Steps (612 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 24 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by orph (View user info) at 2008-04-10 06:26:08 EDT
Every step taken is another exercise in misery. If he could only just stand still, even for a moment, things may snap back into place as they should.
It won't happen though. He can't stop walking.
Day after day after miserable soul crushing day, his feet fall to the ground, one after the other, sounding out an eternal tattoo that echoes through his brain. Insanity sits patiently on his shoulder, biding her time until she's finally called on.
He needs time to think. A moment's pause would do, but his legs pump away. His footsteps sound out like a metronomic thumping artillery barrage. Every day new cracks appear in his being, like fault lines emanating upwards from the soles of his feet to the synapses that tell them to move in the first place. He's an ever walking feedback loop.
He can almost clearly remember when it all started.
*
He was on his way to work, and the urge hit him to keep walking right on by the front door, and downtown for the day. He deserved it. He'd walked to work for almost twenty-two years, and he was over-due at least one unscheduled fucking day off.
Falling into an easy pace once he'd decided, he cruised past the office building, waving and smiling at his fellow debt-haunted wage slaves, laughing at the puzzled and worried looks on their faces as he swept onwards. The day had been perfect, with gently warming sunshine and a soft summer breeze locked in a struggle to sooth his quickly waning guilt.
Once he reached the harbour, he kept on going, walking along the waterfront, enjoying the exercise as he dodged and weaved among the commuting throng. His feet thumped and drummed on the concrete and cobblestones, and he felt new life surging through him. It was remarkable what a change to the daily routine could do.
As he walked his mind drifted through its collection of memories. Vivid in the extreme, he was whisked away back through his own life as he re-lived, and lived again the key moments of his history. He cried, laughed, grew content, eager and awestruck. Everything became so intense, he could almost feel the embrace of his dead wife, taste the honey he'd pulled from a beehive when he was eight, and hear the first words of his only daughter as she spoke to him.
He buckled under the mental strain - it was all becoming too much. Shrieking with pain as the images blurred and flashed, blinding his mind's eye, he stumbled as if drunk along the dirt forest path he now found himself following. He tried to stop, catch his breath and ebb the flow of memories, but he quickly found himself powerless. He struggled and wrenched his body like a badly controlled marionette in a vain attempt to steady himself.
It was at this point that a bomb of atomic proportions exploded within his skull. He grabbed the nearest tree, a small sapling, and held on for all his worth. His legs scrabbled for purchase on the gravely surface. His memories vanished. All he could recall was today. His brain frantically searched for its own tree to lean upon.
It latched onto the cells and circuits that controlled his bipedal motion. Like a crutch for the crippled, the previously simple action of walking was a bastion of defence for his sanity.
His legs kicked out, tearing him from his sanctuary, and threw him out into the world again, yet this time, they would never stop.
*
The sensibly smart brown leather shoes he'd worn that day were long gone. Worn and battered by the constant attacks from the asphalt, he'd kicked them off, and then his socks as he stomped onwards.
The kings of the calluses held court on the balls of his feet. He felt nothing below the knee except for a dull throbbing ache. Through all weathers he walked on, seeing no-one and nothing as the thousand yard stare fell down over his eyes.
When night fell at the end of the day he would attempt to strap himself to any immoveable object, and pull himself off the ground, his legs thrashing furiously beneath him. He'd spent many nights hung like a leg of beef from telegraph poles, water towers and tall trees, hanging limply from exhaustion, as his legs kept on and on and on.
He'd lost count of the times he'd begged for death, grasping and wrestling strangers along his route, pleading for the bullet or blade that would end his damnation. Visions of Prometheus and Tantalus drifted in and out of his consciousness, a brotherhood of the eternally punished.
*
One day he stopped. His legs stopped stepping, his ears savoured the silence.
He shook off the blackness of thought that shrouded him and looked around. He was in a dry, deserted area, on a dark blue road that disappeared over the low red mountain range in the distance.
Nestled under the rocky backdrop was a cheap truck stop diner.
His eyes fell down his withered body and rested on his feet - his poor, bloodied and splayed feet. Joy infused his body as he sighed a sigh of salvation. He could stop now and go home. He dropped onto the ground, tears carved canyons through the dust on his face.
His left leg twitched, followed by his right.
He yelled and screamed as he trudged past the diner, once again begging for release.
User Reviews
Submitted by doctorj24 (user info) at 2008-04-21 12:58:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Top 5 authors on ubersite.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2008-04-12 05:20:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 lack of blowdryer.
Submitted by loan_officer (user info) at 2008-04-12 02:35:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2008-04-11 17:32:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-04-11 13:46:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hmmm.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-04-11 13:29:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/115889#uber_reviews
It is most confusing for people :)
Have a lovely weekend.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2008-04-11 09:03:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-04-11 08:58:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2008-04-11 06:39:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks Orphelia - I thought the thanks was rather cryptic.
I think you are lovely.
Please dig up the sos review if you have time.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-04-11 05:06:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I am almost certain the thank you from Lib is for me. Why do people mix us up?
You are male, handsome, talented.
I am female, fat and a whore. lol.
Yeah, easy mistake.
There was that sos guy he wrote a whole message out on one of his posts aimed at the wrong orph, it is funny, I will dig it out.
Quite scary though, that people are that blind.
You'll be complaining to bart soon about 'that dumb name stealing whore orphelia' and he will be replying to be saying 'I'll ban orph, love, that whore'.
Confused?
You should be.
Submitted by GangsterSquid (user info) at 2008-04-10 19:34:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Didn't read it.
Kick fucking ass picture.
Submitted by MyTeeOne (user info) at 2008-04-10 19:14:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was well written and I'll give it the +2 because of that.
The story itself though... it was a good start. It was going somewhere. Then it didn't there. Then it stopped.
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-04-10 13:10:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
opps, and Thank You
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-04-10 13:10:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2008-04-10 11:35:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-04-10 10:18:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
orph, as usual +2
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2008-04-10 09:40:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-04-10 09:14:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2008-04-10 08:47:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This made me uncomfortable and I'm not sure why. I think it because I go walking when I get stressed or upset and I have ended up miles from anywhere and not sure how I got there.
If I could give you more than a 2+ I would!
---------------
*shouts*
Take off your bra!
_______________
*shouts back*
Think of the children!
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-04-10 09:14:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2008-04-10 08:47:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This made me uncomfortable and I'm not sure why. I think it because I go walking when I get stressed or upset and I have ended up miles from anywhere and not sure how I got there.
If I could give you more than a 2+ I would!
---------------
*shouts*
Take off your bra!
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2008-04-10 08:57:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have the same problem except instead of walking it's reading Ubersite
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2008-04-10 08:47:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This made me uncomfortable and I'm not sure why. I think it because I go walking when I get stressed or upset and I have ended up miles from anywhere and not sure how I got there.
If I could give you more than a 2+ I would!
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-04-10 08:14:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was bowzer!
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-04-10 07:37:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I wanted you.
And I was looking for you.
But I couldn't find you.
I wanted you.
And I was looking for you all day.
But I couldn't find you.
I couldn't find you.
You're walking.
And you don't always realize it, but you're always falling.
With each step you fall forward slightly.
And then catch yourself from falling.
Over and over, you're falling.
And then catching yourself from falling.
And this is how you can be walking and falling at the same time.
-Laurie Anderson "Walking and Falling"
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2008-04-10 06:47:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
cuz u tryed
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-04-10 06:31:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant. Reminds me of that Mark Ronson video.