Spectacular Settings: WEP challenge - Part A - Pat Conroy. Part B - My flash fiction, The Child. #wepff

Hello all!

Write...Edit...Publish (WEP) restarts today under a new format. Yolanda Renee and I have teamed up to present this challenge which will generally run every second month. This first challenge is in two parts. Participants can complete one or both parts.

Part A is where you share a found setting that you love: in a novel, poem, photo, artwork...Then you explain why you love it.

Part B is optional, where you share your own setting piece, either written expressly for the challenge or one previously written or compiled--whether flash fiction, non fiction, a photo montage or essay, an artwork you created, a playscript you wrote...the choice is open!

If you like the idea, please sign up in my sidebar and post to the guidelines above, or check out this post at WEP for full guidelines. You have until August 26th to post.

My entry:

Part A - An excerpt from the Prologue of Beach Music by Pat Conroy, my favourite novel.

If I’d just opened a random page, I could have found some amazing setting to share with you. Chapter 1 begins with such a sensuous description of the Piazza Farnese in Rome you have to blink to make sure you’re not actually there, so strong is the smell of freshly-brewed coffee and so vivid the descriptions of the morning activity in the Piazza. And I’m sure South Carolina never had prettier words written to describe it. But the descriptions that never leave me are found in the Prologue. I have taken excerpts from pp. 19-23, where the teenage Jack is sky larking with a group of his graduate high-school classmates who have gathered in a condemned house on St Michael’s Island, South Carolina, on the night it was predicted the house would break up and fall into the sea. This section is reminiscent of the whole novel, where Conroy, a master of setting as character, parallels the coming together of himself and his great love, Shyla, against the backdrop of the raging Atlantic Ocean. 

This of course, foreshadows one of many tragedies which is to come...

"THE sea rose invisibly beneath us and the moon shone smooth and bright. A glossy flute of light, like velvet down a bridal aisle, lit the marlin scales and the backs of whales migrating a hundred miles at sea. The tides surged through the marsh and each wave that hit the beach came light-struck and broad-shouldered, with all the raw power the moon could bestow. Magically, an hour passed and we, ocean dancers and tide challengers, found ourselves listening to the sea directly beneath us as the waves began to crash in earnest against the house...

I looked around to see Shyla Fox in the moonlight. She looked as though she had dressed for this moment with the help of the moon…

We danced toward the central motion of our lives. The winds roared and a strange love rose like a tide between us and rested in the crown of waves that was loosening the frame of the house. Alone we danced beneath the full moon…

I heard the house shudder and push off as it took its first primal step towards the sea. The house tilted, then fell forward as though it were prostrating itself before the power of this tidal surge.

We went out to the newly imbalanced balcony, holding hands. The moon lit the sea in a freeway of papery light and we watched the boiling white caps feeding on the broken cement scattered beneath the house. We continued to dance while the house kept its appointment with the long tide and I blazed with the love of this young girl. 

Our love began and ended with seawater."

270 words

Part B

This is a reworked flash fiction which I wrote for #FridayFlash, my first online foray into flash fiction. It seems fitting to use one of my war stories seeing it's the 70th year anniversary of WW2. 

I write in Australian English which uses the 'u' and 's' and double 'l' and 're' not 'er', where you might use no 'u' and 'z' instead of 's' and a single 'l'. Just so you don't correct my spelling, lol! As I've waxed eloquent on Conroy, I've edited my story down, well under 1,000 words.

The Child

The desert was pitch-black, the only sound the Muslim call to prayer that rang out across the Baluchi Valley, punctuating the silence with staccato bursts.  

We marched single file into mayhem.

I slipped and slid behind the soldier in front of me, his form a shadow in the darkness. I’d had no sleep the night before, so terrified was I at the spectre of the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan, the caves seething with displaced insurgents. I struggled through oceans of sand, so thick around my ankles it dragged at my regulation boots. My knees screamed, my thighs burned, my lungs caught fire as I fought the grainy enemy.

I was in hell, a place where nothing was as it appeared.

Who was friend?

Who was foe?

I was on covert foot patrol with Australian and Afghan soldiers.  We were outside the wire, tramping through deserts, skirting a meandering river, scaling rocky hills under the pressing weight of body armour and supplies. I hadn’t yet acclimatised to the blistering temperatures or the altitude.

No one stopped when I tripped and fell. On patrol, to stop would jeopardise the mission. I dragged my feet from their burial place in the sand. No princesses here. In uniform everyone is treated the same.

How I prayed for sunrise.

***

The line paused.

The lead soldier signalled with his crooked finger, pointing to our surroundings, then held a finger to his lips. Word reached me that the desert was revealing Kuchi camps, Bedouins’ homes.

We crept silently as mountain cats into the night.

“Police checkpoint ahead”, someone whispered. In briefing I’d been told that these checkpoints were best avoided.

No one even breathed as we crouched and duck-walked along the ground, swinging our weapons side to side, holding tight.

An almighty screech, then a huge spotlight shone down on us, bathing us in blinding light.

­­

Someone screamed ‘Darawem!’ ('Stop!')and we froze like sphinxes in the desert, clutching weapons to our chests. 

Two policemen yelled at us in a language I didn’t understand, while their fingers stabbed the air.

We stood.

Statue still.

I struggled to control my bladder, knowing I could be shot right where I stood.

Someone down the line yelled ‘Australians!’ The police muttered to each other, nodded their heads, then motioned us on.

Further into the desert.

‘They were skittish because just yesterday they confronted insurgents in Kakarak across the river. Shots were exchanged,’ whispered the soldier behind me.

‘Thanks,’ I whispered back. My eyes were seeing insurgents behind the rocks, across the snaking river, in the shadowy menace of the mountains.

***

Sunrise.

A glorious orange orb broke over the mountains into the valley, skittering across the water till it reached the shock of green land at our feet.

In the near distance a small boy, not four years old, shepherded his family’s goats through the spiky fields. He could be my son, but my son slept in cosy comfort, surrounded by stuffed toys and his father’s love. More children hid shyly in doorways as we filed past their simple rammed-earth homes. 

Children. 

Everywhere.

Watching. 

First regulation stop. An exchange with tribal elders. They constantly looked to see who was watching them. They risked death for talking to Australian soldiers.

We moved on. Further into the desert. Away from the river.

Over broken bricked walls and through crumbling aqueducts we waded towards the hostile village of Sorkh Morghab where coalition forces had built a school, market and medical centre. 

We wandered through the market area, apparently casually, weapons held across our chests. Men and young boys showed us their wares and tried to sell me a burqa. I was just a woman, one who needed to cover herself.

One little boy approached me, hand outstretched. He was about six years old. Tears sprung to my eyes at his rough brown tunic draping his wasted body. I thought of my son, but this little boy’s eyes reflected a man, an angry man. I shivered with an unnamed emotion. 

A soldier pulled me roughly, backwards against his chest. 

'Don't,' he said.

'Let me,' I said, pushing him away. 

I reached into my pocket. 

I pulled out two soggy chocolate bars for the poor little boy. He was only a child.

The child smiled a gap-toothed smile but it didn’t reach his old man eyes.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a large apple. We smiled at each other in a very easy but powerful gesture.

I stepped closer so we could exchange our bounty. It was then I saw the apple had blackened with age. Oh. It looked like a--no--it couldn’t be--

‘Nooooooooooo…’ someone yelled, a voice full of pain and regret.

I felt the fire on my lips. 

I tasted the fire as it burned in my throat.

I crumpled as the fire hit my belly.

I heard voices and staccato bursts of gunfire.

I heard the wailing call to prayer begin.

I heard the cry of a child.

THE END

 ©DeniseCovey2015

I'd appreciate your reaction to my story. I know it won't appeal to everyone.

So my critique request:

WORD COUNT: 832

FCA

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