Student: Dazed And Confused

STUDENT

DAZED AND CONFUSED

Wendy Maddocks

©2011 by Wendy Maddocks

Smashwords edition

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Other works by Wendy Maddocks

Stand alone novels

Twisted evil

Into the darkness

Short story collections

The thrill of the Chase

A Shade too young

The Shades of Northwood series

Running shoes

Circle of arms

Unfinished business

Kiss at midnight

Circle of the Fallen series

Angels of America

Poetry collections

When I was young

Before the dawn

Screenplays

RISK

Non-fiction

Student: dazed and confused

INTRODUCTION

I’m not going to lie – enough people are doing that to you already. My student days weren’t the best days of my life, and anyone who tells you they were the best of theirs are lying. And if they try to convince you they will be the best of yours, well they’re... you know the drill.

I spent seven years at the University of Birmingham and five of those were on a Creative Writing degree, which i graduated from in 2009 with a 2:1 with honours. The most powerful feeling that came over me on that ceremonial day – relief. I had worked so hard for so long and I could never see the end but suddenly, here I was – 25 years old with a diploma in my hand that I couldn’t believe was real. Sometimes, I still can’t quite believe the years of toil and graft are over but my photographs prove that they are. I can’t believe that I did as well as I did because some of the other students seemed to work so much harder than me but the success I’ve had proves I deserved it.

University is expensive, long, depressing at times, slave-driving and full of stress and change when you’re totally not ready for it. Not lying. There are always parties and you can skip lectures without getting detention; life outside the lecture theatre is buzzing. Also not a lie. But students rarely have time to take in much of that in – not if you’re determined to get the best degree you can.

Which I did.

About half of my course was dedicated to proper creative writing, stories, poems and such. The other half was more theory based, studying writers and techniques. I didn’t like the theory parts because that didn’t seem important – still don’t actually – but they had to be done. You can’t pick and choose which assignments to do. Imagine how easy uni would be if that was true... I could have coasted five years just making stories up! But you can’t just cruise it. Twenty seven grands worth of fees and you just drink them all away or something. No. For that kind of money, you want to work. Make it worth something.

And that’s kind of the reason I wanted to put this book together. It is to help any student who wants to read my ramblings on any given subject or maybe who just want to reassure themselves that their grades could be worse! I will include the assignments, both creative and critical, that I have. Where possible, I will also include tutor comments and the mark I received. Not all of those comments were deserved – some were downright bitchy and kind of stupid really – yeah, I’m still bitter and twisted about the whole deal but there it is. Over now. Oh, and in case you start wondering, I skipped the first year. That’s why there ain’t one!

YEAR TWO

YEAR OF THE COCK

If you were there, you know who I mean.

The tale of three

Boy

The first time I spoke to the dead, I was gifted – touched. I felt special. The first time I told someone I spoke to the dead, I was branded a crazy and became a social outcast. Soon enough, I started to believe what everyone was saying about me and shut myself away in my room. The power of words strikes again.

I’m alone in this - even though there are other people like me, I feel them. Not hacks like 85% of so-called psychics and mediums, but people who were born with this curse or blessing. People who think I’m just acting out ask why I don’t try to make money out of it, but I’m not in it for glory. It’s wrong, and I wasn’t given this strange ability to abuse it.

Sometimes, I hear so many voices talking to me at the same time that my head feels like it’s about to explode. It’s a big burden to carry on your own. When you hear so many voices all trying to be louder than the last…it’s driving me crazy!

The first time I realised what I could do was the day of my sister’s funeral. I was leaning over her coffin, stroking her hair and telling her how sorry I was that it hadn’t been me instead of her – we were hit by a truck where the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel – when she said that she forgave me and she was okay now.

Girl

Look, there I am. Hello me.

I’m down there, but I’m here too. How is this possible? I get the felling that I’m on my way to somewhere, that I have something to do, but there’s no-one here that can tell me. I’m sure I’ll find out.

He won’t.

I’m okay now. You don’t have to worry anymore. I’m safe; nothing can hurt me now. I won’t even go away when they bury me – I’ll still be here… somewhere.

Boy

Her lips hadn’t moved and her eyes hadn’t opened. I knew I was the only one who’d heard it. It was only meant for me.

I cried at the funeral. It was saying goodbye for the final time for everyone else but I think I felt it more because she’d just spoken to me. After that more and more people who’d died came to talk to me. A lot of them just wanted the company – by all accounts, the afterlife isn’t the most sociable of times – but some came with messages from the higher powers, telling me that all my questions would be answered soon. Until then, I had no questions, but now I’ve got loads. Perhaps they’ll be answered in time, but perhaps it’ll be sooner.

Girl

I don’t know how I knew that I’d be able to speak to him, or how I knew he’d be able to hear me, but I knew anyway. Maybe I was told by some higher power, or maybe I was just trying my luck. I’m kinda inclined towards the subconscious voice theory. I think that everyone has thoughts and power in their sleeping brain which only surface when that individual is least aware of it and, as such, unable to put their waking constraints on to their thoughts. God, don’t I sound like the introductory psychology textbook?

The point is that maybe he was able to hear me because he was too upset to try and rationalise it. I’m just speculating here, but what if? Makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean, what if we actually knew that things everyone doubts are true, but we don’t give them the time of day because it sounds so ridiculous? Could happen.

I got hit by a truck – a frikkin’ truck of all things! I got banged up really bad; I reckon I must’ve because, you know, I died. And I wasn’t angry. It was like I was flying and it was painless, fearless. I had one regret about going before I was ready, though. I think I had the same power as him. I don’t know why I had it or where it came from, but it was mine. I guess it’s not so special that I still have it now. Maybe it was a sibling bond that told me he’d hear me, or maybe people like us have some hidden part of our brains that recognise each other. But I never told anyone about it.

My power was a secret, something to hide, but I always wondered how I got it. Was I born with it, was it luck, was it something I caught like a cold? Was I meant to have it? Even if I do get answers, it’s too late to help him.

Man

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Boy

I think I’m dreaming, but I know I’m not. I’ve come to redefine the word weird over the years but this is still up there with goblins and toasters that work properly. At first I thought it was weird that I talk to the dead but that’s almost in the normal category now. What’s weird now is that I’m seeing the people I talk to. Not ghosts - not those translucent, chain and sheet creatures fame-seekers invented - but solid, tangible people. They just happen to be dead.

Perhaps this was the natural next step for me. I don’t understand what is happening to me, and I’m trying to just let it go, but I can’t stop wanting to know. Scientists do that. They have to analyse and experiment things to breaking point, and prove them and understand them before they can allow themselves to believe in anything. Until you can touch it, and see and hear and understand it, it isn’t real. Three out of four. I wish I could be one of those people who can just put their faith in something because they want to, but that’s just not me.

But I believe in my ability to reach the other side, and that’s enough for me. It’s not my problem if other people won’t listen.

What if all this is a dream, or some elaborate drug-induced fantasy – I mean they called me a crazy and tried to put me in a psychiatric hospital. I could be there now, just in this trance I can’t get out of because I won’t let go of my power. If I am in a trance, I’d like to stay there because it makes me special. But I can’t be imagining voices and ghosts, can I?

Girl

It’s against the rules for us to return to the mortal plane and allow the living to see us. That’s why most people who claim to see ghosts only see that see-through version of the person. We’re not malicious, usually. We don’t tell people they can’t live in a house or scare them for the fun of it. No, the ones who follow the rules only get their own back on the people who wronged them. But, the ones who don’t do anything get a reward.

I didn’t try to cross over at all and now I get the reward I wanted. Part of me, deep in my brain, knows that whoever did me wrong in life will get theirs in the end. So I didn’t need to do bad things to anyone, but I did want some people to see me – to get closure. I held back though, because I always knew I’d get something good.

And I did. I could feel the dirt under my feet and the rock cliffs behind me. I was real… corporeal. I wasn’t a phantom, or a spirit, I didn’t drift around. There was this sound behind me, so I turned round and suddenly I was in a cave. I was miles away from where I had been a second ago but it didn’t matter. There was a man crouched in the corner of the cave scratching symbols on the wall with another rock. He was dirty and I couldn’t tell how old he was, only that he should have died hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Man

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Boy

Sarah. I reached out my hand; she held it for a few seconds and then moved away a few steps. That’s why I thought I was dreaming. I was seeing my sister and holding her hand. But her skin was warm and smooth, the way it had always been when she was alive. She even felt alive. How did you get here? How did I get here?

Adam. She smiled at me like she was really glad to see me. I don’t know quite what’s going on either, but everything’s gonna be okay. Her voice was the same; it was comforting and familiar and I wanted to believe her.

I heard you when you spoke to me. At your funeral.

I know. You can talk to the dead; you’ve always had that power. I just opened that door to you. I used to do it too.

Maybe it was in the blood or the genes or something like that. Could be it was just luck. But she can’t have told anyone because nothing had ever happened to her. Why didn’t you tell me?

She laughed. I thought you’d think I was loopy. I think I always knew I could do it. They didn’t speak to me until I was 16, on my birthday.

She trailed off and turned away from me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see this man sitting down and drawing with a rock. He looked at me through these milky eyes and stood up. Sarah looked at the symbols he’d been scratching, then looked at us both. I am the first.

I didn’t know who I was speaking to so I looked at Sarah. Where am I?

At the beginning. The place where our power began. It started with me, and I carried it alone. You are not alone.

Why doesn’t anyone believe me?

You are beyond their understanding. The man was looking straight at me, as though he knew exactly where I was standing, but I knew he couldn’t see me. I sat down with my back to the wall and blinked a few times. I even pinched myself to see if I was asleep but it hurt and I knew I was awake. When I lifted my head again, there was a small fire in the centre of the cave and the man was hunched up in a corner, looking scared and nervous. Time had passed but I couldn’t tell how much. It didn’t matter.

Speak to me. Tell me your name, I commanded, trying to sound authoritative. I just sounded needy.

Sarah turned her head and stared at me. I have no voice of my own. I was born before the dawn of the spoken word. I have no name but that which I am. Alone.

Why do I have this ‘gift’? I made little air quotes with my fingers but I don’t know why I did that. He couldn’t see it. Why do I have it, and what I meant to do with it? Why did Sarah have it?

Your name is Adam, said Sarah/ The Man With No Name. You are the descendent of the first. You were born for our cause. To help, to listen, to try. Your sister was merely deemed worthy.

But he let her die. Where did it come from? I asked.

Sarah looked at the man in the corner instead of me and she suddenly wasn’t talking for him any more. Somehow, he’d found the words to say. Born… here. Ancient… primal power.

It came from him, Sarah repeated but I’d already realised that. You were driven crazy by them, weren’t you?

They’ll never be quiet. The dead always come.

No end… more always.

Sarah

That was my reward. To be real again – even if it was only for a while. To be able to see my brother and help him. It was special, but it wasn’t long enough. I’ve still got things to say to Adam, and now I’ll never get the chance to.

They let me have a quick look at him to make sure he had made the journey back safely. I think he might understand what’s going on in his head now, even if no-one else does.

An alarm clock rings out by his bed – I can’t hear it but I can see it shaking. He always looked like a kid when he woke up, and that hasn’t changed. I want to touch him but I can’t. Everything’s gonna be OK, I tell him, but he doesn’t hear me. An older woman in a white uniform with blue trim lets herself in, opens the curtains and helps him up.

Adam

More time must have passed than I thought because, when I look outside, first light is breaking. I think talking to Sarah and that man has answered my questions. It feels like I know everything I should know but everything’s still jumbled up. And I still don’t know where the others are – people who understand.

I know I’ll have to go soon; people will start to wonder about me. I start to fade out, like they do in the movies, and as I go, I see the man turn back to the wall and start scratching his signs again. I don’t know the language, I doubt he really knows, but I know it’s important.

Man

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Appendix

Translation of sections entitled Man.

Head hurts people all inside not hunt too many too many to think too many to move lie still wait be quiet be still and quiet and no people

No voice much to say

No sight see everything see more

Blood and bodies and tears see them in my head people lie still cold in ground all busy and loud in my head this is gift this is curse noise and smell life and death violent

Hurting now too many too much can’t help them what I do I help I listen I try

I am first alone no help for me no friends no family no love just noise dead not calm want justice revenge rest some sleep I shall sleep forever

Was born empty will die dirty dirty with death alone always alone angry peaceful I in between feel tired so tired

Know everything teach others to see help them all

I feel nothing just helpless

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Girl in cave not in head

She speak can’t answer her she sent here to help like me I help I help them all

Man come too silence I not see but hear I feel quiet in head no-one there still waiting

No noise peaceful I first he last she middle

Calm now soon hurt again I know

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Man go

Girl fall down she dead now speak to me say day not cold say thank you means nothing everything girl in good place

Say me crazy just resting

Tears screaming over now I resting we resting

Writer’s notebook

How do people cope when they find out they’re different from other people? When no-one will believe them ‘cos it sounds crazy? Are the alone?

Three narrators – beginning, middle, end. Triangle.

Stages of power. Stages of life, death, whatever.

HCW lines, TY, HM, spin any that fit.

One char. A guy who told people and was called crazy. Where is he?

Two is a girl – young, killed in crash, had power and wants to help one to understand.

Three – ancient man, first person to have it, what happened? Did it kill him?

In the triangle bit, talk in riddles, it’s fun and makes people think.

Scratch that, people just read it, not gonna spend half hour figuring it out.

Speak from each POV.

Can the char. Speak? Try to make the voices real and normal, not all fancy. Keep speech in character.

Watch tenses. Past, present? Has it already happened or is it happening now? I think it should be happening now.

Brother read first draft, said it needs to be heavily rewritten as it makes no sense. Had a go, redid bits but kept a lot of it the same. I think its pretty much ok as it is but maybe not.

After Saturday workshop

Make sure I keep the raw emotion but don’t go overboard with it. Shorts need to be quite pacy – I think it is but must check.

Keep it interesting rather than sentimental – I don’t do sentimental.

Inject a voice into first section, at the funeral. Girl. Got whole speech planned. Can’t be very long or I’ll go too much over word count. Where is a good place to put it in? After he’s heard her, or before?

Keep the feeling of loneliness and the inability to connect through out. I want people to think about how lonely it is when there are other people around but you can’t talk to them.

Don’t swamp the reader with emotion, but not cold either. Don’t tell them to feel things, let them decide.

Don’t spend long explaining things. Just mention them and move on.

I want my characters to all find peace or resolution at the end. I want them to still be confused and hurting but with an ending to this ‘chapter’.

Unanswered questions.

TUTOR NOTES

DEMONSTRATION OF WRITING AS PROCESS – The notebook focuses in on the characters’ voices – as you should in this exercise. I think you do raise the questions that you ask but, as you indicate in the notebook,