|
Edited on Thu Jul-21-05 08:37 PM by Orrex
In response to my question in another thread, someone suggested that I post a sample of my writing. Well, here goes. It's not my current work, and this isn't the entirety of it, but I wanted to start somewhat small.
Feel free to be as honest as you care to be; I've been through plenty of brutal workshops, so I can take the criticism :) :) I edited that part because I couldn't initially remember the complexity of posting a smiley)
Sorry about the paragraphing--I couldn't get the indents to stick...
====excerpt begins====
The Ash in the Orchard
The five golden apples were already in a basket on the kitchen table when Samantha entered from the porch. From the next room came the odd and intermittent sounds of a cartoon.
At first she simply looked at the apples, golden as wedding rings. After a moment she reached for one, and either the texture or the weight surprised her. She turned the apple under the light; the skin showed no blemish, and her face reflected on it as on the underside of a spoon. Even the stem shone like filigree.
"Kevin?" she called, and a boy appeared in the doorway. He was barefoot and looked as though he’d been sleeping. "Where did you get these?" she asked.
"In the orchard," he said.
The apple gleamed in her hand like an ingot. "Somebody must’ve painted them."
Kevin looked at the apple, then back to Samantha. "No," he said. "They’re gold."
She sighed, showing a tired hollowing of her features. "Let’s cut one and see."
Samantha produced a paring knife from the drawer beside the sink, and she pressed the blade into the apple. Painted or not, the skin gave way beneath the blade easily enough, and she sliced through the apple in one smooth motion. As the two halves fell away from each other, the lingering sunlight caught on the newly exposed flesh, showing it likewise to be of gold, paler, perhaps, but gold all the same. Samantha stared, eyes shifting from the blade to the apple and back. She steadied one of the sections on the table and cut it in half again, and then again when each of these revealed the same gold color. The seeds glittered like fireflies.
"See?" Kevin said. "Gold."
"Maybe it’s just dyed," she said. "Or stained."
Kevin prodded one of the sections with his finger, pressing it to the table and smiling with some satisfaction when a line of juice appeared at its edge. He picked up the section and brought it to his lips, but Samantha grabbed it from him.
"No," she said sharply. "We should get them tested." Then she stopped, eyeing the moist apple section in her hand as if she’d expected it to be metallic and solid. She gripped it tightly, and a thin stream of liquid dripped from her fist.
"It’s late," she said. "You should be in bed."
"Call Uncle Mike," said Kevin. "He’ll know what they are."
Samantha sat on a small wooden chair on the porch, her feet propped on the railing as she sipped periodically from a mug. She gazed at the gravel driveway where a red two-door stood in a sheen of dust, and the metallic chirp of crickets filled the yard. The lights from the house threw a shadow across her face, masking her expression while the apples sat on the porch beside her in their basket. The crunching of footsteps announced Mike’s arrival before he came into view.
"Coffee at this hour?" he asked. "You’ll never get to sleep."
With her eyes closed she drank deeply. "It’s not coffee."
"Is Kevin asleep?" he asked, and she nodded. "What did he want to ask me?"
"He found these." She indicated the basket, and the apples.
"What about them?"
"You should see them under better light."
He glanced at her, then at the driveway, and again at the apples. "What’s wrong with them?"
"You’ll see," she said, handing him the basked. "Take a look."
He held the basket lightly, as if weighing its contents. In the moonlight the apples’ luster was diminished so that they shone no more brightly than dull brass or copper. He opened the door and stepped into the light of the kitchen. Soon he emerged, still holding the basket and now carrying a bottle of beer.
"You painted them," he said as he sat on the porch steps.
"They’re gold all the way through."
"Gold colored," he said. "Someone’s playing a joke on you. Did you eat any?"
"I wanted to get them checked first. Maybe you can show them to somebody at school."
He considered this. "I know a woman in the botany department."
Under the cold moonlight the yard acquired a peaceful, otherworldly cast, as though at any instant a troupe of fauns or nymphs might caper across the lawn, singing and piping to some strange rhythm.
"Do you remember when I got lost?" she asked suddenly. "Looking for a unicorn?"
"When?"
"Camping. I was eleven."
He nodded. "Did you find any?"
She hesitated, as if unsure of her answer. "No," she said, inspecting the interior of her mug. "Mom said they were all over the woods, and I wanted to see one."
"She never told me that."
"It’s a girl thing. Later I read that you can’t find them unless they want you to. That’s what really upset me."
Mike smiled wryly. "And you have to be a virgin, right?"
"I don’t think that was the problem. I never told you because I knew you’d laugh at me."
"I was six," he teased. "I didn’t even notice you were gone." He took another mouthful of beer, held it a moment, and swallowed thoughtfully. "I got lost once, too," he said. "In New York. Fifty yards from Port Authority, and I might as well have been on another planet."
"Were you scared?"
"Not really," he said. "But then this crazy, one-armed vet waddled out of an alley and asked me to pull his tooth for him."
"Did you?"
"No," Mike sighed with affected drama. "I could have been a dentist, but I chickened out."
"How old were you?" she asked.
He lowered his eyes, apparently studying the label on his beer. "Twenty-two," he confessed.
She laughed heartily, gripping the mug with both hands to keep the contents from spilling. "You’ve come a long way in the last year," she teased.
"I’m still not as independent as some people."
The two sat in silence while the distant traffic throbbed on the highway. "He takes care of himself okay," she said, "when you’re not around. I hate having to work so much."
The mild chill of late summer began to creep into the air. Eventually Samantha drained her mug, and Mike drank the last of his beer.
"Your story’s better," she admitted. "It has an element of danger."
He tapped the basket with his empty bottle. "Somebody might come looking, you know."
"He picked them himself."
"They’re probably a prize crop. If they were mine, I’d look for them."
She set her mug on the porch and stood up. "It’s late."
The morning sun blazed across the porch, throwing a long shadow behind the mug where Samantha had left it. She rushed out the door in her uniform and a clean apron. She fumbled with her keys at the lock, and in one motion nudged the screen door shut and raced down the steps.
An old man stood at the base of the driveway, bent as a windblown oak, gnarled fingers gripping his walking stick like roots. His few wisps of hair curled in the breeze, and his face sagged in deep wrinkles. Patches of beard like gray moss marked his face, and his left eye squinted against the morning. His right eye was gone, skin puckering about the empty socket.
"Good morning," he said, and his voice wheezed as if leaves tumbled within him.
"Morning," Samantha agreed.
"I’m here for the apples," he said.
She jutted a thumb toward the sunrise. "Orchard’s that way."
"No," he said. "The ones Kevin took."
If the old man saw the nervous look sweep across her face, he made no comment. "Do you own the orchard?" she asked.
"The apples belong to me."
She studied his expression, but it did not waver. "How do you know Kevin?" she asked.
"I know he has the apples."
"They’re not for sale."
"That’s right," he said, and his lips split into something like a smile. "They’re mine."
She seemed to examine her keys, and then her gaze wandered up and down the road, and back to the old man. "Who are you?" she asked eventually.
"It’s important that I get them back," he said, as if that were answer enough. "I could take them, if I wanted to."
She locked on his eye as if held there by a spike. "No," she said finally. "I think that if you could take them, you wouldn’t ask."
She opened the door of the car, sat behind the wheel, and started the engine. As she pulled away, the old man hobbled along the road, his shuffling stride kicking small ruffles in the dust behind him.
====excerpt begins=====
Let 'er rip!
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
