"Rise and Fall" - Flash Creative Nonfiction Experiments

I've been experimenting with creative nonfiction lately between juggling comic book projects, my internship, and plugging away at the novel I'm working on (Chapter 13 currently). This is a little piece I wrote about this summer. I't kind of prose poetry, but most flash creative nonfiction tends to read that way.

I still want to work on this, but this is the current draft.

Enjoy!

Rise and Fall

Written by: Kenny Porter

From LifeHacker.com

Her chest rises and falls with each sleeping breath. Navy blue sheets bundle at our feet. Fan blades hiss in the window between wood molding and white walls. Recirculated air cuts over her body and drapes over mine. Monitor light bathes the room in a deep, rich yellow.

My hand slides up her back. I rub her shoulder, letting her know I’m awake. She stirs, but still sleeps. My hand glides down her arm, her side, and her leg. Her hair lifts from a burst of air. Goosebumps rise on her skin and her feet slide up and down the mattress.

Summer crickets lull me to sleep. My body sweaty from her embrace. My heart still booms in my chest, but my mind races faster -- walks we’ve shared, meals we’ve eaten, and the travels we’ll embark on together.

She rolls on her side, hands under her head. I slide my arm under her pillow, fitted against her back. The heat is unbearable. Two bodies wrapped in navy on a ninety degree night.

I can’t let go. My heart beats against her back, rhythmic, like an old locomotive. Louder in my ear than the chirps from crickets.

My hand runs up her leg, back to her face. She moans and nuzzles backward toward me. My hot breath wraps around her neck. Her chest rises and falls as she breathes.

I drift to sleep. Slowly, then like a hurricane.

Our first date is the stage, we the players. A coffee shop in a blistering Michigan winter. The date flashes like the bulbs of ancient cameras. Hot coffee, wood stove pizza, and a musical backdrop for the drinks on my couch. We probe with jokes and anecdotes. The conversation crests and drops between the two of us.

She sits at the other end of the couch, legs curled up, and I mimic her on my end. We talk, laugh, and the moment comes when we lock eyes. Everything rises in our chests. I want to kiss her. She’s too far away. I feel the moment drop away. A perfect moment built like a metaphysical bridge. Now it’s a cinder block, dropped off the side and falling toward a cold river.

I ask if I can kiss her.

She laughs and says, “yes.”

I shudder awake. My sweat is frozen from the fan. I grasp for blankets at my feet. I’ve shifted to the other side. The dark side of the mattress. Romantic heat from my body has run dry to fuel my dreams. I wrap myself and press against her back again.

She’s warm. I wrap my arms around her, rest them below her chest. Cold night air has settled. I hold her tightly. I time my breaths with hers. My heart booms out of sync, but our lungs rise and fall together.

Welcome to the Strange

There are times when I'm able to step back and realize something about myself as a reader and watcher of media. Ever since I was little I've loved stories that were bonkers. What do I mean by that? I've always loved things that went into the realm of the strange and got a little bit creepy. I think that Alien might be the first example. That film really moved me when I was little. It also got me into a ton of trouble when I drew a picture of the chestburster in my second grade classroom (and later the Predator ripping out someone's spine). I never had a cap on what I could watch when I was little, and I think that really gave me a head start in terms of enjoying film, TV, and literature.

Now that I'm older I keep gravitating toward those stories that have a bit of science fiction, a bit of mystery, and just a touch of horror. Grant Morrison's Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and now The Invisibles have really inspired me to explore the strange in my own comics and writing. There's only so many times that you can write one person fighting another, but creating situations where people fight ideas and face the horrors of reality is just as fun to write, if not more.

The last thing I want to do is copy anyone's style. That's not my aim. I don't want to be the next anyone except myself. My goal is to just tell the kinds of stories that I enjoy and share them with readers. If that means telling stories set in situations similar to the work that Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, or even Morrison have done, so be it. I just think it's interesting that I never noticed how big of a part these writers have played on my subconscious and how it's affected the way I approach a story.

I've always outlined a story completely and moved from point A to point B in my own mad scientist kind of way. But now I'm thinking more about how I can make the comics medium work to the best of its ability on the page, doing things other media can't, while remembering that writers like Gaiman, Ellis, and Morrison are there to show me that there is no set way of doing things. You have to carve your own path in anything that you do in life, and I've woken up today with a big hammer and chisel.

And after reading that last sentence I want to assure everyone that it's not a morning wood joke.

Most people say write what you know. And that's true to a point. But I think it should be amended a little. The way it should be said is "write what you love." Because you could know a lot about a subject and no one else would want to read it. When you write about something you love the passion comes through on the page and it resonates with everyone that reads it. Not everyone will love it, some might hate it, but it'll be the purest form of what you put on the page.

That goes for any and all creative endeavors that you set sail on in the ocean of imagination.

I hope that this inspires someone the way that those writers and countless other artists have inspired me to share my musings with the world. Because in the end that's all we're really doing. We're sitting around the celestial campfire and sharing stories on a global scale.