Thread: Die Kaeltierglü -- 2100 wrds(death)

Die Kaeltierglü -- 2100 wrds

The beach was a long ribbon of sand, punctuated by staggering towers of isolated, moss covered rocks. Between them gurgled the salt spray of an unknown ocean. Further in, the palm trees whispered softly in the breeze. Seabirds of many shapes and sizes flew in circles in the sky, dunking themselves in the drink both for pleasure and to catch a belly filling meal.


In this peaceful place, a figure walked along the beach. A faded, purple jacket draped itself around his shoulders, embroided with images of dragons and clouds. He walked up a slope into a small encampment, where a fire had been burning into the night.


Another male, a boy, sat beside the flames. The man gestured for the boy to allow him to sit, and the boy did so. There they sat, in silence, neither saying a word about the wreck, the journey to the south, the wolves that had hunted them. Instead, the old man took out a bundle wrapped in string and paper, and the two shared a meal of fish and bread.


In the days of the journey, when the man had carried the child on his back from that twisted house of metal and fire, it had not been certain if the boy would live. He had rubbed the child's toes to avoid frostbite. Had had to hold the child upside down and slap it's back to remove the green, thick phlegm that plagued its lungs. The child's blue lips had cracked and bled, and the blood had frozen on the skin. Often the man had prayed to god that he didn't carry a corpse.


Luck led them to the honeycombs, the chain of caves that led to this southern paradise of warmth and sun. But the wolves. Thick muscled beasts of teeth and hide, with arched backs and heads down low, plagued that place. They wished to welcome the boy and the man, only to close the entrance and have a feast amongst their own greedy selves.


When the old man thought of a return, the bitter cold and the famished hounds that had tracked them throughout, he frowned. A trip north, back to Kedlstamach would kill them both.


The floor of the wooden cabin they slept in was hard, irregular, and bumpy. Patches of dirt and sand, as well as leaves bled through the wood, attempting to convert it back to dust. In the cramped space, the old man slept on his back, his long legs stretching outside the cabin's only door. The boy slept on his side. He held a picture of his mother always up to the lamp light.


In the orange glow, she was beautiful, even if the paper itself was black and white. It was a simple picture; a snapshot taken by a photographer back on earth, of her getting ready for some social event. She wore a dress of lace and pearls. Her hair hung long about her face as she brushed it. In the background, a man in a suit waited impatiently to the side, looking at a bronze pocketwatch. On the watch were engravings of dragons and clouds.


At that moment, a cold draft of air pushed itself in, and the boy felt within him a violent sneeze. He huddled up closer to the old man, seeking the comfort and the warmth that he brought.


The next day, something was different. The waves came in droves, crashing violently into the thin strip separating this ocean from the trees. The man and the boy slept soundly through the increasing destruction and power of the punctuating booms, until at last one giant roar burst through the cover of their site. The fire immediately fizzled out in a tiny whuff. The gurgling overflow smashed the palm trees to the ground before the wave receded.


The old man sat up. The ground was shifting. He shook the boy awake.


"Erhund. Wake up. Come outside, quickly." And the two emerged to see a swollen, salty beast of a sea upon them. The next surge was fast approaching. The boy turned to run, but the old man clapped him by the side of his head. "Bloody fool! I taught you better than that."


Looking at the wave, he guaged the time of impact to be about three minutes, plus or minus two. One minute. Or five. "Erhund, gather the fallen palm trees. What you can carry." The old man gestured at the front of the cabin. "We'll survive together. But only then."


The boy, shaking, began to drag the palm trees in front of the cabin. The old man, not fit for this kind of work, wrapped what little supplies they had, the lantern oil, the boy's photograph, some fish and bread, a hunting knife and his staff, up into a tarp. "Pack them together, Erhund. But not too tightly. They must be a loose fit."


The boy, while sickly in the cold, was strong in the warm environment, and the palms on this planet were spongy and thick, yet light and broad. But time was cut short. The soil beneath their feet started to trickle and fill in with water.


"That's enough." The two climbed on top of the small wooden cabin. A good size amount of the palm tree debris had been layered in front, but there was no telling of the force of the surge to be. It might be useless. The wave swelled up, and the sky darkened. The old man put his hand on the boy's shoulder, sensing the tenseness in his muscles.


"Keep your body lax, Erhund. Now lie down." The two of them lay down on the roof. Anticipating the inevitable.


The force of the surge violently rocketed around the meagre brush that lay in front of them. The cabin was severed from the ground with a violent pop, but held its form. The palms were crushed and reduced to splinters, scattered through the air like mulch, but reduced much of the force of the blow. Still, the force tossed them both about like coins from a street vendor. The boy held on for dear life, but the old man was knocked unconcious, and slowly slid off the cabin into the laughing waters. He was dragged on a bit, and finally deposited along the sandy beach as the riptide sucked itself back out from whence it came.


The cabin finally landed several hundred feet away, in a desolate clearing. All was quiet, with the exception of the ragged gasps coming from the boy's lungs. He clutched himself to the cabin, almost in a death like trance. And it wasn't until several minutes had passed that the boy slowly detached himself. Several minutes later, he looked around. Dark, swollen thunderheads were rolling in from the north.


The old man woke up to Erhund calling his voice. The white, almost feminine beauty of the boy's face over him occupied the man's vision. "Hello." But the moment of reunion was ruined, as he coughed and spat a sea of blood onto the grass. The two of them once more were around a small fire, this time naked, with their soaked clothes drying on a tree branch. It wasn't a palm. Large, broad trees towered over them in the twilight. They sky was gone, replaced by a filtered glow on dark green.


Large, bulbous plants choked each other in a mad dash upwards towards the light. The air was heavy and dusky. "Where are we, boy?"


"Away from the sea."


The man snorted. "Erhund, did I not tell you not to be a fool? Help me up..." But the man winced in pain."


"Are you going to die?" Erhund asked. There was a tremor in his voice.


"Nothing but a fractured rib." The old man took the tarp and fashioned it into a splint of sorts.


"I saw some clouds to the north." Erhund said. As the old man dressed, he listened to the boy's description of the clouds. Their shape. Texture. The sudden change in weather was unsettling. Winter might be coming down south.


The environment changed with the passing of the weeks. The dark green canopy that towered above turned to ashen white. One morning a dense mist appeared on the forest floor, and thousands, perhaps millions, of tiny, spore-like seeds rained down from the canopy, creating the impression of a winter wonderland, even amidst the warm heat. The boy began to cough and spit up phlegm from time to time as the air turned cooler, and it seemed like they heard the chatter of the birds less, replaced only by the silence of the forest.


"We have to leave." Erhund spoke the words as they sat around the fire one night. There was a tone of resignation in his voice. Over the past weeks, his dark hair had become matted. His cheeks had become gaunt and sunken. The old man had pained to see this in the boy.




Though the old man gave an almost imperceptible nod, he spoke, "You won't survive the trip north, back into Kedlstamach."


"I won't survive the trip to stay."


Again, the old man nodded, just imperceptibly. Just to himself. It occured to him that Erhund had been sniffling last night. Had cried out for his mother in the night. Despite the boy's size, he was still very young. And yet in these past few months, the boy had been faced with death several times. The wreckage. The wolves. The wave. But the cold always promised certain death, and now he was meeting his undertaker. Truly, the boy was going to die.


So was the old man. But he had lived a long life. Had survived a bullet to the head, and had killed many more. He wondered what lady death had in store for them.


"Did I ever tell you about the time I almost died in Chechnya?" The old man said.


There was a pause.


"Chechnya?"


"I took a bullet to the head, right here," The old man tapped the spot between his temple and his neck. "Laid in that field for... two days. I was hallucinating. Starting seeing my wife with all sorts of other men. Starting seeing my head on a stake. Started seeing the dragon. It drove me mad," The old man leaned in close, "But most of all, I saw lady death come for me when my time was up."


The boy visibly shook. He then gagged on his own phlegm, and lurched over to hack it out. On all fours, the boy whimpered.


"What did you do?"


"Nothing boy. It was a hallucination." There was a silence. Then, the old man added, "But when they did find me on that mountain slope, they said something. I had the most peaceful face they had ever seen."


The honeycombs were a large, interconnected realm of underground caverns. Yawning spaces and chasms made some places inside look like outer space. Other areas were illuminated by thousands of purple, octopus-eye gems, massive in scope and worth trillions each back on earth. With each step the two took, a rapid-fire echo bounced around the caverns, creating a tumultous laughter. The world was laughing, and singing, and dancing. The world was playing it's song of death.


The boy had gotten progressively worse. Large hacking fits. His skin was now ashen grey and he had trouble walking. While the old man, it seemed, had aquired an infection where he had broken his rib.


"Erhund--" The old man rasped. "Let us... take a break..." They almost flopped over instead of sat down. And there they lay. A pain crushed the old man's chest like never before. Daggers seemed to be lining his lungs. The boy seemed to be in his grave already with the freezing air around them.


And then, the inevitable happened. A hollow sounding yip filled the air. A scout had found prey for the pack, and was signaling reinforcements. The old man could smell them. Hungry, starving wolves from the north, finally caught up with their prey. He could smell the testosterone, the muscle, the musk. The saliva.


Erhund next to him was crying. The wolves would keep them alive as they ate them. It would be long and painful. But it didn't have to be that way. The old man took out his hunting knife, which he kept in his arm sheath. The wolves might keep himself alive, but he at least could find the strength to end Erhund's suffering. He said a prayer in his head, mentally cleansing himself of all his sins, then:


"Smile, Erhund. Just smile."

pure genius... sorry if i interrupt you

Wonderful. The imagery was spot on.

Urm...thank you.

Some excellent sentences. I got a bit tired of the old man, the boy, and the whole structure of this happened, then that happened, seemed a bit dry. Definitely worth working on.

I really enjoyed this. There was some interesting vocab and phrasing. I would go over it once again to make it perfect and give a bit more clarification to the ending (or at least the build-up to it), which seemed a little hurried.

Ah! Thank you tunnel! And Higurro! Please, feel free to elaborate. How would you change the structure? What precisely did you get tired of, so as I can improve upon it? The ending seemed a little hurried? I definitely feel you, Higurro. Thanks a lot for you're feedback! Anything else?

Thanks, both of you.

I thought the content of the ending itself was great - the idea that the old man, after supporting this sickly boy with his last strength, only to choose euthanasia and a slow death for himself, was rather poignant and moving. I think the only slight issue was the sudden change of scene after "'...most peaceful face they had ever seen.'", which caught me slightly off guard. If there was a tiny bit more insight into the thought process of the old man as he realises that things are beyond hope, that would just about do it. I wanted to know the torment of making that decision. Hope that helps!

That was beautifully written, perfectly paced, and fantastically intriguing. Your writing is very poetic, but never so much so that it becomes a chore to read. I enjoyed every moment of that.
I would love to know if there is any more to this story. It has so much potential and I feel we were only given a brief snapshot into a much more complex story, spanning generations and dimensions(?).
Sorry I can't offer anything in the way of critique. It all sounded very polished to me.

Originally Posted by Die Oldhaetunde

Die Kaeltierglü -- 2100 wrds

The beach was a long ribbon of sand, punctuated I love this use of the word punctuated. by staggering towers of isolated, The words staggering and isolated make me think of a grim landscape (not peaceful). I'd replace them with words that carry a more positive/neutral connotation. moss covered rocks. Between them gurgled the salt spray of an unknown ocean. Strikes me as odd that the narrator would describe the ocean as unknown. Just doesn't seem to fit. Further in, the palm trees whispered softly in the breeze. Seabirds of many shapes and sizes flew in circles in the sky, dunking themselves in the drink both for pleasure and to catch a belly filling meal.


In this peaceful place, a figure walked along the beach. A faded, purple jacket draped itself around his shoulders, embroidered with images of dragons and clouds. He walked up a slope into a small encampment, where a fire had been burning into the night.


Another male, a boy, sat beside the flames. The man gestured for the boy to allow him to sit, and the boy did so. This last sentence is awkward.. I don't like the structure of it. I'd just have the man sit down. If they know each other so well and have been through so much together why would he need permission to sit? Seems like the sort of thing people abandon after braving the wilderness together for a while. There they sat, in silence, neither saying a word about the wreck, the journey to the south, the wolves that had hunted them. Instead, the old man took out a bundle wrapped in string and paper, and the two shared a meal of fish and bread.


In the days of the journey, when the man had carried the child on his back from that twisted house of metal and fire, it had not been certain if the boy would live. He had rubbed the child's toes to avoid frostbite. Had had to hold the child upside down and slap it's back to remove the green, thick phlegm that plagued its lungs. The use of 'it' to describe the child leads me to believe the man doesn't have much of an emotional connection to the boy. Is this what you're going for?The child's blue lips had cracked and bled, and the blood had frozen on the skin. Often the man had prayed to god that he didn't carry a corpse.


Luck led them to the honeycombs, the chain of caves that led to this southern paradise of warmth and sun. But the wolves. Thick muscled beasts of teeth and hide, with arched backs and heads down low, plagued that place. They wished to welcome the boy and the man, only to close the entrance and have a feast amongst their own greedy selves.


When the old man thought of a return, the bitter cold and the famished hounds that had tracked them throughout, he frowned. A trip north, back to Kedlstamach would kill them both.


The floor of the wooden cabin they slept in was hard, irregular, and bumpy. Patches of dirt and sand, as well as leaves bled through the wood, attempting to convert it back to dust. In the cramped space, the old man slept on his back, his long legs stretching outside the cabin's only door. The boy slept on his side. He held a picture of his mother always up to the lamp light.


In the orange glow, she was beautiful, even if the paper itself was black and white. It was a simple picture; a snapshot taken by a photographer back on earth, of her getting ready for some social event. She wore a dress of lace and pearls. Her hair hung long about her face as she brushed it. In the background, a man in a suit waited impatiently to the side, looking at a bronze pocketwatch. On the watch were engravings of dragons and clouds.


At that moment, a cold draft of air pushed itself in, and the boy felt within him a violent sneeze. I don't think a sneeze fits here. Maybe a cough? Or chills? He huddled up closer to the old man, seeking the comfort and the warmth that he brought.


The next day, something was different. The waves came in droves, crashing violently into the thin strip separating this ocean from the trees. The man and the boy slept soundly through the increasing destruction and power of the punctuating Punctuating, to me, is too memorable a word to use again. Way too soon. booms, until at last one giant roar burst through the cover of their site. The fire immediately fizzled out in a tiny whuff. The gurgling You used the word gurgling in the first paragraph to describe the ocean at rest, a peaceful scene. I'd use a different, more powerful/alarming, word now that you're building up to a storm. overflow smashed the palm trees to the ground before the wave receded.


The old man sat up. The ground was shifting. He shook the boy awake.


"Erhund. Wake up. Come outside, quickly." And the two emerged to see a swollen, salty beast of a sea upon them. The next surge was fast approaching. The boy turned to run, but the old man clapped him by the side of his head. "Bloody fool! I taught you better than that."


Looking at the wave, he gauged the time of impact to be about three minutes, plus or minus two. One minute. Or five. "Erhund, gather the fallen palm trees. What you can carry." The old man gestured at the front of the cabin. "We'll survive together. But only then."


The boy, shaking, began to drag the palm trees in front of the cabin. The old man, not fit for this kind of work, wrapped what little supplies they had, the lantern oil, the boy's photograph, some fish and bread, a hunting knife and his staff, up into a tarp. "Pack them together, Erhund. But not too tightly. They must be a loose fit."


The boy, while sickly in the cold, was strong in the warm environment, and the palms on this planet were spongy and thick, yet light and broad. This feels like an incomplete thought. You never made a connection between his state of being and the type of palm trees..? But time was cut short. The soil beneath their feet started to trickle and fill in with water.


"That's enough." The two climbed on top of the small wooden cabin. A good size amount of the palm tree debris had been layered in front, but there was no telling of the force of the surge to be. It might be useless. The wave swelled up, and the sky darkened. The old man put his hand on the boy's shoulder, sensing the tenseness in his muscles.


"Keep your body lax, Erhund. Now lie down." The two of them lay down on the roof. Anticipating the inevitable.


The force of the surge violently rocketed around the meagre brush that lay in front of them. The cabin was severed from the ground with a violent pop, but held its form. The palms were crushed and reduced to splinters, scattered through the air like mulch, but reduced much of the force of the blow. Still, the force tossed them both about like coins from a street vendor. The boy held on for dear life, but the old man was knocked unconcious, and slowly slid off the cabin into the laughing waters. He was dragged on a bit, and finally deposited along the sandy beach as the riptide sucked itself back out from whence it came.


The cabin finally landed several hundred feet away, in a desolate clearing. All was quiet, with the exception of the ragged gasps coming from the boy's lungs. He clutched himself to the cabin, almost in a death like trance. And it wasn't until several minutes had passed that the boy slowly detached himself. Several minutes later, he looked around. Dark, swollenAlready used the word swollen to describe the storm. thunderheads were rolling in from the north.


The old man woke up to Erhund calling his voice. The white, almost feminine beauty of the boy's face over him occupied the man's vision. "Hello." But the moment of reunion was ruined, as he coughed and spat a sea of blood onto the grass. What grass? I thought he was unconscious on the sand? Unless the boy dragged his body back to their "camp site"? I think you should specify. The two of them once more were around a small fire, this time naked, with their soaked clothes drying on a tree branch. It wasn't a palm. Large, broad trees towered over them in the twilight. They sky was gone, replaced by a filtered glow of(?) dark green.


Large, bulbous plants choked each other in a mad dash upwards towards the light. The air was heavy and dusky. "Where are we, boy?"


"Away from the sea."


The man snorted. "Erhund, did I not tell you not to be a fool? Help me up..." But the man winced in pain."


"Are you going to die?" Erhund asked. There was a tremor in his voice.


"Nothing but a fractured rib." The old man took the tarp and fashioned it into a splint of sorts.


"I saw some clouds to the north." Erhund said. As the old man dressed, he listened to the boy's description of the clouds. Their shape. Texture. The sudden change in weather was unsettling. Winter might be coming down south.


The environment changed with the passing of the weeks. The dark green canopy that towered above turned to ashen white. One morning a dense mist appeared on the forest floor, and thousands, perhaps millions, of tiny, spore-like seeds rained down from the canopy, creating the impression of a winter wonderland, even amidst the warm heat. The boy began to cough and spit up phlegm from time to time as the air turned cooler, and it seemed like they heard the chatter of the birds less, replaced only by the silence of the forest.


"We have to leave." Erhund spoke the words as they sat around the fire one night. There was a tone of resignation in his voice. Over the past weeks, his dark hair had become matted. His cheeks had become gaunt and sunken. The old man had pained to see this in the boy.




Though the old man gave an almost imperceptible nod, he spoke, "You won't survive the trip north, back into Kedlstamach."


"I won't survive the trip to stay."


Again, the old man nodded, just imperceptibly. Just to himself. It occured to him that Erhund had been sniffling last night. Had cried out for his mother in the night. Despite the boy's size, he was still very young. And yet in these past few months, the boy had been faced with death several times. The wreckage. The wolves. The wave. But the cold always promised certain death, and now he was meeting his undertaker. Truly, the boy was going to die.


So was the old man. But he had lived a long life. Had survived a bullet to the head, and had killed many more. He wondered what Lady Death had in store for them.


"Did I ever tell you about the time I almost died in Chechnya?" The old man said.


There was a pause.


"Chechnya?"


"I took a bullet to the head, right here," The old man tapped the spot between his temple and his neck. Your temple and neck is quite a distance as far as bullets go. I'd be more specific. Cheekbone? Jaw? Ear? "Laid in that field for... two days. I was hallucinating. Starting seeing my wife with all sorts of other men. Starting seeing my head on a stake. Started seeing the dragon. It drove me mad," The old man leaned in close, "But most of all, I saw Lady Death come for me when my time was up."


The boy visibly shook. He then gagged on his own phlegm, and lurched over to hack it out. On all fours, the boy whimpered.


"What did you do?"


"Nothing boy. It was a hallucination." There was a silence. Then, the old man added, "But when they did find me on that mountain slope, they said something. I had the most peaceful face they had ever seen."


The honeycombs were a large, interconnected realm of underground caverns. Yawning spaces and chasms made some places inside look like outer space. Other areas were illuminated by thousands of purple, octopus-eye gems, massive in scope and worth trillions Trillions seems a bit juvenile. each back on earth. With each step the two took, a rapid-fire echo bounced around the caverns, creating a tumultous laughter. The world was laughing, and singing, and dancing. The world was playing it's song of death.


The boy had gotten progressively worse. Large hacking fits. His skin was now ashen Ashen again. grey and he had trouble walking. While the old man, it seemed, had aquired an infection where he had broken his rib.


"Erhund--" The old man rasped. "Let us... take a break..." They almost flopped over instead of sat down. And there they lay. A pain crushed the old man's chest like never before. Daggers seemed to be lining his lungs. The boy seemed to be in his grave already with the freezing air around them.


And then, the inevitable happened. A hollow sounding yip filled the air. A scout had found prey for the pack, and was signaling reinforcements. The old man could smell them. Hungry, starving wolves from the north, finally caught up with their prey. He could smell the testosterone, the muscle, the musk. The saliva.


Erhund next to him was crying. The wolves would keep them alive as they ate them. It would be long and painful. But it didn't have to be that way. The old man took out his hunting knife, which he kept in his arm sheath. The wolves might keep himself alive, but he at least could find the strength to end Erhund's suffering. He said a prayer in his head, mentally cleansing himself of all his sins, then:


"Smile, Erhund. Just smile."

Thanks for your comments, Alanabunny.