Post by Bronwyn on Mar 31, 2015 20:34:40 GMT 7
Hi guys! This is the complete draft of the story I've shared in this month's evening group. The evening group have the first half (I'll leave a mark for those in that group). It's a story I've written purely and for no other reason than as an exercise so I urge you to dig in and tear it apart because that's what it's for. Some questions are at the bottom, but really what I'm looking for is reader reaction as you go through.
Ruby Now
Ruby halted carefully at the crossing, because the Ruby-of-times-past had learnt it and the Ruby-of-times-future demanded it. “I don’t want to have to go through life with a bung leg,” said the Ruby-of-times-future, “so just mind you stand back there - that’s it, right away from the edge. Any of those cars could swerve and if you don’t stand far enough back they could clip you and who knows how badly you’d be hurt. We might never recover. I’d blame you for that, you know.”
Ruby did know. She knew, because she was in the habit of blaming Ruby-of-times-past for the failures she dealt with now. “If only you’d studied science instead of philosophy,” she’d say. “That’s something you could have got paid for. You’d have a proper job doing proper things, rather than this dead-end excuse for an existence you have now. You’ve lost your promise, you know. You’ve shed it. Wriggled out of it after your graduation dinner, along with that red chiffon dress.” Sometimes, she’d even think of going so far as to blame Ruby-of-times-past for refusing Justin when he’d proposed to marry, but then she’d stop, because she actually wasn’t sure if that had been a good decision or not.
The green man flicked on, and Ruby stepped onto the street. “Well, hurry up,” said Ruby-future. “Every time you dilly-dally I lose precious moments of my life.” Ruby hurried up. She’d been robbed by Ruby-past through dilly-dallying, too, and she blamed her for that, and besides, the coffee shop lay just across the street and a small part of her - the part that dared not speak, lest the other Rubies shout it down - was craving for the solace of a nice, hot tea.
Tea was everything to Ruby, at least as she drunk it. It was the one time the other Rubies would let her be, and at any rate, she didn’t feel she had much else now that her promise had slipped away. But there was something about those intoxicating vapours and warm, silky tannins she couldn’t resist; something which filled her full enough to shut the whole rest of the world out, which pulled her forward against even her own self. Later, when the nearest piece of Ruby-future had become Ruby-now, she’d call upon the current Ruby-now (then Ruby-past) to explain what on earth she’d been thinking when it came to that tea. “Self-indulgence, and look where it’s got me,” she’d say. “Never again, Ruby. Never again.”
But Ruby didn’t yet foresee any of this, so there was no special ceremony in the way she pushed open the coffee shop door and, being careful not to dilly-dally, let herself scuttle inside.
Inside was quiet. She drank in the quiet as Terrence and Margaret began, unbidden, to prepare her usual order. Terrence grinned at her, gruff and burly, looking as if he should have been shouldering rocket launchers instead of grinding beans, and Margaret waved, looking as if she could do anything she wanted to if the mood so occupied her, only it never, ever would.
To the back was the small table by the staff-only door, the one Ruby liked to sit at so she could watch the other customers come in at the front, and so she could dream of escaping through the back, because the back door seemed somehow rich with magical possibilities which stretched far beyond anything in her existence, although she knew it was just a delivery entrance.
Today Ruby’s favourite table by the staff-only door was occupied by a small girl with dark, wavy hair who was sitting with her mother. The girl was drawing a picture using coloured pencils, and as Ruby watched, she whispered to Ruby-past, “That could have been your daughter, if you’d married Justin,” and she blamed Ruby-past that she didn’t have a daughter with dark, wavy hair. But then Terrence handed Ruby her tea and the Rubies fell silent, so she said nothing further and just took herself and her tea to the little table by the right of the front door.
She sipped her tea. She was still sipping her tea when the man walked through the front door of the coffee shop and paused as if he wasn’t sure he was in the right place. The bell at the top of the door rung and Margaret glanced around and she saw the man enter and pause. Then Margaret looked around the shop at her customers.
Margaret looked at the girl with the dark, wavy hair, holding up a drawing to her mother. Ruby wondered if this was the girl’s first visit to the coffee shop and if so, would she remember it and she thought maybe, people tend to remember their first times, the last ones are trickier, you don’t see them coming. Ruby-past had forgotten so many last times.
Then Margaret looked at the middle-aged man with his paper, and a young couple flirting quietly in the corner. And the man who’d just entered the coffee shop paused by the door as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was, and Margaret looked around the shop at her other customers as if she had a Margaret-of-times-future in her head who could whisper prophetically.
And Ruby thought, people never remember their last. And as Margaret looked, she wondered if the couple in the corner would remember their last kiss, because she couldn’t for the life of her remember the last time she’d kissed Justin. In fact, she hadn’t known it would be the last time until after she’d refused his proposal of marriage, and by then that memory of their last kiss had gone, and it was all Ruby-past’s fault. Where had Ruby’s promise been then? Gone, like the red chiffon dress, and all Ruby-past’s fault. Ruby thought this, and Margaret looked around the coffee shop and the man paused by the door.
A few seconds elapsed. Then with a start, Ruby realised she’d begun to stare at the man, who was still paused oddly near the door, and Ruby-future scolded her (“He might see you staring and then what will he think?!”) so she flustered a little and went to put down her tea but the table by the door was so tiny, and instead she dropped the tea cup and it fell to the floor and smashed. “Clumsy girl!” Ruby-future exclaimed. “Now everyone will look at me! Why on earth did you choose this table?” and Ruby dived to the floor after her tea cup and everyone turned round.
Everyone turned round as Ruby dived and the man who’d been paused near the door whirled in shock, and as he whirled his hand came from his coat and it drew something out.
“Don’t move,” he said. And Ruby thought, he’s got a gun. “I’m going to kill everyone in here,” he shouted, and Ruby-future wailed, “Self-indulgence, and look where it’s got me. Never again, Ruby. Never again,” and everyone had turned round, because Ruby had smashed her cup of tea and dived after it onto the floor. Everyone saw the gunman’s eyes, wild and sweaty, and his shoulders, hunched and tense.
--(second half)
“Stand up,” he said, and Ruby thought hard and she couldn’t remember the taste of her tea, though it suddenly seemed that it might be her last, and slowly she stood with her back to the front door and the rest of the cafe before her, and the gunman was between them and he watched her and pointed the gun.
Ruby watched him watching. She watched him pointing the gun. He’s dilly-dallying, she thought, he’s listening to his past and his future. What are they telling him? she thought. Ruby wondered how much they despised him.
Then the gunman said, “She’s going to pay for what she did to me,” and he was pointing the gun at Ruby, and Ruby-future said, “Speak! Or I’ll never exist at all,” so Ruby opened her mouth to speak, and it was difficult to find anything to say that Ruby-future would surely approve of, but she asked the gunman, “What did she do to you?”
And the gunman cursed and spat and said, “She left me. She took everything. She took my kids.”
And Ruby-future said, “Don’t look at the girl with the dark, wavy hair, whose mother is standing with her near the back of the cafe, the one with her big eyes frightened and her mother’s hand clamped to her mouth to shut in the screams.” But Ruby looked, and the gunman swung around and ordered the rest of the customers onto the back wall.
“Stupid girl!” Ruby berated Ruby-past (if only recently past), but out loud to the gunman in a desperate, wavering voice she said, “I once wore a red chiffon dress to my graduation dinner,” and it was true, if a strange thing to say, but she’d been thinking it, and it was true - she’d had her hair all piled up on her head, and the future had seemed full of promise because she hadn’t yet shed it, nor had it slipped away.
The gunman whipped back to face her. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” he screamed. And Ruby wanted to explain to him about the slippery promises, but her future cried out in horror and she thought, “It’s probably simpler I didn’t marry,” then she thought, “I wish, Ruby-past, I’d at least had the chance to marry,” and, “Perhaps it was best you didn’t marry. If you had, it might have been my little girl whimpering at the back of the cafe with her big eyes frightened and my hand clamped to her mouth to shut in the screams.” And it occurred to her that, though she live a hundred, hundred years, she would never know whether or not it had been a good idea to refuse Justin’ proposal.
But the gunman just pointed the gun at Ruby and said, “I’ll kill you all and she’ll know, she’ll know she made me do it. She’ll know it was all because of her.” And as he said this, Ruby shook because she was afraid, and Ruby-future shook, because she was afraid, but Ruby-past, whose voice was thin and dry, with a whispering frailty borne of perennial disuse, said, “Ruby, you are right to be afraid, but I don’t know what Ruby-future is afraid of. She doesn’t even exist.” And she said, "How can she be afraid when she doesn’t exist? How can anything that doesn’t exist be afraid? I’m not afraid,” Ruby-past continued. “I can’t be afraid. I’ve been dead since always.”
Out loud to the gunman, Ruby said, “I believe you.”
The gunman blinked. This time Ruby didn’t look at Margaret, who was busy ushering her customers towards the staff-only door, or Terrence, who was hefting two coffee mugs, one in each hand. She heard the gunman say he’d kill them and she’d know, and said, “I believe you,” and the gunman blinked.
“She left you and she took your kids away,” said Ruby. “And you’re going to make her sorry for what she did.”
“I am,” said the gunman, more softly. “She’s made me into this and she’ll be sorry when she sees what I’ve done. I’m going to kill you all and it’ll all be her fault.” And Ruby shook, and she didn’t look at Margaret or Terrence, or the girl with the black, wavy hair. And the gunman pointed his gun at Ruby, and it shook, and Ruby shook, but she thought of Ruby-past and all the moments she’d endured to lead up to this one, and she wondered if Justin understood that she’d loved him but had turned him away so he could find someone better. After all, she was only a girl who’d studied philosophy, for which she’d never got paid, and who’d wriggled out of her promise like she’d slipped of that red chiffon dress. A girl who couldn’t be relied upon to stand away from the edge of a crossing, and who hadn’t grasped that her promise was at its height on the night she’d worn her hair piled up on her head.
But Ruby-past had said, “I’ve been dead since always,” so when Ruby-future tried to speak Ruby said to her, “Stop. I can only give the only thing I’ve ever had, just this moment,” and Ruby-past said, “I have prepared you. See what I’ve done,” and Margaret ushered the little girl with the dark, wavy hair through that magical portal and into a world which stretched beyond Ruby’s existence, and then Margaret motioned to the man with the newspaper and the young couple, who’d been flirting in the corner. And Terrence crept closer to the gunman, walking quietly, wielding his coffee mugs.
Ruby drank it all in. It was more intoxicating than tea. And she listened as Ruby-past said, “I have prepared you for this,” swelling as she spoke as if she was becoming the biggest thing in the room. And Ruby-past said, “I have been preparing you for this,” and Ruby-future was silent, almost as if she didn’t have a voice left at all. Almost as if she was already the photograph that would next day appear in the papers and on the TV, a sort-of-Ruby in the future staring out with the face of Ruby-past in a red chiffon dress with her hair piled up, shining, in that moment, with glorious promise.
And Ruby looked at the gunman. And Ruby looked at the gun, and the patrons slithered silently towards the magical door and Terrence inched up from behind the gunman and Ruby drank it all in, and then the gunman started to turn. And Ruby thought, he’s going to see them, he’s going to kill them, and Ruby-past said, “This is the moment I have been preparing you for.”
So Ruby lunged. Ruby charged. And she was propelling herself forwards and the gunman was turning back to her and she was throwing herself forwards and she could hear someone shouting and it might have been coming from the staff-only door or it might have been coming from deep within her own self and she could hear it, and perhaps it was both, but she wasn’t quite listening because the gun was swinging towards her and all she knew was Ruby-past roaring, “This is the moment!” and she was hurling herself forwards, and she was flying, and she was Ruby now-
-and she was Ruby Now-
-and she was Ruby.
_________________________________________
QUESTIONS
- how did this piece make you feel?
- any raw feedback on which bits worked/didn't work for you and why?
So the exercise was to play with flash backs, flash forwards and repetition. Any further comments on these aspects welcome, especially as relates to flow/character/setting/emotion.
Ruby Now
Ruby halted carefully at the crossing, because the Ruby-of-times-past had learnt it and the Ruby-of-times-future demanded it. “I don’t want to have to go through life with a bung leg,” said the Ruby-of-times-future, “so just mind you stand back there - that’s it, right away from the edge. Any of those cars could swerve and if you don’t stand far enough back they could clip you and who knows how badly you’d be hurt. We might never recover. I’d blame you for that, you know.”
Ruby did know. She knew, because she was in the habit of blaming Ruby-of-times-past for the failures she dealt with now. “If only you’d studied science instead of philosophy,” she’d say. “That’s something you could have got paid for. You’d have a proper job doing proper things, rather than this dead-end excuse for an existence you have now. You’ve lost your promise, you know. You’ve shed it. Wriggled out of it after your graduation dinner, along with that red chiffon dress.” Sometimes, she’d even think of going so far as to blame Ruby-of-times-past for refusing Justin when he’d proposed to marry, but then she’d stop, because she actually wasn’t sure if that had been a good decision or not.
The green man flicked on, and Ruby stepped onto the street. “Well, hurry up,” said Ruby-future. “Every time you dilly-dally I lose precious moments of my life.” Ruby hurried up. She’d been robbed by Ruby-past through dilly-dallying, too, and she blamed her for that, and besides, the coffee shop lay just across the street and a small part of her - the part that dared not speak, lest the other Rubies shout it down - was craving for the solace of a nice, hot tea.
Tea was everything to Ruby, at least as she drunk it. It was the one time the other Rubies would let her be, and at any rate, she didn’t feel she had much else now that her promise had slipped away. But there was something about those intoxicating vapours and warm, silky tannins she couldn’t resist; something which filled her full enough to shut the whole rest of the world out, which pulled her forward against even her own self. Later, when the nearest piece of Ruby-future had become Ruby-now, she’d call upon the current Ruby-now (then Ruby-past) to explain what on earth she’d been thinking when it came to that tea. “Self-indulgence, and look where it’s got me,” she’d say. “Never again, Ruby. Never again.”
But Ruby didn’t yet foresee any of this, so there was no special ceremony in the way she pushed open the coffee shop door and, being careful not to dilly-dally, let herself scuttle inside.
Inside was quiet. She drank in the quiet as Terrence and Margaret began, unbidden, to prepare her usual order. Terrence grinned at her, gruff and burly, looking as if he should have been shouldering rocket launchers instead of grinding beans, and Margaret waved, looking as if she could do anything she wanted to if the mood so occupied her, only it never, ever would.
To the back was the small table by the staff-only door, the one Ruby liked to sit at so she could watch the other customers come in at the front, and so she could dream of escaping through the back, because the back door seemed somehow rich with magical possibilities which stretched far beyond anything in her existence, although she knew it was just a delivery entrance.
Today Ruby’s favourite table by the staff-only door was occupied by a small girl with dark, wavy hair who was sitting with her mother. The girl was drawing a picture using coloured pencils, and as Ruby watched, she whispered to Ruby-past, “That could have been your daughter, if you’d married Justin,” and she blamed Ruby-past that she didn’t have a daughter with dark, wavy hair. But then Terrence handed Ruby her tea and the Rubies fell silent, so she said nothing further and just took herself and her tea to the little table by the right of the front door.
She sipped her tea. She was still sipping her tea when the man walked through the front door of the coffee shop and paused as if he wasn’t sure he was in the right place. The bell at the top of the door rung and Margaret glanced around and she saw the man enter and pause. Then Margaret looked around the shop at her customers.
Margaret looked at the girl with the dark, wavy hair, holding up a drawing to her mother. Ruby wondered if this was the girl’s first visit to the coffee shop and if so, would she remember it and she thought maybe, people tend to remember their first times, the last ones are trickier, you don’t see them coming. Ruby-past had forgotten so many last times.
Then Margaret looked at the middle-aged man with his paper, and a young couple flirting quietly in the corner. And the man who’d just entered the coffee shop paused by the door as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was, and Margaret looked around the shop at her other customers as if she had a Margaret-of-times-future in her head who could whisper prophetically.
And Ruby thought, people never remember their last. And as Margaret looked, she wondered if the couple in the corner would remember their last kiss, because she couldn’t for the life of her remember the last time she’d kissed Justin. In fact, she hadn’t known it would be the last time until after she’d refused his proposal of marriage, and by then that memory of their last kiss had gone, and it was all Ruby-past’s fault. Where had Ruby’s promise been then? Gone, like the red chiffon dress, and all Ruby-past’s fault. Ruby thought this, and Margaret looked around the coffee shop and the man paused by the door.
A few seconds elapsed. Then with a start, Ruby realised she’d begun to stare at the man, who was still paused oddly near the door, and Ruby-future scolded her (“He might see you staring and then what will he think?!”) so she flustered a little and went to put down her tea but the table by the door was so tiny, and instead she dropped the tea cup and it fell to the floor and smashed. “Clumsy girl!” Ruby-future exclaimed. “Now everyone will look at me! Why on earth did you choose this table?” and Ruby dived to the floor after her tea cup and everyone turned round.
Everyone turned round as Ruby dived and the man who’d been paused near the door whirled in shock, and as he whirled his hand came from his coat and it drew something out.
“Don’t move,” he said. And Ruby thought, he’s got a gun. “I’m going to kill everyone in here,” he shouted, and Ruby-future wailed, “Self-indulgence, and look where it’s got me. Never again, Ruby. Never again,” and everyone had turned round, because Ruby had smashed her cup of tea and dived after it onto the floor. Everyone saw the gunman’s eyes, wild and sweaty, and his shoulders, hunched and tense.
--(second half)
“Stand up,” he said, and Ruby thought hard and she couldn’t remember the taste of her tea, though it suddenly seemed that it might be her last, and slowly she stood with her back to the front door and the rest of the cafe before her, and the gunman was between them and he watched her and pointed the gun.
Ruby watched him watching. She watched him pointing the gun. He’s dilly-dallying, she thought, he’s listening to his past and his future. What are they telling him? she thought. Ruby wondered how much they despised him.
Then the gunman said, “She’s going to pay for what she did to me,” and he was pointing the gun at Ruby, and Ruby-future said, “Speak! Or I’ll never exist at all,” so Ruby opened her mouth to speak, and it was difficult to find anything to say that Ruby-future would surely approve of, but she asked the gunman, “What did she do to you?”
And the gunman cursed and spat and said, “She left me. She took everything. She took my kids.”
And Ruby-future said, “Don’t look at the girl with the dark, wavy hair, whose mother is standing with her near the back of the cafe, the one with her big eyes frightened and her mother’s hand clamped to her mouth to shut in the screams.” But Ruby looked, and the gunman swung around and ordered the rest of the customers onto the back wall.
“Stupid girl!” Ruby berated Ruby-past (if only recently past), but out loud to the gunman in a desperate, wavering voice she said, “I once wore a red chiffon dress to my graduation dinner,” and it was true, if a strange thing to say, but she’d been thinking it, and it was true - she’d had her hair all piled up on her head, and the future had seemed full of promise because she hadn’t yet shed it, nor had it slipped away.
The gunman whipped back to face her. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” he screamed. And Ruby wanted to explain to him about the slippery promises, but her future cried out in horror and she thought, “It’s probably simpler I didn’t marry,” then she thought, “I wish, Ruby-past, I’d at least had the chance to marry,” and, “Perhaps it was best you didn’t marry. If you had, it might have been my little girl whimpering at the back of the cafe with her big eyes frightened and my hand clamped to her mouth to shut in the screams.” And it occurred to her that, though she live a hundred, hundred years, she would never know whether or not it had been a good idea to refuse Justin’ proposal.
But the gunman just pointed the gun at Ruby and said, “I’ll kill you all and she’ll know, she’ll know she made me do it. She’ll know it was all because of her.” And as he said this, Ruby shook because she was afraid, and Ruby-future shook, because she was afraid, but Ruby-past, whose voice was thin and dry, with a whispering frailty borne of perennial disuse, said, “Ruby, you are right to be afraid, but I don’t know what Ruby-future is afraid of. She doesn’t even exist.” And she said, "How can she be afraid when she doesn’t exist? How can anything that doesn’t exist be afraid? I’m not afraid,” Ruby-past continued. “I can’t be afraid. I’ve been dead since always.”
Out loud to the gunman, Ruby said, “I believe you.”
The gunman blinked. This time Ruby didn’t look at Margaret, who was busy ushering her customers towards the staff-only door, or Terrence, who was hefting two coffee mugs, one in each hand. She heard the gunman say he’d kill them and she’d know, and said, “I believe you,” and the gunman blinked.
“She left you and she took your kids away,” said Ruby. “And you’re going to make her sorry for what she did.”
“I am,” said the gunman, more softly. “She’s made me into this and she’ll be sorry when she sees what I’ve done. I’m going to kill you all and it’ll all be her fault.” And Ruby shook, and she didn’t look at Margaret or Terrence, or the girl with the black, wavy hair. And the gunman pointed his gun at Ruby, and it shook, and Ruby shook, but she thought of Ruby-past and all the moments she’d endured to lead up to this one, and she wondered if Justin understood that she’d loved him but had turned him away so he could find someone better. After all, she was only a girl who’d studied philosophy, for which she’d never got paid, and who’d wriggled out of her promise like she’d slipped of that red chiffon dress. A girl who couldn’t be relied upon to stand away from the edge of a crossing, and who hadn’t grasped that her promise was at its height on the night she’d worn her hair piled up on her head.
But Ruby-past had said, “I’ve been dead since always,” so when Ruby-future tried to speak Ruby said to her, “Stop. I can only give the only thing I’ve ever had, just this moment,” and Ruby-past said, “I have prepared you. See what I’ve done,” and Margaret ushered the little girl with the dark, wavy hair through that magical portal and into a world which stretched beyond Ruby’s existence, and then Margaret motioned to the man with the newspaper and the young couple, who’d been flirting in the corner. And Terrence crept closer to the gunman, walking quietly, wielding his coffee mugs.
Ruby drank it all in. It was more intoxicating than tea. And she listened as Ruby-past said, “I have prepared you for this,” swelling as she spoke as if she was becoming the biggest thing in the room. And Ruby-past said, “I have been preparing you for this,” and Ruby-future was silent, almost as if she didn’t have a voice left at all. Almost as if she was already the photograph that would next day appear in the papers and on the TV, a sort-of-Ruby in the future staring out with the face of Ruby-past in a red chiffon dress with her hair piled up, shining, in that moment, with glorious promise.
And Ruby looked at the gunman. And Ruby looked at the gun, and the patrons slithered silently towards the magical door and Terrence inched up from behind the gunman and Ruby drank it all in, and then the gunman started to turn. And Ruby thought, he’s going to see them, he’s going to kill them, and Ruby-past said, “This is the moment I have been preparing you for.”
So Ruby lunged. Ruby charged. And she was propelling herself forwards and the gunman was turning back to her and she was throwing herself forwards and she could hear someone shouting and it might have been coming from the staff-only door or it might have been coming from deep within her own self and she could hear it, and perhaps it was both, but she wasn’t quite listening because the gun was swinging towards her and all she knew was Ruby-past roaring, “This is the moment!” and she was hurling herself forwards, and she was flying, and she was Ruby now-
-and she was Ruby Now-
-and she was Ruby.
_________________________________________
QUESTIONS
- how did this piece make you feel?
- any raw feedback on which bits worked/didn't work for you and why?
So the exercise was to play with flash backs, flash forwards and repetition. Any further comments on these aspects welcome, especially as relates to flow/character/setting/emotion.
