If you have read the last post, you know what the deal is.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to answer the above question, even if the answer stays in your own mind. It would be nice if you shared those thoughts with me, but I’ll survive either way. Not that I don’t value your opinion. Of course, I do. If you are a reader, I most definitely value your opinion. And if you are reading this, then you must be a reader.
Anyway, here goes . . .
I wrote this story a year or so ago (for those who might not have read the last post), and I’m still wondering if it is a story, or just the sketch of one. It is published. It is from my book, The Scarecrow. I know, I know, perhaps I should get my shit together and not be publishing things unless I’m absolutely sure about what I’m doing. At the time, I was surprised that the story ended suddenly at 833 words. After reading the story over a few times, I thought, hey, all of the elements are there. I got the final visual in, the final scene. So, I published. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does. Can I make the story better, improve it? Of course! That’s always the case. Are there errors? Well, . . . you know, they always pop up, especially after you’ve published. It’s a game of catch as catch can (is that the saying?).
Anyway, in the last post, the question was whether I could still write a story and keep it under 1000 words. *Feel free to go back and read that post* That is how the discussion of this story came about. This story is under 1000 words, of course, but it was written before my word count started getting out of hand. Even so, like I said, it surprised me even then. I’m not used to having stories end so quickly. I was puzzled.
So here it is, you decide!
River Rendevous
“Come away with me,” the soldier said, looking down at her.
Rebecca couldn’t believe her ears. Did he really just ask her that? She looked up into his clear blue eyes. They had only known each other three days. Two days previous, she had lost her puppy, Corri, and the handsome young soldier had found him and handed him to her. “Is this yours?” he had asked. They were standing down at the river that day, pretty much the same spot they were in today. The sun was bright. As she looked up and past him, she could see how beautiful the day was. She had just dreamed of a moment such as this just last night. She was suddenly, inexplicably moved. “Of course,” she said. “Yes, Yes! I will.” And so it was settled. They kissed. After all, she was sixteen. He was twenty, she thought. She didn’t know for sure. It didn’t matter. Nothing did. Her home, her family. Nothing. They had taken her father’s boat out the day before, and again today. They would take it out again tonight, or in the early hours of the morning. That’s when they would leave. She would go home and see what small things she might need. She didn’t have much. Not much in the way of clothing. She would take her only other dress, nothing else. She didn’t need anything. The two of them spent the rest of the afternoon in bliss. He sat with his back leaned up against a tree. She lay in his arms. She was completely comfortable there. She looked up at him. He was chewing on a piece of straw. He smiled down at her, kissed her. “Let’s leave now,” she wanted to say. “Right this minute.” It was almost as though he could read her mind. She honestly felt as though he could. She felt as though he knew her every thought. It seemed like he was placing thoughts in her head himself. It was almost as if they weren’t even her thoughts completely. She couldn’t understand it. She couldn’t see how the two of them could be so in tune with one another. She couldn’t see it at all. She shivered. It was a shiver of delight, however, a chillingly cold and crisp delight. It was bright and sharp like the sun. And tonight, it would be a full and bright moon. Yes, she thought. Tonight. It would be more romantic that way. Just the two of them, drifting downriver in the moonlight. And wherever they pulled up the boat, well, that would be where they would live. They would be together forever. It was as though he had placed this very thought in her head, right then and there, just as he brushed her hair aside when he leaned down to kiss her. Yes. Together forever. She felt another chill of delight surge through her. Yes. Yes. Forever.
And so it was . . .
A week later her body was discovered floating along. It was bloated and ravaged by the battering of the water twisting and pushing her along and smashing her young body against the rocks. A fisherman had seen her in her father’s boat at sunset a week earlier. She had been alone; her puppy was nowhere to be seen. The puppy had wandered home a few days after. He had waited faithfully for her return, but she hadn’t shown. He wandered home only to be fed. He waited as long as he could without starving to death. He was a faithful little pup.
And Rebecca, where had she been in the preceding days before her lifeless body had floated downriver to be discovered?
Well, she had been in the grasp of the young soldier. He had died two years earlier, his body wedged in the rocks on the river’s bottom. He was no more than a skeleton now, with a few fluttering tatters of rotted cloth wound around his rib cage. He lay on his back, trapped beneath the jagged ledge of rock, one bony arm and hand sticking up just enough that a bony couple of fingers had gotten somehow hooked and twisted in the collar of her dress. He had held her close for several days, there beneath the water. He had held her tightly, until finally the elements were more overpowering than love. And then she was pushed on and away, by the swiftly moving, swirling water.
Rebecca wasn’t the first girl to disappear along the river’s edge. Several others had gone missing, all from various nearby towns. It seems they would be seen alone in a boat, and then they would be gone for a few days. The boats would always turn up, and be in good repair, no damage at all. And finally, the girls; They would be found floating, just their battered and bloated bodies. No one ever had a definitive answer as to what had happened to any of the girls–No one living, that is.
*******
So, what do you think?
And yeah, I know, Corri is a weird name for a dog. I think that came from my having earlier in the day, on the day I wrote it, watched a You Tube video of a young lady who had written a book on corgi dogs. For whatever reason, that stuck in my head. I just kind of threw something in for the dog’s name and kept typing. It’s a male dog, so I probably, technically, should have put Cory instead of Cori, or Corri, but anyway . . . Aren’t dog’s names sometimes weird? And you’re perfectly welcome to picture the little fellow as a corgi.
You also probably saw about five errors. I’m going to sit down and go through the whole book. All of the stories need adjustment. Stories can always be corrected and improved, even after they have been published. Well, granted, if you’ve got a whole team of proofreaders at your disposal, you can catch the errors. Any volunteers? But aside from that, improving a story isn’t always just correcting errors, as I’m sure you’re aware. Sometimes it is all about finding the right words, and creating that perfect sentence.
So, do you think this little gem is a complete story or just a sketch? As it stands, I mean. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt my feelings if you think it’s just a sketch.
*******
I just, reading it over now (after finishing the post) added the line: She was suddenly, inexplicably moved. So, I guess the story is now 838 words, or thereabout. I could have even dabbled elsewhere along the way and forgot. Writing is a process. And the story still comes in under 1000 words. Though this wasn’t the story challenge, that was the story that I submitted. Again, read the last post to be enlightened on that score.
In any case, thanks for reading, whether it be the posts or my stories—sometimes it is both.