- Joined
- Mar 20, 2020
- Messages
- 467
Folks,
thanks for allowing me into your writing process. I now welcome you into mine. Honest feedback is a gift so if you are so inclined to give it, I will gladly accept it with thanks. Please let me know your thoughts whatever they may be. This is the opening Prologue that has big implications later on. Particular interest to me is : does it invoke enough curiosity that you'd want to continue reading? Does the opening have a good enough hook? What of the style? Again, please don't feel like you need to stay within these lines but rather, feel free to point anything out - good or not so good. With all that... have at it
***********
1 Day Before Landfall
The door slid closed with a soft click and muffled the ruckus of dissenting voices. The quiet overtook him like a cool breeze on a hot day, at least from what he remembered, for it had been a long time since he had experienced either. He leaned back against the polished silver door, and looked each way into the brightly lit hallway. Satisfied that no one was around to see him in this state, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply in the effort to steel his rubbery legs and settle his queasy stomach.
“Alyn. I’d like a—” said the woman who had sprung around the corridor’s gentle curving wall. Her pursed lips and furrowed brow told him everything he needed to know, and so, he interjected before she could form the words that he didn’t want to hear.
“Captain,” he said with a curt nod before he bolted in the opposite direction, not the least bit interested in her reaction. He stopped at his room a short while later, pressed his thumb up against the security keypad and slipped past the automatic sliding door. It closed behind him, and it felt good too, as if it sealed him off from the lunacy that had just befallen the others. Like the Flu bug they struggled to contain, the madness could infect him too, and so it was best to put as much distance between them as he could. But, ideas were not like viruses in the physical sense, they could pass up corridors, enter through doors and infiltrate the refuge of his self-imposed quarantine. In a daze, he made his way to the center of the room and looked around it for inspiration but its unadorned walls and Spartan trappings offered none and now approaching whit’s end, Alyn collapsed on the white leather couch, kicked his feet on the glass coffee table and inadvertently knocked the vase with the dozen red flowers on to the floor where it split into pieces and soaked the carpet with dank, stagnant water.
He sighed and closed his eyes. He had grander problems to think of. If only he could rest, gather his thoughts and work through the details. The details. So simple in nature but complex in their implication, and he could find no means to simplify them the more he thought them through. But he tried anyway. There was no choice. He would have to come to a decision tonight, for not coming to one, was in itself a decision. But who was he to make it? What qualified him to make one of this magnitude? He was, at essence, just like everyone else. Human. He could no more decide without bias or preference than anyone else. Could he?
The pleasant tune of the doorbell echoed through the room. Alyn rose, went to the door and opened it. There stood a man, slightly younger than he and whose face, though grave, possessed far more optimism than the situation warranted.
“Eleazar. Please come in,” said Alyn with a warm smile that he hoped his guest would find authentic for it was fabricated to hide the shame of what had transpired behind the polished silver door.
“Thank you,” Eleazar replied. The two men went to the center of the room and seated across from one another. “Alyn. It’s been over three years my friend. We are finally here. Can you believe it?”
They talked for about twenty minutes before they embraced and said good-bye. Alyn leaned against the door frame and stared as Eleazar passed around the bend in the corridor, out of sight, and he knew in that moment - whichever decision he came too - that he would never see him again.
Zzzz.Zzzz. The little red light on the intercom panel flashed in-step with its buzzer.
“Yes, Dara,” he said.
A reedy computerized voice replied; “The six Congress members have voted unanimously. You are required to register your vote to Congress no later than 00:00 Earth Time today.” Alyn went completely still, as if he could turn himself invisible and they would all forget about him, forget about the secret behind the silver door. However, a few seconds later, Dara responded, “Sir?”
“Affirmative. I understand Dara.” They had sent her to remind him of the futility of avoidance, and with point taken and driven by an abundance of restless energy, he got up and moved across the room and planted his hands on the window sill. Like twin pearls in a deep black ocean, two planets glowed softly in the sun’s cool bluish light. A deep urge had stirred inside him ever since he had first cast eyes on them two days ago. Hope. They had not had hope for quite some time and oh had they suffered from its lack, but like lime to scurvy, hope had reconstituted their spirits, straightened their backs, and squared their jaws and shoulders. Who was he to take that away from them?
He knew in that instant what decision he would make, though in truth, he always did, he just would not admit it to himself. But with the clock close to midnight, there was nowhere to hide, not from Dara, not himself, and not from those who would live with the consequences.
“Dara?”
“Yes.”
“Notify the others that I am ready.”
“Yes. I will.”
He fiddled with his wristwatch, stared back at the planets and spoke with a measured cadence and clear tone. “Governor Alyn Frederick reporting to the official log of Earth’s Own Ship Dominus on this 28th day of April, 2080 Earth Time.”
thanks for allowing me into your writing process. I now welcome you into mine. Honest feedback is a gift so if you are so inclined to give it, I will gladly accept it with thanks. Please let me know your thoughts whatever they may be. This is the opening Prologue that has big implications later on. Particular interest to me is : does it invoke enough curiosity that you'd want to continue reading? Does the opening have a good enough hook? What of the style? Again, please don't feel like you need to stay within these lines but rather, feel free to point anything out - good or not so good. With all that... have at it
***********
1 Day Before Landfall
The door slid closed with a soft click and muffled the ruckus of dissenting voices. The quiet overtook him like a cool breeze on a hot day, at least from what he remembered, for it had been a long time since he had experienced either. He leaned back against the polished silver door, and looked each way into the brightly lit hallway. Satisfied that no one was around to see him in this state, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply in the effort to steel his rubbery legs and settle his queasy stomach.
“Alyn. I’d like a—” said the woman who had sprung around the corridor’s gentle curving wall. Her pursed lips and furrowed brow told him everything he needed to know, and so, he interjected before she could form the words that he didn’t want to hear.
“Captain,” he said with a curt nod before he bolted in the opposite direction, not the least bit interested in her reaction. He stopped at his room a short while later, pressed his thumb up against the security keypad and slipped past the automatic sliding door. It closed behind him, and it felt good too, as if it sealed him off from the lunacy that had just befallen the others. Like the Flu bug they struggled to contain, the madness could infect him too, and so it was best to put as much distance between them as he could. But, ideas were not like viruses in the physical sense, they could pass up corridors, enter through doors and infiltrate the refuge of his self-imposed quarantine. In a daze, he made his way to the center of the room and looked around it for inspiration but its unadorned walls and Spartan trappings offered none and now approaching whit’s end, Alyn collapsed on the white leather couch, kicked his feet on the glass coffee table and inadvertently knocked the vase with the dozen red flowers on to the floor where it split into pieces and soaked the carpet with dank, stagnant water.
He sighed and closed his eyes. He had grander problems to think of. If only he could rest, gather his thoughts and work through the details. The details. So simple in nature but complex in their implication, and he could find no means to simplify them the more he thought them through. But he tried anyway. There was no choice. He would have to come to a decision tonight, for not coming to one, was in itself a decision. But who was he to make it? What qualified him to make one of this magnitude? He was, at essence, just like everyone else. Human. He could no more decide without bias or preference than anyone else. Could he?
The pleasant tune of the doorbell echoed through the room. Alyn rose, went to the door and opened it. There stood a man, slightly younger than he and whose face, though grave, possessed far more optimism than the situation warranted.
“Eleazar. Please come in,” said Alyn with a warm smile that he hoped his guest would find authentic for it was fabricated to hide the shame of what had transpired behind the polished silver door.
“Thank you,” Eleazar replied. The two men went to the center of the room and seated across from one another. “Alyn. It’s been over three years my friend. We are finally here. Can you believe it?”
They talked for about twenty minutes before they embraced and said good-bye. Alyn leaned against the door frame and stared as Eleazar passed around the bend in the corridor, out of sight, and he knew in that moment - whichever decision he came too - that he would never see him again.
Zzzz.Zzzz. The little red light on the intercom panel flashed in-step with its buzzer.
“Yes, Dara,” he said.
A reedy computerized voice replied; “The six Congress members have voted unanimously. You are required to register your vote to Congress no later than 00:00 Earth Time today.” Alyn went completely still, as if he could turn himself invisible and they would all forget about him, forget about the secret behind the silver door. However, a few seconds later, Dara responded, “Sir?”
“Affirmative. I understand Dara.” They had sent her to remind him of the futility of avoidance, and with point taken and driven by an abundance of restless energy, he got up and moved across the room and planted his hands on the window sill. Like twin pearls in a deep black ocean, two planets glowed softly in the sun’s cool bluish light. A deep urge had stirred inside him ever since he had first cast eyes on them two days ago. Hope. They had not had hope for quite some time and oh had they suffered from its lack, but like lime to scurvy, hope had reconstituted their spirits, straightened their backs, and squared their jaws and shoulders. Who was he to take that away from them?
He knew in that instant what decision he would make, though in truth, he always did, he just would not admit it to himself. But with the clock close to midnight, there was nowhere to hide, not from Dara, not himself, and not from those who would live with the consequences.
“Dara?”
“Yes.”
“Notify the others that I am ready.”
“Yes. I will.”
He fiddled with his wristwatch, stared back at the planets and spoke with a measured cadence and clear tone. “Governor Alyn Frederick reporting to the official log of Earth’s Own Ship Dominus on this 28th day of April, 2080 Earth Time.”
