Three People

If you want a writing exercise, do another "I remember" and introduce another character - someone else who was there. Let the story grow to take in the other person's story arc, even if you launch into totally imaginary directions.Or, pick up the photograph recall exercise we tried. Now set up the same scene but tell it from the point of view of the person who took the photograph. Was there someone who WASN'T in the photograph? where were they? why were they missing? What was going on for them? Set it up with all the concrete details necessary to anchor it in place




Just like an angel, her skin makes me cry, she is so soft. I adore her. Although I don’t know why she won’t open up and talk to me. I do not know what is going on in her life. She cries herself to sleep, I was with her once, she laid her head on my shoulder and whimpered to herself. Not speaking at all. I just held her in my arms. I made her feel comfortable, for once in her life. After awhile, she stood up and walked off, into the distance. I wish that she could open up to me, like she does to her friends. She laughs with them, her beautiful smile is framed by her free flowing hair, and it is a light shade of bronze with a slight wave to it. She’s perfect when she is with them, I’m not sure if it is her way of dealing with it, by hiding it behind a sheet of glass, protecting herself? But one day, someone is going to throw a brick through it, and the glass is going to shatter into a million pieces. I want to be the one that is there to pick up the broken pieces and help put herself back together. No matter what, she needs to know that I am going to be there for her, I’m never going to leave, because she is my angel, which has fallen from heaven.

My boy, has become obsessed with this schizophrenic, she comes around to his granny flat, and sit there. Not talking. Not moving. Sitting watching the sun go down. It is appalling. She constantly cries. What am I going to do with my boy? He is all that I have got, since his father died. I depend on him, whether or not I want to admit or not, but I am. She sucks the life out of him. I cannot have a decent conversation with him, without her name being brought up within 25 seconds. He thinks that he is in love with her. But he cannot be! How is this possible? She is nothing like his biological mother. She sees, hears and thinks strange things, things that do not exist. I mean my life is screwed up as it is; we do not need this tag along to ruin it even more. She has no job. No money. No life. This is not the life that I want him to lead, a life of a no hoper. He has everything in front of him, university, jobs, marriage and life! I will not let him throw that all down the drain.

I really shouldn’t have anything to do with it, but I cannot help but to overhear the conversations that go on beside me. I in fact live between two families, on either side of my house. Both of the neighbours have two teenagers which are in love with other. It is beautiful love. They forever look into each other’s eyes; they can see the world throughout. They both come from a broken past. The girl’s father left them when she was 6. It devastated her mother clearly. She used to stand at the bottom of the driveway, shouting obscenities at each male driver that went past. The girl ran away a few times, each time the police found her and brought her back. It is said among the neighbours, that the mother sleeps with one of the police, but one cannot be sure.
On the other side of my fence is the boy, his father and sometimes the father’s many male partners. The boy finished school last year and works part time at the local supermarket. Most of the locals do their weekly shopping there, which is a bad, as many of the locals throw rotten eggs at him, or over ripe tomatoes. They do not like that his dad is a homosexual. You would think that it wouldn’t matter; I mean it is the 21st century. Women have equal rights, Aboriginals can vote, so why is homosexuality not acceptable? I don’t know, but it is slightly sad. The father lives off Centrelink, they both live off what the boy makes at the supermarket. I assume that it is barely anything.
I go through their rubbish sometimes, finding many empty cans of baked beans and spaghetti. And of course many used condoms, which is somewhat of a surprise. They spend more money on protection rather than food? Interesting!
The boy and the girl find solstice within each other, they escape their own horrible lives to accept and be with each other, although I do not know how ling it is going to last. I’d personally only give it another few months, as the boy is going to university in another state sometime next year. She has been having other males in her bedroom, tying them up to her bed, blindfolding them and having her way with them. She has never done that to the boy. I think that I have never seen them in her room. The boy doesn’t know about the other men. He wouldn’t keep seeing her if he knew.