Aftermath of the Crash

[beccatoria]

First off - a BIG thanks to everyone who responded to my previous, manic entry.

I'd respond individually but I don't know how to make "THANK YOU! THANK YOU A THOUSAND TIMES OVER!" seem non-repetetive. So just consider yourself recipients of said message. ;)

Thanks to the suggestions on that thread I managed to get a file recovery program and salvage a good amount of my files. The net effect is that I did lose a lot of stuff, including one story that it upsets me to lose (but I can rewrite), a lot of my poetry (which I'm probably most upset about) and a couple of music videos that aren't still online (but I'm working on getting copies again). But I saved most of my most important files. Which isn't really so bad.

I know, I know, I should back up more regularly. I kind of think the fact I didn't was not-so-subtle self-sabotage. Because while I'm really glad not to have lost the irreplacable file, and it filled me with a sudden, fleeting urge to actually get back to working on it, but it's now languashing on my hard drive (and safely backed up too!) with me unable to bring myself to open it again...

Sooo.

It was kind of weird seeing what made it through the Crash or not. It was so random. So much stuff just gone, but stuff that survived that I'd forgotten I even had/had written.

Like these two things. They must have been from stories I had ideas for at some point, but now? Couldn't tell you. They're just two two paragraph sketches floating in the ether.

1. I loved Rita even though she swam at the very boundaries of our faith. She was nearly excommunicated on three occasions, and finally, she simply ceased to pray. I was the ingrate; I kept clasping my hands and calling on the gods to let it rain water. When the rain burned us and our buildings, I was satisfied, righteous, a pious man ignored by his idols. Rita offered me freedom, pulling at the red rope tied around my palms, undoing the knot and the prayer at the same time. I should have been grateful to her, but I bought more cord, and I tied more knots.

"They won't listen," she whispered to me, before the sheets were warm.

I knew it; I was trapped by it. Rita is dead, and if I pray to her, she will not answer. If she did, it would not be a prayer. It was desperation and fear - every night I sent the words out, tied to me by a thin string, an offering to my dead gods. I said it was devotion and faith. Rita pulled the string from my hands, but I would not unravel. She put her fingers through my hair, but I stayed coiled.



2. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn't see. The corners of her life had twisted in on themselves like roots. She had been pushed down through the earth, down beneath the water table, and she was drowning. My lungs filled sympathetically with dirt as I tried to convince her not to do this. She told me I did not need to follow, but she should have known, at that point in our lives, there was nothing else I could possibly do. Her roots had twisted around me as well.

My life had been subterranean for so long, I thought I might not mind it. Perhaps it was my fate to drown in the red clay of the bean field. Perhaps, in the end, the Greeks had had the right idea, and it was an underground river that led to the afterlife.

A the moment I think I like the first one better. Hmm.

Comments

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you got most of your files back.

You can tell what's important to me because I compose my poetry in a text editor and then write it all out longhand in a book.

I think I like the first one better.

Me too.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

*stares at you in total shock*

YOU GENIUS! I think I did that with at least one or two of my lost poems! Not all of them, but at least one or two... *runs off to check*

Also:

Me too.

Good to know my instincts are still good... ;)

[asta77.livejournal.com]

I am so happy for you that you were able to salvage some of your files. Hopefully I'll learn from this and spend some time backing up stuff.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hey - I hope you can learn from my idiocy too ;) And thanks for the support in my hour of need! :)

Another 'me too' on liking the first one better.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine ever writing something, even a snippet, and then not remembering *anything* about it, though. I mean, the snippets here sounds like there was a backstory already in your head... you must have spent *some* time thinking about them? (I guess I can't imagine forgetting so totally because I generally can't write without doing significant amounts of thinking about something first.)