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Land of Autumn
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Land of Autumn |
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Allan Riverwood
since 2001-01-04
Posts 3502Winnipeg 
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They were some of the most signifigant days of my life. And they all occurred in a single mesh of time. In those days, I spent very little time with people. The city was boring, a land of goblins and of drows. Everything was a disgrace to me, nothing could match the elegance of my inner desires. I was supreme, I looked down on all else. No tangible object interested me. This world, I had decided, was no more than a sty of greed. A pit of rank and disgusting creatures. We were civilized, yes. We goblins knew which fork was the salad fork. I spent more and more time, growing up in those days, walking farther from my regular path on my way to school. Eventually I'd just skip school altogether, and enjoy the free nature of the ashen city. The sky, ripe with the frost-packaged autumn clouds... blackening out my view of Heaven. Dust and smog trailing vehicles, as they mashed their way through the brown snow. Little freckles of morning mist that were solidified before they could even drift, forming a frost on the plants and fences of the neighbourhood. Trees were browning, and the colours darkened everywhere. It was a sickly ideal time to be alive, I decided. Out in the distance, a clacking noise was audible. A loud clang of metal upon metal was heard everywhere, and it was natural to every pointed ear it would approach. Life halted temporarily for me as I turned at the sound of something so ordinary, visualizing it as a gunshot carrying my deliverance. It sped straight towards me, and then it simply swerved, and drove back into the receding fall of a fresh winter white. Back, beneath its origins, were the walls of the city. Tall, metal sentinels that cradled our entire community from the outside world... the walls were the end of our known existence. I'd never been beyond, and none I'd ever spoken to had so much as touched them before. A daring child I was, however, and foolish. Quite foolish. My fingers clutching to the inside of my coat pockets, fending off the freeze, I stomped determinedly towards them. I will topple these hands that pin us, I decided. Topple them. The world would view me as a hero, as he who whisked away our constraint and left us free to explore. This little world beneath the scattering cloudscape of an everlasting autumn snowfall... we would soon expand our cities, our schools, our horizons. When I arrived, my opponent chortled derisively down on me with a profound sound of failure. Silence eradicated my spirit, leaving me soulless. The way home was unfound. I was stranded. Doomed to a life of laying at a wall unscalable by my clenched, frostbitten fists. For the wall was as tall as the city wide. And I was so very mere, laying bleakly against it and sobbing into my knees. Mere. A sobbing that wasn't my own caught my ear then, when I had stopped momentarily to inhale. It was higher than my own, feminine almost. Quieter... so I looked around for its source. My efforts were in vain, I was alone here. My only companions the goblins and drows of the modern world, clanging steels together and syphoning quarters from passersby. They were quite happy for such inelegant beasts. Perhaps I'd had something to learn from them. Nonetheless, I rose and listened more carefully. Alas, the faintness of the sound was not a result of distance, but rather one of insulation. With my scarf, I defrosted a circle on the icy iron wall and pressed my ear to it. The sound was more clear now. What sounds, I thought. What wonders... beyond this wall is a land that would bring a girl to tears, just as mine had done to me. I took this a crushing blow to my hopes. And within a few days or so, I spoke aloud. If crying were audible, words would be too, after all. The answer came at me in a hesitant way, her voice soft and wounded. We began speaking generally, as a pair of charmed drow pups might do. Her world, I learned, was a parallel of mine. The only differences were very minor, and might even be based on her alternate perception. She was such a broken soul, and I spent many nights awake dreaming of a way to heal her. My hands could never touch her, I knew, but my hands had been frozen and clenched for too long to do me any good anyhow. The spoken word, when issued correctly, has a warming quality. Ever since we had begun speaking, I felt a new hope within me. Someday this wall might be breachable, and I can finally touch her... finally hold her in my arms. Finally kiss her and feel her body against mine, finally make love to her. It was a bonfire that kept me alive in those days. It was the usual tradition that we were awoken by the heat and light display of the rising sun. Our worlds even shared a sun, yes, it rose and moved along the line of the wall itself, as a train would run on a set of tracks. We each had a half of the sun that would agitate our shoulders and pull us from our relative sleeps. Without having ever spoken a word of my dreams to her, I arose a morning to hear no sound on the other side. My cries were retorted only by a sideways glance from the drowish laborers, a point and glare by the goblin overseers. I pounded against the iron giant with my feeble, long-dead fists and produced no sound. And now, as I collapsed and frosted my hands to my face with the excretion of my squinted eyes, I was inexplicable to any sane man. I had attained mereness at the greatest level. Her voice, the sweet sound that had so nourished me, was now gone. Her tender biting laugh, the string of her fluid ideas, concepts, and words... her words... I was a dying creature in the land of autumn, a crumpling figure beneath a massive, cackling sky of distilled totality. I needed never leave that place. My cries of sorrow, I suppose, somehow reached further into the city and alerted them of my woe... told them of my story, and of my state. Now, my hands are no longer moveable. They are tied behind my back. But my days are very much the same. Only now, the walls are made of spun cotton and pillow fabrics. My bonfire is fed to my veins, an artificial pleasure. A false hope of normality, of mediocrity. An illusion weaved cruelly before my eyes, which still function when I bother to disclose them to my chamber. The greatest seducer of all is the possible knowledge that the one I love is in the same place as I am... where the sky cannot be seen, the ice cannot be felt, and the autumn is nothing but a stale indoor constancy. Her back to the wall, I wonder if she screams my name now and then... I wonder if we still cry at the same moments, wake to the same sunrise. If she wonders these things of me, as well. I wonder, often and with adamant curiousity, if we share the same cotton wall... and otherwise, I wonder if she has finally found peace, sleep, that I can only pray into my knees for. My love prevailing through devastation, I will take another walk someday... and I will meet her face to face, separated by nothing but the autumn haze. Only time can stop me now. |
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| © Copyright 2001 Brian James Lee - All Rights Reserved | |||
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cherish Senior Member
since 2001-03-25
Posts 1639swimming in fairy floss........... |
i love this. i truly do. i think you wrote this with a talent beyond my capabilities for one, and a talent beyond your peers. i throughly enjoyed the story. the ending was, as you wished, perplexingly good. you continually amaze me with your pieces and this is certainly no exception. thank you so much for sharing this- i hope that this gets the recognition it deserves. love you, cherry |
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Solstice Son Member
since 2000-09-19
Posts 469 |
not bad...I liked it...cold...in many ways...ahhh but that's the appeal....the constancy of it all...formidable and unchanging...save for the perceptions of those imutable facts...kudos  Sol " The question shouldn't be...'Why are we here?' but rather 'ARE we here? " |
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Dusk Treader
Moderator
Senior Member
since 1999-06-18
Posts 1187St. Paul, MN |
I loved your writing in this story and your interesting ideas. The great steel wall and the two young ones seperated by its vastness. The images are well crafted. "A hard, cold wisom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil" - Robert Heinlein |
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fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
Wow! Allan, this is great. I love the symbolism you've used here, with the wall and with the various "mythical" creatures. You have a very great ballance between fantasy and real. Obviously you've progressed quite a bit since I last saw your work. You might like to work on the sentence fragments a little, though. The second paragraph has a little too many, which can be a detriment to this story. Other than that, however, this was a marvelous piece of work. It's definitely one for my library! "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" |
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Fading Away
since 2001-03-14
Posts 3131Lynchburg, Virginia |
Allan... wow. This piece amazes me. You certainly have grown to a new level with your writing. The first paragraph is more than perfect as the opening. The metaphorical content running throughout this piece is awesome, but astonished me in the first paragraph. "The city was boring, a land of goblins and of drows." "We goblins knew which fork was the salad fork." The whole metaphor with the goblins was simply outstanding. It really put a mythical twist on the story, in only a way that you can do it. The second paragraph had descriptions in it that really put a wonderful start to the bulk of the story. "ashen city", "frost-packaged autumn clouds", "Little freckles of morning mist" were just a few that really caught my eye, and made this paragraph stand out the most. This was my personal favorite part of the city. But even better than that was the way you encorperated the tunrning of seasons closer to winter the darkening part of most of the city. "Trees were browning, and the colours darkened everywhere. It was a sickly ideal time to be alive, I decided." This paragraph, IMO, was the most significant. It put a dark twist to a romance, and made it that much more interesting. The different metaphors that you stressed made everything come alive. In most prose pieces, my mind tends to wander, with lack of concentration. However, with this story, my mind wandered not once. I was in tune with everything you were portraying, and it was beautiful. I, personally, loved the significance of the noises of metal. That really put a spin on things, one of the first spins in the story. "Life halted temporarily for me as I turned at the sound of something so ordinary, visualizing it as a gunshot carrying my deliverance." Carrying your deliverance... a great way to put this. Just one point in the story that impressed me the most. "Back, beneath its origins, were the walls of the city." Wow.. The way you carried out the story was magnificant. Telling about how you never traveled outside of those city walls, as if you're trapped in a box. Something observed, but never allowed to have a say in it. "the walls were the end of our known existence. I'd never been beyond, and none I'd ever spoken to had so much as touched them before." You're sick of confinement, but yet... don't seem to have a choice in it. However, determination overcomes you, and you are daring enough to to try to get a new look. A new view rather than the bland, boring one you see every day. You yearn for it... but to no avail. "Doomed to a life of laying at a wall unscalable by my clenched, frostbitten fists." I love that.. The motivation of this being is inspiring. The way you portray the crying girl, the one that you try so hard to reach, to befriend, is very interesting. Very romantic, and mysterious. Makes me wonder who this person is, makes me want to reach ehr on my own out of pity. That's what amazes me about this... you have a way of bringing in the reader here, to a place where they've never been. And you leave them with a dark feeling, but at the same time, hope. Fantastic... "A sobbing that wasn't my own caught my ear then, when I had stopped momentarily to inhale. It was higher than my own, feminine almost." I do think it peculiar, however, how, at the beginning of this piece, you say this being looks down at the drow goblins... and yet, you also say: "They were quite happy for such inelegant beasts. Perhaps I'd had something to learn from them." A moment of realization hit him? The way you describe this girl's world I thought was very well done. "Her world, I learned, was a parallel of mine. The only differences were very minor, and might even be based on her alternate perception." And the way you carry out the emotions you feel for her makes the reader almost wish to feel them as well. "Someday this wall might be breachable, and I can finally touch her... finally hold her in my arms. Finally kiss her and feel her body against mine, finally make love to her." *sigh* The trasition from the city walls to where he ended up was very well done. "Only now, the walls are made of spun cotton and pillow fabrics. My bonfire is fed to my veins, an artificial pleasure. A false hope of normality, of mediocrity." The end is painful. The sorrow that you give off, speaking of the painful cries of this person, is disheartening. Throughout the story, it feels as if hopes are built up, guilt up, and then let down... and then, at the very end, built up again, to leave the reader thinking. Leave them with the thought of 'If only...' and 'Maybe...' "Her back to the wall, I wonder if she screams my name now and then... I wonder if we still cry at the same moments, wake to the same sunrise. If she wonders these things of me, as well." And the last sentence: "My love prevailing through devastation, I will take another walk someday... and I will meet her face to face, separated by nothing but the autumn haze." was a perfect ending. This is a fine piece of work, Mr. Riverwood. Very fine, indeed. I am more than impressed. You not only met, but have risen far obove my expectations here. You leave me inspired. Beautiful.. simply amazing. This is a library piece definitely. I must go, now. I'm afraid my rambling has maybe taken up far too much space But thank you for sharing this fine piece of work. I am left amazed...--Marie If there's one thing I've learned, it's that the most frustrated people in the world are those who know they're stupid, but keep trying anyway. |
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knightlyshadows Senior Member
since 2001-04-14
Posts 791obscured vision |
wow allan, i enjoyed this alot. it was written wonderfully. lots of little things in it reminded me of BM and i liked that. there was alot of depth in this that i had missed reading from you. i miss reading pieces that actually have meaning to them. you did an excellent job on this allNa and it goes to mah library. keep up the creative thinking sweetpea. *bump* tiff  “A single choice can build destinies,or destroy them.” |
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banburycross Senior Member
since 2001-03-27
Posts 946viginia |
im glad to have the opportunity to read your work again. whether you are writing prose or poetry your talent always amazes me. you know how much i love imagery, and this piece is filled with some of the most beautifully crafted images i have ever read. wonderful work, as always i look forward to reading more. Sometimes, the things that go unsaid are the only things worth hearing. |
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Allan Riverwood
since 2001-01-04
Posts 3502Winnipeg |
Marie - I appreciate the reply a great deal! Damn, girl, that was almost as long as my post!  Well, it's great to see that I live up to the expectations of my personal idol.  Always a good thing, I suppose.Cherry - Great to see you here! Thanks so much for the reply, it kept me from not going on Today's Topics during that nasty midnight mark. I'm so glad you're pleased with this... I feel better about it now, knowing that it impressed you that much. And now, for the five dragons...  Sonny Boy - Cold? That's the main theme of the story, actually. I tried to depict an ongoing cold that ended only at the climax of the story. Thanks for noticing it. Dusky - The images are something I'm trying to improve in my writing, and I'm glad that people are noticing this. It means I'm doing something right, aye? Look at me, I got praise from the moderator!  Thanks for reading!BBC - Same thing about the imagery, I'm glad you picked up on it. And the general praise? Well, have I told you lately that I  you? Tifferoooonie - Hey babe! What ever brought you to this corner of PIP? It's usually deserted!  Well I was surprised to see your reply but nonetheless, appreciate it a great deal! I didn't intentionally refer to BM with this, perhaps that was just the terms "goblins and drows" that were used. Those are just creatures of fantasy, very commonly known among fans of the genre/culture. But yeah, glad you could relate it. Frac - You always bust me up about the sentence fragments. Yeah, I deserve it too. I took this into microsoft word at my school (I don't have word) and did a grammar check. Semicolon city. Population: me. Always nice to hear what you have to say about my writing, you know I value your opinion. I'll work on that aspect of it. Thanks for the read! That goes for everyone... ~Allan |
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
I wonder if we still cry at the same moments, wake to the same sunrise. If she wonders these things of me, as well. I wonder, often and with adamant curiousity, if we share the same cotton wall... and otherwise, I wonder if she has finally found peace, sleep, that I can only pray into my knees for ===================================== Well I will only add a few thoughts so as to not repeat all of the above, for they say it much better than I will, but this is fabulous, creative, imaginative writing Allan. Needless to say the imagery is excellent, as is your employ of metaphor(and extended metaphor) to create this ethereal, theme...one which you carried out superbly without getting lost in imagery or the well defined details. The feelings of frigid, solitude were done to perfection..which worked perfect to create the connection between the two characters. You write light years ahead of your own years poet sir. jm |
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