Generally speaking, my process is to come up with an idea early in the week, stew on it until Friday at which point I start writing and finish in time to post Saturday.
Occassionally I will be late with the idea and end up doing all the writing on Saturday.
Last week was pretty hectic for me, however, so I didn't have time to come up with anything. By the time I had an idea it was Saturday afternoon. I probably could have done something with it in that time, however I actually really liked the idea I came up with and wanted to give it some time to grow, so I chose to postpone until today.
I still don't think it's all it could have been, but it's certainly better than it would have been. Hit the jump for 'Alone'
How long has it been now? A year? Two? More than that? They honestly can't remember. It seems a life time ago to them that they awoke one morning to find no one around, alone in their home. That they stepped out into the street to find that they were alone on their block. Alone in their neighborhood. Alone in their state. Completely lone in the world, the last member of humanity that walked the earth. So that's what they did, walk the Earth. Wander aimlessly with their only goal being to find someone, anyone, else in this world gone wrong.
“Man, I'm hungry,” James announces.
“You're always hungry,” replies Jake.
“Well if I wasn't then we'd probably never find anything to eat.” This is very likely true.
“Where are we anyway,” Jan asks.
“Somewhere in the south of Idaho, I think,” says Jared.
“You'd think we'd have run by a potato field or something by now.”
“Look,” Jack speaks, and everyone else falls silent. “If we stick to the roads we're bound to run into a town at some point. There should be a grocery store or something somewhere around there.”
“If we hit a neighborhood before the stores we should just get something out of a house.”
“We're going around any neighborhood we find,” Jared says.
“Why?”
“Because, while I'm not sure about the rest of you, I, personally, don't want to deal with anymore insane house pets if we can avoid it, Jan.”
“That's right, insane wild animals are so much better than insane domesticated ones.”
“Jared's right, Jake. Better attacked by a small army of squirrels and chipmunks than a small army of cats and dogs.”
There's a rumble of agreement among them at Jack's statement, making it the final say on the matter. They proceed down the road in silence for an hour before finding themselves on the outskirts of a small suburban town. It doesn't take them long to locate a shopping center and, therefore, various places to eat.
“What are we eating, James?”
They take a moment to scan the available places. While they usually just grab something from a grocery store, occasionally they will look into finding something in a fast food place, depending on what kind of place it is. Unfortunately, as time drags on it becomes more and more difficult to find any thing in one of these places that hasn't gone bad.
“It looks like we're going with the grocery store. I'd have liked some Chipotle or something, but the vegetables there went bad a long time ago. We're going to be eating a lot of canned and boxed goods from now on. Yippie,” James says, extremely unenthusiastically.
Jack nods. “Grocery store it is.”
It doesn't take long for James to find something to eat. Jack has Jason use the contents of their pack to start setting up for the night. While James enjoys their meal, the rest take the time to have a conversation.
“Where are we heading next?”
“Boise, I guess,” Jared answers.
“Why?”
“It's a Capitol city. We're looking for other survivors, Capitols are probably the best place to find them.”
Jake, the cynic that he is, doesn't think it's likely that they'll ever find anyone else, given how long they've been at this and the fact that they'd still not run into anyone else, not a single other person in that whole time. However, he doesn't voice this opinion. Jack has the final say on the plan of action, it isn't Jake's job to assault his decisions. Doing so would only make things complicated, and they don't need complications. Besides, at least it's some kind of goal.
When James is done eating, Jason gets back to work setting up a place to sleep here for the night. While he listens to the conversations the rest of the group have, he isn't much for adding his own input. He's content doing the group's manual work, let the others do the intellectual heavy lifting.
Jason finishes sorting out the sleeping situation before scavenging the store for anything they may be able to use in the future. Once he's done they settle in for the night. It's going to be a long day of walking tomorrow. It's unfortunate that they have no one in the group that knows how to hotwire a car.
---
She wakes up in a panic. She always wakes up in a panic, mornings are always the worst part of the day for her. Absolutely terrifying.
“Guys? Where are you,” Jan calls out.
She needs them. She can't make it without them.
It takes a while for her to wake up in the morning. Her mind takes a while to warm up. She can't see them. She can't hear them when she just wakes up.
“Over here, Jan.” James is the first one to speak up. She can't see him yet, but it's comforting to know he's there.
Jason gives a grunt next.
As she starts gathering her bearings, remembering where, exactly, it is she has woken up, Jared chimes in with a morning greeting.
“Going through the morning routine, I see, Jan.” There's Jake.
Jan's heart rate slows as her little gang reveals itself piece by piece. However, she is still uneasy until she hears...
“Good morning, Jan. Now that you've woken up we can get started again once you're ready.” There he is, Jack. Jack the leader. Jack the decision maker. Jack, without whom they would all be lost. All's right with her world now.
Jan smiles and blinks a few times in rapid succession and, after the third blink, her friends come into focus looking well rested and ready to go when she is. The group looks away as she climbs out of the makeshift bed and dresses for the day.
“What's for breakfast, James?”
Pretty cool stuff! Now, dialogue attributions get a bit dicey here and there. Possibly for a reason, though I think it would be fair enough to say it wouldn't suffer for a bit clearer an image of who is speaking which lines. I advise trying to visualize facial expressions and body language to help flesh out some of the dialogue with narrative, which will supply you with more reason to proceed with narration around dialogue, thus affording more opportunities to drop attributions while keeping away from the habit of simply connecting each line to a 'he said' or a 'she said.' Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteGlad you took the extra time. I feel like the concept could still use more development, but it's a good concept. If I were to change anything, it would be to give the "characters" more different names, because the alliteration made it pretty obvious where you were going with it right from the start. Still, this is another solid installment, and I look forward to whatever's next!
ReplyDelete