Category: Writers Block
The tide comes in.
She swims awake. This world is dark, dry, cold. Wordless thoughts
undulate like kelp tugged by deep conflicted currents. She feels them
start to snare in the net of her consciousness as it tightens, turning
her awareness into a wriggling, trapped thing.
She is a body on a table, cruel bands tight across her shoulders and
waist. She is Eilanwe. There is only a moment to wonder at these two
disconnected thoughts before she hears a rasp in the blackness, feels
a rushing of wind across her upturned face. A new breath which feels
like comfort but smells like death.
With these sensations comes the light, a silent but tremendous wave
that buries all other sensory input until it recedes. When the
luminescence looses its hold upon her faculties, she hears the human
for the first time.
Male. His feet are heavy and slow as he approaches. His thoughts are a
barely audible murmur, frightened and fast. Through slitted eyes,
Eilanwe sees a face too sad to be young and too tense to be admired.
She feels pity wash through her, closes her eyes against the vision.
"Hello. Can you understand what I'm saying?"
In his mind, a tightening of resolve and the shadow of duty.
His words, as words, matter little to Eilanwe. Comprehension will
come, if there is time. Restrained in body, she reaches out to him
with gentle fingers of raw emotion. Peace. Ease. Hope.
He is still and quiet, but from his inner self she catches glimpses of
his truth. Words: "I was going to do it today." Picture of something
short and slender in his hand. Moving image of a female and two young
receding, backs turned. Blurry snapshot of tiny creatures inside the
man's body, agonizing hunger, insatiable need. The sensation of pain,
deep in the stomach and radiating upward. Then, as if shaking free of
some clinging creeper, she feels him grow momentarily stronger, having
found a purpose she cannot yet know.
"What are you? Who are you?"
These questions Eilanwe understands. The man's apprehension and
inquisitiveness are flashing in his mind, pulse-bright. When it
becomes clear to him that she will not answer, there are more words.
These she does not translate. Instead, she receives a series of mental
impressions in place of his speech, which she parses without effort.
A flash in the sky, a titanic purple thunderbolt. A ball of fire
plunging toward the sea. Excitement and terror as something heavy
slams into the ocean and disappears. More excitement as it bobs to the
surface, twisted and blackened. Hurried footsteps and hot bravado.
Cold water, and alien metal miraculously cool to the touch. The
elation of discovery as fingers explore a groove, and panic as one
half of the wreck falls open, wounded and clamlike. Reeling backward,
awe and horror and incredulity folding him in dreamy cotton. He could
faint, fall, drown, but does not. Babbling, "Don't think. Don't think.
Just free her and bring her back." Reaching out, the shock of first
contact. A widening of the eyes, a slight slackening of the jaw, then
a skip in time and he is careful, oh so careful, as he lays her upon a
bed of steel.
His memories release her. She is once more free to think of the
present. Again Eilanwe reaches out, clumsy with this new mind so
unlike her own. Eilanwe projects a mental image, doing it with gentle
precision: she and he, closing a door slowly in the faces of other
humans. She feels his shock.
"No! I can't! I don't know what you are, what you can do. I can't risk
it. I can't wait."
The more he speaks, the more she understands. Desperation, rising like
tide-water. Her message is soundless, hesitant, but clear.
"You do not know I. I do not know you. They do not know I. Let I know
you, and you know I, before they know I."
More confusion from the man as he attempts to decode her awkward
message. She fills the gap with more yet, echoes of his worst
imaginings.
"If they come, they will take I away. They will hurt I. They may take
you away, and hurt you too. I do not want to hurt they. I do not want
to hurt you. I do not want to hurt."
Finally, she feels light breaking in the human's mind. She catches
herself in the midst of imitating a smile, her pale pink lips curling
up to expose the needle-sharp teeth beneath. Humans smile when they
are pleased. Eilanwe is pleased. Eilanwe should not smile though. Not
yet.
"I don't want to hurt either. I'll have to think about it. Nothing has
ever happened like this before."
She reaches out to him again, even as he turns away. His words no
longer seem so alien, and by the lack of recoil, she knows that he is
experiencing the same acclimatization.
"Let I know."
He continues walking, but his head nods back and forth, once. He
disappears through a hole in the wall. Clunk. Click. He is gone. There
is no more light.
She lies motionless, attempting to reach him even still. Awake and
curious, she is eager to share with this human, to learn his ways and
to have him learn her own.
There is a single sharp sound from nearby, from another world. It is
followed by a heavy thump. At the same instant, she sees a vivid
mental picture, the man sprawled on the floor with something stubby
and smoking in one hand. It is loud and jarring, this image, thrust
out from its creator with unthinking urgency. Then, blackness.
Eilanwe does not understand, not yet.
Time passes. Her skin dries and cracks. Blood blooms on impassive
steel. In the dark, it is without colour.
She thinks, "I don't want to hurt."
Breath comes more slowly. Small spasms cause the metal bands to sing
as they continue their jealous clutch upon her failing frame. Thoughts
tumble like dying storm-surf. A single plea surfaces, one last piece
of debris from the sinking wreck.
"I don't want to hurt."
The tide goes out.
like your story, Greg!
Thanks, Marilyn.
And hey, if anyone's got constructive feedback, I'm open for that too.
Hello. First, let me say it is so very refreshing to see a story rather than yet another poem on Writer’s block. That this is also an interesting story is a welcome bonus.
Here are just a few things I noted while reading.
I liked the opening and closing sentences which fit well both in theme and in context. It’s a very sad story in context; hopeless even. I enjoyed the way in which she communicated, and how she appeared to be reaching him. That his tormented emotions had an almost physical presence within him from her perspective was interesting. It turns out to be all for not however, in a jarring anticlimax which I felt came a bit too soon. It would have been nice to see a bit more development. I feel there is more to him we need to learn, so that when the end comes, there is a bit more understanding. Though I wasn’t a fan of the ending, it also makes the story in a way. It was sad, because at the end she’s just lying there hopelessly, slowly dying; this new life form which nobody will ever know existed.
I liked the phrase a new breath which feels like comfort, but smells like death.
The phrase too sad to be young and too tense to be admired is interesting. Too tense to be admired though, I don’t get that part.
She seems to understand a fair bit about humans already, such as how they smile, and what it means, and why her doing it would be a bad idea.
The vision she receives of the object in his hand and the people turning away is an interesting one, but a little vague. It’s a good jumping off point, and I feel some context could be given as the story progresses.
That sense of hunger and need, I wanted to know more about that. Was he going to kill the woman and children, or were they abandoning him?
I like the oceanic imagery present throughout this story. Indeed, I liked most of the story. As I said, my only real issue is the abruptness of the man’s suicide. I just feel like this is a story you could squeeze more out of. Still, it was probably one of the best things I’ve red on this site in a very, VERY long time.
Thank you for the critical feedback.
A few things here:
1. The hunger and need is stomach cancer. His suicide is at least partially related to that.
2. The anticlimax is sudden for a reason. I was trying to hit on the senselessness of things sometimes, which is precisely why it feels abrupt. I planned that. I wanted it to feel abrupt, as if you just had something snatched. Now, as for whether it worked, or was too abrupt, that much is debatable.
3. His wife and kids left him at some point in his past, and that's upsetting him. There might be some ambiguity here as to whether the hunger and need has to do with them, or with something different.
4. As far as what she knows, or thinks she knows? That's another thing left to make you wonder. Has this particular creature, or creatures like hers, studied people, perhaps at a distance? How does she know what she knows?
5. Too tense to be admired...that one is tricky, and might do with changing outright. I've heard it said that people under stress often don't look their best, that they don't show their best side. She sees this, and is cognizant enough of human emotion to know he's labouring with something that's basically compromising him in a way that he doesn't look his best. He cannot be admired because something, as it were, is eating him. In this case, it's his various burdens as a whole, not one specific thing.
I'm really glad you liked this, and felt the desire to give feedback of this nature. I love having my work examined this way, as it both lets me re-examine the thing from new angles and also gives me an idea of what's working for others and what isn't.
I'm glad it was helpful. Overall I think I see what you were doing. And on the hwole I think it does work. Certainly not every story has to have a happy ending. And yes, despite my critical feedback, I did indeed enjoy it.