The exercise:
Write about: the trap.
And the weekend has arrived at last. For me at least.
Today wasn't too bad. Didn't especially enjoy having to clean Town Hall again, but I got through it in a reasonable amount of time. At least I'm done with the Fire Hall for the next four weeks.
I am determined to get this posted tonight, just so that I can break the string of posts being excessively late on my fourth day of work.
Of course it is already well past midnight, but I haven't fallen asleep yet so... here I go.
Mine:
The bait is set,
So now we wait
To see who comes
To seal their fate...
And still we wait.
Does the trap work?
Let me just check...
*SNAP*... don't you smirk!
Just get me out
Of here right now!
What do you mean
You don't know how...?
Jaunty poem :) And I like how it goes from patient waiting to impatient mistake, that's quite a nice touch. The ending made me smile too, so overall I think that's a win for this poem!
ReplyDeleteThe trap
She cast the cigarette aside and he followed it with his gaze, stepped over and trod on it, twisting his foot to grind it into the gravel.
"Can't be too careful," he said. "There were wildfires again over by Sixticton last week. They declared a state of emergency for three days."
"The ash is like snow," she said, turning away from him. "It falls down like huge, soft, grey flakes. What kind of a world has grey snow?"
"Ones with very messy snowmen."
The tension was too high to even force a laugh. She looked at the steel door that was the only way in or out of the power station; painted green two summers ago and with "DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE" stencilled on it in orange. "It's waiting for us," she said.
He pulled long, strange keys from his inside jacket pocket and inserted one into the door. The click from the turning seemed oddly distant and echoed for too long.
"He hates to be kept waiting," he said.
They didn't turn the lights on; there was no need. The angel was trapped in the middle of the power-station, pinned in place by the magnetic fields. Its wings rippled around it as though stirred by some unfelt breeze and its unnaturally beautiful face stared into the distance with eyes that had no colour but blazed like spot-lights. Being looked at was painful, and if the angel got angry the gaze got hotter and more painful. They didn't go down to the floor where it was; they walked instead along a steel catwalk, footsteps clanging like atonal music, and the angel looked up.
The whole ceiling of the power station was illuminated: the rust and cobwebs and sooty dust standing out in relief, stark shadows thrown against the walls and so motionless that they might have been painted there. When the angel spoke their voice resonated around the station so loudly that individual words couldn't be made out, but their meaning was always clear, crystalline, appearing in their minds as though they'd thought of them themselves.
"You're late," said the angel.
"We made no promises!" She was angry suddenly, resenting the challenge.
"You didn't. Nevertheless, you are late, and now you will have to hurry."
"I'm going nowhere!"
He placed a hand on her arm and she looked over her shoulder at him. It always surprised him slightly that she was the same height as him, and their gazes locked for an instant. He blinked, pale eyelids closing briefly over blood-shot eyes, and she shook his hand off.
"You're not telling me what to do!" she said, but whether it was to him or the angel neither could tell.
"There are others coming," said the angel and there was a new tone in its overwhelming, booming voice. "You need to be ready."
"More angels?"
"Others."
Greg - thank you, again :)
ReplyDeleteOoh, this is so good. It's amazing how much that one final word can convey. 'Others.' Fantastic.
Also really enjoyed the scene setting and character details, but that almost goes without saying in your writing at this point...