Ch.1 Solitude

            Hardly capable, trapped in a nightmare, numb. Actions  didn’t mean anything in this moment, that wasn’t what was being felt.

            Couldn’t feel anything. Shaking, ever so slightly my entire body quivering. Aged scent of cigarette smoke absorbed into the car seats wafted up to my nostrils. It meant her. This car meant her, and everything in it. What I’m wearing means her. Trapped in a nightmare, shaking my body and my subconscious knows what’s going on but as I drive I don’t want to think about what’s going on. When I stop, when I stop and park at the place I have always gone that’s where I’ll go to be and when I’ll think about it.

            Anger broiled over momentarily. Not at her, not at anyone. Angry at the moment, my foot pressed down on the gas pedal more and I smacked the steering wheel with a clenched fist.

            “No!” Screamed it, though I know my face expressed agony rather than anger. Knowing that, the pain my subconscious was trapped in as my conscious tried not to focus Took over. Tears: I don’t like to admit to it but they came and came hard.

            No Archer. Drive. Hold it together for a few more minutes until you park, then think about it. I smacked the steering wheel again. Can’t do this, I pulled over.

            Violently twitching, my body almost captive in seizure I managed to pull myself back into the now just long enough to put the car in park. Still running, lights on, parked in the shoulder I can’t even make it to where I’m going.

            There was another “no” but clouded over by much more agony, thick through sobs my 21 year old self parked in a shoulder on a sidestreet of Berkeley, California.

            And this part is really just a blurr. I don’t know what I was feeling other than to say I was doing my best to not feel at all. Somewhere inside I found it in me to keep driving and when I got parked at the Abandon Tracks… I sat on the hood of my car beating it.

            Dark blue framed the abandoned storage building that they’d send rail carts onto the railway from. A dim glow framed the opposite horizon, where Berkeley was. This place was where I always had gone to be in Solitude, the place she never really knew.

But I remember the night she found out and followed me here. Our embrace.

            In that moment my subconscious took over my conscious and it was time to focus on what my thoughts were trying to ignore. She was gone. The knowing that I would never feel that embrace. Ever. Ever again. Sitting at my place of Solitude, the Abandon Tracks, the only thing embracing me was the knowledge that this feeling: this feeling of being alone, in solitude, was what I had always sought when I came here.  To think that once upon a time, I wanted to be alone from her at times. And knowing now I would forever be alone. The fire of our passion alive in my memory, I realized at my place of solitude that this feeling: this moment of knowing would become my forever.

Danielle Dawn Bennecourt. My Angel.

My solitude would become My Curse.

Author's Note

Extremely rough draft... as hard to write as it was... experiencing it.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

You put a lot into this chapter. Left open a lot of questions and possibilities. I like the feel and emotion of the story. Could feel the remorse and desire for the woman. A very strong ending to the chapter.
Coyote

[JulieZee]

I like it the way it is. I like the short sentences. It allows the raw emotion to show through. It allows the reader to be right there, not just in a narrative, but in your thoughts.
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[Arianna]

I personally like how Raw it is.
when people over edit things i think loose the emotion behind what they're saying. but this is steeped in emotion.

i love your choice of words to describe things
"Shaking, ever so slightly my entire body quivering."
it makes me feel like I'm there with you. watching this horrible moment unfold

thank you for sharing such a personal moment.
i really enjoy your writing style.


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[Aaron M. Anderson]

You definitely chose correctly when you decided to stagger your sentences, using fragments instead of wholes. It makes this chapter that much more emotional and in-your-face realistic.

Your decision to include Danielle discovering the narrator's spot of seclusion adds so much weight now that the reader knows of her loss. It's bittersweet, and as I stated in the overall review thus far, the abandoned railroad tracks are so symbolic of this relationship that has been established from chapter one. It amazes me how picturesque this writing is.

It's a heartbreaker to read, Archer, but you write with such style and clarity.

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A most frightful time and a highly emotional time. I find that you pour everything into your work, it embraces the good and the bad equally. A lot of writers tend to focus on one ot the other, but I do like the almost refreshing aspect of bombardment. A great first draught, keep up the good work.

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[Jake Donald Stephens]

Just the fact that you managed to write about such painful loss at all is an accomplishment in my eyes.
As difficult as this is to do, it helps to do it.
If you're willing to share the rest of the story,
I for one am willing to read.
Who ever she was,
I pray she is in a better place.

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[halflives]

Well done! For a rough draft, this is brilliantly written. I can feel the emotion radiating off the words. Incredible, for a rough draft. Great job!

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[Knoxxeh]

My new groupie this was great I must say even though you say its a rough draft you have a way with words loved it
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