Post by leviathan on Jul 27, 2006 8:41:29 GMT -5
This is a short story I wrote a long time ago. I want your feedback on it, and whether you think it is as powerful as I intended.
THAT NIGHT
I woke up this morning with tears in my eyes. Not cold sweat, or an aching arm, but tears.
I had dreamt something that night. I dare say it was a nightmare, as it wasn’t. It was just a dream. I say a dream, yet a dream can’t hurt you. A dream can’t hold your attention above the real goings on of the day. They’re just meaningless thoughts compressed from the events of a few hours. As if dreams are anyway near as real as conscious existence.
This felt real.
I had actually dreamt of death, someone’s death. I had performed a hit and run. It was a far cry from a performance, as no one applauded the man falling to the curb, clawing his way through the rain in agony, gasping for help. No rescue workers came. No one came. He just bled.
How it was my fault was unclear. I was in the car. I saw him being hit through my own eyes. Was it I who hit him?
That night, after the dream had vanished out of the forefront of my mind I decided to take a run. It was a tradition of mine, to rid of the stress of the day with a brisk jog at the end of the late evening. It was cold. Winter in fact. A late misty December night soaked in moonlight, bordering the morning after. With the wind at a standstill I paced through the small park at the bottom of the street. From a field, across the bridge and into a narrow alleyway I ran, the dormant wind still managing to cause some discomfort.
At a turning point, where the inner suburban side road merged with the dense asphalt, one or two cars were passing by, every one or two heartbeats. Clawing through the bitter cold, panting icy smoke, I saw a car driving up into the corner of my eye, turning its headlights up to full volume. The lights illuminated something, a road sign showing the silhouette of a man, and beneath it the word ‘end’.
In a stroke of fear, my heart stopped. Death’s premature cold, frozen fingers grabbing hold of my chest, forcing me to remember my dream again. I looked on at the horizon, gazing at the starless cape patterned with cloud. I ran farther, shaking from either the cold, or the shock. Fear of something. Fear of nothing.
The path winded down past a long row of skeletal trees into another district. The orange glow of streetlights lit up portions of the damp road, marking a route up to the end of the street. After running as far as I had planned, slowing down on the gravel alongside a patch of grass, I stopped. I turned around, facing the view of a potential route home. I ran onto the road, bored of the path and its limitations.
Coming up to the turning I carried on running, in a straight line. Hearing a car to the left, I sped up to return to the path again. I tripped and fell, my attempt in vain. Was it the mist? The darkness? Either way, he didn’t see me. Lifting my hand to my face, now almost a relic of the arctic, I felt beneath my eye. Before it all went dark, I felt something there. It was a tear.
I lay here, with my last breath before me. They say dreams are the opposite of what will happen. I suppose in the end it was really me who hit that man then. And now, he has hit me.
THAT NIGHT
I woke up this morning with tears in my eyes. Not cold sweat, or an aching arm, but tears.
I had dreamt something that night. I dare say it was a nightmare, as it wasn’t. It was just a dream. I say a dream, yet a dream can’t hurt you. A dream can’t hold your attention above the real goings on of the day. They’re just meaningless thoughts compressed from the events of a few hours. As if dreams are anyway near as real as conscious existence.
This felt real.
I had actually dreamt of death, someone’s death. I had performed a hit and run. It was a far cry from a performance, as no one applauded the man falling to the curb, clawing his way through the rain in agony, gasping for help. No rescue workers came. No one came. He just bled.
How it was my fault was unclear. I was in the car. I saw him being hit through my own eyes. Was it I who hit him?
That night, after the dream had vanished out of the forefront of my mind I decided to take a run. It was a tradition of mine, to rid of the stress of the day with a brisk jog at the end of the late evening. It was cold. Winter in fact. A late misty December night soaked in moonlight, bordering the morning after. With the wind at a standstill I paced through the small park at the bottom of the street. From a field, across the bridge and into a narrow alleyway I ran, the dormant wind still managing to cause some discomfort.
At a turning point, where the inner suburban side road merged with the dense asphalt, one or two cars were passing by, every one or two heartbeats. Clawing through the bitter cold, panting icy smoke, I saw a car driving up into the corner of my eye, turning its headlights up to full volume. The lights illuminated something, a road sign showing the silhouette of a man, and beneath it the word ‘end’.
In a stroke of fear, my heart stopped. Death’s premature cold, frozen fingers grabbing hold of my chest, forcing me to remember my dream again. I looked on at the horizon, gazing at the starless cape patterned with cloud. I ran farther, shaking from either the cold, or the shock. Fear of something. Fear of nothing.
The path winded down past a long row of skeletal trees into another district. The orange glow of streetlights lit up portions of the damp road, marking a route up to the end of the street. After running as far as I had planned, slowing down on the gravel alongside a patch of grass, I stopped. I turned around, facing the view of a potential route home. I ran onto the road, bored of the path and its limitations.
Coming up to the turning I carried on running, in a straight line. Hearing a car to the left, I sped up to return to the path again. I tripped and fell, my attempt in vain. Was it the mist? The darkness? Either way, he didn’t see me. Lifting my hand to my face, now almost a relic of the arctic, I felt beneath my eye. Before it all went dark, I felt something there. It was a tear.
I lay here, with my last breath before me. They say dreams are the opposite of what will happen. I suppose in the end it was really me who hit that man then. And now, he has hit me.