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The Level

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Short introduction: Hello, I'm Level! I'll use this thread to post short stories and writing tidbits to track how my writing ability progresses. I'll date everything, and hopefully in a few years I'll look at the beginning of this thread and pat myself on the back because of how much I've improved. I know the stories will have flaws, and as such I welcome constructive criticism so I can better myself as a writer.

Contents:

Page 1, Posts 2-8
¤ War Without a Victor

Page 1, Post 9
¤ Flash Fiction Entry

Page 1, Post 10
¤ Thunder on a Snowy Day

02-May-2013 22:10:49 - Last edited on 24-Apr-2017 15:08:45 by The Level

The Level

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Following is the winning entry from the 2013 April Story Competition, hosted by Risk Wizard. And no, Brain is not a typo.

War Without a Victor

Brain shifted restlessly on his feet and kicked the dirt in front of him. The thick cotton uniform he wore clung to his skin in the sticky heat, and the stench of gunpowder filled his nostrils and stung his eyes. Adding to his misery, the artillery that thundered behind him showed no signs of slowing the hour-long cannonade, which only further assaulted his ringing ears.

The bombardment had excited him at first. It was inspiring in a way. Two hundred cannons simultaneously raining fire and death down upon the enemy for the glory of the nation! He had initially been worried that the cannons wouldn’t leave anybody alive for the soldiers to kill. By now his enthusiasm was faded, his head throbbed, and his legs ached from standing for so long. With such little to do, he allowed his thoughts to drift back to antebellum life.

He recalled a quiet existence of academia and material comforts, a world of grandiloquent titles and lavish galas. His position as an esteemed university’s professor of literature granted him access to the highest social circles in those days, but in the military it only meant a nickname: Brain. It was derisive in intent, but Brain passed it off as simple immaturity from the other soldiers, many of whom were much younger than he.

They were like his former pupils, really—uncouth and free-spirited, with a keen nose for trouble. Pranks were frequent and vicious, reminding Brain of some of the legendary practical jokes executed by his students at the college. Most of those boys were fighting the war now, and the university shut its doors when they left to undertake their duty of defending the country.

02-May-2013 22:10:56 - Last edited on 04-May-2013 19:19:08 by The Level

The Level

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Remembering the festive mood of the city on the day war was declared brought a slight smile to Brain’s face. People crowded the streets to hang flags from buildings and listen to marching bands play patriotic anthems. Amateur orators (Brain included) stood on the corners and spouted stirring jingoisms while the boys rushed to enlist at the recruitment tables. “Quick victory” was the battle-cry of the day, and blind optimism meant that even the most cowardly signed their name to the enlistment papers. “It’ll be over in a weak,” they said to themselves. “Over in a week.”

Brain’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden chorus of voices around him. He noticed officers moving among the men with urgency, yelling orders and directing them into rigid lines. Brain’s stomach fluttered as he realized the assault was finally beginning. He swallowed hard and adjusted the flintlock rifle resting on his shoulder. He betrayed his anxiety by uneasily glancing at the soldiers around him.

They were arrayed in one of three lines, five men deep, that stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions, facing an open field mostly covered by smoke. Somewhere in the hazy miasma, lurking beyond their sight, the enemy waited. As he stared into the fog, a dozen worries raced through his head. What if the gun doesn’t work? He barely knew how to load it, much less repair it. What if I lose my glasses? Suppose I get lost? Through all the worries, the thought of death never entered his head. Death was an impossibility, and thus irrelevant.

The officers continued to hastily organize the line, and to his chagrin Brain found himself in the front row, gazing out at the battlefield. A gray-bearded lieutenant pushed past him and turned to face the line. With flourish he drew his sword and waved it above his head.

02-May-2013 22:11:52

The Level

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“Gentlemen!” he shouted over the din. “In front of us the enemy waits! For your country and for your people, do not falter! Do not give victory to the aggressors! Show them the pride of our nation! Fix bayonets!”

The lieutenant grabbed the unit flag from one of his aides and approached Brain. “Not you, soldier. Turn in your weapon. You will be our standard bearer.”

Brain took the flag with shaking hands. “M-me?”

“Just raise it high and follow me,” the lieutenant said, resting a hand on Brain’s shoulder. “You above all cannot falter. When the battle rages and the fog of war descends upon us, they will look to the flag that you now hold.” The lieutenant withdrew and raised his voice again. “Follow the flag, gentlemen! Never look away from the flag! March on the bugle!”

As he stood there, the flag flapping wildly in his hands, the prospect of death finally pervaded his mind. The flag, he realized, made him a target. The most visible target on the battlefield. Suppose death is painful? Or would it welcome him in a comforting embrace, a shield against the horrors around him? His heart thumped in his chest and his breathing quickened, but the sounding bugle afforded him no more time to ponder it. The drum core began its cadence, and the army began to march forward.

The cannon fire ceased as the advance began, and a ghostly quiet settled across the battlefield, save the sound of ten thousand feet trudging towards their fate. The silence lasted mere moments, shattered by the unleashing of the enemy’s first artillery barrage. The shells landed haphazardly around the line, blowing sizable clumps of rock and earth into the air, but not harming a single man. The line gave a loud cheer.

“That one was just to find the range,” the soldier to Brain’s right said grimly. “The next one will hurt.”

02-May-2013 22:12:32

The Level

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The cannons fired again. He could hear the cannonballs scream as they hurtled into the air, and he imagined them arcing gracefully into the sky, before plummeting towards the exposed army, one that couldn’t even see their destroyer in the thick smoke that still shrouded them. For several tense moments, he listened.

Impact.

Chaos around him. Fire licked the air in front of his face, and a million small bits of metal exploded outward, puncturing flesh like a sword through paper. The blast threw him to the ground, where he stayed as the cries of dying men filled his ears.

The horrible moment passed.

Brain remained on the ground, trembling and unable to muster the courage to stand. Fear surrounded him. Mocked him. He was paralyzed by it. Never before had a terror so powerful stricken him. In a moment, all thoughts of bravado and heroism abandoned him. He wasn’t a soldier; he was just a professor.

Someone seized his arm and pulled Brain to his feet. The lieutenant.

“The flag!” he was shouting. “Grab the God damn flag!” Brain could only stare with empty eyes. Cursing, the lieutenant gave the unresponsive man a hard slap across the face. “Come on, soldier! How will you ever be able to look at yourself in the mirror?”

Cheek stinging, Brain reached down and grabbed the standard that lay before his feet. As he waved it above his head, soldiers flocked around him even as the shelling continued.

“We’re almost there!” the lieutenant announced, wild-eyed and covered with dirt. ''Double-time forward!”

They were moving forward again, running now, while the cannons pounded the ground around them with deafening blasts. Adrenaline and fear mixed to release a sort of euphoria in Brain, and in the men behind him as well. They whooped and hollered and rattled their weapons while they ran, countering the terror that welled up in their chests with boyish jubilation.

02-May-2013 22:13:19 - Last edited on 06-May-2013 18:50:41 by The Level

The Level

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The lines were broken now, having deteriorated into a mad dash after the lieutenant, who continued to swing his sword and call them forward.

They suddenly broke out of the haze, and into the fresh, clean air. For a moment, the enemy remained unseen.

Then, they appeared. Like spectral demons they rose from the ground, out of trenches and foxholes—from behind trees and stones. They filled Brain’s vision—there were too many of them to overcome. His heart leaped in his throat, but he kept running, kept screaming. Even as the deadly rifles were leveled at him, he urged himself to run faster.

The enemy vanished in a thick cloud of white smoke as they discharged their weapons. A rush of air gusted past Brain, and then he was running alone and the lieutenant was dead. A moment later, pain swelled in Brain’s shoulder, and then his abdomen. Struck by a near miss, Brain’s spectacles flew off his face, but he kept running blindly, even as more bullets struck him and he could no longer see where he was going.

Body finally weakened, Brain stumbled and fell face down into the dirt. He began sobbing, and his tears mixed with the blood that profusely bubbled from his wounds to form a pool around his body. As the precious liquid departed, so too did the pain.

He was alone now, alone with his last desires. He wanted to go home. He wanted to curl up in front of a fireplace with a good book and read until the warm fire lulled him to sleep. He wanted to lean back in a recliner and sip a glass of imported tea while chatting about literature with his students. He wanted his family, his friends.

Above all, he wanted to be alive.

The body shuddered, and the soul departed.

---

02-May-2013 22:13:40 - Last edited on 06-May-2013 18:55:24 by The Level

The Level

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---

A cool, misty wind rustled the general’s coat. He closed his eyes, letting the evening air caress his worn cheeks and assuage the pounding in his head. After such a day, he welcomed the coming of night. Here, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the last faint light slipped away, there was only peace. No more war. No more cannons, rifles, and bullets. Here, there was only the soft buzzing of the cicadas and the gentle flares of the fireflies. Twilight was a time of healing. A time of reflection.

Faceless men moved around him, wordlessly pulling the dead into neat rows and covering them with blankets. The general pitied them for having to carry out such a ghastly task. He looked down one of the long lines of bodies and stroked his beard contemplatively.

“I wonder who died today,” he said softly, sadness tugging at his voice.

“Let my check the casualty reports, sir,” a junior aide behind him spoke, rummaging through a bag of papers.

“No, no,'' the general snapped. ''I don’t need the numbers.” He reached down and unpinned a paper that was attached to one of the blankets. Peering closely at the paper in the dim lighting, he began to read. “Private Marcus Abelmen. Married with two kids.” He turned to look at the aide. “Two kids are going to grow up without a daddy.”

He moved on. “Private Damian Jacobs. A carpenter from just across the river.” He closed his eyes and thought hard. “Yes, in fact I do believe he helped build the church over in the distance there. These hands will never carve wood again.” He shook his head, and moved on.

He continued on in this way, reading the information pinned to each dead soldier aloud, even as the night deepened and the wind became icy and bitter. The aged general showed no signs of faltering though, taking the same amount of time with each soldier as he did the first one. Finally, he reached the end of that particular line.

02-May-2013 22:14:02

The Level

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“Private David Thoreau,” he read. The general bent down to pull back the blanket, revealing a lifeless, bespectacled face. “A professor of literature. An esteemed professor of literature, it seems.” He pinned the paper onto the blanket again with a grunt. “A man of books pulled away from his library and ordered to become a man of rifles. It’s downright criminal. No longer will the boys crowd his lecture halls. No longer.”

“Sir, why do you do this?” the aide asked, visibly shivering in the cold. “We ought to get back to the camp.”

“Why do I do this? Huh. Well.” The general sighed and looked up at the night sky. A million stars twinkled back at him, and he wondered what the earth looked like from up there. Would it look peaceful? Or ravaged and war-torn like he saw it? Sometimes he wished he could join the stars.

“General?”

“I do it to remind myself what a waste this is,” said the general. “Young boys and men in the prime of their lives—dead. It’s a terrible, cruel waste.”

The aide nodded mechanically; he had heard this before. “Yes, sir. Let’s get back to camp before you catch cold.”

“Yes, I suppose your right,” the general said resignedly. Smiling sympathetically, the aide helped the general away from the bodies and on towards the camp. The general shook his head and looked back one last time.

“Just a damned waste.”

~ End ~

02-May-2013 22:14:23 - Last edited on 06-May-2013 19:01:46 by The Level

The Level

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An entry to Poller's Flash Fiction thread. The first sentence is written by him, not me. Entries had to be 100 words or less. Written February 2014.

Heat rose in waves to the discordant symphony of the cicadas' chirps. The craftsman sat amongst them in the trees, contemplating the world that he himself wrought. Ephemeral and insubstantial as they were, his faceless patrons no longer called upon him to conceive, to construct, to create.

Calloused hands lay idle at his side, never again to forge the wonders that he alone could recall. The craftsman did not draw a final breath, but rather slipped without a murmur into the void for the disremembered. The cicadas seemed to pause in acknowledgement, before they too forgot.

04-May-2013 19:01:05 - Last edited on 20-Feb-2014 18:03:19 by The Level

The Level

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Written May 2014.

Thunder on a Snowy Day

I sat outside on a snowy day, and I heard thunder.

The great cogs ground to a halt, and I too, the natural machine, paused to listen.

After a moment, I tried to forget, but still the thunder rolled like so many great drums in the sky. I now sat in rain - heavy, swirling rain that stung the eyes and chilled the body. The tranquility was broken. For some reason, I knew it would not return.

I, the natural machine, did not move. Humanity was not a part of me, and neither was fear, but I felt boiling, uncomfortable anger nonetheless. The tranquility was broken. The tranquility was broken. Broken! I was broken!

By what?

The rain, and the cold, and the noise, I answered.

By what?

The rain, and the cold, and the noise!

By what?

I did not understand. I was a natural machine and I could not understand. Did I not feel the biting rain and the wind? I felt nothing when the flurries fell upon my shoulders and head, but now when the thunder boomed and the wind screamed I felt anger. It was because I was broken!

By what?

Who speaks to me? I have not sought the broken tranquility or the roaring wind, but yet it is here.

It is here.

I, the natural machine, stood.

04-May-2013 19:01:16 - Last edited on 02-May-2014 21:00:44 by The Level

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