Novel? What novel?
A little throw-out to interested friends, as it is apparently National Novel Editing Month. Not that I've even remotely completed my novel, but I do still work on it. Here's a small nondescript, but amusing piece. It's dragging because I've heard awful tales about writing fiction in first person, and I would have to really rework the whole thing to do it in third. My consideration of story and plot and characters and what-all that this will affect continues in personal debate...
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In a haze of ale and beer and more potent drink, I manage to deftly slide to the front of the room and out the door, only running into two barmaids, who I apologize to, and a northland trader who was somehow more inebriated than myself. Reaching the cool night air, I perch myself on a bench off to the left of the door, bracing against a wooden post and steadying my weaving vision. It isn’t long before some strange sensation, a nagging feeling bores through the drunkenness. A moment later, I recognize it. It is the feeling that I am being not just watched, but stared at.
I turn to the street, mentally fumbling for something like a cheerful form of greeting, and fear drives the fog out of my thoughts. Shaded blue-white by the light of the full moon, a dead thing stands squarely in the center of the street, facing me. A desiccated corpse, thin and wasted, with dirty white hair, the same soiled color as that of a slain body only an hour old. Bits of rags adorn the bones and withered muscle and skin, more decorating the ancient remains than covering them. It is a combination of decay and mummification, this old cadaver, and simple rules of gravity and structure should deny that this thing stands, lacking so much flesh and ligaments. Yet stand it does, hollow, lidless sockets suggesting that though its eyes are long gone it clearly is regarding my person. It does not move.
I am frozen, locked in gaze with this spare memory of a living thing. A light breeze blows by with a chill of its own, and to confound any explanation of alcohol and hallucination, the dead thing’s rags and wispy hair flutter in the wind, dry as paper. I see street dust blow over and around its mostly bony feet. It stares at me, long in face because it lacks any nose under the hanging skin on its skull, its teeth showing through lips drawn back to its empty cheeks.
I wait, completely unable to catch a hold on my sense of magic, as utterly sloshed as I am. However, there are no whispered curses. No, there are no slowly raised fingers to mutely accuse, no fiery glyphs or piercing beams of eldritch energy, no thin strands of wafty music from a lost era or any such significant clue as to why it is here. Damned thing doesn’t even open its mouth at me, not that there is any muscle left to actually hold it closed. Clearly, it bears some baleful warning, or some oppressive message, since staring is all that it does for several long moments. But, like all such metaphysical foppery, it chooses to riddle me instead of relay its message, fraught with portent.
“(Name withheld)! You’ve left your ale! Where are you?” Haim cries from the bar, both cheery and indignant. I glance to the shuttered doors for half a moment, the terrible staring broken by the outburst, but then I turn back and find the street empty. All is as blue and quiet as before, but the slender bony footprints in the dirt at the middle of the street chill me more than the night air. No other steps lead towards or away from them.
Oh, how I hate omens.
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In a haze of ale and beer and more potent drink, I manage to deftly slide to the front of the room and out the door, only running into two barmaids, who I apologize to, and a northland trader who was somehow more inebriated than myself. Reaching the cool night air, I perch myself on a bench off to the left of the door, bracing against a wooden post and steadying my weaving vision. It isn’t long before some strange sensation, a nagging feeling bores through the drunkenness. A moment later, I recognize it. It is the feeling that I am being not just watched, but stared at.
I turn to the street, mentally fumbling for something like a cheerful form of greeting, and fear drives the fog out of my thoughts. Shaded blue-white by the light of the full moon, a dead thing stands squarely in the center of the street, facing me. A desiccated corpse, thin and wasted, with dirty white hair, the same soiled color as that of a slain body only an hour old. Bits of rags adorn the bones and withered muscle and skin, more decorating the ancient remains than covering them. It is a combination of decay and mummification, this old cadaver, and simple rules of gravity and structure should deny that this thing stands, lacking so much flesh and ligaments. Yet stand it does, hollow, lidless sockets suggesting that though its eyes are long gone it clearly is regarding my person. It does not move.
I am frozen, locked in gaze with this spare memory of a living thing. A light breeze blows by with a chill of its own, and to confound any explanation of alcohol and hallucination, the dead thing’s rags and wispy hair flutter in the wind, dry as paper. I see street dust blow over and around its mostly bony feet. It stares at me, long in face because it lacks any nose under the hanging skin on its skull, its teeth showing through lips drawn back to its empty cheeks.
I wait, completely unable to catch a hold on my sense of magic, as utterly sloshed as I am. However, there are no whispered curses. No, there are no slowly raised fingers to mutely accuse, no fiery glyphs or piercing beams of eldritch energy, no thin strands of wafty music from a lost era or any such significant clue as to why it is here. Damned thing doesn’t even open its mouth at me, not that there is any muscle left to actually hold it closed. Clearly, it bears some baleful warning, or some oppressive message, since staring is all that it does for several long moments. But, like all such metaphysical foppery, it chooses to riddle me instead of relay its message, fraught with portent.
“(Name withheld)! You’ve left your ale! Where are you?” Haim cries from the bar, both cheery and indignant. I glance to the shuttered doors for half a moment, the terrible staring broken by the outburst, but then I turn back and find the street empty. All is as blue and quiet as before, but the slender bony footprints in the dirt at the middle of the street chill me more than the night air. No other steps lead towards or away from them.
Oh, how I hate omens.