panicfunction

Euw. Very gross: my girlfriend (who I should probably introduce and stop simply referring to as my girlfriend. Her name is Catrin, I dont have any pictures that she approves of unfortunately, but just imagine a very cute girl and there are probably some similarities) so Catrin and I discovered we both had head lice, picked up off her sister and so we spent last night dousing our scalps in toxic bioaccumulating insecticides. Nice (see here) So we had a girlie night in eating too much chocolate, chocking on the noxious fumes, and watching two distinctly mediocre films, Buffalo Soldiers and Big Girls Dont Cry. Hopefully we zapped all the buggers, my hair still smells vile despite washing it three times.

Today was a full one but I spent my first staggeringly boring lecture writing a story (see below)

Then I had a film class, were making a short film about the life of a Teddy Bear, we now have a final script and we spent today casting (we now have most of the roles but still no bear) and location scouting. Were going to try and start shooting on Monday. We have to use the most terribly antiquated VHS camera and linear analogue editing and I fear the whole thing could be a terrible tedious process since most of us have used digital equipment in the past (not that Im not looking forward to it).

Heres the story, incidentally it was inspired by babygirl79s comment:

Thanks for the inspiration.


The Isthmus

The home was hardly started. She had levelled the ground and layed out a floor plan with interestingly shaped branches. An earthen coloured semi-circular wall half-enclosed what would be the garden. Opposite it stood a half built brick kiln.

She moved haltingly around the half-enclosure like a tear falling down a cheek, light of foot and yet bound inextricably to the earth. The dawn was on the edge of breaking into day, the sky mother-of-pearl and the earth dark red rust against it. A low grumble started to build in the distance, a vehicle, unhealthy sounding and obtuse in the translucence of daybreak. There was a change in tone and the grumble became a growl as the vehicle turned onto the gravel of the long rutted track leading up to her clearing. She leaned back against the wall.
A man stepped out of the truck, broad and heavy shouldered, he looked like he came from a comic book, with an invincible chin and tiny, grape-like eyes. He was muscled such as only a dire villain or a heavily steroided man can be. He bore down on her with a clipboard in an earthy hand. She found a tiny crack in the plaster of the wall and teased it gently with a fingernail.
Reclaimed brick, gravel, assorted beams? His voice was a flat and barren wasteland. The question mark came only from the pencil thin eyebrows which shot up several inches as he concluded the sentence. She gave a very small nod and wordlessly he started to haul ancient thick black beams from the back of the truck and pile them by the half-kiln.
He wasnt in the habit of passing judgement. He had constructed himself as a simple man, pleased by uncomplicated things, not easily distracted from his path. But this woman at the end of the long winding drive tore at his heart. He saw that she was as strong as a taught bowstring and yet so ephemeral that she seemed as a reflection on the breeze tugged surface of the world.
She drew breath and her fingers pulled a tiny sliver of plaster from the wall. She moved to the back of the truck, careful not to get in the way of the man, and started to unstack bricks and carry them, two at a time, to the other end of the clearing. She moved deliberately, as if this small task would cause the morning to arrive a little faster. She realised that not a single moment had passed since she had first heard the truck in the distance.
The gravel was tipped into a low dome beside the new stack of wood, and the heavy bulging man leaned out of his cab and looked at the woman as she stood back against the wall. His look enquired so much of her that she was unable to unveil. She smiled appreciatively and shook her head. He nodded slowly and reversed the truck out of the clearing. She waited until there was silence again before breathing out, and as she did so, noticed that the suns full orb was suddenly visible, framed in the bare branches of an ash.