The exercise:
Let us make use of the Random CD prompt once again, shall we? Go find a song as randomly as you're able to and borrow its first line for the opening of your writing today. Then... take it from there! Credit goes where it's due, as always.
Hung out with Miles today while Kat spent the day in Penticton after dropping Max off at learning centre. Kat was able to get a few things done, Max had another great time in OK Falls, and Miles and I kept ourselves entertained with grocery shopping, a visit to the bakery, and playing around the house.
Tomorrow... is Friday, right? Okay. That means I've got both the boys all day so that Kat can get some work done. We shall see what sort of trouble we can get up to.
Mine:
Sunsets For Somebody Else by Jack Johnson
I know I've seen your face somewhere. But where? When was it? A long time ago, surely - I would remember if I saw you more recently. My memory is not so terrible as that.
And I am very good with faces. Always have been. One of my precious few gifts is the ability to match names to faces. So know that I speak from a position of authority when I say that this is not a case of misplaced familiarity. You don't have one of those faces, as they say.
It is unique in ways both pleasing and... unsettling. I blame your eyes for that. There is a darkness there that... well, that I'd rather not find there. They have borne witness to things better left unseen. I wonder... were those dark deeds done by your own hands?
I hope not.
And I wonder, too, if my inability to place your face is due to only seeing it partially before now. Was it hidden beneath a downturned hat? Concealed by shadows? Were you trying to escape my notice, stranger who may not be quite as strange as I might hope?
Why would you do that? What possible interest might my goings on be of to you? To anyone, really. I am not that interesting, not that important. Just ask my ex-wife. Any of them. So why keep a watchful eye on little old nobody me?
Bah. It is getting late. I must stop asking questions of your photograph before it begins answering me back. That would surely guarantee me a sleepless night.
For if it did that, I would most certainly not like its replies...
I hope you and the boys had fun getting up to mischief!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't much moved by the Jack Johnson song; I think he's done better, but it is very easy to have on in the background while doing other things :) However, you've produced some lovely writing from it, so I guess that will adjust it upwards in my esteem a little. I like how the ending makes the questions that are being asked all the way through so much more unsettling. Re-reading I feel like I'm watching a guy in darkened office sitting back in an old chair puzzling over something that needs to be resolved, knowing he's running out of time. Nicely atmospheric work!
Mine is random enough: I clicked on a video that youtube put in the side bar when I watched the Jack Johnson one, so this is the first time I heard this song, and of this group!
In Hell I'll be in good company by The Dead South.
Dead Love couldn't go no further, her feet had finally worn through on the red-hot ember-bedded roads of Hell. Smuts rose in the air around her as she writhed on the ground, her skin blistering where it touched the cinders. She pulled her legs feebly up one by one, trying to find comfort amidst the suffering, and failed. The pork-like smell of cooking flesh mixed with the acrid sulphur smell of the brimstone pools, hidden now by the low hills, and low moans escaped her throat as she twisted about. Lady Betrayer, a living woman amongst the dead souls of Hell, glared.
Proud of and disgusted by her, she turned to the cart that Dead Love had been pulling. It was piled with fabrics: rags at one end that formed an odd material continuum to the almost unworn clothes at the other. Some were soiled with blood, puke and other substances, some were as clean as anything in this scorching, unforgiving wilderness. She hauled a pile of the rags to one side and revealed a collection of legs, each one wearing a boot or shoe. Like the clothes the flesh on the legs ran from mere tatters, so dry and leathery that it was jerky, to livid blue where the blood had pooled and hadn't yet been eaten by the bugs and microbes. Lady Betrayer sorted through with strong, grime-streaked hands, tossing legs aside until she found a couple of hairy, sturdy ones. Inspecting them she sneered, and pulled them from the cart. On the ground, Dead Love puled a little and rolled onto her front, pressing her forehead against the charring road.
"Good grief," muttered Lady Betrayer under her breath. She gripped a leg, her hands either side of the ankle, and broke it apart as easily as snapping the wishbone of a roast chicken. The crack resounded like a gunshot, and there was movement in the mounded piles of ash not far off. The other foot snapped off as easily, and the overseer threw the feet to Dead Love and the rest of the leg back in the cart.
"Put them on," she said, her voice rasping from the dry air.
Push shove, a little bruised and battered, and Dead Love was pulling the cart again. The squeak of unoiled pins holding dessicated wood together mixed with the creak of the stressed wood pulling against the metal stays, and the grinding of the embers and ashes beneath the wheels. It drowned out the panting of Dead Love and the soft humming of Lady Betrayer
"Oh Lord I ain't coming home with you," Lady Betrayer finally switched from humming to singing, and a joyful contralto filled the parched air. In the mounds of ashes there was more movement, and for a moment there was a feeling that something vast and inhuman might have paid attention. Then dirty grey clouds gathered on the horizon and a stroke of lightning struck downwards in the direction that Dead Love was headed.
Greg - thanks :)
ReplyDeleteAh, I have seen this video before. It grew on me for a while but I hadn't watched it recently.
You've taken the opening and created a wonderfully darkly dramatic scene. Great imagery and atmosphere, as is the usual case with your writing. But I think you've managed to take it to another level here.
Very impressive work!
And do I see an opening at the end there for this to continue? :)