Today, though, I have a chance to start over, to do better. It's only about thirty minutes since I crawled out of bed, so I have the whole day ahead of me.
Over on Authonomy, I've been set a challenge. Well, okay. Not me, personally. It's a group challenge for those of us who participates in FFF every week. We have our next 'assignment' - 'Night Stalker'.
The first thing that comes to mind is a series of bad movies from the 1970's. The first was about a newspaper reporter investigating a string of murders which just happened to have been committed by a vampire. Naturally, he's laughed off as an idiot but is then proved right. Ho hum.
Then there was the second movie, 'Night Strangler', just as bad. They gave 'B' movies a bad rep.
Anyway. So I'm sitting here pondering 'Night Stalker'. How am I going to use that for my story this week? Dusk and dawn edge the night, so they could stalk it. Or someone creeping around, a voyeur or an assassin, a cat burglar or a guardian angel. All sorts of chances and choices. I'll have to think about it on my way to work, but in the meantime, I wrote this a while back in response to a photo of the Milky Way posted by another member on Authonomy:
Lost and Found
I lay still,
too tired to move, too weak to care about the stones that dug deep into my
muscles. The day had been hot, the sun
relentless and the blisters it left behind throbbed and stung. Soft desert air, as light and dry as a
feather, slithered across my skin, easing me only slightly. I knew it was illusion, another of the desert
mirages, only real. One that was
stealing the last of my body’s moisture, the sweat that stained and stiffened
my clothes and beaded my skin, but I could do nothing about that, either. Overhead, the net of diamonds spread wide,
from horizon to horizon. This, at least,
would ease my passing. The knowledge
that what my desiccated eyes saw would remain, would come again tomorrow and
tomorrow and tomorrow, heedless of me, and others like me.
I tried to
swallow but my tongue clicked and scraped.
I tried to lick my split and burned lips but it hurt. The stars marched in circular motion while
minutes slid by.
My back told
me of its approach. A faint vibration
that grew by infinitesimal degree, morphing to a rumble it came closer. The rumble lifted from the ground, growing
into the air, coming closer still. It
came into sight – a great hulking box shaped behemoth that looked magnificent
and beautiful – with bare slits that blinded me when the headlights played over
my body. Friend or enemy, I didn’t
care. This was life, salvation, if only
for a time.
The night
was suddenly loud with the sound of the engine, voices calling. I forced my unwilling body to move, just to
prove I wasn’t yet dead.
“Sarge!” Nelson’s voice, I recognized it. He sounded excited. “Sarge!
It’s Bradford. He’s alive!”
“What? Where?”
“There!” A light swept around, blinding me in its
gleam.
“Shit!” The Humvee stopped with a jerk. Doors opened, footsteps crunched, coming
closer and dark shadows bent or knelt down, obliterating the spangled Heavens.
“Bradford?” The heavy shape of my sergeant came closer,
“You alive?”
My throat
stuck on the words so I moved.
“Medic!” Sergeant Gardner stood up, turning toward the
cluster of figures hovering in the background.
Hands lifted
my head. The plastic lip of a canteen
was given me, teasing, taken back before I’d had more than a bare sip. My tongue eased. The canteen came back and I sucked greedily
before it was taken away again, sharply.
I felt the tissue in my cheeks fill, delicious as the silvery feeling
liquid slipped down my throat, releasing the fear held in check and washing it
away.
“Easy,
Bradford, take it easy. There’s more,
but take your time else you’ll get sick.”
The plastic
came back and I closed my eyes, the feel of the water beyond description.
“Can we move
him?”
A light
played down my body, pausing here and there before being shut off, allowing
darkness and starlight back in.
“Yeah, we
can move him. He’s gonna need real
treatment, soon. Those burns are bad,
but he doesn’t look injured.”
“What about
the others?” Gardner looked around,
peering off into the night lit only by the Milky Way’s beauty.
“No.” It was a croak that rasped the throat and
stuck only halfway out.
Gardner
grunted as though belly punched, and moved back. “Package him and get him in the truck. We need to beat feet.”
No one spoke. Hands lifted, gingerly, as though I might break. They carried me around the truck to the back gate where other hands took hold, pulling me inside. My eyes stayed lifted to the sky. The diamonds there were none I would ever forget and knew I would often remember as my body healed and as I grew old.
* * * * *
So here we are. A chance to begin again, start anew and be better than yesterday. I'll try. Hope you will, too!
Best~
Philippa
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