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Holiday Flash-fiction (extremely rough draft)
It had been ages since I'd truly written flash-fiction (though I used to write a-story-in-a-day fairly regularly when I was a teen), and then, at around 4 pm, Christmas afternoon, I got the idea for a "drabble" I could slip into ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gordon_r_d's inbox; 100 words would take an hour, tops (right, if you include all the edit and polish?). And it kept growing, and growing, and growing... And eventually, I realized I was creeping dangerously close to the 10,000 character limit (and over five hours later). But in the end, I succeeded in writing a complete story in more-or-less one sitting (don't worry--I took breaks for biological needs).
I also realized, as I was finding a way to resolve it, that, at least when it comes to "What the Holidays [trademark] mean to me..." that it was damned autobiographical. So, withgordon_r_d's kind permission, I present to you:
Some monsters had mothers, and with mothers, had babyhoods and childhoods, and all. Other monsters weren't born so much as coalesced, out of the air, and ground, and watery things.
Crinkelminkel didn't know which sort of monster he was. He didn't remember having a mother, but then again, his memory was as flimsy as spiderwebs. He really had no sense of time, at all, except for what the Stompyfeet in the house above called crishmash, crash-mush... something like that. It was a word that sounded a bit like his name, anyway. And that's why he remembered it, and noted its coming and going. It always made him feel a little oddly. Not only did it make his ears perk up in a nervous little twitch whenever someone said the name of this season (only to sag, again, when he realized that no one really meant him), but whatever the Stompyfeet above him were feeling, that's what he felt: as if their emotions flowed down the heating grate and flooded his corner of the cellar, like the water did, sometimes, when it rained outside.
The littlest Stompyfeet were easy. Mostly, they were just happy to be free from skoll-- whatever that was (but, as far as he could tell, it seemed a dreary thing, and he was glad that it was a place he had never been to). The big Stompyfeet were far more troublesome and confusing: even their happiness had an edge to it -- as if they were being happy out of a sense of duty, and not, like at other times of year, happy because of happy. And when they were not happy, they were angry-- mostly about not being happy.
Still, it was a time of year that Crinkelminkel looked forward to, because it helped him mark time, and because it sounded like his name. And when he looked up through the holes in the heating grate, he saw all sorts of things that he never saw the rest of the year: lights like great big stars, that were the color of ... well, he wasn't quite sure (not much in his corner of the cellar to compare to the colors), so he just thought of them as "the color of EVERYTHING," and sweet smells, and spicy smells, and noises, and laughing (and shouting, and crying, sometimes). But it was different, and exciting, and a SOMETHING. And it was how Crinkelminkel marked time.
Until... well, he wasn't quite sure. But one day a chill breeze blew down through the holes in the heating grate, and the thought tickled around inside his brain that his ears hadn't done that nervous little twitch in a long while. And (come to think of it) he hadn't heard Stompyfeet above him, or felt their emotions flowing down the heating grate in a long time, either. And somewhere in his spiderweb memory he found the thought that the Stompyfeet had all moved away, gradually, and he'd never quite noticed.
And then, he made his very first Thing: he made a DECISION, and a plan to make another Thing. And then, exhausted, he slipped into hibernation. The calling of the spring peepers woke him. That was not remarkable. What was remarkable was that he remembered his DECISION and his PLAN. And even more, he remembered it all summer long.
When the nights were warm and sticky, and the shadows cast by the trees were as dense as their green leaves, Crinkelminkel found the courage to leave his cellar, and go looking for the things that were as colorful as the indoor, giant, stars of crishmush. He never found those, but what he did find was lots of bits of paper that Stompyfeet had thrown away, and fluttered into the gutters, carried by the wind. But the bits of paper smelled sugary, and reminded him, a little of the sweet smells that went with the lights that were the color of EVERYTHING, so that made it almost as good. Eventually, the nights got cooler and cooler, and then they got longer. And the days never quite got as hot. And Crinkelminkel decided that he had collected Enough.
The next part of his plan was trickier: how to arrange the colored scraps of paper into the way he'd seen the colored stars look, when he peeked up through the heating grate: broad at the bottom, and pointy at the top. The broad part was easy. But try as he might, he couldn't get the bits to stack into a nice, pointy shape.
He tried day after day, until he lost count of the number of days. And there was a new feeling crawling around in his tummy--- something he'd felt wash over him from the Stompyfeet above, but never before felt for himself:WORRY. Because the days were changing from "not quite as warm" to "chilly," and then, "cold." and his ears were twitching from the words for crishmush, crinmop-something from outside his now empty house. And, oddly, weirdly, he was afraid he was running out of Time.
And then, somehow, as he was gathering up the failed pile of Color into his arms, one bit of paper stuck to a strand of abandoned spiderweb. And stayed there: a single, sparkly, yellow circle, just above the tip of his left ear..
A broad grin stretched his face, until his cheeks felt funny. He retrieved that bit of paper, and went looking around his cellar for something big enough to hold ALL the bits of paper he had collected.
He found the perfect complex of webs-- where the spiders had attatched their strands to the webs of spiders that had gone before-- just under the cellar stairs, and he set to work.
This time, he started from the top: first placing that sparkly circle of yellow at a point where he wanted his Colors of Everything Thing to end, and then, building down, alterating left, right, and middle, to make sure everything came out even. Crinkelminkel decided it was perfect. Not as bright or shiny or big, perhaps, as the Stompyfeets' arrangements of lights, but it came out closer to his memory of what it looked like than he had hoped to expect. Now, he had his own crushmish-thing: his bit of color, to mark the time, and he didn't even have to peek up through the heating grate to see it. All he had to do was peek round the corner, to the spot under the stairs.
Although, since he had been Outside, during the warm dark of the summer nights, he had found the courage to climb up the stones of the cellar wall, and look out the little window that was near the ground, as see the lights that the other Stompyfeets had put on the OUTSIDE of their houses.
Then, all too soon, the time came when the lights on the outside of the houses were dark. He thought, maybe, he should take down his color, too-- to keep with the time. But he was SO tired-- it had been a busy year-- and when he thought of doing one more thing, he yawned, and kept yawning.
So he curled into hibernation, instead.
He was woken again-- not by spring peepers-- but the sounds (and feelings) of a whole new family of Stompyfeets: grumpiness, and tiredness and excitement and worry and happiness, and loneliness: all the feelings, it seemed, from all the Stompyfeets at once. It was far too early to wake up-- there wasn't the hint of spring warmth in the air, yet, and Crinkelminkel's head was groggy and sore. And yet, he couldn't deny that that there was a wriggle of happiness in his tummy at the thought that his house had big noisemakers living above, again. It's strange, the things a monster gets used to.
Until, soon after the hustle THE MOVING DAYS had died down, a new feeling washed down through the heating grate. The smallest of the Stompyfeet was afraid-- of the monster in the cellar.
But that wasn't nearly as bad as her mother's reaction of Disbelief. He wasn't sure which was worse: being feared, or being not-believed-in. It was hard to decide, since this was the first time he could ever remember feeling any feelings that were about HIM.
By the end of the day, however, the one's fear had changed-- and she came stomping down the cellar stairs all by herself-- looking for proof.
And that's when she saw the pointy arrangement of colored bits of paper that Crinkelminkel had been too tired to take down, when the time had been right.
He was huddled in his corner, trying to figure out what he should do about this, when the smallest Stompyfoot came back, leading her mother by the hand.
"There!" she said, pointing. "See? I TOLD you!"
But her mother just laughed. She said it wasn't a monster, but just just a -- and she used a word that was close to Crinkelminkel's name, but felt like Disbelief. So she didn't mean him.
And then, in the days that followed, the littlest Stompyfoot's thoughts and feelings all turned toward skoll, and Crinkelminkel was forgotten.
And then came the time when his ears twitched again, and the new family of Stompyfeet put up their lights that were the color of EVERYTHING. And the excitement of no skoll for a week. And there was happiness with the edge of duty, and anger at not being happy when there wasn't. And it was just like Old Times, with the family of Stompyfeet that were here, before (Crinkelminkel was proud of himself for remembering that).
It wasn't quite the same as before, though, because the littlest Stompyfoot never really forgot him, and kept peeking down the heating grate, to see if she could see him. So Crinkelminkel had to be careful, and couldn't peek at all their doings as freely as he once had.
He was standing in the corner under his cellar stairs, wondering what sort of dekrashuns he could put up, now that the new family had swept away all the spiderwebs, when he heard an unusual thunk on the floor behind him, and the hurried steps of the littlest Stompyfoot run away from the cellar door.
He turned, and saw one of the little, hooked, red-and-white stripey things that the Stompyfeet liked so much. It looked brighter, and smelled sweeter, up close than he imagined it could.
And, what's more, it was covered with a whole new feeling: a Feeling of PRESENT.
Crinkelminkel grinned till his cheeks felt funny. And bit.
gordon_r_d's inbox; 100 words would take an hour, tops (right, if you include all the edit and polish?). And it kept growing, and growing, and growing... And eventually, I realized I was creeping dangerously close to the 10,000 character limit (and over five hours later). But in the end, I succeeded in writing a complete story in more-or-less one sitting (don't worry--I took breaks for biological needs).I also realized, as I was finding a way to resolve it, that, at least when it comes to "What the Holidays [trademark] mean to me..." that it was damned autobiographical. So, with
gordon_r_d's kind permission, I present to you:Some monsters had mothers, and with mothers, had babyhoods and childhoods, and all. Other monsters weren't born so much as coalesced, out of the air, and ground, and watery things.
Crinkelminkel didn't know which sort of monster he was. He didn't remember having a mother, but then again, his memory was as flimsy as spiderwebs. He really had no sense of time, at all, except for what the Stompyfeet in the house above called crishmash, crash-mush... something like that. It was a word that sounded a bit like his name, anyway. And that's why he remembered it, and noted its coming and going. It always made him feel a little oddly. Not only did it make his ears perk up in a nervous little twitch whenever someone said the name of this season (only to sag, again, when he realized that no one really meant him), but whatever the Stompyfeet above him were feeling, that's what he felt: as if their emotions flowed down the heating grate and flooded his corner of the cellar, like the water did, sometimes, when it rained outside.
The littlest Stompyfeet were easy. Mostly, they were just happy to be free from skoll-- whatever that was (but, as far as he could tell, it seemed a dreary thing, and he was glad that it was a place he had never been to). The big Stompyfeet were far more troublesome and confusing: even their happiness had an edge to it -- as if they were being happy out of a sense of duty, and not, like at other times of year, happy because of happy. And when they were not happy, they were angry-- mostly about not being happy.
Still, it was a time of year that Crinkelminkel looked forward to, because it helped him mark time, and because it sounded like his name. And when he looked up through the holes in the heating grate, he saw all sorts of things that he never saw the rest of the year: lights like great big stars, that were the color of ... well, he wasn't quite sure (not much in his corner of the cellar to compare to the colors), so he just thought of them as "the color of EVERYTHING," and sweet smells, and spicy smells, and noises, and laughing (and shouting, and crying, sometimes). But it was different, and exciting, and a SOMETHING. And it was how Crinkelminkel marked time.
Until... well, he wasn't quite sure. But one day a chill breeze blew down through the holes in the heating grate, and the thought tickled around inside his brain that his ears hadn't done that nervous little twitch in a long while. And (come to think of it) he hadn't heard Stompyfeet above him, or felt their emotions flowing down the heating grate in a long time, either. And somewhere in his spiderweb memory he found the thought that the Stompyfeet had all moved away, gradually, and he'd never quite noticed.
And then, he made his very first Thing: he made a DECISION, and a plan to make another Thing. And then, exhausted, he slipped into hibernation. The calling of the spring peepers woke him. That was not remarkable. What was remarkable was that he remembered his DECISION and his PLAN. And even more, he remembered it all summer long.
When the nights were warm and sticky, and the shadows cast by the trees were as dense as their green leaves, Crinkelminkel found the courage to leave his cellar, and go looking for the things that were as colorful as the indoor, giant, stars of crishmush. He never found those, but what he did find was lots of bits of paper that Stompyfeet had thrown away, and fluttered into the gutters, carried by the wind. But the bits of paper smelled sugary, and reminded him, a little of the sweet smells that went with the lights that were the color of EVERYTHING, so that made it almost as good. Eventually, the nights got cooler and cooler, and then they got longer. And the days never quite got as hot. And Crinkelminkel decided that he had collected Enough.
The next part of his plan was trickier: how to arrange the colored scraps of paper into the way he'd seen the colored stars look, when he peeked up through the heating grate: broad at the bottom, and pointy at the top. The broad part was easy. But try as he might, he couldn't get the bits to stack into a nice, pointy shape.
He tried day after day, until he lost count of the number of days. And there was a new feeling crawling around in his tummy--- something he'd felt wash over him from the Stompyfeet above, but never before felt for himself:WORRY. Because the days were changing from "not quite as warm" to "chilly," and then, "cold." and his ears were twitching from the words for crishmush, crinmop-something from outside his now empty house. And, oddly, weirdly, he was afraid he was running out of Time.
And then, somehow, as he was gathering up the failed pile of Color into his arms, one bit of paper stuck to a strand of abandoned spiderweb. And stayed there: a single, sparkly, yellow circle, just above the tip of his left ear..
A broad grin stretched his face, until his cheeks felt funny. He retrieved that bit of paper, and went looking around his cellar for something big enough to hold ALL the bits of paper he had collected.
He found the perfect complex of webs-- where the spiders had attatched their strands to the webs of spiders that had gone before-- just under the cellar stairs, and he set to work.
This time, he started from the top: first placing that sparkly circle of yellow at a point where he wanted his Colors of Everything Thing to end, and then, building down, alterating left, right, and middle, to make sure everything came out even. Crinkelminkel decided it was perfect. Not as bright or shiny or big, perhaps, as the Stompyfeets' arrangements of lights, but it came out closer to his memory of what it looked like than he had hoped to expect. Now, he had his own crushmish-thing: his bit of color, to mark the time, and he didn't even have to peek up through the heating grate to see it. All he had to do was peek round the corner, to the spot under the stairs.
Although, since he had been Outside, during the warm dark of the summer nights, he had found the courage to climb up the stones of the cellar wall, and look out the little window that was near the ground, as see the lights that the other Stompyfeets had put on the OUTSIDE of their houses.
Then, all too soon, the time came when the lights on the outside of the houses were dark. He thought, maybe, he should take down his color, too-- to keep with the time. But he was SO tired-- it had been a busy year-- and when he thought of doing one more thing, he yawned, and kept yawning.
So he curled into hibernation, instead.
He was woken again-- not by spring peepers-- but the sounds (and feelings) of a whole new family of Stompyfeets: grumpiness, and tiredness and excitement and worry and happiness, and loneliness: all the feelings, it seemed, from all the Stompyfeets at once. It was far too early to wake up-- there wasn't the hint of spring warmth in the air, yet, and Crinkelminkel's head was groggy and sore. And yet, he couldn't deny that that there was a wriggle of happiness in his tummy at the thought that his house had big noisemakers living above, again. It's strange, the things a monster gets used to.
Until, soon after the hustle THE MOVING DAYS had died down, a new feeling washed down through the heating grate. The smallest of the Stompyfeet was afraid-- of the monster in the cellar.
But that wasn't nearly as bad as her mother's reaction of Disbelief. He wasn't sure which was worse: being feared, or being not-believed-in. It was hard to decide, since this was the first time he could ever remember feeling any feelings that were about HIM.
By the end of the day, however, the one's fear had changed-- and she came stomping down the cellar stairs all by herself-- looking for proof.
And that's when she saw the pointy arrangement of colored bits of paper that Crinkelminkel had been too tired to take down, when the time had been right.
He was huddled in his corner, trying to figure out what he should do about this, when the smallest Stompyfoot came back, leading her mother by the hand.
"There!" she said, pointing. "See? I TOLD you!"
But her mother just laughed. She said it wasn't a monster, but just just a -- and she used a word that was close to Crinkelminkel's name, but felt like Disbelief. So she didn't mean him.
And then, in the days that followed, the littlest Stompyfoot's thoughts and feelings all turned toward skoll, and Crinkelminkel was forgotten.
And then came the time when his ears twitched again, and the new family of Stompyfeet put up their lights that were the color of EVERYTHING. And the excitement of no skoll for a week. And there was happiness with the edge of duty, and anger at not being happy when there wasn't. And it was just like Old Times, with the family of Stompyfeet that were here, before (Crinkelminkel was proud of himself for remembering that).
It wasn't quite the same as before, though, because the littlest Stompyfoot never really forgot him, and kept peeking down the heating grate, to see if she could see him. So Crinkelminkel had to be careful, and couldn't peek at all their doings as freely as he once had.
He was standing in the corner under his cellar stairs, wondering what sort of dekrashuns he could put up, now that the new family had swept away all the spiderwebs, when he heard an unusual thunk on the floor behind him, and the hurried steps of the littlest Stompyfoot run away from the cellar door.
He turned, and saw one of the little, hooked, red-and-white stripey things that the Stompyfeet liked so much. It looked brighter, and smelled sweeter, up close than he imagined it could.
And, what's more, it was covered with a whole new feeling: a Feeling of PRESENT.
Crinkelminkel grinned till his cheeks felt funny. And bit.
no subject
don't worry--I took breaks for biological needs
Incredible! On late night writing sprees (usually), I would reason that I’d normally be asleep and not tending to such needs anyhow.
no subject
Thank you! Though the typographical trickery is due to the "no HTML in private messages" restrictions.
despite the lack of explicit descriptions of him, I have the clearest mental image of Crinkelminkel
Oh good. That was my intent-- I never did get into the habit of giving explicit descriptions of my P.O.V. characters, even though it's often given as a "rule" in writing instruction.
I wonder if your images and mine are close...
no subject
Explicit descriptions are hard, which is why I'm glad I go about my writing with so many POVs—then no one ever has to describe their own self, which too often comes out as stilted and odd, unless there is a recent change to be accounted for.
Crinkelminkel, in my head, has the perfect candy cane eating teeth: big and flat and crushing, like a creature that has evolved to eat snails.
no subject
It's a puzzle I'm currently thinking about, because of my Princess Incognito story: part of the shtick of that (in a film version, especially), that would lead the audience into more easily believing, along with the protagonist, that the serving maid should be awarded the "prize" of becoming princess, is that the serving maid (in my head) looks the part: rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes, long golden hair, and the true princess is rather plain and somewhat clumsy, and can't carry a tune in a paper sack (no "Snow White" trilling for her). So I need to establish the distinct differences in their bearing, if not their looks, early, and occasionally refer back to them throughout the story. Making Adelaide self-conscious of her plainness will certainly make it easier.