Charles, a young boy of 14, continued scrawling in his notebook. He hated camping with a furious passion, and refused to take part in what his father had deemed a "healthy family vacation". Instead, he wrote. He wrote stories and songs, along with the occasional journal entry complaining about the "horrors of camping". But mostly, he wrote poems. He wrote fantasical poems about dragons and magicks and verses about the dainty petal formation of a particularly lovely flower. Tonight, however, Charles was determined to challenge himself. He flipped through his notebook until he found the notes he took on an interesting form of poem, the pantoum. It suited his needs, so he left out the rhyme scheme for reference and waited for inspiration to strike him.1
As Charles waited, the cold isolation of the forest started to get to him. The fire his father had started now consisted of slightly glowing charcoal, and his parents had retired to their tent, making him very much alone. Suddenly, he had a muse, and tried to put the feeling the scenery gave him into words.2
Cold and grim eyes gaze
From within the trees
The cold wind blows
As the dry leaves russle
From within the trees
Footsteps can be heard
As the dry leaves russle
But only at this moment when
Footsteps can be heard
The cold wind blows
But only at this moment when
Cold and grim eyes gaze.3
He put his pencil down, surprised at the ease with which he had written it. He knew it wasn't perfect, but it described his emotions perfectly. At last, Charles felt at ease with all the nature surrounding him. Perhaps this was what communing with nature was all about. This was what Charles believed.4
That is, until he saw the cold, grim eyes staring out at him from within the trees.
Author notes
I wrote the pantoum for a contest first, then the story. Charles is a child of circumstance, and yet I love him dearly. Which is, of course, why I left him alond in a situation of probable terror and possible death. While I say this, this is not really horror, though I marked it as so. It's more like a prequel to the horror story that I will never write, or a scary campfire story that no one thought of an ending to.
A contest entry
- Obscure Poetry Forms 01: The Pantoum (points will go up) by intoothandclaw.
375 points, ended October 19, 2008, 5 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
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The ending really makes this one. You're right that it's more like a prequel than a full story, but it's a pretty interesting prequel. I'd be curious what's going to happen next to this young poet.
And as for the poem itself, you misspelt one word ("rustle",) but otherwise, that's not a bad take at all on the form. You're technically not supposed to start lines with words like "but" or "and", but I didn't mention that, so I'm not going to penalize you for it. You did a good job making sure the whole thing flowed into itself. Nice work!
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DUDE! THIS WAS TOTALLY AWESOME!
i was reading, and it was like eh. no comment.
Until i read the VERY END!!!
I was wondering where the horror of this piece was, and forgot that it was supposed to be dark-ish.
Then i finished reading...
i liked it muchly muchly muchly!
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