Sunday February 18th, 2018

The exercise:

Write about: bang!

5 comments:

Marc said...

Not sure I've used a noise as a prompt before. We shall see how it goes this time.

In cougar news: I'm under the impression that the general consensus is that Becky's horse got spooked by a cougar and at some point fell and hit his head.

I haven't spoken to Becky about it, as I'm trying to give her some space, so that's all the update I've got for now.

Greg said...

I think that's perhaps better than the horse being savaged by the cougar, which is what I'd thought from your first report. Now I see how it's hard to know the exact cause of death. It's still sad, obviously.
Well, tempted as I am to return to Famine and Pestilence, as "Bang!" is surely a reference to their girlfriends (actually I think "Bang!" is, like Friendly Fire and Time-limited Retaliatory Action, one of the upstarts attempting to replace War. And, having just checked with Pestilence, apparently "Bang!" is on fleek, cryptic and teapot) I shall continue with that boring story of Snake and a desert swimming pool.

Bang!
The gym bag tore apart and something like a tumbleweed shot through with blue-white sparks lifted into the air to head height. The shredded gym-bag was sucked towards the shack, and Sberychev noticed that sand and scrub grass were all being pulled inside the shack, even as the oasis approached. He started to pull the Tesseract back away from the scene, increasingly sure that there was going to be an implosion or explosion of some kind, and then it occurred to him that Snake was still down there. Which would be fine if Snake had any way of getting into the Tesseract by himself. Sberychev tapped his teeth with a fingernail, wondering if he was obliged to try and rescue him.

The man in the trenchcoat pulled the coat hard around himself and threw up an arm in front of his face. The Genii, now a blaze of tumbleweed shaped sparks howled, an eerie sound that seemed to shake the ground beneath his feet. It sailed towards him and he waited, waited... then ducked underneath it at the last moment. There was a faint smell of ozone and a tingle of the back of his neck: running his hand over it it was perfectly smooth, all the hairs burned off. He rolled on the ground, twisting and rolling harder until he was underneath the truck. Somewhere above there was another longer, higher-pitched howl, like a steam-valve under increasing pressure.

Snake stood in the doorway of the shack trying to force his legs to move forward. The pressure of the air was holding him in place and the sand was rasping across his skin like sandpaper. His face felt like it was burning, and he'd been forced to close his eyes already. His hands were on the outside wall of the shack and he was trying to lever himself forward. He had no idea how the shack was staying upright and he was certain it wasn't going to last for very long. Something was screaming outside and it sounded angry, but he would rather face that than be inside a collapsing building.
"Of course," he muttered, and got a mouth full of grit. He completed the thought inside his head: it would be much easier if Sberychev would just pick me up.

Sberychev sat cross-legged on the floor of the Tesseract and watched the oasis draw closer and closer. The black-and-white version, the desaturated oasis, kept dragging his attention to it. There was something there he thougth he ought to recognise, but what?

The man in the trenchcoat pulled that looked like a child's catapult fitted with a large laminar battery pack from an inside pocket and loaded it with dull shot from a different pocket. He waited for the latest howl of rage to end, then rolled out from underneath the truck.

"It's a Fourier Transform," said Sberychev, the words from his mouth surprising even him. "Good God, that's clever!"

The generator outside the shack shifted on its concrete blocks, the wind pressure finally overcoming it. It didn't move far but it was enough to reduce the pressure against Snake and his legs pushed forwards at last. He hauled himself just outside the shack.

The man in the trenchcoat fired the dull shot at the Genii as the oasis closed the distance to the desatured oasis to just twenty metres.

morganna said...

Getting ready to go to the ER for my son's toe that he stubbed last night
=============
Sharp stabbing pain
Toe hurts in agony
Under pain
Bang!

morganna said...

And I'm so sorry about the horse. Hope they find the 2nd cougar soon.

Marc said...

Greg - 'boring story' my ass :P

I'm impressed by your ability to handle several different aspects of the scene so smoothly, all while ramping up the tension as we're swept toward the climax of the scene.

And, as implied already, this is anything but boring.

Morganna - I hope his toe is okay! And thank you for your condolences.

Having stubbed a toe badly enough to think it was broken, this resonates all too well with me. Even though many years have passed since it happened.