Round 2 - The Picture Round (Kaez v Injin)

[James]

[Kaez]

The darkness of the midnight horizon was deep. The sky extended off into a slurry of rain and shadow. Turbulent stormclouds and distant moonlight casting a week and nebulous glow. Grey-blue haze. Rain dazzling in the lights. Vanishing gemstones; sparklers, fireflies - racing, streaking like stars in the dark and the deep.

But the darkness of the Ocean was far, far deeper. In the depths, there was no faint moonlight, no smattering of clouds or stars. No sense that further beyond the darkness there would be light and dawn. No secret knowledge that somewhere beyond was brightness and light and warmth. No, the darkness beneath the waves was without end -- forever, downward, downward, until in the furthest abyss all sense of direction and movement lost meaning. In what sense can there be movement in the total void? In what sense does time pass in total emptiness? In truth, there is no water in any meaningful sense at the darkest, deepest depths of the Ocean. There is nothing. Only the Void, and you.

And her.

Her, God, he'd almost forgotten. In the coordinating of the flight controls, in the maneuvering through the stormclouds and the pressure systems, in the ethereal radiation of the beryl dials. Trying to listen to his instruments. Elevation descending. Warning lights, bright and garish. Oxygen supply levels. Speed, wind readings stuttering. Cabin pressure needle resting steady. Aluminum wings pelted with rain. Constant buzz of air through the engines. And he'd almost forgotten why he was out here in the heart of the storm, high above the dancing waves but falling. Plummeting.

Latitude 28.190863, Longitude -74.003906. Somewhere between the Bahamas and Nowhere. Somewhere, out there, and then down. Way down.

She was waiting.

"Hey?"

White sheets with a blue-black floral print. Matched the throw pillows and that lamp in the attic from her mother. Only $25, can't I?

"Hey yourself." Sleepy haze, dry eyes. Sheets stuck to his back with sweat. How late was it? One-eyed alarm clock vision read "10:22" in bright red. The wall was lit in soft light, faint shadows of the lace curtains.

"I'm serious, hey." A shove on the shoulder. "Roll over, shh, look."

He craned his neck -- her bare arm across the space between them, her hand just brushing his hip. "Look, look."

His eyes followed hers onto the windowsill. Two eloquent, complex orange swirls decorated the wings. Vivid and alive and caught right in the sunlight. Perfectly quiet and still -- so absolutely motionless. Distant birds. A car down the street. A neighbor. The faintest creak of the mattress. Her breathing. The blanket's rhythmic rise and fall. Orange leaves in the sunlight. Saturday, thank God.

"It's beautiful."

Her hair. Golden brown. Alive and blossoming. All is bright and awake.

Flutter and vanish. Still windowsill. Bright morning light. Cool breeze. Smell of grass. Smell of her. And the softness of things.

And the lightness of things.

She was down there.

Somewhere.

Waiting.

Down, down in timelessness. Down in emptiness. Afloat, adrift, weightless. Her face...

He saw her.

Flashing red.

Warning lights.

Back to the plane. Back to now. Focus, focus.

The storm. The plane. The ocean. Her. Make it happen. Ease South-Southeast. Watch the elevation. Brace for it. Don't think too much. Bite down.

There was little preparation that could be done when you were performing a maneuver outside of any living person's knowledge. All the best suicide-bombers and wrist-cutters took their secrets with them when they went. The same might be said about depressed pilots, though the air force didn't care for that kind of publicity. No family or friends or pesky lawyers begging for all the details? Report it as an unpredictable accident, disaster due to inclement weather. Lost in the storm, controls went awry, pressure shifts and confusion. Shouldn't have been out that late in that kind of storm. Tragic loss. Put it in the obits between Gramma Claire and the car crash on I-79.

It was a semi-aquatic craft. Navy models had been fully submerged and came out running, unphased, they said.

Of course, you could only go so deep before the engines would stall. And then the electrics would fail, and then the pressure would break. And at that point...

He knew it was coming. He wasn't afraid, but he didn't like to think about it too long. Better not to. No reason to.

A vision of mom. A vision of Jerry's 444 Diner. Barbecue bacon cheeseburgers and the White Sox. Jeane's daughter's first birthday. Basil plants in the backyard.

Turn a knob, do something. Get distracted. Remember her.

Remember her.

She's out there.

Never forget that. Her, not like anyone else. The one. The only one.

Not gone. Not yet.

They'd be together. Together, down there, somewhere, in the void, where nothing was, with no direction or aim, where time was stopped and all was a great black emptiness. Without memory or form. Without sickness or pain or separation. The place from which we all came and into which each of us is going, some sooner than others, some too soon, some years too soon.

He'd be with her. Down there. Needle falling.

Crunching of leaves. A distant guide delivering a monotone announcement. Kids laughing. Camera shutters.

"Did you know-"

He smiled. What this time?

"That giraffes, despite the length of their neck, don't actually eat the leaves at the tops of the trees?"

Smile cracked to a laugh. "No, I... I didn't."

"You'd think they would, right? I mean, why else? That's what you'd think, but they don't. They actually have to bend down to eat most of the time, they almost never eat the ones at the top." She turned, excited, voice raising. "The necks are more for-- you don't care, do you?" Dropped brow. Frowning. Big eyes. Always taking things to heart.

He stifled his grin and nodded. Forehead crinkled apologetically. "No, I do. What ar-"

Gentle shove. Her hair bounces. "You don't, shut up, I'm not telling you." Sunlight peaks through her shirt at her waist. Weight on her heels, blue-painted toes.

"No, I do, I-"

"And I'm not sharing the cotton candy either." Craned neck, hurt tone.

His arm reached behind her, sneaking 'round to her opposite hand to steal a pinch. Keep the mood light. Smiling, reaching.

Her hand raised high into the air, hoisting the bundle of cotton candy like a pink torch. "Hey!"

"Hey yourself!"

She stomped. "Nuh-uh! Nope! You don't care about the giraffes!"

The animals on the opposite side of the fence continued to graze on the low-hanging leaves. Two nearby children cast crude looks.

His smile broke through. "Tell me all about the giraffes, I need to know!"

Her arms crossed, her expression feigned flawlessly. Serious and stern. She shook her head.

"But I need to know!" he laughed.

Her smile peaked through in her eyes. "Do you really want to know?

Warning lights. Red flashes. Elevation fucked and not getting unfucked soon. Auto-override requesting permission to assume control. Hold decline for three seconds. Hold your breath. Hold it all in. Wait for it. Wait for it.

The last few seconds stretched on. The sounds of individual waves crashing against the seawater. The sound of the rain, crisp and clear. A single roar of thunder, perfect and vivid. The high whirl of the engines. All of it seemed so obvious and sharp. So loud and undistorted. So beautiful, each in their own way, that he could be absorbed in those few sounds forever. Just to hear the crash of one wave, just to hear that sound, and be a witness to the might, and the clash, and behold the water and connect with it in that way... was enough. To hear each sound, and to feel them, and to breathe the bright air, and to live, and exist, and have that opportunity at all -- was enough.

Everything was right and good. And nothing had been wrong.

And she was real. And she had been.

She could never, ever be gone. Not really. Not in this world that was so Good and Right and Real.

And the darkness swallowed him.

And everything was the echo of an instant. And everything was in this very moment.

And time dissolved, and space dissolved.

And in the plunge he drew in a breath, so deep and clean. A full breath. And he was alive, and so was she. Forever.

"Are you sure you packed everything?"

Her hair was a frazzled mess. A ponytail tangled from one long curl, her forehead glazed with sweat. "Uh!" she grunted, fumbling through a bag. "No! Uh, no, I'm not sure, but mom's outside and I have to -- have you seen my toothpaste?"

He glanced down at his feet, the length of the hallway, back into their bedroom. The room was a disaster scene. Clothes and objects scattered incomprehensibly. Blanket pulled into a knot. Mirror tipped. A stray sock in the middle of the floor. Six pairs of near-identical underwear sorted into groups and then dismissed.

"Have you checked the bathro-"

"Got it!" Her head hidden behind the luggage, toothpaste sailing into the pillow by her bags. "I think that's everything?"

He grabbed the toothpaste and pushed it into the packed-to-the-brim plastic case of shampoos and skin creams. She zippered it up with one jolting movement and he retracted his hand just in time to avoid the seal.

"I think that's everything." She stood before him, mis-matched socks, two pieces of massive luggage at either side. Hair a mess. He ran his fingers through it, straightening it and patting it down. Her eyes closed.

She rubbed her temple against his wrist. "I'll miss you so much."

His left cheek pulled, mouth fell into a half-smirk. "I'll miss you."

She clicked the handles of her bags, extended them, and turned the corner to the living room. "It's only for a few days. I'll call you as soon as we leave port," her voice trailed.

Out the window, the beeping of a car horn in three quick successions.

"Shit, shit. My mom... I..." She stopped at the door, peering out the window.

"Hey," he said, reaching.

She spun. "Hey yourself."

Her eyes. Her smile. A total wreck. Flawless and alive and looking and talking and there, with him, in that moment.

She had been.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you more."

He shook his head and extended his arms. Felt her head press against his chest. Her hands on his back.

He closed his eyes. And in the darkness...

...time seemed to stop.

And in the emptiness, she was there. Still there.

With him.

Always.

"Hey?"

"Hey yourself."

[Injin]

Another great storm in this region was not new. The waves that crashed the plane that dipped below, near the water, were the sort that always rocked the seas during such times. Two voices could be heard, somehow, just below the crest of the waves, began another long conversation.

“Rough day at sea again, isn’t it?” said the first, grizzled and coarse.

“Of course, every day, let alone night, in these waters is always like this. Why are you surprised, did your part of the mission really rile you up that badly?” the second voice, softer, questioning, asked.

“Well of course. We lost three men trying to retake Al’Hara Airport because I didn’t make it in time and now I have this gig in the middle of the fucking ocean. How do you think I feel?”

“Frustrated? I can’t read your emotions, sir. Especially with that…thing in your mouth” said the second voice, somewhat more confident than before.

“Bullshit. I’m as I’m always, you can’t fucking assume that questions of how I’m feeling are actually goddamn serious, private” the more experienced voice countered. “The tours so far today, with the loss of our men out of Al’Hara airport, means that my day has been a literal pile of the smelliest patented dog shit. The kind of dog shit that you could only buy in a novelty shop. With those soldiers dead, there were only so many things they could send me on and given the weather I’m not that surprised that they sent the two of us here to clean up part of the damned mess”

“Well we have a mission in this storm. Right? So we just make sure not to fail this one. They’ll have our heads for that, won’t they, sir?” the voice said, focusing on not crashing the vehicle as the storm continued to fail to abate. By now these sorts of storms would die out, the amount of energy expended making sure that the waters around here, always somewhat turbulent, would be calm for a while. At least long enough for those who fished here to grab their catches and boat as far as they can away from this place. The Great Ocean’s Reach was the deepest part of the sea, and also the richest with fish life. This time of year, the salmon that occasionally found their ways upriver would find themselves crossing it, heading to the Elevation Hills. However, that didn’t really…and she was daydreaming again. Great.

The leader of this mission, still seeming like he needed to take a large dump of hate all over the private’s dream parade of marine biology, smacked the lower ranked soldier’s hand, breaking them out of their trance, “We are in turbulent waters. You CANNOT seriously be daydreaming right now” the older man spook, grabbing the private’s hand, “We have one fucking chance at this, if you screw this up, Al’Hara is lost to us forever and we have no way of getting it back from these lunatics with the munitions they have now unless we do something. We lost so much already, are you really going to get lost in a fishery lesson while we’re nearly there?”

Shaking her head, the private finally nodded, staring at the screen before her as she calibrated what was necessary as the vehicle they were in, thankfully a smooth ride despite the storm, maneuvered its way through the stormy weather. It was going to be hard to get into the right position to fire, given the conditions, but once they could, they’d be able to return home as heroes…more or less. “Sir, they’re still going around in circles. Are you sure that they have a path in mind? They seriously look like they went up shit creek and aren’t sure where to puke.” she asked, somewhat incredulous towards the spirographic pattern in front of her.

“Yes, private, I am absolutely sure. If they get to what they mean to get to, then Al’Hara is lost forever, and so is the airport. We can’t let them get THOSE reinforcements or it’s over” the veteran said, chomping down hard enough to break the stick of cinnamon that had been dangling out of his mouth.

Looking over to their superior, the private shook their head, “…did you really need to bring that Cinnamon Stick here? Especially in this air-recycled tin can?” she asked, grimacing at the repeated action.

“It. Keeps. Me. Calm.” He responded, picking the stick back up and stuffing it into his mouth. All his life, cinnamon had been involved with the good things. His sixth birthday. First date. First kiss. His wedding cake. His son-in law’s grizzly mur - accident at the cinnamon stick factory after the commander had found out he’d been abusing his daughter. Good things.

“Well you don’t seem calm right now, sir” the private retorted, her eyebrows twitching in respond to what was going on. It was hard to concentrate with that smell.

“Calm enough to fly this damned thing, in this storm. Now keep the damned steering straight and leave me to my god damned work, private. Really” he said, sending her a glare that could sink a star destroyer.

“Fine, fine sir. Can you at least not smoke it too? It’s distracting and the oxygen in here is really flammable, sir” she asked, noting that the end of the cinnamon stick was currently alight, or at the very least burning so mildly that it threatened to do nothing more than turn the slightly dark cockpit that the two were in into a slightly brighter than slightly dark cockpit. Well, it would if it didn’t seem to light up just like a cigarette if the light was muffled by a drunken crow’s feather.

“I do what I do because I fucking do it. Now stop questioning me and focus on the damned mission private. Or do I have to remind you, again, what we are fucking doing?” he responded, sighing explosively as he focused again on piloting the craft.

“Sir?” she asked, “Are you seriously sure that they’re headed anywhere? They’ve been doing this for an hour now and I…?” she said, looking over to him. He was simply staring ahead, his eyes almost blank save the smallest glimmer of movement across the board below him. The board showed the path, so he seemed to already know what she’d been questioning the last few minutes, “Sir?” she asked again.

…

“Sir?” a third time.

…

“…Alright then, sir” she finally said, shaking her head and resuming her search for the right intercept pattern. They acted like they didn’t know that the military transport wasn’t following them, but at the same time, seemed to evade every attempt to circle around them, the waves as their shield of movement each and every time as they rounded every single one without issue.

The stormy seas remained so for a while longer, the waves seeming to circle around not only the craft they were in, but also what they were pursuing, “Well…private. It’s time for you to show that iniative that you seem to be so sure that you have” the older voice beckoned, pausing to hear what the private had to say.

For once, the private was silent, her eyes large and her mouth dropped. Well that was something that she had never expected to happen, not at least until cinnamon supplies ran out for the military, “Well, sir” she starting, not exactly used to being ordered to make a suggestion, “Have you thought of doing a proper ambush? Jumping out in front of the enemy vehicle and forcing it to plunge into the water as it sees no recourse in a short amount of time?”

“Yes I have private, try the fuck again. Obviously the pilot of that thing isn’t nearly that stupid or reckless, otherwise we’d have already caught up to them or at the very least they would’ve crashed in this shitty weather” he countered, pausing again to hear if she had any more bright ideas.

“Well…” she started, “We could play an Old Man Henderson”

“The Old Man Henderson? Do you really think we have that much firepower on this thing?”

“Well…yeah”

“…okay, you got me there, Private. How the hell did you know that I used to hang around 4chan when I was a little shit?”

“Your daughter is a blabbermouth, sir.”

“Which one, post-op or widow?”

“…sir, seriously, you need to not treat your older daughter like a-“

“I’m not; I’m simply differentiating them by major events in their lives. Older or younger, happy?”

“…right. Older. The one I used to date in high school”

“You used to date my daughter when she was my son?”

“Sir, seriously, enough of that. She was always your daughter, she just had different parts and we’re REALLY getting off topic of the fact we can actually do the Old Man Henderson play if you actually pilot thing this in a more haphazard manner”

“Right. Yeah, fine, I can take over the precision piloting; ready the bombs in the cargo bay. We might as well force them out into the open so that they’ll be easier to shoot at from our lower vantage point.” He said, finally, as he seemed to focus on the boards in front of him, touching various points to mark the route the craft would automatically follow.

Heading to the back, she moved quickly, attaching, reattaching, arming, disarming very quickly when the bomb had started to go off, rearmed again, calibrated to the proper settings, and finally, the most important step, wrote the words “Old Man Henderson Lives” in bright red Sharpie marker all over the sides of one of the bombs. Pushing the set of explosives into the release catch, she once more sat down. “Bombs armed and ready, sir” she said, turning to her CO.

Turning back towards the private, the not-so-gentleman nodded and clutched the steering section of the board in front of him, nodding as he suddenly shifted the whole dashboard up, suddenly rearing the submersible out of the water, with its lower end pointing directly at the enemy plane, striking it…

The plane suffered no damage.

At first.

Within moments of the bomb inertly slamming into the plane and then somehow exploding in the sea, the plan itself exploded, much to the shock of the currently upside down smallish submarine. Mostly because due to the payload of the plane, a secondary explosion, bar bigger, sent the submarine flying through the air, through part of a wave, and then through the air again, smacking against a much larger wave before eventually coming to a halt.

“Are we alive, sir?”

“I believe we are”

“Are you absolutely sure of that sir, we could obviously be hallucinating right now in some sort of auditory way. That could be causing us to hear this conversation and respond our own ways accordingly.”

“Stow that opinion of yours, private.”

“Yes sir”.

[James]

Kaez:

I think one of your unsung strengths is your mastery over structure and form. I noted Zovo made a comment about Taed's stories perhaps being too ambitious in scope and not necessarily having an ending sometimes. It was a comment I had in my head for the entire day, pondering about my own stories. So when I came to reading yours, I noticed it. There's such a wealth of feeling and emotion in so few words and the story has a clear ending. I don't know if it's something that's instinctive or if you think about it, but it's one of your key strengths and you have to keep on doing it.

I really liked this story. The central premise of the story really just ran with the image and I loved the comparison between the sky and the ocean which kicked off the story. The bit about the giraffe was well-written and absolutely essential because it cemented the relationship between the two characters. The only thing that I didn't buy was that he had almost “forgotten” about her while she was busy flying. That seemed like a narrative tool rather than a natural flow.

Overall, I feel like the austerity and fragmentation worked. It gave the story a poetic pace and it was a good call for a story like this. However, having such an austere story in terms of background did hurt you a bit. This was a minimalist story so obviously you don't want too much. But I feel like I just had one or two too many “why's?” I'm conscious that maybe my brain isn't running at 100% and I'm missing something obvious, and if I am, I apologise but:

Making the aircraft semi-aquatic seemed to blur the lines of what the story was about – which may have been your intention, but if so, I think that limited the emotional punch. Either there was a spiritual acceptance that she's down there waiting for him or there's a desperate lack of reality that she might still be down there waiting. I really feel like you're going for the former and the former is where the heart is. But there's enough to make me doubt that I've fully understood the story.

And if that was your intention, I'm not sure it worked.

But beyond that, it's beautifully written (as always) and it's expertly contained (as always). Well done.

Injin

I'm a little bit disappointed here, Injin. Once again, you have a heck of an outline to a story. A disgraced officer, feeling guilty, in a horrible storm, hunting the enemy, trying to save strategic positions. There's so much scope in such a tiny situation. You could build on the claustrophobia of the small craft and really give these two characters depth. Basically, you could have had such a dramatic, mature military sci-fi story.

And we didn't get that. We got a story that joked about sex changes and 4chan. We got characters that just didn't feel real. And that was the major problem. This was a story that was dialogue-heavy and with two characters. Neither character felt real and their dialogue felt fake. I always suggest to read dialogue out loud. Does it sound like something someone could say? It doesn't have to sound natural, dialogue can be a bit cleverer than the everyday conversation, but it needs to feel at least plausible.

My other concern is around the narrative itself. You seem to get a little bit inconsistent. Sometimes the story is told from the view of some unseen narrative (who does a lot of telling, not showing) but then it suddenly seems almost first person-ish from the perspective of the woman. You need to watch out for that.

I think we're at the stage now where you are coming up with some great ideas now. I love Kaez's idea but if you had delivered on the premise, you'd have been right up there with him. So, we've got the ideas. You need to work on the delivery, particularly:

A: Keep it mature. We've talked about comedy before. Comedy is fucking hard to write. It's possibly the hardest thing to write. I feel like when you attempt to introduce comedy to your story, it suffers. That's not saying you don't have a sense of humour. That's just how hard comedy is. You can see from my writing, my most inconsistent writing is probably when I'm writing comedy. Concentrate on the story, characters, setting, dialogue. Get those down before attempting to tackle things like comedy.

B: Consistent narrative. Make sure that your writing has the same “voice” the whole way through. If you have a distant narrator, don't then have side comments start popping up (“However, that didn’t really…and she was daydreaming again. Great.”). And always remember: show, don't tell (some of the time). Don't tell me the waves are crashing over the plane. Show me how the waves soar over the metal wings, leaving a glistening film of water along the metal.

C: Characters and dialogue. Make them real. Give them personality, not stereotypes. Read the dialogue out loud to yourself. Is this the way someone could talk? If not, then you need to think about it some more.

Overall, great idea, but lacking in the execution.

You're halfway there. Keep it up.





This match is going to Kaez. You both had great ideas, but Kaez delivered on it.

WINNER: KAEZ