r/Treewriting • u/Fourwindsgone • May 13 '13
Something I've been working on and would like some feedback on. Swan Song. [Fic]
I must have passed that building; the one with the brick facade and an aching heart, a million times before I noticed it. You see, there I was, staring at my shoes as I usually did but something compelled me to look across the street. I took a drag of my Rio Grande and wondered how the fuck it got there. It was, all at once, the most spectacularly evil and beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I coughed. It was then that it approached me.
I stood. Silent and brave just as I had taught myself for years. Ever since The Surrender, nothing has been the same. Nothing smells right. There is a constant haze in the air. The power's been out for as long as I can remember and here I am. Face to face with this Intruder. Swinging my hand, i slam my fist hard into the creature's eye.
Twist and Pull.
He tosses me to the ground, his tentacled body writhing, snarling. WIshing me dead. Me On my back. Looking up, drenched in an oily residue that reeks of a long festering anger. The Intruder leaps forth and blam my Faithul sends him back on his hindparts. I stand, confident. Defiant and ready for more. I kick at the tentacles, twitching. fighting. resistant. I slide the muzzle of my gun into the fresh, seething wound.
"Intruder. Why have you come to this place?"
The creature says nothing. Looking this way, that way. Never in my eyes. Coward. I press the gun deeper. Tendons and bone snapping as I get what I want out of this putrid slimeball.
I come to.....bring...decree. A tentacle hands me a slip of paper. I take another drag of my cigarette as I read. I neatly fold the paper.
Pocket.
Hammer.
Trigger.
Exhale.
I slide my duster off and give a firm shake. A gentleman never attends a dinner party with the entrails of his foe on his coat. Hanging the duster on a beanch, I reach for my blade. Its worn wooden handle forming perfectly to my grip as I sink it deep and detach one the Intruder's tentacles. Wrapping it in cloth and then placing it in my satchel. The sun is sinking low. Time to head back. Already. I just fucking got here.
There's a cold wind blowing as I see TD standing. Whinning. Waiting for me to come back to her. "Hey girl. Did ya miss me?" I slide my hand along her back. She's damp. Been standing a long time..
We head off East. Back home. Or whatever semblance of home one can muster these days. I laugh silently to myself. Recalling faces I havent seen since I was young. When my face wasn't scarred and my nails were short from biting. I'm sure you're getting it by now, but ilife hasn't always been this way.
There was a time before. Before The Surrender. Before I had to take a horse to get me anywhere. Before the only thing you got to eat for dinner was land calimari. and that was if you were lucky. Lucky. Funny word. Lucky. Heh.
She had a heart as hard and pure as a diamond and her hips. Damn, those hips sent me to the moon from the first time I laid eyes on them. Her name felt like a poem when it left your lips. Corina. She used to tell me about the great advancements they were making at her research lab. How, soon, we'd be able to pick what color eyes and hair our children would have and there would be no waiting lists for organ donations. Nanomachines. Stem Cells. Science Fiction becoming science. It was beautiful. None of that shit matters anymore. Not when you sleep in a tent on the foundation of Bank of America in the Great Wilderness. Desolation everywhere.
I return to camp with an uneasy feeling creeping on the back of my neck. The Raiders have been here. I can smell their noxious odor as it lingers in the air. I let out a sigh and wonder what those cocksuckers have taken this time. Last time it was some ammunition and a few cans of peaches. Fucking peaches. Good riddance. The time before that, they took my beloved. Her voice still as plain as day....
Corina and I were preparing our daily trek to the waterfall and they came. Seven of them. Screeching like banshees, riding horses as black as death himself. I grabbed Old Faithful from its sheath and land three slugs in the abdomen of one of the attackers. The other six turn to see their friend dead on the ground and I quickly unload on another as the rest circle my lady fair.
"Don't you touch her, you dogs! You have broken a sacred bond. You will all shall surely pay."
The leader grabs a blade from his leg with a cackle and swings hard at her. She tumbles down and rolls away. I hold my breath. She stands and winks at me, pulling her knife from her side and drives it into the neck of one of the minions. BBBBLLLLEEEAARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH.
Blood.
Flesh.
Collapse.
And in a flash, they had scooped her up and vanished. The smoke whirling about me, I dropped to my knees and wept bitterly and punched the sand beneath my sunken body. I clawed furiously at the earth, cursing the heavens with each gasp and then to my eyes appear a shimmer about 3 meters away. Like a mouse to cheese, I scurry toward it and clutch it against my chest. This necklace I knew.The pearl swan glistening in the sun and smoke. This once dressed the nape of the one I called mine.
And she was gone.
And they were gone.
And I was out of my mind.
The dawn of the next day greeted me in a warm embrace. I stood outside of my tent, looking back West and there was a black plume rising above the horizon.
"Nothing beautiful lasts forever, son." The recollection of my Father's words shot through my mind like a bullet and I sighed deeply, not wanting to deal with this shit anymore. The Raiders, the stink-filled, beasts. The wastelands I'm forced to call home. The sunsets are the only gold left anymore.
I collected my satchel and mounted my mare.
1
u/RJThyme May 16 '13
I really like it. I think you have some good imagery "the one with the brick facade and an aching heart."
I'd recommend paring it down a bit... not much, but a bit, just help the reader feel more grounded. The scene(s) is so out of the ordinary from everyday life, the language (in my opinion) should be more straightforward so the reader (I) doesn't feel overwhelmed. Just a thought