Sickness

Sickness
by Nick Murray

The sickness had left her emaciated. Before, she had been made plump and ruddy by the joys of life. Always out feeling the sunshine trickle through orchard leaves. Very quickly she became a sagging mass of skin and sores. The energy had left her bones and on its way, took the fullness of her body with it.

It took some time for her skin to shrink away. Rolls became folds became wrinkles. Then, as she lay motionless in her bed, skin became paper. It stretched taut over her brittle form, threatening to split and expose treacle slow blood to her greying sheets. A dark flaking blotch showed that that very meeting had occurred once before. A storm of anger, the kind of emotional outburst she could rarely draw up the energy to execute, made her fling her limbs out in all directions. The rebellion against her immobility was enough to open a gash on her side. The little blood that oozed out did so unhurriedly. Through the fog of pain, she watched it crawl down the gutters of her ribcage. It took all of twenty three minutes for enough to reach the bedsheet without drying on the way. The crust that formed, unevenly bisecting her torso, itched incessantly and the power required to command her arm was long gone. She tried to roll to one side, to press the irritation into the mattress. The first feeble movement pulled the wound open and thrust a cold sliver of fear through her spine. She was reduced to dry, hacking sobs.

Occasionally her mind would slip into fevered hallucinations. At first these were terrifying. Images of high school bullies as demons, fire scuttling across the walls. She beat her head on the dull brass of the bed frame to try to expel the visions. The one feeble tap she managed before sinking back down was a hollow effort.

Soon, the fight gone from her body, she just watched. The visions became the only variation in her claustrophobic world. She would watch the flames lick the corner of the duvet. She watched them spread, engulfing first her feet, then her legs, then her body. It was with mild curiosity that she wondered just how she knew what burning skin looked like, all blistered and peeling. She had never real, all-consuming, fire before the sickness, so how her mind could recreate it was a mystery.

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Image: Caryatid after Modigliani
2011, Block Print
Nick Murray

A little late night lino

I tried my hand at block printing tonight. I haven't used a lino cutter since I was about 13 so it's been a while, but it's just like riding a bike. (painful when you get it wrong.)

This print was inspired by the poem Cats by Marylyn Plessner.

A Short Story for Annexe Magazine

A piece of my writing is now up on the Annexe site.
It's (somewhat hastily) called What Does National Geographic Know Anyway.
Have a gander here

Congratulations, it's a beautiful baby... blog...

Today is a proud day for humanity (and apparently also for hyperbole).
The Annexe Magazine blog has been officially launched in all its glitzy glory.
At the moment, it's basically a testing ground for the curatorial skills of a couple of chums and myself. It is the sandbox from which a real life print magazine will emerge.
So, without further ado, head over to Annexe Magazine and check it out!

Any comments about the venture will be greatly appreciated (or, if they're mean, they'll be stored away and grumbled over at a later date). Also, if you feel like contributing, please do send us a message. Details over on the Annexe page.

A Catalogue of the Recently Uncovered 'Altered Narrative Pertaining to the Presumed-Chronological Part Fiction of J. Alan Eaves'

A loose leaf folio of documents seemingly describing the adult life of J. Alan Eaves (1894-1957) has been found in the basement archive of a private library in London, UK.
As each page is examined and documented, they will be displayed here to provide a public catalogue of the work and hopefully to shed some light on the previously enigmatical Eaves.



The first page to be analysed is this dedication. Strangely, it does not appear as the first page in the folio. Instead it appears almost halfway in, grouped amongst a set of more pointed pages; perhaps directed at the 'friend' in question. This has led to theories that the folio is in fact a set of letters for certain people connected to J. Alan Eaves. Though this hypothesis cannot be proved until further work is done, it seems a logical route to follow in the current investigation.

Catalogue Code: ANJAE-P6-D2

"A library book, I imagine, is a happy book."

Ah, how wonderful a little free time is for a mind that tends to wander.
Today I made my personal library just that little more library-like with this rather nifty insert.
A little rubber stampwork up at the top and the rest of the text made by my lovely typewriter. (Still one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.) By the by, watch out for the logo up at the top. It's set to pop up quite a bit in the near future.



Now, for a bit more fun, I will send a prize to anyone who can tell me what the name of the book currently modelling my library insert is. And that's a promise!
(of course, i've got rid of the title, but the clue is in the blurb text.)


p.s. - The quote in the title is by the extremely talented Cornelia Funke.

Perhaps...

They came through the storm...

Spectres

I have very little to say about this snippet.

More Flash(y) Fiction: A story about the ocean

Here's another little story for your viewing pleasure.
When typing it, it came out structured very much like a poem. Maybe it is a poem. Maybe not.
I'm not quite sure. If you know any more than I do, please share. Answers on a postcard and all that. (Is that an outdated pop culture reference now?)

This one is about every tiny coastal hamlet you've ever been to. They exist so far from the cities that they manage to keep their myths and legends. Fairies and sprites still exist and they're not the kindly, gossamer clad helpers from the cartoons. They're dark creatures with their own agendas and desires.



It also exists over here if that's easier for you to handle.

The flashiest of the fiction

A lot of my writing is too short to put forward for anything other than it's own collection of tiny writing. Given that, I still love it all dearly (well most of it, there's always the few that turn rogue) and so, in the spirit of sharing, I will post up the miscellaneous tendrils of my writing here. It's like the creative jetsam from the sailboat of my novelist's journey.

This first one's an oldie but a goodie. And yes, it's written on a typewriter. The machine in question was a gift from someone very special to me. Since I got it I've been having a whale of a time takking* away at the keys. So you can be sure that plenty of stuff that pops up here will have been written on that.

*((takking: to takk; takk takk takk: the sound of me bashing away at the keys of an Olivetti typewriter.. Alternatively: takka takka takk))

Not-Action Sounds? Huh? They're Not Action Sounds?

As my first proper post it seems apt to mention the title of this whole endeavour. (If by the time you get here the title has change then silly you for being so late.)

I am an avid comic and graphic novel reader and I've always found the action sounds in comics to be hilarious. (For examples of action sounds, think Batman punching some deserving crook and a large 'POW!' flashing out from his rightous right hook.)
As a chronic doodler, I sometimes come out with my own action sounds and generally try to make words that could never be actual action sounds. simple pleasures.



If/when I feel I have enough of these I might give them their own separate blog to call home. Until then, you can enjoy them as they pop up irregularly here.

Resurrection Blues II: The Reckoning

Here we are in 2011, and here I am taking one more stab at the blogging.
This time i'm hopeful.