Red Balloon

Some say that writing is a muscle; it needs to be exercised. However, to me, writing is more of a reflex; it demands to be exercised. (Please excuse the somewhat contorted TFiOS reference.) I do not write for the fear of losing my ability, I write for the fear of losing myself. I write for the fear of losing my thoughts. It genuinely terrifies me when I think about all of the beautiful images I’ve seen and all of the wonderful thoughts I’ve had, and how I can’t remember the majority of them. Those moments, lost into an infinite space somewhere in my mind. Kind of like when you were a kid and you accidentally let your little red balloon slip out of your hand. That swift feeling of panic and loss, as you watched it float up into nothingness.

Life is my metaphorical red balloon. I don’t want to watch it float away, getting smaller and smaller, until I can’t even remember what it looked like. So, I write. And when I get nostalgic and sad, I look back on the things I’ve written and discover those lost memories. They make me happy and thankful, and soon I start to see that little red balloon come back to me.

Ross.

"A voice from Death, solemn and strange, in all his sweep and power,
With sudden, indescribable blow - towns drown'd - humanity by thousands slain...

Yea, Death, we bow our faces, veil our eyes to thee,
We mourn the old, the young untimely drawn to thee,
The fair, the strong, the good, the capable...

Then after burying, mourning the dead,
(Faithful to them found or unfound, forgetting not, bearing the past, here new musing,)
A day - a passing moment or an hour - America itself bends low,
Silent, resign'd, submissive...

The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love,
From West and East, from South and North and over sea,
Its hot-spurr'd hearts and hands humanity to human aid moves on;
And from within a thought and lesson yet...

[I] Have lost my recognition of your silent ever-swaying, ye mighty, elemental throes,
In which and upon which we float, and everyone of us is buoy'd."

- Walt Whitman from "A Voice from Death"

Creative Writing.

As you know, my goal is to be a writer. Preferably a novelist, but I'm not limiting myself to only that area. So recently, I enrolled myself into a Creative Writing class at school. I figured it would be fun and something to put on College Applications. And, maybe, in the process, I would learn a thing or two about writing.
Our assignment for this week was Fan Fiction. Oddly enough, I've never really written a FanFic, so this was new and interesting to me. I took the route I know best and decided to do a Doctor Who Fan Fiction. (Who would've guessed.) I carried on with the ending of Season Five Episode Ten, "Vincent and The Doctor," by telling what happened after The Doctor and Amy departed in their little blue box. So, here you are:

Vincent After The Doctor

Vincent's eyes fluttered quickly as the wind of The Doctor's departing TARDIS struck him. 
"That man," Vincent said, "that mad man with a box." 
It was just before, that the "oh so mysterious" Doctor and his feisty companion, Amy, had shown him what he never imagined prior; His work, in the worlds largest art museum, with a special section set aside for the great, Vincent Van Gogh. See, before, Vincent never thought he was great, let alone adequate. He saw himself as nothing but a mentally insane drunk, as did everyone else.
"But this changes everything," he thought, "I am a new man, a new artist. People will, one day, finally see the immense honesty and beauty in my work."
He walked with a skip in his step, all the way back to the village. On his way there, he observed the things around him, like always. He saw how the sun seeped through the infinite entanglement  of tree branches above him, casting a mosaic of light on the ground. He heard a low whistle and watched as the wind danced with the summer dust, causing a cloud of shimmer and life. Vincent could feel the colors speaking to him. The pastel flowers whispered in a friendly hum. The bright, green summer leaves shouted at him with excitement and glee. 
Vincent knew these colors better than he knew himself. His eyes could see what no one else's could. He saw how the wind blew through the bright, starry night, twirling the light of the constellations across the dark navy sky. Vincent was special and now he knew that, in the future, others would think so too.
As he neared the end of his walk, his small villa came into view. It was quaint, but sufficient. He went inside and grabbed a satchel full of his best paintings and took off to the cobblestoned streets of town, with an heir of confidence and pride in each step. He ducked into the tiny cafe he had been kicked out of just the day before, "Or was it this morning?" he thought. He couldn't remember, for, the short period of time he had spent in The Doctor's presence, had felt like a lifetime.
"Paintings for sale!" he shouted, louder and happier than ever before. A middle-aged woman walked by. "Excuse me ma'am, would you be interested in buying one of my paintings? I have a feeling they will be worth much money one day." She looked at him with a witch-like snarl and said, "You are asking me, to spend my well earned money on this...garbage?" She stepped closer to him, looking up at his face. "What makes you think I would ever further this cause of utter failure with my fortune?" Vincent shrunk back as each word hit him with a deafening blow. "But I-" She cut him off. "But you what? You think that one day these will be worth something? Well, if you actually believe that, it seems your own personal stupidity is even greater than the one translated into these pieces of trash you call art!"
Her words hung there, in a painful silence. Vincent's heart sunk into his stomach and his shoulders slouched forward. He turned around, and with as little shame as possible, tried to escape from the lady.
"Hey everyone!" She shouted. "The lunatic is running away!" Bursts of laughter erupted in the town and Vincent could hear more shouts of torment from behind.
"You're nothing!"
"You're worthless!"
"You will never, ever, amount to anything!"
At this, Vincent broke. He stammered into his little home and fell to the floor. He sobbed as he pulled his knees into his chest, gripping them tightly. "They hate me." He said aloud. "They will always hate me. I am a mad and crazy fool. I have nothing to offer this town. Nothing!" He paused for a moment. "I am nothing." He heard himself hear the words, and, sadly, he believed them. He cried silently for some time, before whispering up into to sky, "Doctor, I need you." He looked up at the open roof of his villa and tried to imagine the little blue box flying back to him, but it never did.
As you know, months later, Vincent Van Gogh took his own life. Even with the promise of admiration and praise in the future, he could not handle the disrespect and torment of the present. Depression is a vacuum; It can strip away the sanity and happiness of even the most brilliant minds. And even though Vincent's life ended abruptly, his legend still lives on.