MainComputer
Registered Idiot
Hi, this is my first post here. I'm gonna paste the introductory piece of prose for a story I'm working on, and I'd love your feedback.
I'm looking for comments on my accomplishment of atmosphere, and my grammar and structure.
Not sure how to approach this yet, but for now I'll promise to give feedback on the posted work of two people who comment on mine. At least two. I hope that's courteous of me, because this is my first time on a forum. Given time, I'm sure I'll catch up to speed .
So, here it is:
Do You Want To Know Why I Hate You?
Stumbling through the neon-streaked shadows between the trees is a lost soul, a soul old enough to know better, but still too young to comprehend its fate. Holding onto the soul by a thread is a ripped and roasted child-druid. Without magic, without muse, this druid has been reduced to a fiend by his enemies, and is badly in need of a co-pilot to help guide him back to understanding.
Tears born of pain are dripping from this dead boy’s chin, falling down onto his blood-soaked clothes that are filthied from his many tumbles to the soft earth. His feet are falling into footprints that somehow, have been laid out before him.
The wanderer halts in his (or somebody else’s) tracks, lifts his head and wipes his eyes and sees that ahead of him in the woods stands another being: a silent prophet. He peers up at the prophet, who is becoming hazy in his tear-blurred vision, but as the boy stares he realises that the haze he sees is more than his distorted sight; the prophet is shimmering and wavering, slickly morphing into someone or something else. Without source or power, a cold blue light begins spilling forth from behind this messiah - or is it shining from inside of him? Whichever, it makes a silhouette of the prophet against the wooded background, and clears the leaf-carpeted floor between them of its shadows.
Without reason or consideration, the wanderer comes to a sudden epiphany of realisation - for some purpose this being is here to save him - for who could this be before him but The Creator, The Controller; The Computer? 'How can this be?’ thinks the boy. This revelation would mean that the Computerists where wrong, and everyone knows that could never be, even him.
With the coming of dawn, as the darkness all around begins to lighten, as this longest of nights turns to never-ending day, the radiance spilling forth from his saviour slowly turns its tail and heads back into its font, shining inwards. Honey-thick, the light flows down into the dark hole that this prophet is becoming, and as the light sinks deeper and is finally swallowed the kid gapes unbelievingly into the man-shaped black hole that remains and realises that, no, this is not his salvation - this is his damnation.
A cold fear begins to grow within the boy, but he cannot run or even turn his eyes from this nightmare. A cycle has begun and the dark shape before him folds and turns as once again the light climbs out from behind it, spilling forth with re-born intensity. The silhouette it reveals is less recognisable than before; nebulous, looming, demonic. Again, the light is consumed by the form… once more, the darkness begets light. Each time the wave of change grows more intense, beginning to create a wind in its wake it threatens to take a bite out of reality.
Through and within this maelstrom of energy the kid-cowboy can see a mist of information, a blinking atmosphere of interconnected actions and emotions that are the map of his life: his present, his past, and most horridly, his brief and inescapable future. Endings, are all that will happen this morning.
Possessed and petrified, the youth cannot shift a muscle to move from what he’s seeing. Tears of disbelief are pouring from the kid’s eyes; first a river, then a torrent, then a waterfall bursting from his fears and pains and regrets. Within the mists of the falls however, he can see there are rainbows - so pure and clear and solid that the beauty of them fills him with a sudden joy fit to rupture his heart.
This is too much. A soul may be an everlasting thing, but the mind can be as fragile as a memory (and this Ticket is one step too far for this toasted brain to handle), and along with the legs that hold it high, it collapses.
The fingers of the future reach into this broken head, and the hands of his own, personal demons drag the boy’s legs along, and ever down.
I'm looking for comments on my accomplishment of atmosphere, and my grammar and structure.
Not sure how to approach this yet, but for now I'll promise to give feedback on the posted work of two people who comment on mine. At least two. I hope that's courteous of me, because this is my first time on a forum. Given time, I'm sure I'll catch up to speed .
So, here it is:
Do You Want To Know Why I Hate You?
Stumbling through the neon-streaked shadows between the trees is a lost soul, a soul old enough to know better, but still too young to comprehend its fate. Holding onto the soul by a thread is a ripped and roasted child-druid. Without magic, without muse, this druid has been reduced to a fiend by his enemies, and is badly in need of a co-pilot to help guide him back to understanding.
Tears born of pain are dripping from this dead boy’s chin, falling down onto his blood-soaked clothes that are filthied from his many tumbles to the soft earth. His feet are falling into footprints that somehow, have been laid out before him.
The wanderer halts in his (or somebody else’s) tracks, lifts his head and wipes his eyes and sees that ahead of him in the woods stands another being: a silent prophet. He peers up at the prophet, who is becoming hazy in his tear-blurred vision, but as the boy stares he realises that the haze he sees is more than his distorted sight; the prophet is shimmering and wavering, slickly morphing into someone or something else. Without source or power, a cold blue light begins spilling forth from behind this messiah - or is it shining from inside of him? Whichever, it makes a silhouette of the prophet against the wooded background, and clears the leaf-carpeted floor between them of its shadows.
Without reason or consideration, the wanderer comes to a sudden epiphany of realisation - for some purpose this being is here to save him - for who could this be before him but The Creator, The Controller; The Computer? 'How can this be?’ thinks the boy. This revelation would mean that the Computerists where wrong, and everyone knows that could never be, even him.
With the coming of dawn, as the darkness all around begins to lighten, as this longest of nights turns to never-ending day, the radiance spilling forth from his saviour slowly turns its tail and heads back into its font, shining inwards. Honey-thick, the light flows down into the dark hole that this prophet is becoming, and as the light sinks deeper and is finally swallowed the kid gapes unbelievingly into the man-shaped black hole that remains and realises that, no, this is not his salvation - this is his damnation.
A cold fear begins to grow within the boy, but he cannot run or even turn his eyes from this nightmare. A cycle has begun and the dark shape before him folds and turns as once again the light climbs out from behind it, spilling forth with re-born intensity. The silhouette it reveals is less recognisable than before; nebulous, looming, demonic. Again, the light is consumed by the form… once more, the darkness begets light. Each time the wave of change grows more intense, beginning to create a wind in its wake it threatens to take a bite out of reality.
Through and within this maelstrom of energy the kid-cowboy can see a mist of information, a blinking atmosphere of interconnected actions and emotions that are the map of his life: his present, his past, and most horridly, his brief and inescapable future. Endings, are all that will happen this morning.
Possessed and petrified, the youth cannot shift a muscle to move from what he’s seeing. Tears of disbelief are pouring from the kid’s eyes; first a river, then a torrent, then a waterfall bursting from his fears and pains and regrets. Within the mists of the falls however, he can see there are rainbows - so pure and clear and solid that the beauty of them fills him with a sudden joy fit to rupture his heart.
This is too much. A soul may be an everlasting thing, but the mind can be as fragile as a memory (and this Ticket is one step too far for this toasted brain to handle), and along with the legs that hold it high, it collapses.
The fingers of the future reach into this broken head, and the hands of his own, personal demons drag the boy’s legs along, and ever down.
