Exercise 2: Our hero(es) run for the last escape ship off a dying jungle planet.
Unedited.
Jerry felt the strain of competing force vectors on his body and struggled to keep up and running. Michelle had yanked, hard, on his arm to pull his head low even as she stretched her own long legs to bounce over the small scrub that so dogged them. A deer, or something that looked enough like a deer to make Jerry homesick in less strained moments, went whipping by, too fast to have taken notice of the tall man’s extraneous fleshy bits in the way. He was fortunate to have been jerked down.
Michelle struggled for breath. Every muscle in her body bulged and sweat wicked in messy blobs off her skin. Her eyes were thick with wet as well, though Jerry didn’t know if that was the ripping wind and adrenaline or the fact that her sister had just been cut down and left behind. Her mouth was moving. The same simple phrase. The last words her father had turned to her and said, about 20 seconds after the breakfast table had been cleared and an unnaturally warm wind had cut through the forest and melted the frozen fall dew.
Keep running. Keep running. Keep running.
She banked a hard right at the old North Trail marker and sped up, grateful for the relative smooth of the dirt and stone. Jerry struggled to match the speed of her footfall. He tripped more than once, but she only turned to help him the first time. The second time she had just let a hand trail back and clamped her long archer’s fingers down into his curly hair. He was bleeding, but upright and moving, and so had no cause to bitch. Every second still breathing was a blessing with hell on your heals.
“Ship’s just another mile! We’re almost there!”
Jerry looked up and his face sank, or, would have had he the energy reserves to expunge emotion across the pale of his mug. He looked frantically down and reached out for Michelle’s shoulders, driving them both down into the shadow of a small dugout. He heard the soft, moist crack, but Michelle did not cry out. She would be down an arm for the remainder of the run. Off balance. Not good.
The sun, high to the east, reaching down to them with foggy tendrils as various tiny holes opened and shifted in the canopy, disappeared. Blotted out. The threat rolled noisily overhead, a rumbling tip to armageddon’s spear. It did not pass for some moments.
“I don’t think they saw us.” Michelle was openly crying now, but still silent as the salt cut long contrails down her face.
“Look, we’re going to be alright. Like you said, the ship is just another mile, we can make it. We can get off this fucking eden bullshit rock.” She stared at him. He thought she was going to strike and recoiled slightly.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Who cares if we make it? Everyone else is dead, Jerry. Are you getting this? Everyone! We’re it. Even if we make it, no one else is coming home.”
“That’s exactly why we’ve got to make it, Michelle! We’ve got to survives so that someone has!” She festered for a moment.
“Fuck it,” and she was on her feet, “try to keep up, hacker boy.” And she was off. Jerry scrambled to his feet, stumbled, and begged his lungs for just a little bit more oxygen.
He could hear the terror coming up from behind. He was sure trees were falling to its relentless onslaught. The birds and squirrels had long since made their own futile escape. The texture of the forest around them blurred as they ran, greens and browns all beaching out as they both slowly began to succumb to the extremes of exhaustion, first Jerry, soft as his ilk tend to be, and then Michelle, who had fought before she had run, and had little left to give.
The path finally crested atop Porter’s Hill, and the gleaming white cone of the rocket could be seen sticking cartoonishly out the top of a mock grain silo, erected some years ago for the aesthetics of the thing more than for camoflage or defense.
“Oh god, Jerry, we’re almost there.” Michele came close to a smile as the pair began their final downhill run. Smoke filled the sky behind them, and the atmosphere’s normal emerald color had been stained as burning iron. Their knees screamed and threatened to buckle as they let their full weight slam down step after step, but on they raced to the ship, the last survivors of a doomed expedition, bound for home to tell an untold trauma.
“We’re going to make it!” She was gleeful now, crying again, but for hope over despair.
Jerry stopped.
“Fuck… me…”
They had come within 100 meters, run with everything they had, and made it just in time to watch the scaffolding of the silo come crashing down around the spaceship. Steam jets whined and fuel lines automatically popped free of the long white tube. The violence of the fire was shocking. Someone had beaten them to it. Someone had made the same assumptions of loneliness. Someone was stealing their escape rocket.
Michelle cursed, and moments later became just another cloud of ash as the rocket achieved maximum thrust and began to climb from the launch, damping everything around it with fire and heat.
Jerry might have cursed as well, had he not died seconds earlier, the victim of a terrible head wound as a tree, a thirty meter beast of hardwood and leaf, crashed down under the weight of the lumbering violence.
The rocket disappeared with a glinting wink as the world ended.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Exercise 1: Subway
Exercise: Year's after the rapture has claimed the world's Mormons, a man stands on a subway platform in Salt Lake. He see's a girl with green hair across the tracks, and two men who are approaching her from behind.
Additional Context: Blatantly Unedited.
2030 had been a rough year for Trick Wilson. He missed his friends and family. The Salt Lake Underground Transit Station at the corner of Joseph Smith Pkwy and Salvation Blvd just wasn’t the same anymore. He and Obediah and Job had spent many an hour leering at the girls in their long skirts and thick sweaters back in the day. Then they had all gone, and he had spent the ensuing year beating himself up for not telling that store clerk who accidentally undercharged him a pack of strawberry gum when he was 10.
He cursed and pulled the unopened pack out of his coat pocket. He had carried it ever since, a reminder of the devil’s wiely ways. For the millionth time he thought to cast the curse’d object aside, let it fester and burn on the third rail, but back it went into the dark of his jacket. Trick hunched his shoulders and slumped against the cold brick wall, and he waited.
It was cold so late at night. Really, Trick knew he had no business being out and about by last train, and spiraled further into the self-loathing that he hoped beyond hope might someday grow sincere enough to please the master of the missing.
A breeze rushed in, the first sign of the great metal tube rushing down the line, notable long before the sound or light would come rushing in. Trick took his eyes from the floor and stood tall for the first time in a quarter hour. He was startled to notice that he wasn’t alone. Across the tracks, leaning against a wall of her own, stood a small woman showing an unusual quantity of leg for the barren wastes of Salt Lake, though Trick didn’t notice on account of her shocking green hair. She carried a black purse and was watching the tube for the oncoming train.
This was all odd for any number of reasons, not least of which was that she was waiting on the Inbound side of the UTS, and that train had stopped running and hour ago. Wilson was, quite fundamentally, a nervous person around girls, and as the roar of the train threatened to force him to raise his voice, he finally found the courage to speak up and inform her of her mistaken location. It was then, as his dry tongue clicked through his parted teeth to speak, that something else strange befell his vision. Two men slinked their way quietly down the stairs across the way. They wore black, too much black, like comic book ninjas (comic books! Doubtless another reason Trick had been forsaken) creeping out of the concrete jungle.
“Hey!” He eeked out, but she didn’t so much as look his way.
“Hey! Hey you!” Nothing.
Light from the train flooded the station, and long shadows erupted from all four figures. The girl with the green hair looked over with a notable start as one ninja’s shadow crossed over the gentle little bump in her skirt where her legs connected to her loins. Trick damned himself for noting this, but by then it was too late. The train had come and blocked his view. He ran to tell the conductor, but stopped when he found only blinking robot eyes in the cockpit. He jumped inside when the bell rang that the train would depart momentarily, and planted his face firmly against the far window to discover the girl’s fate.
At first, he saw nothing. His heart sank. Then he saw blood, and his heart leapt into his throat. All in all, it was quite the workout for poor Trick’s heart, especially since the next thing it did was damn near explode. The train raced away from the station, and then the banging started. It was the girl! She was holding on to the outside of the train, desperately trying to get the doors open. He ran over and pried with all his might, but couldn’t budge the hydraulically shut slats. Trick looked around, and reached for the emergency stop button, but he heard the girl screaming at him.
“No!”
“What? Why?”
“Don’t stop the train!”
Flustered, the young Wilson quickly walked down the length of the car. Ducking his head under one of the seats, he found a strikingly convenient loose bar. He grabbed and pulled at the metal. It came loose in his hand and he wasted no time jamming the sharp end into the rubber slit of the doors to pry them open.
The pipes hissed violently as the twin panes parted. Wind filled the car and she fell in. Trick gasped when he lost control of the pipe and feared the sharp end in her gullet, but she stood and handed the metal to him with a smile before kicking the doors. They closed without effort and some semblance of calm was restored to the car.
Trick stared at her, but she paid him no apparent mind and so he didn’t catch it. She ran her long painted nails down the clean white front of her all too short dress, returning the hint of her red panties to their naturally hidden state. She pulled a cigarette from her coat and then searched the rest of her pockets.
“Got a light?”
Trick didn’t say anything, his habit of staring had taken his eyes down her legs and back to the floor. He stammered. She followed his eyes.
“Oh. That. Yeah. Never know, since… you know.” The hatchet lay inert on the pale floor of the train car, a small spattering of blood thinning out as the inches grew away from the blade. Trick nodded, though he didn’t really know.
She looked at him. He couldn’t believe how long her lashes were.
“Well, no light, huh? How ‘bout some gum or something? You gonna keep staring at me like that I’m gone need something in exchange. Tit for tat and what not. But no tit, not like that. Not yet, anyway.”
Trick reached into his pocket and took out the unopened packet of strawberry chewing candy. He looked at it, the red package filling his palm. He sniffed once and dug a fingernail under the little thread marked, “tear here.” He wondered if it would even still work, so many years had passed since tiny Vietnamese children had stamped and filled the foil.
The wrapper came off with a noise that was barely audible over the sound of the train as it rushed through another tunnel. Trick’s ears were flooded, and he felt almost faint as he slid a silver stick out and handed it to the strange young woman with the ninja stalkers and bloody hatchet.
“You know ninjas are monks, right?”
“What?”
She took the pinkish red stick of gum and stuck her tongue out to accept its sweetness beyond her lips, pulling it in slowly. Trick was mesmerized.
“Ninjas are monks. Agents of god. They were here to save you.”
“Save me? From what?”
“From completing your sin.”
“I’m… I’m sorry, miss, I’m very confused.”
“Exactly the way the devil wants you.”
She turned and bent, Trick felt his loins a rattler as the fabric tightened to the pronounced cleavage of her perfect ass. She picked up the hatchet and smiled, chewing loudly.
“It’s time, Trick Wilson.”
The next thing he saw was how pretty her toes looked in peeking out the ends of her high heel shoes, and then he saw fire, an eternity of fire, all for want of some gum.
Additional Context: Blatantly Unedited.
2030 had been a rough year for Trick Wilson. He missed his friends and family. The Salt Lake Underground Transit Station at the corner of Joseph Smith Pkwy and Salvation Blvd just wasn’t the same anymore. He and Obediah and Job had spent many an hour leering at the girls in their long skirts and thick sweaters back in the day. Then they had all gone, and he had spent the ensuing year beating himself up for not telling that store clerk who accidentally undercharged him a pack of strawberry gum when he was 10.
He cursed and pulled the unopened pack out of his coat pocket. He had carried it ever since, a reminder of the devil’s wiely ways. For the millionth time he thought to cast the curse’d object aside, let it fester and burn on the third rail, but back it went into the dark of his jacket. Trick hunched his shoulders and slumped against the cold brick wall, and he waited.
It was cold so late at night. Really, Trick knew he had no business being out and about by last train, and spiraled further into the self-loathing that he hoped beyond hope might someday grow sincere enough to please the master of the missing.
A breeze rushed in, the first sign of the great metal tube rushing down the line, notable long before the sound or light would come rushing in. Trick took his eyes from the floor and stood tall for the first time in a quarter hour. He was startled to notice that he wasn’t alone. Across the tracks, leaning against a wall of her own, stood a small woman showing an unusual quantity of leg for the barren wastes of Salt Lake, though Trick didn’t notice on account of her shocking green hair. She carried a black purse and was watching the tube for the oncoming train.
This was all odd for any number of reasons, not least of which was that she was waiting on the Inbound side of the UTS, and that train had stopped running and hour ago. Wilson was, quite fundamentally, a nervous person around girls, and as the roar of the train threatened to force him to raise his voice, he finally found the courage to speak up and inform her of her mistaken location. It was then, as his dry tongue clicked through his parted teeth to speak, that something else strange befell his vision. Two men slinked their way quietly down the stairs across the way. They wore black, too much black, like comic book ninjas (comic books! Doubtless another reason Trick had been forsaken) creeping out of the concrete jungle.
“Hey!” He eeked out, but she didn’t so much as look his way.
“Hey! Hey you!” Nothing.
Light from the train flooded the station, and long shadows erupted from all four figures. The girl with the green hair looked over with a notable start as one ninja’s shadow crossed over the gentle little bump in her skirt where her legs connected to her loins. Trick damned himself for noting this, but by then it was too late. The train had come and blocked his view. He ran to tell the conductor, but stopped when he found only blinking robot eyes in the cockpit. He jumped inside when the bell rang that the train would depart momentarily, and planted his face firmly against the far window to discover the girl’s fate.
At first, he saw nothing. His heart sank. Then he saw blood, and his heart leapt into his throat. All in all, it was quite the workout for poor Trick’s heart, especially since the next thing it did was damn near explode. The train raced away from the station, and then the banging started. It was the girl! She was holding on to the outside of the train, desperately trying to get the doors open. He ran over and pried with all his might, but couldn’t budge the hydraulically shut slats. Trick looked around, and reached for the emergency stop button, but he heard the girl screaming at him.
“No!”
“What? Why?”
“Don’t stop the train!”
Flustered, the young Wilson quickly walked down the length of the car. Ducking his head under one of the seats, he found a strikingly convenient loose bar. He grabbed and pulled at the metal. It came loose in his hand and he wasted no time jamming the sharp end into the rubber slit of the doors to pry them open.
The pipes hissed violently as the twin panes parted. Wind filled the car and she fell in. Trick gasped when he lost control of the pipe and feared the sharp end in her gullet, but she stood and handed the metal to him with a smile before kicking the doors. They closed without effort and some semblance of calm was restored to the car.
Trick stared at her, but she paid him no apparent mind and so he didn’t catch it. She ran her long painted nails down the clean white front of her all too short dress, returning the hint of her red panties to their naturally hidden state. She pulled a cigarette from her coat and then searched the rest of her pockets.
“Got a light?”
Trick didn’t say anything, his habit of staring had taken his eyes down her legs and back to the floor. He stammered. She followed his eyes.
“Oh. That. Yeah. Never know, since… you know.” The hatchet lay inert on the pale floor of the train car, a small spattering of blood thinning out as the inches grew away from the blade. Trick nodded, though he didn’t really know.
She looked at him. He couldn’t believe how long her lashes were.
“Well, no light, huh? How ‘bout some gum or something? You gonna keep staring at me like that I’m gone need something in exchange. Tit for tat and what not. But no tit, not like that. Not yet, anyway.”
Trick reached into his pocket and took out the unopened packet of strawberry chewing candy. He looked at it, the red package filling his palm. He sniffed once and dug a fingernail under the little thread marked, “tear here.” He wondered if it would even still work, so many years had passed since tiny Vietnamese children had stamped and filled the foil.
The wrapper came off with a noise that was barely audible over the sound of the train as it rushed through another tunnel. Trick’s ears were flooded, and he felt almost faint as he slid a silver stick out and handed it to the strange young woman with the ninja stalkers and bloody hatchet.
“You know ninjas are monks, right?”
“What?”
She took the pinkish red stick of gum and stuck her tongue out to accept its sweetness beyond her lips, pulling it in slowly. Trick was mesmerized.
“Ninjas are monks. Agents of god. They were here to save you.”
“Save me? From what?”
“From completing your sin.”
“I’m… I’m sorry, miss, I’m very confused.”
“Exactly the way the devil wants you.”
She turned and bent, Trick felt his loins a rattler as the fabric tightened to the pronounced cleavage of her perfect ass. She picked up the hatchet and smiled, chewing loudly.
“It’s time, Trick Wilson.”
The next thing he saw was how pretty her toes looked in peeking out the ends of her high heel shoes, and then he saw fire, an eternity of fire, all for want of some gum.
FTM is committed to the idea that all art requires extensive practice. The most barebones version of this is the old adage that one must take 100 photographs to produce 1 decent picture. We practice our art, our music, and our writing every day. FTM has engaged with some friends to start writing short fiction on a daily basis, and we will be sharing some of these stories for the sake of our own enjoyment. These stories have a 1000 word cap.
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