The Key - story (read and rate)

[danmas86]

The Key

 

There are many worlds and many mirrors of worlds.

All things that exist in fantasy or imagination also exist in reality elsewhere.

 

Every book you have ever read, every dream you have ever dreamt, every fantasy you have ever indulged; is a reality.

 

Elsewhere.

 

Between the worlds are walls, invisible, undetectable walls.

Between the walls are doors.

between the doors are keys.

 

These walls separate the countless dimensions which make up the whole universe.

That physical universe which we are familiar with, in which we live exists in one of these dimensions.

 

Of course to call them walls and doors and keys, is a metaphor, a simplification. These are things beyond most of our thinking. These things confound us and evade our senses and our rational knowledge, so we must use metaphors in order to grasp a basic understanding of what they are.

 

There are many keys, this is a story of one of them.

 

In a nearby world, not our world; the one in which I am writing this, but one like it. It was similar physically and touched some walls of our own world.

 

There was a boy, a teenage boy, and he watched a film where a man makes a pact with the devil, and in exchange for his eternal soul he gains a number of wishes.

 

The boy was excited, and planned to outsmart the devil, he thought of many wishes which would allow him to live indefinitely and thus never have to give up his soul.

 

He silently spoke to the devil in prayer. Nothing happened.

He summoned the devil out loud. Nothing happened.

He wrote on chalk that he wanted to speak to the devil, he wrote in pen and in paint. Nothing happened

 

He brushed out the chalk and he screwed up the papers and threw them into the fire. Nothing happened.

 

The boy went to bed disappointed, and slept soundly.

 

As daylight began to creep into his bedroom the boy had a dream. In the dream he was seated in a chair and either side of him were people, they were either men or women, or neither, but they were so beautiful, so perfect, he wanted to be with them forever.

 

One of them turned to him and smiled. it was the most terrifying experience he had ever felt, every muscle turned weak and feeble, every hair every inch of skin felt cold.

 

Into the room stepped another, more beautiful than the first two. A vision so wonderful he was completely transfixed. His heart felt heavy, his entire mind was drawn and held by this incredible presence.

 

He opened his mouth and spoke involuntarily."I wanted to outsmart you, to make a deal that would benefit me and not you, I didn't realise that by wanting to sell my soul it would become worthless to you anyway, as it would already be yours"

 

He fell to his knees, released from the trance and began sobbing: "Please, why did you bring me here, what do you want?"

 

The devil placed his finger upon the boys palm, it burned like ice.

He drew the shape of a key, leaving a faint outline,peeled the key delicately from the boys hand, and held a key in front of the boys face.

 

His hand hurt like hell, but he barely noticed the fierce throbbing, he was completely and utterly distracted by the key.

 

It appeared to be made of crystal, and was only a hair in thickness, as it hit against his nose it certainly felt more solid than a flap of dead skin.

 

Again his eyes became glassy, he stood, back straight."I shall use this key to open the doors, to step into worlds where you may not. I will go into places where you fear to go. I will walk among new people and work for you."

 

The devil smiled and nodded, this smile was worse than the one that the other had given him, he felt pain, deep within himself, as though all that he had ever wanted all that he had ever worked for, that he had stupidly imagined was just outside his grasp was never achievable. That huge mountains of inconceivable effort lay between him and any hope of success or happiness. He felt empty and cold and useless.

 

The devil waved a hand, the boy awoke, and the feeling quickly passed.

 

After waking up he forgot all about the dream he had, his hand tingled, it looked as though he had slept on it.

 

He went about his usual morning routine, went to school, went to work, grew up, got a house, grew old, got very sick, died.

 

Then he remembered his dream

 

He was asleep again.

 

In the room the devil was sat waiting impatiently. The old man looked down, he was the boy again, he looked at his hand, the scar was still there, in the hand of the devil; the key.

 

The boy spoke, I shall visit a world of authors, and bring them to you. They shall write greatness for you from their words so it shall be so in this. You will give them worthless trinkets like this key which they will treasure as the greatest of possessions. They may use the keys in their dream and spirit states, but their bodies will always be governed by their world.

 

The boy took the key from the hand of the devil and used it to make a doorway.

He stepped through.

 

The devil waited impatiently beside it.

[De Batz]

Interesting stuff. If you want a rating, I can't give it to you. If you want some thoughts, here they are:

You have a flowing cadence that works for this style of writing. It's very readable and there is a sort of ethereality to the language which carries the story as well. If you want to see the sort of thing that other people write in the same vein, have a look at Borges, who is fascinated by this sort of physics / philosophy / religion crossover of ideas. He is a master at combining the mundane reality of people's lives with the deepest of ideas.

 

Andy

[danmas86]

Thanks for that, it is in a similar style to what I usually write, but its only a first draft - so I am very pleasantly surprised that you liked it.

[danmas86]

The Key Chapter 1

Jane

 

 

'Gold,'

'liquid gold,'

'dripping on my tongue',

'that is what it tastes like'

 

'you're disgusting and you know it, filth.'

 

he just held his cocky grin whilst his brother grimaced.

 

'you should try it,'

 

'ugh smoked trout. I do not think so, I'd rather stick it in a jar of worms'

 

'ha'

 

'will you two shut the **** up, iv just got the grand kids to sleep'

 

'sorry mum'

 

'Paul glided out of the kitchen before giving his brother a scowl and prancing upstairs.'

 

'show it me then mum'

 

'what?'

'I heard you pacing last night, what have you wrote?'

 

'Jane lifted a tattered folder down from the top shelf of the kitchen unit. On the cover it said "Alison Mackintyre Y6b" it was covered in stickers of late 1990's boy bands and Biro graffiti.

'She picked out a manuscript, written freehand on the back of an old brown paper gas bill envelope, and let her son read.

 

She tapped her fingertips on the wood effect work surface, and sipped her coffee.

 

'well?'

 

'Give me a chance.'

 

'and?'

 

'its really good, really realistic, bit its a bit...'

 

'go on'

 

'the bad guys won again'

 

'they always do, its like life.'

 

'fag?'

 

'no I'm quitting'

 

since when?

 

since yesterday

 

johnny opened a pack of cheap foreign cigarettes and sparked one up,

 

'pass us the ashtray'

 

'she looked out of the window and squinted, that fat bitch over the road still hasn't sorted her garden out.

 

'get our Pauls feller to read it,'

 

'**** off, what does he know about writing?'

 

'more than you'

 

'yeah and more than ****ing you, go on jog on, and see to your kids.'

 

'Read the one about the pen'

 

'Thats a true story'

 

'Its my favorite'

 

Jane sat at the table and picked up her pen, she smiled as she held it.

 

'It was a gift, freely given and openly taken.'

 

'It looks like an old cheap biro, with a chewed lid, but it's my lucky pen. I always write best with that one.'

 

'Where did you get it?'

 

She smiled

 

'we had been to the bank to pay the bills, and I was at the counter depositing money but all the little pens had been nicked, you were in the foyer bickering with your sister or your brother, and there was a young lad behind me in the queue, and an old woman. He was dressed really smart, but old fashioned. Short sleeve shirt, trousers, polished shoes. She looked like a scrubber, smelled of **** and jumble sales. Anyway the old woman starts tutting and tapping her foot, so He leans over holding a pen and said:

 

'Here use this, keep it if you like, I have lots.'

 

'Well I filled out the giro and without knowing it I had began scribbling a story on the back of one of the paying in envelopes.'

 

'This old woman is tut tutting like a pregnant chicken and this young lad had gone. So I went right into her face and went "tut ****ing tut" right at the top of my voice, then I went home, nicked one of your sisters schoolbooks and wrote about fifty pages. And thats how I started writing stories.'

 

'You always used to make them up though.'

 

'Yeah, but I never wrote them down before that. Thats why its my lucky pen.'

 

'Have you ever seen that lad since?'

 

'No.'

 

'I'm going to go and check on the kids' she said, changing the subject again.

 

'She went upstairs, and looked at the grand kids sleeping, just like their dad, she didn't like lying to him. She didn't tell any of the kids why she paced at night, why she was scared to go to sleep, why she felt trapped.

 

She kissed them as they slept, they didn't know the bargain she had made to keep him away from them, and hopefully they never would.

[danmas86]

hmm dont like the automatic censorship

[Allo1010]

Is your second chapter a draft? If so, you might want to include more information surrounding the dialogue. When I read it I get confused as to who is saying what and where they are, (sitting? Standing?).

 

If your aim was to confuse the reader slightly, I think you should do it later. You'll want to introduce the characters first, and let the reader get familiar with them before you introduce hectic scenes where the speaker is not clear.

[danmas86]

I tried it with speech-tags, and it doesn't flow as well,

 

and as much as I love the classical techniques I prefer post modern.