We ran together on the frozen mother land like a pack of disoriented hyenas. Children. Boys, mostly. All ages. Starving. Shit-poor. Ill-dressed. Some dying from tuberculosis or dysentery. Others living with pneumonia, coughing up liquefied guts and bile and epochs of cruelty and the violence our fathers bestowed upon us with belts, shovel handles, tree limbs, chains. We puffed on used, dry butts we found in the rubble of the war. Shit, Russian or Romanian, half-smoked, hastily-rolled cigarettes; some abandoned by their owners in a hurry, running into the trenches away from whistling mortars, others interrupted by a sudden, violent end. All tainted by once-infected lips. Herpes. Blisters. Cankers. Split lips. Remnants discarded by the dead. Faint footprints. We made up games and stories, all the while subsisting in the shadows of destruction, vagabond concrete, and petrified bones:
"Enemy sniper dragged his last breath on this just before he was clipped by his counterpart."
"He was shot through his own scope."
"On the last day of the war."
"Before he was to come back to his wife."
"And then he was eaten by feral dogs."
"By feral cats."
"By hungry villagers, hiding in their cellars."
"By us."
There was no food (we found 120 grams of bread under a fallen oak tree once), just the winter earth under our thin, worn-out soles. (Our thin, worn-out souls.) Some had no shoes at all. Others improvised. Gabriel wrapped his feet in gauze. It was soaked in dried blood that looked more like cracked, satiated clay. He had removed the bandage from the frozen head of a captain, propped up against a tree in the forest, on the outskirts of the city. He had removed the captain's stripes, as well, and ate them.
"He died heroically after fighting at Stalingrad."
"There was a sign nailed to his chest that warned of resistance."
"They tortured him but he gave away nothing."
"On the last day of the war."
"Before he was to come back to his wife."
We starved and became insane. We ran together and apart and together again. There was no food. Just cold. Gabriel lost a toe to frostbite. We slid on ice on the bare flesh of our baby feet. We shat in abandoned outhouses. In February, Caesar found a bombed communication truck in the middle of a ravine, hidden by a pyramid of burned out tree trunks. Three men were frozen inside at the controls. Parts of their flesh were black, missing, a leathery-smooth nightmare. It looked like they were smiling, only we knew...it was the grimace of pain and death in that unavoidable instance you cross the bleeding fields or wherever in hell your religion tells you you're going.
"All made from wax by Madame Tussauds."
"Keepers of the Chamber of Horrors."
"You idiots, check their pockets for cigarettes."
"Imbecile!"
"Animal."
"Sodomite."
And in the end, when there was nothing left and we had all come to look like whispers, we ate the sun. It was Pavel who taught us. It was he who convinced us that we'd fill up our bellies with it. There was nothing to eat anymore, and when you have nothing, you will believe anything. Even Pavel with his provincial tales. And so he showed us how to find the few sunny spots, kneel down, turn our faces up to the star, and open our mouths. That was all we had. And so we ate sun. And our mouths became dry and burnt and full.
And that is how we died, one by one.
Once in a while, I read a story here on Fnaut that succeeds in making beauty out of horror. Like this one.
Feels inadequate to say, but very good, Alex. Esp. the repetition of the story-telling over the dead.
A grim beauty.
Wish I'd written this one, my friend. Wow. So amazing.
Fave.
Ferociously good, the feral innocents, making play in the wake of war, casualties all the same.
Very nicely done. Perfect story-telling.
Perfectly done. Wish it was mine. Wish I'd published it, too.
Thank you all, thanks Katie. Katie, I'll send some (what I think is) good stuff your way at The Legendary soon. I promise (or is it a threat?). I love you guys.
glorious.
Fine work.*
love the stories behind the cigarette stubs. i'm reading city of thieves, and this puts me there, and vice versa. peace *
This is totally intense and wonderful and horrible all at the same time. Every image real and vivid. Sends chills down my spine. *
Just stumbled across this and it is striking. Painful and uncomfortable.
WOW!!! Alex, this is so tactile, visual, brutal!! You bring this brood to life!!! Pure brilliance! *****
Thank you all so much. Meg, I have no more words to express my gratitude for your support.
OMG, this is war, this is the real deal. Riveting and dreadful.
*
Wicked story man. Vivid and real.
*
Thank you so much, Susan and Matthew. Really humbled.
great stuff!
Wonderful story, Alex. Especially loved those headlines, those story morsels thrown in, and the epic span of the tale.
Marcus, thanks.
Everyone, I tried commenting on your individual pages, thanking you, but FN is having some issues the last few days. Just wanted to express my gratitude for the kind words and your time reading.
The line "By us." got me. I love the rapid-fire lines of dialogue that frame this story. And the end is of course inspired. *
This takes my breath away.*
Thanks so much Christopher and Jane. I tried commenting on your pages, but FN is still down w/that functionality.
An important story, needing to be told, well dramatized and illustrated: insightful, authentic, artistic, inspiring.*
This is strong writing, Alex. It moves well. Yes.
Glad I took the time and read this. Magnificently drawn and brutally pugnacious simultaneously.
star
I'm blown away by this. *
Thank you so much.
Christopher, that line was cut from the original by the editors of The Monarch Review. I really didn't understand why; it was important. But anyway, overall the piece stood strong, despite the edits. I rather like this version, but I'm jaded.
Still as powerful and brutal as when I read the version in Monarch Review. Just brilliant, Alex.
Thank you for the kind words, Kenny. I have decided to majorly expand this into a novel by the same name. Here's hoping I will finish writing it by spring 2013. The Civic Center of New Orleans will publish it...no date, obviously, on that as it's in the writing stages.
Wow. Love the way you make lists work in this piece. And repetition. (And repetition.)
Very powerful. Very.
Also love the title.
And 39 minutes later, I still can't get over the ending. Just saying. I'm still just sitting here. Wow.
Thanks Lilia...I have majorly expanded this into a full blown novel and am about halfway through writing it at this time. It is, indeed, called "The Sun Eaters" and it just blows up this little flash piece here into about 80K words or so. I look forward to maybe one day bringing it out to people; with this one I'm going to try to publish it with the Big 6, the traditional way (agent representation, etc.)
Fantastic. Immersed from the start.
Thanks much, Kevaughn; if you're going to AWP starting tomorrow (and are not delayed or snowed in somewhere), I'll be reading this on Friday, March 8 at 3 pm at Dillon's.
Absolutely terrific. So glad I found it.*
Thanks Tim. I now have a novel that expands this story; it's been looking for a publisher for a year and still going.