With continued efforts working through Chapter 5 of Eric Keller's "Introducing Zbrush", and nothing fully completed to show for it as of yet, I've decided to post an excerpt from one of my books. A couple people have wondered when my writing will surface on my site. By a couple, I mean an exact couple-- as in two. So, to honor the requests of my two inquiries: Here is a sample of my latest novel. It has held at approximately 220 pages since 2002 and has now reached 243 over the years.
I promise to finish it one day. Even if it remains forever unpublished and its just for me. Even if it years from now. I have to promise that to myself, and as this is public, I lend that promise echoing off to whoever reads this blog.
It's one of my favorite works in progress.
Here is a two-three pages sample. Enjoy!
"His sheets smelt like puke. Every breath he took, he could taste it in his mouth. He felt in on his pillow as he moved his hands about it to grope his discomfort. He couldn’t pick his head up to move his pillow to the floor, and couldn’t turn from the smell.
The room was dark, the moonlight too meek to creep itself inside.
Tad had been lying there since he had woken up on Saturday night until the morning, watching the sunrise light his room, his curtains too far away to draw and his music too far of a stretch to play. He had fallen asleep only from his hunger, he had not eaten since he had been in bed, and woke again to the darkness of Sunday to lie. His thoughts were worn out and wasted, and there was enough time laying there to evaluate his entire life, to weigh the choices that he made with the consequences that he endured, many of them that tipped the scale on him, crushed him underneath, and left him overrun with repent.
A glass of water was sitting on his dresser across the room. It had been sitting there since Saturday afternoon, and still held a few sips. Most of it had evaporated over the course of time. Tad was so dehydrated that his lips were chapped and felt foreign to his body, and his mouth couldn’t build any mucous to wash up a better taste on his tongue. He hadn’t exercised his jaw that to lick his lips or swallow hurt. The glass of water was so obsessing, that it did not seem so impossible.
He slid his hand across the bed and gripped a bedpost, pulling himself closer toward the wall. His back was nothing more than a board that kept his body together, and was of no advantage to him, as he used his arms to get him moving and his head to slide himself up the wall to sit. The pressure on his ribs and backbone coiled him, and he gasped the pain back and cringed, as his lungs couldn’t take in the air. He was afraid to move, and didn’t move until he adjusted.
Tad traced his course along the wall, poised himself, the long way. It took almost a minute for him to baby-step over, each step small enough to keep from pulling the strain farther up his back. He wasn’t as thirsty as before, more determined, because it was too late to stop, his head down, eyes closed, concentrated on suppressing the pain, at least as he moved. He tried to view it as therapy, needing to do it, in order to strengthen himself again, and the more he laid in bed, the weaker he would become. He needed to drink the water, and when he finally had, he wished it were bottomless, and drank it so fast that it made him pant.
He could hear nothing except his heart beating, and took slow deep breaths.
His stomach had feasted on itself, and water invaded it like it had washed over a rested vampire, blessed on the way down and garlicky hot as it rushed back up. He hung over his dresser and turned toward the garbage in one movement, spattered the water back out in the same manner that it had entered. Tad gagged air, forced up his sickness over and over again with nothing, and wrapped an arm around his stomach, compressed and empty.
The sweat was hot seeping from his pores, and he needed to cool down. He fell back on the wall, fearful about leaving his bedroom. Tad didn’t even want to turn on the light, afraid to see what he felt. He left his room quiet, not able to stand the smell of himself, with a change of clothes, and headed toward the bathroom.
The hallway was dark.
An entourage of boisterous voices and following laughter were clear from downstairs, some familiar and others unrecognizable, all obscene and unsheltered at once.
The door to the bathroom subdued the sound, and suddenly everything seemed too peaceful. There was something besides showering that had driven Tad inside. It was the nicest most restored room of the house, even the black tiles shined with untouched luster. There were no windows, and the color of the bathroom, mostly blacks and plums, made it dark inside, the dim lights overhead the bathroom sink, only added to produce enough light to see.
There was one mirror in the bathroom, the medicine cabinet, above the sink. He couldn’t see it from the doorway and avoided as he undressed. He took his time and was gentle. Everything was aching, and he couldn’t even bend down to pick up his own clothes to put in the hamper.
He needed to brush his teeth. They were thick and soft with layers of residue. The toothbrush was in the cabinet, and the mirror was unavoidable.
His face looked better than he had imagined. It usually worked like that with Viller, a deep cut that trimmed the middle of his nose and the depression his under left eye, sacked red, with a small vessel burst inside. It wasn’t swollen enough to not be able to see only to blur his vision the few times he blinked. He wished he were blind, blinking had only delayed the sight that stared back at him. It would take a day before bruise turned and the cuts to scar over, and a few days for them to go away.
Tad reached to open the cabinet, and saw another blotch on the back of his arm. His back was covered with large dark patches that spread into one another like a disease, the welts tender, lifted the smoothness of his skin. He couldn’t twist his neck to see them all, as they ran down his back and in places on the backs of his legs.
He couldn’t remember much of the night, though had a reminder every time he moved. It was his punishment. Tad turned away from the mirror with a bottle of painkillers in his hand.
He didn’t need to pour as many tablets into his mouth, as he had, maybe one or two. The bottle had a hundred white, round pills. Maybe he could forget entirely. He didn’t need to feel anything for he felt enough, even if he couldn’t remember.
A mouthful of pills filled his mouth. He gagged at their taste.
He was being stupid, and irrational, and didn’t want to be hospitalized, again, even if he did want to die. It wasn’t easy, as he wished. The only thing easy was the concept, all he needed to do was swallow and then let himself die, and instead he gagged. Most of them went into the toilet bowl, a few ingested, too far back to choke up.
It would have worked faster if he had snorted it.
An hour later, after showering, he couldn’t manage to properly put his change of clothes on without concentrating. It was no longer that he felt injured, because he didn’t feel anything at all, his body didn’t even feel like it had bones in it anymore. His reach for the door handle seemed to take long hours, and he became confused which way he had to turn it to open.
Downstairs, the voices were still loud, now distorted and slow, and the change of atmosphere made his ears ring. He held his head, and grabbed hold of the railing, blind in the dark, as he made lethargic steps to the first floor. When he got there, he didn’t know why he was there. He didn’t even know he was in his own house.
He needed food. That was why he was down there. Two steps away from him was the kitchen, he didn’t think he was going to make it, and had the impulse to just lie down on the floor. He was suddenly really tired, his body felt too weak to carry him. He was breathing so shallowly, he thought he had forgotten to breathe and sucked in some extra air. He couldn’t keep his balance, too sluggish to hold onto the wall, and trudged over to the refrigerator.
There was beer that filled most of two shelves, containers of leftovers that looked like mush, and dried up pizza on paper plates, and a carton of eggs. The only thing in the refrigerator that looked edible was the tray of uncooked meat, and Tad knew that it wasn’t his to eat, even if he had the skill to cook. He closed the refrigerator, and opened the freezer. Nothing would have been simpler than ice cream.
It was freezer burn vanilla ice cream, solid as a rock as he dug in the spoon. He almost passed out in the working, and put it in the microwave with a bowl ready to pour it in. He sat down at the kitchen table, looked at it, and felt like throwing up.
His brother was sitting there with his arm around a lady in her late twenties named Angel, a pretty blonde with overdone dark makeup, too much skin, and barely any clothing. She seemed humored at his aggravation, as Tad took no note of him.
The spoon in Tad’s hand shook and his thumb began to twitch.
“What’s the matter with you?”
He heard his a voice echoing in his mind, too deep and measured to be anything human. Tad was nodding off, though he couldn’t have been tired. He spoon felt limp in his hand, as he lost control of its reflexes, the spasms trembling up his arm.
“Hey!” Viller grabbed his wrist.
“Is he alright?” Angel asked, standing nervously. Her voice light and pitched high with a heavy New York accent. “What’s a matter with him?”
Tad followed the hand up to the face.
His pupils were pinpoints under his hat, and his face bloodless. It was obvious if he was thinking anything, and could have passed for the dead. There was barely any pulse on his wrist.
“What are you on?” Viller growled low.
“He’s scaring me, Viller.” Angel crept next to him, and set her hands on his shoulders with a massage and kissed at his neck.
“I’m fine.” Tad’s speech was slurred, barely comprehendible. He began to eat his ice cream. “I’m hungry.”
“What did you take?” Viller pushed Angel off of him, and rose.
“My back hurt.” Tad felt nauseous, and ate slower. “I took some Tylenol.”
“You throw up again, we’re going to have problems. You understand me?” Angel rapped her arms of Viller, and nestled herself up against him, her hands drifted up his shirt. “You better clean you’re mess up.” When her turned his attention back to the lady, he trapped her up against the wall wild with a kiss.
Tad couldn’t finish the whole bowl. His stomach had shrunk to the size of a prune, and he found he couldn’t even force it down. He didn’t want to get sick, so he left it there, and decided he needed to find someplace to lie down before it happened. He got to his feet to fast, and tried to catch his self on the chair before he fell. He took the chair down with him. He needed to sleep, at least close his eyes.
Viller hauled him to his feet. “You little shit! How much did you take? What the hell did you take? Mother—” He dragged Tad back up the stairs and threw him to the floor in his room, crouching down close. “Go ahead, kill yourself. You think I care? I want to see you kill yourself. I don’t want to see you get up again.”
Tad spent the night on the floor, and days getting over the effects."
I hope that you enjoyed the excerpt. If you'd like to read some more samples of my work, please feel free to send my an email through my website @ www.lisamarie.biz. I have a contact form under my INFO section.
As far as completion of chapter 5, I will most likely have something to post by the end of the my workday. The hiccups in my schedule with the airlines sometimes keeps my inconsistent sometimes, but my job is my job. If I have time, I'm even hoping to add additional touches onto the finalized project to make it my own. I guess if it should take me longer than planned, that would be why.
I might at well try to make it portfolio worthy while I have the downtime.
So, please keep patient with me, keep that bookmark active and thanks again for taking the time to read. I appreciate it very much.
