marl

Louis tramped down the muddy trail. The rain fell in sheets, the drops heavy and silent until they splattered on the canopy of leaves above and the ground below. Dusk was near its end as he rounded a corner and came out of the dense forest. A field opened up in front of him. Beneath the sound of rain and the sloshing of his boots was a dull thudding of pounding. Light bounced and zigzagged from the headlamps of endless, shadowy figures in the darkening field. Louis stopped to look. It was a sight too big to take in. Thousands of people worked in an endless motion of pumping sledges into the air and throwing them down, throwing them up and pumping them down. It was like looking at the mass movement of an anthill, except that the clearing was the size of a mall parking lot and filled with workers. The trail faintly led itself through the field towards the beginning of a distant forest some four or five hundred yards away. CRACK! THUMP! The noise surrounded him and he was frightened to meet this scene deep in the mountains. It didn’t make sense. He started on again and when he neared the halfway point in the field he turned off the path and stopped in front of a woman as she made a conclusive, final drive with a sledgehammer onto the top of a wooden cross.

“What is this?” Louis asked.

“We are working.” The woman replied, folding her arms on the cross and leaning her weight on it. The rain was coming down harder, and being exposed in the open field, the wind whipped and whistled around them.

“What...,” Louis asked, “who are these for?”

“I am busy and must keep working,” the woman said, wiping water from her forehead.

“But, who are these for? There are more graves here than I can count.”

“Man, these are for you. They are not yet graves. All of these are for you, you have lived a full life.” She turned and began to pound another cross into the wet earth. Louis noticed there was mud all over the woman. Her face was smeared with it and he could see her teeth bared and hear her grunt as she hit the top of the cross with the hammer. Her whole body uncoiled as she raised the sledge high, then swung it down using the momentum she had gathered in her body. When the head of the sledge hit the cross, the force pushed the cross into the ground a whole foot. Louis jolted, as if punched.

“What are you talking about? These graves are not for me. I’m alive, healthy.” Louis’ brow wrinkled and he looked into the woman’s eyes.

“These are not graves. They are crosses and they are your sins and virtues, relationships, mother and father, they are all of you. We are preparing a place where they can rest so you can be in peace.”
She looked at him and her headlamp shone him in the face, blinding him.

“I don’t understand what you are talking about.” He said, looking away.

“You don’t have to, indeed, you can’t, so don’t try. Accept this. You have no choice.”

“Does this mean I’m going to die?”

She did not reply but went on pounding the cross.

He looked around him and saw thousands of crosses disappearing into the quickly approaching night. The pounding filled his head until it was the only thing he could hear; it became the single focus of his senses. He looked for the woman but she was gone, lost in the maddening sea of people and crosses. Night was falling quickly and he had to make camp soon, before there was no light left. Louis went on, following the trail until he reached the forest and vowed to himself to make camp only when he could no longer hear the sound of the sledges pounding crosses into the ground. He could not escape the sound though, because even when he was far beyond the reach of the noise, it would not leave his head. THUD! CRACK! THUD! CRACK! Laying a cross and muddy bed for his life to rest. All of his history, he knew, all of his future were being prepared for sleep. Of course he was going to die, he thought, when doesn’t matter. Angels, the thought passed through him. Beneath the rain, inside his tent and inside his sleeping bag, the crosses sank into the earth one at a time as Louis fell into an easy sleep.
Louis woke with the sunrise. It was cold and wet, to wet to collect wood for a fire, so he got out his canister stove and boiled water to make oatmeal and coffee. The memory of the night before came rushing back to him and hit him like a brick wall on wheels. It wasn’t a dream, he knew. Louis quickly ate his oatmeal, drank his coffee and rolled up his tent, tied it on to his backpack and headed back toward the field.

It was a long way back. He had gone about five miles and over a pass to escape the sounds coming from the field of crosses. The trail was muddy and the trees dripping water, his pack and clothes were dry and his tent wrapped in a waterproof bag. It was clear now though, and the sun was just above the horizon. After a couple hours he came upon the field and what greeted him was more horrifying than what he had experienced the night before.

Even before he made it to the field he could smell something wafting through the trees. The leaves rustled and seemed to breathe in the odor and exhale its breath upon Louis as he walked down the trail. The smell was acrid, burnt and black, alive as death and slithering through the trees like an ogre whispering in an unknown language a message into his ear. But he thought he understood and when he saw the field he knew he had got the message right because it was as he knew life to be. He knew life was not full of hope, but merely a long series of moments and with peace there is no life, no tension from which to spring.

The field lay open beneath the sunlight. Smoke rose up off the burnt floor of the field. Bodies were burnt and twisted lumps, the crosses were ashes and the field as a whole was a simmering bed of coals. Now the only sounds were the tweeting of bird call and the sharp cackle of coals. One body lay near him and was not burnt, but the back of the head was gone and lay in a mash of blood and skin and hair on the ground. Shot. The smell of death, mass murder was overwhelming. Louis turned back towards the forest and stumbled a few feet towards the cover of trees and fell to his knees, nearly fainting and puked up his oatmeal and coffee.

He felt better after throwing up and got back on his feet. This scene was confirmation. This was what he understood. His back to the death behind him, he started walking up the trail, away from the field, into the forest and towards his destination. The field in night, under the rain and working and the field in the morning, burning and dead, fading from reality and into meaning in his mind. Now he could create.

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The two men became suspects in the duck's disappearance after depuites realized that the two lived next door to the duck's owner, Detective Troyer said. Investigators believe the men hit the duck's head with a hammer, let a dog bite at it and pulled it's feathers out. Eventually they ate it, Deputies said.

gohn67

Hey Marl,
I couldn't really get into this piece. One reason is I'm a bit tired right now and the other reason is the sentence structure is a bit cumbersome to read. This is probably an early draft, so no worries; it's good to get it down on paper. The plot is more important at this stage, but I kind of zoned out because of my sleepiness, so I want say anything about the plot. I'll just point out sentence structure stuff. Of course my difficulty with the sentence structure could be attributed to my sleepiness at the moment. Try reading it through and see if you stumble. Does it have flow well?

There are a lot of prepositions in this sentence. "of" three times. Beneath The other part that is strange is the use of thudding of pounding. The internal rhyme it creates sounds wierd and also I'm not too sure what you mean here.

I was thrown off by the comma here. I don't think you need it.

Pumping sledges is strange to me. Also the the part after the and reads very strange. Maybe it's the two "and" I don't know.

The part between field and towards. I think it's the prepostion use. through towards. The more prepositions you use the worse the flow gets it seems. I know this all to well. I have a habit of stringing to many phrases together with prepositions also.

I notice you like to connect sentences with mulitple "and". Nothing wrong with that. Though I think you can reword this in a clearer way. Also you can try making this multiple sentences.

Like I said it could just be me. I am really tired right now, so that could be affecting me. Try reading it through outloud. See where you stumble, run out of breath. Flow and rhythm is an important part of writing also. If you have good flow, the reader can't stop reading, because every sentene leads into the next perfectly. It's hard to do. I wasn't really aware of rhythm and flow in writing. I thought it applied only to poetry, but it does affect fiction also.

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The Frowning Dog Blog

eggo

Hey Marl,

I read it and have to agree with Gohn on some levels. The writing in the story seemed awkward. Although there is the beginnings of some nice prose, it seemed to miss on some levels.

for example,

The rain fell in sheets, the drops heavy and silently(through the sky) until they splattered on the canopy of leaves above and (dribbled to)the ground below.

By finishing off the prepositional phrases in lends a strenght to the prose. You want to follow the track of the droplet all the way to the ground here to complete the picture for your reader.

The pounding filled his head until it was the only thing he could hear becoming the single focus of his senses.

seems cleaner.

Here is a place where the prose is strained. Let your prose speak for itself. A beautiful sentence lurks in here. I would strike the ogre reference as it tends to be distracting, along with the "a message into his ear". It becomes a non-sequitor.

The smell was acrid, burnt and black, alive as death and slithering through the trees like a whisper in an unknown language.

This is how a hack like me would dig it out.



The story was good and I drew so nice thoughts in my mind as to what happened. You have talent and their is some very good prose. Just remember to use it to add to your story, not distract.

Thanks!

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http://vagabondagepress.com/81101/V1I6SS1.html

marl

thanks much for the resopnse. I did and do feel like the language in this story is strained and unclear. I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to say and
I think that led to not knowing how to speak. Thanks for taking the time to point out specifics, I will keep them in mind as I work on writing. marl

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The two men became suspects in the duck's disappearance after depuites realized that the two lived next door to the duck's owner, Detective Troyer said. Investigators believe the men hit the duck's head with a hammer, let a dog bite at it and pulled it's feathers out. Eventually they ate it, Deputies said.