Sunday, March 26, 2006

...

Trudging through white-out conditions against stinging needles of snow slashing at a horizontal angle, feeling as if they are cutting right through you, you make out in the faded distance a dark speck. You determinedly put your head down and make for it, your upper body at a forty five degree angle as if you were dragging a plow behind you. You are moving in an incremental start-stop fashion, heaving yourself forward with each labored thrust. You lift your head periodically like a swimmer raising up to breathe so you can sight back in on the spot in the distance; you are relieved it grows larger the closer you get. As it gradually takes form you are heartened to see that it is a shack. You draw close and it is revealed as a ramshackle, poorly designed structure. A fading sign above a door ajar says:

UNTETHERED

You go inside...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It occurred to me that this should be in the first person. It is a simple trick in writing that if you want to speak for the reader, speak in the first person; and they transpose it to themselves like no one is watching. That way they are free to think their maudlin (or sensational) thoughts, and blame you for the sentiment if anyone questions. If you do this, your shack may become quickly furnished, and it won't be just another parable. The way it is, every detail is humming with symbolism and this will eventually clog your brain (he said). I mean, I said.

Dennis Dale said...

Dennis doesn't think these things through that much. He thought to place the reader directly in the scene and then abandon him, that's all, here among the modest confines of the blog.
He's still trying to find that place of respite in the blinding snowstorm. Furniture would be nice, but he'll settle for a little warmth, an electric light, maybe just a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Something to read his map by, maybe figure out how he got lost, how to get home. Not a starting point but a re-starting point. You know, "a clean, well lighted place." Not that he's into Hemingway, but he appreciates that particular sentiment.

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