The Empty House

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THE EMPTY HOUSE

By Nicki Benson

This is my attempt to imitate a style of prose used to great effect by David Peace, author of ‘The Damned United’, the Red Riding sequence and more recently ‘Red Or Dead’, a fictional biography of the former Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly.

THE EMPTY HOUSE

In the house, the empty house. Tom stood at the foot of the staircase. Tom’s mother and Tom’s father were not in the house. They were on their way to a dinner party. The house was empty. Tom’s mother and Tom’s father would not return to the house for hours. For hours, Tom would be the only person in the house.

Tom climbed the staircase. In the house, the empty house. Tom reached the landing at the top of the staircase. Tom looked at the three doors that opened onto the landing. The door to the bathroom. The door to his bedroom. And the door to his parents’ bedroom. Three doors. Leading to three rooms. Three empty rooms.

Tom did not open the bathroom door. Tom did not open his bedroom door. Tom opened the door to his parents’ bedroom. Their empty bedroom. In the empty house. The bedroom that would be empty for hours. Beyond the door that opened onto the landing at the top of the staircase. In the house that would be empty for hours.

Tom opened the door to his parents’ bedroom. Their empty bedroom. Tom did not close the door behind him. Tom did not switch on the light. Tom walked around the bed. Tom pulled the curtains closed. Tom stared at the dressing table. Tom stared at the chair. Tom imagined sitting on the chair. Tom stared at the items on the dressing table. At the bottles. At the jars. At the brushes. At the little boxes. Tom imagined sitting on the chair, reaching for one of the bottles. For one of the jars. For one of the brushes. For one of the little boxes.

In his parents’ bedroom. Their empty bedroom. Tom remembered the girl in the leather jacket. The red-haired girl. Tom remembered her white T-shirt, taut with the swell of her breasts. Her snug, faded jeans. Tom remembered her nose ring. Her eyeshadow. Her burgundy lipstick. Tom remembered the boy holding her hand. Tom remembered how the boy had leaned towards the red-haired girl and kissed her. On those burgundy lips.

Tom wanted to hold the red-haired girl’s hand. Tom wanted to lean towards the red-haired girl and kiss her. On those burgundy lips. Tom wanted that very much. But Tom did not want to be the boy who had held the red-haired girl’s hand. Tom did not want to be the boy who had leaned towards the red-haired girl and kissed her. On those burgundy lips. Tom did not want that at all.

Tom sat in front of the dressing table. Tom looked into the mirror. Tom saw his reflection. Tom did not see the red-haired girl. Tom did not see a nose ring. Tom did not see eyeshadow. Tom did not see burgundy lips. Tom did not see a white T-shirt, taut with the swell of his breasts. Tom wanted to see those things. But Tom wanted to hold the red-haired girl’s hand. And to lean towards the red-haired girl and kiss her.

Tom began to think about how he might be able to see those things, and about how he might be able to do those things.

In the house, the empty house. Tom opened his mother’s wardrobe. Tom looked at the garments hanging on the rails. At the coats. At the jackets. At the dresses. At the skirts. At the blouses. At the pairs of slacks. Tom looked down at the boots, at the shoes, at the sandals. Tom did not want to wear his mother’s clothes. Tom wanted to wear a white T-shirt, taut with the swell of his breasts. And Tom wanted to hold the red-haired girl’s hand, and to lean forward and kiss her. On those burgundy lips.

Tom turned away from his mother’s wardrobe. From the clothes he did not want to wear. Tom turned away from the dressing table mirror. From the face he did not want to see.

But Tom knew that there would come an evening when he opened a wardrobe that contained clothes he wanted to wear. When he sat in front of a dressing table mirror that reflected a face he wanted to see. In another bedroom. In a bedroom that did not belong to his parents.

And Tom knew that there would be a girl who wanted to hold his hand. A girl who wanted to lean forward and kiss him. On his burgundy lips.

In another house. In a house that did not belong to his parents.

Tom walked back downstairs. Tom went into the living room. The empty living room. Tom sat on the sofa. Tom watched television. Tom thought about the future.

In the house, the empty house.

Music: 'Out On Your Own'
Performed by the Lotus Eaters. From the album 'No Sense Of Sin' (1984)

https://youtu.be/x1rKcy7xyj0

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Comments

yay! Nicki's still alive!

and posting stories too!

Double yay!

Any chance we'll see a sequel to "Goodbye Master Stokes" ?

DogSig.png

I'm Too Selfish

But I'll read it through again, see if it deserves a re-write. You never know, I might be smitten with the same bug that prompted the story to begin with.

Ban nothing. Question everything.

Hard for Me to Imagine...

...anyone being patient enough to read that style of prose for more than, say, 500 words.

I suppose I should acknowledge that style for its own sake isn't something I usually do well with, and that the rest of this comment can readily be dismissed with that in mind.

Here in the U.S., back in the 1950s and early 1960s, there was a collection of schoolbooks for beginning readers called "Fun With Dick and Jane". The style thrived on the repetition of wording in short sentences ('See Dick run. Run Dick run.'), and it became widely parodied for decades by those who grew up with the books. The nature of the prose here sadly brought that to my mind. (All of which says nothing as to how effective it was, or wasn't -- only that there are others here of the era who may or may not have the same difficulty.)

It may well be a quality story. Tom has an interesting take on where he wants to go. I wouldn't even assert that the story would be better served by a straightforward presentation. But I found the writing sort of suffocating, and distracting in the effort to understand exactly what Tom wanted. YMMV, of course.

Eric

(I know. Rule 3. I thought this might be helpful, but feel free to delete it.)

In the UK ...

... we had Janet and John which were very similar. Fortunately they came long after I would have been driven to distraction by them. Didn't Angela Rasch (or her alter ego JillMI) write a short parody in that style several years ago?

Robi

I Wouldn't Dream Of Deleting It

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Eric. I suspect that many, if not the majority of readers share your view. It would come as a shock if they didn't.

I've heard this style described as 'hard-core modernism'. Apparently it was first developed by James Ellroy in 'White Jazz', a book I haven't read. David Peace uses it with greater skill than I'll ever have. In his hands this kind of prose can be hypnotic, even poetic.

I don't think it's a 'quality story'. But if it left you confused as to 'exactly what Tom wanted', then it served its purpose. Because Tom isn't sure either.

Ban nothing. Question everything.

What About Dr Zeuss ?

About 50 or so years ago there were a series of books for preschool children to help them learn to read and enjoy BOOKS.

The most famous of them was perhaps "Green Eggs and Ham" - where a character began with "Who am I? My name is Sam ! I do not like green eggs and ham." Another character was Ned, who said "Who am I? My name is Ned. I do not like my little bed. A lot of Things have come to call, a toy, a truck, a dog, a ball....." and ended up with " a mouse! Oh what a bed, oh what a house !".

These used lots of repartition, but progressive repartition.

My two daughters learned from these books how ro read so well that when they were allowed to go to a primary school at ages 6 and 4 both were reading already, which upset their teachers no end, especially since at this time the latest fad in Mainland Britain was the Initial Teaching Alphabet, which required that children learned this nufangled alfa bet then un-learned it and star-ted on the pro-per won in stedd.

One of my girls was childless until she married a man whose wife ran away and left him with the 2 girls, but my younger daughter married and had 2 sons and then a daughter, all of whom had their own Dr Zeuss books and all were reading before they were 5.

I learned to read when I was 3 and a half. My Uncle Bill was reading the newspaper out loud to my Mummy, and he said "It says here that...." My big ears went up and I toddled over to him and asked "Where does it say that?" and he pointed the words out to me as he read it aloud. He explained writing to me, and in that One Sunday afternoon my mind was hooked on reading. A week later I walked to the public library on my own and was allowed to join the children's section, and take home 3 books at a time. Over the next 2 years I got through all the books in the children's part and was allowed to take out Non-Fiction books from the Adult section.

Children have "windows of opportunity" open in their brains and if they show the curiosity about reading but no adult shows them how it works, they lose interest, but eventually the window opens again, although not quite so strongly. If they miss getting any help too many times then they never really get the hang of it. In poor families where dads are absent and mums are busy, they get less chance of getting anyone to explain it to them straight away at the first or an early window opening to it, but in better off families the mother is usually free to help them more. This explains why children in poorer families are not as good at reading as those middle class ones. I was just lucky, despite poor, which gave me a kick-start in life that took me all the way through to my PhD.

Briar

So this is the one ...

... we talked about. As Eric (and I commented earlier) said it's an interesting experiment for a short story but would be a demanding read in a longer piece. I wonder what Big 'ead (Brian Clough - Leeds United, Derby County and Nottm Forest manager) would have thought about it :) I speak as one educated in Nottingham and who worked in Derby for 30 years but never went to watch a match.

However, I think it illustrates the boy's conflicted desires very well and well worth the effort for that at least. Now continue the story.

Robi

This Isn't 'Ongoing'

I looked for the 'completed' box when I was posting this story, but couldn't find it.

Thanks for the compliment, Robi. This piece would have worked better if I'd been able to establish that Tom was a bit dim-witted, and that this was how his brain functioned.

I have no plans to write anything else in this style.

Ban nothing. Question everything.

So ...

... rather like the boy in the book "Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". The hero describes himself as a "mathmetician with some behavioural difficulties" and is probably autistic. Tom may not be dim-witted in the conventional sense but merely 'different'.

btw I knew it was finished. My suggestion that there should be more was a challenge rather than an expectation :) In fact now I think about what you said about Tom's being dimwitted and my thoughts about possible autism it could make for a good story and one a bit different from most other TG fiction. As long as there were just a few short sections written in this style it might be worth thinking about?

Robi

Thanks, wondering if we ever sat...

and wondered at the same time in different houses. I hope you are at home with yourself, happy with who you are.

Hugs from one touched by you,
Jessie C

Jessica E. Connors

Jessica Connors

Thanks For Asking

In fact I write from a more detached perspective than some authors on this site. I've never experienced these kinds of feelings, though I try my best to empathise with those who do. I say this at the risk of sounding smug, but I don't know how else to put it.

Ban nothing. Question everything.

It appears that Tom is

It appears that Tom is standing there once more at his "crossroads" in his mind of what he wants to do in his heart and what his mind is telling. How many of us have "been there", "done that" in our own lives.
Then, as if by magic, a little push comes out of no-where and shoves us one way or the other

Thanks for trying.

gillian1968's picture

Sometimes as a writer,you need to try things that may not work and aren't comfortable as a way to develop your technique, stretch your horizon and form a new voice for your characters.

The core thread of the story was good, even if the technique didn't quite work for me.

We used the Dick and Jane readers when I was learning to read. Somehow I survived them. At least they were better than Teletubbies.

Gillian Cairns

I turn all too frequently....

Andrea Lena's picture

from the face I don't want to see. I love it when folks take risks. Thank you!

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena