A piece I created relating to my artwork for my coursework.

Creative Writing:  Write an imaginative piece about the people, place and potential action photograph B.

Plan:

A group of people who have a dark secret, they have hidden noses concealed. They are popular people in the community and are regular visitors to the cinema but there is more to them than meets the eye.

Everything about them is an act. It’s not just their features that are different. Their personalities are a pretence. Everything takes its toll and they find their no longer able to keep up the act. Gradually their lives unravel….

Story:

Stefan sat at his desk. It had been a fairly repetive morning, compiling boring data reports. He had worked through his break. This was often common practice. Strictly speaking by law, they were not entitled to a break. It was up to individual employers to decide whether he should be granted a break or not. It was often decided on work performance. He had no idea if he had been able to have a break, no one had said anything. He had decided it was not safe to assume either but to carry on working. Unforturely his break that he did get, often wasn’t long to enough to do anything really. They were only given 10 minutes although this was rather an improvement on work conditions previously. He had just enough time to stretch his legs and get a glass of water from the kitchen. Water was all he could drink during this period as water had no sense of smell. It simply didn’t matter and it was enough to quench his thirst and keep him going for just a while longer. Nora was approaching and glancing in his direction. Nora was often one of the speediest typers in the entire work force and it was a rare occurrence that she did not get a break. Nora approached Stefan’s desk. ‘Stefan, you fancy coming out tonight? We’re off to see a movie at the cinema.’ Nora asked antipcating a rapid response. Stefan hated going to the cinema in the middle of the week. Not for the reasons you may think but because he was unable to be himself. It was bad enough having to pretend at work, never mind another 3-4 hours after work. If he turned her down without giving her a good reason that would suffice, she would think this most peculiar. So for the sake of keeping up appearances, Stefan agreed to a Wednesday night showing at the cinema as long as he didn’t have to stay for drinks afterwards. To avoid any award questioning, he told her that his mother was staying and he had to help her into bed after. He would have to be discreet and inconspicuous whilst they walked down his road as they often did. Nora went back to her desk and he continued with his work for another 2 hours and half.

It was lunchtime. He got up rather quickly and dashed to the toilet with his large plain and scratched satchel. As soon as he was safely locked in the cubicle. He pulled out the contents of his satchel, inside was a scratched pocket mirror, some unmarked moisturizing cream, half a tub of E45 and his lunch which consisted of a corn beef hash sarnie and a flask of instant coffee. All items ready for transformation to begin. Opening up the mirror, he took off his glasses and he pulled at the skin covering his nose. Slowly, his real nose drooped out. Stefan stared into the reflection, his appearance had radically changed. He looked surreal. Half human features, Half alien. His nose drooped and was so long but it started to coil at the end. His head was bald and hairless, he rearranged his glasses and stared longing into the mirror. He could see that it was suffering, there were red rashes in large blotches. He needed to wash but daren’t risk leaving the cubicle. He opened the cubicle ajar for a fraction of a second, he lept and grabbed the bar of soap and dashed back into the cubicle. His breath was rather ragged. He had gotten away with it just, he wouldn’t be surprised if someone had heard the rather loud sudden commotion. He waited several minutes, just to be sure.  He lifted the plastic lid of the toilet seat and dipped the bar of the soap into the water. Using the mirror he lathered the soap carefully all over his face, trying not to irritate his skin. Stefan gagged, he might as well have gotten the soap and slid it down his throat. The smell was putrid and intoxicating. It had no flavour of any such. It was a horrible musky necessity. I should mention that with Stefan’s nose, he had a vast acute sense of smell, at times worse than a dog. He could smell anything, it was often difficult to hide his sense of smell. Although with his real nose unravelled, he could smell thousands times better than with it concealed. At home, he had his nose unleased 95% of the time. Unforturely it made life rather difficult. He often was repulsed by some smells more than others, and often had to use other products to disguise smells. For example one particular smell that Stefan detested was the smell of washing powder. He often had to remove himself from situations that had really bad fragrances. This was more difficult whilst at work as he couldn’t spend his whole time in the toilet. He often brought in other smells to kind of detract and disguise the other smell. It sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.

He cupped his hands down into the ceramic bowl and spread lashens of water all over his face, rinsing off all the soap. He took out the tub of E45 and applied to his nose. He had to spread a rather thin layer as he would be unable to conceal his nose back into its pocket and he didn’t want to risk any exposure. Rinsing his hands off in the water of the toilet bowl and drying them on his satchel. He put the toilet seat down and sat down to eat his lunch. The smell was intoxicating, even through the thin layer of E45 cream, he could still smell the pungent flavours of Corn Beef Hash and the smell of musky instant coffee. Ever since Stefan had worked here, he had found himself alone, spending breaks in the toilet. He had spun his other Co- workers a tale about having to go to his mothers to help her. Everyone in the office seemed fairly cohersed with Stefan’s mother and her supposed condition. Stefan often felt ever so guilty bringing his in mother into his situation. Although she had given to birth to him and was probably facing similar difficulties herself. She sometimes visited and would often talk into the night, about how isolated she felt living a double life. Although they had never actually discussed this, Stefan just knew that his mother would have given him her blessing. She hated the thought of him all alone, eating by himself. Part of her had felt glad he had made some friends at last even know they knew nothing about him.  She felt it was better to have friends under false pretences than no friends at all.