[100 days of 100 words] 33, 34, 35 and 36
Mar. 17th, 2008 08:43 pmI got far enough behind that here are four sets. Each describes a major character in my novel. Ha - working on two things at once.
Her gravity shakes mountains. Unaware, she draws in men and boys alike, inspires bad poetry and bad choices, loves where she dares not and plays where she dares. Even hell seems to reach for her, madness and violence threatening to pluck her from where she stands, on a city street, in a busy office, on a lonely rooftop. To keep her head she uses her tongue, and her words dance a net around her, keeping mischief out, yes, but love, too.
Were she a sun she would whelm her planets in flame. As it is, she hardly knows she shines.
**
He dreams of other realms, other lives, while his body sits at a desk in a bank. Sweet fair-haired boy, hair a little long in rebellion, his one tattoo a sign that he’s a rebel, really he is. In the heart of his leaden body he is a poet, gossamer phrases weaving themselves in his mind but coming out burlap. But he knows about the places where life is stranger, and sweeter, and scarier than his life seems to him.
This woman, for one, makes his poet’s heart make worlds for her. If only she cared more that he exists.
**
This used to be his place. The one place to which he could lay claim. His own. He could wander its halls and passageways, haunt its ill-lit stairwells, ride its clean, silent elevators anywhere he wished. With his universal passkey, he could move among the giants of major corporations, slide invisibly past high-powered attorneys and their well-coiffed secretaries, and prowl the lobby where everyone, from the crawlers of commerce to the soaring eagles, passed through on their way to the things they spent most of their lives doing.
Now he has to sit outside and look at it. Every day.
**
Every day he dons an expensive suit, tailored to his tall and lanky frame, puts on his respectable wire-rimmed glasses and drives his understatedly flashy car to the office. His leather briefcase finishes the story of his life: he is a lawyer, and a damn good one at that. But the woman at the front desk, small and dark but bright, standing out in sharp relief against his reality – she is what ruffles him, what moves him, what trips his silvered tongue. She is half his age and all of his thought.
Two divorces in. Can love possibly save him?
Her gravity shakes mountains. Unaware, she draws in men and boys alike, inspires bad poetry and bad choices, loves where she dares not and plays where she dares. Even hell seems to reach for her, madness and violence threatening to pluck her from where she stands, on a city street, in a busy office, on a lonely rooftop. To keep her head she uses her tongue, and her words dance a net around her, keeping mischief out, yes, but love, too.
Were she a sun she would whelm her planets in flame. As it is, she hardly knows she shines.
**
He dreams of other realms, other lives, while his body sits at a desk in a bank. Sweet fair-haired boy, hair a little long in rebellion, his one tattoo a sign that he’s a rebel, really he is. In the heart of his leaden body he is a poet, gossamer phrases weaving themselves in his mind but coming out burlap. But he knows about the places where life is stranger, and sweeter, and scarier than his life seems to him.
This woman, for one, makes his poet’s heart make worlds for her. If only she cared more that he exists.
**
This used to be his place. The one place to which he could lay claim. His own. He could wander its halls and passageways, haunt its ill-lit stairwells, ride its clean, silent elevators anywhere he wished. With his universal passkey, he could move among the giants of major corporations, slide invisibly past high-powered attorneys and their well-coiffed secretaries, and prowl the lobby where everyone, from the crawlers of commerce to the soaring eagles, passed through on their way to the things they spent most of their lives doing.
Now he has to sit outside and look at it. Every day.
**
Every day he dons an expensive suit, tailored to his tall and lanky frame, puts on his respectable wire-rimmed glasses and drives his understatedly flashy car to the office. His leather briefcase finishes the story of his life: he is a lawyer, and a damn good one at that. But the woman at the front desk, small and dark but bright, standing out in sharp relief against his reality – she is what ruffles him, what moves him, what trips his silvered tongue. She is half his age and all of his thought.
Two divorces in. Can love possibly save him?