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Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: South Africa
Gender: Male
Posts: 21
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Beginnings of untitled work (1000)
Right, so here goes my first thread of work. Overall, I'm feeling pretty good about this (I feel uneasy about some things still) but I'd like to have this ripped apart. Any critiques would be appreciated; without further ado:
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The drive to the farm takes the woman five hours, including the half an hour of being lost and becoming unlost. She turns off the air conditioner and closes the windows once she turns onto the dirt road, the last spiteful mile. The landscape is pale earth tones and the sky is a moreyellowthanusual-blue, allowed to breath (for now) by staccato white and swirling black swallows: later the clouds will grow into indigos and heavy things. In the distance, a farmhouse waits patiently for her; there is no one there to rush it.
The road is uneasy, and she drives slowly, taking time to stare into the distance and examine the geography. A farmhouse lies in the middle of a shallow valley, and a ravine (betrayed by a long brushstroke of green) runs not far from it. An unused abattoir had been left to partially burn in a fire and then decay. Beyond the farmhouse, further into the valley, several elm trees and a streak of sky mark the lake. The late afternoon brings a lonely wind, a sad emissary to the cerulean rain.
Everything rattles and shakes on the dirt road, and the contraption of mechanics behaves like an animal. Then, bang, loud – the animal wants to churn wildly, as if to throw its rider off. Brakes and dust and a flat tire. It takes the woman almost four minutes to realise what has happened. She wants to sit down and weep (a really, really bad week, dear), but climbs onto the bonnet and the roof and contains herself. Then, as though to prove a point, fuck, equally loud across the landscape, which does not answer her. There is no hesitation, she does not even contemplate an attempt to change wheels, but gathers her effects instead and starts to walk to the farmhouse. (She does contemplate, as she walks away, to turn back and drive the last few minutes regardless of her dilemma, but manages to reject the notion). Small plants and grass had begun to grow on the road, as it has not been used for many months. The road bends to conceal itself in places, the land does not betray it. She'll wonder how long it will take for the road to disappear, how long before the long grass will grow to mask it, what wonderful plants will be born of this roadwithahistory, how many seeds does she trample in her jockey boots march!
The farmhouse gradually grows larger and warmer. The house looks like a French cottage; the stone walls and thatched roof and wooden window boards seem sincere about merging into the landscape, not differ from it. The final strides of her walk reveal many brilliant imperfections; there is a warmth and a smile to the badly built cottage. This human quality suffers nothing but the cottage’s shy manmade birth.
The cottage is empty and ambiguous and strange. Within there are many rooms, many beds: a nursery for beloved secrets. There are no photos or painting or artefacts of the family, nothing to connect the cottage to a people, a someone, some face. Instead the rooms are filled with mediocre paintings of the surrounding valley and generic still lifes of flowers and fruit and things that cannot grow. The air inside is cool and carries wood and dust. Old.
A cold bath, because there is no electricity or fire. No fire, because even though there is hardwood and old paper and pinecones, and she is fond of a fire’s nostalgia, the woman is languid and not compelled.
She calls a friend for help; yes tomorrow’ll be fine, thank you, sorryaboutthis.
She finds candles in the kitchen and the cigarette lighter in her handbag. The woman moves like a ghost, somehow familiar with the house, the stairs, the strange depressions and humps in the floor especially between rooms. A small sun for this room; shadows shrink and grow, dance and shiver as the glow flickers. No fire, but a flame that nervously navigates the hallways and rooms of a shy cottage. Beyond the nostalgic comfort of the stone walls and thatched roof, the rain awakes. No thunder, only the hypnotic drops of water.
No peace of mind, but an indulgence in indifference. A really, really bad week.
The imperfect cottage is nationless, it belongs to no continent or country, it acknowledges only that which one may see from its roof, the house answers to no map.
The woman wakes startled and, once no longer startled, grows disappointed; sloth has a manner making such jokes, laughing at the regret of not having tended to the problem at first opportunity.
She finds the seeds of a fire: hardwood near the fireplace, along with pinecones; there is newspapers in a heap of paper on the kitchen counter. The spectral movement of the previous night, as though belonging to the domain of fatigue, is gone, slept off. The fireplace is a small metal structure that grows from the wall (a recent addition to the old house). The woman starts a fire with an ease she did not expect, watches the flames grow; she continues to find an old stainless steel kettle, old sugar and older instant coffee. She places the filled kettle on the fireplace. Hot water, sugar, coffee. Three out of four.
The woman walks out through the backdoor, and freezes, breathless and without heartbeat for seconds. A great dead ash tree had grown into and displaced an old windmill, an ominous monolith of growth, haunting the landscape; naked branches cut and crack the pale sky, its trunk like an elephant and tusks, whitefromdeath. A monument that it is dead but has not stopped growing. The rusted mill turns slowly, red and orange and grey textures probe the sky in slow-motion as though underwater.
She had not noticed the tree the day before, she knew it had not been there. Had it?
And then the wind blows, and maybe she hears the tree wail.
Last edited by Brendan N : 11-05-2007 at 07:54 AM.
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