Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Entry #40

“Nightendday”
by Forgottenmachine


There are faces in the clouds, misconceived and gormless . The sky is a negative aurora, all threshed silver and scorched grey. Yet strangely, a sense of expectancy seems absent. There is no charge to the air; power poles stand like impotent scarecrows, taut cabling the only thing linking each to the other.

Yes, a storm approaches, but it brings with it as much sound and fury as a murder of wingless crows. This does not mean that it is quiet; the silence is littered with a chorale of God's tiniest creatures. Their chittering has been my only lullaby for countless passings of this phase. Still, I suppose this desolation is of my own doing.

I have been perched here an age, far beyond the brittling of bones, the staining of skin. A shadow should never have to remember pain, so perhaps I am not a shadow. I can even remember the face of the last who tried to slip past. My arrow split his skull like an opened, dusty book.
And thus did Affinity join his brothers, bloodied and beaten. We can't have them scurrying about like lice.

My name is Daniel. And I guard the Midnight Road.

[Forgottenmachine is an aspiring author who at one point considered calling his entry, 'I'm Getting Just a Smidge Predictable'. Wisely, he changed this at the last second.]

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the supernatural element to this.

Anonymous said...

Clever title. Reads like prose.
Beautifully crafted. Leaves me wanting to hear more and more.

Jade L Blackwater said...

Well done! My favorite line: "My arrow split his skull like an opened, dusty book."

Bhaswati said...

Very well written. Such pathos despite the economy of words. Nice!

Lisa Jordan said...

Loved the ending. Somehow those few words tied it all together.

Anonymous said...

Forgottenmachine, the paragraph describing this sentinel is rich. Somewhere an ageless story underlies this piece.