Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 6 - Arab's Spring (R13)

WINTER REVOLUTION - QUARTERFINALS

It led to revelation the day dirt fell from his hands.

And it truly did tumble out of the creases of his palms, all the little specks passing his skin by until they came to rest in an uprooted pile on the ground. It was an ashy sort of dirt that left his hands blackened and chalky, but that just made it all the more soothing, made him all the more content to remain lying on his back in the dirt. It was upon these grounds where his feet once stayed, tapping and shifting as he handled rationing. Rations, rations, rations - they were all he ever did. They called him lucky to not be assigned to building defenses, but at least those builders could've paused work in defiance.

If Reuben paused his work, those builders would be dead or robbing one another, one of the two. They were given a choice, he'd been given none.

It was with bitterness that he mumbled out a brief, "They've all gone mad with rights. Mad, for Christ's sake." Now, he'd never known who exactly "Christ" was, but Ellie always used to go off spluttering about it when something went wrong, and he'd picked it up as a habit. And he felt he had the liberty to say it now, for everything was going terribly wrong. If Ellie was as good a woman as she'd been and still got frustrated, he could too.

For a second he lifted his right hand to the sky, hovering in front of his face. There, the golden glint tied about his ring finger winked at him - or taunted, he couldn't rightly tell. All five of his fingers were intact. He found himself deciding that this was his favorite hand.

But then his left one had joined the right one up in the air, and he stared at and through them, four beside five, five beside four. It was like looking at one of those pianos up in the church and seeing all the keys missing. He knew what it was supposed to look like because Ellie had always drawn him pictures of them. The first time he'd looked, he found the piano quite alright. She showed him the original form, and the second time he snuck a glance, it was all wrong.

It worked the same way here.

He thought back to who'd gone and wrenched the "key" out of his hand and grew bitter again. "Mad," he said, "mad, mad, mad." He entwined the two hands together in a fit of boredom. At first he was careful not to touch the bandaged stub where his other ring finger'd been, but as he lay there, thinking and grouching like the old man he was supposed to be, his intact fingers started prodding at the gap. "This is all...silly. Children are the ones that don't get along. Children fight. Not grown women, grown men. Children. Silly."

He hated hearing himself speak. He'd gone hoarse a few hours before when they'd all been rounded up, much like silly children, for a feast, organized by Miriam in the tent where Reuben'd lost his finger. When he recalled the time, he remembered avoiding the dried brown blotches upon the table the severing had occurred on. He'd been so focused on that splotch, in fact, that he'd missed Miriam's every word, as well as Zaccary's, and the ones spurting forth from the mouths of those remaining around him.

As he lay there, he felt a discovery boiling up between his ears. He figured, if asked, he could regurgitate information of every mark and paper on that table, but, if asked, he wouldn't have a clue as to where to start talking about what the feast had been about. All he knew was that the feast had robbed him of a job: they'd used up the last bit of supplies, and he was no use in rationing when there was nothing to sort. "Huh," he said, squeezing the stub, "what a change."

He didn't mind the pain that flourished from that stub to his knuckle. He didn't mind the roughness that flashed through his palm down to his wrist when he pressed his thumb upon it. There was a vision in his mind in place of his fingers; from the stub oozed pus, the pus of routine. It all slopped against the ground in bubbling yellows.

Perhaps this was what he'd needed all along, yes? When the pus came out, space was freed up, like storage in a box, or room in a mouth when a tooth was lost. Sure, it felt all gooey and wrong at first - sort of like the missing keys - but it was something a person became accustomed to. Reuben had become accustomed to it.

He kept on this train of thought. What would become of the gap once one became accustomed to it? Well, let's say they stood facing the wind and opened their mouth. The gap would be colder than anything in that mouth, and maybe a cold buzz would sit there for quite some time. Reuben certainly felt a faint buzz in his chest whenever he squeezed that stub. He'd felt this buzz before. It was no stranger.

In fact, he'd felt it during that feast. It was during the one time he'd taken his attentions away from the little table with himself spilled upon it. There'd been a boy - Froggy - with a knife. When Reuben first saw the boy approaching Zaccary, he could've thought himself rooting for him. Apparently the argument had grown awfully heated by the time Reuben had come out of his reverie.

But the knife drew to him a hum of excitement, the breaking of routine. He'd squeezed his stub then, too.

It was with low conviction that he thought himself doing the right thing. Skip'd barely even gotten within swinging distance before Reuben'd gone and tripped him to the ground. He never had the intention for the knife to get caught in the boy's shoulder, but frankly, he hadn't cared too much over what'd happened.

He still hadn't stitched the wound, and he was the only doctor.

Miriam, too, had taken a knife, one at Zaccary's hand. It's probably the one he used on my damned hand, Reuben thought, staring up at the ashy reds in the sky.

Now, before this trip, Reuben could've proudly declared that he was a man of kindness, of pacifism, and of equal judgement towards all. But when Miriam fell upon the dirt floor of her tent, Reuben merely stared on with mock interest and thoughts of a ruined toxum where his grandson ran wildly.

And thus, he could not bring himself to care.

He let his hands drop. Five fingers scooped up a handful of dirt. Four fingers scooped up a handful of ash.

His brows narrowed, and he brought the two handfuls together in front of him, smashing them into one another so that they intermixed and fell down upon his cheeks, his forehead, his eyes.

Might he fall upon his knees on the way to the radio tower and scream out his objection to this change of body and mind. Already, he was getting to his feet to head out and do just that.

He smiled. 

~ ~ ~ 

Bye? Nada

Notes - "This, like always, was a great entry grammatically and structurally. However, I've found as the games progress your writing has become less of what it was. It doesn't seem to have as much excitement or plot or description, and it felt lacklustre in those respects. The tone was nice, though very formal in a way, which can do well but the entry did not have enough substance with just the tone carrying it through. Also, I get that his wife said 'Christ', but like the ideas you created with the Darlings, I would've liked to see you branch off rather than reverting to simplifying what religion today is in the future, you know? Rather than using 'Christ' I would've liked to see more creativity in curse words that would be more suited to the world they live in now. I liked the bit about ash and dirt on his hands. I would've liked to see more of him focusing on the outside world, and more of a perspective on what was happening rather than an introspective mood, since the task really had a focus on character development and conflict, which I saw very, very little of."