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in, one please
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Jan 5, 2022 22:02
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 16:59 |
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in
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Jun 1, 2022 20:36
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in  two flashes please
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Jun 15, 2022 09:01
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flash: Wearing long sleeves to hide the mark of Cain Benevolence 500 words Kalen stood swaying in the crowded semi-dark of the train’s cargo compartment as it hurtled through the valleys of jagged mountains he knew were there but could not see. Rays of coastal sunlight filtered in through half-windows, along with boiling sea air. Kalen tugged absentmindedly at his sweat-drenched left sleeve. “Approaching the station! 5 minutes out!” The soldier at the front of the compartment shouted. “What’ll you do with your freedom?” came a voice to Kalen’s left. Get this God-forsaken mark removed as soon as humanly possible, Kalen thought while he half-listened for a response. None came. The question was for him, he realized, as he turned to find a short, leathery older man looking at him. He was shirtless, but still sweating, like most of the others in here. “Uh, yeah. Same thing as everyone else, I imagine. Find work, find a home.” Kalen responded courteously, anxious to keep a low profile—but then he added, genuinely: “I need to see the ocean.” The old man smiled. “Ah. Well, in that, at least, you won’t be disappointed.” Kalen smiled back, then looked forward. He found eyes staring back at him. Aguilar. A current slithered down Kalen’s spine and turned his sweat cold. Aguilar’s face was unreadable. He must have heard Kalen’s voice. Seconds passed interminably. Here they stood on the precipice of freedom, and Kalen’s one hope—that nobody here knew him, and thus, crucially, nobody on this train could volunteer the information that would land him on a different train, with a different, less-free destination—had evaporated. He had no idea what Aguilar might do. He might sell out Kalen, believing that it would secure his own freedom. He might sell him out, believing that if Kalen were discovered otherwise, they might all end up on a different train. Or, he might do nothing, believing they could both be free—Kalen hoped. “Arriving at the station!” The soldier barked, and then moments later, the train slid to a stop. The soldier stood and directed the passengers out both sides toward a pair of gates. Kalen and Aguilar got out on opposite sides into separate lines. Kalen’s eyes kept darting toward Aguilar as their lines progressed. As he neared the front, Kalen took one last look at Aguilar—and was struck with the realization that Aguilar was also wearing long sleeves. The only other in the crowd. Aguilar’s hard choice was now Kalen’s. He had no time to decide, as the gate now stood in front of him. A hand darted out and grabbed his wrist—his left wrist. “Don’t,” came a firm, kindly older voice. Kalen turned, wide-eyed, to see the old man next to him. The old man simply smiled back, and tugged him toward the table. Kalen would later be unable to recall what happened next, other than that he suddenly found himself on the opposite side of the gate, walking next to a giggling old man who kept repeating “My son! Bunch of rubes!”
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Jun 20, 2022 09:25
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Sitting Here posted:My thoughts about others' thoughts, in no particular order: Adding my voice as a middling, long-dormant TD participant. When I began TD long ago, the two things that made it a valuable place were (aside from the magnificent community) the losing and the crits. I lost two out of my first three entries, and was given swift, mostly accurate, well-intentioned feedback. The secret of getting better at things, as Phoenix points out, is practicing it; in TD, my writing was given stakes (if minimal, and mostly imaginary) and then legitimate feedback on how to improve. And I did. Without these two things, I'm not sure this place has the same value. It would just be a different place. Perhaps it requires a certain specific mindset to accept this, but catering to a different mindset might rob this place of the unique value that it brings to the table. Perhaps some adjustments to rules (no losing on your first week? some sort of consequence for judges who fail to post even nominal crits?) are in order, but, idk, I'm with SH, if my voice matters. TD may die, but TD should die facing its enemies, or some such macho nonsense
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Dec 26, 2022 21:07
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in and hellrule
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Dec 28, 2022 09:41
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 16:59 |
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hellrule: Your story is told solely in gestures A Quiet Life 1550 words The early spring sunshine cuts through a smattering of wispy clouds and the last gasp of winter air, both the final holdouts in the turning of the season. The sun glitters across the ocean’s surface everywhere, but seems to concentrate its loveliness on one particular stretch of coastline: a mile-long crescent hook of short red-brown cliffs topped by evergreens. At the north end of this half-bay, the coast curves out into the current and the wind, breaking the stride of the ocean’s might and turning the turbulent northerly into a gentle breeze. And in the center, two little half-wooded islands sit like forgotten flower mounds in an abandoned garden, whose flowers have long since taken charge of their own blooming. The waters of the bay cut these islands off from the mainland, and a channel cuts between them. And on the shores of the channel, two little cottages sit facing each other, one brick, one rough stone, each shrouded in the edge of the dwarf forest that tops their little oceanic knuckle. Allen kneels by the half-wall out in front of his home, trenching short rows in the soft loam for his new tomato seedlings. They’d been growing inside for the last few weeks, and with the turning of the season, it was time to bring them outside. Allen lifts his nose and sniffs the air. The early morning air stings his nostrils, but no salt. Good, he thought. He was worried about the salt spray leeching the moisture from his carefully curated soil mixture, but he was pretty sure he’d chosen the spot well: plenty of sun and rain, but cover from the wind and spray. There isn’t much work to do at the moment, aside from fussing over the delicate tomatoes, thankfully. The beets and cabbages and spinach were all situated and on their way; Catherine and Heathcliff—his two goats—were happily grazing on the fresh springtime grass, and he’d stocked away enough salted fish to keep him fed if the fish chose not to bite on any particular day. With the tomato trenches ready and waiting, Allen grabs a book from his shelf and heads down toward the shoreline. Settling in to the rough-cut wooden lounger he’d cut for himself only semi-successfully—woodworking’s mysteries were still opaque to him—Allen scans the coastline across the channel, looking for Jonathan. That wasn’t his real name, of course; Allen didn’t know his real name. He wasn’t out here yet, so Allen reluctantly turns his attention to the tome in his hand, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment—another opaque mystery Allen was determined to solve. Allen reads for a while, and then he simply basks in the gently warming sun. It had been a cold, wet winter, and, not for the first time but more acutely than before, he began to doubt his decision. Two years ago he had purchased an old outboard motorboat and piled its hull full of tools, books, survival gear, and his desires for a quiet life, and puttered out to this empty island. (Jonathan had arrived not two months after him, apparently in search of the same peace that had eluded Allen in his previous life.) The clerk at the county land management office had been more than willing to take his money and give him the deed to the tiny plot of undeveloped land, because as far as he could tell, no one had ever even asked about the island. Slowly, over the course of the next year, he’d turn his cargo into a squat stone home, a tidy garden, and a short fishing dock: everything he’d need to live here for the rest of his life. Or, at least, for as long as he could imagine. (And, despite his fears, not even an unexpected companion in his search for solitude could dampen his spirits.) The sharp crack of an axe through wood jerks Allen from his late-morning reverie. Across the channel, Jonathan is splitting firewood. The task had a unique physical rhythm, one that turned the body into a piece of industrial machinery: set the piece, raise the axe, load from foot to crown, explode. Allen watches for a while as Jonathan establishes his own patterns. His foot pops ever so slightly with each stroke, as he finds the right timing. He pauses at the top of each stroke, turning the muscles of his back into a spiderweb of tension. Allen knew these rhythms well, from his own weekly woodchopping endeavors. Jonathan stops to wipe the sweat from his brow, and looks across the channel as he does so. He smiled and touched his hand to his forehead and then to the sky, their silent greeting. Allen did the same. ******* The moon is full tonight, and the wind is down, which means he’ll be going fishing. On nights like these, he could gaze down into the clear dark water and look the fish in the eye. He carries his nets and his bait and his pole down to the shoreline. Jonathan had the same idea, and was already set up with his nets at the northern end of their parallel coastline, but they were far enough apart that Allen couldn’t presume his fish would be at the same end. A few minutes of searching later, though, and Allen too was set up mirroring his unspoken partner. Jonathan sits on a log, strumming a guitar, paying little attention to his nets. The unsuspecting fish would catch themselves tonight, in these untraveled waters. Most nights, there would be at least a breeze or the gentle tumbling of whitecaps to wash out any cross-channel chatter, but tonight is silent and beautiful. On this most rare of nights, Allen can hear the chords of Jonathan’s song drifting over the water, a gentle melody that erases the doubts he’d been harboring through the winter. The silvery moon lends its shine to all its light touches: the currents of the ocean, the needles of the coastal redwoods, the faces of two men wrapped in contentment. ******* It’s the goats that wake him. Heathcliff panics, often, so one ringing bell is not an unusual nightly occurrence. Tonight, though, two bells ring in chaotic concert, which tells his subconscious: something is seriously wrong. Allen’s hand shoots out to the pillow next to him—but finds only empty air. A reflex from a past life. His subconscious continues its secret work and gets him on his feet and moving. Allen’s feet carry him out of his stone cottage and up the short rise outside his front door, from which he can see most of what there is to see. His awareness is still working to catch up to his feet, so he stands there dumbly for seconds that feel like minutes to see what has spooked the goats: fire. On the end of Jonathan’s island that faces the coast, a boat has beached and erupted in flames. Allen tries to cry out, but his voice isn’t yet with his feet and his brain. Again, unbidden, his feet start to carry him toward the shore, and soon he is diving in to still frigid ocean water. His mind has put his body in action before his brain can fully process what is happening, but the pieces come to him one by one with each step he takes. He doesn’t cry out: the wind is up, and nobody will hear him. He has to cross: the flaming boat has beached near Jonathan’s new woodpile and the edge of the forest that runs to his cottage. And: the boat is neither his nor Jonathan’s. The water is cold but the swim is short. Adrenaline courses through his veins as he courses through the current, and soon he is sprinting up foreign soil. It doesn’t take him long to reach Jonathan’s door, and he bangs violently on the redwood door. He doesn’t think to use his voice, because he hasn’t in so long. Without waiting for a response, Allen sprints back to the shoreline. The boat must have a pilot, he thinks, and is correct: as he sprints down the slope, he sees a figure slumped across the boat’s wheel. The flames lick up the rear of the boat and across the wooden decking of the boat’s rear. Without pause, Allen leaps onto the front and drags the unconscious figure forward toward the front edge of the boat and the shore. Wordlessly, two hands reach up from the beach below, and Allen locks eyes with Jonathan. For a moment, he just stares at the man whom he’d only ever waved at across the narrow sea, now here mere feet from him, flames dancing in his eyes. Then the lightning of adrenaline returns him to real time, and he passes the comatose captain down to Jonathan, standing on the shore with arms raised. Jonathan carries the man up the shore and lays him down on the gently sloping grass. Allen hops down, and starts slinging the cord of firewood up the hill. Jonathan joins him. But soon, the work is done, and Allen’s panic passes: a fire is bad for a boat, but of no concern to water and sand. A hand finds his shoulder, and squeezes. Allen turns, and nods, and smiles. Jonathan smiles back.
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Jan 2, 2023 10:11
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