Wednesday 4 July 2012

The Beetle in the Rain

I’m not going to search for an excuse for my silence, but to be fair I have had exams. Although they did end over a month ago now.

I haven’t thought of anything to say but I wanted to break the awkward silence, so I’m going to post a dreadfully depressing short story that I wrote a while ago, for your perusal. I don’t know whether or not I like it but it’s short and (not particularly) sweet, so it is well-suited for a quick, unplanned blog post. When writing it I attempted to emulate the style of Ernest Hemingway (I also may have stolen the idea and the title from him too, although this is based on a real experience) – I’d just finished reading For Whom the Bell Tolls, which by the way is EPIC. However, I did find the ending a bit of a letdown. Anyone else read it? Anyone else find it a pretty rubbish way to round off a fantastically told story? Let me know. Anyways, without further ado:

The Beetle in the Rain

The three girls sat in the pavilion, bedraggled hair framing tired faces, crooked cigarettes dying slowly between tired, crooked fingers. The rain fell from the grey sky upon the grey patio and the grey path, and upon the waterlogged lawn. The trees dripped. Their leaves were as heavy and as limp as numb limbs. The rain beat a steady drum upon the stone and soil, and upon the roof of the pavilion. The girls huddled beneath denim jackets. Their cigarettes burned, dry and smoky. The smoke danced through the pavilion and out into the rain where it sank into the grey sky. Ash fell upon the stone.

A beetle dragged its dying form from the rain into the pavilion. Its wings hung useless from its abdomen. Its legs trembled under the weight of its waterlogged, swollen body, and from the effort of searching for dry ground. The rain fell upon the patio and the grass outside, the steady finger-tapping, narrow fingers tapping on the roof, on the grass. The beetle dragged itself in and out of puddles, and the three girls watched.

Eventually the beetle curled up on the floor, twitching. The girls watched the beetle, and looked out at the rain, and watched the beetle again. They watched as it died slowly, soaked by the rain. One of them stood up and took a long drag of her cigarette. Slowly she lifted her foot and looked away as it fell once, twice, three times upon the dying creature. It crunched and she winced. As she lifted her foot again and saw what she had made, she felt a lump in her throat. She threw down her cigarette beside the beetle and stamped it out.



Gosh, that is gloomy. Not really fitting for a blog on reasons to be cheerful. I promise next time I’ll devise a happier theme. Until then, adios amigos.

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