Post by Gabby on Apr 12, 2010 20:27:36 GMT -8
... and you pick up the first book you see. You read the first chapter. If it happened to be what I post here, would you consider reading on?
Let me know.
All too familiar faces surrounded him, etched with scorn and frustration, painted with bruises and blood: all crafted by his awful mistakes. Pain ricocheted throughout his body, muscles involuntarily twitching with each sting. Though the pangs in his limbs could not possibly rival the turmoil ravaging his mind, this bodily agony, this awareness of fragility, was a literal first. He once felt weightless. He once felt like a part of the air. But now, gravity shackled his bones. He could feel things pulse beneath his skin. Dribble from his arteries. Each jerky movement revealed a new knot, sounded another crack. This consciousness anchored him to the dusty, bloodmudded ground upon which he lay, only a small distance from where he had fallen.
Above him, a figure hovered. Its mouth need not move for him to gather the words sent his way. He could sense similar messages radiating from the others. And as he remained there, hurt and helpless, submerged in a pool of insurmountable blame, they merely asked of him one thing:
Breathe.
The world began to end thousands of years before, but those few seconds of fire, destruction, and death brought mankind up to speed.
So ashamed were the thin clouds swathing the night sky that they, like a veil, vied to conceal what lay beneath them. Gnarled and deformed, a city writhed in the darkness, a misshapen child born of the endeavors of man. Flickering street lamps infected their surroundings with a jaundiced pallor: a sorry attempt to replace the light the clouds forbade it receive. Its breaths heaved with the labored workings of engines, weathered roads tangling and twisting like veins, carrying the cars and people like cells. But circulation was weak. The city lacked a heart.
A cavity festered in the city’s center. Among the other unsightly blemishes, it was the worst of all. A thick layer of dust and debris hovered indefinitely over the open, infectious sore. Restlessly churning, the sullied, secondary atmosphere allowed the peaks of some of the fallen edifices – which hung, drooping as charred skeletons upon a battlefield long forgotten – to protrude from its uneven blanket. Decay oozed from the urban ulcer, spreading a creeping disease until it saturated every inch of the ailing earth.
The surviving citizens of this unfortunate metropolis used the darkness as an excuse not to notice the chaos sprawling out before them like a playful cat. Everyone learned to embrace the convenient blindness associated with the night, and their survival seemed to depend on such negligence; especially when memories of the most unfavorable sort dwelt in the farthest reaches of their thought. But the dank, mournful night held not all miserable aspects. During those harrowed hours, the Maestro played.
The Maestro, as he came to be known, existed as an urban legend. That is, until the countless reports convinced the city dwellers that they could no longer dismiss the phenomenon. Odd yet magnificent melodies permeated the air – occurring in different parts of the city at different times – each eventide following the great disaster. The songs were never the same; they varied from adagio to allegro, mezzo piano to fortissimo. Few witnessed his silhouette, but those who beheld the marvel of the dying city swore that they watched a thin frame with strange, dark clothes, scale the sides of the still-standing skyscrapers. He walked as if it were the plane of norm, regulating his center of gravity to climb the windows and metal frames that cut into the sky above. Some even claimed he danced, lifting his legs and spinning like a frolicking child. No matter how fast he moved or how high he jumped, the glass underneath his shoes held firmly, as if the air beneath his soles forged a buffer for his feet.
After hours of relentless performing, the Maestro finished his recitals just as the horizon leaked its first bits of sunrise. From a rooftop, the Maestro allowed the notes to fade into the dawn. It was when the morning finally broke from the horizon’s grasp that he took a single, deep bow. And in the time it took to blink, he disappeared.
To some, this astonishing event appeared to be a miracle; others perceived it in a more negative light. Nevertheless, attempts to rationalize the Maestro’s existence declined to failure. Like the prospect of a decent life, the idea that his presence would soon be justified grew less and less, withering away with the remnants of life that once resided in the Dead Quarter.
Against all of the opinions, however, the Maestro persisted in playing for an anonymous audience, disregarding the blatantly deteriorating humanity below him.
Let me know.
-------------------------------------------
0. prelude
All too familiar faces surrounded him, etched with scorn and frustration, painted with bruises and blood: all crafted by his awful mistakes. Pain ricocheted throughout his body, muscles involuntarily twitching with each sting. Though the pangs in his limbs could not possibly rival the turmoil ravaging his mind, this bodily agony, this awareness of fragility, was a literal first. He once felt weightless. He once felt like a part of the air. But now, gravity shackled his bones. He could feel things pulse beneath his skin. Dribble from his arteries. Each jerky movement revealed a new knot, sounded another crack. This consciousness anchored him to the dusty, bloodmudded ground upon which he lay, only a small distance from where he had fallen.
Above him, a figure hovered. Its mouth need not move for him to gather the words sent his way. He could sense similar messages radiating from the others. And as he remained there, hurt and helpless, submerged in a pool of insurmountable blame, they merely asked of him one thing:
Breathe.
* * *
The world began to end thousands of years before, but those few seconds of fire, destruction, and death brought mankind up to speed.
* * *
So ashamed were the thin clouds swathing the night sky that they, like a veil, vied to conceal what lay beneath them. Gnarled and deformed, a city writhed in the darkness, a misshapen child born of the endeavors of man. Flickering street lamps infected their surroundings with a jaundiced pallor: a sorry attempt to replace the light the clouds forbade it receive. Its breaths heaved with the labored workings of engines, weathered roads tangling and twisting like veins, carrying the cars and people like cells. But circulation was weak. The city lacked a heart.
A cavity festered in the city’s center. Among the other unsightly blemishes, it was the worst of all. A thick layer of dust and debris hovered indefinitely over the open, infectious sore. Restlessly churning, the sullied, secondary atmosphere allowed the peaks of some of the fallen edifices – which hung, drooping as charred skeletons upon a battlefield long forgotten – to protrude from its uneven blanket. Decay oozed from the urban ulcer, spreading a creeping disease until it saturated every inch of the ailing earth.
The surviving citizens of this unfortunate metropolis used the darkness as an excuse not to notice the chaos sprawling out before them like a playful cat. Everyone learned to embrace the convenient blindness associated with the night, and their survival seemed to depend on such negligence; especially when memories of the most unfavorable sort dwelt in the farthest reaches of their thought. But the dank, mournful night held not all miserable aspects. During those harrowed hours, the Maestro played.
The Maestro, as he came to be known, existed as an urban legend. That is, until the countless reports convinced the city dwellers that they could no longer dismiss the phenomenon. Odd yet magnificent melodies permeated the air – occurring in different parts of the city at different times – each eventide following the great disaster. The songs were never the same; they varied from adagio to allegro, mezzo piano to fortissimo. Few witnessed his silhouette, but those who beheld the marvel of the dying city swore that they watched a thin frame with strange, dark clothes, scale the sides of the still-standing skyscrapers. He walked as if it were the plane of norm, regulating his center of gravity to climb the windows and metal frames that cut into the sky above. Some even claimed he danced, lifting his legs and spinning like a frolicking child. No matter how fast he moved or how high he jumped, the glass underneath his shoes held firmly, as if the air beneath his soles forged a buffer for his feet.
After hours of relentless performing, the Maestro finished his recitals just as the horizon leaked its first bits of sunrise. From a rooftop, the Maestro allowed the notes to fade into the dawn. It was when the morning finally broke from the horizon’s grasp that he took a single, deep bow. And in the time it took to blink, he disappeared.
To some, this astonishing event appeared to be a miracle; others perceived it in a more negative light. Nevertheless, attempts to rationalize the Maestro’s existence declined to failure. Like the prospect of a decent life, the idea that his presence would soon be justified grew less and less, withering away with the remnants of life that once resided in the Dead Quarter.
Against all of the opinions, however, the Maestro persisted in playing for an anonymous audience, disregarding the blatantly deteriorating humanity below him.
