A Look Back…

I was going through the files on my computer today and I came across my school work from 2011. This one assignment caught my eye. It was from English class and we were studying A Streetcar Named Desire. We were asked to create a monologue for a character and fit it into the story. This was mine. I couldn’t help but laugh. The writing wasn’t the greatest but I liked the direction I painted the monologue. It’s always fun to look back and see how far we’ve come in our craft. Enjoy!

Dramatic Monologue

Blanche: [Swings open the bathroom door in a hurry, hair wet and donning a red silk robe.]

My I love bathes, I know I take many. I’m sorry for the up in your water bill but you don’t need to yell at me like that! I’ve done things I’m not proud of yes, that’s why I take so many. It’s my own demented way of coping. I wash my hair and I wash my body and I always feel brand new after, even if for only a little while. I wish I could stay that way . . . but I can’t escape my past. [Puts a hand to her brow.] That boy, that dear seventeen year old boy, he was a mistake . . . I thought I loved him. He bought me flowers and winked at me in class, he had me giggling like a little school girl. But I was a fool to lead him on, which is what I thought I was doing . . . but I not only lead him on, I returned his affection. What was I thinking? I suppose I thought he could be my handsome love, to replace my dead one. He wrote me letters, love letters as a matter of fact. Ones so steamy they could melt the ice cubes in your lemonade. [Sighs.]  I needed someone to treasure me, I always need to be treasured; I can’t stand on my own. The presence of a man keeps me at ease. And I suppose that’s why I go after Mitch. He’s stable and reliable. Perhaps one day we’ll have a quaint little weddin’ ceremony. I’ll have a lily in my hair and he’ll look dapper as can be. And we’ll say our vows and kiss and settle down in a little summer house and have cute little babies . . . but that’s just a dream of mine. A silly little dream. Are you happy? Is this what you wanted to get from me? To spill all my locked up secrets? [Sarcastic.] Well aren’t you a big man Stanley! Don’t tell me your hands are spiffy clean! You walk around like you’re the king of everything, having my poor little sister scrub and cook and – and . . . please you! [Points a shaky finger at Stanley and shouts.] You are despicable! [Takes a few breathes and looks from Stella to Stanley and back, with her hand clutched to her chest, her fighting spirit is deflated.] Perhaps one day I’ll soak long enough my sins and downfalls flow through my pores and out into my jasmine bath water . . .

Where should this go in the play that would be the most effective?

            I feel this would be most effective in the scene where Blanche was bathing and while she’s occupied Stanley takes the opportunity to fill Stella in on her sister’s past. Blanche could over hear the conversation and go out to defend herself. This would confirm the rumours Stanley was retelling and could deepen Blanche’s character. Revealing things about herself instead of lying would be interesting.

 

Peace & Love,

-Christina

A lost child

This idea came to in a dream so I just sat down for ten minutes and this poured out. I’m really excited to explore this.

-Turner

When I was fifteen, I had to make a choice. A big choice, a life changing one. Not just for me, but for the life of the little one I had grown for the last nine months.
“Are you sure this is what you want to do, Josie?” My mother asked, gripping my hand so tight it lost feeling. I know she wanted me to keep the baby, to raise it. But, I wasn’t ready. I was still a child myself, I couldn’t give this child what it deserved. A family, support and stability. I could see the tears starting to build in my mother’s blue eyes. Her lip trembled and her breathing had picked up. I didn’t want to break my mother’s heart as well, but I’d already made up my mind. It took me that moment, with only a week left til my due date, to get to this office.
I looked up to Mrs. Talbot’s soft eyes, she had been my rock through all of this, not pressuring me. Always being understanding. She was the director of the adoption agency I decided to go with. She found the best family to take my baby, to give it the things I wasn’t able to. Marcus, the baby’s father, was out of the picture. He was older than me, and the moment he found out how old I really was and what had happened, he split. Never to be heard from again. I had grown up without a father as well and I would never wish that on my baby. I rested my hand on my large belly, feeling the dips and rolls as the little one fought for room inside my under developed body.
“It’s alright, Josie. This is all up to you, everything is in your hands.” I know Mrs. Talbot was trying to be supportive, but that comment cut me to the quick. I picked up the blue pen that was resting in front of me. I gripped it so hard it nearly shot across the room. The moment I brought the tip down on the line that would officially release me of my baby, my mother broke down. Her sobs wracking her body.
“I’m sorry, I can’t…I just…” With that, she took off, out of the room to who knows where. I wanted to comfort her, she had been there for me my whole life, with nothing but love. But this wasn’t something I could help her through. I was barely holding myself together.
I looked up one more time to the kind, older woman in front of me. She gave me a reassuring smile. And with that, I signed my name.
I gave up my baby.
And…every day for the last nine years, I’ve cried for the life I never got to hold. To know. I never even found out if I had a boy or a girl. The adoption was closed. The moment I pushed the tiny body out of my own, a nurse swaddled it and took it out of the room, shutting the door behind her. That was the first night the dreams came.
They haven’t left.
That’s why today, I’m at Mrs.Talbot’s office. Desperation pulled me here. I need answers. I need to know my baby is safe, is taken care of. I want to know if I gave birth to a little boy with my blue eyes or a little girl with my dark blonde hair. I won’t be able to sleep for another ten years if I don’t.
With that thought, I pull open the large door with Miracle Adoption Agency printed on the glass.

Eternity.

No one has ever caught my eye enough to allow my blood to flow through their veins for eternity.

Until her.

A teaser from a new piece we have in the works. Enjoy!

-Turner

Debut novel teaser quote #3

Check out Unit 17 on Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B01LYJDI36/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477344798&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=unit+17+ebook&dpPl=1&dpID=51YNM4-c3uL&ref=plSrch

The Collected

Here is a piece of our current work in progress, coming soon.

• Turner Collins

I wasn’t naive as to why I’d ended up where I was. I knew the lifestyle I had chosen could land me here. I was aware that my choices, my mistakes, they all had consequences. I knew all this and somehow I had still believed that the group of people I had chosen to dedicate my life to would protect me from this fate.

I was wrong. So very wrong.

The small 6 x 8 cell that had been my home for the last six months was my price to pay for those mistakes.

-Dach, The Collected

Debut novel quote teaser #2

Unit 17 is available on Amazon as an ebook here: 

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B01LYJDI36/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1475889624&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=unit+17+ebook&dpPl=1&dpID=51YNM4-c3uL&ref=plSrch

-Turner Collins 

Autobiography

Fence post. Barbed Wire. Fence post. Barbed wire.
Flashes, flashes, and more flashes. Nothing concrete but those two images. Blurring together, creating an old fashioned movie reel playing through my head.
Nothing-ness. Blackness, utter confusion.
Are those…what happened?
I bring my hand up to my face, my eyes barely able to focus. Blood is dripping down my arm, bright crimson against alabaster.
I look down. Slices. Slices upon more slices.Tattered fabric, tattered skin. The stark white of the dermis. I loved this shirt. This shirt held good memories…now it’s gone. Like the piece of flesh I left on the wire.
Wait…I wasn’t alone. I’m not alone. Where is she?
“ARE YOU OKAY?” I scream out, finding the huddled figure of my friend.
“Ow…errrg…I’m okay!”
Tunnel vision. Am I under water? I think I need a hospital.
Frantic eyes, darting every which way. How will I get out of here? Help…I need help.
“Help!” I scream out, praying the only other person in these acres of land can hear me. “Help, please!”
After what seems like ages, and more inspection of my battered body…they show up.
“Jesus, what the hell happened?”
I try to recall. I was driving the machine…up and up and up the hill. Turn, a sharp turn. I took the turn wrong? Giant rock, avoidance. Fence post. Barbed wire. Fence Post. Barbed Wire.
What happened? What the fuck happened? Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming because I can see my own body jumping off the faulty equiptment and getting tangled in the thorny wires. Did I? I shake my head, clearing the memory, vision.
“Let’s get you guys out of here. I can take you home.”
Home…”Home? We need a hospital. I’m bleeding and I’m cold.”
They shake their head. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
I’m attempting to walk, but the ground is spinning.
This is the moment, I think. This is the moment that will impact every other moment from here until forever.
It did. It still does.

-Turner

Debut novel quote of the week

Here’s a quote from one of the main characters of our debut novel Unit 17, available on Amazon now!

-Turner Collins 

The Start of Something

I was only a young boy when they first came to me. I was supposed to be sleeping, but instead I had my flash light on under my covers reading my favorite comic book. If my mom knew, she’d tan my hide. But I did it anyways. If I had been sleeping…I doubt they ever would have found me. But I had to know what happened to my favorite characters. Did they defeat evil? Did they lose their damsel?
I never found out.
Now I live in fear, for every day when I lay in bed she comes to visit me. With her three other friends. The most beautiful sirens I have ever seen, except it’s not real. None of it is. I lost track of reality that day as a young boy with a flash light.
I’m now a shell of a man, a man who has to sleep with the lights on.
It’s pathetic really. I mean…they have to be a figment of my imagation. There is no way three raven haired women come into my room every night to taunt me. To feed on my soul.
Or do they?
God…the confusion is the worst part.
My parents never believed me. They told me it was a nightmare, it was in my head. They took me to the best doctors in town for them to say the same things. Sooner or later I realized my best bet was to agree with them, to not tell them that it was real. That I had the scars to prove it littered around my body. They became a shameful secret. I was a shameful secret. My mother and father never told anyone what was happening to their son, they simply pulled me from school. Told their friends I was out, or I was sick and that’s why I wasn’t around.
When I finally finished my schooling, I packed my things in the middle of the night and left. I was hoping that maybe if I left that house…the four women wouldn’t follow. But they did. And now they’ve got me trapped down here…because they no longer simply come at night. Now that I’m alone? They come whenever they feel like it. They’re going to kill me. I know they are, I can see it in the gleam of their eyes as they stare at me. In the pitch of their laugh as they taunt me and ridicule me. Telling me that time is running out to be a good boy.
I’m not a boy, I’m a god damn twenty-four year old man, but you’d never know it.
Hell, maybe I’m already dead. This is hell, it just has to be.

 

-Turner

Scars

My body wasn’t the same anymore, the scars and silver lines providing a constant reminder of the thing that I lost, that I could never get back.
I ran my finger along the largest one, stretching from my navel to pubic bone. Mesmerized by the silky feeling of it. I’m not sure how long I stared at the mark, imagining my life as something different before he entered the room, silently and reserved, as he always was.
“You’re beautiful.” Is all he said. I don’t look up, not wanting to see the look of longing and loss on his face. I see it enough in my own. Instead, I pull down my top, hiding the marks of her life from us both. It’s only a nasty reminder and I’m not even sure why I continued to torture myself. Maybe because I deserved it.
I finally turned toward him, my husband, Ben. His eyes traveled up my body, landing on my own. His dark scuff perfectly sculpted, his even darker hair coiffed on top, dark brown eyes with just a hint of amber in them. He was a beautiful man, he gave me a beautiful child…and I took it away from him. I’m not sure how he can stand to look at me with anything but hate and regret in his eyes. It’s why I shifted my gaze away almost instantly. I knew I was pushing him away, but it was what he needed but hadn’t yet realized. He didn’t deserve a wife who couldn’t bare children, whose body killed innocent souls. I was evil. He was angel.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, playing with the frayed edge of shirt. Much like my life, it too had begun to unravel. The bed dipped beside me as Ben sat down. His hand grasped mine, pulling it away from the wayward strand.
“It’s okay, Hannah.” He said simply, with comfort. I didn’t feel it though, I couldn’t. He didn’t know what he was saying, it would never be okay again. I ripped my hand from his.
“Hannah…please. I’m your husband, I’m here for you but I can feel you pulling away from me.”
I shake my head, letting my blonde hair fall over my eyes, sheilding myself from him. “It’s not okay, it will never be okay…I’m..broken, useless.” I finally admitted.
His calloused finger gently pushed aside a lock of hair, relocating it behind my ear. “Never.” He whispered against my cheek, his warm breath ghosting across my face. His lips gently ran back and forth over my heated skin. A warm hand engulfed the other side, pulling me toward him. I tried to close my eyes, avoid the connection, but he didn’t allow it. “You are the most beautiful, couragous woman I have ever met. I don’t want to hear you ever speak about yourself that way again, Hannah.”
I scoffed, not wanting to believe anything he was saying. After what I did…what my body did, I could never believe that. “What about Julie, Ben? I killed her. I killed our daughter.” I spit at him, he flinches but his eyes don’t waver, I wish they would. I wish he would give me just a little bit of vulnerability I could feed off, so I could save him…

To be continued.

Turner