Ink, paper, thoughts
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Some info from the author. ............................................................... 2 A kid and his dream.......................................................................... 3 Countdown ........................................................................................ 4 Six words memoir .............................................................................. 8 Thanks for your existence ................................................................. 9 What is love?.................................................................................... 10 The silly student, a noble lover ....................................................... 11 Mom ................................................................................................. 12 My Epic Hero ................................................................................... 13 Travel Writing: .................................................................................. 15 Almost frozen ................................................................................... 15 Final words from the author ............................................................ 18
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Some info about the author I, Carlos Ari-el Ruíz Muñoz, was born on July 6th, in 2001. Since I was a little kid I used to play alone, even with my sister complaining about it. But I played alone because I invented stories in my games, and it was something unusual to have somebody to play along that understood that story, and followed it as I wanted them to do. So since always my imagination has been something that people describe as exaggerated and in some cases, dangerous.
And I grew up along with my stories, which became more complex, with a twisted plot that spinned until you forgot why the story had started, and I liked that, even when I was ashamed of my stories and hardly ever told them to somebody.
Now, I’m not ashamed any more of my stories, when I tell them, people like how they are, and if they got lost at some point, they have no problem in asking for me to repeat it, and I can tell the story over and over again. In the next pages, you’ll have the chance to read a few things I wrote, they’re not my best stories, neither the worst ones; yet I hope you like them and enjoy them.
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A kid and his dream In front of the TV You’ll find a little kid Who smiles at what he sees A normal guy life, or that seems The kid shouts in exciting When the man goes flying He’s not normal, a superhero he is “Like him I want to be” Says the little kid
Upstairs his older brother cries A song which breaks his mind His soul has lost the gleam Given by an old dream He no longer wants to fly He no longer wants a suit and cape Or beeing celebrated at sunset If you ask “What was your dream?” He will say “A superhero I desired to be
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Countdown When my eyes finally opened, I knew I was about to die. It may was because of the constant ticking of the weird clock I had in my hand, It may was because my legs did not respond when I ordered them to move, it may was because of the silence, which devoured me as a giant snake swallows a deer, it may was because of the lonely place, a cabin? Or maybe just a little wooden house someone built to never use again. I was about to die, but my mind got lost in nowhere, my eyes had some memories printed so deep, that the broken wood wall was almost a ghost, I was about to die, but my heart was not accelerated, I wasn’t scared, fear seemed so… useless.
The weird clock finally called my attention, it seemed funny for me to think as a criminologist, so I asked myself “Death hour?” and then looked to the clock hoping to see it was just 9 in the morning, but instead, there was a huge 8457, so that was not a clock, it could be a rare calculator? I looked again, the number was decreasing, now it was 8454, and then it changed again, 8453, I looked at it for almost ten seconds, the number went backwards every couple of seconds, with no idea of what was that thing, I looked around again.
I knew that a forest should not be that quiet, there should be birds flying, a few bugs buzzing around with their tiny wings, maybe a rabbit hopping near, trees making a particular noise with the wind, Then I noticed something that got me a little bit confused, there was no wind, everything seemed to be paralyzed in a moment of time, although, the sunlight changed as the minutes passed away. Sooner than expected, I got lost in my memories once more, I Heard the laughs and voices of everyone, the conversations that twisted the way everything was supposed to happen, I thought in each one of them but their names vanished away. I could barely remember all the faces.
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The one with glasses would forget about me in a few months, he would keep drawing outer space creatures and dragons. “Hey! Good luck!” He said last time we met The short girl would keep on with her life, ignoring any life sign of the others, no more puns, no more talks about future. The tall guy … Did the hate still boil in his eyes after what I have done? I missed making fun of life with him; -You just acted as you thought was right- I said myself as the weird clock kept ticking with the numbers falling down. “Just go away! You’re a piece of waste, not a friend” Those were his final words when he finally realized the truth. The girl with the pretty eyes and beautiful lips, the one who caused all the disaster, she would run away, as she always had done with every trouble in her life, run until somebody else solved the problem, she would run and forget the friends she someday used to love. “Please make this easier for me” She wrote in a letter. Finally the girl with the dark hair and deep eyes, did she forget me, just as I did with her? Would she wait for me to return? Where was she? I remembered how we talked about common things or the most complicated topic we could find, she laughed and stared at my eyes before saying “I love your brown innocent eyes”
A warm, tiny, drop of water ran through my face and pulled me back to reality, I looked up; the ceiling had no holes, then from where…? It took me a couple of drops to realize that I was crying, how bad could my body be to not even feel my own tears? After a moment thinking how my family could overcome the pain of the loss I was about to be for them, I looked at the weird clock, 3529, still I had no idea of what was that, the countdown didn’t follow the patron of seconds, maybe it was counting two by two, maybe.
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My arms looked consumed, also my legs, actually my entire body seemed consumed, useless, just a piece of fabric to play around. The muscles were no longer in its place, I had the feeling that if I punched something, my bones would shatter and go through my skin… something unpleasant to imagine, I tried to close my fingers, but I couldn’t do it, they didn’t even move, not a single millimeter, I doubted for a minute, maybe I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore, I raised my arm, the effort accelerated my heart and my breath became heavier, then I my arm fell back to the ground, with a short sound, my fingers hurted, and only moved to return to the previous state they had, and still I couldn’t move them. As a result of recovering the normal rhythm in my breathing, I moved my head to my chest, and my sight met up with the white numbers. 3284. After seeing how it had decreased in a couple of minutes, I had an idea, I kept my eyes staring at the numbers, and raised my arm, this time a little bit higher, the effort made me breath as if I just ran chasing a horse, the numbers began to decrease really fast, I let my arm fall, hitting the floor hurted a lot this time and I screamed while pain stabbed my skin and stayed inside the wounds like termites eating a tree; the numbers changed again, 3221.
If I breathe faster the countdown goes faster. I thought and then took three fast breaths, but numbers kept their rhythm. Then I’m wrong” I spent five minutes complaining about the pain until it disappeared, and then the countdown returned to the speed it had before I moved my arm. “HELP!” I shouted as loud as my throat allowed me. But there was no answers to my voice “Please, help me!” Still, not even a bird answered to me. I used my arms to drag myself in the floor so I could reach the limit of the wooden floor to see where I was. The agony I faced was something I do not expected, the skin in my elbows was ripped off after a few “steps” like paper, my bones crushed the skin and cut it with every move I made, in my legs and stomach I felt my skin peeling of as I dragged myself out of there. When I finally got there, I collapsed in the ground,
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panting, crying, and bleeding from horrible wounds located in almost the entire body. I felt my heart about to explode, with my chest in the floor I felt crushed between it and my heart. After a few more minutes, my heart reduced the beat rhythm, and I realized what measured the weird clock, by the moment it marked 1285, I still had time to prove what I thought.
1283, my heart made a sound like “KA-BUMP”. 1282, I had no idea of how to low my heartbeat rhythm, “KA-BUMP” 1281, maybe the clock counted how many heartbeats I had left “KA-BUMP” As I said before, I was about to die. In the position I had after my non-sense race, the only things at my sight were some roots that belonged to a giant tree, a small amount of grass, the orange light of the sun leaving the place at hands of night, and a tiny, yet beautiful, yellow flower, rising in the grass.
Hours and hours laying in the ground, my wounds only hurted if I moved too much, only a few meters away from where I started, my face surely had the marks of my tears, and my throat was dry, I began to feel hunger and thirst. 30 beats remaining, I tried everything: holding my breath, that made me spend almost 200 beats, a useless hour trying to sleep, and choking myself, nothing seemed to give me more time. Death was not something I could avoid in that situation. 20, nobody near to help, by 300 I tried to shout until somebody came, but from my mouth only escaped agonizing screams due to my wounds. 10, no friends to aid me, 9 I started to feel sleepy, 8 the most boring last day ever, 7 I would decompose to be tree food, 6 nobody would know where it happened, 5 the sun disappeared at some point in the horizon, 4 I wanted to drink water, 3 the little yellow flower was even more beautiful at night, 2 my body hurted no more, 1 I was about to die.
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Six words memoir
“Swords were forbidden
I Picked pencils”
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Thanks for your existence I’ve heard it many times “I thank your existence” And still I don’t understand I don’t get why so much joy She feels for me, a simple boy At least I can give something back Something back for her love So, I thank seeing her eyes And staring at her while she laughs “I thank your existence too” My answer is that
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What is love? So, in the middle of the evening, I was asked What’s love? And for you, what does it involves? In a poem, verses I have no To explain and describe, how love I feel
It starts as an unknown and invisible sensation Awakened suddenly, even from a simple question Feed by glances and strange gestures It drinks a potion of laughs and smiles Once you notice it’s too late, you’re in love
It will be in every look, hidden in every hug Growing with every kiss, showing you just a glimpse Of the immense power it holds, and the joy it brings That’s love, at least for me, that’s how it feels I hope you found the answer, to the question you did
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The silly student, a noble lover Plot: The play will be a mostly a monologue by a young man who, at the last minutes before a date, notices how disorganized is his life, starting from a messy room, a pile of schoolwork with a due-date extremely close, his lack of attention to formal dressing, his desire to be the right guy for the date. Unsure of being ready for this new panorama, he will find himself a solution to his daily life, in less than 20 minutes.
Characters: Ari-el: The main character, who faces the problem, he´s nervous during the whole play, he’s tall, has brown eyes, black hair Father: The father of the main character, he hasn’t been actually present in his son’s life. Mother: The mother of the main character, she mocks at him, always presuming to have been better than him at his age, doesn’t really help, in the situation Creepy looking teacher: The teacher that has been haunting the main character with works and assignments.
Ari-el
Father
Mother
Teacher
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Mom Mom, I’m not lying From school to home I’ve been walking Mom, don’t yell me please I haven’t done any wrong thing Mom, you do know me Is two years I haven’t changed since Mom, please understand That rage has made you blind That this distance is creation Of your very hand That this silence feeds on you That is been a month since the last hug Mom, I miss you Mom, I love you But there’s no importance on that Because there’s no profit you get back You’ve changed, you’re cold I think that’s growing old
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My Epic Hero His name is Kaeus, he is the son of Morpheus the god of the God’s dreams He is a man who fights for justice, no matter how mighty his enemies are, he chases evil people in where nobody can help them: in their dreams, driving them to madness. His actions, though they are good and only hurt those who follow evil, have won him a few enemies among the gods, such as Helios and Apollo gods of the Sun and Prophecy, both ask for help to Hades, who then sends Kaeus to the Pit of Tartarus; hoping to shred his sanity, his only companion is Orco, the god of punishment. Kaeus manages to escape from Tartarus throwing himself at the Void in the end of creation, but he falls into Night’s castle, in there, she asks Kaeus to please her, and Kaeus uses her dreams to show her all the suffering he’s been living during his time in Tartarus. But his stay on Night’s mind ends with his moral and drives him to madness. Achlys, goddess of sadness and despair heals him and stops his suffering just enough time so Kaeus can escape, as a gift for pleasing her, Night gives Kaeus a cloak made of darkness and void capable of absorbing all light its power reaches, so Kaeus never suffers again at the light of Helios and Apollo.
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Travel Writing: Almost frozen It was June, in 2016, I had been training for almost two years and only went to one camp at Malinche, I’ve never had been in Iztacchiuatl and I was really excited about it, if I was lucky I might even see snow for the first time!
But just a few hours (the previous day) I had a strong discussion with my mom, and she threatened me with stopping me of going to that trip, after a few shouts and mean words and phrases the hour to depart arrived, and I had to go, I said goodbye to my mother and cried of anger because I expected a warm movie-like goodbye from her, just like my friends had with their families. With their normal families.
And so I embarked in the two day camp, with the heart pressed against my chest, my sleeves wet in my tears and a fake smile to talk with people who in that moment I called friends. The time at the bus was something I remember as pointless talks and talks that seemed of no relevance or fun. There were only a few more people of my same age; Luis, Uziel, Miguel, Miguelito, Gigi and Caro, those were the nicknames I knew them for.
Almost at the last minutes of track at the bus, it started to rain and temperature dropped down in a speed I never knew before. When the bus stopped at the place where the camp was supposed to be, the rain made almost impossible to see the landscape through all the fog and low clouds.
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After a few minutes waiting, the rain seemed a little bit less charged and it was possible to see the place in front of us, yet it still was rainy. So we decided to build the houses at the moment, before the rain got worse, we only had a few minutes of tranquility, and Luis and I hadn’t even started to build the house when the rain returned stronger than before.
After a worrying pair of minutes, the house was ready and our things were inside of it. I tried to find something dry among my clothes, but that was like asking for a portion of the moon. At least I knew where to look for the moon.
Besides the rain, the occasional wind, the cold temperature and everyone’s clothes being wet, the evening was nice, we walked a few kilometers so our limbs got a little bit of heat, or at least got used to the cold environment. We talked a few minutes under a tree, and a few of us made jokes about the weather and how far we could go with it.
We went to sleep earlier than usual because the rain got back, and it made a suicide to stay out of a tent, so at 7 o’clock I was inside of my sleeping bag, trying to have a sleep.
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I have to mention that I was almost naked, I didn’t plan to get inside of my sleeping bag with wet clothes, so I hanged them as I could inside of the tent, hoping they got dry. enough so I could use them. At 2 am, an alarm waked me up, along with the strong need to pee, and impulsively I opened the sleeping bag and got out of it, you might imagine the sensation I felt surrounding my whole body, it was a cold that entered in my bones to stay there and never leave. For a moment I was afraid of breaking my own teeth with all the shaky moves of my jaw. Two agonizing minutes later I was outside of the tent, peeing.
The way up was a little bit the same for everybody, we were freezing and complaining about the rainy night, that left everything humid. There was a point, where we stopped to take a breath and eat something or drink water; and in there the guide made a decision: the group should be splitted in half, some would keep going up, the rest would have to go until the refugee and then wait for the rest. My legs didn’t even hurt because of the wind that blowed at the place, my face felt like ice and my hands started to get purple and clumsy at the point I couldn’t open my water bottle. So I stayed with the second group, I could no longer continue at the rhythm of the first group. The second group was nice and calmed, we walked a little bit, froze some more, and then we watched the sunrise, laid over some rocks that in the moment were as comfortable as a king’s bed. We waited for the first group after reaching the refugee, and when they returned we took the way back, as always, the way down is faster, easier and noisy. We got to the camp, and shared the rests of food we still had or that survived to the rain. I gave my apple to someone else, because my lips hurted a lot and began to bleed when I tried to open the mouth wide enough to bite it; both of my sandwiches got spoiled in the rain, the same for a cup of chocolate I saved the last night.
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Final words from the author If you get to read this words, it means that at least you read the index, and if I’m lucky, even a couple of the texts inside of the magazine. And even if you only read one of all the texts I wrote, I’m going to be happy with that. I mean, this is not the best I can dream to reach, I’m a writer; and no matter how much effort I gave to this, they are only school work, some of them I even hated how they were written.
If I have to be honest with you, the texts I enjoyed the most are only two: The Thanks for your existence poem, and the story of Kaeus. The first one, well, it’s a poem, and it’s been a long time since I’m capable of writing good poems, that really make the reader feel what I want them to; it is a love poem, from a confused boy to a beautiful girl, and that’s all. The rest must be interpreted by you.
The story of Kaeus was something I enjoyed because in order to make it we had to read the Odyssey before. It was epic to write it. I’ve always liked superhuman characters, and I wanted to create a dark, yet good, hero that faced troubles that made even the most cold ones, to have some goosebumps in the process. Sadly, I had no time to extend the adventures of Kaeus, but still, he is a character I want to grow and watch become a legend.
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