I'm guessing that you'd already set up this prompt before my comments from yesterday (I'm finally caught up again! Yay!) but it's nice to see that we're thinking along the same lines :) I've just started watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and so for the first time this year (I think) I'm going to produce something that isn't a four-line poem or a continuation of something else. But three and a half months of continuing things from previous occasions seems like a good start :)
The plague They left the cars, heavy black monsters of machines that purred with restrained power when they drove, at the guesthouse in Einmalhafen. They blocked the road, being so wide, so that Jeroen had to leave his truck with the vegetables at the foot of the gentle slope and carry up the crates and trays with much huffing, puffing and swearing. Lord-captain Verbloek smiled thinly but didn't order the cars moved; instead he gathered the other two men -- tall, blonde, icy-eyed -- and they left the guesthouse together and went up the narrow, stony track into the foothills of the mountain. After less than ten minutes of walking the track vanished and the clouds that clustered around the mountain's snow-covered head darkened. They crossed a stile in a dry-stone wall and saw a house across a long meadow. "There," said Verbloek, pointing. The skin on his hand was withered and ridged, pulled tight over the bone and was blotchily purple. As they crossed the meadow the sky darkened further, and soft white flakes of snow like feathers from some bird out of legend began to fall.
It's coming for you You can't hide It's coming to get you Eat your body Leave the husk behind Onto another host You are about to die It's coming for you
Greg - I spent my time on this day either laying in bed or riding the porcelain bus to Ralphsville, as the great Tom Hanks once called it. If I'd had to write on the prompt, as in the olden days, there would have been no post at all.
As is, I was grateful to have noticed your comment on the previous day's post, as it spared me from having to come up with something myself.
That was an incredible run to start the year. And it's nice to see something brand new :)
Beautiful descriptions throughout this piece, and intriguing characters. Drawn from what you've been watching? If so, I may have to look into it myself...
Morganna - eek. Seriously foreboding vibe going on here. The repeated 'It's coming for you' works perfectly.
3 comments:
I'm guessing that you'd already set up this prompt before my comments from yesterday (I'm finally caught up again! Yay!) but it's nice to see that we're thinking along the same lines :) I've just started watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and so for the first time this year (I think) I'm going to produce something that isn't a four-line poem or a continuation of something else. But three and a half months of continuing things from previous occasions seems like a good start :)
The plague
They left the cars, heavy black monsters of machines that purred with restrained power when they drove, at the guesthouse in Einmalhafen. They blocked the road, being so wide, so that Jeroen had to leave his truck with the vegetables at the foot of the gentle slope and carry up the crates and trays with much huffing, puffing and swearing. Lord-captain Verbloek smiled thinly but didn't order the cars moved; instead he gathered the other two men -- tall, blonde, icy-eyed -- and they left the guesthouse together and went up the narrow, stony track into the foothills of the mountain. After less than ten minutes of walking the track vanished and the clouds that clustered around the mountain's snow-covered head darkened. They crossed a stile in a dry-stone wall and saw a house across a long meadow.
"There," said Verbloek, pointing. The skin on his hand was withered and ridged, pulled tight over the bone and was blotchily purple.
As they crossed the meadow the sky darkened further, and soft white flakes of snow like feathers from some bird out of legend began to fall.
Slakoiné opened the door only after they'd knocked three times, and he looked as though they'd roused him from a deep sleep. Dark hair, strands of white laced through it like veins seen through skin, fell about his face, unbrushed and unkempt, a match for three or four days of untrimmed stubble on his chin and neck. His clothes were dirty, a sleeve of his shirt was torn along the forearm and the cuffs of his denim trousers were rolled up revealing bare feet and tanned ankles. His toenails were long and yellow, and there was a smell about him from a lack of bathing.
"You're early," he said, staring at Verbloek.
"We'll come in, thank-you. Coffee would be lovely."
Cups and plates were piled in a sink half-full of greasy, grey water with bits of decomposing food floating in it. The living room smelled like something had died in it so they sat at the kitchen table, brushing away crumbs and trying to ignore the plate of cheese that had mould growing on it. It might have been a feature of the cheese, but then again it might not. The floor underfoot felt sticky, clutching at the soles of their shoes, and the light from the windows felt oddly textured as though they weren't paned with glass. Slakoiné pulled cups from the sink and emptied them, then set a kettle on the hob to boil water. The two blonde men exchanged glances and one opened his mouth, only to close it again as Verbloek laid a hand on his arm.
"Compassionate leave lasts one year," said Verbloek. The kettle started boiling; the induction hob worked very quickly. "You are required to gather your belongings and return with us. You will be assigned back to State Academy, Block B."
"I was given longer," said Slakoiné, his words quiet.
"You were."
Water poured into the cups and coffee was handed over. No-one made a move to drink.
"Then why?"
"Plague," said Verbloek. "We are short-staffed, and–"
"This is an emergency?"
"No. If it were an emergency we would not be asking so politely."
It's coming for you
You can't hide
It's coming to get you
Eat your body
Leave the husk behind
Onto another host
You are about to die
It's coming for you
Greg - I spent my time on this day either laying in bed or riding the porcelain bus to Ralphsville, as the great Tom Hanks once called it. If I'd had to write on the prompt, as in the olden days, there would have been no post at all.
As is, I was grateful to have noticed your comment on the previous day's post, as it spared me from having to come up with something myself.
That was an incredible run to start the year. And it's nice to see something brand new :)
Beautiful descriptions throughout this piece, and intriguing characters. Drawn from what you've been watching? If so, I may have to look into it myself...
Morganna - eek. Seriously foreboding vibe going on here. The repeated 'It's coming for you' works perfectly.
Post a Comment