Little Update

Today's update is a just a little short. I'm currently working on "rebooting" the Irredeemable "franchise" so hopefully there should be some new Ray Douglas content next week.

Check out The Gift by The Velvet Underground. It's basically a short story read out to background music by the band. This song basically rekindled my love for listening to people read short stories. I think the video is just photos of the band, the story is the important part.

This short was just something I wrote after listening to that song, I was inspired by the writing style.


Frank Thornton
By Tim Harvey

Frank Thornton sat at a small wooden desk on the fifty-fourth floor of the Palm Sands Hotel, his fingers spread out over the keys of his typewriter and his eyes fixed on what he had just written; his suicide note. Of course Frank didn't plan to kill himself, but he had to make sure everyone else thought that he did, including his wife of ten years, the woman that he had once loved.
Gently sliding the sheet of paper from the machine, Frank gazed around the room. The smell of the cigar smouldering in the large clay ashtray on the night-stand caught Frank's attention. He fixed his gaze on the smoke curling its way from the tip of the blunt cigar and towards the ceiling. The brilliant sunset coming through the balcony doors washed the walls of the hotel room in a dull sepia tone, and Frank watched as the smoke trails caught the light.
Reading the last part of the note aloud, Frank chuckled to himself. 'And as I stand here on the balcony of my fifty-fourth floor room, I bid you all farewell. I hope the fall hurts less than my broken heart, but I doubt if there is any pain worse. Goodbye.' He had stopped short of adding 'cruel world' to that goodbye, but only just.
Frank continued to chuckle to himself as he sealed the note in an envelope, stepped over to the night-stand, grabbed his cigar, and made his way out onto the balcony. The plan was so simple, he thought. Hopefully not too simple. He would climb over the railing of the balcony, and wait until somebody saw him. Within minutes the police would be called and a negotiator would be sent to talk him down. When the dust had settled, he would be forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. This is where the plan got really clever, Frank mused. During his psychiatric assessment, he would let slip that his wife had been abusing him for the past few years.
The point of all this was to get an edge in the courts when he filed for divorce. It was so simple, Frank chuckled again. Of course the judge would see to it that his wife was punished, and it would take a fair bit of compensation to console a man on the brink of suicide.
Frank lifted his leg over the edge of the balcony railing and shifted his weight, flicking his other foot across, leaving him hanging on for “dear life.” Turning the bulk of his frame around, in order to face the ocean and the roaring sunset, Frank gripped the bars of the railing tightly. After all, he didn't actually want to fall.
Now, all there was left to do was wait. Frank thought about what he would do with his life once his horrible wife was out of the picture. He closed his eyes and imagined lying on a tropical beach on some hidden island, not like the trashy tourist beach just across the road, fifty-four storeys below. No, his wife was rich, he thought, she would have money for a lush tropical paradise. All that money, she was sitting on all that money, Frank thought, it wasn't fair. Sure he didn't work, but she only had all that money after inheriting her father's business. She did go national with the small business, but so what. It wasn't fair that Frank lived off of an allowance that she gave him. She treated him like a child, he thought, like some teenage outcast.
Frank heard voices down below, distant gasps, and what he thought was somebody yelling for him not to jump. He smiled, his eyes still closed. He only had to wait for the police now, they would come up to the room and he would “reluctantly” allow them to talk him into coming back in.
Returning to his daydream of the tropical beach, Frank smiled wider. He could almost hear the gulls squawking near his head. The waves were lapping quietly in the distance and Frank could hear the vivid wildlife of the tropical paradise.
The sounds of the birds were becoming disturbingly lifelike and Frank gently opened one eye to see a large white seagull flapping in front of his face.
The bird's feet tried to find footing on his chest, its beak lashing out and scratching his nose.
Frank Thornton instinctively raised his hands to cover his face.
Feeling his body topple forward, Frank reached back to grab the railing, but it was too late.
As the distant gasps and screams moved significantly closer, Frank thought; at least I left a note.