here's what i've been working on for the last month since i got back from my cross-canada road trip. a part of this i wrote before and posted prior to the trip. i've developed it a bit more, but it's still really rough. The grammer and wording has to be worked over, but you can get the gist... this is hardcore is slowly starting to eek its way out of my brain. it hasn't been much, but what little has come out hasn't been too bad or a waste of time, so that's positive.
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This is a story. I never knew a life could begin with such promise, only to see so much violence. I’ve heard of things. I’ve heard of things for sure, of horrible things happening to people… good people. People hurting others for the sake of hurt. And who’d have thought that hurt would be for infinity? Nothing lasts forever, but hurt… it seems to breathe beneath the sludge, beneath the earth after we’re all dead and buried and ash. Hurt gets under your skin, under everything, like the cockroach of all emotions. It endures, and it touches everyone. Impossible not to, what with terrible things happening to people all the time. People hate, people hurt, people cry, people give up… the horrible things that happen can sometimes be the physical manifestation of that pain, that hurt. Maybe it bubbles up inside, underneath, that sometimes it just need to be let out, dug out, unearthed? Or maybe shit happens. Whatever it is, whatever lets hurt thrive, allows it to come back around. Don’t ever let the same dog bite you twice, some say, but hurt… hurt bites and it stings and it comes back around like a goddamned boomerang every goddamned time. Hurt leaves a man to wander.
Well this is just a story, and we come in at the beginning of the end of it. He was a good man. Let’s be honest; A liar at times, but a good man. As good a man as could be expected these days. We all make our mistakes, and his at least, weren’t meant to hurt anybody, and that’s the least we could expect people to do these days; make sure their actions don’t hurt anybody else. The other fellow, is just a man all in all, prone to being dismissive followed by bouts of regret. And who of us has never felt like being dismissive? To just want to be left alone? This is just a story, and we come in at the beginning of the end of it, as it was told to me, with the two of them stumbling from one disaster to another. You can hear for whom the bell tolls: Make way for the walking wounded...
“Oh lord,” Will says to himself as he looks down at the blood dripping down the length of his broken arm. He watches the drop of blood trickle down along the underside of his hand and to the tip of his pinkie finger. “Here it comes again,” he whispers as it hangs for a second before dropping and erupting on the dry ground. A crash victim, standing beneath the blue sky, stained over with blood and rust, he nervously tugs at his wrinkled and torn blazer as he looks upwards, feeling the blazing warmth on his face. There are clouds, hundreds of hundreds of clouds, all white and small and blotting the blue sky like a thousand Greek ships sailing towards Troy. “All lined up, all stacked, all ready to go, ready to go, ready to go…” he mumbles. The collar of his shirt is soaked through and crusty with dried, salty sweat. He licks his lips slowly.
Looking down the way, Abe is wandering aimlessly along the side of the road, his shirt torn open, blood dried and flaked on the white cotton material. He’s got his hand outstretched, thumb up, trying to hook a ride. A large semi truck comes barrelling down the way, breaking over the cusp of the horizon. It rumbles on down the road like a bat out of hell. Will and Abe both cover their faces as dust swirls up, little rocks caught up in the wake pelt them repeatedly. When the dust settles, they look at each other… past each other as they continue on. First soul in an hour and the driver passed them by. Soon, all evidence of the truck’s existence is swept away, leaving nothing but them and the mountains and the weaving, wandering road. Isolation is a postal code.
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so that's that. i'm starting to think that a novella format is the way to go. about 130-180 pages per book. long books are overrated.
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