Friday, June 18, 2010

My Submission for Best of Australian Anthology 2010

Hello readers,

You asked for it - and here it is.

This is the piece I submitted today to the comp I spoke about in my last blog.

****************************

White blinded vision

Flickering
Switch Flicking
Flickers
Switch
fuzzy lines

INstantaneoUS



F e e L

Twitching in your neck, invisible hands touching you, burning like the sun, sun burn prickles and spread up into your scalp, crawling, itching, tingling, living lice infestation, spreading like an oil spill.

S e
e

Flickering lights, fuzzy lines dance across your vision, strobing causes white colour blindness, bright and unfailing, impairing your vision.


H e Rrr
e a

High-pitched frequency, cancels you out to the world, with that Screeching noise, a constant throbbing beat, the pressure makes your ears bleed.

m e l
S l

Crushed ants, damp towels, damp ants, crushed towels. Senses cause confusion salicylic acid causes a chemical reaction, releasing effervescent bubbles that smell of lemon tang, foliage from the tree in your back garden scrape your skin like razors, breathe in and out don’t get smothered by their aroma.

T a t e
s t

Bitter pills mixed with water, clear a path for fast release pain relief, gulped down acidic bubbles make your tastebuds tingle from the fizzy cocktail, swallow hard and lay back to allow the drugs to take control.


You are Sally’s

Neck pain, spreading like a virus, moving upwards in a shiver, tingling the scalp, crawling sensation, like an infestation of lice. Burning eyes with one hundred tiny needles stabbing like a tattoo on the retina, impaired sight, flickering lights like an emergency beacon. White blinded vision causes spasms, affecting the optic nerve.
Eardrums, ringing like the safety lights at a level crossing., never failing alerting all those around.

Through the haze you find the medicine cabinet, shelves filled with drugs like books in a library.

You are the hissing of Sally’s aspirin, effervescent bubbles try to escape over the edge, taste buds tingle, tingling taste buds, lemon tang multi strength aspirin. Nostrils become the pipeline to your olfactory glands, filling them with the smell of crushed ants and wet towels, lemon tang, codeine phosphate, oxycontin. The inside of your head expands, as pressure builds ups with no form of escape. Thick dark curtains drawn to help eradicate the light, total darkness a requirement against the white blinding light. Churning stomach rolls in waves of nausea, causing involuntary muscle movement as the liquid ascends your oesophagus in an attempt to escape. Mouth welded shut, to keep the stomach contents imprisoned, if it escapes there's no chance to stop it, as the oxyacetylene has run out.

Finally you become horizontal and let the warm sensation of S8 painkillers take flight.

You are Sally’s MIGRAINE, grinding a halt to life, for a non specific time frame.

Disallowing normality, with pain and misery, the loss of hearing and sight.


I am once again blight on Sally’s existence.

**********************

It's a bit out there - it was for a class called writing from the edge.

That's all I've got.

4 comments:

ScoMan said...

I think I read an earlier version of this.

From memory this one seems to have a bit more to it, and I think perhaps go to the "edge" a bit more.

I like it more than the other one too.

But for all I know they're exactly the same, and I'm remembering the other one wrong.

JustSal said...

You're not going funny in the head Sco - You have read this one. I tweaked it a little bit.

Kimberly said...

I like the edge to it. Very well done!

middle child said...

I could tell right from the beginning that you were talking about a migraine. I think this should be required reading for all (esp. men) who don't understand this type of headache.