Field of Rattle
D is a stranger. He walks along a beach.
The sand is purple and white.
He wears a dark suit despite the intense heat. He carries a small leather briefcase.
He stops.
He puts the briefcase on the sand and removes a pistol.
In the distance there are others.
They are motionless. They cast no shadows.
Overhead the high-pitched drone of heat coalesces into a vertical metal chain made from fine golden links.
The persistence of the chain produces overtones. They broadcast through the air like the opening of a flower.
The flower overhead collapses into a spiraling field of rattle. It dissipates in the stillness like a wave breaking on shore.
The sun is a molten white ball.
Heat leaks through the air and bounces off the water.
The continuum of his movement breaks into component parts and joints.
He shakes his head to scatter them.
The gun continues upward as though his mind and his arm are not connected.
In the distance there are others.
They are motionless. They cast no shadows.
The vertical metal chain forms a serpent in his mind. It coils around his thinking.
Nothing seems real.
The others are arrayed like elements in a cryptic formation.
There is a message in their arrangement what is it what is it.
The echoes from gunshots flash away across the beach.
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Author's Note
no. 63 from 100 Edge Effects.
http://100edgeeffects.tumblr.com/
The tumblr version comes with a kind of illustration--a crow target---that I like very much.
It's been hot as hell here in Tiny Town.
This piece comes out of listening to cicadas and trying to write down how they sound. There's something of The Stranger that must have been buzzing around in my head. Maybe a spaghetti western or two as well.
Enjoy.
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I can nearly feel the heat. Congrats on publication!
Effective form. I like it. Makes for a solid voice. Good piece.
"Nothing seems real." Yes.
Enjoyed the voice, read it through twice. The line, "He puts the briefcase on the sand and removes a pistol," pulled me in, as I'm sure you intended it to.
thanks much for the reads and comments.
i think that the heat is almost a character in this piece, as is the slowing of time and isolation of moments and actions one from the other enabled by it.
and the cicadas.