First 200 ...

Flicking round the local blogosphere I have been inspired by Turtle's brave act of posting the first 200 words of her assignment.

So, being as I've spoken about it loads, I'm going to post the first couple of hundred words in the first chapter of my 'novel' (note the apostrophes). It's from the chapter one that I worked up in my writing class about 6 weeks ago. Here it is.


SHE'S WATCHING HIM

Qualified teachers do not run video stores, people who hate films do not run video stores. Most importantly, blind people do not run video stores. In fact, blind people don't run any kind of shop, do they?

Mark Kent had fucked up. If he didn't take a grip on his life soon he was going to end up a lonely unfulfilled sad blind man in an old people's home. He imagined himself in the corner not even being able to take part in the afternoon fun that was tea, ginger biscuits and a nice game of charades. He was thirty-one, after all. That meant his life was almost set in stone, didn't it? And do thirty-one year olds still wear jeans and rock band T-shirts? He wasn't sure.

He hated his job. He had no social life to speak of. He lived with an idiot and, when it came to love, well he hadn't had a date in years and by his own admission was getting a little desperate.

Mark's Mum regularly liked to remind him that he hadn't had a girlfriend since that nice Justine. "When was that again, Mark? Five years ago?" she'd say down the phone. "You of all people need children so that they can look after you in later life, you know."

His Mum was nuts but everyone else seemed to get what they wanted so easily and right now, this Wednesday morning, this wet, cold, and presumably grey day - the day after the night before - was weighing down on him. Even if It looked a nice crisp blue to those who could see it, it was overwhelmingly overcast in his head, and probably flecked with blood too.

His white cane swooshed a few broken bottles into the gutter as he tapped his way down the high road to the shop. Then, ouch, he managed to once again walk into the orning in front of the bakery 3 doors down. Some mornings he judged the angle perfectly and missed it - cool way to go Mark, confident looking bloke who can't see. Today, a foot off course, it poked him directly in the right eye - pathetic, loser, needy, embarrassment, stick him in care for his own safety for goodness sake.

.....[snip]......