NaNoWriMo + @freewritehouse = #freewritemadness.

17 freewriters are gathering at the @freewritehouse to write 50000 words in one month!

I am using @mariannewest’s #freewrite prompt (https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-380-5-minute-freewrite-sunday-prompt-sponge) and @mydivathings’ #365daysofwriting picture prompt (https://steemit.com/fiction/@mydivathings/day-321-365-days-of-writing-challenge) to help write my story.

Today’s prompts are: sponge and a Photo by Jacob Mejicanos on Unsplash

As usual I started with the freewrite prompt and used themostdangerouswritingapp.com to write the first five minutes:

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The many torments of Tiny Earl - Chapter 5

A long time ago - a very long time ago - someone had told Tiny (although he was not known by that name, then) his brain was just like a sponge. Thinking it was an insult Tiny had cut the man's tongue out and then fed it to him. He had watched the man trying not to drown in his own blood, for a moment or two and then went into the bathroom, returning with a sponge. He shoved it down the man’s throat and watched until he died.

Tiny used to enjoy watching people die.

It wasn't until later that evening, as he poured two generous glasses of whisky, one for him and one for his then wife, that Janet said that rather than saying his brain was like a dead sea creature, dry and empty, perhaps the man had meant it as a compliment, and explained that Tiny soaked up information like a sponge soaked up fluid. And he retained it too, until he needed it when he could squeeze it from his brain, every last drop. Except for people’s names. He really was useless at remembering people’s names. He should make more of an effort to remember people’s names.

Tiny remembered he'd pondered that for a while and then had said, "I really do wish you'd mentioned that earlier, before I'd killed the man. He was one of my best."

Janet had smiled and said, "Darling, when you are in one of those moods there really is no talking to you."

Tiny had pondered that too. Perhaps he was too impetuous. He was prone to violent outbursts without thinking things through first.

Janet had been good for Tiny - of course, he wasn’t known as Tiny then: that name was rather a recent adoption - she had helped him become better. If it wasn’t for Janet, he wouldn’t be here now.

The security woman - Clare (see, Janet, I’m making an effort to remember people’s names) - was saying something.

“What?” he said.

“We are not going to the nearest safehouse, sir,” Clare said. “Glenn is worried that that may have been compromised too. We are going down to the one down by the coast. It should be-” she checked a device she held in her hand, that she was constantly referring to, or tapping into. “Another two hours and fourteen minutes.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake! I hate that house. Glenn knows I hate that house,” Eleanor said. Tiny heard the leather of the car seat creak as she shifted in it. “You know I hate that house.”

Well, that was something, Tiny thought a light smile, dancing on his lips. At least the bitch was as unhappy as he was about the situation. For a terrible moment he’d thought she was looking forward to spending time with him. She’d seen so chipper when she’d climbed into the car.

“Glenn thinks it is the best place,” Clare said.

“Well, I guess that’s alright then,” Eleanor said. Tiny didn’t need to look past Clare to see the expression on his wife’s face. She would have her pout on. She was like a fucking two year old, that one. Sulking if she didn’t get her way. What did he ever see in her?

Janet, of course.

He had seen Janet when he first met Eleanor, five years ago. It wasn’t just her looks - although the resemblance really was incredible. There was something in the way she moved her body, in her general attitude. In her no bulllshit approach to life and to Tiny in particular. Tiny had missed Janet so much and here she was again. He had a second chance to share his life with her again.

They had married quickly. Janet would not have approved. Not of Tiny’s decision to take a wife - it had been a long time, a very long time, she would have wanted him to find someone else - but in the rapidity of the decision. “You are being impetuous again, darling. I thought we had talked about that.” He should have listened to her, his inner Janet. “Slow down. Wait. See if she really is what she seems.”

Of course, Eleanor wasn’t his Janet. Eleanor was Eleanor, and it didn’t take long Tiny to become irritated with that fact. Having Eleanor around him was like having Janet back in his life, but instead of being herself she was acting, playing a role, an irritating character that was deliberately annoying, bitchy and very definitely not-Janet.

Tiny wanted to kill Eleanor. How dare she be so much like Janet but at the same time not be anything like her! How dare she not be what Tiny wanted her to be.

He had made a deal, however.

He needed to be a good boy.

They had plans for him.

Which meant no killing. For now, anyway.

Janet would have approved of his restraint. “You will achieve so much more,” he remembering her saying to him, one night. They were in bed, the light from the oil lamp sending shadows up the wall, that seemed to dance in time to the tempo of her words. “If only you could learn to control your urges. Think before you act. Yes, actions demonstrate your power. And people are afraid of you. But frightened people are like cornered animals - they are unpredictable. Just when you think they have given up, they spring on you, attack you. You need to be clever as well as strong.”

Still, sometimes Tiny wondered what was the point of being so rich, so powerful, if he couldn’t just do what the fuck he wanted to do.

He reached for the decanter and poured himself another drink.

“Again. Really? You know I can’t stand the smell of that stuff.”

He ignored Eleanor’s complaint. No, he thought, smiling. He wouldn’t ignore it. He would revel in it. Choosing to forego his usual ice cube he warmed the whisky in his hand, and swirled the liquid around the glass to release more of it’s delicious odour.

It hadn’t taken long for him to realise Eleanor was not his Janet and would never be so. But it had taken longer for him to accept it.

“Is this your mother?” Eleanor had said, holding the silver frame in her hands.

“Where did you get that?”

“I found it in the room in the attic,” Eleanor had said. Realising he was displeased her lips had already begun to form a pout.

“I thought I asked you not to go into that room. I thought I had been clear.”

“I was curious, Tiny,” she’d said (at the time she still called him Tiny), her voice small and childlike. “We shouldn’t keep secrets from each other, now we are married.”

Tiny took a deep breath and then another. You will achieve so much more if only you could learn to control your urges.

“There are some things that are best kept secret, my dear,” he had said, through gritted teeth.

“I don’t agree,” she waved the painting in Tiny’s face. “Who is she? She looks so familiar. Your mother? Your grandmother?”

Taking another deep breath, fighting the urge to rush to her and to snatch the portrait from her hands, instead he said, “Would you please put it down? I would rather you didn’t touch it.”

“But why won’t you tell me, Tiny? What could possibly be wrong in me knowing a bit more about your family? Why all the secrets?”

You wouldn’t understand, he wanted to scream at her. You would think me a madman or a liar or a freak.

“Please, put the picture down.”

“I want to know!”

“Janet! Please!”

“Janet?” Eleanor had shouted, then. “Who the actual fuck is Janet?”

“Eleanor,” Tiny said, breathing slowly, keeping his voice low. “I’m sorry. Please. Give me the painting.”

“Fuck you, Tiny!” Eleanor had yelled and thrown the frame down on the ground, before slamming her way out of the room, the first time Tiny had seen her act like a spoiled child, a storming whirlwind of a tantrum.

The frame was dented slightly, but Tiny thought that was probably not new. The canvas was not damaged, that was the important thing. He took portrait back up to the room in the attic and placed it carefully on the dressing table. He shivered. It was cold up here.

“Sorry, Janet,” he said. “I miss you so much. I thought I had found you again. But as you were fond of saying, ‘you can not eat your cake and keep it too.’”

He felt her presence rather than saw her, standing at the door.

“Who was she?” Eleanor stood in the doorway, light from the attic window shining down on her, she looked almost angelic.

“I thought I had made it clear. This room is not public.”

“Who was Janet?” Eleanor said.

She’s persistent, I’ll give her that. She might have a spark of me inside her, after all. No, Janet. She’s nothing like you.

Tiny sighed. He stood up and moved back to the door, shooing Eleanor out, like a cat into the night.

“Out,” he said. He pushed her, more gently than he wanted to, out of the door, and pulled it to and locked the door, placing the key in his pocket. He would get the locks changed.

“Who was she?” Eleanor’s voice was strange. Emotional. Tiny looked at her. She had tears in her eyes.

“No one,” he said. He went to push Eleanor away again, but when he touched her he felt something hit him. It felt electrical, not quite but almost.

“Your wife?” Eleanor said, her face looking astonished. “But that portrait… it looks so old. She looks so old…”

Tiny pushed his way past his current wife, using all his strength to control his urge to push her down the stairs in front of her. How had she guessed? It was almost as if the shock he had felt had revealed something to her. Well, he had known stranger things in this world. And there was plenty of strange things he was sure he didn’t know yet.

“Tell me about her, Tiny!” Eleanor said, following him down the stairs. “Please.”

Why not, darling? Why not tell her about me? About what happened? About the deal we made?

She is not worthy. She is not capable of understanding. SHE IS NOT YOU!

Perhaps, not. But there is something about her.

He had left the house, taking the car from out the front, and driving. In the rearview mirror he saw Tom come running out, no doubt worried he would be in trouble for not waiting by the car, ready to drive his master where he wanted to go. Eleanor appeared in the doorway too, and then Tiny returned his attention to the road.

He didn’t know where he was driving to, until he drove into the village of Little Hockton. He had been driving for four hours. The cemetery was as he remembered it, even though he had not been here for years. Decades. The graves were unkempt, uncared for, abandoned by those who were left behind. Tiny felt a wave of something he hadn’t felt for… well forever. It took him a while to identify the unpleasent feeling. Guilt.

No need to waste your time on such uselessness. It won’t help me.

Her grave, hidden towards the rear of the graveyard, was surprisingly not overgrown by weeds.

Nothing surprising about it, my dear. You think I want to be choked again?

A stone cross marked where she lay, no words nothing to tell the casual passerby who was buried beneath. Tiny remember how he had worried about the cross.

You think we fear these inventions, these man-made fantasies? It holds not power over us. The cross will put others minds at rest.

Atop of the cross where four ravens. They did not fly away, at his approach. Instead they bowed their heads as if in greeting.

Odin, the king of the Norse gods had two ravens, darling. One was called Thought, the other Memory, I will have four: joining Thought and Memory, will be Dreams and Control

The birds flapped their wings, hopping from one part of the stone cross to another, as Tiny sat down beside the grave.

“I miss you my love,” he said. The ravens cocked their heads as if listening. “I thought I had found you again. I thought you had come back to me.”

Bide your time, darling. The preparations are almost done. We are almost ready. We will soon be together, and we will rule over these humans.

Tiny had sat by the grave talking with his wife, dead now for over one hundred years, until it was dark.

By the time he returned to the house, the moon was high in the sky. Sitting on the gravel driveway he wound the window down on the car and listened to the sound of the ocean as it crashed upon the rocks, below the cliff edge, beyond the trees.

Tom, his driver, found him at daybreak. He had fallen asleep, his head resting on the steering wheel. Eleanor had left, Tom told him. She said she wasn’t going to spend another night in that house, not with “that woman’s portrait in the attic”.

True to her word, she had never returned to the house by the coast. Tiny had made an effort - he thought so, anyway - they lived together in the big house in London. But in the end the temptation to kill Eleanor was becoming too much, so he bought her the apartment and set her as free as he could. She refused a divorce. Out of pure spite, he believed.

It should be interesting, Tiny thought, as he watched the streetlights fly by, through the window of the Rolls, if nothing else: it should be interesting. Having her back in that house after all this time.

Would he be able to resist killing her, this time?

I’ll send you one of my ravens, darling. I’ll send you Control.

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