She looks back at her crooked hand, the pen on the table and the card she was filling with loops. She blinks and swallows, but it seems to take forever. I imagine that swallow is very dry. She’s finished writing. At least she thinks she has. Perhaps she forgot what she was doing and finally realized she didn’t know and just wanted to be done. The illegible script looks more like a child drawing waves or birds, I cannot tell which. The pencil marks go off the page and onto the table, where her broken sight was unable to differentiate from marble table to cream paper. She smiles, wide and as loving as I’ve always remembered, but now appearing toothless and stretched. “You give this to Mat, now,” she says and blinks twice. “What’s your name?”

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Air & Water

He breathed inward sharply. His throat seemed surprised by the ability, convulsing as the air rushed inwards while his lips shuttered open and closed. A gasping shudder. His lungs ached as air expanded them, sharp pains spreading over the whole of his chest and stomach from an age without breathing. He’d no time to think how long ago the wave had knocked him from the sailboat. Almost immediately, the air was forced out again as he hacked and coughed. The force ejected water from his mouth and lungs though made it a difficult struggle to draw in a second breath. Water already streamed down his disheveled dirty-blonde hair and into his eyes. He kept them closed, a ward against the salt already stinging his face.

His lethargic legs did their best to whip forward to keep him on the surface, though the waves of the ocean made it a near impossible task. His arms already had become so numb that he could do little more than flail one about while he tried to brush water from his face and hold his nose to prevent any more splashing water from finding a home in his nostrils.

With the last cough, his lungs seemed clear, though another wave struck him. With a sudden swell, the sounds of the ocean vanished and his understanding of "up" was gone. Empty of air, his lungs began to burn knowing only the remnants of salt. His chest became tighter still, demanding his throat to open and air to flow within. His chest lurched. His stomach joined the motion. His nostrils swallowed water, hoping it was air, and his body hacked again, trying to force the water out but having no air to do so. No air meant no buoyancy. Unable to right himself meant he could not kick his dead legs and find the surface again. He winced as he forced his eyes to open, flooding burning salt back into his stinging eyes. A light! He kicked, and the light grew brighter... but there was no air. His stung eyes widened further and his chest froze. His stomach grew cold. He stopped kicking and he could only remember that she’d told him not to sail alone. “It’ll be too windy out.”
-- at
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2 comments:

  1. Kara BFebruary 19, 2010 at 4:51 PM

    Great physical details! I can really feel this. If you're going to keep working on this, I'd like to know some of the thoughts that are going through his head or what he's seeing while he's fighting for air.

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  2. MatFebruary 28, 2010 at 10:31 PM

    Thanks, Kara. Yeah, this one is one of the little flash bits that I've taken a bit of pride out of. It has some imagery that I typically struggle with, but came quite easy this time. I contemplated the inner thoughts as well, but decided that I wanted to remain as close to the physical, concrete, sensory kind of text to further put a person into the situation. Even to the end, I hesitated including the thought about his relationship, but without that comment found there was too little "person" in the situation. It might be fun to experiment with it to see if I can include more "person" without losing the impact of the sensory stuff.

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