"I had bits of my lungs, shrapnel glass and cigarettes for breakfast" The Little Things We Do - The Zutons
Light slowly creeps back into existence. My eyes ache as I try to open them, the throbbing sensations causes them to blur. Tick, Tock...Thump Thump....the heartbeat reverberates in my skull like some bad dance song being played on blown out speakers. The wind tickles my finger tips before I can feel it rush across my face. The tears are dropping down onto my fatigues from my watering eyes, forming a large pool that begins to soak through to the skin. After a quick wipe of the eyes with my sleeve, revealing even more wounds and aches across my arms and a possible dislocated shoulder, the picture starts to clear. The fatigues are shredded as if someone had picked me up and ran me across a cheese grater. The fingers are missing in my gloves, blood stained sticks remain. The wind picks up speed and whistles through the ruptured windows of the helicopter. A piece of glass is embedded in Rico's eye. The thought crossed my mind to pull it out, but I refrained. I barely knew the guy, new to our squad yesterday. The rear hatch is open and glows bright in my eyes. Slowly I move, one hand and knee in front of the other, crawling over 3 more dead bodies. Good men who ended up luckier than I. The rushing wind makes it near impossible to keep my eyes open. The air burns my lungs, eliciting a forced cough. The cigarettes are gone from the pouch on my chest, likely tossed out in the crash. It feels as if a stranger is touching me as I rub my face. Who's hands are these? A new screech begins to fill the air. I turn my head to see the enormous cloud billowing up out of the far end of the city. It looms large over all the buildings. The swing sets of a nearby park squeak as they are tossed violently about. This is the quietest this city has been in years, probably since before it was a city. The heat begins to burn on my cheek. I would scream if I could gather any breath, not that one is left to hear it. The safety of the helicopter seems miles away now. Jones's face, hollow with empty eyes, beckons to me. The concussion blast heaves my chest and robs my lungs. A wave of debris and smoke knock me onto my back. The sky is gray, the clouds are swirling. I never was the lucky o.....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
this is interesting. There are definitely parts of it that I want to hear more about and I sure want to know what is going on and where we are at. Maybe these characters show up again. I don't know. Some good description. Lots of gore and such, I love that.
I thought there might need to be description of how he's sitting in the helicopter when he awakes. For some reason, I kept thinking he was face down, but that can't be if he's soaking through his fatigues with tears. I don't know, just something I was trying to figure out. Also, that may indicate why he survived and no one else. Just luck of the draw, like that guy that didn't get into the plane with Buddy Holly.
See how I put a music reference in there to catch your interest :).
I had a heard time with the lyrics from this song. They are kind of an interesting narative themselves so I wanted to pull out to a different direction. Maybe there would be a chance for back story here, but this is definitely the end for these characters. This scene sort of came to mind and then I wanted it to be a first person perspective of the one who survived a little longer than everyone else and how that would feel. But yet since he is telling a story as a soldier, there is still that calm glaze over the interior full of either panic, despair or just plain knowing This Is The End, although that would be too Apocalypse Now. I wanted to be known that he dies at the end while not really saying it up front. So I am not sure if you got that and I did that successfully or not. Plus I was worried about the time element. Alot has to happen in what is really like 30 seconds to a minute or so. I didnt do my technical research to know for sure
I always thought a cool story would to do a series of scenes, each on a different person, with the final scene being a crash or something like that where everyone the reader met is gone, and your seeing them through the eyes of a completely new person.
Something to think about, in situations like these, things run slower than actual time. That can happen in writing also. You can write pages on a couple seconds.
That can go overboard, but it also can clear up confusion. I know this is a writing exercise, I am just throwing out things I think about.
I am still trying to feed off the original idea of basic human emotions. but i am probably biting off more than my skill can do with trying to be subtle enough not to tell everyone what i am thinking and letting you intrerept it for yourselves (self i guess, there is no plural)
One a different note with this, i was trying to read some of my other unfinished stories and there are two sections of Smoking Guns that I wrote and I know you read that arent on the blog. I must not have posted them. You probably dont remember anyway :)
I'd have to look back, I think I saved some of that to my computer. I reread some of the old posts about a month ago. I always have a hard time going back and seeing things that I wrote. It just gets me mad for some reason.
just wondering cause it has popped into my mind and i am hoping a lyric steers me back in that direction a few times. Also i have a ? that looking at the end of my story reminded me off. if there a difference between gray and grey or is it like colour or centre?
Gray and grey are both the color. I think "Grey" is the british spelling. Although there is an Illinois sports team known as the grey ghosts. I always have to look it up too.
Post a Comment