Ted Moor tries to die

I have recently been involved in a writing relay for Ozon magazine, a kind of hipster's international style bible. This started of with the editor contacting three writers with a theme for the magazine and a suggested start to a dark story. The first writer, Sarah Dodd, then emailed me with this:

Ted Moor turned the key in the door of his high rise flat and entered. It was cold and part of the hallway carpet was damp; a burst pipe. He kicked the piles of bills and junk mail from the door mat and shuffled through to the kitchen where he dumped his meagre groceries and began to roll a joint. He hadn’t received any Christmas cards this year and since Sheila, his second wife, had left him in December he’d spent most of Christmas day at the care home with his mum. He sat back and contemplated the oven, thick with dust and grease and littered a top with pizza boxes and take away wrappers. ‘Why not?’, he thought, ‘there’s no point to it anyway’. Stretching across to the hob he twisted each dial in turn up to full. There was a hiss as gas filtered into the room. Ted fastened down the window and laid a towel across the bottom of the door. He switched on the radio and the tinny wailings of a recent hit sprung into life. Coughing, Ted settled back into his chair and brought the tightly rolled joint to his lips with a sigh. This was it. Now he would wait. Abruptly, there was an imperceptible whirr and a click and the kitchen light flickered and went out. The stream of gas weakened and stopped. Confused, Ted fumbled his way out into the hall and by the green light of his mobile squinted at the metre. 0.000. Nil funds. Cursing, he turned out his pockets scrabbling for coins. Nothing! Leaning back against the wall he searched his trousers for something to light the joint; at least he could smoke in peace and wait until morning. His jeans were empty. Tears welled up in Ted’s eyes as he lashed out into the darkness. No light, no life and no lighter.

The aim was that in each paragraph of around 250 words the character would attempt suicide and fail. Thanks to the first writer for handing me the high-rise block on flats on a plate! So I returned with the following:

Opening the door to his flat Ted staggered out into an equally dark hallway. Instead of pausing to lock the door he left it to swing open with a faint sense of rebellion. The end of the corridor led to an open balcony which from the outside looked like a multi-story car-park. It was the only flat he could afford now Sheila wasn’t around; the sort of place where people urinated in the stairwells. The smell of vomit cloyed from where someone, months ago, had puked, only for it to seep between the open steps and hang in semi-solid drips. He leant over the balcony and winced as he imagined his prone body slumped broken on the ground. Seconds from launch there was a loud shout. ‘Move away from the edge’ Ted turned backwards, almost overbalancing, but saw no-one was there. The voice shouted again, louder and more hysterical this time. Ted’s heart briefly sang, until he saw the owner of the voice peeking down from the balcony above. A large lady in a too-tight vest clutched a tiny, dirty child in her bulging arms. ‘You saw her there’ she accused. Barely stumbling out a protestation Ted backed down from the edge but the lady continued. ‘Sure you did – you see a little girl headin’ into a death-trap and you do nothin’.’ Ted turned to leave but the shouting continued ‘you were too busy creeping round down there with your drugs.’ He noticed the wet joint still clutched between his thumb and forefinger and hung his head. ‘Get out of my sight!’ the woman hollered, and Ted obsequiously obeyed. Sliding back over the balcony wall he sank into the corner of the mucky, sodden piss-stained corridor, defeated.

And passed onto the final writer, Sonali Hindmarch, who closed with the following:

He sat heavily, feeling fat ripple around his thighs. He threw his spliff on the ground, watched it float in a puddle. He heard the music before he heard them. It was played on a mobile phone. The bass sounded choked, stronger than the device could handle. Voices followed. Then clomping feet. Kids. They were walking up the stairwell, swearing echoed off the walls. Ted didn’t look when they turned onto his corridor, but he felt them there. A dog sniffed Ted’s face then grunted. One of the kids said something, but Ted couldn’t lift his head to acknowledge. They spoke again, but it was like Ted was watching TV out of the corner of his eye with the volume turned down, everything blurred at the edges. Until he felt a sharp stab - a kick - against his thigh. The noise and action rushed into focus then, the volume turned back up. There were three of them, no faces, just hoods. One had his leg lifted, still shouting, ready for another blow. The foot came heavily down onto Ted’s face, he felt his teeth loosen, a smack of pain. Is this how? he thought, slumping the rest of his body onto the ground as another kick slammed against his head. His world turned to static. Indistinct. The dog, shouts, running, then rain. He felt his phone ringing before he heard it. When he finally eased it out of his pocket he’d had three missed calls. It rang again in his hand. ‘Ted Moor?’ Ted thought he mumbled a reply. ‘This is the police, you’ll need to come to the hospital. It’s your wife … there’s been a fatal accident.’

I really enjoyed the challenge of writing to a specific theme and with strict timings and guidelines. The hardest part was keeping within the word count and still managing the play out the attempted suicide for your paragraph. This exercise made me realise I relish some kind of structure to write within, as sometimes sitting down with a blank page and a full head is the worst combination. So this Thursday I'll be starting my second Central St Martins' writing course and will blog work and feedback as I do it.