We've all been there. After a loooong day of work/adventure/villainy/saving the world/ controlling corporate empires you character gets home and can finally react. Then... "Honey can you take out the trash?"
It's always something. A friend wanting help, work calling them back in, a client requesting a meeting, some mundane task...
But what is it? Who's asking, how does your character react and how do they picture killing the person responsible in their minds? That is the challenge! Go on, give me a short scene!
No, his body didn't actually make any noise, but it felt so, so much like... well, if his muscles had mouths, his entire body would be yelling in protest. Funny, then, how he personally felt so satisfied with the day just passed. Sun down, air now cool, his fur and feathers covered in Khee's Garden. If exhaustion wasn't calling so desperately, a bath would be first-thing. But a short meal... a bit of walnut bread and berry juice, then... foooomph!... collapse into bed, snuggled in the warmth and closeness of his old oak's embrace. His little hole-nest home.
His little slice of... zzzzzzz.......
THUD!
Whatever THAT was, ohhhh, it was loud! Vibrated his tree hard enough to make leaves shiver. To make him startle out of bed, all frazzled of fur, bushy tail a bottle brush of terror, wings flared in panic, teeth... felt like he'd bitten his tongue! And for a rodent, the sensation of doing so wasn't in any way pleasant.
What the...?
Tiffin didn't know who, what, where, why or how, only knew his initial terror/panic suddenly swept away on the wind of his peevishness. Bad enough he'd worked his nuts off, bad enough Amee wasn't here with him, to soothe his aches and pains with her... with...
A shake, a fluff, an angry chitter. Memories of his encounter with Slaver, his own boldness turning such a giant creature into a friend, after first bringing tears. Whoever... whatever!... this THUD needed his attentions. Even if it meant risking his skin in a confrontation with.........
It was a windy night, deep into the morning hours. I stared with eyes wide out the broken pieces of my window shade. The light outside was red with a tint of brown or maybe orange. Dark and foreboding however, as any night should be. I questioned this for some reason beyond the span of my attention as I was dosing into sleep. I thought of the previous week, a day I find myself staring with eyes wide. Though I was staring at a hunk of red sausage, a newly honed knife in my right hand and left hand grasping the opposing end of the sausage. Up to this point I'd been counting, weighing everything out and with a bit of pride I'd lovingly place bits of beefy burnt ends, medallions of sausage and crisp bits of seared pork blocks on each porcelain plate. Two hundred and thirty five pounds of meat, not counting the poultry or the various ribs which rested over my right shoulder under a heat lamp.
My forearms grew tired and legs becoming weak after five hours of straddling the tile floor in greasy boots. My manager called out, before I even turned the very first syllable of his sentence, I knew which one it was. I turned and rammed the knife into his solar plex with an honest to god smile plastered across my face until it almost hurt. I'd wanted to do that for quite sometime. The bickering, the tedious micro management and the god damned spice racks. He recoiled and fell back like a slow-mo playback, his head colliding with the freezer adjacent to an eighteen gallon deep fryer. One arm landed in the grease and like the yelping of an injured dog he slid out of the kitchen in the most fascinating way.
"--you're listening right?"
I'd fallen into a daydream. I'd heard every word among the exquisite images I savored so deeply. They couldn't come to fruition however, to many details, to much of a mess and the moral choice and dilemma I'd be faced with. I nodded and continued chopping, dicing, slicing and ripping my way through the various tender meats. The day wore on and night settled in out of sight beyond the confines of the kitchen. A co-worker waltzed by eagerly looking for something simple to take care of aside from their mandatory tasks. I slipped my foot forward and tripped them, watching as they fell forward and made an Olympic face plant into the hard greasy floor. During their fall they reached out only to find the loose door of a microwave and to have a stack of haphazardly placed platters come crashing down.
"What? What is it?"
I averted my eyes and let them continue on. Bored sated. I mumbled to myself. Then it came, the question I had to hear every damned day.
"Can I get a ride home?"
That damned ride home. Not a major inconvenience but after a year one can only begin to question how you travel around. I turned and grabbed his ears and yanked down, thumbs wrapping around into his nostrils. A few obscenities followed by the flat of a knife slapping against the trachea. I didn't want to, it's out of the way, it's the opposite way damnit. This is the only solution I can muster now and it's brilliant, like enjoying a fine wine before a long period of solitude because you slaughtered your co-workers. Reality popped back in and I replied with a soft "yes" in an instinctual reaction. Damnit. What now in the pond of minor issues, all of which inconsequential. Cant I at least have a real problem to deal with?
This may not be quite what we're looking for. But reminds me of a story from somewhere else...
Daniel had been forced through so much in his adventures. He had lost friends, alienated possible new ones, and had fought creatures most people in New York would gawk at him for claiming they were real. But that was life in Camp Half Blood. He'd need to pick up his sword...again...and again...and again. No matter how many people he fought, and no matter how he did things all life was to him at this point was just one giant steel puzzle. You couldn't break it with your hands but you could bend it and you could mold it. But...at least he was finally in an area where things made some sense and he had others like him whom suffered through endless trials to get to where they were. But no matter how much things were alike they..."Of god damn course..." Daniel noticed the camp's security team was complaining to one of his half brothers and sisters, "Hey Daniel we kinda almost burnt down the stable care to lend a hand little bro?" It WAS always like this and he got no end to it all. He'd failed his quest...he'd barely gotten half his team back ALIVE. He charged through a whole freaking building full of half zombie ghoul things! He had fought Juno's bastard son...and now he was back at camp...and these dumbasses he called his family....always seemed to get things out of hand. As was the fate of all sons of hermes but it didn't change that this was why he always was sitting on the beach and as far away from his cabin as possible.
[BCOLOR=transparent]"Why do you hang around me?" Sean's voice contained anger, but his eyes held pain. He learned to stay in the shadows; everywhere he went he was bullied. Other kids picked on him for being small. He was not necessarily short but he was thin and not as large as others his age. His pale skin also gave the kids a reason to pick on him. Lack of sun had caused him to become a ghost of children. They were the ones that had done it to him, driving him to hide in the darkness. To them he was a thing that could be tossed away, something that was only around for their sick amusement. He was nothing. And now, after what the scientists had done to him, he was less than nothing. "I want to be left alone. Go away." He waited a minute, keeping his anger directed towards the person.[/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]What was wrong with this girl? Couldn't she see he did not like people. People only ever caused pain. This girl always seemed to find him. Not even the dark clothes he wore could hide him well enough. Finally he decided to confront her and she had not listened to his demand to be left in peace, or what little peace this wretched place could give.[/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent] Amoret sat down next to Sean and his muscles tightened. Just leave me alone! He leaned away from her as she spoke. "I like to be around you." Her voice held nothing but kindness. That did not stop him from being suspicious.[/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent] "So you can hurt me later, like all the others?" Sean noticed Amoret flinch at his words but he was not about the apologize. This scenario has happened to him before, and more than once. Someone would befriend him and then later that so called friend would humiliate him. He was told he was worthless, a little prick, that he had no place in this world. Maybe not in their world. His place was in the shadows, hidden from those that would seek to harm him. The shadows were safe, or at least they used to be. He sharply looked away from the girl, turning his gaze in the opposite direction.[/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent] A sad sigh came from Amoret. "I want to be your friend. I don't know what I can do to show you that, but whatever it is I will find it."[/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Sean gave a small huff but his head was swarming with uncertainty. What if Amoret was telling the truth? Maybe she did want to be his friend. His heart told him she was telling the truth, but experience was saying otherwise.[/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent] The grass and leaves rustled as Amoret settled herself down to sleep. It looked like he was stuck with her for the night. He grabbed some moss and rested his head on it. It felt cool against the patch of scales that covered an area on the right side of his face. The warmth was becoming uncomfortable and the moss cooled him down so he was able to fall asleep.[/BCOLOR]
It takes a tole. The ceaseless torrent of dreary, rambling blather. On and on and on. Every day. It was easy at first, a pleasure even. Why, Henry had found himself a most prestigious position, it was an honor to be valet to Duke sir Walter Pemberly. Henry was young, professional and eager to please. The ignorance of youth, then the crushing realization that thrown in your face like a hand full of sand, by the cynicism of old age.
Henry cut the thought off, again, for it was becoming a dangerous and frequent companion. It crept into his dreams like a whisper, stole his attention from his employers hopeless drivel, and assailed him in the brief moments of his solitude. Henry's resentment never reached his perpetually expressionless face, he was too professional for that, instead he'd trapped it within a cage of ice and it had distilled into a burning, bitter contempt.
Henry watched, as still as granite from his place at the rooms corner whilst Sir Walter squinted through the long forgotten letters strewn about his desk. His decrepitude had accelerated frighteningly as of late, and his face now resembled that of an ill tempered walnut with a crooked beak. Pale, long fingers grabbed crabbily amongst the correspondence, picked a letter and threw it aside with a grunt, repeatedly, for a long time, until he glanced briefly in Henry's direction.
"Ahhh, What do we have here?" He croaked teasingly " Looks like you, of all people, have a letter!" His tone stirred a spark of ire within Henry but it was quenched before it reached his face.
"Yes m'lord?" Henry replied coldly.
Sir Walter was already worrying the letter open, and withdrew the single sheet of paper with an insolent expression. His beady, sunken eyes scanned the page and his lips worked silently as he read the print.
"Oh my oh my, Henry, It seems your dear brother has passed!" He said with what sounded suspiciously like derision and mock sympathy. Henry's eyes flew wide and his jaw dropped "But, forgetful me, this was dated two months ago. Most likely the funeral is done, he is long buried and...." Duke sir Walter Pemberly never finished his sentence, for the ornate, hand carved ivory paperweight rendered speech impossible after about the fifth time Henry had struck him with it. An open casket funeral was rendered impossible after the fiftieth time Henry struck him with it.
