Demon's Light

This is the first chapter to a book concept I have had for a while. The title is Demon's Light

According to this guy’s watch I’ve been dead for approximately seven minutes. It is not as if I got up this morning expecting to end the day as a semi-transparent spirit standing on some black asphalt road with a distinct sense of a boredom mixed with numb terror. Though to proceed from here you need to know how my day started, and how I ended up on this road. This is the best way I can sum up my general life style into one sentence to give you an idea of what is happening. My name is Richard, and my life sucks.

 

It all started about two years ago at the age of sixteen. I was the happiest of fellas, good family, good at school, good at sports, and with a general air of goodness about them. It seemed as if my existence was on the right track. I would have gone to college, and gotten a nice paying job in some corporate office, and would have died after a standard life of a wife and two to three kids. Now I realize what complete and utter bull s**t that is. Where is the adventure in it? Where is the fun? Going along in an eternal rat race, except there isn’t any cheese at the end just a cheap coffin and a few crying relatives. I not sure how fate worked it’s grimy little fingers into my straight arrow of a life, but it did, and the derailment of my own personnel train into the future happened in one moment. It started with my dad.

 

Two years ago my dad left my mom. I know lots of kids have to deal with this, and for about six months I was able to. Unfortunately for me my mother couldn’t fair as well. She slowly withered away as the months went on. She didn’t exactly die of grief; the influenza beat her to it. When you are that disconnected from life the condition of the body doesn’t quite make the journey to conscious thought. She didn’t fight the disease, she was to busy fighting in her own head. I had to watch her wither to nothing, and at the moment in the hospital mere moments before she died she told me to lean in close. I have a sense of theatrics and had seen this scene play over the television screen a hundred times. I swallowed my tears and leaned in close to listen. She told me two words.

 

“I’m sorry.” her faint rasping gurgle of a sound she had produced nearly made me sick to my stomach. My mind relied for a reason for her to be sorry. She had always been the best of mothers. Caring, and attentive, at least until the last few months. She had nothing to be sorry for, and in those last few moments before her death my emotions spilled over and manifested themselves in tears. My cold maelstrom of a mind finally let go of its pent up fury.

 

Once both my parents were gone they attempted to put me into social services. They tried to locate my dad in order to dump me onto him for the last two years until I was able to be on my own. It was as he had fallen of the face of the earth, and from the moment he left my mom his presence was not felt anywhere. Not a single ripple in the great information stream of the world. He had literally vanished from existence. I wondered where he had gone, but in a detached way; unknown to me the relation ship I had with my father was far from normal. Instead of him sneaking around my mom to help me buy ice cream secretly and go out with my friends he did something far different. Our relation ship in my young years was far beyond formal. It was less father son, and more master pupil. He put me through grueling mental and physical strain in order to turn me into what I am today, and what I am just starting to realize is that he screwed me up. A teenage boy shouldn’t act as I do. They shouldn’t have this sense of “responsibility”. At first it was a relief when he was gone. No more wearing weight harnesses, no more being locked in my room and having to solve puzzles to be able to leave, and no more god damn regulated diet. Then I realized something.

 

 He was the one, who gave my life structure, and by the time he had left he had already dug the ditches that the water of my thought flowed through, and even without him the thought followed the same paths.  I realized a week after he was gone that I was still eating the same food. Doing the same exercises. Living the same life! It was the only life I knew how to live.

 

After he was gone and my mother died I decided to learn to live a different way. Social services picked me up and took me to one of their offices. Then I filled for emancipation. Because technically my dad was still a US citizen and had no record of leaving the country I was able to file the case towards him. When he did not show up, and after I pleaded my case and told them of my childhood then ruled in my favor. I become my own person, and followed my own path. That is what brought me to Seattle three months ago.

 

The year between then and today do not matter much. The only thing that really occurred was my acquiring of a job, and getting a small apartment near the center of the city. Every morning day in and day out I got up, and got ready, and did my job before returning him and sleeping in order to start the cycle again. This morning was no different.

 

My alarm blared in the kind of sonic explosion best left to rock concerts and dimply-lit music stores. The CD that was inserted into the tiny clock radio was something I had been given by one of my few friends. His name was Mark, just one of the guys from work. On the loading dock in between shipments we had time to sit around and talk to each other. We never talked about much, just the kind of conversation you make at a party, cheap, impersonal, or in other words boring.

 

I sat in my bed listening the incomprehensible lyrics for some time. Though they couldn’t be really called lyrics, more a form of oscillating grunting trying to be language. I eventually got up and turned off the sonic inferno, and crossed the small apartment to the shower. Luckily the apartment building always had a ready supply of hot water. Hot water had always soothed me, and often I spent more than an hour standing there staring up into the showerhead letting the warm liquid hit my face. After I had finished I exited the shower to select the day’s clothing. I couldn’t afford a lot because the rent of the apartment ate away most of my pay check, and clothes were never that important to me anyway. A gray shirt, along with a faded pair of blue jeans. He reached up and brushed the strands of brown hair from his eyes, that was another he didn’t find important: haircuts.

 

I walked down the stair and exited the apartment, and proceeded down the narrow staircase near at the end of the hallway. The old iron hand railing was flecked with rust and the entire building had a general sense of decay. The ceilings were water damaged, the carpets ragged, but it was a home. Outside of the building it was cold, and the wind whipped around me and caused me to shiver.

 

Cars drove past at a nearly blinding rate as I walked the few blocks towards the bus stopped he used. I wished I could have a car like those who had zoomed by. Though if I had I probably wouldn’t be in this predicament. The streets were crowded with the thousands of people who frequented the city center. My bus stop was right in front of a small grocery store under one of the tall buildings. A woman stepped out of it, while pulling a child along behind her. She had carried far to many brown paper bags, and as I watched her from my seat on the bench that was the stop she dropped a bag. It ripped open as it impacted the ground. Cans rolled lazily across the sidewalk between the people and into the street.

 

“I’ll get it mommy!” the child had yelled at her mother as she bent down to collect the cans. He walked along bend over as he had chased the can.  He had not even noticed as he walked out into the street. I thought he was going to stop, I thought he would noticed the cars that had rocketed past. He didn’t, and I as the only one watching him had to leap into action.

 

“Nooo!!” I yelled as I leapt into the traffic. The kid looked up at a car speeding towards him, horrified. I grabbed him quickly and pulled him into the crook of my stomach as I doubled over, my back facing the oncoming car. There had been a squeal of tires in the last moment. Then the world went dark.

 

And then it lit up again. The world exploded into a maelstrom of noise and lights. An ambulance had arrived while he was unconscious, and the paramedics were hunched over someone. The woman with the child was holding him while crying, and I walked over to them.

 

“I glad the kid is ok. You need to be careful.” I smiled at her, but she didn’t turn around, she didn’t appear to have heard me at all “Excuse me ma’am?” she didn’t turn around again, and as I approached her she didn’t give any indication that she noticed me at all. I reached out to her and tried to put a hand on her shoulder. Then her figure dissolved into colored smoke. My hand had passed right through her body, and the moment my hand reached into her she shuddered slightly. I starred at my hand in disbelief, until now I hadn’t realized it. My hand was semi-translucent. I tried to touch her arm again and it again it dissolved into smoke. At that point was when I started to panic. I ran to one of the paramedics and liked at what they were hunching over. It was my body, curled into the position I was in when I was protecting the child.

 

“Hello?” I asked in almost a whisper to the closest paramedic. “Hello.” I said in a slightly louder voice, and he still did not react.

 

“Hello!” I yelled to the world at large. No one turned. No one reacted. Nothing happened. I was left standing there amongst my dead body and a group of paramedics. Now stricken with a blinding panic I rushed around the street yelling and shouting and anyone who even glanced in his direction, begging them to notice. None did.

Author's Note

This is the first thing I have written from first person perspective, so I am not sure about it.

Reviews

[branden]

Idk I loved it. I didn't think it was too descriptive at all. Actually, I loved the part (I'm paraphrasing cause I'm too lazy to go find the quote) where you say "He had dug the canals/trenches of which my water of thought flowed through. And now I was stuck thinking this way." --> favourite part. I've honestly felt like my parents have done that to me sometimes.... and it was an excellent analogy.

[branden]

This was absolutely superb! Really, as I read I could not stop myself from continuing to the next sentence. I'm shocked, you need to get this published in a book or something. I've often felt in the same boat as the protagonist here.

If ever you get the opportunity, read my short peice. It's the first two chapters I'd say combined into one longer one.

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/brandensmith38/991968/

[Aggie Skeleton]

For a fist attempt it's really good. Different, it kept me reading.

[The Water Queen]

For your first attempt at first person perspective this is really well done a few mistakes but not bad.

[Dutch Jr.]

This is pretty good, gripping to a certain extent, but I agree with Domenic. A tad too descriptive.

[James Watts]

Not a bad start. I noticed a few sentences that could be reworded for clarity and some missing words/typos.

[Keevan]

Awesome first chapter :) my favorite line in the whole thing was "My name is Richard, and my life sucks." Again, great right.

[Tanece Brooks]

This isn't bad for your first time writing in first person. I actually found it rather interesting to read. Also, you had a great hook, but after a while it gets kind of tideous. I also have to agree with Domenic, the whole "jumping into traffic to save a young boy" is seriously over-used. Also watch your spelling and grammar, I saw a few mistakes here and there.

[Domenic Luciani]

"My name (is) Richard, and my life sucks"
"what complete and (utter) bull s**t that is"
"the influenza beat (her to it)"
Just a few things I caught.
That font is a terrible strain on the eyes, just saying.
I noticed you're doing that "more is less" thing again. Also, the "jumping into traffic to save the young boy" scenario is a bit overused.
You had a great hook, but then you kind of lost it. Shorten the details a bit, and add more foreshadowing about his condition or something like that.