Narrative

 

 

His consciousness switched on in an agonizing flash. He was lying in cold mud, his hand and arm in a foul-smelling trickle of clotted water.

He couldn’t get his bearings. Was he in a dungeon? A jungle?

No, a noxious, garbage-strewn gutter. Deep night, a lightly misting rain. Detroit, maybe? Sounded right, but it really didn’t matter.

He crawled up onto the dark, wet pavement, his head roaring. The useless sodium-yellow streetlight a block away marked the end of the fetid street. He coughed and tasted the salty-metallic tang of deep blood. He was in bad shape and getting worse. He felt undefined and wasn’t working very well. His brain felt broken. It was feeding him no memories, in fact almost nothing at all but static and panic and the drive to live.

Live? With a sudden clarity he knew his life hung in the balance, waiting for him to do -- something. Anything.

He stumbled to his feet drunkenly, gasping. He swayed, nauseous, trying to see into the black shadows. He almost fell back to his knees, but he knew if he didn’t keep moving till he made sense of it all, he’d never surface again. Shuddering with the effort, he staggered down the dark sidewalk, away from the threat, trying to find some narrative thread he could grasp to bring his life back.

“Stop,” said the voice. Not threatening. Not angry. More…impatient?

He felt the cold muzzle against the base of his skull and he knew it was over.

“This ain’t working, and I’m tired of screwing with you,” said the annoyed voice.

He began weeping.

“At least tell me what’s going on,” he begged. He didn’t even hear the shot as his world dissolved.

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The cursor sat in the corner blinking sullenly as I removed my finger from the Delete key. “Well,” I thought, “that character was a waste of time.”

I began feeling sorry for myself as I contemplated how hard life is for a writer.

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(AUTHOR NOTE: You might have seen a version of this before -- found a stash of old junk I'd completely forgotten and haven't a clue whether I published or not and am off and on rewriting some of it as the mood moves me...)