Quote the Raven.

So, I had an assignment in my English class to find a photograph, painting, object--something that evoked thought--and to write creatively about its history as you see it. I am posting it on here because it is the first piece of fictional, creative writing I have done in ages. It seriously breaks my heart that I have such a hard time writing. Still! After all this time! I just can't get it back. It doesn't flow the way it used to. Maybe I am just too hard on myself. Randy told me maybe I just need to find a new flow, and a new way of writing. Maybe he's right. Maybe I can never go back to the way I wrote before and I just need a new, fresh start. They told me my idea for this was very creative, but I just feel like it could be better? That and I am paranoid of writing anything for my English teacher since she always rips my papers to shreds. Anyway, here it goes.


This is a painting called "Nevermore" by Zdzislaw Beksinski. I decided to venture a guess as to who was in the hot air balloon.

The white clouds passing to the left of me quote the raven. The telltale sun sets beyond the horizon. Except for them, I am alone in my balloon I have fashioned. One would think I would be used to this solitary life of masques I wear. Sometimes I imagine my mind in Prince Prospero’s terms with rooms of blue, purple, green, orange, white and violet. Each is horrifying in its own right, but none is so horrifying as the black room with its windows made completely of blood. How can blood run through one’s veins? Mine feels more present in every synapse of my mind.

The rooms are interrupted by the barren tundra’s paralyzing effect. Ice creeps down the walls and transforms the chandeliers and chairs and tables into statues. The mirrors hanging framed in blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and even black become fogged and I am no longer able to see my garish reflection. I am no longer able to see what is lurking in the darkest corners of my mind. Every fiber of my being shouts, ‘what! Who is there?’

Lenore, Fortunato, Dupin, Usher, and countless anonymous faces betray me for they are vengeful of their fates. What once was safely locked away in these rooms has now been found. I have been discovered, stripped, and naked. There are spiders spinning webs of my madness and macabre, as my own red death drips down my fingertips. There is no escape; there is no turning away. Even on this balloon I have fashioned they have found me and imprisoned me in my rooms. My own rooms! I have lost myself and they have taken it from me, taken it all.

The wind whips through my hair, and I can feel it as I extend my arms to my sides. I carefully place my feet upon the edge of my balloon I have fashioned, poised to escape. Death is my only solution. There is silence, Lenore, Fortunato, Dupin and Usher—all of them stare at me placidly and unbelieving from doorframes of the blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black rooms. I am not welcome there. I am not welcome anywhere. And soon not only the clouds quote the raven, I too become nevermore.



Hopefully everyone in my English class doesn't think I am crazy. It was E.A. Poe who was the crazy one!!!