I sat down at a computer in college the other day at lunchtime and, in an attempt to alleviate the boredom one will almost inevitably encounter if you chose to avoid most social forms of contact with other human beings, decided to start work on a short story. I didn’t get very far into this before the end of lunch and I didn’t have any plot at all. but If anyone chooses to read this small extract that I will be copying and pasting below, I would be glad of a little feedback. or it might just end up sitting in the corner of the Internets gathering dust. anyway, please enjoy? (sorry if I am a bit heavy on description)
Nevis woke up. His heart was fast and he had broken into a cold, clammy sweat. The damp sheet clung to his back as he drunk in several breaths of warm night air. On went the bedside lamp and it glared in his sleepy eyes. He sat up and leant against the wall. The dream had woken him, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.
He knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep now so he went down the corridor to the communal bathroom for a shower. His pale skin was almost translucent and the little blue tributaries of blood flowed beneath it. The tiles were cold on his bear feet and the boiler took a couple of minutes to warm up so he sat on the edge of the bath looking at nothing in particular, and that was when he noticed it. Right there, on top of the old medicine cabinet was a tiny figure. He walked closer and saw that it was a little china gnome, its red hat caked in dust like the rest of the top of the medicine cabinet. It was about two inches tall and vividly coloured and Nevis was wondering why he had never noticed it before, it having evidently been there for some time. Just then he noticed the steam from the shower and stepped in to the stream of water, wondering about the gnome.
He dried himself with one of the big, fluffy white towels Mrs. Butternut provided for her lodgers and got dressed. Just as he was leaving the bathroom, he turned back and picked up the gnome figure. Blowing the dust off its hat and slipping it into the deep pocket of his jeans. Surely no-one would even notice if it disappeared for an hour or two while he googled it, especially at half past two in the morning. As he walked down the corridor and up the stairs he ran his fingers through his limp, soft hair and thought about the gnome pressing reassuringly against his thigh through his trouser pocket.
