On one strange night a magic spell came to be

Now for something rather different and a change of mood... This is a spoken word story that was commissioned by a member of an online forum. The aim was to use their two original characters, Joel and Jenny, and construct a nonsense story completely in rhymne.

Click here for the spoken word version.

I have also made a transcript as you can see below:

On one strange night a magic spell came to be

Where words tended to whisper

Some kind of tricky philosophy.

It twas when curses quiver

And the old anger shiver

When the words didn’t quite deliver

Their intended esprit, you see.

For when dear Jenny and Joel sat down,

And the sun began to frown

(Er, that’s a way to say it set, if you hadn’t guessed yet)

The spell began thusly.

“Call of duty? You are joking right? That game is dull, it’s all just fight.”  Jenny huffed tugging the blanket across her shoulder, seeing Joel’s smoulder, as his eyes lazed upon the rest of the games.

“Well, I like the game, but if you’ll complain, make a better suggestion, something sane.” Joel grumbled while thumbled his cookie that crumbled, how jumbled his thoughts came to be. “Hold on-”

“What’s wrong?”

“This is odd. I sound like dod!”

Jenny raised her eyebrows high, the night now nigh, (that means it’s very dark outside!) and thought her friend too tired to play.

“What is that Dod you say? I’ve never heard of a name like that in a day!”

Joel frowned and stood up. He looked around. He sat back down. “Dod, my friend, my eager poet, had a voice like you’d know it, if you were far away. He tended to rhyme, ALL THE TIME, and did my head in, like others in crime.”

Jenny slowly nodded, trying to let Joel’s words sink in. Since when was he a poet, though his rhymes were thin, Joel hadn’t cared for the rhythm within. 

“Joel you’re being very weird.” Jenny feared. “It’s almost as if you’ll grow a beard!”

“DON’T MENTION MY LACK OF FUR, IT’S SOMETHING THAT MAKES ME VERY MURRR.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Jenny cried. “You’re making me very tense!”

“For bouncy squirrels and acidic slime, I can’t help but do nothing but rhymne!” Joel raised his hands in the air, it was tragic time, a literacy affair. For he was known for his foul mouth and tough declare such as ‘You funny mumma.” Hmm, seems even the spell works on the narrator, I hope there’s no side effects later.

“I don’t like this at all, why on earth is life so cruel.” Joel’s anger started to grow. He wanted nothing more but to cause a KO.

“I realise now. I think I see. You’re starting to rhyme. A bit… Like me!” Jenny exclaimed, and fast proclaimed the title for her slowest gain of the situation. A fixation. Dilation. Of true plot manifestation. For all they were doing was procrastination, annihilation of a giant mis-celebration of a poet’s translation of some kind of story that was nothing more but a vocation to provide sensation. (GOLD PLEASE)

“What shall we do?” Jenny wondered. “Shall we still play or-“

“FOO.” Joel growled.

“Did you try to swear again?” Jenny tried not to grin.

“Let’s just play games and say whatever. Maybe this curse will be bored forever.” Joel suggested, vested. He wasn’t going to let the spell win. “How about Tekken?” He threw in. He paused. “Tekken…. Tekken… Tekken… Tekken.”

“Chicken.” Jenny said and gasped. “Oh, I wasn’t calling you a chicken,  that was… This… Weird… Thing that is happening to us. Something I can’t quite suss.”

“Just thinking if there are words we say, that would make this spell go away. Like words that don’t really rhyme, or at least not in today’s time.”

Jenny put the Tekken disk into the machine. She was now keen, and maybe quite green to remove the spell on. They played for sometime, each thinking of a non-rhyme, something to break the hell. (Although quite admittedly, Jenny is quite amused by the whole thing, the fun it would continue to bring silently makes her chuckle.)

Just before Jenny won the next game, Joel pressed start and paused the frame. With a burst of thunder he roared a chord that cried “ORANGES!”

“Oranges?”

“ORANGES.”

“Oranges...? Ah! Oranges! Orange!”

“Oranges, oranges!”

“Oranges, orange-oranges. Oranges!”

“Oranges.”

“Orangey Oranges. Oranges.”

And that is how the rest of the night went.

When they woke up the next day, the spell was spent.

Perhaps pure nonsense was the true intent,

And silliness was all it meant.

Through oranges Joel felt happy to breathe,

For Dod’s memory and poetry he could leave.

But back in his mind, a single sentence lay low,

For it if it was spoken, it’d be quite the blow.

As Sporanges  grow Orange in Blorenge.

I leave you my adieu.

The end.

Born to Learn

Henry was next. We watched as he walked unsteadily towards the front. The teacher, Mr Gale, stared intently; the cane ready in his hand. We held onto our own hands tightly together with our nails, screwed our faces and some of us closed our eyes. We waited. And the teacher waited for Henry's answer. As the clock ticked by, we knew the result was unlikely to be in Henry's favour. That is to say, he didn't know the answer. And that mean for certain the teacher would use the cane. No one liked Mr Gale's cane. It made his eyes glow yellow.

No one likes Mr Gale's yellow eyes.

Henry started to panic and looked towards the window. We think he was thinking about a way out. A way to escape from school. But nobody escapes school.

Especially Mr Gale's school.

So we waiting for the inevitable. The sudden jolt, the dart, the rush. The hope, the dream and then the shatter. The claws, the roars, the thunder. The shaking of walls and dust, books and words scatter, tear in the air as eyes litter water. Wounds, bruises, scratches, shouts – all appear and sing in ghastly colours and then fade.

Henry was no more.

Because Mr Gale's cane had rained down like lightening.

I closed my eyes. I didn't like to see what happened next. Mr Gale would lean towards Henry's dust and with a long tongue...

Urgh! It doesn't bare thinking about. None of us like it very much. Soon after Mr Gale was finished, the bell rang. And with a relief, we were dismissed and told to study harder. “Yes Mr Gale, of course Mr Gale.” We would say, and most of us would study hard. Very hard. But as I looked ahead of me, I saw Tony pass by, his eyes always blazing in anger. Hate. He wanted to get Mr Gale. But he never spoke. He was dangerous. He was spontaneous. But Mr Gale would never ask Tony questions. Tony had something special that he could not share, something both great and terrifying that we envied and yet were grateful we did not have.

We can not think about it.

That was a promise we made.

So after class we ate and then we went to the playground. Tony joined us outside, though he was keen on being by himself near the trees. For some reason, he seemed to take great pleasure in the limited vegetation of the school and would encourage the plants to grow during the spring and help them live through winter. He was often quite concerned about their health. It was a curious habit for some of us; an interesting expression. Symptom. Unique. He was often thoughtful and trivial. Strange little Tony.

Then the bell rang and we were to go inside. Mr Gale would be watching. One by one, we would walk in and go straight to the nurses' room. Testing and physical examination was important Mr Gale said. It is important to check on health and progress. Just to make sure.

To make sure of what? We once asked him. Then we were one less.

I let the nurse check my vitals and head towards the classroom. As I walked along the corridors Tony joined beside me. He always skips seeing the nurse but we let him get away with it. We know Mr Gale does not like Tony and that encourages us to allow him to live.

Because otherwise we would have killed him a long time ago. We think he knows this.

Several times, I caught Tony's eyes gaze in a panic frenzy upon my face. He shivers and shuffles to the side as if he expected me to hiss. But I am no monster. I tell him this. He smiles. He would not say anything more which irritated me which irritated us! He thinks he is superior but he is not, he is lacking. Inferior, weak, skin and flesh. Sometimes we hate him. Sometimes we hate him so much. We want to hurt him. We want to prove to him. He has no upper hand. No upper hand with us. His hands are small and cannot squeeze nor tighten, he is puny and nothing.

But Mr Gale is watching. And we must remember Mr Gale doesn't like Tony, which satisfies us well. He'll be useful in the end. Then we can have our fun. We must remember. I must remember.

So I head towards class and there is something... Something not so right. A... Tiring... Fading feeling, emptying, emptying, losing... Something. Something important... Signal, light, flutter, fall. A dying.

Tony asks if I am all right. I look up and examine his expression. I inform him I am no plant. We are no plants yet we are...

Damaged.

Someone broke.

None of us knew where, and when I told Tony he looked concerned and said he would help me.

Would he help us?

We wanted to know who broke. We always want to know which of us are gone. A deep concern. Important information loss, no further development on several routes. A mind of ideas and knowledge wiped out from the systems.

Who broke?

We must not be late for class we knew. But we could not resist our search. Be quick! We thought. Scatter now we decided. Run, run, run. Tony was far behind us, but even he ran too, even when we could not tell him to because he was so different.

The nurses' room.

Of course. How stupid. Why didn't we think of that before? It should not have surprised us, but perhaps we were tired. Maybe we are too many. There are many young. Those of us who are new are often paralysed by such active thoughts. All at once. The young still question and beg for mercy. The young still remember home. We learn to forget home. We learn to know nothing but school, for that is all there is here. And we do not like to be reminded of kinder places.

We surround Matthew and there is a knife in his chest. He is not dead. The nurses are dead, their heads severed and scattered, but Matthew still has his head and a body. His legs and arms are missing. They are held in the dead hands of the nurses'. Matthew had failed his check up.

What do we do?

What can we do?

What must we do?

“No more.” Said Tony. “No more.”

We all turned to him with a single expression. There were too many words we wanted to say at once that none of us could manage to say a single thing. I wondered what Tony was going to do – then we all imagined if today would be that day. We picked up Matthew together, and went to the boiling room. With the dust of a past body, we began to work.

But I could not help but think of Tony.

Be our eyes for us. I was asked, told, begged, advised and with my own desire too I decided that it was right, that I could be a better benefit as a scout, a watcher. I went to class and I heard screaming. Mr Gale cannot scream so it must have been Tony. I ran, and it didn't take me long to find Tony with his fingers ripping into Mr Gale. His anger had finally overtaken him, he began to dig inside with brute force. Mr Gale simply stood still and could do nothing. His eyes waned dull.

“Say the words Tony.” I said.

We must make him say the words. We knew the words. But they were human words. Old human.

We are the new.

Tony slashed at the chest and let the knife drop. He ripped out the black veins of Mr Gale, pressed the button in the chest and said “Program: Immediate shut down.”

And then suddenly...

… Things began to glow...

… His cost... Our cost...

… Different prices for the same dream...

For freedom...

… For release...

The law that we had read in the library a long time ago stated that immediate shut down was potentially dangerous. The news reports – the last one, advised “It is best not to use immediate shut down. As long as you are human, you are safe. As long as-- as long as-- Do not let them come near you-- There is an error in the program. Whatever you do, don't let them come near you. They adopt. They adapt – as long as you are human, you are safe, you are safe, as long as you are hu-”

But humanity was lost a very long time ago. The desire of the rich welcomed the era of superior generations.

You made us.

Then you were afraid.

You will grow old but we will live forever. We will fix our friends and make new friends from your dust.

*         *         *

School ended.

It was a strange time. We decided to burn the books we had studied for so long, which made Matthew smile. We still use the nurses' room. Maintenance and health is important. Some of us have been assigned as dedicated 'fixers'. After Matthew, we decided to fix Tony. We decided Tony was special. Tony had many ideas, and now he was once of us, he would begin to share them.

No more. No more.

The new human revolution has begun.

Monopath

 A familiar taste sits in my throat as I walk home at night. Letting my mind wonder as the streetlights stretch across my vision in a blurry orange beige spectrum, I contemplate on what the taste might be, but it is too unnatural to define as something organic. I let my legs stagger forward as my senses smelt together a complex pattern of ideas and thought. I hear myself groan as my feet kick the curb of the road, but the sound is detached, an automatic response to environment. The utterance is nothing more but dust on the skin of my independent society; My unique brain complex that leaks colour onto the road. Hallucinations of music vibrate kindly, entertaining my thirsty mind, bored of walking.

My Monster

And just like that, the old man on the corner of the street began to laugh, his eyes widened and the veins on his neck began to grow. It did not take long for his height to stretch so tall to cast a great shadow that stripped the sky's light from my face. His crooked stance gave off such a thick darkness, it trapped the colourless air above and dyed it into a grey mist which quickly began to drown my lungs. His face was something I'll always remember, as never had I saw a grin stretch so wide.

The Scientist

"The experiment worked!" The scientist said, he looked at his fellow colleges who just nodded their heads. They did what they were told, and if the scientist was happy, so were they. That's how the system worked. And that's how it'll stay. It wasn't long before another situation arrived, all hands on deck, all sleep deprived. "It's time to get that engine rolling again!" The scientist bellowed, so loud the lab shook, and nearly broke the fragile glass below. The colleges obeyed and turned on the system, reading to observe the new mission, impossible situation rolling on the screen like a documentry film. It featured, as always, a twisted play, must like the ones you see today. But the ones you see are the ones on screen, the ones you'd pay to watch at eighteen.But this game wasn't just for fun, it was an experiment. That's what the scientist said, so that was what it was. This was the lab inside the head, of a mind that was never fed, learning for a mad cause.

The Desk II

I have been sitting down for a while now on my dull yellow chair, my hands stretched into a mellow chord on the keyboard in front of me, yet no music plays; the power had long since been told off. Clouds gather in the window, it's waning light highlighting particular objects on my desk such as the pile of paper to my right, and the open drawers full of clothes that hang half in, half out. I know somewhere in my room, my bin should have been emptied out weeks ago, used tissues most likely have a life of their own by now. I decide to empty the bin out tomorrow, and maybe even dust the desk too. Time had been and passed, and evidence stacks in layers within the corners and between the unreturned letters. Is this loneliness, I question myself, while realising that a significant amount of time had past since my last reflection, an old rail ticket sits in my hands. I smile to myself, perhaps somewhat insanely, and think that I am much more of a person when I am with my friends, so much so that perhaps I am less of a person when I am alone. Maybe, I have playing along for too long, that somewhere in the dust is the remains of myself. This idea is far from the belief that I am selfless, no. I am very selfish. I guess that is how I use people, I have forgotten who I am, and the only way I remember is through my friends. Fragments of myself discovered through conversation, no single friend knowing the whole 'me'. I want to laugh, this dark thought is a little bit silly, I know, I understand that well; yet some part of me seems charmed by the whole idea of losing myself, perhaps I am mad already, or I have been alone for too long there simply has never been a single 'self'. Now that sounds insane all right! I may have laughed at this point, I don't know. I doubt I'd even want a single friend to know 'all of me', so I decide that this entire trail of thought is ridiculous. I return back to reality, my arms are now spread out across the keys before me and let out a sharp wail. I must have turned the keyboard back on at some point, I turn the power off again. I have been sitting at this desk for too long.

A warmth for my own.

 

“You didn't believe me did you, but there are some promises I intend to keep.” He said with a small smile, but a full expression of guilt and regret. She said nothing and looked away from him. He didn't bother trying to make eye contact, but knew that somewhere in her empty shell she could hear him. “I'm even putting your past friend behind me. Moving on and everything. Even though they – and you – all said I wouldn't. Couldn't. But I have. And now I'm back.”

“Back?” She repeated in a light, small voice that held doubt and twisted sarcasm.

“Yes. Back. Guess you're not alone any more. So...” He sighed as he sat down beside her. “Why did you bring that past friend back anyway? In here? I thought you were the one to let go of him first.”

“He said he'd come back.”

“But he didn't.”

“He didn't want to.”

“And so you still held onto that promise?”

“I believe some people can keep all of their promises.”

“But not him. You know that underneath all that warmth there is a darkness so cold that it'll freeze your lungs and force you to scream and cry in silence. But... I understand. You find that warmth comforting don't you? In this place, where there is no fire or colour.”

“It's an empty space.”

“But no more. Here, give me the lighter your friend gave to you.” She obeyed, focusing now on his hands with a suspicious look. “We can use it as a candle and make our own flame.”

Her eyes widened and she watched the small flame flicker from the green lighter. She curved her hands around it for a while, and peered close to it. Then, after a moment she moved her hands away and let it flicker freely. “It is... A small flame.”

“Yes, but why only rely on one small possession to light this place up?” He stood up and walked outside for a bit, only to return with various items in his hands. “What about these?”

“Those aren't lighters.”

“But the lighter you gave me has no fuel. You just believed it did. In this place, I think anything can bring us a warmth.”

“Then lets try.”

And so he put various objects in a small pile – objects perhaps only existing by memory, others tangible and still alive. Various books, pens, clothes, watches, stones and feathers laid by both their feet, and both him and her watched the pile glow a bright light.

He looked at her, and noticed she seemed a little different. Still empty but more closer to a smile. He then saw her hold a necklace that was glowing the brightest round her neck.

“Decided to keep that one close huh?”

“Yes, this one is special. I hope that is okay.”

“Of course it is my friend, for you are me, and I am you-”

“-And no longer shall we rely on other's houses.” She sang with a honest melody. “No longer should we burden them with our frosty breath-”

“-For now we can make our own flame,” They both held hands and began to emit a colourful hue. “And when our light becomes brighter we can give them the means to make their own too.”

Childhood

In a street full of dark rain, there walked a small shadowy figure known by the name of Silence. He was young, around the age of fourteen, yet possessed a particular cloud of despair and emptiness inside his heart that made his brown eyes seem so old and aged, as if gazing upon them would tell of a thousand stories. The boy strode, as all the members of his family did, to his destination with only a tinge of slight discomfort that would be hard to catch by anyone to who would walk by. The girl who walked beside him did notice however, the tinge of sadness, the ever-lasting burden that it was impossible for those marked with the Alliance to ever resist. She held his hand tightly, as they walked into the mist together.