WIP; a (461 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.55 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by TaK (View user info) at 2009-01-09 23:59:00 EST
I pointed my eyes to a random star and said, "That's where I want to be," and was there, proving my statement false.
The stellar winds buffeted the surface of the body I found myself on, hindered only by patches of thin atmosphere, torn like an old afghan. The air seemed to be full of sand, though I could see none, and sprawled on my back, my view was unencumbered up to the stars. They seemed innumerable. Familiar.
It was cold and unlivable, and as I tried to stand it became harder to breath. Not as if my lungs had failed, but as if they were trying harder than normal and achieving nothing. It seemed that about three feet above the ground oxygen began to patch up like the atmosphere. You could breathe one second, and the next was suffocating. Walking bent over helped. I was quick to become an old man, bent over his cane, taking quick stand-ups to inspect my surroundings like a meerkat on the watch.
Repeating this act, I was able to get a better look at where I was.
(Duck down, breathe, pop up.)
It seemed to be the moon at first glance. Earth's moon. It was more or less gray, and dusty. There were few variations to its surface in sight.
(Duck down, breathe, pop up.)
No wait. There were variations; where I expected them to rise up they dipped down, out of sight. And there were rocks. Big ones. Oddly huddled, again patchy, rocks the size of houses.
(Duck down, breathe, pop up.)
Off in the distance, near the horizon, which appeared much closer than it could be, I saw what appeared to be smoke or something like it. A cluster of diaphanous haze, ambiguous in its tangibility, lofting against the background of black shot through with light.
(Duck down, breathe, pop up.)
The whole breathing thing was getting to me, but I focused, and looked. There were no trees, no comfort, it was murky and gloomy. It felt like there was thick fog covering the ground, but there was none, and it was silently loud. The wind was loud, the universe was silent, an eternal grinding just out of ear shot, and above it all my heart beat like a timpanist with an unfed hunger for chaos.
(Duck down, breathe, pop up.)
I pulled my hooded sweatshirt around me tight, but it was little protection. I stumbled a few steps forward, and at every lift of a foot I became weaker. I thought at first that it was a result of my fatigue, but eventually realized that it was just the way my body seemed to work here. I made for the nearest outcrop of rock, grunting and crying.
I must have looked like a patient in for life, shambling to the nurse's window to get my pills, but I made it. Leaning against the stone, I was not sure it was stone. It gave a bit with my weight, just a little, like hard rubber, but it gave. Its surface was smooth, like the dip in a worry stone. I had hoped that the rock would give me some shelter from the stellar winds, they were raw and unforgiving, but they seemed to come from all directions, equal in force. I dipped my head around the edge of the rock I had come to, and there was a hairy body on the ground. I hadn't been able to see it from where I had begun. The rock outcropping seemed to have grown larger in the few feet I had traveled.
(Duck down, breathe. Breathe again. Pop up.)
I dipped my head around the corner again, and used a whole breath to survey the thing on the ground. It was furry, not hairy; the size of a horse and a half, and it had five pairs of scaly legs ending in single talons. Its body was straight and flat across the back, with no definition between back and head, or head and tail. I saw it standing in my mind, a work bench wearing a pelt of fur stretched and tied down at the corners.
My first thought was that with five pairs of legs you could have one central leg and two legs on each side of the body to maximize agility and balance, important on a planet with level ground and large dips going down and big rocks going up. Then it moved, and I died a little bit inside.
(Duck down, breathe, try to pop up, go gray, yelp, bend over, gasp for air, pass out.)
***** *****
The pain woke me. My flesh had become the minority, and the senses just beneath were taking the brunt. Like staying in the tub too long, then stepping out into the path of an ice chipper; slivers raking flesh like dead leaves from the muscle.
I knew I couldn't stay here like this for long; I would wither away a smatter at a time. I cursed Him then, not for the first time, and regretted it directly after.
What choice did I have? I'd always carried a lock blade knife in my hip pocket, never one to carry guns, it didn't seem so ironic I'd be outfitted so. And what else was there for shelter, I thought then, except rubber rocks bouncing invisible star dust back against your face at God knew how many miles per hour.
I thought once about Star Wars and how Han Solo stuffed Skywalker into some beast like a mix between a goat and a kangaroo to keep him warm against some planet's dangerously winter atmosphere before stabbing the three inch blade of my pocket knife into the things gullet, reversing my grip on the handle and pulling down, rockets of red glare spewing and opening up into a cavity of warmth, the thing still moving but of no threat to me, now.
I slept the night, as I thought of it, in the things warmth, safe from the stellar winds. It never occurred to me, the possible outcome. I thought only of myself at the moment. They always say "live in the moment", but they never say what happens when the hour ends.
***** *****
continued...
User Reviews
Submitted by billrhine (user info) at 2009-03-13 22:23:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
A perfect example of why uber has turned to shit: not the post, just the reviewers. A good post gets a -2 from the ASSHOLE Shlongy. He needs killed, and soon.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2009-01-29 00:17:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I enjoyed this a lot. Great first line.
Submitted by TaK (user info) at 2009-01-10 11:33:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I love negativity without purpose, why else would I come here?
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2009-01-10 09:52:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Not too long ago I did a 'Star Wars' marathon. All six movies in a day / night. That's such a lame thing to admit to. But at the end of the day it's 'Star Wars'
'Play the same song'
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2009-01-10 09:32:25 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Let's see how you handle negativity.
Submitted by TaK (user info) at 2009-01-10 09:27:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks for the positivity. More to come.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2009-01-10 08:48:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DietCoke (user info) at 2009-01-10 03:55:48 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
You got some SERIOUS weed there brother.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-01-10 03:05:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2009-01-10 00:19:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Porcelain (user info) at 2009-01-10 00:18:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JustARide (user info) at 2009-01-10 00:06:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"my heart beat like a timpanist with an unfed hunger for chaos."
Fucking fantastic line.
I love it when I read fiction on here that makes little sense to begin with but still keeps me reading. This was beautifully written and really painted some fantastic images.