Sleepless Nights (Draft)

This is centered around the image above, which i find to be rather beautiful. Not true ekphrasis.

Draft (This is all written on the fly, 500 words without editing or … thinking)

Cassandra sits silently in the lounge room of the cabin, surrounded by wooden walls and wooden furniture, the heat of the fire rushing in waves towards her gentle face. The pale light of the moon melting through the window to her left throws shadows to her right, which dance with the light of the fire. She outstretches her back, pushing into the tip of the chair as she makes herself comfortable on the oak chair that she occupies, as she loses herself in her sleepless imagination. The sound of snoring can be heard coming from one of the other rooms of the cabin, which briefly reveals to Cassandra the reality that she half inhabits in her sleepless state, but is all too quickly ignored by her overly active mind. Her head twists and sways softly and silently to and fro as she imagines bygone seasons and greener meadows.

The cabin in which Cassandra finds herself in is placed squarely almost in the middle of nowhere, but not quite. It is but a simple log cabin, made of oak and pine. While certainly a common sight, this one carries with it its own particular brand of uniqueness, at least in Cassandra’s mind, as it has a quaint, old-timey smell, which reminds Cassandra of home.  She begins to stir uneasily, as if something unpleasant ran straight through the centre of her mind, she shifts again.

The snoring riles up again, bringing her back to focus on the worldly senses and away from her troubled mind, it seems that no matter what realm she occupies, there is no peace. The people whom Cassandra shares board with are some fellow travellers she met at a distant city only a few days ago, five in total.

As Cassandra slinks further down the chair, her head slips to her side and she is confronted with the window. The fire continues to burn in her absence of mind, now beginning to occupy more space than reasonable. The window reveals a severely distorted landscape of dessert and sky, with jaded darkness encroaching on the moons glow and surreal deep black pillars rising and shifting through the sand and piercing the sky, and with each flicker of light from the fire, Cassandra grows wearier. 

As the sun rises the next day, it reveals an array of trucks, complimented by the screech of sirens. They surround what seems to be the remains of a small cabin. A group of five stands in silence, shrouded in blankets and paramedics. The only remains of the cabin are the four corners, which now stand as dark, black pillars in the sand.

NOTES

This is a really rough draft that was just written as I go and as the ideas come, and will, if I feel like it, eventually be re-done… maybe.

My only idea regarding this story was that the original image features in the story by being the visualisation of Cassandra looking out of the window. Everything else was kind of winged.

What is she troubled about? What can be inferred perhaps given the story?

Stupid pacing, change in language at sunrise speaks as if the readers did not just read the story.

“The cabin in which Cassandra finds herself in” �" helplessness. As if she did not choose to be where she is, but instead ‘finds herself’ there.