Second stab at a short-story I'm considering expanding into a hellish heroic epic kind of story. Please let me know what you think, and feel free to critique. Thanks - NP
The sharp, blunt shock of someone dropping a bag of sand on my head was the first thing I can remember. It covered my eyes, and I was aware I could not see. It wept sand through it’s tatters, into my mouth, and I was aware that I could not speak. It’s weight pulled me down, into the moist earth that was my pillow. But below my neck, where it’s weight couldn’t reach, I was aware that I was pulled down there just the same. I sent my mind into my body and found it jumbled upon itself, settled firmly in the earth like a long forgotten piece of refuse. Encasing bits of ground quivered as my limbs shook in their place of rest.
As it was, my left hand was on my back, my right: twisted under my left buttock. My right leg was upright, crossed over my left hip with my knee pointing skyward. My right foot was cocked hard under my left thigh, really just a pile of decrepit bones. I could hardly move at first. And it was only after the sand made it’s way down my throat did I become aware that I didn’t even need to draw a breath. So I pulled and dug at the deteriorating linen full of sand that brought me out of my ancient slumber. Frantically I uncoiled my limbs, pushed back the sand, and lurched upright, more frightened at my lack of desire to breathe than my inability to do so.
With the swipe of my bony left hand I cleared my eyes and felt them absorb a dim light. I coughed and swept the sand from my face and mouth. With the racking cough I reached out to lean, and found myself waste deep in an earthen hole. Walls surrounded my bed, made of stacked rocks poorly shaped to each-other, and built the room into a circular “igloo”. The entrance, as far as the dim ambiance could reveal, was entirely blocked by several large rocks. These boulders guarded me from everything but a bitter and occasional wind that pushed it’s way through, invigorating the dust and ashes in my corpse-chamber.
It was a particular moment that struck me, when the wind gusted through and drew up the dust into a symphony of rotational chaos, the idea that I am old. Very.... very old. And somehow, brand new? That my wind left me long ago, but in the drive of some cosmic engine I had breathed in once more. The idea sprouted, grew, and seeded new ideas that dropped, sprouted, and grew. The growth in understanding, possibly even some deep ancient memory weaved through my heart, my back, my stomach, and my head in a violent and rapid upheaval.
The feeling of being strangled from the inside, like one would relate to being caught in some malevolent jungle vine during a night’s camp, brought me to the brink of an implosion before continuing mercilessly through. Then, when I was nearly unwound by the shadows of the ideas that lived still below my surface, I was saved by an instinct so undeniably human that it brought an immediate end to my present torment: I saw something shiny.
The other gift the mysterious sand-bag gave me, aside from the stark and utter truth of my reality, was the projector that showed me, for the first time, the walls of this cell. Where it came from, I will always wonder, but it’s nature to make things known was undeniable. Inside the mound where my face had been was a ring. It was inlaid with a script that glowed brightly from the carvings, each intricate and deeply laid in some hard silvery metal. Saying it was “otherwise unremarkable” feels ungrateful but ultimately true.
Only being able to stand upright in the center of the hole, I judged myself to be roughly five feet, ten inches tall. My estimated weight: 90 lbs. Hair: gray. Eye color: Unknown, Disposition:..... I determined that I am good at determining things, and went so far as to assume some kind of military training. Words kept surfacing themselves and helping me determine things.
“Phalanx”
“Gospel”
“Longhouse”
“Avocado”
The ring fit my third long-finger perfectly. If it hadn’t illuminated the rocky entrance just then, I might have stood there thinking up words for however much eternity was left.
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from Short Stories http://bit.ly/2IhUzJ5
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