A random piece of teenage fiction

I found this in the back of my A-Level Physics folder. I have absolutely no idea why it was there...
I think I was making it up as I went along, since I don't recognise the context at all. It doesn't seem to belong to anything else I was reading or writing at the time.
Another reason to suspect that this was stream-of-consciousness stuff is that, compared to my modern-day work, it's very noticeable that this page contains no erasures or edits whatsoever (save for 'the stub' altered to 'the remaining stub' at the time of writing, e.g. immediately following the crossed-out word).

The kitten scampered a few paces, pounced, bounded away stiff-legged, and pounced again. Helen crouched on the dusty flagstones of the terrace, feverishly trying to sketch the little creature with the stick of charcoal in her hand. She began outline after outline, abandoning each after a few seconds until the stones around her were filled with sketches, smudged where she had leaned on them or scrubbed them out, or, once or twice, by the kitten herself. The kitten would not stay still, and so the game went on, until even the kitten began to look tired, and Helen was laughing in frustration, hot and sweating in the mid-day sun. ( Read more... )

Mirhap-gheal

Unlike the previous extract, I do know where this comes from (although I have no idea why I found it on the back of a typed transcript of Pushkin's Песнь о вещем Олеге, which I had apparently loved so much that I'd already copied it out by hand in its entirety; both transcripts were in my Russian A-level folder).

This is from what I believe was originally intended as a chose-your-own adventure Fighting Fantasy-type story that I was writing in an unused green ringbound desk diary (doubtless to be found in the bottom of some other box), which explains the unusual second-person present-tense structure. So far as I remember I never actually got beyond writing the elaborate introduction and possibly drawing out some location maps, and I won't swear to the latter! ( Read more... )

What I do remember, for some reason, is that the 'gh' represented an aspirated hard G, a completely un-English sound, and the 'rh' combination likewise an aspirated R. At least I didn't stud my fantasy languages with random apostrophes :-p

Mirhap-gheal

After a few seconds he drops his head back between his hands with a groan, saying something in the elven tongue. You catch a word meaning 'dream'.

Hurrying forward, you grasp the bars that encage him. "It's me, Thrush, Hirrhin! I'm here, I'm real."

You feel a fool, but the young elf raises his ravaged face from his hands. His features are brusied and swollen, and there is blood in the silvery hair. As he rises unsteadily to his feet, you see that he is shackled to the wall behind him by a short chain, which scrapes over stone as he advances towards you as far as it will permit.( Read more... )