My Literary Confessions

• My favourite first lines are not ones that you’ll find on top ten lists:

“When a day that you happen to know is a Wednesday starts off by sounding like a Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.” – John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids

“It was a dazzling four-sun afternoon.” – Issac Asmiov and Robert Silverberg, Nightfall

“In defense of Althalus, it should be noted that he was in very tight financial circumstances and more than a little tipsy when he agreed to undertake the theft of the Book.” – David and Leigh Eddings, The Redemption of Althalus

Empty in the Middle

Notebooks, photographed by Gniii.

There are twenty-seven notebooks on a bookshelf above my bed. They’re all about the same size (A5) and the oldest was given to me as a Christmas present in 1996; it’s spiral bound with a clear plastic cover and it’s the only one that has something written on every page.

I haven’t filled another since and I’m not entirely sure why.

Doorways

Hospital RS, photography by Nick Dessauvages via Flickr.

Working the night shift does strange things to your head. Walking down darkened hallways without light or life to distract you gives your mind the opportunity to focus on other things. Around the eight-hour mark my imagination tends to take over. It turns the rooms I look into as I pass gateways to different places inside my head. The absence of colour and conversation creates a blank slate, perfect for projecting mindscapes onto.

Reality Doesn’t Bite

‘Window in Another Reality’. Photography by Bunnis.

The question posed by today’s Daily Prompt is simple enough,

What bores you?

Well to be perfectly honest, real life does. I’ve touched on this before (very briefly) in my post on escapism.

An Argument for Escapism

escapism n. the tendency to seek distraction and relief from reality.

I hereby go on the record to (politely) disagree with the Oxford English Dictionary (’96 edition), because while I do indeed use many forms of media to distract myself from reality, I don’t do it to get ‘relief’. I am not depressed or stressed, I’ve not suffered any recent trauma and nor do I shy away from working a forty hour week or being with my family.

What I am, more often than not, is bored.