It's not often that I promote my writing, generally because I'm my own worst critic.  But seeing as I do have to get my confidence up as part of my transition - Playing as female for example is one thing that helps my confidence in myself to build more, although such a thing is a rarity in gaming - this year in particular so few - then promoting my writing and showing my creative side helps a little more with my confidence building.

So I'll show off some of my short stories and a little of my Beaumont series in the blog.  To read more though then look up ReinaHW on Deviant Art and Reina Harriet Watt on Wattpad to see my work, the blunt of it is on Deviant Art.

This short story I'm going to show is one of my more recent ones, it's called I Remember:

I remember

I remember the first time that this happened, I was a child of barely two years.  I remember being dressed for bed and as I closed my eyes after my mother had said good night, I died shortly after in my sleep.

I remember it so clearly, I recall how I felt myself detaching from my body and not feeling scared.

Then I woke up the next morning with memories of my parents finding that I had died in my sleep, memories of my funeral.

But I do not recall exactly how I came back to life.

I remember

This would continue every day, I would sleep, die and wake the next morning with memories of something that couldnt have happened.

It wasnt until I was older when I realised that every day brought slight changes, from a toy being in a different place to colour changes in the clothing my parents wore or behavioural changes.

One change in particular was unexpected, I woke from my death one morning when I was in my mid teenage years to find that my mother had died many years ago, yet when I woke from my death the next day my mother was still alive.

Another had me waking as the opposite sex from what I usually was.

I wasnt just dying, I was shifting from reality to reality whenever I died.  Every version of me was.

I remember

I have died almost every day of my life, I have memories of my funerals and I do not know how to stop this from happening.

I am far from the reality I started in, I am unable to make friendships because I keep dying.  My parents are like strangers to me due to how often this happens.

I am a shadow of a life detached from a solid reality, drifting from death to death, life to life, possibility after possibility.  Will this condition ever end?  Am I doomed to die and shift to another reality until I am too old to continue?

Will I ever have the chance of a life of my own?

I remember

As the years pass and I get older, I wake to find myself married, a parent, I wake to find myself single and alone, I wake to find myself disabled from an accident or from birth, I wake to find myself in many different paths.

In one reality I may be pregnant, the next morning I am not.  In another I am with my spouse, male or female, in another I may be facing a day of pain and torment.

It is all random with no pattern and the years are falling away at a rapid rate.  Soon the years will stop and I will not wake at all.

I remember

My body begs to sleep and as I close my eyes and feel myself die again, I wonder if it will be the final time.  I wonder if I will see another sun rise.

I am so old now, my body is becoming weak with age as I near the end of my life and the nights are terrifying for me.

I close my eyes in protest, I do not want to sleep, but I always do even when I try to stay awake.  And again I die.

Again I await the dawn.

I remember

The dawn comes and something unexpected has happened, I have been reborn and I am once again an infant, I am starting my life anew.

But will the shifting continue or will I be able to live this life?

I dread the coming night, for it brings an uncertain future.  Please dont let this be a loop.

I remember.

~

This next short story is part of my Beaumont series, it is called We Are Never Meant To Live Forever:

Is it a curse?

Is it salvation?

Is it hope?

Is it damnation?

The word is Immortal

The reality is beyond understanding.

The mother:

An illusion of sincerity can be seen in the eyes of those who do not grasp the horrors of living beyond the natural life span intended for humans.  They pretend to understand when they learn of what I am, but how can they truly understand something that even those who are forced into this kind of life can barely understand?

I envy those who are not long lived and I pity those who are, for those who are not long lived eventually come to the end that nature intended, they become dreamers of the dream.

But those who keep going, they do not dream, they simply continue.  As they do they lose the will to live, they fade away a little bit for every year they continue to live when they should have been long dead.

It is a curse wrapped in the thin layer of a blessing.  There is no pleasure in slowly and surely fading away within yourself.

~

The sister:

Eternal tears of hopelessness develop but never fall, you wish so much to cry those tears in the hopes that those tears will be your last, but they never are.  They are merely more tears that pool into a large river within the weakened soul of one who is being kept alive.

People come and go in our lives, we may love them, hate them, wish them dead or wish them to remain with us in this unwanted torment.  But they never do.

They come from so little and become nothing but dust in the bitter and cruel winds of time.

Take my hand, I beg you, plunge a blade into my heart and let it drain my lifes blood from me, let it drain my body of all life so that I can finally, and blissfully, sleep.

Take my hand and remove me from this damnation of undying existence.

For humans are not ready to live beyond their means.

~

The daughter:

The winds carry petals from many flowers that have grown from a mere seed, like all life those petals become part of the winds that are life.  We are all, in a sense, petals in the wind.

We twirl and swirl in the winds of life, settling or constantly going until finally gravity brings us down and holds us in place where eventually we wither and crumble into nothing.

But what if you were born to forever stay in that wind?  What if gravity could not bring you down onto the unforgiving ground of a sudden end?  Where do the winds take a petal that does not fall?  What lands are there for that petal to see?

I am a petal that does not fall, I am a rarity amid many petals and the winds of life keep blowing me along into paths that so few or no one has ever been to before.

What does the future hold for me?  What delights and horrors will I witness?  Only the winds know and they do not reveal their path to anyone.

~

The grand-daughter:

I am a product of violation, an unwanted life.  That is what I am and like my birth mother, I am born into a life that does not seem to have an end.

Am I bothered by this?  I do not know, for me it is perfectly natural and feels normal to me that I do not age as many others do.

I watched those around me become old while I remain young, I watch their bodies decline and then stop.  I do wonder why I was born the way I am, what does life hold for one who is born to live so much longer than the majority?

Do I consider myself superior to them?  No, I do not, I consider myself to be both equal and inferior to them.  Some would say that my being unable to grow old and die could be seen as a blessing, as a sign of superiority.  But what superiority is there when you say goodbye to those you care about more often than you do hello to anyone you have only just met?

There is no superiority to being long lived, there is merely the ever constant loneliness and heart ache from the many losses of those who mean a lot to you.

Why was I born this way?  What purpose is there to an immortal being born?

The many possible joys and delights of life, the happiness that you may find along the way tend to pale next to the goodbyes that gnaw at you.  What does the future hold for me?  I do not know, I hope there will be happiness.

But I feel that there will be more loneliness than happiness, and that hurts a lot.

We are never meant to live forever.

~

This next short story is called Sunshine And Lollipops, a dark story:

What can I say of how it was?  It's hard to say since it just was and ultimately meant nothing.  You look at me as if expecting me to say something profound, something predictable to whatever you clearly expected of the moment.
But I find I have nothing to say, it meant nothing to me while it meant everything to you.  Do I lie to you and say it was wonderful?  Do I tell you the truth and say it meant nothing, that I felt nothing?

All I know is that I am still alive and for that I can't apologise.

Still you look at me, your eyes displaying more pleasure than I feel.  How long must I wait until I know there is something wrong?  Is there something wrong with me?  Or am I feeling the way my heart feels?
Please stop looking at me like this, like that, like you expect me to say something that I don't feel.
From the corner of my eyes I can see that it's a sunny day, sunshine and lollipops like my mum would say.  Have the hours passed by that fast?  I must have lost track of time when I switched off within and felt nothing, nor desired to.

Yet I am still alive and I can't apologise.

You try to engage me in banter, it's clear that you don't feel what I feel.  For you this was special, wonderful.  For me it was just another day, another job.
I feel nothing for you, nothing for this job.  Yet I need the money due to the way my gender is seen and regarded, as if we're still inferior to you, still nothing but property.
So I switch myself off whenever I'm with anyone while on the job, be it day or night, I switch off so that I don't feel the increasing shame within me.  I hate that I feel this shame.

Yet I am still alive and I can't apologise.

The money owed is paid and I say goodbye in a half hearted way, you still look at me as if you expect me to be happy.  I feel only revulsion now, at myself.  I hate this job, I hate my life.  I hate what I'm forced to do because of the lack of options I have.
I head home and as soon as I am alone I collapse in tears, then spend an hour in the shower sobbing and trying to wash away all traces of my job for another day.

Yet I am still alive and I can't apologise.

I feel so numb, so cold despite the beautiful day.  Sunshine and lollipops, mum, that's what you told me.  Sunshine and lollipops.
I look down at the gun in my hand and wonder if today is the day I can pull the trigger.  If today is the day when the numbness will end and I can be free of this hell.
Can I be free?  Can I feel even the freedom?  Only one way to find out.

Yet I am still alive and I can't apologise.

~

And one more, this next story is called For I Am:

Sticks and stones may break my bones

Taunts aplenty come from your lips, hurt so much comes from your hands and feet as you attack me, insults never seem to stop coming from you.  You try to bring me down, you try to crush my spirit.

You are succeeding, yet you are also failing.  A part of me is still fighting against the misery you bring upon me.

But your words can only graze me

You call me a freak, an it, a thing.  You demand me to be just like you because you are too close minded to understand that no one can be exactly like you, no one can be what you demand them to be.

You and your friends who follow you around, who dont think for themselves because it is so much easier to be a group mentality than a single mind, you and your friends do not think for yourselves.

Every word stings, every bruise is painful, but as much as I am hurting and wounded, I am determined to stand my ground.

You spout ignorance and hate

I try to reach out to others who are as different as I am, who are like me.  But they are also hurting due to so many who also hurt them for daring to be themselves instead of conforming to the demands of hurtful ideals and misinformation.

How can we ever speak when our words are dismissed as not conforming to a limited notion of what it is to be a person?

Is there anyone who will listen to what me and so many others like me have to say?  Is there anyone in the world who even cares about those of us who cant help the way we are born?

You are insecure though, you are afraid of looking inside yourself

For I am trans-gender, I do not conform to a gender binary because I am unable to do so since I was born this way.

My gender does not match my body, my feelings do not match who I am demanded to be.  Many demand me to be what is between my legs, they tell me that it is sinful and evil to not conform, to not be the person I can never be.

Please, oh please, is there someone out there who can see me for me instead of only seeing me for who and what I can never be?

Please?

The bruises fade, the broken bones can heal.  But the scars within from all the hate, those do not heal so easily.

I can not conform to your demands, I do not want nor wish to conform to your demands.  I wish to be myself, I wish to be the person I was meant to be but was denied due to natures random acts.

My seeking to be myself is no threat to you, your demands are the real threat.

So please, do not judge me for something I had no choice in.  Please stop hurting me.

For I am Trans-gender, and I have the right to live.

~

Let me know what you think.  These are just four short stories from my fairly large portfolio, although much of my written work has been lost over the years, I still have a great deal written.  In total I guess I've written well over a thousand pieces - stories, reviews, articles and more.
And there we go, all done.  I might do another blog some other time if there's anything to be talked about.  And please don't expect me to write what's demanded by the many, I write what I wish to write and say what I wish to say.