Who might you be? - Writers Forum

Olly Buckle · 09-05-2008, 05:17 PM

Who might you be?
There is a common theme that runs through various threads to the effect that people might not be what they appear to be. There are all sorts of deep philosophical thoughts we could get into about the reasons people might dissemble, or others might care. BUT I was not going there. Instead, if you are/were not who you appear to be, then who are you or who might you be?
For example;
I might be called Francoise, a retired, eighty year old dominatrix who actually came from France originally. For years I kept two small flats opposite one another, occupying the whole floor of a block near Crystal Palace. In one I lived, making beans on toast for tea (I have been here a long time ), smoking fags and drinking coffee with my girls in the winter-comforting fug of the gas fire.
The flat opposite I had converted for work. In the small spare bedroom stood a teacher’s desk and a small wooden dunces stool, on the wall hung canes and here I saw my naughty boys, the main bedroom I had for my big babies, an outsize cot and huge fluffy toys. My piece de resistance was the front room, which had become my dungeon, here I had restraints and hoists of every sort. Everywhere here I was in charge and taking my revenge on the brothers and sisters who ran the Abbey school where I boarded.
Since my retirement I have felt the need to create an adult figure such as I never knew in my abused childhood, perhaps to cleanse myself a little, thus was created Olly Buckle.

Your go, I might be...

Olly Buckle · 09-07-2008, 03:53 AM

I might be one of the painters working on the Forth bridge, as was my father before me. Each day I head off with my lunch and tools for the Firth and start work, people feel my job must always be the same, working on the same bridge day in day out. They don’t realise the variety, Some days we are in our little storm lashed work tent, short Scottish days lengthened by electric light, working on a level with the rail bed, the thunder of wind alleviated every so often by the even louder thunder of a passing train. Then again we might work over time on long, light evenings, high up on the topmost arch with the silvery northern light of hours long summer days reflecting, silver, from the Firth stretched out below, or purple and black from the scorched heather clad hills. Another day I am down on the concrete footing painting the huge girders where they descend into the earth, like the legs of some Colossus who spans the river. My lunch hour spent communing with some fisherman trying his luck with the rising salmon. People say “Your wrist must ache with brushing” but paint must come off as well as go on and there have been many hours of my life spent listening to the ting,ting ting of my small hammer and the rasp of wire brush removing the coats of yesteryear, I, clad in mask and goggles to protect me from the flying chips and poisoning by the lead they used to use, resembling some freshly landed alien. The world over men speak of me and my endless task, but rarely consider the variety. I would die suffocated in an office.

Olly Buckle · 09-07-2008, 04:30 PM

I might be the man who checks your ticket at the gate
I might be the enemy you especially hate
You can not tell if old or young
Near to home or furthest flung
Male or female, in between?
Something so strange you’ve never seen
Anything like me before
And hope to God you don’t meet more

Olly Buckle · 09-14-2008, 04:31 AM

I might be a mad dwarf, with an eternally young face, who has spent the last eighty summers working for a week as ball boy on the tennis courts of my native Wimbledon before returning to my home on the wild common. Only then do I touch the human world so I am able to turn my wages into gold to add to my hoard.

The Backward OX · 09-14-2008, 09:03 AM

I might be a yellow-tressed Far-darter. Then again, given the difficulties inherent in finding a cab in Hackney after eight pip emma, and as my master had been most insistent that fishing in the Loch was to be temporarily uninstated due to the vagaries of the breeding season of the Western beets, it seems altogether likely I shall once again be reduced to the status of a polisher of name plates up and down the Strand.

‘Ave a banana!

Olly Buckle · 09-14-2008, 12:14 PM

Worse fates can wait on those who walk the Strand.

I had a sister Millie who would walk upon the Dilly
And me Mother was another on the Strand
Me Father flogs his a**e hole round the Elephant and Castle
We're the finest f***ing family in the land
As the old song would have it.

How did you know the street is called Strand so it's the Strand, not The Strand? Bet there's not a lot of people in your part of the world who wouldn't make that mistake.

Assuming that is your part of the world, maybe you were a black cab driver...

The Backward OX · 09-14-2008, 05:39 PM

In my version, the third line ended “to the guards at Windsor Castle”.

There’s other versions too – but of course sod’s law has kicked in and I disremember them.

And to your Strand question – the internet is a wonderful invention. I was in fact simultaneously cobbling together another piece of nonsense set in old London town and needed to do some research, and there you have it. Although, on reflection, I must say I don’t think I had ever previously seen it written The Strand. Sometimes you just know these things without knowing you know them.

Cab driver yes, but I am a dinki-di Aussie and have never left these sunny shores.

The Backward OX · 09-14-2008, 06:04 PM

Remembered them!

If you’re ever down in London and you have no place to go
And you cannot find a spot to sit you down
For a penny on deposit you can hire a water closet
And a season ticket costs but half-a-crown.

and...

You can see there’s been some pushin’
By the c*m stains on the cushion
And the footprints on the sofa, upside down
But since I went and shagged your Enis
I’ve had trouble with my p*nis
And I wish I’d never seen your f*cking town.

The tune of course is Road to the Isles.

kupo · 09-14-2008, 10:23 PM

If it weren't for rules and laws, threats of confinement and physical destruction, I might be someone else. My persona is meticulously constructed but it might not be able to handle the onslaught of the darkest side of human nature. It's ready to collapse at the slightest shift in pressure, like a toothpick skyscraper. I might be someone else, a twisted shade of my former self, if I bent to the will of my internal musings. I might be someone else who completely lacks empathy and concern, because it's just easier that way. I might be someone who takes to heart that it's easier to destroy than to create. I might be someone else who succumbs to the path of least resistance, though that path steers headlong into depravity. For now, the illusion holds. But, I might be...

Zensati · 09-15-2008, 12:26 AM

I'm whatever you think I am...

Zensati · 09-15-2008, 12:26 AM

I guess you could say I am the boogeyman..

alanmt · 09-15-2008, 01:24 AM

I might be a yaoi-obsessed seventeen-year-old japanese girl who has compensated for her allegedly plain looks by mastering american english and pretending to be a seme online using photos jacked from some guy's myspace to live her romantic dreams out with sexy gay american uke dreamboats.

The Backward OX · 09-15-2008, 03:58 AM

I might be an incredibly beautiful and highly promiscuous Yugoslavian blonde widow with an IQ of 145 and a Doctorate, who cannot help creaming her panties when in the company of almost anything with a penis, who has a combination of a little girl voice and a way of saying “Why don’t we . . .” that makes the hearer think he is the only man left on the planet, who shares tales of her sexual exploits with her two daughters who are both raging nymphomaniacs and who are teaching her some new tricks and how to add her videos of it all to YouTube and who, in an attempt to bring some balance to her overstressed lifestyle, has adopted the online persona of an irritable old git from the Australian outback with an annoying habit of poking fun at everything that moves by way of overly long and complex sentences.

The Backward OX · 09-15-2008, 04:20 AM

Wildcard · 09-16-2008, 11:38 AM

I might be the master of these forums who on a daily basis views with much discomfort and distaste the many written excretions that pollute my site, whilst longing for the time to return when writers wrote for something other than just the sake of writing; suffering constantly as I feel myself being sucked into the abyss of mental recession which attempts to consume me every time I am forced to read another by-product of the boredom of one who has unrestricted access to a computer and the internet. As I read each piece I feel as one who is in a pit and is constantly defecated on time and again, whilst clinging to the notion that one day I would find solace in the words of one who takes pride in his work, releasing me forever from this dungeon. This Hell.