Adventures in Anti–Narrative

After a traumatic period of block, block, and more block, I'm finally starting to get things done rather than moping around looking at my brain and wishing it would do things, huzzah. The anti-narrative fun times expected this term are very appealing, particularly for someone still hobbling around on baby deer legs when in comes to pen and paper. So here's a few stories in imitation of a writer whose name I have forgotten but who is rather excellent (will update this entry once I replace my course pack, which dissolved in a recent downpour). Pantoums and yet another Boar comic to come. Enjoy!

1.

Once upon a time there was an old man whose legs were on backwards. Try as he might, he could never walk forwards; his legs would inevitably drag him off in the opposite direction. The harder he tried, the stronger they’d pull, until eventually they never stopped at all and he was swept off, never quite sure where his legs were taking him. He walked through cities and towns, past palaces and hovels, past men and women and children and dogs, over bridges and underground, past rats and cats and snakes and pigs. And then his legs broke.

2.

There once was a girl who was more beautiful than all the other women in the world. Her eyes glittered and gleamed a deep sapphire, her mouth was flush like coral, her skin as smooth as rose petals. When the girl sang, her voice was so sweet that all the birds in the land fell silent, and her song, nurtured by the wind, swept to strange countries. I had her in my pocket for a while, but I lost her.

3.

I met a man on the way to the market who was carrying seven pigs. I heard that he died a few days later.

Kirsty Judge : 24 Jan 2012 13:02 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem