How Much is Fiction?

We had this assignment in Writers' Craft: using a scene given to us, we had to portray some sort of mood. The scene we were gven consisted of a bottle of wine, two wine glasses (one tipped over), and a newspaper with something circled on it. Here's what I wrote:


The night was as the aged wine that we drank, but what is Time that it should restrain a celebration? It is meerely a number counted as the rock we wander on spins in circles; the only truth that Time told was that it was a time for rejoicing.

But there is also a time to sleep, and thus a time to depart; I walked home through the quiet streets while the inhabitants were asleep. In this silence my thoughts became audible; doubts and fears slowly began to creep in; when I realized that I was over-thinking, it was already too late.

I thought of the bitter taste of that rotten grape juice; the formerly strong flavour was but a faint scent lingering on my tongue. Only a little did I drink; I cannot hold down much alchohol; I seldom celebrate.

Falling from the sky was a haze of fog; I stood at the crossroads; looked for the good way; sought to walk in it; prayed to find the rest my soul was longining for; but I was unable to examine where each road went; I could merely see the crossroad; it gave an unsatisfying glimpse of potential hope; it was, in itself, a quagmire.

Continuing along my dead-end route, my vision dissolved into a blur. Shadows distorted reality; my shadow hovered below me as I strode beneath the street lamps; stretching into a sham, it was a foreign thing to me. Every legionary of darkness pressed in on me; I was, as the want-ad circled by my optimistic host, a comspicuous target for fear, for doubt; in the tidy lawn, a tall weed.

Drained from the core to the flesh I am. During the time of enthusiasm, a playful pet tipped a glass of wine; yet that empty glass contains seven times the joy remaining in me. This feeling is not due to a lack of friends, nor friendliness. Blessed would I be if only I could understand my torment; identify my curse. Such a diagnosis would uncover hope from its tombstone; healing would be in sight.

Invited, hope was not; I failed to find the address; addressing my failure to rejoice is something I have not been able to do. The party faded away. Intimate strangers. Distant friends.

As my mind drifted about these images, I had completed my journey to my darkened destination. The teacher was true who told that "there is a time for everything." Yet I am but crackers crumbled into the soup. And I shall wallow in cheerful depression, an old friend of mine. No time for me.