Recently I’ve felt inspired to try and write something. This is my first fully formed attempt. There’s nothing at all original about it but I’d really appreciate comments on writing style. Oh and if anyone is interested in what this is actually about its part of a bigger piece I hope to write.
A Man Inchoate
With a sudden jolt he rises out of a solid metal bed. Feet finding their place on a hard floor. For a brief time sitting on the bed, almost motionless, eyes fixed on the floor at his feet. Now striding into a bathroom. Taps on, hands almost involuntarily splashing cold water into his face. No pause to look in the small cracked mirror above the discoloured white sink before moving back into the bedroom, picking up the drab items of clothing piled neatly on a chair next to the bed and struggling into them. One fleeting, nervous, survey of the room and he is moving into the hallway, putting on shoes tidily placed in front of a door, quietly turning the door handle and without a backward glance exiting the flat. Now out into a dark damp concrete hallway his door just one in a line of identical pale white doorways. Shuffling towards the stairway not glancing at any of the other men making their own way towards the steps. Together they move down, the only sounds being the quiet breathing of each and the dull clatter of shoes against the hard ground. And so the procession continues down one floor then another with no discernible change in appearance. On each floor more shuffling men joining the stream steadily descending towards the ground floor where the feeble morning light peers through an open front door. In turn he moves through the door into the light where men now form a line in single-file together moving forward him only one among many, nobody turning to look at the imposing concrete tower block from which they came. And this just one such tower among many, a convoluted concrete landscape with towers placed seemingly at random, roads weaving between them, and a great mass of men walking on these roads in lines all silent all heading in the same direction towards a distant hazy clamour. Yet there were no signs, no men asking for directions, a collective of men all with a common unknown destination. Men indistinguishable from each other; the same scruffy ankle-high black boots and faded but clean grey overalls with pale white shirts underneath. Hair of varying length but always uncombed and unwashed. Him moving on these roads amongst this mass paying no attention to anything surrounding him. After a time the men begin to part, different lines going off in different directions following different roads, each man knowing which line to follow. Now his line marching through a changing landscape. No more tower blocks, no new men joining. The silence replaced by a steadily increasing insistent clatter of metallic noise. The smell of stale sweat replaced by the acrid burn of smoke. The line marching on towards an imperious concrete structure now coming into view, as they approach it seeming to rise up from the ground like an ancient citadel pulled up from some vast underground cavern. The landscape now consisting entirely of such buildings, all roughly rectangular, all concrete, all billowing out smoke from clusters of towers and each with a line of men entering. A deafening noise and unbearable stench. Above the thick blanket of smoke a single pale sun could be seen, but no man was looking. Each had his eyes concentrated on the neck of the man in front yet seemed under no compulsion to do so like men unwilling to alter the position in which they have been cast. His line now moving slowly as each man entered the building individually. He waiting his turn slowly shifting his feet forward. Reaching the front he automatically placing his hand into a machine. A short stocky guard letting him through. Now passing into a large room, hand held over his eyes guarding against the sudden imposition of bright light. Inside the insistent metallic thuds less audible, replaced by something resembling music and the first tentative sounds of human voices. On the right a wall with two doors one red the other white. In the centre regularly arranged dining tables with men sitting eating and speaking. On the left stacks of grubby white trays and plates containing a greenish brown slush.
Suddenly all the previous direction was gone, leaving him with the look of a man who has woken and taken himself to be in his own room then suddenly realises he is in an unfamiliar place. A brief confused look around and then suddenly acting on instinct he was drawn over to the plates, snatching at one; as if afraid it would disappear the instant his eyes turned away. His hands fumbling he managed to place it on a tray before slowly turning towards the busy room. Men all unaccountably comfortable, all in conversation with one another, him a solitary trespasser given no heed. His neck craning he caught sight of an empty table in the corner of the room. Collecting himself he began to weave in and out of the inter-connected rabble of people chairs and tables all now acting as constantly shifting obstacles to the safe place in the corner. Men bumping into him wordlessly apologised as they went on their way, constant movements battering at the walls of his beleaguered senses. Eventually he forced his way through the crowd only to find his sanctuary breached, a massive grey-haired man sitting at his table staring through him as if silently passing judgement. With no other choice he motioned to sit next to the man, who shifted his chair aside to make room. Settling into his seat he felt an overwhelming sense of relief, as if the mere act of sitting there made him one with the rest of them, a part and not different. Recovering himself he risked a glance at the man beside him, the man now eating with a dirty right hand while dispassionately gazing at the distant wall with the doors. The man showed no sign of recognition, continuing to eat while evincing a feeling of utter disdain for the entire room. Giving up he began to poke at his plate, gingerly tasting it with a finger like a man testing for poison. Finding the taste to his liking he began to ape the man, taking larger and larger mouthfuls as an insatiable appetite took possession of him.
Once finished the man turned to face him, head held rigidly still and eyes darting from plate to mouth as if synchronised. There had been no change in the man’s facial expression, attentively watching but still utterly impassive. Like this the man sat waiting for him to finish, him eating and clearly aware but unwilling to give any indication. When he finished he could ignore the man no more, with great reluctance turning to face him, their eyes meeting yet communicating nothing. Yet there seemed the slightest change in the man’s eyes, something ineffable, the merest hint. Possibly some sort of recognition. Suddenly, the man spoke.
“Do you know where you go now?”
He sat, taking in the words, their still locked eyes imparting them with some hidden meaning that he could not grasp.
“No…” he started, his mouth fighting to form words. “I’m not really sure. I think I’ve just woken. I just sort of got ‘here’. I don’t think I know where here is. I just started moving. Then I ended up in this room, these people, and those doors. What is it all?”
He looked at the man as if inquiring whether he had spoken properly. The man just sat motionless, their eyes now averted. Time passed. He worried that any bond between them had been irreparably broken. Then turning back to look straight in his face the man reached out a large arm and placed a gnarled hand on his shoulder.
“You know, I don’t think I know either. Look around you, do you think they know? No, they don’t know nothing. But I know where I’m going.” With the free arm the man indicated the red door.
“But that’s just me,” the man continued. “I don’t reckon on you following me. I don’t think I’m a man to give advice but I’d try that one there,” the man now indicating the white door. “But that’s just me. What door a man takes, well that’s up to that man to make up for his own self.” The man said this with an air of finality, as if all that was to be said on the matter had been said. Now the man rose, using the hand placed on his shoulder for support. Rising their eyes met again, searching for anything further but getting nothing. Wordlessly the man shuffled away head bowed pushing other men out of his way forging a remorseless path towards the two doors.
He sat his eyes following the man on his journey, the man now almost at the two doors, the man now at the red door, the man now turning the handle and rushing inside, the door now closing on the man. And when he turned his eyes from the door he saw that the whole room had been watching, their voices fallen silent. Now the eyes of all were turned upon him, a roomful of eyes staring at him with the same indifferent intensity he had seen in the man’s eyes earlier. Slowly he rose, pushing the chair back and creeping away from the table his head not bowed and his eyes returning the stares of the men around him. He had no need to force his way through as all men stood aside to let him pass as he made his way towards the doors. And now he no longer returned the stares of those around him with his eyes now focused on first the red then the white door. Striding towards the doors his field of vision now reduced to just these two objects, his mind blank and his movements left up to instinct or chance, him knowing only that whatever decision was to be made he would not consciously make it. Without a backward glance he grasped at a door handle and fled through the door.
The men in the room had sat as if fixated upon both men as they entered the red door. Once it closed for the final time upon the second man entering they began to move again. Conversations were rekindled and the men began to get up from the tables. They took the plates on the trays back from where they had come and one of them opened the white door and walked through the others forming a line and all proceeding through with not one of them giving the red door the slightest glance or thought. Once the last man had gone through the door was shut leaving an empty room with the two plates still on the table at which the two men had sat being the only evidence that they had been there at all.