Monday March 17th, 2014

The exercise:

Write about: the scavenger.

Mine may or may not have been written shortly after the Canucks game came to an end at work this evening. I'm not sure if my brimming optimism comes through strongly enough in my piece for that to be obvious.

Made a tiny dent in the comment backlog this morning. Will try to get more done tomorrow.

Mine:

Grey skies overhead, bitter winds clawing their way through streets littered with abandoned cars and shattered glass. Buildings painted with black scorch marks, caved in roofs pushing relentlessly downward.

He moves slowly, head down and hood up. His jeans are worn and dotted with holes, his sweater too thin. A faded backpack clings to one shoulder, dangerously empty.

Each car, each shop is inspected in due course. The bag gains little weight - a bent spoon here, a coat hanger there, two pens. No clothes. No food. No water.

This cannot last much longer.

He continues on.

2 comments:

Greg said...

Brimming optimism indeed...! It is a lovely, evocative piece though, for all it's a little depressing at times :) Still, your scavenger has pens, what more can a writer need?

The scavenger
He looked in the mirror and shuddered; when had he gotten so grey-haired and wrinkled? His hand moved to his face, tracing the grooves and lines of a life well-lived, and he noticed that it was shaking. He tried to quell the tremors, but it was beyond him, the muscles no longer under his control. He sighed, and pull the rubber mask on.
He'd been the Avenger back in the day, the scourge of criminals everywhere, silhouetted against the moon at midnight and watching out for danger. People had adored him, newspapers wrote hagiographies, women had queued up to be kissed.
Now he was just the Scavenger, hanging around on the periphery, hunting for crime using a police radio scanner and hoping to get there in time for some crumbs of respect, a chance to fight where the odds were on his side, or the crooks didn't have weapons.
He disgusted even himself.

Marc said...

Greg - I thought pens would be a good find as well :)

Fascinating little character piece here. I think I'd like to hear more from this guy.

Also: avenger/scavenger was an unexpectedly clever take.