Fishbowl Helmet
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- Joined
- May 14, 2012
- Messages
- 954
So this is the new opener of the first scene for the piece I've been whinging about for weeks now (or is it months). I'm hoping I can keep my BIC and turn this beast into a novel. Ideas spinning for the rest of the thing so that's good, just need to work out some kinks in the outline and I'll push on through. Reinvigorated for this project, if nothing else out of sheer dogged meanness to finish the damned thing. It's sitting at 16k now, which is a few thousand past the wall I thought I was at before.
I'm actively going for a Philip K. Dick vibe here with something like the absurd, claustrophobic, and mentally off-tilt and unhinged aesthetic of a Terry Gilliam film. Yeah, I know. But there it is.
As always I'm interested in how well this hooks, if the setting is interesting, if the characters are interesting, the point of view, how well it introduces the characters, engaging the reader and making them want to continue, and all that jazz. And of course any simple mistakes my idiot brain let slip through (like typing 'brian' instead of 'brain' the first time round). This is a bit of a rough draft so more choppy than typical.
Please and thank you.
###
If not for the Wall, New York City would be under twenty meters of water. Construction began once there was incontrovertible proof that sea levels were rising. That is to say: after it was already too late. The subways were flooded and lost to everyone but the gators. Divers still go down there sometimes, to treasure hunt; it’s illegal and dangerous, of course. But so is going out at night without your papers, a bullet proof vest, and a gun. Not that it stops anyone. They’re still New Yorkers after all.
Andre rocked in his seat as the train was jostled by the wind and imperfections of the track. The whining, scraping of metal on metal and the rhythmic thunk thunk, thunk thunk of the cars comforted him as he watched the city roll past. Tenth Avenue switched to Amsterdam twenty-five meters below and, in the distance, on the far side of the Wall, the Hudson sparkled under the blazing afternoon sun. He never liked the Wall, and never trusted it, despite what a lifetime of commercials and public service announcements had drilled into his head. “The Wall is safe! The Hudson and Harlem Rivers are held in check!”
bullsh**.
He still didn't trust the damned thing. It had always seemed too flimsy, too weak. Too thin for the job. His commuting ritual was to stare at the Wall the entire ride. No matter where he got on or where he got off—from West 14th and 10th in the south to West 218th in the north—Andre kept his eyes fixed on the Wall. Always staring down the Hudson when he was in Midtown, then, once the train crossed north of West 155th, switching to the Harlem. He knew it was a petty superstition, but in some small part of his reptilian hindbrain he was convinced his will kept the water back.
He kept staring west as long as he could because the Jersey Peninsula was nicer to look at—and less depressing—than the alternative. He shuddered whenever he had to look east out of Manhattan. Brooklyn, Queens, and most of East New York were simply gone, lost under the Long Island Sound and the Atlantic. But Manhattan itself was safe from the rising water, or safe enough according to the ads, thanks to the Wall. Andre waited for West 155th to pass before shuffling to the far side of the car to flop back down and look east a moment before he started to smack his head into a metal handrail.
I’m f***ed. I’m so utterly f***ed, he thought.
“Hey,” a woman said. “Keep it down.”
I'm actively going for a Philip K. Dick vibe here with something like the absurd, claustrophobic, and mentally off-tilt and unhinged aesthetic of a Terry Gilliam film. Yeah, I know. But there it is.
As always I'm interested in how well this hooks, if the setting is interesting, if the characters are interesting, the point of view, how well it introduces the characters, engaging the reader and making them want to continue, and all that jazz. And of course any simple mistakes my idiot brain let slip through (like typing 'brian' instead of 'brain' the first time round). This is a bit of a rough draft so more choppy than typical.
Please and thank you.
###
If not for the Wall, New York City would be under twenty meters of water. Construction began once there was incontrovertible proof that sea levels were rising. That is to say: after it was already too late. The subways were flooded and lost to everyone but the gators. Divers still go down there sometimes, to treasure hunt; it’s illegal and dangerous, of course. But so is going out at night without your papers, a bullet proof vest, and a gun. Not that it stops anyone. They’re still New Yorkers after all.
Andre rocked in his seat as the train was jostled by the wind and imperfections of the track. The whining, scraping of metal on metal and the rhythmic thunk thunk, thunk thunk of the cars comforted him as he watched the city roll past. Tenth Avenue switched to Amsterdam twenty-five meters below and, in the distance, on the far side of the Wall, the Hudson sparkled under the blazing afternoon sun. He never liked the Wall, and never trusted it, despite what a lifetime of commercials and public service announcements had drilled into his head. “The Wall is safe! The Hudson and Harlem Rivers are held in check!”
bullsh**.
He still didn't trust the damned thing. It had always seemed too flimsy, too weak. Too thin for the job. His commuting ritual was to stare at the Wall the entire ride. No matter where he got on or where he got off—from West 14th and 10th in the south to West 218th in the north—Andre kept his eyes fixed on the Wall. Always staring down the Hudson when he was in Midtown, then, once the train crossed north of West 155th, switching to the Harlem. He knew it was a petty superstition, but in some small part of his reptilian hindbrain he was convinced his will kept the water back.
He kept staring west as long as he could because the Jersey Peninsula was nicer to look at—and less depressing—than the alternative. He shuddered whenever he had to look east out of Manhattan. Brooklyn, Queens, and most of East New York were simply gone, lost under the Long Island Sound and the Atlantic. But Manhattan itself was safe from the rising water, or safe enough according to the ads, thanks to the Wall. Andre waited for West 155th to pass before shuffling to the far side of the car to flop back down and look east a moment before he started to smack his head into a metal handrail.
I’m f***ed. I’m so utterly f***ed, he thought.
“Hey,” a woman said. “Keep it down.”
