Dirt

[Charlie Parker]

It’s cold. I’m lying on what feels like rugged earth. I can feel a whisper of icy breeze on my face. My hands appear tightly bound behind my back with some sort of wire. Groggily, I shake my head, trying to make some sense of my surroundings.
There is a grey slate sky above, shot with wisps of frayed white cloud. There are trees all around, they are bent and stunted like broken old men, their bare and twisted limbs held up towards the heavens as if in protest at the winter elements that stripped them of their summer bloom.

There is a pool to my left. It is stinking, stagnant. Its surface is thick with scum. It appears deep but it’s like looking into an obsidian mirror. There is nothing to see.
This takes a few seconds to take in. Then I notice the man. He is standing just in front of me, a sneer playing across his face. I can’t think why I didn’t notice him at first. I know I have seen him before but I can’t place his identity.

I lie there just looking up into his eyes. They are pools of boiling blue sky, radiating a mixture of loathing and satisfaction. The sort of satisfaction my childhood pet cat used to show when it came into the house with a dead rodent held in its jaws.
He has a wide face and light brown hair that is full and wavy on top but shaved short on the back and sides. His bulky compact frame seems rigid beneath his long green raincoat. He bristles with tension as if craving release.

I try to recall what happened. How I ended up here. Wherever here is.
Last thing I remembered was unlocking my flat door, struggling with shopping. I had put the bags down and moved to shut my door when I had been struck from behind, knocked to the floor. Dazed, I was suddenly in grasped tightly across my chest and a rag had placed over my nose and mouth, a rag soaked with an acrid stinking chemical. With no choice but to breathe in the chemical, choking and thrashing like mad, consciousness had slipped away like light from a dying candle.
That’s all I remembered.

How long I had been out was a mystery. As was exactly where I was. There were plenty of wooded areas around Glasgow. Even in the city itself. I could be anywhere.

Suddenly the man before me breaks the silence.
"No remember me?"
"What? What's going on?"
His left hook comes like a lightning flash. I end up sprawled on the hard ground, blood dripping from a cut lip. I gasp as he grabs me by my shirt collar and hauls me upright.
"Can the clichéd shit. I can't be arsed wie it so just fuckin listen tae me," he hisses.
He lets me go then merely says a name. A name that hits me as hard as his punch had.
"Kate Roberts," he repeats.
I say nothing, just lie there gasping like a fish out of water.
He kicks me, hard in the ribs. I grunt.
"Well?!"
"I haven't seen her in nearly eight years. What's this fucking about?" I near scream.
I try to rise to my knees. He kicks me on the shoulder and I'm sent crashing back down to the cold, hard earth. I lie there fighting against sobbing as he rears over me like a vulture. His breath stinks sourly of whisky.

"Well you won't be seein' her again anytime soon. She's deid. Deid as a dodo."
I attempt to get up again but he snakes a hand down behind my right ear and his thumb becomes a knife point, stabbing into the pressure point. I scream until he releases me, tears streaming from my eyes to curl up on the ground.
"Listen," he rumbles.
I listen.
"Around two weeks ago on a wet Tuesday afternoon Kate Roberts was in her maw's house on her own, her maw was away tae work. Same routine every week day. Kate would be left on her todd tae dae all the housework while her maw worked 12 hours mannin' a till in Tesco.

Mibbe she was lyin' on her bed clutched one of her auld soft toys or watchin the rain fall through a windae. Whatever she was daein' at some point she made up her mind and turned on her maw's computer. She typed up a note, printed it out and stuck it tae the living room TV screen. Fuck knows why she chose there. Mibbe they watched a lot of TV. Anyways she got some sheets outta the linen cupboard and went up tae the loft."

I know what is coming. I want to beg for him to stop. But I just lie there, listening.
"She hung herself fae the rafters and when her ma came home a few hours later she found her there, danglin' like a broken puppet, shit and piss drippin from her legs onto a box of Christmas decorations."
He fixes me with an accusing look.
"It was you that set her on that road," he states.
"What?"
He hits me twice. Bruising blows to the face.
"Ye set it all in motion, ye met Kate Roberts at university in '97, just before ye both dropped oot like a pair of boulders. You shacked up together. It was all fun at first I‘m sure. Mere dabblings, but before ye knew it ye both were hooked on speed and coke. Can‘t you recollect me yet?!"
"No..." but it it was a lie.

I remembered him alright. I never knew his name. He broke into my flat on a Saturday night sometime in 1998. Me and Kate had just settled down to enjoy a night of chemically-enhanced fucking. He kicked the fuck out of me and took Kate out of there. I never saw or heard from her again. Nursing my emotional bruises, I searched high and low but found no traces. It was another year or so of flying highs and crashing lows before I cleaned myself up and got anywhere in life. He was wrong though. We were never hooked on anything. Were we?

"Her family hired me tae get her away fae ye. I worked wie her auld man in the force before his passin' and I went private. She was stealin' money left right and centre. Tryin' to get her tae see sense wouldn't work so they had to make her. I got her back tae her folks and they moved up north. They thought it'd be a new start. But the damage was fuckin' done. She somehow moved onto heroin, but managed to clean up again. Not clean enough I guess. The stains obviously ran too fuckin' deep. She lost it again. For a while she got it together but it must’ve been like walking a frayed tight rope. Mibbe it was a sense o' betrayal or shame. In the end a mother survived her only daughter and that's no fuckin' right."
He rears over me.

"No right at all. John Roberts would want this I know. He probably always did, but Johnny was always too fuckin clean nosed fer his own good."
"I didn't know, I'm sorry.." I sob then I'm screaming as he launches a series of hard kicks to my stomach. It feels as if I'm burst inside as he hauls me up to my knees with the pool to my back. He looks me over with an expression of disgust, like I'm something I found under his shoe. Envisioning Kate pirouetting from a ceiling in a slow dead dance, I find myself pondering the fact that maybe I am about to die.

This is why I have been brought to this place. It reeks of death from the stinking water to the gnarled twisted trees. What isn’t rotten is rotting. My life will only add to the corruption.

There is a gun in his gloved hands now, a small revolver he takes from a coat pocket.

He cocks the revolver. My fate is sealed with the sharp click. There is only the two of us now. Everything has faded away from awareness, the sky, the trees, the pool. Gone as if the world has turned and abandoned us here.

My heart pounds, the blood thunders in my head and a pathetic mewl escapes my mouth.

“No,” a voice starts. It is a woman’s voice, a voice that’s cracked with sorrow.
“Leave it Harry, just leave it,” the woman stays, stepping out of the trees and into view. She’s a haggard, sorry creature, wrapped in a dull grey wool coat, pulled tight around her small frame. Looking over me with empty, blood shot eyes she shakes her head.
“What will it dae? It won’t bring her back, nothing ever will,” she sighs, bending down to squat over me.

Harry moves in behind her, training his gun obviously in case I try anything funny.
“Bit late to change your mind Jean,” Harry grunts, his disappointment obvious.
Jean sighs, cups my face in arthritic claws.
“She talked about you on and off, you were the last thing that obviously meant something to her all those years ago. But you lost her just like me, in a way we’re both victims aren’t we?” she says softly, almost tenderly.

I try to reply but it comes out as a hysterical croak.

Shaking her head she walks away, Harry following after holstering his weapon and giving me a lingering look of hate. They leave me there, amongst bitter memories and the dirt.

[Charlie Parker]

In case anyone's thinking that this is an old piece, it is, I rewrote bits and changed the end as I thought it wasn't very good as it was, especially the over the top introduction. I'd welcome any critical input as I'm trying to start writing strong pieces rather than throw away pulp junk.

Dirt (from 2002)


In a silent vacant void I float. There is nothing but nothing. Numb bliss. Then in a flash I’m gripped by an earthquake and flung violently into awareness, my senses screaming back into action.
It’s cold. I’m lying on a rough surface. My hands appear tightly bound with some sort of wire or cable. Groggily I try to make sense of my surroundings.
There is a grey slate sky above, shot with wisps of frayed white cloud. There are trees all around. they are bent and stunted like broken old men, their bare and twisted limbs held up towards the heavens as if in protest at the winter elements that stripped them of their summer bloom.
There is a pool to my left. It is stinking, stagnant. Its surface is thick with scum. It appears deep but it’s like looking into an obsidian mirror. There is nothing to see.
This takes a few seconds to take in. Then I notice the man. He is standing just in front of me, a sneer playing across his face. I can’t think why I didn’t notice him at first. I know I have seen him before but I can’t place his identity.
I lie there just looking up into his eyes. They are pools of boiling blue sky, radiating a mixture of hate and satisfaction. The sort of satisfaction my childhood pet cat used to show when it came into the house with a dead rodent held in its jaws.
He has a wide face and light brown hair that is full and wavy on top but shaved short on the back and sides. His bulky compact frame seems rigid beneath his long green raincoat. He bristles with tension as if craving release.
I try to recall what happened. How I ended up here. Wherever here was.
Last thing I remembered was unlocking my flat door, struggling with shopping. I had put that down, turned to shut my door when I had been struck from behind, knocked to the floor. Dazed I had lay there while I was held in a tight grip and a rag placed over my nose and mouth. A rag soaked with an acrid stinking chemical. A chemical I had had no choice but to breathe in and conscious had slipped away as I thrashed and choked in my assailant’s grip.
That’s all I remembered. How long I had been out was a mystery. as was where exactly I was. There was plenty of wooded areas around the city. Even in the city itself.
Suddenly he starts to speak.
"No remember me?"
"What? What's going on?"
His left hook comes like a lightning flash. I end up sprawled on the hard ground, blood dripping from a cut lip. I gasp as he grabs me by my shirt collar and hauls me upright.
"Can the cliched shit. I can't be arsed wie it so just fuckin listen tae me," he hisses.
He lets me go then merely says a name. A name that hits me as hard as his punch had.
"Kate Roberts," he repeats.
I say nothing, just lie there gasping like a fish out of water.
He kicks me. Hard in the ribs.
"Well?!"
"I haven't seen her in nearly five years. What's this fucking about?" I near scream.
I try to rise to my knees. He kicks me on the shoulder and I'm sent crashing back down to the cold, hard earth. I lie there fighting against sobbing as he rears over me like a vulture. His breath stinks sourly of whisky.
"Well you won't be seein' her again anytime soon. She's deid. Deid as a dodo."
I try to rise and he snakes a hand down behind my right ear and his thumb becomes a knife point, stabbing into the pressure point. I scream until he releases me and I curl on the ground, tears streaming from my eyes.
"Listen," he rumbles.
I listen.
"Around two weeks ago on a wet Tuesday afternoon Kate Roberts was in her maw's house on her own, her maw was away tae work. Same routine every week day. Kate would be left on her todd tae dae all the housework while her maw worked 12 hours mannin' a till in Tesco.
Mibbe she was lyin' on her bed clutched one of her auld soft toys or watchin the rain fall through a windae. Whatever she was daein' at some point she made up her mind and turned on her maw's computer. She typed up a note, printed it out and stuck it tae the livingroom tv screen. Fuck knows why she chose there. Mibbe they watched a lot of tv. Anyways she got some sheets outta the linen cupboard and went up tae the loft."
I know what is coming. I want to beg for him to stop. But I just lie there, listening.
"She hung herself fae the rafters and when her maw came home a few hours later she found her there, danglin' like a broken puppet, shit and piss drippin from her legs onto a box of Christmas decorations."
He fixes me with an accusing look.
"It was you that set her on that road," he states.
"What?"
He hits me twice. Bruising blows to the face.
"Ye set it all in motion ya prick, ye met Kate Roberts at university in '97 just before ye both dropped oot like a pair of boulders. You shacked up together. It was all fun at first. Dabblings but before ye knew it ye both were hooked on speed and coke.Do ye not remember me yet?!"
"No.." but it it was a lie.
I remembered him alright. I never knew his name. He broke into my flat on a Saturday night sometime in 1998. Me and Kate had just settled down to enjoy a night of chemical enhanced fucking. He kicked the fuck out of me and took Kate out of there. I never saw or heard from her again. Nursing my bruises I searched high and low but found no traces. It was another year or so of flying highs and crashing lows before I cleaned myself up and got anywhere in life. He was wrong though. We were never hooked on anything. Were we?
"Her family hired me tae get her away fae ye. I worked wie her auld man in the force before his passin' and I went private. She was stealin' money left right and centre. Tryin' to get her tae see sense wouldn't work so they had to make her. I got her back tae her folks and they moved up north. They thought it'd be a new start. But the damage was fuckin' done. She somehow moved onto heroin, but managed to clean up again. Not clean enough I guess. The stains obviously ran too fuckin' deep. Mibbe it was a sense o' betrayal or shame. In the end a mother survived her only daughter and that's no fuckin' right."
He rears over me.
"No right at all. John Roberts would want this I know. He probably always did but Johnny was always too clean nosed fer his own good."
"I didn't know, I'm sorry.." I sob then I'm screaming as he launches a series of hard kicks to my stomach. It feels as if I'm burst inside as he hauls me up to my knees with the pool to my back. He pulls a pair of thin leather gloves on and looks me over with an expression of disgust. Like I'm something I found under his shoe. Thinking about Kate and envisioning her pirouetting from a ceiling in a slow dead dance just maybe I am.
I am about to die.
His anger is near eruption. It will explode outwards in a single action that will snuff me out like an extinguished flame.
This is why I have been brought to this place. It reeks of death from the stinking water to the gnarled twisted trees. What isn’t rotten is rotting. My life will only add to the corruption.
There is a gun in his gloved hands now. A small revolver he took from a coat pocket. It resembles the sort the cops always wield on channel Five’s imported crime shows.
He cocks the revolver. My fate is sealed with the sharp click. There is only the two of us now. Everything has faded away from awareness, the sky, the trees, the pool. Gone as if the world has turned and abandoned us here.
I do not protest or plead. I am past that now. Like a predator stalking wounded prey anything I can do would be fruitless. I merely kneel and watch as the gun rises. I’m almost welcoming the bullet as it roars from the barrel, almost crying out in sexual bliss as it punches into my chest with the force of a thousand hammers.
Maybe I do deserve this.
I am released, coughing a red spray as I fall backwards. Backwards towards the black brackish waters. In slow motion I fall. Pirouetting almost.
I break the scum, the water enveloping me in its chilly grip. I sink like a stone, my essence leaking around me in a red funnel. Black sleeps begins to engulf me, blunting the pain and my last thoughts are of acid summer nights and skin against skin as I fade and become one with the place of death.

[Komodo]

I preferred the ending in the second one Charlie. Any other reason why you changed right around?

The first ending seemed to be too 'standard'...on the brink of dying then getting last minute reprieve. I think thats why I liked the second one so much...wasnt expecting him to 'cop it'.

[Charlie Parker]

I dunno, I just found the origonal ending kind of pointless, plus everything I write always ends up with someone dead. I think in changing it I was trying to create something more standard. I was wanting to experiment in editing anyway and it seemed the best candidate when I found it on the forum archives.
It is a bit tv drama isn't it. Even the off screen voice and the woman coming into frame! I've always liked bits of this piece, bits of it I've hated such as this awful prose-

'I do not protest or plead. I am past that now. Like a predator stalking wounded prey anything I can do would be fruitless. I merely kneel and watch as the gun rises. I’m almost welcoming the bullet as it roars from the barrel, almost crying out in sexual bliss as it punches into my chest with the force of a thousand hammers.
Maybe I do deserve this.
I am released, coughing a red spray as I fall backwards. Backwards towards the black brackish waters. In slow motion I fall. Pirouetting almost.
I break the scum, the water enveloping me in its chilly grip. I sink like a stone, my essence leaking around me in a red funnel. Black sleeps begins to engulf me, blunting the pain and my last thoughts are of acid summer nights and skin against skin as I fade and become one with the place of death.'


Ugh! Stinks like bad goth poetry!
Thanks for the input

[poprock]

I couldn’t agree more—the old version with him being shot reeked of teen angst. I much prefer the 2006 remix. Leaving the guy to live with his new-found knowledge and guilt is a harsh punishment.

[Charlie Parker]

I thought it need something to weigh it down dramatically than a mere shooting

[Potatojunkie]

"Do not wallow in descriptive prose" is one of the more important lessons to learn. Nice one.

[Charlie Parker]

Ta, I might attempt a horror story next

[Charlie Parker]

Ta, I might attempt a horror story next

Liar

[Shannow]

I'm really reminded of this piece by nicole blackman (which is also the forst track on the Golden Palominos album 'Dead Inside'

'I feel the motion of the car before I open my eyes.
The air is blue-black, brown-black, black-black.
Smell of gas, oil, animals.
I'm in the trunk.

My wrists and ankles tied.
Tape over my mouth
it almost covers my nose
but I can breathe barely.
I must have been here for hours,
everything's stiff and my head throbs
like someone's drumming on china.

The car stops.
He turns off the motor -- but there are no traffic sounds.
No people sounds. No wind. What place has no wind?
I turn my head towards the sounds
like people watch radios when something terrible happens.

My palms are sweating. Where am I?
The trunk squeaks as he lifts it up and the sun blinds me.
He almost looks like a faceless Jesus surrounded by light.
He pulls me out of the trunk and bangs my head against the door.
I try to cry out, but it comes like a hum.

He drags me, half-standing, along a dirt road into a house.
I can't see any other houses and it looks like a farm.
The screen door bangs behind me and I feel a deep, deep pressure inside.
All the rules have changed here.

I'm dragged down a hall like a bag and I look for a phone, other doors.
Nothing but bare floors and brown boxes in small rooms.
He pulls me into the bathroom
and I almost crack my head as he pushes me onto the floor.
Tilts his head to the side and gazes at me
as if I was a pet then walks out.

I'm lying there for a long time, trying to get the tape off of me.
My eyes are tearing. I don't make a sound.
I can't get up and I keep rolling from side to side, trying not to make noise.

I've got to get him to talk to me.
If I can get this thing off my face I can talk to him.
I'll tell him my name.
Have you killed other women in here?
I'm thinking you've got hundreds of them nailed down,
hung on walls, hanging from ceiling fans
swinging dead in summer wind.

Why did you pick me?
If I had stayed to finish at the library
I would have been there twenty minutes longer
maybe I'd have been OK.
Would have rushed into the house, books piled up in my arms like a baby,
and blurted explanations why I was sorry.
So sorry I'm late everyone.

Would you have waited for me anyway?
Would you have picked another woman?
Would I have read about her in the paper and said
oh my god, I was there that night...
and called all my friends in a panic.
Telling them then how much I loved them
as if I'd never have the chance again.

I wonder what everyone is doing now. Putting up signs.
Showing my picture on the evening news. Calling old friends.
Maybe I'm not even considered missing yet.

The family will fall apart and my parents will go crazy. Slowly.
My brother will be so quiet at the funeral and insist the casket be closed.
(I never even told anyone what kind of funeral I wanted when I died.)

Maybe years from now they'll find my skeleton
on the floor here and they'll have to use dental records to identify me.
My family will say "At least we know now.
We always hoped she was alive somewhere.
We just hope she's in peace."

When I sleep my dreams are crazy -- I'm flying over fields.
I don't think I sleep for more than twenty minutes and when I wake up,
it feels like I'm under a heavy blanket. I'm still here.

As I wake up I hear a dog barking in the distance
and I think I'm in my parents' house in South Carolina.
When I open my eyes, there's a shotgun pressed between them.
I'll never get married.
I'll never have kids.
I'll never go to Europe.
I'll never learn to play piano.
I'll never write a book.

The last thing I hear is a click.'

[Charlie Parker]

I dig that