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Remember these are just scribbles so go easy on the critique. :whistling:
The ship was ablaze and sinking fast. Orson had no choice but to jump into the water. The awkward dive made him hit the surface flat; empting this lungs of air. Within a moment Orson was able to gain his equilibrium and surface haphazardly onto the rough wake above: his legs soon becoming weak from kicking in the water; his head high enough to gasp for air.
Once Orson’s mind found awareness, he surmised his predicament – the chaotic surroundings - loose remnants of buoyant objects too small to identify, and a number of dead corpses still beneath the wake and others, face down in the water, drifting near him. Orson, with disgust churning his stomach, veered them away as they floated toward him.
A thunderclap made Orson’s head snap up to the eastern sky. A mass of black, menacing clouds with dense sheets of rain, far off into the horizon, crept fast toward him. Orson’s mind began to race, looking about like a crazed animal for some shelter but found only a large piece of what appeared to be planks from the ship’s deck...so he thought. Regardless of what the structure was, Orson pulled himself as high as he could, tilted his torso in the direction of the object, and began swimming in frenzy, reckless desperation.
Exhausted from the swim, Orson managed to pull himself atop the structure keeping himself afloat in the choppy sea. Orson looked briefly back where he last saw the ship go down but only saw faint, black exhaust drifting high into the storm clouds which were nearly upon him like a sweeping mask of death.
Thunder cracked the bleakness above, followed by deafening thunder - piercing echoes across the void; jolting his float violently from end to end. The rain was cold, and the drops fell heavy; stingful, making Orson cry out in unbridled frustration. Infinity, so it seemed in Orson’s reality, lapse slowly as the storm began to dissipate toward the west.
At its zenith, the sun, in waves of dry heat, chapped Orson’s skin, turning it dark, and reddish; burning harshly on his flesh. It remained that way for what Orson, in his now unbalanced brain, thought as weeks, months. The savage heat of the day, and cold, chilled twilights kept Orson curled up in sleepless toil. Orson’s hopes of survival were now dashed; drained - as if his wrecked body was now empty of blood, and as ash blown about into nothingness. Only the waiting remained for Orson. A careless slip off the planks would usher his end - swallowed into the depths, drowing in his misery. Orson also saw his final moments as torturous: the eventual slow demise from lack of food and fresh water. In Orson’s manic condition his only hope rested on one these two scenarios. For death was just a matter of time.
He slept that night. Dreamscapes captivated his subconscience, and consumed by a life that once was - his own life, the love of kin and the closeness of dear friends that he would never cherish again.
The aurora light was bright enough so that Orson could open his chapped eye lids slightly. In one brief moment he realized that it wasn’t the morning sun that had awakened him, but the faint sound of an engine. In his doubtful state he closed his eyes once again. Then, suddenly, he quickly opened them and leaned up. Looking listlessly to the direction of the alien sound, he heard the sound drawing closer. He tried to focus, cupping his eyes with his quivering hands, when he saw it – the landing floats beneath its belly; an oversize and very load propeller, appeared within eyesight. It was an airplane!
The pilot caught sight of Orson and flashed a reflective beam from a handheld mirror relaying acknowledgment. Orson’s face lit up in ecstasy for he was saved from the grips of death. In an instance Orson felt a peace fill the wholeness - from crown to sole - captivating a warmness that grew deep in his chest and filling him fully, like a divine breath that was reserved exclusively for the resurrected.
[Edited on 1/11/2012 by Carlos]
Neil, the always reliable monster drummer, wailed his heavy dose of fills and explosive symbol crashes to a mostly inebriated mass...howling and toasting the drummer with beer bottles and upturned thumbs. A few loners, in captivated cocaine spells glanced with dumb grins at the flames wisking gently atop high held lighters.
As Neil rounded his concluding, climatic drive toward his final symbol clash, the now worn floor tom skin pierced opened at striking it; making one of his drum sticks rebound out from his grip and landing on the floor behind him.
The crowd, silent and dumbfounded, snapped! Waves of unbridled humanity rushed the stage as the lone Neil, frozen in dreadful horror, felt the fingertips, hands, shoulders and bodies pin him down...blood splattering, bones snapping.
In the end, Neil sat on the floor rocking to and fro with spacy, wing flapping little birds orbiting his ringing skull.
[Edited on 12/24/2011 by Carlos]
