Chapter 1

The makings of a plan begin to take shape as Woodson runs through his mind how it should all play out.

Chapter one:

 

 

The hollowing out of my soul, a process that has kept me up enough consecutive nights I now converse with the stars on a first name basis, has also lead to me to this charade. The following acts, I cannot stress enough, occur not from choice but chance and circumstance. Let us begin:

Ominous rain clouds will appear as dark smears of paint across the skyline canvas, intimidating but harmless. Holding back the rain these monstrous puffs and fluffs cloud ones vision, ironically drowning out the passionate, heated pleas of a smothered sun. The water will be cruel. It will pierce through the natural warmth my body produces, etching itself into all crevices of my flesh, settling icicles firmly between joints and frozen lakes between bones. My body will ferociously question why I have gone dipping in February, even though it is mid-July. I must sell it well. I may be treading water for hours, although with my experienced precision the family should be gallivanting around in their most likely over-priced tin can metal speedboat between the approximate hours of 3 P.M. and 6 P.M. Regardless of how many partake in the family joy-ride I simply need one pair of eyes to set on the drowning man that will be clinging to each passing breath. I will remain in the kayak until I catch a glimpse of that mechanical, maniacal beast screaming it’s song across the water, dispensing raindrops behind it that settle back into the oceans embrace. It will be the only rainfall of the day, as I stated the paint strokes will be intimidating but harmless. As I flail my watery ballet will commence to an empty audience, but only briefly. The dimming waves, flat enough to walk about, should provide ample vision for my victims even a half-mile away. They best have a towel. I will guess they have a towel. My screams will be met with an echo as the first fortunate passenger aboard the boat to spot me will chime in, crying of the poor man drowning helplessly amongst the ever-opportunistic sea. Frantically the boat will arrive. My reluctant, overly enthusiastic yet tried face will be a mix of gracious tears, drenched beard and travel-some eyes.

“Grab him! Save him!” the prevailing vibrations that will shake the still air.

“Quick grab a towel! Throw the life vest over-board!” As I will be drowning still there.

In a state of perfectly choreographed confusion I will lunge for the life vest while awkwardly, desperately, like a prostitutes stagger, make my way over to the floating treasure-trove.

“Is he breathing?”

“Get that towel!”

Frothing, the oceans suds will lounge about my convulsing mouth. Cough suggestively, not frighteningly. Be sure to avoid swallowing too much as well, we need not a repeat of the gulf coast incident.

“Sir are you hurt? Can you speak?”

Assuredly the crew will be in a state of panic and shock. Gasping commences. Pleas of gratitude, from myself of course.

“I can’t believe you saw me! Thank you! Thank you! Oh heavens bless you!”

Don’t play coy with the mention of their god. Since the crash occurred it is common knowledge for all reasonable thinking men to anticipate the churches rejuvenation. Spirits have plunged for quite some time now in a spinning, distorted manner, a manner so volatile and so infinite that the buckling victims arms grasp at even the smallest branch, the faintest guidance. The church would be sinning if they had not leapt at such a gracious opportunity; an opportunity no doubt awarded them by their ever-merciful lord.

“Are you alright? Can you breath? Or stand?”

“Yes, yes I believe so.”

Grab a seat for support. No eye contact yet, just disorientation. The fat one will probably bring the towel over. Imagine the grease-stained follicles of such a pig as he will surely fumble the towel while delivering it, his excessively over-stressed heart beating large and exhausted. Wiping my face off I wouldn’t be exceptionally surprised to ingest a bone-dry piece of skin from a seasoned sausage he ate last week. I imagine the child will be almost entirely composed of scraps and forsaken leftovers. Perhaps his pinky will be a Twinkie, maybe his neck will sweat gravy and his teeth will resemble peppermints in shape and distorted color. A walking insult no doubt. A family of four could feast for a week on the fat that inflates around his forearm. I should know. His meatball eyes will gaze wide at the animal he just caught. Has he ever seen a real man? Of course he has not.

Revert. Allowing the insufferable realities of the day to constrain my mind will result in a fat kid meeting a fat grave at the bottom of a thin sea. That I imagine would go over poorly with captain. Besides he knows of no better. I am the medium guiding his introduction with reality but I will not be around when he exchanges pleasantries for vulgarity. Bide time. An old friend these days. Bide time, bide money, they say. The tide will turn they say while shrugging shoulders and holding the money in their pockets, sympathetically asking how long can the depression really last. I know that my life is short. Biding time (unless carried over for the good fortune of my oh so unfortunate children) is simply killing time. I reap no reward from the passing of time, that is unless it is the death of an untimely mind, a mind that leaves its possessions behind for a new man to caress… in due time.

“Please, please breath easy. You’re safe now.”

It is a wonder that the exhaustive wealth that blinds man from morality does not equally blind his golden eye from the flake of a human settling, scuffling and settling again amongst the playful dance of the sea. I suppose I may not be granted enough privilege to die within a bird’s eye view of the arrogant estate dubiously dubbed “Millow Manor”. No tainted blood may discolor the purity of rich water, rich water I say. What a dishonor it would be for the beautiful Millow family if they had such purity, such a deserved view from their newly erected estate crudely vandalized by the carcass of a poor (poor in regards to finances and apparently swimming knowledge) silhouette of a man. No that would be devastating. Surely Mr. Millow, who always heads the family boat rides, cannot allow such an injustice to occur in such proximity to nobility. My health will come under question to ensure I have enough strength to slink away from sight, returning to my home under the brooding root of a dying sycamore where the decay of similarly important creatures, the melee worm, the scrambled remains of a bears dinner last night, feces and all, equally reside. Unfortunately dear Mr. Millow, with your most likely gold-incrusted sailors cap, rich chest hair (rich everything Mr. Millow?) and fat son, unfortunately for you my state of good health will be anything but. Recovery? A night or two. The cough must convince. The gash in my arm, that bloody crevice that arrogantly, almost with deranged malice and playfulness does it display the dry white crayon of my bone, will also convince.

“Thank you again, dear lord. A life-saver you are sir.” Hide the arm; flash the arm, dance, and retreat.

“Young man how did you so irresponsibly end up in this peculiar a situation?”

“I’m sorry sir, I am. I was fishing, if you would be so kind as to call it that, when my makeshift boat, the one I had constructed out of the skeleton of a tree, crumpled into the heavy tide. I lost it all. The meager catch I had secured, the raft, the small insignificant skin that covered my forearm. Probably devoured now by the equally starving creatures that reside under the tide. Ironic I fed them, me, the fisherman.”

“Seems a bit of a cut son.” He will say, examining my arm as if doctor money means doctor degree.

“Yes sir, a damn inconvenience.”

“We can escort you to shore. From there take the path that bears downhill from the gate around the perimeter of my home. Nearly ten miles, guided of course by the street signs and blood trail, it will lead you straight to the hospital. I would see to it that you reached the establishment myself but alas my driver has retired for the day. You understand? A damn inconvenience.”

A bold chin carved of marble, the chin would do away with me right here, quick work it would be with the vapor. Oh the vapor will be there, waiting. Every second it waits to sing its electric shriek, chomping at the bit to expose its vibrant smile, its luminous teeth erratically lunging for my dark heart. It takes but the press of a button, the slight force of the captain’s thumb on the side of its slender, black rectangular figure to abruptly stymie my charade. If that moment were to occur, if my plan goes that sporadically off kilter, the stench of fried flesh, my very own, would flood my seizing nostrils and I dare say the last sound I might hear is the rumble of that gluttonous child’s stomach. The vapor dreams like a child because children anymore fail to do so. The green tint in the sky, the hanging fog, it has sunken into the depths of minds, tainted the clear heart of youth. The vapor can dream though, it will dream, has dreamt, since the crash.

“Sir I know I trouble you, but please find pity. My clothes, these rags that insult your vision, they are stronger than I. That trip you so gratefully suggest would be a mere death march for myself. A man of your considerable stature sir must know the state of our countries medical establishments. The people outnumber even the cockroaches. The cockroach’s sir! The same vermin that have taken a liking to those buildings decades ago, that have raised young and died and gnawed at the feet of patients such as myself. I may not be strong now but I will be soon, very soon. A night, sir. Two at the utmost inconvenience to yourself! I swear by it lord. Let me please just lay on the lawn, that freshly cut bed of safety, a mattress I would gladly purchase if I were rich in currency not desperation.” The children will look appalled. This man! This man daddy! Look at him! Those teeth rot more yellow than the gleam of our golden necklaces. Those revolting nails! They curl, how dastardly they curl daddy! Kick him overboard, drown him daddy! Where’s that vapor?

“Son you understand the risk I would be undertaking by harboring someone as… unannounced, as yourself.” Will say the man whose odor resembles tonic and gin.

“I would have to second the children’s idea of brutal, emotionless murder.” Hints silently the vapor in his pocket.

“I do understand sir. I deserve reprimanding for even asking such things. It’s just the bread sir; I can smell it from here. The aroma that parades down from your Cliffside oasis, it laughs at me. So chance our meetings, that aroma and I sir. I would give the entirety of my forearm to meet again. I know my children would as well.”

A look of distaste, embarrassment for me will then reveal itself upon his face.

“How do the most vile still feel the need and come across the opportunity to reproduce?” A rhetorical question asked as the head of my prey undecidedly will drift this way, that way, fighting the sliver of humanity that dares reason him into even considering such an outlandish display of generosity, a display so foreign to his character and absent to his past, as to allow this zombie of a man to set his ailing feet upon his property. His gaze will hold such disdain for myself, myself being his brother under the hood of mankind, his equal in the complexities of human anatomy, his equal in emotions crude, soft, indifferent, foul, unspeakable, his equal in everything but wealth, the truest divider. A quick glance at his flower of a daughter will probably occur, then to that pig of a son. His eyes will then deceive his well-trained, white-collar, egotistical existence and cater to the most basic of mans vulnerabilities, parenthood. Yes he will feel the tremble among himself, the paralyzing trepidation that would occur if he were unable to accrue nourishment for his own kids. Now this terror that gnaws at his conscience is understandably a mere gnat looking to drain the blood of an elephant. Under no circumstance, even given the current vile, savagery that has plagued the frail soil of America since 2029, would a man of such reverence as he come across issues that solely hang around the slums of the earth. It will simply be that passing hesitation, that brief, oh so brief moment where my brother sees me not as decaying flesh and morbid indecency but as a human (albeit of the lowest variety) that leads him to utter the only statement I want to hear.

“We will make room.”

“Thank you! Oh heavens! Oh how they rain their mercy in your form!”

Tried methods have proven that even men who have egos the relative size of their own golden bank accounts never grow weary of hearing the sung praise of their own feats.

“Down guy. The strictest orders of your brief stay will be decreed to you upon our arrival ashore.”  

“A million times I’m thankful sir. I know every decree will be of utter reason.”

This will conclude our “chance” introduction. He will firmly, with steps of regret and eyes of nothing, tend to the wheel. Save one gesture. He will kiss both kin with his gin lips on their foreheads. My blatant undoing in life, the scars that creep so permanently around the indent of my eyes, the crippled nature of my speech, all of this serves as a persuasive reminder of what this man could be, of what his existence could entail. Alas his life does not resemble mine. There is a reason I am the beggar.

 

Author's Note

I appreciate any and every comment a reader is willing to offer both positive and negative.

Reviews

[AUU]

What I liked about this chapter is that it's very theatrical. Well. At least this POV is. However, I am not entirely sure what I am reading.

I appreciate your imagery. It's great, thoughtful imagery, and it's very descriptive, however because it's so descriptive I found hat I was losing the scene. There's some dialogue, there are faceless characters, and there is talk of water and ocean. It's all very hard to connect with this information.

I believe it's about someone on a boat musing about a near death experience they WANT to have. Honestly though, if it were not for your note at the top of the page, I wouldn't have even guessed that.

My advice to you, is to ask yourself how you would explain this chapter, this scene, to a person. What's the important information you are trying to tell the reader? When you have an answer, use that as your starting point and expand from there.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review you work. I will read chapter one soon :)

[ReedWrite]

This is a great piece...a lot of imagery...and a story line that draws the reader in. I would suggest Indenting the first sentence of each paragraph, and every line of dialogue. It's the format most editors want...but more importantly, it helps the reader follow more readily. Nice piece.