Joshua

A start to another story I'm thinking of writing. I change my mind a lot about what to write haha.

The dark sky was an ocean of pitch-black ink dotted with flecks of brilliant light. Joshua craned his neck until his eyes pointed straight upward. A drop of rain fell directly onto the bridge of his nose, running down the right side into the corner of his eye. He frowned; there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The wind blew his hair over his brow, blocking his vision. He lifted his hand and swept it away, the back of his head still resting firmly in between his shoulder blades.

            ‘Joshua! Come on!’ he heard Erin shout from far off to his left. The rain began to fall more heavily. He took one last look at the oddly cloudless sky and turned toward her voice. She was a good distance from him now, turning around every few steps and beckoning him with wide sweeps of her arm. Trudging further ahead of her was Noah, his feet sinking into the soft sand of the dunes. His head was hung down low, hands buried deep in his pockets.

            Joshua shook the water out of his hair. The rain was falling in torrents now, hitting the sand with force and leaving pockmarks scattered across it. Water slid down Joshua’s face, hanging on to the edge of his nostrils and earlobes before falling down to his feet only to be replaced by another droplet. His feet began to move, step by step to Erin, who was walking with her back to him. Every stride he took caused his shoes to push deep into the now wet sand, giving the illusion of walking through a muddy bog. His feet squelched as he dug his hands into his jean pockets in imitation of Noah, who was now too far away to see through the sheets of rain falling relentlessly from the night sky. He tried to look up to see if he had miraculously overlooked the clouds creating this deluge, but the drops hit his face so harshly he couldn’t bear it.

            Noah and Erin were now both hidden from view, but Joshua could still hear Erin calling his name. He followed her voice, a sweet harmonious note carried through the storm, to find them standing underneath the cover of an enormous tree. It must have been at least a football pitch’s length in height, its boughs branching out to cover the area of a shopping mall parking lot. Joshua jogged the final few steps until reaching the shelter of the protective reach of the tree. The sand turned to hard dirt, scattered with twigs and fallen leaves. The rain continued behind him, sounding like television static, which quickly faded into the background. He made his way to Erin and Noah, who stood huddled together by the trunk of the tree. Erin had her hands wrapped tightly around her biceps, shivering uncontrollably as cold rainwater dripped from her hair and clothes. Noah stood still, hands still in his pockets, eyes staring at the ground between his feet. Joshua could now see that the rain had completely obscured Noah’s vision through his glasses, which were still flecked with droplets of precipitation. He wondered how he had not tripped over anything on his way to the tree. As Joshua neared the pair, Erin’s head whipped up at the sound of his arrival.

            ‘Good, you’re here,’ she said, her jaw clattering with each word as she struggled to subdue her trembling. ‘I thought you lost us back there.’ Noah lifted his gaze and met Joshua’s, nodding in silent acknowledgment of his presence. Joshua turned back to Erin, who was now crouched at the foot of the tree trunk, digging into the dirt with her bare hands. She grunted from the effort as the hard packed earth gave way to her quivering fingers. Joshua knelt down beside her and reached down into the hole she had dug. She slapped his hand away.

            ‘I’ve got this,’ she said, gritting her teeth. ‘A little light would be nice though.’ Joshua nodded and backed away a bit. He patted his pockets, not expecting to find anything but felt a small cylindrical shape in his back left pocket. He reached inside and pulled out a keychain flashlight, painted rather cheaply in a green camouflage. He stared at it in wonder, had he put this in his pocket earlier? He couldn’t remember.

            Erin was looking up at him expectedly. ‘You gonna turn that on or just stare at it like some kind of idiot?’ she asked, clearly peeved. Erin always became rather irritable when she was cold. Joshua mumbled an apology and clicked on the flashlight. The small hole Erin had dug was suddenly illuminated by the bright harsh light emitted by the small metal tube. ‘Ah!’ she exclaimed, as the beams reflected off something round and metallic half concealed in the dirt. Burrowing her hands into the hole, she pulled out the object with some force, dislodging what appeared to be an old mint tin. Made of stainless steel, shaped like a hockey puck, it showed clear signs of aging. Dents and scrapes along its side bent the light away from it, causing strange shadows to be cast on it. Joshua blinked as he thought he saw a face be formed in the pattern of swirly scratches embedded on the object’s exterior.

            Erin’s eyes were saucers as she shook the loose dirt off of the lid, and flipped it open. It was an old lensatic compass; the sort Joshua saw his father use when they went on their annual hiking trip, which no one ever liked. He walked over behind Erin and looked over her shoulder at the spinning disc inside of the metal container. The thin metal wire stretched on the inside of the lid in the small slit made in it was slack, and frayed so badly it was nearly completely severed. Erin wasn’t paying attention to that, however. The compass kept spinning, first clockwise then counterclockwise over and over again, until coming to a sudden halt with the North arrow pointed in the direction behind them and slightly to the right. Noah lifted his head and walked over to Erin’s other side, also taking a look at what they had found.

            ‘I can’t believe it’s still here,’ she whispered. ‘After all this time…’ she swiped a hand across her cheek, trying to hide the tears welling up in her eyes. She grabbed the compass in both hands and clutched it to her chest, breathing heavily. Joshua and Noah each took a few steps back and gave each other the same look of understanding. Erin needed this moment for herself. Noah’s glasses were still dotted with rain. He noticed this and swiftly removed them, wiping the lenses on the bottom of his jumper. By the time he had put them back on, Erin had already composed herself.

            ‘Let’s head, then,’ she said, her voice hard as steel now. Noah grunted in affirmation and Joshua cleared his throat and started walking in the direction the compass had pointed. As he reached the edge of the shelter of the branches, Joshua realized the rain had stopped completely. Not only that, but the ground was completely dry, with no sign at all of the torrential rain that had fallen mere minutes before. He looked down at his own clothes and found them to be dry as well. The sun was shining, he realized. Hadn’t it been nighttime? He whipped his head around, only to find the gargantuan tree that had been standing there moments before to be gone, replaced by a rocky beach, with the calm waves lapping up at the small pebbles that made the shore. Erin and Noah were gone, nowhere to be seen. What the hell was going on?

            A high-pitched shriek began, coming from all around him. He clamped his hands to his ears, screaming, yelling, waiting for it to pass. The sound reverberated on the inside of his skull, incapacitating him. He collapsed to the ground, feeling his vocal chords struggling from his screaming, which he could not hear above the screech resounding from the very air around him. 

Joshua sat bolt upright in his bed. His head spun wildly as he searched for the source of the noise. His eyes landed on the alarm clock sat on his bedside table. It was 7 AM. He heaved a groan and slapped at the snooze button on the top of the cheap plastic clock. The sound ceased, and he was left with nothing but the faint noise of his mother and father preparing breakfast downstairs. 

 

Author's Note

I know ending the first scene with the main character waking up from a dream might seem cliche, but it is actually important to the story. My idea for the continuation of this story is to have Joshua slowly start to lose his grip on the real world, instead falling into his 'dream world' where he consistently meets and does things with Erin and Noah. This is why I decided to start the story in this way, so please don't just call me cliche! ;)

Reviews

[M P Ramesh]

Nadav,

its not justice to say cliche when you dream. All writers are dreamers for that matter. Positively history names it as imagination.Lets hear Coleridge when he tried to name poetry as " a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions". It's always like that everywhere and in every language. The trial for new forms , new ways of approach , reverse writing to the so called positive writing, black humour, eroticism, political allegory, etc are few of them , we can see. But when it matters to writing and to writers are these are trifles. They are supposed to concentrate on the substance . It will have to search for them to get it born through them. Then style, diction, newness ....means you cann not even copy yourself. Its suicidal.

All such flames are in the above piece and there surfaces a new and brave writier to the realm of great sharks.
All regards...

Carry on.........

M P Ramesh