NaNoWriMo + 
= #freewritemadness.
17 18 freewriters are gathering at the 
Today’s prompts are: irritation and a Photo by Quentin Lagache on Unsplash
As usual I started with the freewrite prompt and used themostdangerouswritingapp.com to write the first five minutes:
…
Catch up with the previous chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
...
The many torments of Tiny Earl - Chapter Eight
Clare wondered if there was a device that could harness irritation and turn it into energy. If so she had a feeling the irritation levels in this car could provide a small city with enough electricity for a month.
Tiny, sat fiddling with his whisky glass, turning it around and around. Clearly, he would rather be anywhere else but sat in this car with his estranged wife and an employee he had no recollection of. Clare assumed he thought he had far more important things to do.
Eleanor, on the other side of Clare, was also irritated. Clare was trying to avoid touching the woman, because Clare was certain that Eleanor was a sensitive too.
Clare wondered if the shop knew. She assumed so. And she wondered again, if the shop had somehow arranged for Eleanor and Tiny to meet, to fall in love, to get married. She wouldn't be surprised if they had. But if they hadn't, and it was coincidence, Clare wondered if that would screw everything up.
Could Eleanor be the key to the whole puzzle, or could she be the misshapen last piece that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't make it fit. The piece that spoiled the whole game.
Clare, too, felt the grip of irritation take hold of her. Sometimes it was difficult to work out if feelings were her own, or if she was simply absorbing the emotions of others and claiming them as her own. Her training in the shop had helped her, of course. As a child she had often fallen foul of these ‘false feelings’ as she was later to call them. It took her years to work out that people lived most of their lives lying to those around them. When they were really angry or upset they would pretend they were not.
For a sensitive this was more than just confusing. Clare would absorb the anger and the hurt from around her and - when she could take no more - lash out. She was fine when things were straight forward - even if the emotion was strong, and she would absorb some of it - if she could see people were angry or upset then she knew where that feeling in her came from too. Living with her mother, she had plenty of experience of feeling what she felt, and as long as she could see where the feeling was coming from, she could deal with it appropriately.
But, if people tried to keep their feelings secret, or cover them up in someway, it always leaked out of them, like a potent pollutant that could take hold of Clare and twist her perception, make it difficult to distinguish truth and fantasy.
When she was fifteen she was taken on a school trip to France, skiing. Of course, her mother couldn’t afford the cost of the trip, so Clare hadn’t even mentioned it to her.
She remembered standing in the corridor, underneath the poster with the snowy alpine scene, telling her friend Emma that she didn’t really want to go, anyway. Becky Howard was going, and she hated her, and besides she didn’t really like snow that much, so it would be much better to stay here and enjoy a whole week without Becky Howard being around. Mr Thomas approached them, gave her a big smile and a thumbs up sign and said, “I’m so glad you’re joining us, Clare. I think it will be really good for you.”
Clare said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. Sorry, sir,” and he tapped the list of names under the poster and Clare saw her name - written in what looked suspiciously like her handwriting - on the list of people who were going.
“There must be some mistake, sir,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning in so she wouldn’t be overheard by that nosy bitch from Class 5G who was looking at her with a smirk, and who Clare - for some reason - really wanted to punch in the face, right now. “I can’t afford it.”
Mr Thomas looked slightly confused and then the smile came back onto his face. “Well, it’s a happy mistake, then, Clare,” he said. “Because you’ve already paid.”
Emma - who had wanted to go, but didn’t want to go if Clare wasn’t going (and she knew that Clare’s mum couldn’t afford the fees) so had told her parents she didn’t want to go - didn’t speak to Clare for the rest of the term.
Clare almost didn’t go. Partly because she knew Emma was upset - and although it really wasn’t her fault, Emma was her best friend. Her only friend, really. Partly, because she felt a bit like a charity case, and her mum told her it was better to do without than to rely on charity - which meant Clare going without a lot, a lot of the time. And partly because her mother was sick again, and she needed looking after. Her mum suffered from what her community psychiatric nurse called a “catastrophic combination of borderline personality disorder and bipolar affective disorder”. In reality this meant that her mum spent some of the time as happy as anything, making plans she would never follow through on, and spending money they didn’t have, but much more of the time depressed, angry, frustrated, unable to go out - often unable to get out of bed - self-harming and refusing to take her medication. Much later, after Clare was brought under the wing of the shop and she came to understood her “talents” she wondered if her mother, too, was an unrecognised sensitive.
Two days before Clare was due to go on the trip her mother - who had been on a high - crashed. Tearful, angry and depressed. Clare - unaware of how things worked - felt many of these emotions too, sucking them up from the air around her mother. Knowing the drill, Clare hid the razor blades and her mothers medication to prevent another serious self harm incident and called her nurse.
Despite Clare’s protestations that she really could look after her mother, if they just could help her a little bit, the nurse - and the doctor that came with him - told her that her mother needed to be admitted again. “If she doesn’t come in informally, we’ll have to Section her,” the nurse explained. “Do you have somewhere you can stay? A relative? If not Social Services will arrange for you to be taken care of.”
Taken care of. That was a fucking laugh. The last time she’d been taken care of by Social Services some dirty old bastard in the foster home had tried to touch her. Then she got into trouble when she broke his nose.
“My aunt,” she said, quickly, knowing her aunt wouldn’t want her either. But also knowing that by the time Social Services had gotten round to checking up on her, she would be safely out of the country skiing. Her mother had already signed the consent form, it was paid for, Clare had her passport and everything she needed. Bollocks to her aunt and double bollocks to Social fucking Services.
Clare had hated the skiing trip. Becky Howard made it her mission to make Clare’s life as miserable as possible. Her, and her friends - the “kennels”, Emma called them - made snide comments about her on the entire coach journey. Clare chose to sit at the front of the bus, near Mr Thomas and Mrs Blake, as far a way from Becky Howard’s backseat bitches as she could get. All the girls fancied Mr Thomas. In reality he wasn’t that good looking but he was much younger than the other teachers so that made him more attractive. He also was French - or at least half French, on his mother’s side. So that made him exotic.
Mrs Blake, a deputy head, on the other hand, was strict, old, miserable and not at all popular.
“She always has a face on her,” Emma said, once. “She looks like she’s sucking a lemon!”
Sitting up close to Mr Thomas proved to be a mistake. Becky decided that Clare was flirting with him.
“He ain’t interested,” she said, pushing Clare against the wall of the toilets in the service station where they had stopped for a comfort break. “He don’t want no ugly cow talking to him. Just back off.” Clare shrugged. She wasn’t in the mood for a fight.
When she returned to the coach, she changed seats moving half way back. She ignored the giggles, the chatter and the feelings that churned inside her, and tried to read her book. Every now and then, to a chorus of sniggers, Becky would make her way up to the front of the bus to offer Mr Thomas a sweet, or to ask him something, or just to stand there looking vacant, playing with her hair. Inevitably, as she passed Clare, Becky’s elbow would make contact with her head.
Clare decided quite quickly that skiing was not for her. She wasn’t in the mood for it, and she was worried about her mother and she missed Emma. And the kennel continued to bark and howl at her.
She avoided the evening activities, pleading period pains and headaches. One night - perhaps the third or fourth evening, she couldn’t sleep. She felt anxious, scared even. Deciding a walk would do her good, she crept out of her room and along the corridor. They were staying in a large chalet, one half for the boys, the other half for the girls, and a big living room in the middle with an open fire, that roared and crackled during the day, and evening. In the early hours of the morning Clare found the living room deserted, and the fire just a gentle glow in the grate. She threw another log onto it, hoping it would catch and sat down. Where was this feeling coming from? Agitated, Clare stood up and began walking towards the boy’s side of the house. The feeling grew stronger. Instead of running the other way, to try to diminish the panic, Clare walked on, absorbing more and more of the feeling. Stopping outside a door she was certain was the source of her distress she knocked loudly. There was no answer at first and then a scrabbling sound, and the door opened and Becky ran out, dishevelled and partially dressed. She bumped into Clare as she passed and Clare felt a wave of anger, disgust, fear and betrayal pour over her. Without know why she did what she did, Clare pushed open the door, and as she entered the room. She remembered feeling as if she were in a dream, everything was hazy and she remembered shouting that there was a monster in this room and it needed putting in its place. She felt the pent up feelings with in her build up into a powerful force which she released at the monster in the room. She felt herself take hold of the beast and throw it against the wall and then she was punching and kicking. Someone was shouting and screaming for help - she later was told it was her - and then, suddenly, she felt hands upon her and she was dragged from the room, sobbing with relief.
When the red mist cleared from her head, Clare saw a worried looking Mrs Blake helping a blood covered Mr Thomas, limp past her, into the living room.
The trip was cut short. Mrs Blake told Clare she was lucky Mr Thomas didn’t want to press charges. She said that if it were up to her Clare would be locked up for what she did. She would be ensuring Clare was going to get seen by a psychologist when she got home. “The fruit clearly doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she said, in what Clare assumed was a reference to her mother.
Mr Thomas did not join them on the coach on the way back. Another teacher, Mr Jenkins, was flown out to join the group, and Clare never saw Mr Thomas, again.
Clare was dreading the journey on the way back, after all she was responsible for the abrupt end to a trip that many of the other pupils had been looking forward to for months. She expected to be hounded and howled at by the kennel, but they were silent. Clare caught them looking at her, nudging each other and talking quietly amongst themselves.
Clare feared they might be planning some kind of attack, revenge for her ruining their holiday. At a service station, not far from Calais, sitting on the toilet, Clare heard Becky outside the cubicle.
“Keep the others out,” she ordered one of her kennel. “I’ll handle this.” Clare held her breath as the door closed. “I know you’re in there, Clare,” she heard Becky say. “I don’t know why you did what you did. Especially, after how I’ve been, how I’ve treated you. But I just wanted to say thank you. You’ll get no more hassle from me, and I’ll make sure no one else bothers you, neither.”
And then Clare heard the door and she was left alone with her own feelings of relief and confusion, swirling around with those she had absorbed from Becky.
...
...
…
Please support all the #freewritemadness folk:
....
Join us
Animation By
