Writing For The Sake Of Writing - Blog Posts
Story #85 is the poem "A Ballet Dancer"
Put your pointe shoes on
And get to the barre,
It’s your stage for tonight,
You’re a soloist.
Keep your balance,
Assemblé,
Attitude derrière,
Show bravura,
S'il te plaît
You’re not made of wood.
Half turn here,
Half turn there
Right leg extended in alongé
Left foot strong
With your foot en pointe --
Hard?
Demi-pointe it’s then.
Face your audience
Return to the first position
Grand plie,
Grand jete,
Pas de chat.
It’s your stage for tonight
You’re a soloist.
Story #79 "Mapping My Childhood"
That was a creative writing exercise from my tutor, and it's a mix of fiction and real-life events.
There was a heavy wooden bookcase in the living room of our old two-bedroom, creaky dusty shelves storing all kinds of books - detective stories, thrillers, romances that would make the most jagged reader blush. I rummaged through it from top to bottom and stopped my gaze on “Hatter’s Castle” by Archibald Cronin, a hefty volume of blue color - the book my younger self, fascinated with British and American literature – devoured whole in one week. Took me another week to digest it, before embarking on Dreiser’s “American Tragedy”. We’ll get back to that.
Kesha, our green and yellow budgie, was tweeting in his cage as I stood there hypnotizing the book, trying to decide if it was worth a read. As I made up my mind to give it a shot, I sauntered over to the kitchen to boil some water for tea. Benny, our beautiful white mongrel, looked at me with her wet brown eyes – always seemingly sad – and I paused by the door of the kitchen with my manuscript.
Later.
We could look through Hatter’s castle later. Tea could wait too. It was time to walk.
“Hey, let’s go out for a while.”
She didn’t hesitate and jumped on me, pawing my knees excitedly. I crouched down to be level with her lovely fluffy face and pulled her increments closer. Maybe somewhere in the back of my head, I had already known it would be one of our last times together. As I had known that one sunny day in June, I would forget to pull down the bar of Kesha’s cage while filling his bowl with fresh food, and he would fly away.
We tended to keep the balcony doors open in summer, but I still believed the chances he’d find his way out would be close to nil. Well, fucking stupid of me. But what would you expect from a fourteen-year-old – a clusterfuck of uncertainty and confusion?
Fourth floor. Eighty-eight steps up and down. Every day for the past six years, and then the next ten. Inside it smelled like dump plaster and cigarette smoke. I used to know all my neighbors by name, the types of plants they had (they asked us to water them when on holiday), and the loudness of their spouses’ voices once a row was in full swing.
Every four weeks it was our turn to sweep the floors of the lobby and wash two flights of stairs. Twenty-two steps. Up and down. I wish we had a rug there, so I could sweep under it all the dirt and humiliation I felt every time I got spotted by a random passerby.
Checking the postbox was the thing I loved best. There were letters and postcards I could read. When I was in high school, newspapers joined them. Later, when I entered the college, catalogs and brochures were added to the pile of the mess our postbox had become.
“What you got there?” The boy from the top floor – the fifth – asked me as he stepped across the narrow two-by-two lobby to check the box of his own.
“Yves Rocher catalog,” I mumbled and he pivoted on his heels swiftly.
“What?”
“Yves Rocher catalog,” I repeated louder and then felt compelled to clarify. “You can buy a lipstick there or a mascara.”
The boy smirked and swept my body down with his eyes, grinning wickedly.
“You think it’ll help?”
At his words, my face started burning. I kept staring at him with eyes wide open, acutely aware that if I closed them for a second, the tears that had already filled the back of my throat would spill over my lashes. I swallowed a sob ready to escape any moment and brushed past the guy, bumping his shoulder painfully with my backpack.
“Fuck you.”
Story #77 is a 6-word memoir
I'm taking a creative writing course with an American specialist now, and the first task she gave us was to write a 6-word memoir.
I came up with the following:
Husband, daughter, son - my three kids.
Wanted a dog. Got a hamster.
Stories written on skin and paper.
Will is my argument, albeit flimsy.
The first one is the real me. The second is about expectations that went unmet. The third is me wanting to remind myself so much of certain things that I tattooed them on my body and put 'em in my diary.
Number four is the story that found its place between my shoulder blades written in Latin "Sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas." It was supposed to always keep me on the go, let me always be free and weightless, and be my constant reminder of all the "you can do this". Yet, it only has succeded in keeping me grounded so far. Which is not necessarily a good thing when it stops you from trying to make your dreams come true. Your biggest, most daring dreams ever.
Here I am, reminding myself again. You can do this. There's so much more in store for you. Don't ever stop.
Story #76. Based on the prompt: 'Surprise!' They cried, leaping out from behind the door.
“Surprise!” They cried leaping out from behind the door, and the glass of water she was holding, slipped out of her grasp and shuttered. She bolted down to clean the mess and peered sideways at her unsolicited guests shifting from one leg to another. One of them, Tom - she recalled vaguely - tiptoed around the shards and intercepted her hand, reaching for paper napkins in the bottom drawer of the desk.
“I’ll do that, don’t worry.”
The words broke the spell, prompting others to hurtle towards the couple on the floor. Flowers were put into vases, cake was set on the desk, candles were lit, and presents were stored in the corner of the room.
“Didn’t mean to scare the shit out of you.” Someone offered and the woman huffed a laugh.
She took a moment to meander around the office, gauging mentally whether she’d be able to take all the wrapped-up boxes and bouquets to her car in one go and then backed up and plonked down on the chair. A high tower of a cake leveled her eyes.
“Make a wish,” Tom encouraged.
I’d like this day to start over, she said in her head and blew the candles.
Story 48 "Metamorphosis vs Parabiosis"
This story came to me in a creative writing club I'm currently participating in.
The theme of this season is “Metamorphosis.” It is inspired by Kafka’s novella of the same name. The first sentence of the novella goes, “One morning Gregor Samsa woke in his bed from uneasy dreams and found he had turned into a large verminous insect.” (Translations vary slightly).
The prompt:
Write a story that begins with the sentence “One morning [Name of Character] woke in his bed from uneasy dreams and found/realized/saw he had turned into/become … .”
___
“So one morning I woke up in my bed from uneasy dreams and found… you there,” he grinned at her and she couldn’t suppress a smile of her own.
“You believe in fate?” he snorted at her words, and Ani poked him with an elbow under his ribs.
“What else would you call it? We were broken and then suddenly we weren’t. This is a quintessence of a metamorphosis.”
“We are past that phase, Ani. We are more like a part of a parabiotic experiment now.” M. finished his drink in one gulp and put a glass on the coaster with a muffled thump.
“Parabiosis,” he raised an index finger to draw Ani’s attention. “That’s what it is. Remember how we met?” under the table he put a hand on her bare leg, his fingers brushing the soft skin near the hem of her skirt.
M. had big pale hands, which stood in stark contrast to the rest of his body – tanned, tall and seemingly fragile as if he was a good ten pounds below slim. Exactly the way when she first had seen him at the entryway of the intensive care unit. In a narrow hallway she brushed arms with a beautiful stranger, oblivious to the world around him. A silent sorry slipped past his lips and when their eyes met she couldn’t look away. Unable to move sideways, glued to the man standing at the door, she just kept staring, confronted by the pain etched on his face. His sharp hollow cheekbones and purple shadows under the bloodshot eyes did a poor job at masking his beauty. He looked like he was holding the weight of the whole universe on his fragile shoulders, yet he had found the strength to wind up on his feet.
Without giving it much thought – any thought – she caught his trembling hands and intertwined their fingers. In retrospect, it had been a bold move, the one she would never find an explanation for. The man didn’t flinch or pull away, just stirred Ani closer and encircled her with his big hands breaking into wrecking sobs in her embrace. He was tall and she barely reached the middle of his chest encased in a plain gray t-shirt, her forehead pressed into his pectoralis major, her lips against his heart, contracting two hundred beats a minute. He smelled like medicine, coffee and sunflower seeds.
Whatever his ache was, it echoed her own, and she stood there quietly, absorbing his tears with her hair and his sorrow with her soul.
She could never forget his frenzied kisses as he’d mapped out her luscious curves with his big pale hands. As he’d pounded into her, his body slick with sweat. As he’d bawled pressed to the sharp cut of her clavicle in the aftermath of his climax. As the sobs had racked his body and she kept rubbing soothing circles over his back.
Her heart clenched at the memory. M. reached over to wipe off a lone tear trickling down her cheek, the sea blue of his own clouded with moisture. And then he smiled. They both were in tatters, and then they weren’t. The metamorphosis, indeed.
M. bent over the table and kissed the hollow of her neck. Ani pulled away, trying to look him in the eye, his breaths still dancing across her skin quickening her pulse traitorously. He was drawing numbers with his tongue on her flushed skin, dragging his lips to that sweet spot behind her ear, which he knew damn well made her squirm on her seat. She panted. She wanted him to take her back home and undress. The idea of making love to him was uppermost in her mind. She told him so.
He chuckled softly and nodded at a pizza on the table.
“You don’t want your pizza? I thought you were hungry!”
“Famished actually! Just not for pizza.”
M. looked down at her plate, his hand moving towards the apex of her thighs.
“Pizza is an example of parabiosis.” M. continued calmly as if giving a lecture. She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Just think about it! They put cheese on this perfect oval of dough and then – voila – you get an entirely new thing. Parabiosis, Ani.”
“Did you just compare me with a slice of mozzarella?”
“More like a sprinkle of Parmesan… You, me, combined together. A family, a child, the whole nine yards. Parabiosis.”
“Well, as you said, it’s clear that we are way past the metamorphosis stage.” Ani got out of the booth and extended a hand to M.
“Time to start the parabiosis phase, Romeo. Let’s go.”
Story #44 “Say Goodbye to 2022”
In our last lesson I asked my students to come up with three words to describe their 2022. There were many different words. Some good. Some bad. There was anger. The was silence. There were missed opportunities and new chances.
All in all, 2022 was a miasma of ruined dreams and suffocating thoughts, but.. (there’s always a big hairy ‘but’ lurking around the corner) some good things happened too.
1. I wrote a 3000-word story in @ira.lutse.ielts Creative writing club, which happened to be just a premise for a bigger story I’m still writing. Will it be a novella? A novelscicle? A novellete? We’ll see.
2. I finally took the Lexical Approach course I wanted to do for so long and completed it successfully.
3. I was a speaker at the Meaningful weekend conference, where together with Ben Brooks we talked about pros and cons of Breakout rooms and the Main room while giving online lessons!
4. I became a curator in Daria Maslovskaya’s exclusive collocations and chunks course.
5. I hosted two sessions in @ira.lutse.ielts Writing Incubator project, and both were a blast!
6. I graduated from Anita Modestova’s Teachers Teach Teachers 3-year long school!
7. I hosted a few sessions in (again!) @ira.lutse.ielts Creative writing summer based entirely on the story I had written in winter.
8. Numerous speaking sessions designed and hosted for the American Moscow Centre.
9. Then, I started writing fanfiction stories. I’ve been an avid reader of those for at least 15 years now and finally took a plunge and wrote a few stories of my own. I even took part in two fanfiction exchanges, where I was randomly assigned someone’s prompt and OMG, how much fun it was! I’m looking forward to doing it again in 2023!
10. I took CELTA! Just one big WOW.
11. And somewhere along the way I took an IELTS mock test just to check myself and for the first time ever I got 8.5 for writing! Not that it was a real test, but now there’s hope I can do it again.
12. Then I became a member of a wonderful community of teachers YOU MATTER, created by lovely
13. I have posted 44 stories in my blog 642stories.tumblr.com Not bad I should say. I will keep it up!
That’s it.
We cannot change so many things around, but I’m grateful for being able to keep doing what I’m good at and become a better teacher, a better parent, and a better person.
Story #29
The X-files fanfiction "We only heal together" 3/3
Read it on AO3
3.
When Mulder opens his eyes, the darkness instantly evolves into a hazy grayness. No snow or harsh blinding light. No screeching metal cabinets behind his back, no blinking fluorescent ceiling lamps, no whirl of snowflakes around. It’s not their office.
His head feels heavy and Mulder draws a deep breath and takes a look around. He’s lying on the tiled floor in what looks like a spacious conference room. He can hear Scully’s ragged breathing somewhere close but not quite there. The pounding in his head is the pounding on the door. Slowly, he comes to the conclusion that what they have just experienced was no more than a hallucination. A dream of sorts. It’s sickening cruelty chilling him to the bone.
“Scully?” he croaks. There’s no answer.
Dizzy and confused from their ordeal, Mulder manages to roll on his back and spots Scully lying a few feet away from him in the fetal position. From where he is, it looks like she’s still imprisoned in their mutual delusion, her eyes darting beneath her tightly shut lids. She doesn’t seem to acknowledge his presence at all, and on unsteady legs Mulder rushes to her, almost crashing down onto the floor in his haste to get to Scully. Not sure whether it’s safe to wake her up, Mulder nonetheless cannot resist reaching out and brushing her shoulder tenderly. At his touch Scully jerks sharply and a weak moan falls from her lips.
“Don’t,” she says in a small voice. Mesmerized and terrified at once, Mulder watches how the lashes of her closed eyes get wet, and when a single tear escapes and runs down her temple, he is overwhelmed with horror. A shocking, stomach-churning realization sinks in.
The pounding on the door becomes almost unbearable in its discordance and in a matter of seconds the noise turns into a thunderous racket. The door gives up under the assault of whoever stands behind, and a bunch of police officers along with paramedics burst unceremoniously into the room.
What happens next happens so quickly that even hours later Mulder struggles to reconstruct the whole evening in detail. It comes in increments, and he knows next to nothing as to which are real and which are just figments of his imagination.
Scully is put on a gurney and whisked away outside to the ambulance, he himself has to endure a disgustingly long and meticulous examination by a young paramedic. When it’s finally confirmed that he sustained no physical injuries and is free to go, he’s held by another officer to explain his involvement. Around him, the place is swiped for evidence. Mulder does his best to deliver his version of events, which feels pretty much like an after-sleep groggy recollection. The police disclose that there was an anonymous call about people being subjected to torture at the location. They have yet to determine the source of the call, but the Portaverros were arrested on the spot upon trying to flee their office. They are being taken to the station at the moment and the agents are welcome to pay a visit and interrogate the couple as soon as they want. Mulder advises the cops that it might be reasonable to separate the couple, and confirms they’ll drop by the police station first thing tomorrow morning.
At last, he ventures out of the building to look for his partner only to find Scully already waiting for him in a car. Not a word is said as Mulder starts the engine and heads off to Georgetown, anticipating how tedious their journey back home is going to be. The silence is uncomfortable and seems to scream even louder than the noise he heard at the crime scene, and it makes him shift anxiously in his seat. His partner’s head rests against the side window, her eyes closed. He can’t stand the thought that she might be pretending just to steer clear of him, so he chooses to believe Scully is dozing off, exhausted.
When Mulder pull the car up to the front of her apartment building, she wakes up only to notice that the car is double-parked and the engine is running, the key still in the ignition. Obviously, Mulder has no intention of inviting himself in. Carefully, as if not to touch him, Scully extends a hand under the steering wheel to turn and pull the key out. The engine dies and the silence stretches like a taut skin of a drum. Taking a moment to gather her thoughts and then measuring each word carefully, she says:
“Come inside, Mulder.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” his voice is a bone-tired whisper.
“We’ll just talk.”
“Scully,” he stops her with an exasperated sigh.
“Mulder, please. We can’t just sweep it under the rug and hope it will sort itself out.”
In an attempt to catch his eyes, Scully cups his chin and turns it to meet her steady gaze. Mulder surrenders to her willingly, secretly elated that she has no trouble touching him. Not like in the Portaverro’s residence. It’s only a moment before he drags his eyes away again, his face contorted in pain.
“Did I really do that?”she knows he’s talking about their shared nightmare, and logically she understands it wasn’t real but it hurts all the same. They will bring it to the surface and acknowledge the damage done. They will deal with that. There’s no way she's going to put her head in the sand and circumnavigate his question. Withdrawing her hand, she says calmly.
“Not for real, no.”
“It felt real.”
“It did.”
The knuckles of his hands turn white from the power of his grip on the steering wheel. All of a sudden he’s a wild animal trapped in a cage, the quiet and limited space of a vehicle suffocating him. He wants to launch himself off the seat, pace around, circle the table, topple a chair, shove his hands in his pockets, put some distance between them, punch someone. He doesn’t do any of these things. Deep down in his heart of hearts, he knows that Scully is right, they have to talk it through. Stealing a quick glance at his partner, Mulder is relieved to see that her expression and posture are open.
“What was your fear?” he finally asks.
“Betrayal,” that makes him jerk his head up and search for her eyes.
“Remember that case we were working on in Braddock Heights? With the vhs tapes?” Scully continues. “At the time, I thought you were in cahoots with the cigarette-smoking bastard. I was terrified of being betrayed, most of all by you. I guess this time that fear manifested itself in the cruelest way possible.”
Her hands are slightly shaking and she hides them between her thighs, so Mulder wouldn't notice and poses the question back.
“What was yours?”
“Hurting you,” Mulder replies without preamble, raw emotion in this voice. His eyes burn, pain filling him up to the brim, threatening to spill over the edge. “I was afraid…” he drops his head, no longer able to endure her sea blue penetrating gaze. “I am afraid to end up doing something that will hurt you, Scully. I fucking hurt you all the time.”
“Mulder…”
“I do, Scully. You can’t assuage my guilt by saying it was your choice. I know what you're gonna say, it's always been your choice, and you stay by my side of your own volition. I know that! It doesn’t make me any less responsible for all the bad things that keep happening to you.” He’s looking at his upturned hands, fingers splayed wide until Scully’s small strong hand comes into his view and cradles his tanned and big one. The contrast is mesmerizingly beautiful. When she tugs on his arm and brings their intertwined fingers to her mouth, kissing each of his knuckles lovingly, his eyes cloud with tears.
From the moment they were partnered, Mulder had the unshakable belief that Scully needed his protection. If he could… if she let him, he would put her into an inner pocket of his jacket to hide her from the perils of the outside world. As far as she was concerned, he was simply scared out of his wits. Mulder is well-aware that despite being a diminutive woman, seemingly fragile and vulnerable, Scully is stronger than anyone he knows. Stronger than himself. Her petite frame is no more than a facade. On more than one occasion, he bore witness to her easily overpowering her male counterparts. Hell, for the seven years they’ve been together she probably incapacitated more offenders than he had done in all his years in the FBI. Scully is his strong little partner, best friend, and staunchest ally. She’s the love of his life.
“Mulder, listen to me. You are intransigent. Adamant. Moderately aggressive, dominant and assertive. Maybe even the most grandiose narcissist in the flesh I know. But aside from being all those things, you’re also kind, compassionate, empathetic, loving. And you are not a rapist. I trust you with my life, Mulder.”
Her soft breaths dance across the skin of his hand still pressed to her warm cheek, lips grazing lightly on his calloused fingers.
“You’re my guiding light, Scully. My touchstone. I wouldn’t be sitting here now if not for you.”
It feels like a moment of distilled creation. He might have chosen other words but their meaning echoes her own: they are not going to let it drive a wedge between them, leaving their lives in disarray and their souls emotionally crippled. As Scully’s hand reaches the door handle ready to get out of the vehicle, Mulder doesn’t hesitate to follow.
Story #28
The X-files fanfiction "We only heal together" 2/3
Read it on AO3
2.
Mulder looked at her with those dark, intense eyes, his gaze traveling over her body. Neither would be able to explain any of what happened afterward. It could be attributed to the inexplicable slideshow they had been forced to watch or just something he saw in her eyes. The next moment his mouth was on hers. One hand was sinking deep into her hair, and the other was covering her breast.
For one millisecond she was absolutely frozen neither returning the kiss nor pushing him off, but then her arms went around his neck drawing him closer. Mulder walked her backward until she was pressed against the metal cabinet, the sharp edges of its handle digging into her back. He skimmed his hands down her sides, gripped her hips, and lifted Scully off the ground. She braced her hands on his shoulders and instinctively wrapped her legs around his midriff, the narrow black skirt riding up and bunching at her waist. The hardness of his arousal was rubbing against her core. Mulder growled in her mouth and pulled her tighter, caressing her everywhere he could reach. Scully’s heart was thudding so loudly in her chest that her voice of reason drowned in the noise, not a single clear thought in her head. When Mulder squeezed the cheeks of her ass through the thin nylon of her tights and sucked on that sweet spot behind her earlobe that always made her knees go weak, Scully let out a moan and opened her eyes. She wanted to see him. She wanted to watch.
There was a wild glint in his eyes like he was on the brink of insanity, and it immediately threw her for a loop. With her hands still wrapped around his neck, she yanked hard on his hair compelling him to look at her.
“Mulder. Slow down.”
He was tuning her out and that didn’t surprise her in the slightest. She could hardly hear herself over the tumult from the ringing in her ears. Groping, stroking, feeling her up, Mulder was acting like an overexuberant teenager on the cusp of exploding if he didn’t get inside her soon.
“I want you so much, baby.”
If that look in his eyes combined with Mulder’s erratic behavior did nothing to Scully, that ‘baby’ definitely tipped her off. She couldn’t imagine Mulder calling her that even in the throes of passion. Scully’s eyes widened in shock as it became abundantly clear that Mulder was under some kind of influence. He may have not even realize it was her in the room with him, his mind was foggy from whatever he had been subjected to. This wasn’t her Mulder. Her Mulder was caring and kind. That Mulder was churlish and indignant.
Was it some kind of perverted trick to make her finally leave him? She would never believe Mulder was capable of hurting her willingly. No. He would not.
The crystalline blue of her eyes filled with tears, but so did her mind with determination to stop her partner from his greatest fall. Overcoming a logjam in her throat and gathering all her strength, Scully managed to push Mulder off and slid off his hips. With her hands planted firmly on his torso, she said as calmly as she could.
“Mulder, stop! Something has been done to you. To us. This is not you!”
Shockingly, her resistance only added more zing to Mulder’s already steel-hard cock and he began grating himself over the layers of her pantyhose and underwear.
“Who else would it be?” he replied gruffly and with one quick motion turned her around, her back to his chest, her compact body trapped between his forearms.
Scully heaved a shuddering sigh, but it was the furthest from pleasure as it could be. Mulder tugged on her hips grinding against her ass, and it felt strikingly right and wrong at the same time. Nothing ever felt so good before. Nothing ever felt so bad before.
“Mulder, no.”
He was panting heavily into her ear, moving his lips, with a taste of water and salt from her cheek, down to her neck to bite on the tendon where he felt her pulse thrumming. Pressing all his weight to her backside, Mulder held Scully between the metal cabinet and his hard rock body, roaming with rough hands over her hips, her breasts, her stomach. Anywhere he could reach, his erection nestling right over the reddish ink of her tattoo.
“I’ve been wanting to do it since day one, Scully. I know that you want it too. Come on, help me here.” He punctuated each word with a thrust of his pelvis.
“Not like this, Mulder. Please. Never like this.”
How would they survive it? There was nothing they could possibly do to overcome it. This would create a rift so deep in their relationship, that nothing would ever be able to fix it.
What they had between them was more than a partnership, more than a certain amount of camaraderie, more than unspoken understanding. There was affection. Devotion. Love. How could it all be shattered to pieces in the blink of an eye?
One of Mulder’s hands crept under her skirt, and when it reached between her legs, she heard him tearing her pantyhose. He expected to find her all wet and aroused for him and was deeply frustrated to see that she wasn’t. Moving the gusset of her panties to the side, he dipped his middle finger inside of her to the second knuckle. He imagined her letting out a moan which would be a mixture of ache and pleasure.
What came out though was a gut-wrenching scream. Mulder covered her mouth with his big palm along with her nose making it impossible for Scully to breathe. A lack of oxygen sent her to the furthest corner of her mind, where one of the darkest memories was buried.
A ten-year old girl, a good swimmer, a natural - she wasn’t good enough that day. One moment she was diving with Bill and Charlie in shallow waters and the next, they were gone. She kept turning her head right and left rapidly but couldn’t see a thing. Utterly terrified, she failed to fathom that her lack of vision had nothing to do with her eyes, but was caused by the water itself. She was drowning. No air. She couldn’t breathe. Panic struck her and she opened her mouth to scream only to gulp mouthfuls of murky salty liquid.
That time Bill pulled her out to the surface, literally saving her life.
Here and now her life was only in her hands. Gathering her wits, Scully bit Mulder’s hand so hard that she felt the metallic taste on her tongue.
“Fuck!”
Mulder cried, pulling his hand away from her face. Scully was half ready for him to backhand her in return and used the moment to jump behind the desk, as far from him as the office allowed. She wasn’t really sure if that Mulder wouldn’t strike a woman.
The man in front of her didn’t move as he was looking at his bloody hand. When he finally lifted his eyes to Scully, she was eyeing him cautiously, her lips were ruddy red with his blood, crimson smears on her palish cheek.
All of a sudden, Mulder was back to another time. They were in their office, their real office.
“Look at you!” Scully smiled, entering through the door and handing him a brown paper bag while moving aside the photos lying in front of Mulder on the desk to sit with her hip on it.
“Is this our new assignment?”
Mulder smirked and stood up to move to the glass-encased annex, the furthest part of the office used as a minuscule kitchen, and grabbed a mug to pour her some coffee from a carafe.
She took a sip and put the porcelain cup down where both their mugs rested together: his - a huge white one with a gray almond-shaped eye alien printed on it, with milk and three sugars, and hers – an elegant golden-rimmed porcelain piece filled with pure black.
He remembered her asking him if extraterrestrials were supposed to be green, and him blowing raspberries at her, stating what a widespread misconception it had always been. It was a theory for amateurs, he said, and they were pros.
He remembered complimenting her on her outfit that day and how she lowered her eyes shyly and started fiddling with the papers on the desk.
He remembered how a red bloom of blood stained the page as she got a paper cut.
He remembered rummaging through the drawers trying to find a box of Kleenex, that, for whatever reason, was missing, and then desperately reaching out, alarmed and panicky, to grab her by the hand and take her finger in his mouth to suck on it gently.
He remembered her eyes going wide, not from the shock of his action but the understanding behind it. He couldn’t stand seeing her bleeding. Not again. He couldn’t stand seeing her hurt. Not ever.
A red bloom of blood stained the page as she got a paper cut.
There was blood on his fingers. Blood on her lips.
“Oh Scully,” he whispered as realization dawned on him.
“Scully… Scully… Scully,” Mulder whispered suddenly completely drained. “Oh God, Scully. I’m so sorry.”
She was right at his side. He could feel her feathery light touch on his cheek, her strong hands pulling him into a tight embrace, her soft breaths on his neck.
She didn’t let go of him as they slid together down the wall. She didn’t let go when he broke into sobs, gently rocking her on his lap.
“I’m so sorry, Scully. I’m so sorry.”
Mulder took her hand and brought it to his lips, trying to soothe and kiss away the pain he knew was in her heart, his tears mingling with the red streaks on her ashen skin.
“It’s OK, Mulder. We are going to be OK.”
They seemed so unfixable and irrecoverable, and she knew that it would only add to Mulder’s guilt. Scully had no idea how but she would fix it. They would fix it. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from you, Mulder.”
When Mulder felt Scully’s weight changing on his lap almost imperceptibly, he looked back at his arms, and it was like she was slipping away through his fingers. Melting like ice, leaking through the cracks, soaking his clothes, and pooling in puddles by his feet.
“Scully?” he cried. “No, don’t go. Stay with me.”
He tried to squeeze her harder, to hold her as close as possible, to keep her solid and warm.
“Don’t leave me, Scully.”
He shook his head refusing to believe in the reality of the scene unfolding, his head pounding, eyes shut tightly. When he summoned up the courage to open them again, he was sitting on the floor in the pool of water and blood, his arms empty, and the rays of light were turning into snowflakes and falling down from the ceiling, whirling around him - tiny particles gathering in a storm in the midst of their office.
“Scullyyyyy!”
The pounding was getting louder and louder, becoming a deafening roar, the snowstorm raging and enveloping everything in blinding whiteness. His head was the epicenter of the explosion, burying under its ashes everything around, and there was a fleeting thought that he couldn’t help but feel relief. It was over. Whatever it was, it was over.
Story 27
The X-files fanfiction "We only heal together" 1/3
Read it on AO3
1.
“Are they sleeping?”
“Oh yes, they are.”
“What are they dreaming about?”
“Their worst nightmare.”
----
The “ping” of the elevator car pulled her out of her reverie and as the doors slid open, she was confused to find the basement floor shrouded in darkness. Stepping out of the lift, Scully groped for the switch on the wall but when she flicked it, nothing happened.
Darkness pervaded.
At the end of the hallway, their office was beckoning her with its dim shaft of light peeking from under the door, and she moved towards it as if summoned.
She expected Mulder, the one who didn’t seem to need much sleep and was always up with the sun, to be there. He would probably be starting the second pot of coffee by that time. Always thoughtful, she brought him a blueberry bran muffin for breakfast. A crack about him being the only person in the whole universe leaving the office after nine and coming in around six of his own volition was on the tip of her tongue. She was looking forward to their routine exchange of banter and innuendoes.
As Scully opened the door, the light from the overhead lamps spilt out into the hallway, chasing away the shadows to corners. Spending seven years in that office, she knew it inside out, but that moment she felt like a stranger. It was their office, and yet it wasn’t. Gone was the stale dusty air and little puncture holes on the ceiling from Mulder’s pencils, and even the fluorescent tube lamps blinking constantly as of recently seemed to be changed. There were two mahogany desks facing one another in the center of the room and a potted plant in the corner. Scully didn’t remember ever placing it there. She couldn’t even remember her partner putting in a request for a second desk.
Mulder himself was nowhere to be seen. In passing, she entertained the idea of Mulder wanting to surprise her thus the desk and all the cleaning. The ludicrous idea her logical mind immediately rejected. It just wasn’t possible. They had left he office together the day before, around lunchtime, grabbed a quick bite in the nearby deli, and headed to investigate another case ending up on a damnably boring stakeout.
There was a lead into what Mulder suspected could be anything from hypnosis to telekinesis to possession. The victims claimed they were made to do terrible things against their will. One guy beat his boss half to death, but couldn’t even remember what induced such aggressive behavior. When he entered the office the next day, ready to come clean in front of everyone and make his colleagues report him to the police, his boss was there, not a scratch on his face. The face allegedly smashed to puree no more than a day before.
“A nightmare,” Scully said unimpressed. “Or wishful thinking. They probably had some beef and their hostility manifested itself in a very realistic dream. Not unheard of.”
“One for two?” It was Mulder’s turn to raise a brow. “The thing is, Scully, both remember everything down to the smallest detail, and claim they did some severe punching and kicking.”
It appeared to be worth the time to talk to the people involved, which eventually shed light on some other facts - a few hours prior to the fight, the company’s employees took part in a one-day team-building seminar conducted by two personal development coaches, who also happened to be a married couple. The agents didn’t get any insights into the case upon interrogating Maria and Sebastian Portaverro, but since their possible suspects were about to carry out another workshop, Mulder and Scully decided to stay close and check the participants afterward.
They were sitting in a car across the building where the Portaverros had an office. No matter how much she tried, Scully couldn’t remember anything that happened during or after that. She remembered being in a car with Mulder, and then she was standing in the elevator. The absurdity of the situation was bugging her - the changes in the office, the fact that she couldn’t remember getting back home the night before, or even arriving at work in the morning - everything was wrong. A glance at her watch told her that Mulder should have been here hours ago. Where was he? She needed him to help her figure it all out.
Trying to stay calm and not to spiral into panic, Scully decided to do what she always did best - collect and analyse the data. Stepping over to what was supposed to be Mulder’s desk, she touched the pristine wooden surface. Instantly she knew that something was wrong. Mulder’s desk was never that clean. There was no junk. It was too tidy. Too not Mulder. The papers were put in an orderly pile, and Mulder never bothered to organize his desk’s contents in such an impeccable manner. Even office paraphernalia was scattered around in a weirdly neat way as if each object was placed in its spot, on purpose. On a whim, Scully pulled open the first drawer and felt her stomach shrivel in dread. There were none of Mulder’s most prized belongings. Not even his ever-present sunflower seeds. Scully was horrified as it sank that the only thing she was familiar with in that office was their all-time favorite full-sized “I want to believe” poster. Did someone violate their office while they were on a stakeout? To what end?
As if out of nowhere something clicked and the room was plunged into darkness. Scully recognized the sound as their old-fashioned projector came to life and started switching slides, changing the images rapidly, lighting and darkening the room in turn. It was them - Mulder and Scully. The photos flicked on the screen like memories in her head. The most significant, valuable, delightful moments of both their lives. Imprisoned by the retrospection playing out on the wall in front of her, Scully stood still, frozen. With each image, she was sent to relive her past sensory experiences all over again.
Click, and she was opening the door and looking at the agent she was assigned to work with. Their first meeting. A mixture of curiosity and caution in his hazel eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses.
Click, and they were in Oregon, standing in the graveyard under the rain.
Click. They were in a van and Mulder was dressed in a bulletproof vest handing her his gun.
Click, and they were sitting on the bench in a small town of Home talking about their genetic
makeup and potential parenthood.
Click, and there was a hallway in a hospital in Allentown where their words sounded like a confession.
Click, and there was another time and other woods somewhere in Florida where she, who couldn’t carry a tune, was singing because Mulder asked her to.
Click, and they were in California, burying the daughter she had never known.
Click. “You’re my one in five billion.”
Click. Another hallway, another greatest wish never granted - their aborted kiss.
Click. He was pleading with her not to make him choose.
Click. Mulder’s high as a kite I-love-you.
Click. A hospital bed. Again. His head was on her hip, her hand was in his hair.
Click, and they were dragging their eyes over each other in the decontamination shower.
Click. She was sobbing in his arms, the floor was stained with her blood.
Click. They were exchanging vows on the threshold of his apartment.
Scully pivoted her back to the screen, unable to take it anymore. What kind of sick joke was that? It felt too much. Too personal. Too them. How was it possible to sum up the history of them so succinctly in a few slides? Who the hell played those tricks on them? Her legs went wobbly and she braced herself against Mulder’s desk.
There was another click and all of a sudden the basement was brightly lit again. Scully made a complete 180 and was face to face with Mulder, his tall figure looming over the entryway. “How long has he been standing there? Did he see that too?” There was an ominous look in his eyes, and a foreboding sense of horror permeated the air, but Scully ignored all of that. This was Mulder. He wouldn’t hurt her. The projector kept clicking the slides but with the light back on, it was nearly impossible to make out the images on the wall.
Trying to pay no heed to a knot of anxiety agitating inside, Scully took a few tentative steps toward her partner. Noticing some lint on his shoulder, she reached out to brush it off when he grabbed her arm harshly.
“Mulder,” Scully gasped and stopped dead in her tracks at the threat that emanated from Mulder’s demeanor.
Story #25, which is another CPE article. Based on true events.
“It’s negative, no cancer markers found”, the doctor said, perusing the paper with dots and numbers which made no sense to me. I exhaled sharply, not realizing I was holding my breath. Like a prisoner awaiting execution. Like a wanderer praying for a fountain in a desert to quench his thirst. Inadvertently her words defined the happiest moment in my life. My child was healthy. I leaned against the wall feeling my legs going wobbly. Silent tears ran down my cheeks. Relief. Contentment. Delight. Joyfulness. Gratitude.
I couldn’t stop scrambling over my memories to the day when her words, so easily and sharply, shattered my world to pieces. It all started with medical advice to vaccinate a child. A one-year-old son of mine. Preliminary blood work was recommended to exclude medical conditions which might cause after-vaccination negative side effects. No big deal. We did it before dozens of times with my older kid. But that time some indicators in his blood turned out abnormally high pointing to organs where his body suddenly started failing him. Failing to cancer.
“It’s negative. It’s negative. It’s negative”, I kept echoing in my head time and again. The walls of the fragile fortress of my mind were reconstructed back. Suffice it to say, the fact that my child was safe and sound was happiness in its pure form. That was a moment to treasure. The memory to cling to. Indeed, to catch these dear moments and keep them close to heart is worth doing.
To me, it was a major epiphany. One does not need to chase ethereal dreams and get on the top of their career to make every moment meaningful. No need to be married, get promoted at work, buy the latest Tesla to feel happy here and now. This day and age you are alive and healthy. That’s what matters.
Photo credit: me. My son Alex with his father, the best in the world husband. Mine. Mine. Mine.
Story #22 which is a CPE essay "Music"
For anyone who is not familiar with the Cambridge Proficiency (C2) type of essay, this is a discursive essay where you are supposed to read two short texts, summarize and evaluate them, and introduce a new idea.
“When words fail, music speaks” are the famous words by Hans Christian Andersen. It is claimed that music encourages creativity, develops one’s potential, and communicates our emotions best. How do we know, though, what shapes and forms music should take to bring about the best rather than the worst?
There are very few people who remain unresponsive to tunes whatsoever. From the majority of us melodic patterns elicit heightened emotional response, usually of positive nature, as they often trigger ingenious chords of our potential and impulses of compassion. What might be argued though is that, apart from being capable of producing inspiring flows of consciousness, music may also instigate aggressive behavior, especially if the tendencies pre-exist. There are criminal cases of appalling atrocities being committed while listening to Bach, Vivaldi, or Marylin Manson. It is, of course, highly debatable if the exposure to some particular musical listening patterns can push one over the edge, but the question still stands.
What is not debatable is the influence of music on the younger generation and its value when used as a tool of education. At the same time, it is widely disputed what kinds of music institutions should teach in their classrooms, and if we adhere to some particular style, how do we define what tracks exactly belong to it? First and foremost, we have to decide not on the content of the music we expose juveniles to but the form. However valid in rousing a person’s prowess the listening to music might be, the ability to play the instrument can be of more value, more impact, more worth. In this case we can reap benefits of both listening and playing music.
Whatever form and content are chosen though, it is beyond question that music is our outlet at times of trouble and we can always count on it to make us feel better.
