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Prolific Writer
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Tucson, Az, USA
Gender: Male
Posts: 394
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Writing Exercise - took on a life of its own
As I laid the cold barrel against my throat I felt something like an electrical shock strike through me. My toes twitched, ready. A shotgun is an intimidating weapon, especially when viewed from the business end. There is something about the light swallowing blackness of a gun barrel that is singularly menacing. This effect is even more powerful when the one with their finger on the trigger is your worst enemy in the whole world. In my case, that was me. I forced myself to look at the barrel close up, let my eye linger, roll around its edge and slowly fall in. Piercing the black mystery, before diving in forever. I’ve never been to a psychic, perhaps I could have averted this, but as I gazed at that black hole I decided that gun barrels and crystal balls are close kin. They both tell you your future, although one is slightly more accurate then the other.
Sadly, I’d never thought of that before, I should’ve given that crystal ball a chance, it might have told me just how horrible hell would turn out to be. Too late. It’s funny, now, to tell the story. I speak as if everything was so calmly enacted, relating it cold. Without emotion. The truth, in fact, is quite the opposite. My heart was willing, but my hands were not. There was a lot of sweat and tears, and it took an astounding feat of concentration to curl my final finger.
Blackness.
Light.
“Henry?” A soft touch upon my face. I have a beard! My eyes opened slowly. Painfully, squinting against the bright white light.
“Henry?” Who’s Henry? There is a dark figure to my right. A feathery hand brushes my hair from my brow. The light begins to soften, to clarify. The figure is a young woman, she has full, sensual red lips, and emotive, dark eyes. She smiles.
“Henry! You wake!” She leans close and I feel a quick touch of lips and breath high upon my cheek, almost next to my eye. I cannot move. My instinct was to reach up and pull her close, to bring her lips into contact with mine. But nothing happened. Not even a tremor. Oddly, I remained calm. Although this is quite different from what I’d expected. She disappears from view. I can see better now. Above me is a white ceiling, upon which played the shadow of a tree. To the right a window, the thick white curtains were tightly drawn. To my left was a bureau, with a beautifully carved oval mirror. Upon that bureau sat a white porcelain bowl and pitcher.
I heard footsteps and she returned with an old, plump woman. Her hair was dark and pulled tightly back. Her face stern and she gazed skeptically down her nose at me. When we locked eyes I felt a jolt, and when her hands touched me they were like fire. Her voice was smooth and deep.
“He’ll be fine.” She looked at the young woman.
“He needs rest.” She uncapped a small brown bottle and poured a bit into my dry mouth. I could not swallow, so it raced like lava around my tongue, down my throat and into my stomach. Immediately I felt strength and vigor pulse throughout my body. I began to sit up, a reflexive action, but she put her hot hand on my brow and pushed me back down.
“Rest” she said, and I did.
Blackness.
I feel warmth on my chest. Wetness. My eyes open and I see her again. Her hair is loose, tossled in front of her face. My blankets are off. My chest is bared. She is rubbing a warm, wet sponge across my shoulders, under my arms, and along the line of my waist where the blankets remain covering. She is lost in thought. I could grab her now. I feel strength in my limbs. But who is she? Where am I? Suddenly it clicked. Who am I? Henry, she had said. Am I Henry? I watch her hand linger, her light finger is tracing circles upon my chest. I try to remain still, to suppress the shudders, but my body reacts independent of itself and raises approval of her physical touch. Her hand stops, freezes, and she looks at me. Our eyes meet and I attempt a smile. There is an odd, confused look in her eyes, she squeaks and puts her delicate hand over her perfect mouth. She averts her gaze, hastily dries me off and covers me again before dashing out of the room. Seems like she doesn’t like me, too bad. I was going to ask her to a movie.
What’s a movie?
I lay there for the next few hours, watching the shadow climb the far wall as the sun settled in the west, and tried to probe my own mind. I wanted to know who Henry was, what was I like, who were these people? Was I related to that girl? I got up and walked over to the bureau, gazing at myself in the mirror. I was tall, broadly built, and in extremely good physical shape. I looked like a freakin’ NFL linebacker.
A what?
My body still felt slightly weak, but I also felt a strength I’d never know before. Why was that? My hand leapt to my throat as I felt an odd coldness, almost as if something had touched me. For a brief moment, I saw something in my mind. Another mirror, another face, this one streaked with tears and younger, much younger. Was this me as a boy? I looked at my present face again, studying it. They didn’t match. Somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very odd about this situation. The fact that I had chased my beautiful nursemaid out of the room with a raging hard-on, and that I was completely ignorant of who, what, where, when, and why I was notwithstanding for the moment, I felt like an alien. Not of this earth.
The door opened and I turned to look. In came my angel, but as soon as she saw me her hands flew to her eyes, she spun lightly on her heel and bolted out of the room the door drifting shut behind her as if chasing her wonderful rear parts. God how I wished I didn’t end up being related to this girl. Wouldn’t that be just my luck?
I don’t know, would it?
I pulled open the top drawer of the bureau looking for something to wear, and there was a soft knock on the door. It opened a crack.
“Henry?” Opening a slight amount more, I could see her shadow, feel her gaze upon me.
“Your clothes are in the closet, I mended them for you. Tia says you’re to come down for dinner tonight, you should be healthy enough.” There was a wonderful, sing-song, lilt to her voice.
“Thank you.” I said, and the door clicked shut. My voice sounded weird. Deep, something told me it was wrong. All this was wrong. But since I don’t know anything about anything, how do I know what it should be like? I ambled over to the closet and opened it, my clothes were wrong too. Inside was a pair of brown pants and a bluish gray button up shirt. Beneath them was a pair of cowboy boots with some old wool socks hanging out like dog’s tongues. These were my clothes? I couldn’t dredge to mind what I thought was normal clothing, but this sure as hell was not it. I felt a strange, falling sensation in my stomach. It was beginning to dawn on me that something was very, very wrong.
I got dressed awkwardly. The pants, for one, were stiff like canvas, and the shirt was rough spun fabric, thick and itchy. No undershirt? The socks were the same course material as the shirt and the boots were comfortable, well worn – to this foot – but seriously? I honestly don’t think I’ve ever worn boots like this. Ever. I put my getup on and check myself in the mirror, the sun was getting quite low and the room was darkening, I looked at myself and froze. For the briefest of moments I saw another person, another room. I shook it off and left the room. I followed a hallway until I found a staircase, from there I followed the voices.
I entered a large dining room. There was an older, regal, bearded man seated at the head of the table and four large young men seated two on each side. Their conversation stopped as I entered, all eyes were on me. Into the room, from behind the older gentleman came my beautiful angel, holding a large cook dish heaped five or six whole roasted chickens. Our eyes met, she lingered, a brief panic flashing before her eyes.
“Well, well, well.” Came a booming, warm, cultured voice.
“Our Henry is recovered. And looks remarkably healthy!” It was the man at the head of the table, there was no malice in his eye. I looked at the boys, the two on his left – my right – were identical twins, blond, young, probably sixteen or so, and seemed genuinely amazed to see me. On his right were two older boys, one dark haired and one red. They both looked at me with hatred. They smiled well enough, but their eyes smoldered. I’d seen this look before.
Where?
“So Henry?” Came the booming voice again.
“You can still talk, can’t you?” I decided to play it stupid.
“Yeah.” I tried to look sickly and clumsy, rubbing a shaky hand through my hair.
“I feel better now.” I looked at them, they all looked at me. The old man burst out with a peeling, thunderous laugh.
“He feels better now!” The boys joined him and they all roared with laughter, slapping strong hands on the table, causing the plates and silverware to leap with a clamorous return.
“Well,” he finally said when they had all settled down. “We’re glad the good lord didn’t take you.”
“Yeah, real glad.” Said the red head snottily. One of the young twins exclaimed,
“We got that Ratt’ler which bit ya!” Ratt’ler? Snake! I was bitten by a snake! That was good to know.
“Thanks, I guess.” I said, and they returned a strange look.
“It was a big’un too.” Drawled a voice from across the table. I sat down in an open seat next to the twins and gazed across at the new speaker. It was the dark haired young man. He had glinty gray eyes, and knife like facial features. His hair was shoulder length and greasy, he punched at me with his cold eyes and continued.
“Got me a nice new skin out of it, though. Thanks for being my bird dog, Henry.” The red head snorted, and spoke under his breath.
“You mean, snake dog.” They laughed, until a stern look from the head of the table silenced them. I didn’t like these two.
“That’s cool,” I said.
“You gonna make some shoes out of it or something?” I tried to sound nonchalant and aloof. These guys were typical bullies, but when I spoke everyone just stared at me.
“What did you say Henry?” The older man asked me, his voice soft.
“I said, that’s cool, that he got the snake skin. What’s he gonna make out of it.” I tried to look innocent, before hastily adding, “sir.”
The old man was thunderstruck. I looked around at their faces, in the doorway I could see the old woman who’d given me that medicine. Her eyes were burning, staring at me. She put a finger to her lips, and disappeared into the doorway. I got the picture. Shut the hell up.
“Cool?” Asked the twins in unison. I just shrugged my shoulders, and looked at my plate. This was definitely odd. The older man shook his head and reached out to each side, all of us around the table grasped hands, I tried to reach across to the red head but he ignored me. The man bowed his head and said grace, we all finished with “Amen”, and began to dig in. As we had talked the table had filled with huge bowls of food; mashed potatoes, gravy, stewed carrots, beans, it was a real old west type feast, and suddenly I understood what the ‘old west’ was. I remembered names like Billy the Kid, Jesse James, The Lone Ranger, Clint Eastwood. I remembered about horses, hats, and hangings, and posses, and Indians. Did I live in the ‘old west’? I looked around at the furnishings, my clothes. I must, this must be where I live. A rattlesnake had bitten me. I lived on a ranch of some sort. But why would I call it ‘old’? My stomach growled angrily in protest and I dug in like everyone else, heaping food onto my plate.
Something else bothered my as I ate silently. Why was I hesitant to tell everyone I didn’t remember anything? Was it some kind of survival instinct? I could not shake the strange feeling that this was not real, that everything was wrong. Even me. I was wrong. I looked at my thick calloused hand. Strong, large, square tipped fingers. I felt my beard against my neck. It itched slightly. I’ve never had a beard before, maybe I grew one while I was incapacitated. But that didn’t explain the fact that I knew, deep down, I’d never worked a hard day in my life. I liked to sit and play games, watch TV. What is TV? And this is where my urge to remain quiet arose; something told me that these questions were best left unspoken. These questions were dangerous.
Why they were dangerous was what I had to find out. The older gentleman, who I assumed to be my father, or in the very least my benefactor, - does that mean these boys are my brothers? - rang a small bell next to his plate and my gorgeous angel came into the room. She shot me a quick glance as stood at his side. I looked across the table and I saw the two bullies looking at her with lecherous, greedy eyes. Immediately I wanted to smash them both in the face. The dark haired young man looked aver at me, and met my gaze with a ferocious challenge, I knew then that we were going to have some sort of confrontation. My beautiful angel left and returned with a pitcher of tea. I looked at my own cup. A dented tin cup, I wanted to ask for ice, but I was beginning to think they wouldn’t have any.
After dinner my dad and brothers went to sit on the front porch, but the severe old woman grabbed and me and led me upstairs. She looked at me with a cold, hard eye and her grip was very strong for a fat old lady. She led me into the room and sat me on the bed. She went over and closed the door, then turned on me.
“What’re you doing, opening your mouth like that?” She stormed over and stood over me, her hands on her wide hips.
“like what?”
“Like you all smart. Henry’s a dummy, you better start acting like one.” Act like one? And then it hit me. I was right all along, I’m not Henry, and she knows it!
“Really?” I asked, “well what the hell is going on?”
She looked at me quizzically.
“You know what’s going on.” I’d had it. I told her of my amnesia, and she looked immediately sad. Her shoulders slumped and she leaned back against the bureau. She reached into her shirt and pulled out a leather bag which was tied around her neck. She rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger while looking me in the eye. Her eyes got dark, she was humming something, saying something under her breath and in the darkness of the room, it was almost night out now, a faint red nimbus seemed to play about her.
I felt an electric twinge run through my body and suddenly remembered something. I live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I couldn’t remove my gaze from her eyes. They looked like deep black pits, like….. what? And my mind suddenly filled with remembrance, they looked like gun barrels. My name wasn’t Henry, my name was Steven Mitchell, I was 33 years old, and until recently lived with my girlfriend Nicole. I say recently because she had just left me, taking everything. I came home from work and the house was empty, all the furniture, the TV, the stereo, all the CD’s, everything was gone, except my clothes and my shotgun. The shotgun I had used to blow my brains out in a fit of drunken desperation. Now I was here, and this woman was responsible somehow. My heart – Henry’s heart – began to bang as if a storm cloud had formed in my chest.
“If I’m here what happened to this guy.” I pointed at myself.
“To Henry.” She looked at me evilly, coldly.
“He dead.”
“Did you kill him?” She smirked.
“No, the snake did, I just used his body.”
“So what? You’re a witch?” She smiled, and answered.
“I am a Bruja, and I summoned a spirit to do my bidding. It is an ancient spell.” She looked at me with a dark, clear eyed gaze.
“You are my spirit, and you will do my bidding.” I recoiled in disgust, I could feel Henry’s face – my face – wrinkle in doubt. I had never really dealt well with authority, especially from crabby old women.
“Or else what?” I asked. She spoke softly but her words hit hard.
“Or else nothing, you will do what I say.”
“No I wont.”
“Then I will curse you to inhabit the body of the dead, for all time.” I didn’t ask what that meant. I’m not sure I wanted to know. It dawned on me suddenly that she did pull me here – where was here by the way – and she did seem to be serious. Ever the businessman I asked another question.
“What is it you want me to do?”
Last edited by Uriah : 03-27-2007 at 04:57 PM.
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