Writing Circle - Character Sketches

Writing Circle - Character Sketches

The challenge: Write character sketches, the challenge, do it without describing their appearance, sketch them only through action.

Anaise was fast, and strong. She was everything people thought of and more, and when she ran, she battered at the gates of Heaven. It was in her nature to be an unyielding force, she was a whirlwind, a storm of something indescribable, terrifying and relentless. Anaise was everything to everyone and more. She knew all the answers, had a disarming smile, and elevated all those who saw her. She was the pinnacle, the one that was pedestaled, and the one who was turned to for answers, for explanations. Anaise could do anything she wanted. She could be anything she wanted. And in the dark, when no one was around, or was there to see her in all her perfection, Anaise was perfect with the knife too, slashing up perfect arms and perfect legs to feel imperfect at last. Because Anaise was everything to everyone, and it was the only thing she never wanted.

Joshua played loud music alone in his basement. Usually at night, at the most disruptive of times, when others had long since gone to bed to prepare for their 9-5 office jobs, Joshua could be found with his long-necked double guitar, or a pair of keyboards, sometimes both. He would play and play. Joshua would sleep in past noon, until the pangs of hunger would wake him for eggs and an energy drink, then he would emerge and scrawl elegant unintelligibility endless, believing himself a modern Mozart. The sun would go down, and he would play alone. What he had written and what he played were far apart, but that never bothered Joshua, it was another step in the slow orbit of maybe to never, and he played on with eyes closed listening to invisible inevitability.