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ampersand
Joined: 06 Oct 2007
Posts: 62
Location: Queensland, Australia
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 Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 12:28 pm Post subject: The first 3,000 words of 'Ellen Came Back' for you to read. |
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Hi everyone.
Here's the first 3,000 words of a ms I did during a nanowrimo challenge a few years ago. It's an interesting exercise to aim at writing 50,000 words in thirty days and in doing so not stop to edit at all. I was surprised at the results. This has however been edited many times and will be many times again.
Hope you enjoy reading it and if you'd like to leave a comment, good, bad or indifferent, I'd be most grateful.
Thanks
Diane
Ellen Came Back
1918
The smell of boot polish and locomotive smoke mingled together. River’s woolen uniform felt course under Amelia’s fingers as she hugged and kissed him good-bye. Good-byes were common place during war. His fellow infantrymen waiting on the train had gone through farewells themselves and had to look away as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Water that lemon tree,” he said his smile quivering. The plant had been a gift from his old uncle. The flowers’ perfume made him sneeze profusely. Rivers hated plants of any kind but this one was special.
Amelia sobbed. The war effected everyone placing a dreaded possibility on the future.
The train whistle blew. Time to board and begin the first leg of a journey to who knew where. The army officers knew but to the rest it was secret and only when the soldiers arrived would they find out themselves. He squeezed into the doorway with the rest of the khaki covered brigade and kit bags as the train hissed and chugged away from the platform. He waved through the open doorway leaning out watching her for as long as the metal monster permitted. As they drew away from the station he held his hand over his breast pocket, the one which held a photograph of them on their wedding day seven days ago.
The pain of watching his train leave the station was too much to bear. She held a handkerchief across her nose and mouth protecting her lungs against the choking smoke of the train engine. At other times it caused stinging tears in her eyes. Today though, it wasn’t the cause. Amelia, wearing a shiny new wedding ring, was supposed to be a married woman, though she hadn’t been wed long enough to feel married. The minister had been against rushed marriages, war or no war. He said couples needed time to get to know each other before the commitment of Holy Matrimony. Time was too short and in the weeks previous few weeks but now it was the reverse. It was too abundant. Ameilia stood watching till the last tiny speck of train disappeared from view. Her husband, at twenty years of age, was off to protect man and country with united bravery. He was going to fight in the war.
It was late that night when she finished the first of many letters to Rivers. Her instructions were to address the envelope to him at his Australian Barracks address. The army would see he got it no matter where he was stationed. As she sat below the single light globe in their one room bungalow, telling him how much she loved him, a chill ran through her body and unpleasant goosebumps spread all over her. It was a brief plunge into gloom and depression. Just as quickly it passed. She sealed the envelope and addressed it. Tomorrow she’d buy a postage stamp and slide the letter into the post box. It became a daily ritual for the next six weeks by which time she was lulled into a false sense of belief that he’d be fine because, well, no news was good news wasn’t it? Her dreams of a joyous re-union gained momentum through her daily writings to him. During the fifth week the doctor congratulated her. Amelia was fortunate to have something of Rivers to love and cherish. She was with child.
She wrote to inform him of their wondrous fortune hoping her news would increase his desire to come home as soon as possible. Their unborn child somehow made her love for Rivers grow more intense than before, though, until being told of her pregnancy she had doubted that was possible. Her love was soul binding, firmly growing from her essence. The centre of her being existed for him. Being parted from him was like having a part of herself torn away. She ached for him and during the night woke imagining he was beside her. In her dream she was sure he stood beside the bed, smiling down at her. It felt real until she opened her eyes and he wasn’t there. She cried herself to sleep with the loneliness of being separated from her husband whom she loved so desperately.
The next day as the telegram was delivered she shook knowing the message it conveyed. She placed it unopened on the kitchen table staring at it knowing her dreams were shattered. She looked out the fly-wire door at the lemon tree. The mass of white flowers had suddenly turned brown and were dropping off. In consuming despair she collapsed into momentary oblivion, her only escape from the destruction of war that destiny chose to slash upon her. The random cruelty of war made her a widow at nineteen.
1942
The carnage of war was not going to saturate Ellen’s life with misery. The newspaper headlines told the story. The world was going crazy, again. It was at war. Ellen slowly folded the newspaper placing it beside Reg’s breakfast setting. Soon he’d finish shaving and be ready for work. She put the butter and jam on the table beside his bread and butter plate. The kettle had boiled. She warmed the teapot with a few drops of boiling water, swishing it around and tipped the water down the sink. Three scoops of tea leaves, one for each of them and one for the pot, and enough water for her cup of tea, his two and a little to spare if she felt like having another one. She pulled the tea cosy down over the brewing tea and let it rest on the black trivet on the table. She took the milk jug out of the ice-chest and made sure there was enough sugar in the bowl for them both. With a teaspoon she stirred the white granules breaking up the clumps.
She didn’t think about the morning ritual it was automatic. She thought about the war. It was a devastating waste of life. She had no time for it and wanted no part of it in her life.
“Is the toast ready?” Reg asked as he sat down and poured a little milk into his cup.
“It’s in the toaster,” she answered pouring the tea through a tea strainer then adding milk. She opened the sides of the toaster one at a time and turned the bread around to toast on the other side. It browned quickly. She put them onto Reg’s bread and butter plate and repeated the procedure for herself. That done, she flicked off the electricity switch at the wall turning the toaster off. “Reg, about the war. It won’t be long before they start making all the young men join up.” He nodded as he ate. “You’ll be one of the first cause you don’t have children to provide for.” He continued eating. “I don’t want you to go away,” she said tears slipping down her cheeks.
“Got to do what’s expected, if I don’t I’ll be called a coward,” he sipped his tea.
“There’s got to be something, some way of keeping you here without being called that,” she pleaded.
“I’ve got to go now,” he patted her hand and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry about it now. We’ll talk about it when I get home from work,” he said trying to console her.
He gathered up his coat and old leather bag in which Ellen had put a cut lunch, of sandwiches carefully wrapped in grease-proof paper and slipped into a brown paper bag. She watched him leave through the back door and through the kitchen window saw him close the gate behind him as he began the walk to work.
She sat for a long time at the kitchen table her eyes aimlessly wandering around the kitchen. What would it be like to live without Reg? She felt grief begin to grow inside her at the horrid prospect. She remembered what it was like without him when he went away for a week with his work. Such devastating loneliness should not be thrust upon any married couple. The governments did though, in the name of war. And for those wives whose men were killed, it was permanent. She knew all about the first world war. It was still talked about by the older generation. Ellen didn’t want, couldn’t, wouldn’t live without Reg. It was till death us do part and she’d make sure no war was going to cause his premature death. If nothing else she had a bottomless pit of determination in her. She knew she could find a way to keep him with her.
By lunch time she’d made the decision and her confidence grew. All she needed was a plan. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, yet.
Today
The jet engines spluttered as the plane flew lower. It banked to the left and lost altitude, nose down, dived from the sky in a sharp arc. It headed toward a thick forest. As the altitude reduced it clipped tree-tops chopping them off. Lower still and the wings smashed off at the fuselage as it hit huge ancient tree trunks and sheared off smaller sapplings at the ground. Momentum slewed it through the undergrowth. It’s belly hit the ground cracking the fuselage into hundreds of sections, splintering the outer casing then the ribs of the inner walls. The cabin inside smashed to smithereens with the violent jolt. The belly slid forward ramming nose first into an embankment. Aeronautical fuel leaked out of all the tanks into the wreckage. Fuming hot jet engines were somewhere behind it spread randomly in the thick jungle like undergrowth.
From the verandah of their hut hidden away in the forest,
“Geez love! Did ya see that?”
“Nope, but I heard it,”
“Must’a went down on Four Snake Ridge,”
“Come on let’s go see for ourselves.’”
They took off running through the trees along barely discernable pathways. Fifteen minutes later they came to the flattened expanse of forest. The vast pieces of wrecked plane were strewn across two kilometres of forest
“There’s no fire, but from the looks of the fuel it won’t take much to set it alight.”
They searched through the carnage and found more than a hundred broken bodies and parts of bodies scattered throughout the debris. There were no survivors. Life had been smashed out of them on impact. At the front of the wreck were wires, gauges and buttons, some fused together in the heat of a malfunctioning control panel.
“We’ll take this.”
“What is it love.”
“It’s the black box, you know, the thing that tells them what went wrong and made the plane go down.”
“Must be pretty important?”
“Yeah. We’ll hide it and when the searchers and investigators can’t find it, we’ll use it to bargain with. It’ll have pretty good bartering power.”
“Yeah, OK.”
“Come on. We better move quickly before the rescuers get here, not that it’ll do any of these poor souls any good.”
The couple looked at the mangled mess of bodies tangled with debris and broken luggage pieces with spewed contents.
They dragged the box to the edge of the crash site then carried it back toward the hut. The hut was only accessible via a hidden passage cut through a high overgrown ridge. The ridge looked like a cliff face from the outside and encircled the hut. The ragged cliff swept east to west, curving slowly around to form a circle. The thickness of the ridge varied in depth, making the hidden valley unidentifiable from the sky or higher ridges which surrounded the valley. The hut stood in a thick patch of undergrowth concealed by ivy, trees and bushes. Thick bushes concealed the passage into the fortress. Only the best trackers would find it.
“Let’s put it in the hidey hole love.”
“Yeah, it should fit.”
They walked fifteen minutes with their load and deposited it inside the hidden valley at the base of the ridge just beside the entry passage.
“The rescuers will be arriving soon and we don’t want them coming around bothering us.”
“Not yet anyway.”
“They will come though I know it.”
They were sitting in their rocking chairs on the front verandah. In the distance they heard helicopters flying over the crash site.
“The rescuers’ll be days sorting out that lot.”
“Yep, I suppose.”
“I wonder how long it’ll take ‘em to figure out we took the box,” said Ma thinking out loud.
“I reckon I’ll give ‘em ... two weeks. How long do you reckon?”
“Mm. Maybe ten days, depending on how bright they are. Some of them are a bit slower than others. But some are quicker on the up take.”
“Ten days of waiting. Do you reckon we’ll get much for the box?”
“Yeah probably quite a bit.”
In the distance they heard machinery, engines groaning their way through scrub and trees. The crack of large lumber falling as the search and rescue team carved their way to the site. They could smell the leaked fuel wafting it’s way to them on a light breeze. Then the first plume of smoke appeared. Just a little at first then quickly a huge pall of acrid black licked with flames. The leaked fuel had made it’s way to the hot engines and ignited. The sky darkened.
“Wondered how long it’d be before the fuel went up.”
“This is gonna be the most excitement we’ve had round here since, ah, since when?”
“Well I recollect about thirty years ago old Smokey Dillon went out on the highway with his shot gun and started firing at passing cars. Remember that?”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “He was pickled t the gills, like he was all the time, and finally went off his head. Sure did cause the coppers to stand to attention.” he laughed.
“Yep and for three days they were trying to catch him.” she said.
“Yeah. It didn’t seem right that they should shoot him like that. He didn’t hurt anyone, just threatened to and shot up a lot of cars. He was a crack shot and could a taken any of them down at any time if he’d wanted to.”
“I guess they just had enough of him toying with them and threatening them.”
More groaning of engines came from the distance. The putrid smell of burnt aeronautical fuel and smoldering man made textiles drifted over them.
“You know there’s gonna be a lot happening round here in the next few months.”
“You’re not doing that seeing into the future thing again are you woman?”
“Sometimes I can’t help it. It just happens,” she said quietly.
“OK so what is it you can see now?”
“Well there’s gonna be people come for the box.”
“Yeah well we already knew that’d happen.”
“There’ll be a man and a woman,” she said. “We’ll do something to them.”
“Oh no! You know I don’t like… “
“Hush now!”
“If it’s what we did last time, you know how I feel about doing that.”
“I know you don’t like it, but it’s fate, we can’t help it. We’ve got to do it,” she said.
He shook his head. It wasn’t right. He hated that sort of thing.
“We’ve got to do it,” she repeated. “The plane came down on time as I predicted and we’ve got the ransom. Now we wait for the next thing to happen.”
“What’ll that be?” he asked.
“You just wait and see,” she taunted with a sly grin.
* * *
“Hey! Jorja, over here,” called Frank Macleod in the glaring quickly erected temporary lighting. The site was lit up brighter than daylight.
The smoke had drifted away. The fire had burnt itself out and the embers glowed white hot in the night. So far from civilisation in the middle of some forest with only the owls and nocturnal wildlife to look on. The stench of burning human flesh assaulted Jorja’s nostrils. Fumes from burning plastics and insulation padding of the plane added to the insult to her nose. Some bodies were out of the immediate mass of bits and pieces. Some bodies were in pieces, strewn among baggage, personal items like underclothing soap, tooth-brushes and deodorant. Some bodies were whole. All of them were bent and broken.
“Look here,” commanded Frank her superior in rank, though in other aspects he was sometimes he was her junior. “The nose took full impact. There isn’t much left of the control panel.” Or the Pilots thought Jorja. The blood had dried brown quickly. Even in the beam of search-lights the residue was unmistakable. A piece of the outer cone of the nose fell back. A head and shoulder lay mangled in a buckled seat of the cockpit. Most of the cockpit had been flattened on impact. “Must be the captain,” said Frank. He looked at Jorja. She was pale. “You OK?”
“Yeah,” she answered standing her ground. Her shoulder length black wavy hair shone in the artificial lighting. “It’s not as if it’s my first crash scene is it Frank?”
“Even so, it’s a bad one.”
“I’m fine. Where’s the black box?” she asked.
“Haven’t found it yet. Might be morning before we do.”
“We’ll probably all still be here. It’s a big one. Two hundred and seventy five passengers and five crew. Do you think we’ll find all the bodies?”
“If the fire hadn’t broken out, yeah probably, but now, maybe not.”
Jorja made her way around the rubble walking between lumps of whatever it was in the night. She stopped to pull back a small piece of fuselage where a hand with painted finger nails had a ring on each finger. The hand had somehow remained out of reach of the inferno. Some of the rings looked vaguely familiar. She pulled melted seat fabric and plastic interior away revealing more of the body. In the bright light she could see the woman’s half charred face. She shone her torch on it. It was blackened with smoke and ashes. Her hair almost gone on one side, singed away to black residue.
“What you got there?” asked Lance James. He was tall and thin with short blonde hair and always ready to help out. Jorja felt short when standing beside him.
“A woman in her late forties I’d say,” said Jorja. The body’s other hand clutched a small handbag. Jorja pulled it from her grasp, opened it and pulled out her drivers license. “Marjorie Halcroft.” said Jorja. “Oh shit! She’s my father’s youngest sister.”
“Christ!” said Lance. “Are you alright?”
She began to tremble, her mouth dried. The fresh mountain air was suddenly strangling. Her face whitened. “My Auntie Marj,” she breathed. Her face contorted in disbelief. Tears flowed. “No!” she moaned. “Not Auntie Marj.” She dropped the bag and license, sobbing into her hands.
“Frank!” called Lance. “We have an identification here.” Turning back to Jorja, “Go back to the truck and sit down.
“Not Auntie Marj,” she sobbed.[/i]
_________________
Always from the heart,
Always from the soul.
Always write.
http://write-intention.com/Diane_L_Wood.html
http://writingfelicity.blogspot.com/
http://easywaytowrite.19.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=9
http://ancientearthashortstory.blogspot.com/ |
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Miss Mae
Joined: 19 Oct 2007
Posts: 22
Location: Southern USA
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Miss Mae
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Location: Southern USA
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ampersand
Joined: 06 Oct 2007
Posts: 62
Location: Queensland, Australia
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