Compression
False Start
Friday: in which writers share some words that didn't make the final cut, or
were in some way unwanted.
Here's a failed competition entry of mine from last autumn: a
tell-a-story-in-100-words challenge. It wasn't a terrible fail: Boy liked it;
it's always good to practice one's skills.
It isn't a whole
story, it's more of an extract. It has a monster from the abyss theme that
relates to the prehistoric and thus the deepest unconscious regions of the
human mind, but how would the reader know that? Go too deep and you compress
too much!
It is exactly 100
words, of course J
Hunts By Eye
'At first it is a space, darker than the deep water, indistinct under thick
ice: the distance makes us brave. As the shape gains clarity, we grow chill,
like the ice melt runs straight into our veins, but there’s a level of
curiosity that breaches reason. The pale glaze melts thinner and thinner, a
stir in the still water breaks cold sweats: we keep going back. Shining,
mesmerising, these distant motions abruptly blur with speed, burst the surface.
Shock makes a statue of me, a stone afraid witness to flailing jaws, to
punctured screams, to violent waves subsiding to silence.'
Comments
And yet, here you are comparing what is within to such a place without. I'm sitting here shaking my head a bit to clear it.
Love this: 'Shock makes a statue of me,'
Loree: we both went for shadow themes!
Shaharizan: I love old horror films. They had the best monsters.
Stephanie: One of my all time favourite films. As a child, recall swimming in a panic to get to a rock on seeing a dogfish swim by.. Jaws related fear! Have since become rather enchanted by sharks.
"Shock makes a statue of me." I love discovering sibilant strings of words that I'd have never had the foresight to assemble in such a way.