Fiction: "Lost and Found"
Dec. 20th, 2015 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aKimberly and I sat down to do a writing exercise today that was literally our first together in years. I include here what I wrote, unedited except to correct some wrong words (and to adjust a few other word choices; I couldn't help myself).
Havnar idly skipped a rock across the pond, watching the ripples it left behind as it hopped across the water's surface.
1, 2, 3, 4 ...
Then it disappeared from sight, dropping into the pond ... like a rock.
He remembered when he was young, and he'd build huge piles of rocks here at Puddlegup Pond, creating stores of ammunition before he'd suddenly set to sailing them across the pond, one after another, in a furious frenzy.
There'd been some sort of magical thinking in that act that he could just barely remember now. He'd thought that if he could get enough rocks going at the same time, then one of them would keep going forever.
He remembered how he would collapse to the ground afterward, exhausted by the frenzy. He remembered the damp grass under his body, the moist ground which gave ever so slightly. He remembered the sky, so blue, so clear. It was never that blue anymore, the world was never so clear.
He found another stone, the flattest he'd ever seen, like a miniature piece of Neanderthal stone ware, and he gave his arm a single rotation, like a major league pitching preparing for his innings of play. Then he lofted the stone perfectly. It flew on forever before it even hit the water, then it took its first hop.
1, 2 ...
Why had he even dreamed of the stones skipping forever? He wasn't sure. It was just the pure joy of doing something, not because it needed doing, but instead because it could be done.
3, 4 ...
He'd never build a second pile of stones on those bright, blue sunlit mornings. That would have been cheating — which made as little sense as the game itself. No, one pile, and that was it. Then there was biking to be done and dirt hills to climb. The pond would be there tomorrow.
5 ...
Still, that one summer he'd nearly denuded the shore of small stones. He suspected no one else had noticed. It'd been his own private world, that summer.
6 ...
For a moment, Havnar's breath caught in his throat and he wondered, "Could this be the one?" He thought for an instant that this lone stone might keep going forever.
7 ...
Then it too dropped beneath the murky, green water, like a rock.
Havnar dropped down to the ground. He tried not to worry about the mud and damp. He tried to ignore the sharp rock cutting into his back life a knife. He tried to put it all aside.
And for a moment the sky looked blue, so blue, bluer than it had in years.
Tomorrow, he'd build a whole pile of rocks.
This is the first writing in a beautiful notebook that Kimberly collaged for me last year; thanks, hon.
Havnar idly skipped a rock across the pond, watching the ripples it left behind as it hopped across the water's surface.
1, 2, 3, 4 ...
Then it disappeared from sight, dropping into the pond ... like a rock.
He remembered when he was young, and he'd build huge piles of rocks here at Puddlegup Pond, creating stores of ammunition before he'd suddenly set to sailing them across the pond, one after another, in a furious frenzy.
There'd been some sort of magical thinking in that act that he could just barely remember now. He'd thought that if he could get enough rocks going at the same time, then one of them would keep going forever.
He remembered how he would collapse to the ground afterward, exhausted by the frenzy. He remembered the damp grass under his body, the moist ground which gave ever so slightly. He remembered the sky, so blue, so clear. It was never that blue anymore, the world was never so clear.
He found another stone, the flattest he'd ever seen, like a miniature piece of Neanderthal stone ware, and he gave his arm a single rotation, like a major league pitching preparing for his innings of play. Then he lofted the stone perfectly. It flew on forever before it even hit the water, then it took its first hop.
1, 2 ...
Why had he even dreamed of the stones skipping forever? He wasn't sure. It was just the pure joy of doing something, not because it needed doing, but instead because it could be done.
3, 4 ...
He'd never build a second pile of stones on those bright, blue sunlit mornings. That would have been cheating — which made as little sense as the game itself. No, one pile, and that was it. Then there was biking to be done and dirt hills to climb. The pond would be there tomorrow.
5 ...
Still, that one summer he'd nearly denuded the shore of small stones. He suspected no one else had noticed. It'd been his own private world, that summer.
6 ...
For a moment, Havnar's breath caught in his throat and he wondered, "Could this be the one?" He thought for an instant that this lone stone might keep going forever.
7 ...
Then it too dropped beneath the murky, green water, like a rock.
Havnar dropped down to the ground. He tried not to worry about the mud and damp. He tried to ignore the sharp rock cutting into his back life a knife. He tried to put it all aside.
And for a moment the sky looked blue, so blue, bluer than it had in years.
Tomorrow, he'd build a whole pile of rocks.
This is the first writing in a beautiful notebook that Kimberly collaged for me last year; thanks, hon.