk. It took all of his remaining strength to push his way through.
Once on the porch, he took out his own cigarettes, lighting one to calm his nerves. It was cold outside, the air thin and crisp with the onset of evening. Some of the trees before him shivered nakedly, their leaves having abandoned them for the winter. Most, however, still bore their glorious plumages to form a richly textured green that encompassed his horizon.
Blowing a lungful of smoke out into a billowing halo around his head, he started off for the car park, gravel crunching under foot with every step. The narrow path meandered slowly through the wizened grove, emerging at last beside a moderate lake whose surface was pockmarked with quacking ducks, crying gulls and hissing swans.
A handful of dour patients, brows knitted in concentration, hurled fragments of bread at the fowl, emulating a game of darts in their innocently uncomprehending enthusiasm. Around the lake were scattered the occasional wooden benches, their thin wooden slats ill suited for protracted periods of contemplation. Not that this was, in itself, a great surprise, for who would go to any length to encourage a madman to investigate his thoughts too closely?
For Frank it was an inconvenience. Many a fine day would leave him wanting just such a soft-focus spot in which to relax. Forced away by the unwelcoming hardness of the seats, however, he would proceed in his unhurried gait towards the awaiting interior of his car, an ancient thing now in its own peculiar way.
There was one patron of the hospital, however, who found comfort in the stern chill of the benches. He would sit, back as rigid as could be, as his silver flecked beard bristled in the breeze.
Frank could not have shared more that a handful of brief conversations with this man in all the time he’d walked these grounds. As his encounter with Dr Chang ran round and round in his head, however, Frank found himself slumping down in the space next to the inmate.
Perhaps the old man had beckoned him over. Frank did not know. He looked down at his hands to check they were clean before offering the man a smoke.
“Thanks, son, but no.”
The old man’s eyes watered in the chill, rimmed red all round, deep sleepless bruises sagging beneath like piles of unclaimed baggage. At this close range, Frank could see the mottled teeth, the gangrenous gaps, the bulbous nose from which coarse dark hairs sprouted like cress, the specks of food within the beard, the hard edged apple that bobbed ungainly whenever the urge to swallow demanded it. The ears were large and equally hairy, the one closest to Frank sagging slightly where a long-tarnished silver ring had sat for countless years.
“Yes, it is a good day,” the patient replied, although Frank was sure he had not yet said a word. “I like it here. The walls are hidden in the garden.”
“There aren’t any walls out here,” Frank countered.
“Not the pale green things in there. I don’t mean the walls in there.” The old man’s voice was impatient. “The walls in there are plain enough. You can always see the walls in there. Out here, the walls are different. Even the ducks can’t fly over them and they’re good at flying. Like the seagulls. They can fly well too. But even they can’t get over the walls. The walls are everywhere.”
“Why? I can’t see them.” Frank exhaled quietly, tossing his cigarette into the undergrowth.
“You can’t see them!” The tone was sarcastic. “I can’t see them. The seagulls can’t see them. Why do you think we can’t get passed them? They are all one. The walls are the wall. It is everywhere. We can’t get passed it. Only through it. And you can’t come back.”
The old man’s voice had become increasingly sad and he sniffed noisily before retrieving Frank’s cigarette butt. There was still a small amount smouldering and the man took a couple of tight pulls before the ash crumpled into his lap. All that was left was the grubby filter, which he pocketed with a conspiratorial wink.
“You can have a whole one, if you want.”
“Thanks, son, but no.”
Frank shook his head in disgust as he moved to stand up, but the man put a grubby hand on his sleeve.
“No, wait,” he hissed. “Don’t go yet, son. We haven’t gotten to the good bit, yet.”