The clouds hovered like evil angels, something malevolent in the red from the rising sun. I'm no sailor, but the adage holds firm: red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Admittedly I'm no sailor, nor will I be, nor have I ever been. I still use this phrase though, because to me, a red sky means that blood will be spilled on this day.
Slowly, I stand up. The world around me is broken, almost as if a bomb had fallen, which it probably has, judging by the sounds I hear. I close my eyes, the better to concentrate on the sounds. My mouth starts moving, rattling off calibres of the shots that can be heard.
A relatively deep sound, the first shot I identify, and it is followed by man more of the same sound "7.62 mil, possibly NATO, possibly Warsaw pact."
A sharper crack, relatively high "9 by 19 Parabellum, probably in use with a pistol or PDW."
I suddenly feel someone looking at me, and open my eyes to look around me. No need. In front of me stood a ragtag group of men, all dressed in ragged orange camouflage, with weapons made of wood. My comrades, my workmates.
Instinctively, I know I am to lead them through the dangers outside of this crater we're in. I look down, and suddenly my clothes, my comfortable jeans and t-shirt have been replaced with orange camouflage, and I notice I'm holding a wooden rifle.
"Right then, ladies, let’s go! Move it, move it, move IIIIT!!!" shouts a voice I vaguely recognise. I look around and notice my mouth is still moving. It’s me shouting.
We start moving up over the side, and suddenly a massive wave of rabbits attack us. They literally are a wave, falling over each other, tumbling forwards, unstoppable. We stand firm, like rocks in the path of a wave, but lose our youngest member, whom the rabbits proceed to devour on the spot. I look closer, and realise he has begun to go completely orange, apart from his hair, which turns an odd hue of green. I also notice that the rabbits all have human faces, rather like the one my boss has.
I turn around, and am suddenly standing at a cliff edge. Far, far below me, I hear music. Loud, angry music, full of guttural sounds, as if someone had decided to start singing after a century of chain-smoking and screaming. I decide I like it, and turn around to the stairs behind me, which the men I was leading must have dug. They, in the meantime, have disappeared down the stairs already.
I’m just about to go down, when the singer of this band, looking like some sort of mixture of a revived Viking and a punk, with his long, flowing beard, Doc Martens and Long, blonde hair, down at the bottom of the cliff, stops singing, looks up and talks to me.
“Hey, darling” He says, in my girlfriend’s voice, and his voice starts off an earthquake. A massive man, who just seconds ago, was singing something about entering Valhalla in a voice that sounded about as nice as being castrated with a rusty spoon, was now calling me “darling”?
“You’re going to be late! Come on! GET UP!”
And suddenly I’m in a bed in the middle of Vienna. The singer has become my girlfriend, and the earthquake has become her shaking my shoulder. I plunge back into the real world, where I work in a store named “Penny Market,” orange camouflage is part of the employee uniform there.
And I’m meant to be there in 15 minutes. Alone getting there takes 30, never mind hunting down my socks and uniform, nor showering, nor breakfast.
I groan, and drop back into the bed, wishing this were a dream. Sadly, its not, as her slap on my shoulder proves.
“Come on! I’m going to be late too! And NO, I won’t give you my keys!” Oh. My keys are still AWOL.
I try to get up, yet the punch I receive from my hangover isn’t doing me any favours whatsoever.
“No more vodka. From today on, no more vodka.” I mumble, trying to think why I got hammered yesterday. Letting my train of thought derail, and trying to simultaneously imagine what imaginative ways my boss could say I were a waste of time and effort, and also gauge my chances of being able to sneak in, I looked out the window.
The clouds hovered like evil angels, something malevolent in the red from the rising sun. I'm no sailor, but the adage holds firm: red sky at morning…
Ha! Well, Muffin Man, you certainly got me going with this one. If you can judge a piece of writing like this by long it keeps the reader hoodwinked, and by how foolish they feel when they finally work out what’s going on, and by the size of their smile when they see you tie up the story… then, well, this is a fine piece of writing.
ReplyDeleteThe structure of it is sound, I have very little to say on that score, so I will talk more about the language, the style – or styles – you use, and finish up with some minor points.
The drama of the voice in the first paragraph (“red sky means that blood will be spilled on this day”) is rather diluted by the repetition and some of the vocabulary . If you want to make your narrator sound tough, then keep their sentences short, and leave out explanations.
“The clouds hovered like evil angels, something malevolent in the red from the rising sun. I'm no sailor, but the adage holds firm: red sky at morning, sailors take warning. A red sky, to me, is a sure sign that blood will be spilled on this day.” – how about that as a shorter, punchier version. I’ve taken out that repetition of I’m no sailor, and turned the last sentence from a careful explanation to a statement of brute fact.
The jump to the harsh world of the second paragraph is very well done, but again there is repetition (“sounds”) and explanations were none are needed (“judging by the sounds I hear”).
Slowly, I stand up. The world around me is broken, almost as if a bomb had fallen. It probably has. I close my eyes, the better to concentrate on the sounds. The first is a relatively deep boom.
"7.62 mil,” I say. “Possibly NATO, possibly Warsaw Pact."
Then a sharper crack, relatively high.
"9 by 19 Parabellum, probably in use with a pistol or PDW."
I feel someone looking at me, and open my eyes.
Again, with one or minor tweaks, all I’ve done is edit – cut away repetitions and explanations to keep the bare bones of what is going on, which is, after all entirely appropriate to a soldier’s way of thinking, especially in a combat or assault situation.
Looking – look. Ragtag – ragged. Cut the repetitions, either by varying the words or, in a piece like this, cutting them out! On the other hand the repetition of orange camoflauge and wooden (weapons/rifle) are definitely worth keeping, because they are incongruous, and they link the narrator to his world.
In this particular instance I’d also suggest avoiding words like ‘instinctively’ and ‘vaguely’ – in my experience the surreal splendour of dreams lie in their seeming concreteness. Wooden rifle – yup. Attacking rabbits – fine. Nothing vague about it. Dreams are disorienting because they seem so REAL.
I absolutely LOVE the attacking rabbits. (three ‘wave’s in three sentences, but I love the ‘They literally are a wave’ line – that’s exactly what I mean about the concreteness of dreams. Love the youngest member being devoured. The writing here is solid and precise, letting the weirdness of the dreamworld work itself.
“as if someone had decided to start singing after a century of chain-smoking and screaming” – great line.
And finally, some nit-picking:
“Hey, darling” He says. – this should read: “Hey, darling,” he says…
And, “no more vodka.” I mumble – should read “…no more vodka,” I mumble…
“Sadly, its not” – “Sadly, it’s not”. Apostrophe when it’s is “it is”
FINALLY, I’m very impressed by the way you move between tenses at the beginning and end. Lovely stuff.
Hello!
ReplyDeleteWow, Great stuff! I’m loving the rabbits and the erratic movements between sections of dream. It’s so familiar, and yet so unusual it draws the reader in.
I think maybe the power of what you say is lost by how much you say. I think you need to consider the importance of the full stop, and really think about what you need to say, and what you are saying. For example, would say; “The world around me is broken. The sounds I hear tell me this is the work of a bomb,” say any less than “The world around me is broken, almost as if a bomb had fallen, which it probably has, judging by the sounds I hear.” Your piece is so heavily weighted on sound that I feel it is important to draw attention to it. It makes your piece seem so vivid, and I think you capture the dream-like aspect perfectly.
In dream, we are often the protagonist, thrust into situations that we appear to know how to control, and I love how you have emphasised this with the sentence “Instinctively, I know I am to lead them through the dangers outside of this crater we're in.” However I feel nothing would be lost if you removed “instinctively”. I also feel that you sometimes assume the reader won’t understand the point you are trying to make. In the paragraph ““Hey, darling” He says, in my girlfriend’s voice, and his voice starts off an earthquake. A massive man, who just seconds ago, was singing something about entering Valhalla in a voice that sounded about as nice as being castrated with a rusty spoon, was now calling me “darling”?” we already understand that this is an odd thing, because you have described the man, and told us that it is a females voice calling you darling. Perhaps you don’t need to explain to us the oddity of the situation. We can also assume that it is odd, because by this point it is obviously a dream, and dreams are rarely sensible.
I love how you end the piece (and no, I don’t mean the bit that was already written for you), it ties in with the cyclical ending, and it doesn’t sound contrived. My only suggestion in changing, “I looked out the window.” to “I looked out the window...” or “I looked out the window:”
Great work!
Kathryn