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- Jun 13, 2006
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Prelude was originally written as a comic strip over 20 years ago, and it is something that I have been playing around with over the last few weeks.
The first rewrite came up a little short, so I have completely rewritten it, trying to take in the help the previous posting (Prelude Original) had brought up with kind members who read it and getting my head around the fact that translating from strip to prose was going to be a bit trickier that I initially imagined.
So I guess the main question is does this work in its own right, does it work better than the first attempt?
Prelude
Half consumed by the darkness Paul Redgrave sat alone in the room that was once part of his home and consumed his thoughts and memories like a bitter wine.
There was not much there any more, not really. After the orders had been given his apartment had been stripped of all meaning and furniture, leaving only the bare-essentials and those things he had felt he needed, a space as naked as he was. He was so still that the shark-tooth earing in his left ear did not even tremble, his square jawed, bearded face just looked at the items on the table.
Even then there was nothing that other people would have felt were special.
His gun all black and white ceramic and rubber, directly at odds with the old Webley revolver that had seen service in the Second World War. There was a photo, of himself and it seemed odd that he might have kept that, perhaps even a bit egotistical but it was one of a few that he really liked, a reminder of different, happier times.
Then there were his shades. Everyone knew him through the shades. In a profession where everyone seemed to have bizarre eccentricities, his dark glasses were virtually mundane, yet everyone knew them.
Then there was his wedding ring. Simple, but not a band of gold, it had a face in which two jewels had been inset. One had a starburst radiating out from it. Each gem represents us, he had been told by his wife, mine is basking in your light.
He carefully picked the ring up, holding it between thumb and forefinger.
What light there was penetrated the room through the circular window in the wall, cars on raised driveways, glittering signs, craft moving through the air, all cast their illumination, some of which caught the edge of the golden loop, causing it to shine for the briefest of moments.
Paul’s face did not change though, after a moment his fingers opened and the band bounced on the hard surface below before coming to a rest.
Above him a sphere floated silently, the dimmed display showing the time and not much else, the numbers changed as another minute passed, and the seated man raised his head enough to take his eyes from the table and to look at the glass cabinet opposite him. It held the one thing that was truly him. It summed him up more than anything else in the room. It was what people across the human worlds knew him in, but in the cabinet it looked like just another piece of furniture.
A suit of body armour, made from the same kind of ceramic material as the gun on the table, covered in scratches and grazes it looked as though it had been used and used well. White in colour with a black, rubber under-suit it seemed to stand on its own, another person in the room, silent and accusing.
Paul ignored it and lowered his head, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
It was time.
He picked up the Webley, clicked it open to make sure it was still loaded, then snapped it shut.
I’m sorry, he thought, no one saw this coming, who could have known we were all being played? I know we hoped for our time together, a quiet life until the end of our days, but it cannot happen. Not now.
Chartrise was working on a different level. How could we have known?
It seems that I am at the heart of it all, and the only way to undo what he has done is to remove me from the equation.
I am sorry.
Then he raised the revolver, put the barrel against his head and pulled the trigger.
The first rewrite came up a little short, so I have completely rewritten it, trying to take in the help the previous posting (Prelude Original) had brought up with kind members who read it and getting my head around the fact that translating from strip to prose was going to be a bit trickier that I initially imagined.
So I guess the main question is does this work in its own right, does it work better than the first attempt?
Prelude
Half consumed by the darkness Paul Redgrave sat alone in the room that was once part of his home and consumed his thoughts and memories like a bitter wine.
There was not much there any more, not really. After the orders had been given his apartment had been stripped of all meaning and furniture, leaving only the bare-essentials and those things he had felt he needed, a space as naked as he was. He was so still that the shark-tooth earing in his left ear did not even tremble, his square jawed, bearded face just looked at the items on the table.
Even then there was nothing that other people would have felt were special.
His gun all black and white ceramic and rubber, directly at odds with the old Webley revolver that had seen service in the Second World War. There was a photo, of himself and it seemed odd that he might have kept that, perhaps even a bit egotistical but it was one of a few that he really liked, a reminder of different, happier times.
Then there were his shades. Everyone knew him through the shades. In a profession where everyone seemed to have bizarre eccentricities, his dark glasses were virtually mundane, yet everyone knew them.
Then there was his wedding ring. Simple, but not a band of gold, it had a face in which two jewels had been inset. One had a starburst radiating out from it. Each gem represents us, he had been told by his wife, mine is basking in your light.
He carefully picked the ring up, holding it between thumb and forefinger.
What light there was penetrated the room through the circular window in the wall, cars on raised driveways, glittering signs, craft moving through the air, all cast their illumination, some of which caught the edge of the golden loop, causing it to shine for the briefest of moments.
Paul’s face did not change though, after a moment his fingers opened and the band bounced on the hard surface below before coming to a rest.
Above him a sphere floated silently, the dimmed display showing the time and not much else, the numbers changed as another minute passed, and the seated man raised his head enough to take his eyes from the table and to look at the glass cabinet opposite him. It held the one thing that was truly him. It summed him up more than anything else in the room. It was what people across the human worlds knew him in, but in the cabinet it looked like just another piece of furniture.
A suit of body armour, made from the same kind of ceramic material as the gun on the table, covered in scratches and grazes it looked as though it had been used and used well. White in colour with a black, rubber under-suit it seemed to stand on its own, another person in the room, silent and accusing.
Paul ignored it and lowered his head, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
It was time.
He picked up the Webley, clicked it open to make sure it was still loaded, then snapped it shut.
I’m sorry, he thought, no one saw this coming, who could have known we were all being played? I know we hoped for our time together, a quiet life until the end of our days, but it cannot happen. Not now.
Chartrise was working on a different level. How could we have known?
It seems that I am at the heart of it all, and the only way to undo what he has done is to remove me from the equation.
I am sorry.
Then he raised the revolver, put the barrel against his head and pulled the trigger.
