Prompt Response #3: That Long Road

The road was just an ordinary thing. Made of black asphalt with dashes of yellow running the length of it and dividing it in half. The hot sun baked down on me and I sweat. I sweat and damp patches clung to the underarms and the back of my shirt. The sweat dripped from my hair and my eye brows and ran down my cheeks and my chin. As I walked along this ordinary road, the sun baked down on the asphalt too, and that was some consolation. Not that the road deserved to suffer, but the sweat and heat were irritating and I needed someone or something to share my burden.

Every ten minutes or so a car would speed past. Most were headed the way I’d come, but every so often a car would rush past me headed to where I was going. When they did, I’d turn towards the car and stick my thumb out, hoping beyond hope that someone would pull off and let me ride. But car after car would only blast past, sometimes sounding their horns to warn me out of the way. A heavy-set man in a silver Buick, a cigarette sticking from his puffy lips. A blond girl in a red Honda, the music so loud I could hear the beats as she flew past. A boy in a Mustang convertible, giving me the finger; that dirty, dirty finger. I showed him mine too, but I doubt he noticed at all. Each passed me, rushing on to their destinations. Whether they were too nervous to let me in, or just didn’t care, I’d never know. It was unnerving to realize the few people who happened to share the road with me, who happened to be headed the same way, cared so little for just another guy living in the same crazy world they lived in too.

I had wanderlust. You might know the feeling, the one where you just have to get away from everything you know because you feel you’ll burst if you don’t. And you finally get away, and you realize this is all you wanted all along, even if you’ll have to face reality and let it all come to an end and live the life society has planned out for you. That summer I’d decided to pack a bag as full as I could, put on a new pair of denims and a tee-shirt, and meet the unknown on my own two feet.

So there I was, walking a road I’d never known, being blown aside by cars rushing past to fill in the pieces of their drivers’ busy lives. And the sun was baking me like a cookie on a cooking tray. I thought about how those cars were like portable worlds with their own environments so different from that outside the metal and rubber and glass. Inside of them it was safe and cool, but outside was cruel and hellish. They were bubbles of comfort floating in a den of pins and needles.

A black truck appeared on the horizon behind me and I turned and my thumb jerked out pleading, begging for the driver to slow and let me ride. The truck didn’t only slow, it stopped. The driver, a woman with sun glasses and a straw cowboy hat, looked nervously behind her before gesturing for me to come towards her car. The heat made her offer impossible to resist and I hurried to the passenger side of the car as she unlocked the door. As the door swung out, smells from the interior wafted to my nose and I climbed into the open seat. The truck, a Toyota Four-Runner, smelled like cigarettes and sweat and alfalfa-hay. She let off the clutch and brought the truck up to speed. A cassette player in the console played decade-old Bob Dylan songs and a rubber chicken swung from the rearview mirror. A paperback novel lay on the floor of the truck, the cover crumpled and bent. A Bradbury book.

“Hi,” I said, trying to break the ice and sounding nervous all at the same time.

She looked at me and smiled, my face reflecting in her sunglasses. “Hi,” she said too. “Sorry, this thing’s a piece of crap! The A-C doesn’t work in half the vents and a couple of the windows are stuck.” Then she shrugged and grinned. “But it runs, you know?”

I smiled and nodded. “Yeah,” was all I could manage to say in reply.

We rode in silence for a couple seconds, each one feeling like an awkward minute, until she spoke again. “So, where you headed?” Her face was thin and splotched consistently from daily sun exposure. Her blondish-brownish hair tumbled from the straw hat and disappeared between her back and the backrest to her seat in the car.

“Nearest town. It doesn’t really matter. I just needed to get off my feet and out of that heat.” I wiped a hand across my sweaty brow and ran it down my jeans. “Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it.”

“So you’re running, huh?”

“No, not running. Kind of just wandering, you know? Seeing what I can before the opportunity’s gone.”

“I’ve been there,” she said as if she were talking past me and looking through me. The music from the stereo played on, a soundtrack to the sudden silence.

 “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, sticking a cigarette between her lips and flicking a lighter two, three times. The flame caught and licked at the end of the cigarette. She blew a trail of smoke out the window and turned to smile at me again. “I assumed you don’t want one, unhealthy habit you know.”

I grinned and shook my head. She was funny. “So, you traveled a bit?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, pulling on the cigarette. “You could say that. Same as you too, just thumbing rides when I could. There’s a lot to see out there, and you kind of just have to get up and see it.”

I nodded. “Did you have a favorite place you visited?”

“Oh, all of Europe is so pretty, you know. It’d be impossible for me to choose just one place!” She said, smiling and placing a hand over her heart. “Some places here in the states are breathtaking too.”

“You saw Europe!” I exclaimed, my interest aroused. I’d expected her to have seen a bit of the US, but she hardly looked like a world traveler.

She nodded while her eyes remained ahead of her, on the road, on the distance; I couldn’t tell. “I loved every bit of it. I’m going back. I just am. I was cursed with a wanderlust feeling, and I just have to keep moving if I want to be happy. There are other places I need to visit too. And I will. Anyway, what about you? Is this your first time out and about?”

“Yeah,” I replied, feeling a little overshadowed. “I’d so love to travel to other countries, but for now I’m just taking it easy.”

“You want to do something, you just have to do it, man. That’s how the world works. The earth spins on madly, never stopping. It never stopped for me, and it sure won’t stop for you. And all the while as it spins so endlessly, you just have to follow your dreams. Sometimes someday just has to be today.

I smiled as she said it, like it was true and she was reading what had been written on my heart. But I smiled and looked at her, and looked out the window and denied it.

“It’s not like that,” I said, laughing.

She looked at me, still smiling, and nodded. “Sure,” She said, blowing another puff of cigarette smoke from the car. “You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them. Ray Bradbury said that.”

“Bradbury? The author?” I asked, pointing to the crinkled paperback on the floor.

“Yeah.” She nodded. He also said ‘Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.’

I stared out the window; watching the vast, dry, sunburnt ground swoosh past to be left far behind. I thought about what she said. What the author Bradbury had said. I decided they were both right. I needed to make things happen if I wanted them.

“Well,” she said, “We’re here. The nearest town. It’s a small, trashy little place. Quite frankly, it’s a dump. But there’s a bus-stop here, and busses pass through all the time. You should be able to take a ride just about anywhere.”

The Toyota pulled past small, discolored, mismatched buildings. She drove the truck up to a gas station and parked beside one of the pumps.

I opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement. She hopped out as well and walked over to the pump. I turned to her and stuck out a hand. “Thanks again for stopping.” I said. “I’m Ben, by the way.”

“Candace.” She replied. “No trouble, it’s my pleasure.”

“Thanks all the same. I really appreciate it.” I said before I turned and headed towards the gas-station. I asked the guy at the counter if I could use their restroom and he pointed me towards a grimy room with a sink and a toilet. I dropped my backpack in a relatively clean spot beside the sink and relieved myself. When I washed my hands, I caught my own eyes in the mirror and they looked at me, so hungry for adventure, and so resolute for once. It was like they weren’t my own eyes after all. But they were.

I grabbed my bag and hurried back out to the pump, but Candace and the black Toyota were gone. In that moment, I wondered if I’d only imagined the whole thing. Like a desert mirage, or the hallucinations of a fatigued mind. A bus pulled into the small town; stopping beside a long bench. The doors swung open and passengers piled out before the few people waiting climbed on. The bus continued to idle as I watched. Then I heard someone calling, so I turned. It was the guy from the gas station.

“Dude. She came in while you were in the john.” He said, holding out something towards me. “She left this for you, though. Told me to make sure you got it.”

I took what he was holding out to me. It was the crumpled Bradbury paperback. I turned it over in my hands and found it was solid and real. I turned back the crinkled front cover and found writing scrawled in the inside flap. It read: Hope you follow you dreams. Make “someday” today.

I looked up from the book. The gas-station guy had walked back to his counter. The passengers from the bus had all dispersed. I shoved the book into my back pocket and sprinted for the bus; arriving just as the doors closed and the driver revved the engine. I rapped my knuckles on the door and caught the driver’s attention just as he was about to pull off. He rolled his eyes at me and scowled before throwing the lever and opening the door. I paid my fare and took my seat; pulling off my backpack.

As I settled into my seat, I peered out the tall window to my left. Thinking, dreaming about what the road before me held. Because that’s where I was headed. Candace had helped me make up my mind. Candace, in her black Four-Runner with its windows stuck and the vents that wouldn’t blow air. And her paperback of Bradbury; now my paperback of Bradbury. The both of them had ganged up on me, outnumbering and overpowering me. And now I knew that long, long road ahead of me would only be the beginning.

 

(Written in response to prompt “Road”)

Prompt Response #2: Hunter turned Hunted

Thomas Orde-Lees woke with a start. He rolled onto his side and stared idly towards nothing in particular. It was not only a new day, but the beginning of a new year. It was the first day of January, 1916, in the middle of the Antarctic continent. Orde-Lees climbed from his sleeping bag and stepped into the frigid weather outside his shared tent. Like the rest of the stranded crew of the Endurance, he slept fully clothed to keep his body from freezing in the night.

                Orde-Lees hurried to where Charles Green had fired up their blubber-burning stove. Green was the expedition cook, but he could not begin preparing the crew’s breakfast until Orde-Lees, the storekeeper, had issued him the daily rations.

                “Mornin’, Thomas,” Green said, nodding towards Orde-Lees. Green’s face was dark, stained black by the smoke from the Blubber-Stove. The blackened face seemed such a stark contrast against the white ice that covered the terrain the men traversed. Orde-Lees nodded back at Green, before fishing at the stores and gathering the daily rations. He noticed how low the crew had gotten on stores and pulled a paper from his pocket, on which tallies and figures had been written. After looking from the paper back to the stores, and finally back to the paper, Orde-Lees let out a sigh and shook his head mournfully.

                He delivered the morning rations to Green, and stared at the stove in a downcast manor. “According to my figures, we’ve got rations for another fifty days,” he said.

                Green snorted. “By the looks of the portions you brought me today, I’m surprised! Only fifty?” he asked mockingly. “Are you sure you couldn’t squeeze another couple weeks out of this stuff?”

                Orde-Lees frowned, obviously hurt by the comments. “I do my best with what we’ve got, Green! You could cut me some slack you know! So long as each man eats no more than two pounds of ration a day, it should last us fifty days! After all, I’m trying to be generous with the men!”

                “I’m sorry, Tom,” Green shrugged, “we’re all on edge. If only we had some penguin meat… or seal steak! We could supplement the rations. You know, give the lads something else to chew. As it stands, our meals are just so meagre.”

                Nodding, Orde-Lees agreed. “I know, Charles. But hunting has been scarce. We haven’t so much as seen a penguin the last few days! It’s so very odd… this time last year, game was abundant. Such a stark contrast for Nineteen-Sixteen, eh?”

                Green smiled. “That’s right!” he said. “It’s a new Year. Last year, we thought we’d be well across the continent by now. I guess none of us is a prophet.”

                Orde-Lees grinned at the jest, but sobered quickly. The thought was a discouraging one. The year had been full of many set-backs and not much progress. At least, not as much as the crew had hoped for.

                As the pair sat staring at the blubber stove and thinking over the past year, Frank Wild approached them and sat as well. “Mornin’, lads.” He said, stretching his palms towards the stove. “Bloody cold, isn’t it?” he paused and stared at the amassed rations beside the stove. “That’s not breakfast, is it?” he asked. Orde-Lees rolled his eyes before he stood and scanned the horizon.

Wild was second in command of the crew. The man was friendly and well-liked by the men. Green smiled at his jest now, and began placing the rations in pans for warming.

“We’ll be going hunting again today, then.” Frank said, still staring at the small sized breakfast. “We need something to supplement the ration with.”

Orde-Lees held up a hand. “I’ll go, Wild. I can travel pretty quickly on my skis. I’ll be able to cover more distance than some of the other men that way.”

Frank nodded. “Alright, I’ll send out a few of the other lads too, but you can go, Lees. You might as well leave right after you’ve finished morning grub. If we’re going to bring anything down, it won’t be while sitting around the stove.”

The chores were divvied up amongst the crew, and Orde-Lees was included in those sent out to hunt. He set off away from the camp at a quick pace, slowing when he’d gotten a sufficient distance between them. He used his ski poles to pull himself as he slid across the ice floes.

Orde-Lees had crossed a number of floes before he finally stopped to scan the horizon. His eyes flitted here and there, but he saw nothing. He was alone, just him and miles of ice. If he was to kill any game today, it had not yet surface from the water beneath the ice floes. After a few moments of watching the ice, Orde-Lees began his trek again, this time skiing across the ice more slowly and watching the floes carefully for emerging heads between cracks and crevices. He was so thorough in his search, it was mid-day before he stopped again. He allowed his eyes one last sweep of the horizon before snorting in a disgruntled fashion and turning to head back for camp.

                He skied even slower now, stopping frequently to look here and there for sign of life. But his hunt had been in vain. There was no sign of game, no matter where he looked. It was a powerful disappointment his stomach growled for lack of food, and the thought of a meagre dinner did nothing to help. As he approached the camp, he spied the makeshift tents and men going about their business in the ice and cold.

                Suddenly, Orde-Lees heard a splashing sound and he turned to see a round head looking at him from the exposed water between floes. The head was that of an enormous leopard seal and as Orde-Lees exchanged looks with the monstrous seal, he noticed the hunger in its eyes. He turned and fled, pulling on his ski poles with every ounce of his might.

                “Wild!” he yelled as he sped over the ice, “Wild! Help! Bring your gun!”

                Orde-Lees glanced over his shoulder and spied the leopard seal tearing after him, its mouth open as it ran. He could see the rows of sharp teeth in the creature’s maw, saliva dripping from between. The seal rushed after him, rocking in the characteristic way seals traversed the ice. As Orde-Lees pulled away as fast as he could, he could hear the sea leopard gaining on him from behind. In a few more bounds, it was sure to be on him and then he’d be the game of the day. But as suddenly as the seal had appeared, it left, diving between the floes and into the frozen depths beyond.

                Orde-Lees continued to yell for Wild as he hurried towards the camp. He began to calm as he noted the seal was no longer anywhere to be seen. Perhaps he had simply been too quick, too much of a hassle to catch. He was about to cross onto safer ice when the jagged opening just ahead of him splashed upwards and the leopard seal leapt onto the floe with a spray of chilling water. Orde-Lees gave in to panic and his calls for help became near unintelligible screams of fear. The sea leopard lunged at him, snarling, its jaws open as wide as they could. The hunter dashed back the way he’d come, not bothering to look back over his shoulder.

 

                Wild was in his tent when he heard the yells. He thought he head his name being called, before his ears picked up the higher pitched screams of terror. He grabbed his rifle and a box of cartridges before tearing out of his tent and towards the sounds.

As he crested a low hummock of ice, Wild could finally survey the scene for himself. He was shocked by what he saw: a terrified Orde-Lees forcing himself across the ice as fast as he could pull, and an enormous leopard-spotted seal chasing him. The monster was gaining on the man, leaving Wild little time to react. He leaped from the hummock and tore after them, running across the ice in an attempt to get within rifle range of the sea leopard. As he ran, Wild forced cartridges into the chamber of the rifle until he could load no more. He yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping the seal would turn from its pursuit of Orde-Lees to himself instead. To Wild’s relief, the seal took the bait.

Wild dropped to one knee, steadied the rifle, and fired. The bullet ripped into the seal’s carcass, painting the ice with crimson blood. But the seal still came on. Wild fired once more, yanking back the bolt and ramming it forward again. His second bullet also found its mark, but the seal never slowed. It tore towards him, racing full-bore. As the monstrous sea leopard closed in, Wild fired a third time and a fourth, both shots hitting the animal squarely, and both doing little to stop it.

The seal was now within thirty feet of Wild and closing. Its mouth agape, the rows of yellowed teeth arrayed for Wild to see. He steadied the rifle, his heart beating in his ears. Sweat trickled down his face and back as the rifle raised and lowered with his breath.

“Come on, now, Wild lad.” He said to himself “Make this shot count, or you’re dead man.”

Staring down the sights of the rifle, Wild exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The seal stopped and plunged to the ice, finally halted by death. Wild breathed in slowly and let out a sigh of relief. His stiff arms loosened and dropped to his sides and he stood to walk off the shakes that his body had contracted. Orde-Lees arrived, his eyes round and wide. There was a trail of blood from where Wild’s first shot had struck the seal to where it lay not far at all from where Wild had knelt to fire.

Orde-Lees kept looking from the dead seal to Wild and back. He was out of breath and shaking as well. “That was a close shave.” He said, his voice hoarse from his yelling and heavy exertion. Wild only nodded. He walked up and down the length of the seal his eyes never leaving it.

Orde-Lees paced it out, calling to Wild that the animal was twelve feet long. “Bloody thing’s a monster!” he exclaimed, giving the seal a push with his boot. “Green’s got his wish after all! This seal ought to yield plenty meat to supplement the rations with. We’ll be eating like kings!”

Wild nodded. “All I know, is I better get a bloody, massive slab of steak from this beast. If that last shot hadn’t brought him down, he’d be feasting on me right about now.”

“I’m just glad you showed up when you did, Wild. I might have died of heart failure if he didn’t catch me up first! He was fast for not having any legs! And clever, too. He tracked my shadow from under the ice and leapt out in front of me!”

Soon, a number of crew members, having heard the shots and cries for help, arrived at the sight of the seal. All of them were amazed by the size of the seal and a round of cheers went up when the story of the encounter was told.

The seal was dragged back to camp and butchered. When the men opened its carcass they discovered the remains of three smaller seals; several of the monster’s earlier meals. When the leopard seal’s jawbone was removed, it measured near nine inches across. The men gave it to Orde-Lees as a souvenir of the encounter. An encounter, he was loath to forget, souvenir or no. As far as Orde-Lees and Wild were concerned, such an experience was the nearest they ever planned to approach death.

 

(Written in response to prompt "Hunting Trip")

Prompt Response #1: Brothers in Arms

Garus glanced about the battlefield as he mopped the sweat from his brow. Their lines had held in the midst of their grand charge, chasing their opponents from the field. The enemy was now scattered like so many startled birds caught unaware as those that remained on their feet ran from the battlefield.

Garus tugged at the sleeve of his mail shirt, straitening it. He wiped the blade of his sword clean and sheathed it at his hip. Today had been no less than a glorious victory for their numbers. They had quickly dispatched some great number of their foes and chased the survivors from the fields. Yes, today had been a remarkable victory.

“Julius,” Garus exclaimed, “We’ve won! We are victorious, my brother. Our enemy has been vanquished upon this field of battle!” As the soldier turned, he found no one standing beside him. His smile faded and he searched frantically from one ally to the next, hoping for some man to turn around and for him to be Julius. But none did. Garus called out for his brother, that he might answer him, telling him that he was alright. But no reply reached Garus’ ears. Panic had already set in and Garus grew frantic in his search.

Garus halted. Finally his eyes rested on the face of his brother, but not in some happy reunion. The young man lay on a cart among other corpses. His body buried slightly by so many more; dead like him. Garus rushed to the cart, shoving bodies away so that he could reach that of his brother. Blood was crusted all over where Julius had been struck on the side of his head. His eyes were closed and his lips were drawn taught. In the excitement of the moment Garus had somehow not seen as his brother received the fatal blow. Yet now, as he looked down at his brother’s lifeless form, the gladness the soldier had experienced in their victory was lost. Such things paled in comparison with the life of his brother.

Garus let his head droop. He touched his brow to that of his brother as tears began to slip from his eyes. The realization that his brother was dead had struck the soldier heavily and he wept. Victory, no matter how incredible, was not worth his brother’s life. For that matter, nothing was.

The soldier rocked the body of his brother to and fro as he cried. The hot tears raced down his face, burning paths through the grime and blood that was caked thereon. His grief was immeasurable. The body he held in his arms was flesh and blood of his own. They had shared so much more than simply a name. And now, his soul had departed and his body would soon be no more than food for the worms of the earth.

Garus carried the body of his brother away from the cart, walking; stumbling from the carnage of where the two armies had clashed in the throes of battle. Where he was walking was entirely superficial, but he wasn’t about to leave his brother in the pile of mangled corpses on the wagon. His brother, his own flesh and blood, deserved more than a soldier’s hurried burial. And Garus would see that his body’s resting place was one of respect and honor. The price of victory was indeed a bitter wine.

 

(Written In response to Prompt “Medieval Tragedy”)

 

Writing Prompts

A friend of mine and writing buddy suggested that we should really be posting more actively on our blogs. His suggestion was that we pitch prompts to one another, and write either prose or a poem inspired by the prompt. There will be no restrictions in place, aside from word count. The piece, if prose, can be no fewer than 400 words. Basically, that’s all there is to it.

Those who enjoy my literary endeavors will more than likely find these Prompt-inspired posts intriguing, since generally they’ll be tiny novelettes posted for your reading pleasure. This exercise ought to be an excellent practice in literary form, even in such a small scale.

Another friend already picked both his and my prompts for the week, so you can expect a post sometime soon concerning my first.

I’m very excited for this whole thing. I feel like it will be a healthy reprieve, and keep me writing constantly, even if only small sequences. You’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for the installments to this challenge.