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Post by James on Jun 30, 2015 16:09:17 GMT -5
Death watched me. It caught my eye, just for a second, and I jerked my head in the opposite direction. I slipped back into the camouflage of countless souls staring emptily into space. It was the natural look of a hospital visitor. Still, it continued to stare at me for several more seconds before deciding I was a grieving woman, catching sight of something she shouldn’t see. Looking straight at it had been foolish and I could imagine Gordon’s stern words admonishing me for my stupidity. The trick was to define Death by the empty space around it, where people would not walk for any discernible reason.
It isn’t an accident that nearly every culture personifies death. We all know, deep down, that Death is always with us. When we’re tired or alone, we might catch a glimpse of it in the corner of our eye. A figure stood to one side of a darkened road. A shadow waiting in an otherwise empty room. A reflection caught in a mirror for the barest second. Death is there. Few people will ever acknowledge it for longer than a second, though. Who wants to be reminded that the End is ever present, waiting for you to step in front of a bus or develop melanoma from that mole which you never checked out? It was why Death was curious when I stared at it; it wasn’t used to the attention.
I had spent several months studying Death. It would have been foolhardy not to when the word you wrote next to “Occupation” in the census was “Magician.” I knew as much as anyone could really know. Sure, I didn’t know the philosophy around Death’s existence or what it did with the souls it collected. No one knew that. What I did know about was the Hive Mind. Small d death was everywhere from quaint English retirement homes to war-torn Syrian rubble, so Death had to be there too. Many bodied, one mind. It was like an artificial intelligence controlling an army. In this hospital alone, it had at least two dozen bodies standing guard. Simply put, Death was the most powerful being on the planet and you had to be insane to try and best it.
I suppose if you were about to dip your toes into insanity, there were worse places to do it than in a hospital.
Walking with steady steps, I navigated the hallway and slipped into one of the occupied rooms. The nearest spot of not-quite-so-empty space where Death stood was several doors down. We ensured Gordon had gotten a room near to someone who was on the edge. It kept Death busy. Closing the door behind me, looking like a grieving family member seeking a few private moments alone with their loved one, I ran my fingertips along the door frame. My long, painted nails dug out a few specks of wood. A pit of nervous energy began to bubble up inside of me at the performance of a new spell. From my coat’s pocket, I pulled a tiny vial filled with splinters from another door within the hospital. Making sure to breathe deeply, I took several of the largest shavings and placed them within the small holes I had carved from the door frame, pushing them deep into place.
“Are you done fondling that door?” a raspy voice said from the bed. It brought up images of dusty, cracked earth.
Gordon was staring at me from his home of a week. He had too much skin, the yellowing surface drooping as his body shrivelled. The bedclothes were damp with sweat yet I pulled my coat tighter around me, the air conditioning freezing. Clumps of Gordon’s black hair had disappeared and knowing Gordon that was probably hurting him the most. He tried to smile at me with all the success of a waxwork figure at Madame Tusade’s.
“Hey,” I heard myself saying. My voice strained with attempted jovialness. “When we decided to do this ridiculous idea, we said we were going to do it my way. No backseat magicking.”
“No, no. I’m not saying anything. I taught you well; I have total trust in your ability, Nicola.”
I paused in mid-step. It struck me that I might never hear Gordon say my name again. Even if this stupid plan did succeed, his voice would never be that low, smooth as butter tone I had spent years listening to. That voice was already long gone. The thought hit me with the force of a truck. I sought to build a wall around my memory, squeeze in tight the way he said ‘Nicola’ so that I would never forget. Then the moment was gone, and I was pulling out more objects stuffed deep within my pockets. A magician’s coat isn’t a fashion statement; it’s a necessity.
Gordon watched as I put the tiny key-chain doll down by his head. It had bright green hair. “Umm, didn’t the original spell require the use of a skull?”
“Yes, a skull is also slightly harder to smuggle into a hospital,” I said, pulling out another doll. This one looked exactly like Gordon and he tried to grin on seeing it. His face wouldn’t work that way anymore. He just looked pained. “Also, it’s just a temporary measure to aid the escape.”
The books we found said that this type of spell was a sacred ritual. People would spend days saying farewells in case it didn’t work. The body would be well-treated. Everything revered. Gordon and I were working from snippets of rumours and mythology, terrified of Death’s presence loitering just down the hall. We worked quickly. Gordon tugged a clump of dying hair from his scalp and handed it to me, my own shaking hands loosely tying the follicles to the doll. It was perfectly made to look like Gordon. The only blemish was a hint of blue at the back of its neck, a speck of colour against the otherwise pale, clay skin.
“Slow and steady?” I said. My throat tightened around the words.
“Quick and fast, like a band aid,” Gordon said, meeting my eyes.
My fingernails moved against the doll, Gordon fidgeting as he felt a scraping against his skin. The tiny dot of blue was a raised bump, just high enough for me to grip. This was it. I was either to become the master of death or its facilitator. Breathing in heavily, I pulled, yanking the dot from the doll in one fluid movement. A piece of blue string dangled from my fingers like a worm on a fisherman’s hook. The gentle hum of hospital equipment still filled the room, the machines happy that Gordon’s heart was beating away. I hadn’t done anything to his body; I’d merely ripped his soul free. My heart pounding somewhere around my throat, I tied the blue string tightly around the key-chain doll’s neck, the little figure wearing it like a scarf.
Barely audible, my ears straining, I heard a tiny buzzing sound. Lifting the doll to my ear, it grew clearer. “Oh this is ridiculous; I’d have preferred a skull.”
I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. There was no time for either. For now, Death would have no idea what had happened. Two souls still sat in the room he knew they were in. We had to fix that. Keeping the doll close to my ear as Gordon veered from ecstatic joy from escaping his disease-ridden body to annoyance at the cosy confines of his new makeshift home; I pulled open the window and waited. If I was being honest with myself, I knew Jake wasn’t going to be a long-term thing. He was too immature. What he did have going for him, though, was access to a tiny drone and an eagerness to impress me. The machine appeared from above a moment later, a small brown box attached beneath it.
“Wait? Hold on!” Gordon’s buzzy little voice said from the doll. “I, uh, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Sorry, Gordon, we need to get you out of here quickly.”
Popping the box’s lid open, I carefully placed Gordon inside, ignoring his increasing screams. I could apologise later. Making sure that the top was securely fastened, I gave the drone a little pat and it disappeared into the sky. There was no time to watch it go. I nearly fell over the bed as I sprinted across the room, not even taking a second to breathe. Death would be sensing that something was wrong by now. I had to leave. Opening the hospital door, I stepped through it and emerged from a completely different room. The hustle and bustle of hospital life surrounded me, drawing me towards the exit like a strong-flowing current. For now, the plan had worked.
Still, I knew I needed to get to the rendezvous point as soon as possible. Gordon was officially on the run from Death.
END
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Post by Kaez on Jul 1, 2015 8:36:22 GMT -5
Death is there. Few people will ever acknowledge it for longer than a second, though. ", though." ending a sentence is really difficult to use while maintaining flow. I think, "Death is there, though few will ever acknowledge it for longer than a second," would read nicer. I love the line about building the wall around the memory, but it needs more breathing room. We too quickly lose the emotional element because we're learning about magicians' coats. Ease that transition a bit. This is hilarious, but the sudden emergence of the Jake character does feel a little, "Woah, who, what, where'd that come from?" You don't need to spend a lot of time introducing him, but this alone isn't sufficient. Maybe something earlier in the story (which if done well could make this even funnier, in fact), maybe another sentence right before this one. -Something- else is needed. Overall, this is an 8/10 short story. It's not the most self-contained thing (you know I'm a sucker for self-contained stories with a beginning, middle, and end) but it gives us yet another glimpse into your urban fantasy universe, which is slowly, I confess, growing on me. The story doesn't have a definite -tone-, and that's the only sort of broad critique I can give. I think it doesn't introduce itself as very lighthearted, but by the end you can tell that it is. And maybe it could've been that way from the start and would've benefited from it. So I think you have room to iron out a few wrinkles, if this is something you'd like to spend more time on. |
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Post by James on Jul 1, 2015 15:18:38 GMT -5
Thanks, Pete!
Pretty much agree with everything you said. I think my own "be as short as possible" restriction meant things didn't have room to breathe or made stuff pop out of nowhere. I might come back to it, but overall, it was just to shake off the rust. I don't know if other people find this, but after a period of non-writing, there's a small, tiny part of me going "what if you literally can't write fiction anymore?"
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Post by Kaez on Jul 1, 2015 15:45:56 GMT -5
I don't know if other people find this, but after a period of non-writing, there's a small, tiny part of me going "what if you literally can't write fiction anymore?" Yeah, absolutely. I need to write a shake-the-rust-off thing myself, as I've not written proper narrative in a long time, but I think the thing that's keeping me from just sitting down and doing it is exactly this fear. |
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Post by James on Jul 1, 2015 15:47:21 GMT -5
I don't know if other people find this, but after a period of non-writing, there's a small, tiny part of me going "what if you literally can't write fiction anymore?" Yeah, absolutely. I need to write a shake-the-rust-off thing myself, as I've not written proper narrative in a long time, but I think the thing that's keeping me from just sitting down and doing it is exactly this fear. Do we need to do one of those 30 minutes "duels" at the weekend? Just to get you writing. |
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Post by Kaez on Jul 1, 2015 18:21:55 GMT -5
Yeah, absolutely. I need to write a shake-the-rust-off thing myself, as I've not written proper narrative in a long time, but I think the thing that's keeping me from just sitting down and doing it is exactly this fear. Do we need to do one of those 30 minutes "duels" at the weekend? Just to get you writing. I'd be game for that. |
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