The Draft Bin, Volume 2!

Posted by

0

So, once again, inspiration has failed to strike.

Actually, that’s not quite correct.  I have plenty of inspiration (often coming to me at the most inopportune times, like when I’m up on top of a ladder, paintbrush in hand, and can’t exactly pull out my phone to jot down the idea, much less sit down and actually write), but none of the ideas are quite ready for short story status yet.

Or I don’t know how to write them.  See previous post on Advanced Writing Problems, Part I and Advanced Writing Problems, Part II.

But, here are a few of the ideas that have come to me, but have not yet become actual, fleshy, honest-to-goodness (or badness) blog posts.

  • Pooping.  As a stream-of-consciousness narrative.  This one is actually about half written, aside from 2 problems.  Problem 1: I can only write about it when I’m in the right frame of mind, i.e. when I need to use the restroom urgently.  Problem 2: At that moment when I am in the right frame of mind, other things are of much more importance to me than writing.

  • The Wire Men – men who spend their entire lives working miles above the ground, on thin wires.  They are born there, live there, and when they die, are kept, hanging, in the air.  Why are they up there?  No idea.
  • A theme park in the future, where roller coasters go through portals to different dimensions or time periods!  Talk about a wild ride!
  • Two brothers, Rhise and Rhun.  I’m guessing this would be a story about triangles, or at least some sort of geometry.
  • A cargo inspector stumbles across a shipping container, in which is stored an illegal wormhole, maintained by the Mafia for time travel.
  • That little bubble of loneliness, that comes late at night when you’re driving on a deserted road, all alone.  Will you ever escape?
  • A shop of perfectly useful things that are totally useless!  An umbrella, but it only rains under the umbrella; a camera that mounts on nose hair trimmers, so you know if you got it all . . . at this point, I realized that I was describing Skymall.

  • A man, trapped on a ship lost at sea, dying of dehydration and searching for water . . .
  • What if a murderer stalked hedge fund managers, killing them for their stock portfolios?  With every assassination, he gains new insights into the market!  Maybe this is just what I secretly wish for.  The stock tips, obviously, not the murdering.
Any of these sound interesting?  If one has a lot of sway, I might focus on turning it into a full story!

Last Breaths

Posted by

0

Oh god.  What am I doing.

Even now, I’m already regretting my choice.  The words came spilling out of me, nothing like how I had planned.  This very instant, if I could snatch them out of the air, take them back, I would do so in a heartbeat.  What was I thinking?

She’s staring at me.  Hell, everyone is staring at me.  And nobody’s saying a thing!  Come on, people, just because one man is dying over here, you don’t all have to stop eating dinner to watch!  Go back to your conversations, leave me to suffer in peace!

How long has it been, now?  Five seconds?  Thirty seconds?  A hundred years?  I can’t seem to tell, any longer.  Time stretches on, forever, trapping me in this private hell.

Now, as I sit and suffer, I can hear my friends’ warnings, flashing back to me.  Don’t do it, they had said.  There’s still time, it isn’t worth taking the plunge.  Oh, how I should have listened!  But no, I had to forge ahead, had to take that leap, and now it’s landed me here in this mess.

This was supposed to have gone so much better!  I had so many words, speeches, eloquent lines, all memorized and ready in my head.  But when the moment came, all the words tumbled out of me, confused and lonely and clinging to each other in a haphazard jumble.  And it’s not like I’ll get another go at this.  I’ve messed the whole thing up.

Wait.  She’s opening her mouth.  Will she put me out of this misery, end my suffering with a single word?

Yes.  She said yes.

She said yes.

Advanced Writing Problems, Part II.

Posted by

0

Everyone has issues with writing.  However, moving beyond grammar issues, many veteran writers will recognize some of these all-too-common scenarios.  Part I of these problems can be found here.

4. The Drunken Snake – That title may seem odd, but my only other option was “The Woman Driver.” And I don’t want to offend any women more than I do already. The Drunken Snake is the story that has a great beginning, wonderful characters, and a charming, instantly-loveable setting. It’s a great starting place, overall, and really draws in the reader, making them want to learn more.

And then it goes nowhere.

Like (I imagine) a drunken snake, the plotline seems to meander back and forth, never really managing to find a satisfactory conclusion. Maybe it’s a drama? Perhaps a mystery? Ooh, there are some horror elements that could surface! Maybe one of the characters has actually been dead the whole time! Despite these incredible literary breakthroughs and strokes of genius, the story just doesn’t have a plot. It’s a hundred pages of trampsing back and forth, never actually making any progress. And yet, even though you can see the approaching brick wall of worthlessness, you can’t bear to abandon the characters, the setting, all those charming little details. So, you push on with the doomed and hopeless venture, praying that some sort of plot will magically materialize. It won’t.
5. The On-And-On – Much like a coworker’s vacation story, or that nightmare with the spiders that you had last night, this story seemed vaguely interesting at first. There was enough to keep you going, to stop you from hitting the delete key right away. But now, as you continue to write, and write, and write, you realize that you are trapped. This story won’t be a quick piece of flash fiction, over in a thousand words or less. It won’t even be a short story, drawing to a conclusion well before ten thousand words. No, this is a dull and pointless novelette, or maybe even a novel, which you are woefully unprepared to undertake. And yet, because you’ve already started, spent so much time writing the first few thousand words, you can’t quite abandon it yet, and feel dreadfully compelled to see the whole thing through.

Most On-And-Ons tend to creep up on us, and the realization of what we’re caught in doesn’t strike until page ten or fifteen. Here’s my advice: cut your losses. As soon as you realize what monster you’ve got on your hands, drop the whole thing. Squash the project, much like you were trying to do to that spider in your nightmare last night. After a few days, gingerly pick up the pieces, try to see if the plot is salvageable, and squish it down into a condensed version. It may still be crap, but at least this way you’ll be done with it by the end of the day.

6. The Frankenstein – Yes, I’m aware that I used Frankenstein in a previous example. This is something different. Perhaps you write a charming little story. Maybe it’s a science fiction drama, with a few hints of Lovecraftian horror scattered here and there. You like it. You’re quite proud of this little story, and decide to bring it in to your editing group.

Well, they like it too. It’s great! Mostly. Maybe you could lose the horror elements, and instead bring out more of the details of the science in the future. Really hit home, point out the nitty gritty to show that you’ve thought through all the technical details of the little world that you’ve created. So you go home, do some editing, cut out those horror bits, and fill the gaps with technical info.

You think that maybe, before submitting it, you’ll get one more opinion. So you send the edited story off to a family member. He (or she, I don’t discriminate) gives it a read, and likes it! But once again, a couple small suggestions. Perhaps, instead of all the drama, you could lighten the tone slightly? You make so many good jokes; if they could be highlighted just a little more, the piece would be side-splitting. You definitely don’t want to offend this family member, whomever he or she may be, so you go ahead and make the changes. There we go, perfect!

Off the piece goes, out into the vast world of the internet, to a couple of short story publishers. Well, one of them writes back, and they like the piece too! Only, it seems to fit better as a pure comedy, rather than as a science fiction comedy. Could you reduce it back to present day, leave out some of the jetpacks and hoverboards? If so, they might have a spot for it. Sure, you enthusiastically write back, anything for a potential publisher! So the story goes back under the knife once more.

Now, by the end of this, you may have a published story. It might even be good. But when you go back and compare it to the original, you will see that it has been hacked and slashed until it was all but unrecognizable. This is the curse of The Frankenstein. In the perpetual search for improvement, your story has lost all its original qualities that made you appreciate it so much.

On the other hand, it’s being published now. So it isn’t all bad.

Advanced Writing Problems, Part I.

Posted by

0

Everyone has issues with writing.  However, moving beyond grammar issues, many veteran writers will recognize some of these all-too-common scenarios.
1. The Impossible Dream – Your idea is good. It’s amazing, in fact. You have somehow managed to have one of those rare moments of brilliance, the kind that only comes along once or twice in a person’s lifetime, and the angels have descended from the heavens to present you with the perfect writing idea. It’s a story that is complete on so many layers, so many levels, that Shakespeare himself would weep at its beauty. English professors will spend years discussing and debating the many hidden themes and motifs, and the sweeping, panoramic beauty of the scenes will give James Cameron a semi. (By the way, that last sentence has just disqualified this writing from ever being analyzed by any professor, ever.)
There’s just one problem, however. This idea, this vision, is too perfect. You know your limitations as a writer. Sure, you might be the next Stephen King, but even you can acknowledge that you haven’t quite made it to Hemingway or Faulkner status. What if you set out to write this perfect piece, this ultimate tribute to literature, and you fall short? What if you can’t quite capture the deeply moving themes and ideas, and the piece instead comes across as trite and shallow? It is for this reason that The Impossible Dream, this perfect conception of a story, forever remains in your draft bin, its beauty and majesty on the page never quite equaling how it appears in your head.
2. The Malaise – It started out as a great idea, with tons of enthusiasm and energy. In the first night, you wrote twenty pages, and you’ve added thirty more over the last week. But now, the story’s dragging a little. You’ve managed to reach that boring middle part, where there’s no action, and far too much backstory to be filled in. Your mates have just purchased the latest Call of War: Modern Honor Duty game, and you feel that you deserve a night off to go play with them. Maybe a couple nights off. Better just round it up to an even week.
At this point, you might as well acknowledge it; The Malaise is now dead in the water. You have lost the motivation, the story no longer seems to sparkle as it once did, and you can’t remember all those fidgety little details that really pulled the whole thing together. Because of all the hard work that’s already gone into this story (seriously, it’s got fifty whole pages!), it will never be discarded, thrown away into the recycling bin. Instead, it will remain on your desktop, hoping in vain that someday, some day, you will return with a surge of motivational energy and write the second act.
3. The Copycat – It’s almost never intentional. Lying awake at night, counting down the hours until your deadline when you must publish some sort of update, a blank page in front of you, an idea suddenly springs to mind. And it’s a good idea! A scientist, mad by all accounts but perfectly sane within his own mind, creates what he believes to be a beautiful creature, only to realize the horror of his actions. He now finds himself beset by a monster, and vows to destroy it, for the betterment of all mankind. It’s a wonderful little story, and you’re quite pleased with the results. You hit publish, sending it up to your totally unread little blog, and drift off to sleep feeling happy and satisfied.
It isn’t until two days later, at your editing group, that someone points out that you have just written a shorter, crappier version of Frankenstein.
Oops. You knew the concept seemed too familiar.
Part of the frustration with The Copycat isn’t the fact that some lady beat you to the punch by a couple hundred years (although that certainly doesn’t help). No, what is most frustrating about this pitfall of writers is that, as the story is being written, there’s always a nagging little feeling in the back of your head. That little feeling whispers that the idea may not be one hundred percent original, but you ignore it. Only when someone else points out the obvious does that little feeling resurface, and you feel ashamed, ignorant, horribly uneducated, and like you should issue some sort of apology to Mary Shelley.

The Death of Long Tom, Part I

Posted by

0

I groaned, sluggish to wake up as my alarm sounded.  Behind the shrill buzzer coming from the small device on my bedside table, I heard the boom of Long Tom, echoing through the panes of my window.  I reached over, fumbling, and managed to find the snooze.  I still had another fifteen minutes or so before I had to get out of bed.

As I forced my way through a bowl of dull, fairly tasteless cereal, Long Tom fired again.  Speeding up the rate that the spoon carried slush to my mouth, I stood up, carrying the nearly empty bowl over to the sink.  I knew that I only had twelve more minutes until I had to be at work.

I strolled into the back of the little produce shop, nodding to Tommy, who was already unpacking the day’s newest shipments.  “Looks like a nice day, today,” I commented.  We always talked about the weather.

After unlocking the register, sweeping off the checkout counter, I made my way through the cramped aisles to the metal grate covering the entrance to the store.  There wasn’t a clock hanging in the store, but I knew that I just had a few more minutes.  Sure enough, as Tommy trundled several crates of oranges out towards the front of the store, I heard the next roar of Long Tom, rolling out over the city.  I bent down and unlocked the gate, hoisting it up along its track into the ceiling.

The morning passed without much of interest, Long Tom ticking off each half hour.  Quite a few customers strolled through the small shop, although most were long-time regulars.  They clucked over the new bits of produce, shared little tidbits of uninteresting gossip, and generally helped pass the time.  Nobody brought up the war, of course.  Everything that could be said about the war had already been stated years ago, and there was never any substance to the updates issued by the War Office.

Finally, lunch came about, the church bells coming from the middle of town interrupted halfway through, as always, by Long Tom.  I flipped the sign on the front door and retrieved my brown paper bag from beneath the counter.

Author’s note: My apologies for the shortness of this beginning, but the concept is much clearer in my head than the execution.  More to come, soon!

Money is weird.

Posted by

0

Money is weird.

The whole concept is strange to think about, especially with the emphasis that is so often placed upon it.  Basically, money is simply a method for trading the work that you put in, for goods and services that you can enjoy.  It’s just the reward that’s earned.  You help out society by doing work that betters the world, or at least the immediate community, and in exchange, you can pick out food, toys, and keep your home warm at night.

And yet, money has grown into so much more than that.  So many items in our world serve solely as status symbols, indicators of how much extra money is available to burn.  Nobody actually needs to drive an Italian sports car, or encrust their watch in diamonds.  The only purpose of these items is to brag about how much money is coming in.

Now, this wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if the amount of money earned was directly proportional to the amount of good done for society.  It makes sense that inventing a medical cure that saves millions of lives should be worth more, financially, than restocking a crate of apples at a grocery store.  But so much money seems to go to managers, financiers, lawyers, people who don’t actually solve any problem.  Indeed, some of the highest salaries go to people that do nothing more than play with the money, swapping it back and forth to get rich off the pennies that slip through the cracks.

Like I said, money is weird.  It also seems especially strange when I am at work, when I talk with the homeowners I work with every day.

In many neighborhoods, I see homeless people pass by, see people driving five-hundred-dollar cars, see people where the Gap is high fashion and who will most likely never see their bank account hit six figures.  For these people, making forty or fifty thousand dollars a year is a huge accomplishment, and watching the reality TV stars parade around in their designer clothes and spend their days shopping and lounging by pools is a glimpse into another world, a world in which they will never be a member.

I like learning about finance.  I enjoy reading books about the stock market (yes, in my free time!  Shocking.) and make investments.  But so many people I know don’t have stocks, don’t think about money, don’t have much going for them financially besides a vague IRA into which they put the minimum.  Even though these people are just as talented as I am, if not more so, they are being handicapped by their lack of financial devotion!

I am not rich.  At least, not by my idea of rich.  I recently read that most Americans would consider “rich” to be approximately 10 million dollars.  Invested in a balanced portfolio, this would generate roughly $600,000 per year, which is enough to live in any city, pursue almost any hobby, and never have to work again for the rest of one’s life.

I don’t have 10 million dollars.  I can’t even imagine 10 million dollars.

But does this make me poor?  I’m debt free, on a career track, have a car, and have money in the bank.  I have a plan, I’m well educated on investments, and I don’t live beyond my means.  I certainly consider myself well off.

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that I am incredibly rich and radically poor, all at the same time.  In so many ways, I am so well off, and yet I have so much more to work for.  Perhaps it is even stranger for me, since I can see the hint of light at the top of the tower, just well enough to show me how far I still have to ascend.  I can see a path, can set financial goals, but have a long and strenuous climb ahead.

Money is weird.

Budgeting

Posted by

0

My 10:00 appointment was running late.  I looked down at the clock in the bottom corner of the screen.  Seven minutes past the hour already.  Glancing around the glass-walled cubicles to make sure that none of my bosses were looking my way, I alt-tabbed over to the scores for my fantasy league.

I grumbled to myself.  I was already down ten points, in third place, and my best player had a by week.  As I clicked back and forth between sites, trying to decide who to swap in, I heard a knock from the entrance to my transparent office.

“Yes?” I said, hastily escaping from my league’s home page and returning to the accounting software.  I glanced up to see a small, ordinary man in a gray suit standing at the entrance.

“I’m here for my appointment,” the man said.  “Sorry I’m late.  Well, no, I’m not sorry at all.  I mean, I’d rather be late and know what I do than be on time and in the dark.”

My quizzical look must have clued him in to how little sense he was making.  “Erm, don’t worry about it,” he decided.  He removed a rather untidy stack of papers from under his arm.  “Anyway, I need you to help me work out a budget.”

I took the stack from him, dumping them on my desk without much enthusiasm.  “Here at H&R Block, we make budgeting easy,” I said, reciting the rote speech without any conscious thought.  “Whether you’re budgeting for a house or retirement, we can-“

“No, neither of those,” the man said, interrupting my routine.  “I just need to live as comfortably as possible until June 24th, 2017.”

I looked up from the pile.  “What happens on June 24th, 2017?” I asked.

“Nothing,” the man responded, shrugging offhandedly as he settled into one of the two office chairs across from my desk.  “But on June 25th, 2017, the world is being demolished, so I won’t need much cash after that.”

“Wait, what?”

The man didn’t seem too perplexed by my, well, perplexity.  “Oh, yeah,” he continued, staring blithely off into space.  “Being demolished for an interstellar bypass, you know how things are.  Fortunately I thought to check the records office.”

I didn’t know whether this man was a prophet or insane.  He didn’t seem off, other than his gentle insistence that the world was about to end.  I turned back to his papers, a slightly more familiar territory.  “Well, according to your bank statements, you’re doing quite well, and you have a tidy nest egg,” I stammered.  “Are you planning on continuing at your current job?”

“If I have to,” the man replied.  “I mean, I wouldn’t mind being able to take a year off, get to travel about and see some of this place before it’s all kaput.”

I hit a few numbers, did some calculations.  “Well, you could probably afford to do so, although it would deplete most of your savings,” I concluded.  “Um, I suppose you could put more of your portfolio into stocks, since you aren’t as worried about long-term stability?”

The other man nodded, smiling.  “Exactly the type of advice I was looking for!” he beamed.  “Perfect.  Anything else?”

I leafed through the pile of papers and receipts.  “Stop paying for life insurance?” I guessed.

“Another excellent idea!”

I hit the print button on the computer, and the man rose to his feet, offering his hand as the printer spat out the paper.  “Thank you so much for all your help,” he said warmly.

“No problem,” I replied, still feeling slightly lost as I took the proffered hand.  “But, really, the world is ending in four years?”

At the doorway, the man shrugged.  “The plans could always change,” he said.  “But, at this point, the money’s already been granted, so they’ll have to do it just to justify their expense reports anyway.”

“So what do we do?”

“That’s easy!” the man sang, as he danced out of my office, budget in hand.  “Catch a ride!”

I sat, staring blankly into space, for a few minutes after the strange appointment.  A few other accountants had stories of the crazy people who had come in, needing help.  Most of the time, it was the finances that were crazy, however, not the actual person.  This man had actually had a very good setup, financially.  I checked the name.  Mr. Prefect.

Waiting for my next client, I once again glanced over at my fantasy scores.  However, after a long moment’s thought, I opened up a tab and googled “NASA.”

Gotta Go!

Posted by

0

Oh man, I really have to go.

Ugh. I’m trapped, though. Whomever decided that booths in restaurants should be one long, curving bench ought to be locked up. Should I say something?  I guess I have to wait for a lull in the conversation?

Erp. Nope, can’t wait that long. Gotta go. I’ll just make a quiet announcement to this lady next to me.

Okay, well, that sort of worked. It’s spreading like a ripple. Wonderful, now everyone knows that I’m about to explode. Ugh, doesn’t matter. Gotta go. Let me out!

New observation for future reference: standing makes the sensation worse. Yes, yes, be back in a second, sprint away. Now, where the heck are the bathrooms in this place?

There they are . . . Nope, never mind, that’s the kitchen. Oops. Seriously, they’re always impossible to find!  I’m going to leave a big puddle on their fancy carpet- wait, there!  Like a light from heaven, I see the restroom sign!

Okay, men’s room. Not women’s. Not making that mistake again.

Great thing about being a guy – never a line for bathrooms!  Now, unzip. Oh man, my teeth are floating. Come here, where are you. Ah, there you are. Come on out, little buddy.

Ahhhhhhhhh. Oh, that’s such a good feeling. Someone probably says that it’s better than sex. I mean, they are either wrong, or having really terrible sex, but it’s still a great feeling. Total relaxation.

Man, it feels like this is taking forever. How much did I drink?  Whoop, gotta correct for declining water pressure. Aiming is hard.

There we go, all done!  Now, shake it off. Wait, where did that drop go?  Aw man, it’s on my shoe. Maybe I can sort of scrape it off with my other foot. There, now it isn’t so noticeable.

Shake complete; time to holster the rifle. Aaand there’s still one more drop left. Dampness. I hate that feeling. Oh well. On to the hand washing.

Didn’t I read somewhere that it’s actually cleaner if I don’t touch anything in the bathroom?  Besides myself, of course. The handle of the door is definitely dirty. I’ll use the paper towel to open it.  I wonder if everyone else has this thought too.

Okay, time to head back to the table. One last check: any spotting?  Good, nothing has bled through. It’s as if it didn’t exist!  What bodily functions?

Reaver, part IV

Posted by

0

Author’s note:  This is the conclusion of a story, with 4 parts.  The beginning can be found here.    And here is the previous part.

Flame shot from every crack in the machine, and Daniel felt the scorching heat suffuse the air above him.  Limbs flailing, every system going haywire, the Reaver staggered back, traveling twice its length across the cornfield before collapsing.  Smoke rose from the joints, and occasional, smaller, secondary explosions marked the collapse of internal systems.

Daniel unsteadily regained his feet.  Hammer in hand, he approached the smoking hulk with caution.  The legs had stopped moving, although Daniel could still see small pieces of machinery moving inside the machine, visible through newly opened cracks and holes.  A dark brown, oily fluid was slowly leaking out, spreading across the muddy dirt of the field.

Some of the other young men who had managed to keep clear of the dying Reaver were also nearing the machine.  Their faces were a wash of fear, loathing, and horror, all mixed with a deep-seated savage triumph.  Some of the men of the village would not be returning home.  But this monster, this reminder of the Great War, would no longer plague the village with its yearly visits.

Daniel stood there for a long time, watching the Reaver slowly die.  The other men headed out, searching the field for wounded, checking the remains of the oak grove for any survivors of the explosions.  But Daniel couldn’t leave.  Not yet.  He slowly edged closer to the towering remains.

Approaching one of the largest cracks, at what had once been the top of the Reaver, Daniel slipped his head inside.  Bits of shattered machinery were everywhere, but there were still several thick, reinforced tubes that led, intact, deeper into the belly of the beast.  Carefully avoiding the sharp metal edges of the opening, Daniel slipped inside the machine, following these tubes inward.

After the first appearance of the Reaver, Daniel had continued to pester Elders Jonah and Buie.  Eventually, the old men had told him of the Reavers, of the Great War.  Daniel had learned about the guns, the missiles, the access hatches, and the two-minute delay before the more powerful secondary systems would activate, energizing the monster into a juggernaut of destruction.  But, on his deathbed, Elder Jonah had called Daniel, alone, into the room.

“Boy, I know what you’re planning to do,” the old man said, his breaths slow and labored, as Daniel approached the bed.  Over the last few months, Jonah had wasted away to little more than skin and bones, but his eyes still held the glint of intelligence.  “Buie knew, too.  Despite what we’ve said, you’re still going to fight the fool thing.”

Daniel didn’t bother protesting – not now.  He nodded.  “But, there is one more thing you need to know,” Jonah continued.  He sat up slightly, reaching out to grasp Daniel with one frail arm.  “Buie didn’t know this.  But when we broke that thing, when we smashed it apart, we found out the truth.”

By now, Daniel was further into the machine; the opening through which he had entered was fading behind him.  More tubes, some pulsing from the motion of the fluids coursing within, were coming together, all leading along this path.  Ahead of him, he could hear the sounds of machinery, pumps still operating.

“The Reavers, they aren’t just driven by clockwork,” Elder Jonah had whispered.  “Aye, that’s how they run, but at their heart . . . they were once one of us.”  He sat back, sighing from effort.  “Abominations.”

He had turned to face Daniel, his eyes reflecting a deep-seated pain.  “Kill it,” he gasped.  “Don’t just destroy it.  Kill it.”

Rounding the curve, Daniel stared at the chamber that had opened up, at the center of the Reaver.  A small, cramped room, the floors covered in pulsing tubes.  The many conduits converged at the center, attached to a tank of gently sloshing green liquid.  Daniel had known what was coming.  Despite that knowledge, he still couldn’t look directly at the thing floating within the liquid.  The thing that had once, long ago, been another person.

Daniel raised his hammer, his knuckles white.  “One of us,” Elder Jonah had whispered, as he died.  “Once, they were one of us.”

The glass cracked, shattered, fell apart.  Green liquid spilled across the floor.  The pumps stuttered and died.  The brain of the Reaver sank to the bottom of its chamber.  It shriveled and twitched, dying in the air.  A pathetic thing, connected to an engine of destruction, blind, scarred, and crippled.  Amid the rage, the hate, the anger, Daniel couldn’t help feeling the slightest hint of pity.

He raised the hammer once more.  The Reaver died.

Reaver, part III

Posted by

0

So, quite a while ago, I wrote a short little piece called “Reaver.”  Well, I decided that it needed a second part, which is here.  This wasn’t enough, so here is part three.

You can read the first part here.  

His muscles were already beginning to tire, the stress and exhaustion beginning to overcome the adrenaline.  Reaching the control center, Daniel forced his arms to raise the hammer over his head.  The first overhand blow left a deep dent in the riveted metal plate.  The third swing knocked the bent sheet of metal aside, and he stared down into the maze of pipes and wires glinting inside the monster.

The Reaver was still struggling to regain its feet, the three operational legs churning the cornfield into a muddy pit.  As more young men reached the open hole, each carrying their weapon in one hand as they climbed, a small sack slung over one shoulder, Daniel heard the next boom of fireworks.  Thirty seconds left.

“Hurry!” Daniel called out, as the nearest men unloaded the satchels from their shoulders.  A thin string protruded from the neck of each bag.  Daniel worked to weave the strands together into a thicker cord, keeping the lengths equal as each man lowered his sack into the exposed hole.

Daniel was trying his best to count down in his head.  He only had ten seconds left, he figured.  He hoped that enough of the packages had made it into the Reaver’s inner workings.  “Everyone off!” he shouted, as the last sack was lowered in.  The cords were hopefully close enough to the same length.  He fumbled in his back pocket for the small paper box.

As the other men leapt away, landing among the flattened stalks and struggling to regain their feet, Daniel drew a match with fumbling, trembling fingers.  He only had a second or two left.  Dragging the head of the match along the rough metal plates of the Reaver, he sent a prayer of silent thanks skyward as a tiny flame flickered into life.

As Daniel brought the lit match to the interwoven strings, the mechanical sounds of the Reaver beneath him suddenly shifted.  The secondary defense systems were coming to life.

A moment too late, the last set of fireworks sounded from the grove of trees.  Something below Daniel’s feet let out a sharp hiss, and a rocket streaked from an opening at the front of the machine.  The trees were briefly outlined in orange before the grove vanished in a roaring gout of flame.

A wordless scream ripped its way out of Daniel’s throat.  In his hands, the woven fuse caught, just as the flame of the match reached his fingers.  The strings, each soaked in a mixture of alcohol and gunpowder, burned rapidly, disappearing into the hole in the Reaver’s armored shell.

More of the secondary systems were coming online now.  More barrels were sliding out of the Reaver’s shell, some already blasting scalding steam into the wilting stalks.  Metal shrieked as the machine forced itself to stand on shattered and broken legs, lurching erratically but stumbling forward.  Daniel was thrown from his perch, landing heavily in the mud.

The Reaver reared above him.  The fall had knocked the breath from his lungs, and he lay on his back, helpless as his death turned to face him.

For a split second, rearing over him, the Reaver seemed to pause.  Then, with a deep and resounding boom, the satchels of gunpowder inside its exoskeleton ignited.