Gender: Joined: 16 Mar 2006 Posts: 2488 Status: User Location: I drive real fast, I'm gonna last.
Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 8:25 pm Post subject: "Literature."
Yeah, post written pieces here. Poetry, prose, plays, essays, articles, whatever. If you've written it, post it.
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Immortal
He looked down at the street below him, thousands of tiny little cars, looking more from his perspective like lightning bugs, piercing the dark of the night as they crept along slowly. How appropriate it was that they looked like mere insects to him, now that he was a god- or was he? Had he imagined the whole thing? No, he had seen the shocked expression on the driver’s face after she had hit him. Was he actually dead and just didn’t realize it, like in The Sixth Sense? No, he had talked with friends since the accident. Was it a fluke? Was it possible for a man to be hit by a speeding car, and then get up and walk away without a single bruise? It couldn’t be. But then, that left no other explanation- he had become immortal.
“Had become” because he could remember getting hurt in the past. He had burned his hand on the stove when he was a child, and again when he was a full-grown and inattentive man. He had been pushed down and punched plenty of times, and it hurt in every instance. And yet he had walked away from the dented sports car unharmed. He didn’t know how or when it had happened, but he had become immortal. But then, he couldn’t be sure of that; maybe it really was just a hallucination or a fluke. He couldn’t be sure- that is, until he jumped.
That was what he had finally decided after walking around all night. He would jump off a building. If he lived, it meant that he really was a god, immortal. But then, if didn’t live, well… that would mean that he was dead. He certainly didn’t want that.
He looked down again, at the little bugs creeping along that never-ending strip of asphalt. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so unbelievable that he had survived being struck by one of them. They were so tiny, insignificant- why, of course he had survived it! They were weak, small, mortal. But not he. He was a god, standing on his rightful place above the worms that had dared to try and make him one of them. One of them had even hit him. There would have to be punishment for that. Yes, he would leap down there, land nimbly on his feet, and show them what it meant to anger a god.
He shook his head. He was speaking nonsense. He was not a god simply because he had become lucky once. He was just an ordinary man, like all the other little bugs down there. He was normal; he was plain. There was not an extraordinary bone in his body. He had just had a stroke of luck, that was all. Every one did now and then. It just so happened that his had occurred in a moment that decided life or death. Nothing special had happened. Nothing ever would.
Why not? Why couldn’t he be something more than what the world told him that he was? Why couldn’t there be something beyond the every day, the norm, the average, and why couldn’t that something be him? Why was he so unlikely a candidate for superiority? He survived being hit by a car, didn’t he? Then why couldn’t he survive falling from a tower? He squared his shoulders and teetered forward slowly, his ankles aching at the awkward angle. He was at the edge; any second now, he would loose his balance and fall, and prove once and for all that he was immortal.
He stepped backwards, turned away. It wasn’t possible; it wasn’t true. That was the inarguable fact of the matter. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. It didn’t matter how much he wanted it to be; reality always has constant rules, and he couldn’t break them. He would forget about the whole incident as the months passed, and would never let it seep into conscious thought again.
He was not a god.
He was mortal.
Sometimes, he did mortal things.
Like slip on water and fall off a building.
Which is precisely what he did.
He plummeted through the air, screaming, flailing his arms around in terror. There were the bugs, ever growing before him. Those meaningless beings that he was not god of, but one of, rushed towards him. A terrible thud resounded when he finally slammed into the ground. He shut his eyes, too afraid to see what now lay before them. As he regained his senses, he heard the honking of car horns. He opened his eyes, and found himself on the same sidewalk that he had been hurtling towards. He felt no pain whatsoever. He got up to his feet slowly and dusted himself off. He tilted his head back to see the peak of the tower he had fallen from, now nothing more than a tiny point. Was it true? Or was it a hallucination, a fluke? _________________
I think that a "tl;dr" would actually be acceptable for that'n.
And since this is writing camp, I've already written something new since I started the thread! Er, finished revising it, anyway:
___________
Gunsmoke
The sun rains down mercilessly on the vast expanse of sand, drowning everything in a heat that is inescapable. However, despite this torridity that brings with it nothing but death, a plant grows from the infertile ground. But, dusty, dry, brittle, never to bear fruit, living only by devouring the scant drops of rain that Providence allots it out of mercy, one must ask, is such a plant truly alive, or simply taking a long time to die? Jagged thorns coat it, protecting it from exterior harm. But it is the inside that is truly in danger; in danger of rotting away, bit by bit, from the innermost point outward, until not even the thorns are left.
Not a single cloud above defended those bound to the dusty soil, those damned to walk the barren earth of the desert, having taken the responsibility of taming the West. Truly, their purpose was to pave with their corpses the roads that their descendants would one day walk down. The dust had not yet settled where the drunk had finally collapsed, his back to the wall of a stable, the stench of manure unable to pierce his inebriated senses. He gazed up at the yellow-blue sky, a sad smile forcing back his stubble. Light danced on the liquid swirling about in the dirt-coated bottle of whiskey he clutched in his hand.
“We are at the end of man’s days,” he told the bottle. “It’s time to let the Hell rain down.” He put the filth-ridden bottle-neck to his lips and let the alcohol slide down his throat.
The rest of the town was empty. Or, at the very least, it looked that way. There were two men, one standing on either side of the desert town’s main street. Both of them were silent. The only sound was the creaking of a saloon door. There was about to be a showdown. In those days it seemed like there was one every day. Every other man, woman and child had locked themselves inside with the heaviest bolt they could afford. The guns would blaze at noon. The time was 11:59. Damned if they walked outside now.
The man on the northern side was covered in black, from his boots to the brim of his hat to the strands of hair hanging down over his bandanna. His eyes were black; they were the cold, unfeeling eyes of a killer. His hand floated over his holster, ready to withdraw his weapon when the time came.
The man to the south was no less intimidating; the torn brim of his hat put his eyes in shadow, sideburns plunging down either side of his face and meeting at the chin. A poncho hung on his shoulders, ripped to pieces by things that honest men should never talk about. Under that, a trench coat, perhaps from back in the city, dropped down, the ripped and frayed ends of it just reaching the ground. His hand also hung over his gun’s handle, ready to descend upon it like a guillotine descends on the neck of the convicted.
There are no heroes in this story; both of these men are wicked. No man’s vest shone with a silver star in that dusty city, its pores bubbling over with the black tar of sin. In this town, he with the most bullets and the best aim was God Almighty.
The twin knives on the face of the clock of the post office aligned on the letters XII. It was twelve sharp. For one minute, one glorious and blood-stained minute, the line between the sun and the earth and the line between man and man would be utterly perpendicular. A bell sounded. And again. The twelfth bell; that was when you drew your gun. Again and again the bell tolled, the ominous clang resounding for miles. 9… 10… 11… 12.
Both men’s hands dropped like falcons upon their guns, every miniscule ounce of their strength channeled into their arms. Both raised their pistol at the same time, twin silver barrels forever connecting the two combatants, in Earth and in Hell. The strength in their arms poured into their fingers, everything within them willing the trigger to tighten. Two hammers drew back and slammed down; the chambers rotated, and in an amazing feat showcasing the pinnacle of human engineering and foolishness, two controlled explosions propelled two smoking bullets. All of man’s mortality, everything restricting their access to eternity, infinity, all condensed into identical balls of lead, tiny angels of death, slicing their scythes through the souls of two men. Both of them found flesh, and devoured it, boring into the skin. The men staggered back and collapsed into the dust, hearts racing as that primitive fear of death overcame them in their final moments, lying there in the street. Their chests heaved once more; the heat scorched their skin for a final time. As a plume of dust rose about them there in the central street, the innermost point of that dry, brittle town, which was never to bear fruit, only death.
We are at the end of man’s days. Let the Hell rain down. _________________
Gender: Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 153 Status: User Location: In a Cracker Jack box, waiting to be found
Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 2:14 am Post subject:
Okay! Here's something I made for a school art magazine! WHEEE!
______________
I parked next to an old Save-A-Lot grocery store, opening the door and kicked out some dry leaves that had been blown in by the wind. I had left my coat in the car, because although it was late December, it was quite warm out. No surprise, though, here in eastern Texas. I closed the car door and walked inside, taking a shopping cart from the corral and wandering the ailes, picking up items written on the wrinkled shopping list in my hand, just ordinary things like cat food or cans of tuna and whatnot, nothing special. While reaching for a loaf of bread, my hand slipped and it fell to the floor. As I bent down to pick it up, a small, redheaded boy of about 4 years bounded up to me, a gleeful smile on his face as he grabbed the bread and handed it to me.
"Here you go, mister!" he said with a youthful slur in his voice. I gave him a kind look, but before I could thank him, a woman who I assumed was his mother walked quickly and took his hand harshly, dragging him away and glaring at me like I had threatened to kidnap him. I could hear her talking to the child in a scornful voice. See, in a small town, everyone knows who you are, what you are....and I was used to this attitude, because everyone knew. So I just kept walking up and down the ailes, trying to push the incedent out of my mind. Still...it wasn't easy being gay in a small town like this, where no one's a stranger. I always considered myself a good Christian, but I could barely enter church doors anymore. My faith was fading fast, but some part of me hung on, telling me that God has a place for me, that I'm like this for a reason, that all this will make sense, that it's all part of a greater plan that's beyond my control, that my suffering will be rewarded. I didn't really know what to think, honestly. I reached down to grab a jar of peanut butter, and my hand stopped cold.
Sirens. From outside. Fire Truck sirens, raising in a crescendo and distorting as they faded away, tires screeching down the road.
Running to the door and forgetting my cart, my eyes grew wide. There were never any fires here. It was just a small, quiet town, right? Right?
Please don't turn left.... I said as I looked at the truck reach an intersection, Oh, God, please don't turn left....The truck, of course, skidded left, sirens blaring as I noticed the smoke billowing up from behind some trees to the west. My direction.
My house.
My heart pounded, my eyes blazed as I ran outside, frantically jumping into the car and jamming the keys into the ignition, flooring the gas as the tires squealed and raced off in panic, swerving around obsticles and pedestrians, hoping to reach home before it was too late. I got there, and rammed the car into a ditch, throwing mud up from a sudden stop and rushed out of the car, running, running as fast as I could..to see...
The entire house was on fire, the flames reaching up even from the roof. I saw a grey shadow jump out of a hole in the wall and dash off into nowhere. I recognized it....it was my cat, Tybalt. He was every bit as scared as I was. Good old Tybalt....got out alive.....That dizzying moment of self comfort was shattered, though, as a faint scream rang out from the blazing house. I looked, and my heart jolted.
He was still in there. The love of my life was still trapped in the fire. I could hear his cries and futile pounding on the stuck door. In a blind instinct I ran forward, ramming into to door, but it didn't move. Again and again I did this, until....
CRACK!
I had to step away. Embers rushed out of every opening of the house. One last scream sounded from the house, then..it stopped, replaced by the crackling of burning wood and the tinkling of broken glass. The roof had given way, the whole house was gone... There was nothing I, nothing anyone could do now. He was gone too, but no tears came. I just stood there. I felt like I was empty, hollow...staring forward....
Clank.
Something hollow and metallic hit the back of my head, startling, but not painful. I heard laughing. I turned to look..A group of people, mostly men, all with beer cans clutched in their hands, stood there, whooping like they had accomplished something wonderful.
"Like the fireworks, faggot?" a man near the front said as the group cheered drunkenly again. My expression was still blank, but a single, faint tear came to my eye. Everything I had...gone...he was dead, and they had done it. They trapped him in there. They set the fire...and here I was. Would they kill me next? I continued to do nothing, but then a woman stepped forward, stepping almost seductively as she came uncomfortably close. I could smell the alcohol on her breath as she wrapped her arms around me.
"Look, lover boy's gone." she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "How 'bout you come back over to the right team? Maybe then you won't have to end up like your friend." She pressed her body against me and kissed me as the crowd laughed and whooped even louder, like wild animals as she tried to kiss deeper. My mind was panicking. She had to get off, it felt wrong, I wanted her away and gone....I felt my arms push forward, shoving her to the ground with a thud. I didn't move, my arms still stretched out, tears streaming down now.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she sneered, wiping her mouth and glaring up at me. Something in my mind clicked. A thought flickered, telling me to run, and I did, sprinting off, trying to escape.
"Yeah, run!" they yelled after me, and I just ran faster, their laughter fading as my mind worked frantically.
Is this your plan, God? I thought, quickly as the thoughts all blurred together, For me to be humiliated What did I do I never stole I never lied I never did anything to hurt people why me God why me I thought you loved us all don't I have a place in the world why did you make me like this I didn't want this what is your plan God please tell me why you did this why wh.....
It all stopped abruptly as I felt my foot catch, I was thrown forward, thrust towards a grey shape as my head exploded into intense pain, my vision clouded with bright light and stars and colors and then...
Time stopped. Everything stopped. _________________ "Me? I'm just a lawnmower.
You can tell me by the way I walk."
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