Because I haven't posted recently I decided to post a story that I wrote as a blog. Its called Saven.
Its about two pages long so here it goes:I could laugh my life away. Illuminating in the distance is this shadow that reminds me of the stranger that I passed by on the street today. He wore some wicked smile upon his face and his brow was furrowed beyond my imagination. He sat, coat-less out in the winter wind, hypnotized by something on the wall behind him. Seeing nothing on that wall but his shadow, though he must have seen something more, because his eyes were wet with tears and he was ranting of the rapture to come. I did but stop for a second to pay mind to his disillusion, and admire his passion. Wondering if I had ever had a tear for anything of the sort in my entire life. Recounting the last day that I cried or became truly lachrymal and wept out of searing passion. I remember that day; it was a Monday.It was the day that my wife Rosemary passed away. Summer set and roses bloomed at her passing by as we looked deep into the ground for angels in the snow. She giggled and my heart hummed; unable to help but feel completely immobilized by her. She took my breath away and kept it locked up somewhere horrible and hellish. Knowing of my love and kindled the fires of my passionate masquerade. She completed my dangerous circle. Rosemary of Eden was the only thing that I could ever hold to be true. Staring into the galaxy and falling into an everlasting hole; her pupils as the sun reflected into something so immaculate. Never knowing why this angel chose to smile at me, but she never really existed, did she?Disparaging to say the least as I awoke from my own delusion to see myself. Slit my throat when she perished yet here I remain. Putting together the pieces from another harsh and broken reality. I begin to remember another name and another tragedy as I wipe my face clean of a month unkempt. Sarah, Diane, Lillie, and Alice. Four stories that overshadow the last.The story of how Rosemary died changes everyday. Never truly sure which one is the truth, or even how to wield it if I saw it. The crumbling fiction that is no longer us as her face vanishes into nothing. Discerning the truth only through pain, because pain is the only truth that I can ever know. Whispers of their names in my ear through the ringing reawakens the well of yesterday. She was real and she was gone; far away like the wind, just like the others. I had once at dawns break told my love of my affection for her. Rambling about how beautiful she was, but missing my point entirely due to my foolhardy awkwardness. I stammered about the point of my compliments and finally came to a halt when I told her what love meant to me, what she meant to me. I told her that “Love is fearâ€?. I feared traversing the harshness of the world without her hand intertwined inside of mine. Fleeting past the scope of the universe to create our own existence. She was my security; she completed me. She took my hopelessness away and when I did grip the poison in my hand to embellish my sorrow in death, I thought of her and it went away for another day. The pain was replaced with a fleeting smile. She felt like the summer wind, caressing me and passionately holding me afloat as the waves did crash against my hold.The wind could never break the bound between Rosemary and I. She was shy, just like me. A battered case of emotional and sexual torture as was I. She could see the pain in my eyes; the pain that hid behind a spindle of lies. Lies that overshadowed what was real; the clouds that masked the stars. She understood and I never spoke a word. Never uttered of my shame and pain, of my self-content. Her hand touched mine and I was set aflame; she brought a new shine to my dull dead eyes.I open mine to realize that I am still standing on the roof of my apartment complex; toes over the edge and a tear running down my cheek as I scan the horizon for signs of her spirit. Recollecting myself as I take a step back into my own skin and step away from the edge. Following the cascading steel steps back down to my apartment.It was plain. Grey walls and snow white carpet that hugged my feet as I entered; welcoming me back from another episode. I move towards the counter and reach for the peanut butter and head to my room to sulk and regain myself again. Where had I been? I scoop up a large dollop of peanut butter with my index finger and begin to recollect my evening. Where had I been?I spoke aloud “For one-hundred nights I have sat awake, awaiting the return of my beloved, and one-hundred-and-one more I shall until she has returned.â€? Where did this come from?I look around the room to share my peanut butter with my dog Samuel. I call his name softly and hear the clanking of his collar as he straddles about my apartment, never actually coming to me. I begin to remember that I lost Samuel years ago to the only evil that this world knows; time. I called his name once more and nothing more was heard. A sudden screech behind my ear to force me to winch in pain as I throw my palms to my temples, out-waiting this violent storm. Samuel! I scream as I beg him to be real again. Please be alive again, and so he was, as he appeared before me, chubby and brown as I last remembered him.I stand up and run my finger through the dew on the grass and motion for Samuel to come here. He rolls over and I scratch his furry little belly as he flails his paws about. He hops up and asserts his face next to my nose and gives me a kiss. I place my hands on both sides of his face and look deep into his eyes. “Promise me that you will never leave me againâ€?? He begins to pant and licks my nose again. Taking this as acceptance I remove my palms from my temples to see the mess that I have made on my freshly cleaned white carpet. I had managed to get peanut butter everywhere.I look around for Samuel, but he is nowhere to be found; I cannot catch his scent. Dismayed and silenced by this renewed pain that quaked out of my chest as I attempted to establish fact in all of this fiction. Samuel was gone; he was long gone as well. He is but a speckle in the wind now, and I was just unwilling to accept it. Collecting my plastic jar of peanut butter and returning to the kitchen, I see his bowl on the ground with water still inside of it. Knowing what I should do and never doing it, I leave the bowl in its place; water that he had once lapped from still shifting like the waves of the vast ocean blue. I turn my head away before the tears begin; choking on my own ocean.I returned to my bedroom and laid my head back on the floor; sprawling out as much as I could. Staring up into the ceiling that was now vanishing into the ocean of stars. They began to dance for me, or at least I think they were dancing for me. Eyes veering from left to right and discovering patterns in their movement. Predicting which one would land first as they all raced for me. Slamming down through the clouds to land on my eye lids. As the first star approached my view dimmed and my body felt light and cold. My stomach began to lurch as I balled my hands into fists to keep myself from convulsing. Suddenly frozen and fading away as the moon turned to me and smiled as it said “What is the truth, but our collective ignorance? Are you dying or are you entering a new form of life? Sorrow and grief will follow you there as well, for never having the ability to let go will ensure you a place in hell.â€?“Sorrow and grief know no boundsâ€?, I say to the moon. My eyelids have begun to feel heavy and I feel as though I am falling into a subtle slumber. The shaking stops and my life ends to begin again.
I used your story to test my experiments in text contraction - I don't meant to make this sound self-pormotional, but maybe this automatically generated summary will interest those who went tl;dr:
The peanut butter is not solely peanut butter. It was my attempt to normalize the phase from delusion and reality by using a common object of everyday life. It also worked to tie the dog into the story with much more of a personality than just saying his name. You can establish that the dog and I had a really close relationship, by that I fed his from my hand and didn't just leave his food in a bowl. We shared.
Also as I did not make mention of this in the story the peanut butter was not just peanut butter in more than one sense. As a schitzophrentic dips in from delusion and reality, never knowing which one is real, they can experience things that are normal like common household amentities. Even though this object may completely break the dark depressing tone by incorporating something so normal as peanut butter. It works to establish that Schizoprentics do experience periods of normal everyday life. Not just a constant recurring disabling nightmare. The peanut butter is reality, and death.