When one starts writing fiction, one of the first hurdles can be either where to start or where to stop. The inspiration for a beginning can come quickly or it can take its time. Once you're underway and have a little character development going, how do you end the story? The easiest way in a short story when you're learning your craft is to kill off your character.
Around the time that this story was written, I'd been studying the literary works of the modernists such as Kafka, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, a collection of writers primarily writing in the earlier decades of the 20th Century. This literary movement was a change of direction from the Romanticists that had preceded them, and their work was characterised by the breakdowns of social norms and cultural sureties that fell in the wake of the peaking Western Industrial Revolutions and the move away from more ruralist lifestyles.
Perhaps subconsciously borrowing from Kafka's Gregor Samsa (a man who awakes one morning in the story 'Metamorphosis' to find that he has been transformed into a giant insect), my unnamed character in this story awakes in a completely white room with no idea of how he got there. He is then killed off by the end with no explanations given. So often in a narrative, we expect to be spoonfed the answers and background to a story. I was keen to explore in this one what happens when we have none of those.
I was told that the story compared somehow to Arthur Koestler's 'Darkness At Noon', although I have yet to read that tale. Whether 'Waiting For The Light' is a good yarn or not is perhaps not for me but the reader to decide, but I hope that it can capture some of the feelings of isolation and confusion that is still felt even in our post-industrial lives.
I don’t like it here. It’s cold and all I can see are four huge walls that engulf me as waves would a small crab on the shoreline. My arms are sore and I haven’t been able to move them since I woke up. I think that that was about ten days ago. Not sleeping for ten days without being able to move your body and with no food or water….it certainly takes it’s toll on you. I think I’m dying. Maybe I’m already dead. Maybe this is hell? Was I that bad in my lifetime? I stole £50 from my brother once. That couldn’t possibly put me here? Anyway, I told him about it a year later when I could afford to repay him. He was very good about it. I cheated on my girlfriend twice. I was very drunk but that’s no excuse.
That wouldn’t land me in hell though. I must still be alive. There’s nothing else dead in here to watch decomposing before I do. Not even a cockroach. The floor is as white as the walls, just as bright. No windows. Nothing. Just white everywhere. Nothing but a bright white lightbulb which never seems to go out. Thank God. A lightbulb and me. And I’m all in white….sitting alone in my white corner.
The craziest thing is.….I’ve no idea how I got here. Maybe I’ve gone insane. I could be in a padded cell. That would explain the straitjacket. Have I gone insane and lost my memory? I have no idea how I got here so I could have lost my memory. But I can remember stealing from my brother and cheating on my girlfriend. And what I was doing before I woke up here.
I’d had such a tiring day at the bank. The manager had invited me out to dinner because his wife was away on business and he wanted some company for the evening. My girlfriend had gone back to her mother’s for the weekend and had left on the Thursday morning. As I had no company either and had been chasing a promotion, I jumped at the chance. We went to a little Italian restaurant, just down the road from the bank but still on the High Street. Conversation flowed more freely as the wine did. He even gave me one of those big Cuban cigars that he keeps in a draw under his desk. Hearing the waiters drumming their fingers on the tables, we realised that the restaurant had long since closed and we were starting to overstay our welcome. After settling the bill, we shook hands and went our separate ways. I walked home, jangling my keys in my pocket with my head buzzing slightly. Then I went to bed.
I woke up here. Ten days ago. Haven’t slept a wink since. Or moved my body. I can’t. I can only move my head. And there’s nothing to look at here.
I’m cold. And I’m hungry. And I’m very scared. I wish that I could get out of here.
There hasn’t been a sound since I’ve been here. No movement. No people. No cars. No birds. Nothing. I soon got bored of the sound of my own voice and ended up just letting my imagination run riot. I’ve had some parties in my head. They all end though.
I could be anywhere. No sounds to give the location away so that I could let my imagination picture the outside of this white tomb. If there indeed is an outside. I could be on the moon. I could be on the bottom of the ocean. I could be at the centre of the earth. Probably wouldn’t be so cold then. I could be in another dimension of time and space altogether. I could be....
.... Hey, I’m sure that the ceiling was further away the last time that I looked. It was. A lot further away. It can’t be moving towards me....
.... It’s not. By Christ, I’m moving towards the ceiling! The floor is rising. But I can’t hear the movement or cranking of machinery. This is moving fast. My death may have been imminent through starvation, but now I’m going to be crushed! Not even allowed the decency of falling asleep and dying in my dreams.
I’m glad that my watch is digital. If I had an analogue and could hear the seconds ticking away.... ooh, that’d drive me crazy. Feel like the seconds of my life were ticking away. Too much to handle.
Come to think of it, how cruel is that? The only one of my possessions I still have is my watch. I’ve been put here by someone or something, away from everything that is familiar to me and the one thing that I’m not allowed to escape from is time itself. What kind of an unfair trick is that to play on a man when he’s in an alien environment?
My nose is touching the ceiling now. THIS HURTS. I’M BEING CRUSHED ALIVE. OH, PLEASE STOP THIS THING, I PROMISE I’LL BE GOOD, FOREVER AND EVER, I’LL DEDICATE MY LIFE TO HELPING PEOPLE I’LL GIVE UP MY JOB AT THE BANK I’LLBELIEVEINYOUGOD IWILLIWILLIWILLIPROMISE ILLGOTOCHURCHEVERYSUNDAY EVERYDAYANYTHING .JUST.. .HELP. . .ME.. .PLEEEASE..
The only...sound..that I’ve heard in ten days.. with the….exception ..of…my… own.. voice……it’s….. the….. sound..of…..my…..spine……………. snapping…………………………….
Around the time that this story was written, I'd been studying the literary works of the modernists such as Kafka, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, a collection of writers primarily writing in the earlier decades of the 20th Century. This literary movement was a change of direction from the Romanticists that had preceded them, and their work was characterised by the breakdowns of social norms and cultural sureties that fell in the wake of the peaking Western Industrial Revolutions and the move away from more ruralist lifestyles.
Perhaps subconsciously borrowing from Kafka's Gregor Samsa (a man who awakes one morning in the story 'Metamorphosis' to find that he has been transformed into a giant insect), my unnamed character in this story awakes in a completely white room with no idea of how he got there. He is then killed off by the end with no explanations given. So often in a narrative, we expect to be spoonfed the answers and background to a story. I was keen to explore in this one what happens when we have none of those.
I was told that the story compared somehow to Arthur Koestler's 'Darkness At Noon', although I have yet to read that tale. Whether 'Waiting For The Light' is a good yarn or not is perhaps not for me but the reader to decide, but I hope that it can capture some of the feelings of isolation and confusion that is still felt even in our post-industrial lives.
Waiting For The Light
I don’t like it here. It’s cold and all I can see are four huge walls that engulf me as waves would a small crab on the shoreline. My arms are sore and I haven’t been able to move them since I woke up. I think that that was about ten days ago. Not sleeping for ten days without being able to move your body and with no food or water….it certainly takes it’s toll on you. I think I’m dying. Maybe I’m already dead. Maybe this is hell? Was I that bad in my lifetime? I stole £50 from my brother once. That couldn’t possibly put me here? Anyway, I told him about it a year later when I could afford to repay him. He was very good about it. I cheated on my girlfriend twice. I was very drunk but that’s no excuse.
That wouldn’t land me in hell though. I must still be alive. There’s nothing else dead in here to watch decomposing before I do. Not even a cockroach. The floor is as white as the walls, just as bright. No windows. Nothing. Just white everywhere. Nothing but a bright white lightbulb which never seems to go out. Thank God. A lightbulb and me. And I’m all in white….sitting alone in my white corner.
The craziest thing is.….I’ve no idea how I got here. Maybe I’ve gone insane. I could be in a padded cell. That would explain the straitjacket. Have I gone insane and lost my memory? I have no idea how I got here so I could have lost my memory. But I can remember stealing from my brother and cheating on my girlfriend. And what I was doing before I woke up here.
I’d had such a tiring day at the bank. The manager had invited me out to dinner because his wife was away on business and he wanted some company for the evening. My girlfriend had gone back to her mother’s for the weekend and had left on the Thursday morning. As I had no company either and had been chasing a promotion, I jumped at the chance. We went to a little Italian restaurant, just down the road from the bank but still on the High Street. Conversation flowed more freely as the wine did. He even gave me one of those big Cuban cigars that he keeps in a draw under his desk. Hearing the waiters drumming their fingers on the tables, we realised that the restaurant had long since closed and we were starting to overstay our welcome. After settling the bill, we shook hands and went our separate ways. I walked home, jangling my keys in my pocket with my head buzzing slightly. Then I went to bed.
I woke up here. Ten days ago. Haven’t slept a wink since. Or moved my body. I can’t. I can only move my head. And there’s nothing to look at here.
I’m cold. And I’m hungry. And I’m very scared. I wish that I could get out of here.
There hasn’t been a sound since I’ve been here. No movement. No people. No cars. No birds. Nothing. I soon got bored of the sound of my own voice and ended up just letting my imagination run riot. I’ve had some parties in my head. They all end though.
I could be anywhere. No sounds to give the location away so that I could let my imagination picture the outside of this white tomb. If there indeed is an outside. I could be on the moon. I could be on the bottom of the ocean. I could be at the centre of the earth. Probably wouldn’t be so cold then. I could be in another dimension of time and space altogether. I could be....
.... Hey, I’m sure that the ceiling was further away the last time that I looked. It was. A lot further away. It can’t be moving towards me....
.... It’s not. By Christ, I’m moving towards the ceiling! The floor is rising. But I can’t hear the movement or cranking of machinery. This is moving fast. My death may have been imminent through starvation, but now I’m going to be crushed! Not even allowed the decency of falling asleep and dying in my dreams.
I’m glad that my watch is digital. If I had an analogue and could hear the seconds ticking away.... ooh, that’d drive me crazy. Feel like the seconds of my life were ticking away. Too much to handle.
Come to think of it, how cruel is that? The only one of my possessions I still have is my watch. I’ve been put here by someone or something, away from everything that is familiar to me and the one thing that I’m not allowed to escape from is time itself. What kind of an unfair trick is that to play on a man when he’s in an alien environment?
My nose is touching the ceiling now. THIS HURTS. I’M BEING CRUSHED ALIVE. OH, PLEASE STOP THIS THING, I PROMISE I’LL BE GOOD, FOREVER AND EVER, I’LL DEDICATE MY LIFE TO HELPING PEOPLE I’LL GIVE UP MY JOB AT THE BANK I’LLBELIEVEINYOUGOD IWILLIWILLIWILLIPROMISE ILLGOTOCHURCHEVERYSUNDAY EVERYDAYANYTHING .JUST.. .HELP. . .ME.. .PLEEEASE..
The only...sound..that I’ve heard in ten days.. with the….exception ..of…my… own.. voice……it’s….. the….. sound..of…..my…..spine……………. snapping…………………………….
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