UGR Competition: Anthem of Grace and Brutality (704 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0.75 on 18 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by sicosemen (View user info) at 2006-06-21 08:50:23 EDT
UGR Competition: http://www.ubersite.com/m/89285
Action/Adventure
Anthem Of Grace And Brutality
The breeze reached out with hand-like purpose, careening around her delicate facial features that were built upon 37 years of existence. Thoughts of life's ramifications and unjust ways swelled her head like the rot of a corpulent existence. She rubbed the tear off her cheek and dragged herself another 4 feet up the washed out ravine. Never had she imagined herself coming to such a bleak existence in the matter of one trip that she'd never forget. Grace had just went on a leisure trip all by her lonesome for fear of losing the solace that she built her entire existence upon. Now the wind stung as it whipped at her feverishly, smacking a new kind of fear. She kept asking herself, "What the fuck happened? Yet the answer was despondent enough to not grace her with its presence. Funny, she thought. I'm Grace and I have lost my grace.
"We launch our hang gliders from Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County, just 10 miles from San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, landing on Stinson beach, one of the more beautiful Northern California state beaches."
"Well, Mr. Nolan, when do we get to start?"
"Lessons are 3-5 hours long depending on the number of students. Most people will need 5-6 lessons before they can fly at high altitudes."
Grace loved every minute she was in the air. It was pacifying to be weightless and active at the same time. She imagined herself as being an angel and guardian of her home town, San Francisco, watching over the monoliths of the city, buildings that were built specifically for her hangliding purpose. The training was relatively smooth, long but strenuous; however, almost a mile up now came to feel like child's play. The plan was to cruise together, her first solo flight, with Mr. Nolan showing her, then to land on the beach, and finally celebrate with a bottle of champaign.
That was 2 days ago.
That was before she saw the light.
While in the air, Grace pontificated that you could see for hundreds of miles in any direction, far beyond the 5 miles you can see on land. She learned this from her instructor, Mr. Nolan, due to the curvature of the earth. She was mesmerized by the views she saw and told Mr. Nolan over the COM equipment they had, but he never responded.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw light so bright that she was instantly attracted to it, not able to take her gaze off it. It was as bright as the sun, she figured, looking into it was like watching the welding glow that causes dry eye. The light was followed by a dazzling showpiece of incendiary magnitude that threw her for a literal loop. While she was astonished she forgot to manipulate her hanglider properly and was heading into a downward spiral.
Grace gasped when she realized that she was flying out of control and tried to regain the full piloting of her aircraft. She maneuvered in her harness, shifting her body weight to the left in order to counteract her left-hand nose dive. One check at her altimeter and all of her worst fears were confirmed. She was losing height at 30 feet per second, plaguing her memory that any more than 10 feet per second was considered erratic. Panic engulfed her and heat was coming at her from the direction of the light which was currently a giant plume of flames.
Vandenburg Air Force Base is 280 some odd miles south of San Francisco and at the present moment it had literally vanished. Master Staff Sergeant Arnolds was instantly vaporized, along with hundreds of thousands of others the moment he caused uranium-235 to go through induced fission. If a free neutron runs into a U-235 nucleus, the nucleus will absorb the neutron without hesitation, become unstable and split immediately. This is what happened the day the U.S. Government dubbed a "most severe accident and complete tragedy in U.S. history."
Heat and gamma radiation energy was blasted outwards in every direction. Steel molds were dissipated into thin air; cars vanished, houses missing, and people were never to be seen again. It happened so fast that no cause was determined but many speculated that Vandenburg Air Force Base, which is supposed to be a missile testing and satellite launching facility, was working in covert operations. No one could pin down the exact reason for housing a nuclear weapon, after years of testimony and court proceedings the government opted to use a fluke in inventory control the reason for such carelessness.
Grace place her life into God's hands, being the devout Christian that she was, knowing that she was ready for the afterlife. By some miracle unbeknownst to her, she managed to stay alive by a voice guiding her.
Now, less than 100 feet from the earth, she remembered this:
"Be calm; shift your weight slightly to the left."
"Good, now unhook your harness from the crafts' frame."
"Right, now gently let go."
When she let go, she was traveling upwards to 20 miles an hour and about 10 feet from the ground. The rocky terrain did not give her the proper landing that was typical for a hangliding landing. She hit the ground with a thud and cart wheeled out of control, scraping her knees, gashing her forearm, and breaking her left leg in two places. For almost an hour, she was unconscious and had the most pleasant of dreams, dreaming of being a kid again in the blueberry fields, dreaming of her dog, Buford, dreaming of a nice date until she finally woke up.
She awoke with the most intense pain she had ever felt in her entirety. Spiders dragging jagged glass crept eerily through her veins, causing her to shudder and tremble. Black spots along with flashing stars swirled her view which was none too good to begin with. She passed out again, this time because of pain, not the blunt force trauma.
This time when she awoke, pain was still present but she was able to assess her situation. So far she remembered falling through the sky, letting go at the last moment possible, and being jettisoned from her air craft. She couldn't move her leg which had bone shards sticking through the skin exposing her to bacteria and dirt. Briefly, she thought of Mr. Nolan, and why he hadn't responded to her.
Then, she recollected the light.
What the fuck was that light?
Two days have passed, without food and without water, still with a broken leg, cuts, bruises, scrapes, and more. She found food in the ravine in the form of cactus flowers and insects. No one was putting out for and search mission in lieu of the recent tragedy in Vandenburg. Grace was on her last leg, literally, dragging herself around by the power of delirium. She prayed for something to come along and take her. Brutality had served its purpose.
Grace died in that ravine, not more than 200 yards from where she landed, willingly submitting her life to god.
User Reviews
Submitted by frankthebear (user info) at 2006-10-05 16:05:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by fluff (user info) at 2006-06-22 17:17:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-06-22 11:58:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I liked the idea of the story, and some of the ideas/phrases you threw out in it, but at the end I didn't really care about the main character that much. I think part of it has to do with how the section about Vandenburg interrupted the story a bit - first we're getting to know the characters and the situation and then there's rather detailed talk about absorption and neutrons and covert operation speculation.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-06-21 22:53:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
In a few places, the vocabulary you chose was either odd, or inaccurate. Otherwise, it was OK. It's cool that you joined the comp.
Submitted by dr_weazel (user info) at 2006-06-21 19:08:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Crap.
Pindick.
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2006-06-21 15:24:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Pompously written and without any enjoyable plot.
plus you've done much better.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-06-21 14:50:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
that'd have to be a pretty big nuke to do all that - Los Angeles woulda have taken a big hit from that.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-06-21 13:55:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
The breeze reached out with hand-like purpose, careening around her delicate facial features that were built upon 37 years of existence. Thoughts of life's ramifications and unjust ways swelled her head like the rot of a corpulent existence.
--
I stopped reading there. Jesus, every line is overloaded with purple prose. Ease back.
I'm in a good mood so I won't ding you and I'll leave it at +0.
PS - If a breeze 'careened,' it would be a wind, wouldn't it? Or a gale? Careen implies speed. A breeze would caress.
Submitted by livEvil (user info) at 2006-06-21 12:19:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
a solid 0. it's worth reading but it's not exceptional.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-06-21 12:05:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
yep...
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-06-21 11:30:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-06-21 11:24:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks inion, and the whole correlation, which I probably should have explained is due to heat and thermals when hangliding. Anway, thanks for saying more than most.
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-06-21 11:21:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-06-21 11:21:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i'm gonna give this a 1.5. i especially liked the line "It was pacifying to be weightless and active at the same time." i liked the imagery a lot. but for some reason the connection between the nuclear blast and her death was just a little shakey and abrupt to me. i just couldn't see that as making sense exactly if they were hundreds of miles away. also woulda been kinda cool if she got vaporized. but i'm not factoring that into the rating, that part's just because i'm sick in the head.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-06-21 10:16:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
still. seriously. if you beat me, i will ninja you. i'm not kidding.
(nice post)
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-06-21 09:54:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked this. Very interesting...but I am torn. I don't want to give it a +2 because I feel you made a fault that some people make which is to throw big words at reader in an attempt to make it more intellectual. But sometimes it just comes off as stupid. But it was interesting... Hmmm....Nah I don't have the heart to crap a +1 on this. When she said she saw the light I instantly thought it was a nuke but wasn't sure.
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-06-21 09:53:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i liked this a lot. could have used a bit more ch aracter development, made the reader like grace a bit more, but it was still money
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-06-21 08:51:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I had this written on Friday, but I want to congratulate ghola on writing a fine story.