Fiction

I realized, after a half dozen desperate short story beginnings, that I would enjoy writing novels. I can't seem to characterize the way that I want to in just seven pages. I like creating :) Anywho, here is the beginning of a short story meant to focus on setting. It is one exercise that we began in class and had to finish at home. Don't know where I'm going to go with it...but I'll let the characters take me where they will! :)


Being Thrown In

The basement where the concerts are held is dark save the dusty red stage lighting that illuminates several mohawks, a drum set, and an electric guitar. The air is musty and damp with heat, and perspiring bodies wipe sweat onto their black loose t-shirts and plaid pants. Legs and arms flail and collide in the mosh pit, while a few muffled grunts and whelps of pain indicate a bruise or a black eye or a nosebleed or a twisted joint. Hardly-worn fruity perfume mixes with hair gel and humidity. Piercings gleam in the darkness while biting, wailing chords screech and cut through bodies packed like ants on a dropped breadcrumb. The music doesn’t matter, as its pulsating beat is simply a rhythm, a backdrop for the buildup of an orchestra of anger that has surfaced in the pit. Everywhere is black—hair and torn-down streamers and flimsy old chairs and clothes and eyeliner. In the corner, though, a girl with a yellow shirt stands alone gazing at the mosh pit with a mixture of fright and yearning.

Kira stands as far away from the pit as she can get. She doesn’t want to be here (maybe), and she straightens her long, flowered skirt as the drum solo ricochets off the walls and threatens a minor earthquake. It’s dark enough that no one will see her if she edges out of the room. Ryker and Alex are in the mosh, anyway, and they will probably be nursing bloody noses before they realize she’s gone. Problem is, she has no way to get home since she’s seventeen and let her permit expire; that means she has to wait another six months before driving on her own even becomes a possibility.

Kira abandons her corner and sidesteps until she reaches two decrepit door handles twisted and stuck at awkward angles. She pushes slightly and a crack of light appears, like Heaven (or the light at the end of the tunnel, she thinks, since I’m not religious). Footsteps clink on the tiled floor and Kira walks quickly but with composure (in case somebody sees her) into the nearest room, which happens to be a custodial closet. She closes the door behind her and turns on a small overhead light. She forgot this was once a school building, called Washington High or something generic like that. Kira slumps on an overturned bucket and tenderly touches her head because the drumbeats are still ear-splitting.

Why did she even come here? To prove something? Ryker is the kind of guy who has to initiate his female interests, and since he frequents the Underground basement music scene, this is where “initiation” takes place. If a girl joins the mosh pit, she is deemed worthy of his love. And he’s just so cute that it was hard not to agree to come, despite the fact that Kira is terrified of dark places and loud music and big groups and especially physical contact. He told her he’d take care of her, but once the music started and he saw that she wasn’t going anywhere near the pit he kind of left her alone. Alex, Ryker’s best friend, didn’t seem to approve of Kira anyway once he saw that she wasn’t wearing a scrap of black. She doesn’t like black. Why is she attracted to the brooding punk-rockers who seem to think that black is sacred and should make up at least one-fourth of every outfit? Oh yeah, Ryker is a brooding punk-rocker, and he’s attractive. She wanted to join him in the mosh pit, she really did, but to go in may have had severe physical consequences.

Sitting in the custodial closet is strangely comforting. Apart from the smell of several unknown cleaning solutions, it is actually pleasant. Kira stands up from her overturned bucket throne and opens the door a crack. The music has dulled dramatically in the few minutes since she’s been out here, and Kira wonders if perhaps the concert is over. The hallway is still empty, so unless a mass exodus has occurred and she didn’t hear the trampling of heels and platforms and boots past her refuge, Kira doubts anybody has left the building yet. She might be able to make it back to her original position in the corner with Ryker being none the wiser. She might even be able to say that she stood on the fringe of the mosh pit for a few minutes and he might take her in his arms and profess his certainty that he knows she is the one, she made it, she passed the test, she is worthy of his pouting, full lips and those teeth that flash like cameras. Her heels clink once again across the tiled floor as she prepares to return to the blackness of the Underground, to Ryker, and to (hopefully) an impassioned love confession.
TO BE CONTINUED………