This is my first entry and I agreed with pretty much everything the critiques said. One of my friends who critiqued it asked why I had avoided dialog, was I comfortable with it etc? I am very comfortable with dialog but I liked this story without it, I felt that since the main character wasn't too bright and the story was the dying man's memory things wouldn't be to clear not to mention I felt trying to get his exact tone right might change the feel of the story or seem hokey. It needs a bit of cleaning up.
The Fall
Pain flooded the world like light, blasting away everything including the darkness that had been such a blessing. Red was next and for a moment it was as if red was the color of pain. But no, red was the color of light through eyelids sealed shut. For a moment red was enough, more than really because even with the red there was pain. But the eyelids fluttered, unbidden and suddenly light replaced the red but the pain remained. Focusing was something that didn’t hurt though it took a long time. Colors, lights and shapes danced in the pain and finally settled into vision.
A sky white and hazy provided a diffused light that gave everything sharp edges. That was the vision that came first. Next came the sharp rim of rock overhead framing the haze of sky and softened here and there with a mist drifting up from the waterfall that plunged over the edge. A gasp at that, a gasp and a wince at that thought: plunging over the edge. Pain reared again at the gasp, the motion of the skull needed to emit the sound the source of the pain’s resurgence. Thoughts that needed to be corralled and so they were. Eyes and thoughts focused on the edge, the mist, the ribbon of water that trickled down the side and the hollows and shadows carved by the patient water over time.
The rock was lovely in that hazy light, a soft golden brown that reminded him of Rebecca, her tawny waves of hair now gone a little bit silver about the temples, so had the rock. Veins of white and silver danced over the surface of the walls overhead and it made him smile to think of it. Rebecca of the laughing eyes, Rebecca of the bouncing curls, Rebecca who was always too good for him. She still was he thought as he stared up at the scene above him and thought back to what had brought him there.
He’d been away for years, fighting a war he could have cared less about, risking his life and earning medal after medal to prove himself to be more than the slow, fourth son of a poor farmer so that he might have the right to marry his girl, Rebecca Monroe. She’d always been the prettiest, always been the nicest and had always had the time for him. She was gentle when she talked to him; never called him slow like all the others had and had even let him dance with her at the harvest festivals. He had been in love with her for as long as he could remember and the summer he was seventeen, the summer he was a man he asked her for her hand.
She hadn’t laughed, no she’d simply smiled at him and if her smile had more than a little sadness in it what was he to know about the workings of women? He only knew that he loved her and wanted her. She had chewed her lip for a long moment; something he knew meant she was thinking. He loved that about her, she was smart, clever and kind. For a long moment she considered his question and then she turned to him and in a voice as gentle and sweet as anything he’d ever known, she spoke.
Her plan was brilliant. He would go and join the army, prove himself and then he could proudly ask her father for her hand. She pointed out that he had no occupation besides work on his father’s farm and not likely even that once his brother took over. She was right and he thought for a moment about her words and saw the sense in them. He agreed and she let him kiss her hand because of it. The vision he had of her for many years was her clutching the hand he had kissed to her breast and waving with the other, that same sad smile still on her face.
It had been hard; he’d had to work very hard to move up through the ranks without any connections or people to speak for him. But Rebecca had believed in him, she had given him this task and so he had done it. He had a bit of luck one battle where he had tripped and taken a bayonet thrust meant for the general and that had earned him some attention, people stopped openly calling him slow after that. It was shortly after that battle that he’d been given a rank he felt was worth having someone write home about. He was certain the news would get to his sweetheart and he was certain that she would be proud. But the war waged on and he wasn’t able to leave, he wasn’t able to return and collect his love no matter what rank he attained.
A decade later he woke one day and realized the war had ended some months before but he’d grown so used to the routine of the life of a soldier that he hadn’t noticed. That day had been one of the happiest of his life. He’d put on his uniform, mounted his horse and headed home, his head high and his heart soaring somewhere overhead, just then he felt as if he could fly. He was going to be married he told everyone he passed, from merchant, to fellow soldier to tinkers and madmen. Their reactions varied but his remained the same, joyful and enthusiastic.
But then he’d returned to the village and he’d seen her. She was plumper and the silver in her hair was clear in the hazy light of day. It didn’t matter to him, she was lovely and all that he desired. He’d grinned, called her name and ran to her, puzzled by the group of curly-haired children behind her. But he’d paid them no real mind and swooped upon her and lifted her from the ground. Around and around they had spun, him laughing as he felt her squirming in his arms. He spun until the very world was as dizzy as he and then he’d set her down and kissed her. That’s when things went really wrong.
She’d slapped him and the children gathered about had started crying and one even kicked his shin, a little blue eyed boy with a fierce look in his eyes. He felt as if his world had shattered and he pleaded with her to explain. She did, with a voice as cruel as it had once been sweet. She was married, had been coming on nine years. She had children and she was happy. She wanted him to be happy for her. But he couldn’t be, he could barely hear the words over the roaring in his ears. He had covered them, right there in the square with everyone watching and begun to scream too, his voice trying to drown out the dying of his heart. Rage had replaced the love all in an instant and he struck her, a back handed blow that sent her tumbling to the ground. She looked up at him, his Rebecca with hurt in her eyes and blood on her mouth and he was instantly sorry. But things had gone too far, there were too many people about and he needed to think, needed a chance to talk to her alone.
Without thinking he scooped her up and bolted for his horse leaving the screaming gaggle of children behind. He threw her over the saddle and in seconds had spurred his horse to a gallop. The horse, though tired ran for his master, loyal to the end. The rode and they rode until finally they found themselves at the river a little bit up from the falls. The roar of the falls was a soft and soothing drone from this distance and he pulled up. He slid down from his saddle and offered his darling aid in getting down.
But something had happened to Rebecca on the journey; no longer was she the sweet love of his life. She was a red-faced angry middle-aged woman who flew at him and screamed at him, calling him the vilest of names and hammering at his chest with her fists. Stunned he took it, trying to decipher her words, to see how he was wrong in this as she clearly thought him to be. It made no sense. He had done as she’d asked, gone and joined the army, earned ranks and medals for her and she hadn’t waited, not like she’d promised. Pain filled him then, it washed away everything as he looked down at her pinched angry face and before he’d known it he’d struck out.
She reeled back from the blow and something twisted further in her face and her hand scrabbled at the ground as if seeking something. He watched in dumb fascination, wondering what it could be. In a second she’d found it, pulled back her arm and threw. The rock flew through the air with surprising accuracy and hit him in on his left cheekbone. The pain was intense but not as much as the pain in his chest. He could see in her eyes as he stumbled back and fell into the cool of the river that she hated him. In that instant he hated her too.
The river accepted him as nothing ever had, with calm and coolness. He bobbed for a moment, and the tears in his eyes joined the river which welcomed them as well. It seemed a good place to be for a moment as he drifted but then it began to move faster and faster and the way was choppier and choppier and cutting through his confusion, pain and grief was a thought: the falls. But by then he’d struck one rock with his leg and the sickening crunch and burst of pain pushed that thought away. The next two blows hit his ribs and knocked the breath out of him. Then for an instant he knew what it was to fly, but only for an instant.
He had thought he’d known what pain was before. He had been wrong. Lying at the bottom of the falls looking up into the hazy sky with every piece of him broken into nearly as many pieces as his heart he truly knew what it meant to feel pain. He could feel his life ebb away and welcomed the peace of blackness, of oblivion. As he died, his thoughts slow and sluggish he wondered if Rebecca his love, would take care of his horse, it was a good beast after all, loyal and true.
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Originally Posted by BrooklynShoutsOut
