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fractal007
Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958


0 posted 2001-11-22 05:42 PM


Montag awoke as he did every morning.  He lifted his legs from the confines of the dust-covered blankets and placed his feet on the floor.  He placed them on the prints where he had placed them so many days before.  He looked about himself toward the dark cobbles of the wooden stone walls of the chamber in which he lived.  

On his right sat that shelf, at the end of his bed.  On it were some valuables that he used to treasure.  He couldn’t remember why he’d kept them.  It had been so long.  On his left was the wall.  It was the wall he’d pounded when days were dark, and it was the wall he talked to when he needed advice.  It kept his bed in check, holding it secure against the back wall of stone.  

He stood and traced the steps, the procession, into that front right corner.  A table varnished in grey grotesque dust and cobwebs stood at the corner, holding aloft his food.  Montag swore he knew the source of his livelihood.  He knew where it came from.  But he could never know why it came.  Sometimes Montag stared at it in disgust, throwing it to the floor.  Some remnants of those violent episodes lay on the right side of the room.  But on some days he looked with joy upon his livelihood and ate and ate and craved more.  It always came…the next day that is.

The wood on the floor was soundless as he retraced his steps.  Every foot fall, every tipping of his toes, touched the wood the way it had the day before.  Elsewhere on the floor were the dim imprints of the steps he’d taken in youth.  Those were the days of youth and they left the marks of folly.  

And then came the moment in the day when Montag looked out from his day, toward us.  He stared into our waiting eyes and asked, quietly, “Why do you stay here?  Why don’t you leave and exercise your freedom?”

We never answered.  We only watched, looking onward as if expecting Montag to do anything different.  Things used to be different.  I can’t remember what they used to be, only that they were different.  But Montag changed somehow.  Somewhere down the road he got tired of all this.  I can’t remember where that was, or why.  

“Go,” Montag said, “Please.  Just leave me alone.  Go away.”

But we stayed and watched.  We listened and waited and watched.

“Go.  Get away.  Leave me alone!”

We stayed.

“Go!  Just go!  Go!  I don’t want you!  Go!  Go!  Go!”

We remained.

"If history is to change, let it change. If the world is to be destroyed, so be it. If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh"

-- Magus

© Copyright 2001 fractal007 - All Rights Reserved
serenity blaze
Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738

1 posted 2001-11-29 07:01 AM


Well, this certainly aroused my curiousity...
not enough information for me to draw conclusions, which may be part of your intent? This is well written, and I certainly would like to read more about Montag, and the reason for his confinement, etc. More please?

Allan Riverwood
Deputy Moderator 1 TourDeputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Elite
since 2001-01-04
Posts 3502
Winnipeg
2 posted 2001-11-30 01:23 AM


No, Frac!  Don't listen to the witch girl!  
This is so open ended... it HAS to be left on its own.  
I absolutely loved this, front to back, a masterpiece.  Frac, this is what I missed about you.  The "we" at the end... and the sparse dialogue between him and the "we" you proposed... just dark... wonderful.
Very good work.
~Allan

"I know it's nice to be known - It caresses your ego - but the society cost is terrible."
~Vangelis

fractal007
Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958

3 posted 2001-11-30 07:22 AM


Thanks, all, for the responses.  Allan, you got it on this one.  I intended this to be an open-ended piece, to provoke thought and reflection in its readers.  It asks you and challenges you:  Are you the one in the cave, living "the unexamined life" or are you the one in the audience, fixed on him and never leaving?  Or, are you the one who excercises his freedom and lives life the way he wants to?

"If history is to change, let it change. If the world is to be destroyed, so be it. If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh"

-- Magus

Solstice Son
Member
since 2000-09-19
Posts 469

4 posted 2001-11-30 01:30 PM


Hmmmmmm....I liked it...a restricted soul....a morbid audience....near forgotten footprints of youth...oooh that I truely loved....i plan on rereading after this....i cannot tell if there is mention of a door or not....which gives one pause...and chills....though i don't think I need to know more about Montag...I would like the perspective from someone in the audience...heh heh heh...the whole of it makes the mind reel with thought.

Excellent!!!!


Sol

" The question shouldn't be...'Why are we here?' but rather 'ARE we here? "

Leonard Nimoy


serenity blaze
Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738

5 posted 2001-11-30 03:31 PM


WITCH GIRL???? Allen...tsk...tsk....I am MISTRESS SERENITY...aka Kyah, HPs. And it is only because I have compassion for the "montags" of the world that you have been spared! (serenity exits...via broom...)
Dusk Treader
Moderator
Senior Member
since 1999-06-18
Posts 1187
St. Paul, MN
6 posted 2001-11-30 05:11 PM


I have to admit, the audience confused me quite a bit at first. Montag made sense to me and his dusty repetitive life is masterfully drawn. It took your explanation of the audience to have it fully dawn upon me. Your posts always draw my attention, I should know they'll set my mind in motion. Excellent ambience and that dialogue at the end was plain frightening.

"A hard, cold wisom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil" - Robert Heinlein

fractal007
Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958

7 posted 2011-01-29 11:55 PM


wow it's been a while since i wrote this.  
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