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whalewithlegs — Misxti-Amaru
Published: 2012-03-12 11:06:52 +0000 UTC; Views: 1309; Favourites: 32; Downloads: 11
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Description
The box I am supposed to get into is attached by this long thin cable to the bottom of the 1-man chopper. It's really not much more than a metal shell, just big enough for me to get in and sit tight. Inside there's a junction box with green buttons that lets me winch the whole thing up and down, and it looks like it's been jury-rigged together at the last possible moment by the person least possibly qualified. The boards nailed across the open front where a hatch used to be don't do anything to dissuade the idea, either. The mechanics in the depot are always pulling this sort of stunt. I must have crossed the wrong person to get assigned to this.The only thing that bolsters my confidence is this tiny gun. It's a smoky pearlescent squiggle of a thing no bigger than my balled fist - more like the idea of a gun with all the violence taken out of it and only the barest shape of a weapon left behind. But I know it is a restricted, classified item, and I can only guess at its qualities judging by the amount of paperwork I had to fill out to get it.
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I am dangling probably 100 meters underneath my chopper, and I have to trust that my pilot knows what he's doing. Under the trees it's very dark, and I am sweating and swinging back and forth very slowly. The trees are really thick overhead. I can't even see any of the other choppers that I know are up there. Every so often, the cable connecting me to up high will snag a branch or a vine I can't see and shake me like a boat at sea. I haven't seen any sign of this animal I'm supposed to find either - not even a hint of it. The jungle is dark, and of course hot, and I'll be damned if I haven't seen a single animal the whole time I've been out here. Not a single one. I can't even hear any noises other than the distant chop from up above. My supervisor is going to be furious if things keep going this way. I don't know how she can blame me, though - this supposedly dangerous animal is nowhere, and I'm sitting here with the Pearlescent gun pointed down between my legs for hours like somebody's personal stooge.
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We're moving through an abandoned settlement now, and I'm starting to wonder how old this place really is. The people on the billboards are strange-looking: some have something subtly odd about their facial features, and some people even have very dark skin. But their smiling eyes and gleaming white teeth, the bottles of Coke they're holding in obvious enjoyment are so familiarly human it hurts. I can even read some of the words ... seems like everyone's having a good time but me. I can hear the boys in their choppers laughing and playing loud music, even from 50 meters down. I want to yell at them to shut the hell up ... such an obvious breach of protocol, and I'm never going to get a shot at spotting this creature with all the noise. But we've been out here for hours and the sun is getting low ... I know we've wasted the whole day.
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The choppers are heading back to base and I'm utterly spent. It might not seem tiring to you - sitting in a metal box hanging from a chopper all day, but I've been keeping my eyes peeled for nothing for hours. Even with the rushing wind it's hot - sweat is dripping all down my face, making me tear up. I could almost enjoy the peaceful ride back - the sunset behind us casting an orange glow over the rippling plains grasses below, my little boat rocking back and forth on the wind - if I didn't know I was going to get bawled out first thing we get back. I can see the shadows of the choppers on the grass below, like gnats. I can even see my the shadow of the cable, getting bigger as it leads down to my own shadow. The grass is whipping back and forth in the evening wind ... cast on the ground, just underneath the shadow of my box is a huge moving lump. It's something just under my feet. My whole body locks and my hair stands up as I try to will my hands down between my legs. Everything seems like its moving in slow motion, like I'm pushing through cotton. My hands take minutes to inch down and point the Pearlescent gun between my feet. As my finger presses down on the trigger by millimeters, the shadow unfurls its pseudo-wings. Where the light shines through, the membranes cast a brilliant purple shadow, and I press the trigger.
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Comments: 17
This is marvelous, magnificent. Combined with the story, the image opens up a whole universe.
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Aw, thanks, man! Hopefully I can keep this up, for the future :3
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Lovely creature, lovely description!
I get a good feel for the voice of this character.
The billboard is odd---perhaps this civilization has grown up after a horrendous bio-weapon apocalypse, and the odd-looking people he sees in the advertisement are modern-day H. sapiens, while he is something else?
Nice tension at the end there, and that's a kickass weapon.
Oh, my only critisism is that I'm not exactly sure about the geometry of things. He's in a cage dangling from a helicopter?
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Thanks, very much! Teaching writing is making me think a lot more about how I approach writing myself. I really appreciate you pointing me toward those podcasts - they've been very useful, especially the one by James Morrow. I just finished teaching a segment about character, and next on to setting.
Oh yes, the billboard (in the dream, the people on the billboards were Asian and African, but I had never seen a non-Caucasian before. My colony consisted only of a relatively genetically non-diverse population) ... I tried to leave it sort of ambiguous, as if the narrator really didn't understand what he was seeing or that there were other types of people. He's supposed to be from some sort of post-apocalyptic re-colonization effort, after the culture that sent original colonies out crashed. Maybe he's from a world that was originally an Earth colony. But, I also to allow reader interpretation, so I don't know if it works! Hopefully the more intuitive interpretation you got still fits the story.
Thanks for the crit! I'll try to fix that.
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ohh...I see. Hm. I think you'd need more explanation to make it clear that a technological person had never even seen a picture of a non-white before. (Maybe his part of the world is under a radio-opaque dome or something?) The fact that you use Coca-Cola makes me think this is earth.
It's an interesting question about reader interpretation. On the one hand, I like books that give me the space to make my own explanations for why things happen (usually it's movies more than books that do this). On the other hand, you don't want someone to misinterpret your story and discard it because they think they disagree with you. For example:
Writer: Bob flew above a beautiful rainforest.
Reader: People can't fly! This book is nonsense and I refuse to read it.
Of course, most readers give a little more benefit of the doubt, but there's still a danger that people won't understand what you think you wrote on the page.
That's a good point .. hmmm ... the point about the Coke is something I had't thought of either. I'll probably leave it as it for now, but I were to keep on going I might have other characters make fun of the narrator for not knowing about other races. I try to give the impression that he's kind of a whiner that people don't really like that much, so it would work out in the end :3
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thanks! this was a dream I had :3
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Really? But why am I so surprised? Dreams are swarming with monsters!
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if only they were more frequent
as best as I can interpret it, this is a dream about my getting a new job. it makes a lot of sense, in context, ha! The monster is my goal, and I am trying to capture it ... that kind of stuff :3
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