O (no genre)

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OK yall, this is a piece of original writing I am required to do for my English course. I would like you to read it, and for as many of you as possible to give me constructive criticism. I want you to tell me what I can change to make this better, so I can hand in a piece that I know is as good as I can get it. Please, even if it is something small, note it down.

_________

O

It was high noon before he reached the tiny village in the valley. The narrow trail had circled down the mountain from his vantage point high above the rooftops, and led him directly to Main Street.
Not a soul was about. Silence stalked the streets; unseen, but ever present. Perhaps it was a Sunday, and the inhabitants of the village were at church. Out on the plains, he found little use for human distractions like weeks and years. Still, now, he had emerged from the desert, into this quiet island in a sea of yellow death, and time was once more an influential factor.
The black leather of his jacket was cracked and worn from countless hours of harsh sunlight and sand-choked winds. Through the hellish, burning days it weighed him down, burdened his tired muscles with a load they could barely support. Through the frigid, lonely nights, however, it was a blessing; a desperately needed provider of warmth.
Were he of sharper wit, he would have found delicious irony in that – the need to preserve heat when, mere hours before, skin was flayed from bone by the unblinking eye of the heavens. But these days, his mind had become akin to the wasteland he roamed – desolate, forsaken, and empty.
His feet rose and fell across the stony ground, plodding rhythmically, one after the other. His eyes roved over houses and stores, seeking that which he craved the most – companionship. His hair, damp and sweat-soaked, clung to his scalp like a wet rag. He lamented the loss of his hat – it was a gift from his daughter, and his only reminder of the life he once led.
He stopped, suddenly alert; a rabbit sensing danger. He had spotted something – a sign, a single word, one that he recognized and welcomed – “Bar.”
Stumbling toward the battered wooden building, his pace quickened, legs fuelled by the tantalising possibility of human company. It had been too long – too long, and too lonesome.

The interior of the ramshackle building was no less shabby than the exterior. The air hung heavy with heat and silence. This was not the cold silence of the tomb, but a stale, stifling presence that clamped its sweaty palm over the stranger’s dry lips. The same silence that haunted this entire valley. He could hear his own heart, pumping in his ears like an infernal, ceaseless drum.
Overhead, a fan rotated slowly, its blades sweeping through the suffocating atmosphere without a sound. The dusty room was illuminated by the rays of sunlight slanting through the wooden slats of the walls. The few shadowy patrons did not look up from their cradled drinks as the door behind him swung shut.
In the far corner stood an ancient piano, thick sheets of dust dimming its polished surface. Music was not welcome here. This was a silent town, in a silent valley.
Leather boots creaking softly, the stranger padded across to the bar, steadying himself against filthy, beer-stained tables. The bartender stared at the grimy shot glass he was spit-polishing and paid him no heed as he approached.
Vocal chords straining, the stranger managed a polite cough. The bartender glanced up with unmasked irritation. The stranger smiled weakly. The bartender glared at him.
“What is it?”
The unfriendly question was thick with southern accent, music to the ears of the friendless wanderer.
“I will have a beer. Please,” he replied, voice scratched and meek after so long, “and pour something for yourself.”
He reached into a pocket, and laid a few tarnished coins on the smooth counter.
The barman watched him with narrowed eyes – scrutinizing, weighing up. The fan blades cast shadows on the stocky man, his face flashed in and out of darkness.
He seemed to reach a decision. Raising his eyebrows, he palmed the coins and turned to fetch the drinks.
The stranger rubbed his eyes, and examined the bar’s patrons. One in particular caught his attention; and old, white-bearded man sitting alone. His face was obscured by a battered fedora; his clothes were of ancient leather. In his left hand he held an almost-empty bottle, from which he took the occasional sip. With his right, he traced sweeping patterns on the table with a puddle of spilt beer. The stranger watched, mesmerized, as the old man’s forefinger glided back and forth, leaving an intricate web of glistening spirals and curls in its wake. Delicate, glittering trails of-
The dual thud of bottle on counter rapidly dissipated the fog of his hypnotic trance, and he turned back to the bar.
The bartender, half-lidded eyes betraying no emotion, baldly stated;
“I don’t drink.”
He emphasized the claim by popping the lid from a bottle with a grimy steel opener. The stranger blinked.
“But,” the bartender continued, nodding his head at the solitary old man, “he sure does.”
He snapped the lid from the second bottle, and held them out to the stranger.
“Do us both a favour. Go talk to him instead.”

“Mind if I sit here?”
The old man said nothing, did not glance up. He merely gestured with his full left hand at the empty chair across the table, and continued to trace his elaborate patterns. Tired legs groaning with relief, the stranger slowly lowered himself into the wooden seat. After months of neglect, he felt his tongue begin to loosen as he offered;
“I brought you a drink, if you would like it.”
That seemed to have an effect. The old man ceased drawing for a moment, and looked up. The stranger could not conceal his surprise.
Hollow, shadowed eyes stared out from deep pits in that aged, wrinkled face, twin lakes on a contoured map of a vast mountain range. The nose was somewhat squashed, the chin possessed of a leering quality most likely honed and perfected over a great deal of time. The penetrating gaze came from misty orbs surrounded by concentric rings, like those of an ancient tree trunk. Perhaps, the stranger mused, by counting those rings, it was possible to discern the age of this walnut-faced relic.
The old man carefully placed down his empty bottle, and grasped the proffered one. His eyes never left those of the stranger.
The very air about that enervated visage was choked with age; centuries well beyond the brief spark of mortal existence. The bar, the valley, the entire world seemed to fade into dark inconsequence around those weary features. Even after spending countless years wandering the barren, uncaring desert, the stranger himself was nearly overcome with insignificance in the eternal eyes of time.
The old man’s gap-toothed grin broke the mood. The stranger blinked, and he chuckle, once solemn eyes sparkling.
“Thanks, kid,” he laughed, taking a swig from his beer, “mighty nice of you.”
Smiling earnestly, the stranger took a sip from his own bottle, felt the cool liquid ease down his parched throat.
“So, what is your name?” he asked, eager for conversation.
Still giggling to himself, the old man drew a large circle in the middle of the table-patterns, and tapped his finger in the centre.
“Folks around here call me O,” he said, taking another swig. The stranger looked confused.
“O? That is a strange name.”
“Sure is.”
“Why do they call you O?”
The grin faded from O’s face, replaced by a look of faint disbelief.
“You really wanna know?”
The stranger nodded eagerly. O shrugged and took a third swig of beer.
“Okay, you asked for it.”

O removed his fedora, placing it in his lap, and ran a skeletal hand through his thick mane of ivory hair. He leaned back in his chair, and asked;
“How old do you think I am?”
The stranger blushed, and fumbled for a polite response. O grinned in amusement.
“This body’s ninety-four,” he supplied, “but me, I’m a lot older than that.”
The stranger nodded slowly, expressionless.
“This ain’t the first life I’ve led, and I’m pretty sure it ain’t the last. My soul’s occupied hundreds of hosts, I’ve been born and I’ve died again and again, over who knows how many centuries. I’m goin’ around and around one big loop of life. One big O,” he tapped the circle again.
“That’s how I got the name. Reincarnation, some fancy-Dans call it. Thing is with that, you ain’t s’posed to remember your previous lives. But, for some reason, that’s exactly what I do. Every last detail, from the moment I open my eyes, to the moment my heart stops.
“I’ve played the violin to an audience of Parisian nobles, I’ve pinned helpless mice with claws and beak, I’ve fallen miles and miles from a cloud only to splash into nothingness on the ground. I’ve repeated the same cycle for as long as I can remember, and trust me, that’s a mighty long time.” His face became wistful. “One big O,” he repeated. There was a pause, before he resumed grinning.
“Kinda crazy, ain’t it?”
The stranger had been hanging on every word. In all honesty, he didn’t care of the old man was an escaped murderer, as long as he kept talking. He gestured for O to continue, who raised his eyebrows again, and took another long swig of his beer.
“Ya see, I got a theory. I figure I did something pretty bad in my first life. ‘Course, I got no idea what - not even my memory stretches that far back. Whatever it was, it was bad enough to personally offend God, or the powers that be, or whoever it is that’s in charge. So, God decides that I need to be put back on the right track.
“He puts me through all of these lives, and makes sure I learn something from each one. Something that makes me a better person. A virtue, maybe. I learn something, and I remember it. Oh boy, do I remember it.
“It’s my guess that when I’ve learned all my lessons, when I’m the most virtuous guy you’ve ever met, I’ll have finished my punishment, and I’ll be free to die and have my peace. Some Italian back in the renaissance told me I was after ‘Spiritual Enlightenment.’ I’m not looking for perfection, though, I just wanna rest, but it looks like I ain’t allowed the latter without the former.” O shrugged and took another pull at his beer.
The stranger cleared his throat, and asked;
“What have you learned so far?”
O looked surprised.
“You still buyin’ this?”
The stranger nodded.

“I remember the first time I thought maybe this eternal life thing was a big test. I was a shark.”
O had poured a small puddle from his bottle on to the table, and was once again tracing patterns.
“Y’know, sharks got no natural way of sleeping. They don’t get a moment’s rest ‘til the day they drop dead.” He was still absently pushing his finger in complex circles.
“Same went for me. I just used to push myself through the water, back and forward, here and there; I barely noticed any of the beauty around me. Sharks don’t have the capacity to notice things like that.
“All the fish used to swim flow me around me like I was surrounded by a bubble. I could smell their fear, literally smell it. You barely notice it ‘til you lose the sense – that earthy smell, like peat and moss. I can’t smell it anymore, but I can tell when people are scared. You just look deep into the pupils of their eyes. Deep, past their physical presence as eyes, just examine them as part of a mental whole. You get a feel for it.
“When folks are real scared, their eyes got the feel of those fish, reeking of fear, trying not to draw attention while they get as far away from me as they can. Some guys would find that empowering. I just got lonely.”
Still drawing, O took a long gulp from his drink, and finished it.
“Then, there was the blood,” he continued, licking the moisture slowly from his lips, “used to drive me crazy. A single drop of it, miles away, drilled straight through to my brain.” His drifting finger began to pick up speed.
“It started off with such a small amount, but it filled my mind. Like a red fog just billowed up from nowhere, and cloaked all my senses. All I remember is thrashing around, not seeing or feeling anything.
“When it was over, the killing and the feasting, I was drained. Not physically, my muscles never stopped. But inside, I was alone and scared of my own brutality. I lived a life of bloodshed and inspired fear, and I was just so tired . I longed to sleep for a while, but I couldn’t. Death was the only escape.
“You know what I learned from that? Nothing lasts forever , and you shouldn’t try to make it. Life is great when you’ve got it, but sooner or later everything has to rest, to just give in. Everyone’s gotta die, even me.”

O sighed deeply and glanced briefly up to meet the stranger’s gaze.
“Another time, I was a dust mite. Now that was an experience. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I saw.
“The thing with people is, they like their comforts. Deep down, they all wanna settle down somewhere, make their own little world with all the things they know in it. But, back in that life, there was a whole new world right under your feet; one that you never even knew existed.
“I tell ya, kid, it was like being on another planet. Floorboards stretched on for miles and miles, the cracks between them were enormous, bottomless chasms. A patch of mould was a giant blue rainforest, sprouting up on the horizon. Puddles were like vast seas, but you could watch ‘em shrink as they evaporated. Meeting a wall was like realising the whole world is the inside of a box. The ground just suddenly turned at right angles to itself, and stretched upwards. All the geometry, all the familiar things were just turned upside down. It gave everything a whole new angle.
“I met a cockroach once,” O shuddered at the memory, “huge great thing. Like some kinda dinosaur rearing up at me, filling the horizon with its great leering face. Nearly crushed me, it did, but I managed to hop outta its way. You don’t want an experience like that, kid, gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘terrified.’
“Then, there was another time when it rained. Great drops the size of mountains falling all around you, shaking the earth, flinging you every which way. It was like some sort of apocalypse, the whole world collapsing around your ears.
“But, it wasn’t all bad. There were a lot of beautiful things all around, things you’d never see through human eyes. I found a giant column of wood, thicker than any tree, stretching upwards out of sight. After a while, I realised it was something as simple as a table leg.
“The whole earth was just so big. You could travel your whole life in the same direction and never stop. You’d see so many things, so big and so imposing, all around you. It made me think, when I was back to being human. There was the world I knew, but another smaller universe right beneath my feet. Then I realised that, in the big scheme of things, we are as small as dust mites. There is another bigger universe above us, and as far as we know it goes on forever.
“Think of all the separate worlds there are, all the different perspectives. We’re almost unimaginably tiny compared to them. Maybe even this universe is just a tiny part of a Multiverse, and maybe the Multiverse is just a little component of an even bigger hyperverse.
“I looked up at the stars and I wondered, ‘are those stars just the inside of a box that we are living in? Is there a whole other world outside that box, so big that to those people we are smaller than a dust mite?’
“That life really opened my eyes to just how small I am, we all are. It gave me a new appreciation of the world I live in, and made me wonder about the endless possibilities of life within life within life. I guess you could almost say that life gave me a universal awareness. Or something like that.” O winked.

“My fondest memories? That’s easy. An oak tree, up in New England. I stood in the centre of a little town called Conway. The settlers who colonised the land planted me, and the town grew up around me. I watched it turn from one wooden shack into a full-blown town, built around the crossroads where I sat. They named the four streets after the four points of the compass, Y’know.
“There was a bar down South Street where all the workers used to come in the evenings - better than this dismal place, I’ll wager. The school was up North Street - the kids all used to walk past me in the mornings, all laughin’ and shoutin’. Then, in the afternoons, they’d all come pouring out of school in a big wave, and a crowd of ‘em used to clamber up me, and sit in the branches. In summer, they hid amongst the leaves, pretended they were invisible. In autumn, they’d have full-scale wars, hurling acorns at each other. There was one kid; I forget his name, who got blinded in one eye. His sister threw an acorn and hit him dead on. You shoulda heard him yell! He sounded like a man condemned to hell!
“Then there was all the young lovers who used to meet underneath my branches. Hundreds of ‘em! Sometimes you wondered where they all came from. Every Friday, I always had at least one couple meet under cover of darkness. It was mighty strange – watching the same kids I had seen come running outta school all grown up, romancing the ladies, getting married and settling down, and, eventually, dying. I stood in the middle of that town for centuries, while all about me people grew old together, lives came and went, years upon years just slipping past me. All those memories, they’re all still stored deep down in me somewhere.
“There was one winter with the roughest storms you ever saw. Almost every night we had a great cacophony of thunder and lightning, with sheets of rain drenching everything. I tell you, I was mighty scared of that lightning, especially since once it struck the town hall, just across the square from me. A great flash of white light, and all of a sudden, the building’s on fire and everyone’s running around in a panic.
“But, spring was a great time. I could feel myself waking up from the winter, all my leaves shooting up in vibrant green. They used to have a yearly festival, to commemorate the birth of the town. All bunting and streamers and people having fun, it was. They always used to hang a great big banner across me, but I never found out what it said. They had big dances, the whole town prancing around the square well into the night. I can still hear the sound of the fiddles playing, and the children laughing.”
A slow tear crept down O’s wrinkled cheek.
“Y’know, I learned a lot from that life. It was such a happy time for me, I felt like I had a family all around me. Not just a normal family, either, a great big family that was constantly changing and growing. There was a sense of community that I had never felt before, and I haven’t felt since. That life taught me the value of kinship, and I know that I am a better person for it.”

The stranger, slightly taken aback by the old man’s far-fetched tales, asked:
“But what have you learned from this life?”
O closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. In an even tone, he began;
“Y’know, kid, I’ve been sat in this same bar, in this same seat, drinking this same piss-poor beer for the last eighty years. Not once has anyone asked to hear my story. Sure, they give me a refill when I ask for one, they throw me out when it’s closing time, but they’ve never asked me about my past. Never. This whole valley lives in silence, like there was some kinda penalty for talking or singing or anything. There’s no way out, you’d just dry up in the desert. I’ve been stranded here all my life, and you’re the first person who’s actually sat down and listened.”
O cleared his throat, and continued.
“And now that you have, I can have peace.”
The old man pulled a revolver from beneath the table, and levelled it at the stranger, who made no move other than to slowly raise his hands. O’s eyes showed no fear; he was not the fish, he was the shark. The stranger realised then that he was faced with a superior being – a man with millennia of wisdom, where he had less than half a century.
“Now that I’ve told my tale, I have fulfilled my purpose in this dismal, wretched life.”
O cocked the revolver, his index finger resting lightly on the trigger.
“I’ve learned what I was put here to learn. God knows, in ninety-four years of miserable silence, I’ve learned it.”
Suddenly, O jerked the gun back and pressed it to his own temple. He drew a deep breath, and clenched his eyes shut.
“Wait!” cried the stranger. “What have you learned from this life? Why were you waiting for me?”
Eyes still firmly closed, O smiled faintly and replied;
“My dear boy, in waiting for you, I have finally learned the value of patience.”
So saying, O pulled the trigger and put an end to his unhappy existence. The only sound that punctuated the stunned stillness of the bar was that of the old man’s lifeless body slumping slowly forward onto the beer-streaked table. The vacuum left by his death was quickly filled by the ever-present silence.

The stranger left town that evening, escaping back into the desert from which he had crawled. With O’s passing, his reason for existence had ended; he died nine days later of dehydration.

 

Well, this is a small and whiny thing to say, but could you please but spaces between paragraphs? I imagine that your English teacher won't chastise you for not doing that, but I think it's a bit easier on the eyes when you but spaces in between.

 

I bow before your amazing writing skills

 

Mam, this has a point. This really has a bloody point.

*shameless selfpromotion*

visit the Morning Light and others topic and please post something.

 

I you don't get the maximum grade on this, I'll sell my comp.

 

Thanks guys! I asked my teacher, and she recommended I use spaces between my paragraphs too.

 

*respectful moment of silence and awe*

Ok, three teensy, weensy things to get you that last 0.01%:
1) When the stranger enters the bar, you say his boots squeaked as he padded across the floor. I'd prefer a different verb; "padded" is usually used for bare feet (or paws).
2) When the stranger first notices O, you have "and old man" instead of "an old man."
3) Saying that the stranger died of dehydration doesn't do justice to the rest of your prose. I get that it's symbolic for the total loss of sound, purpose, companionship, etc, but the word "dehydration" is like a big clinical stick beating us over the head.

It's certainly A- material as it stands!

 

Woohoo! Thanks Rallymama, just the kinda thing I was looking for.

 

My god I was pinned to the screen. Sorry, I was too wrapped up in the story to come up with any critism at all (not that there is need for any!)

 

Yerril, you never reported back with your teacher's reaction! How was this received?

 

She's still holding on to it, along with the rest of my coursework. She'll have to give in eventually, though, and then I shall update y'all.

 

Yerril, this is great stuff!

I must agree with Rallymama though, dehydration just doesn't do it justice, don't know why, but maybe something else there?

Maybe I'll post my coursework (poetry) for people to read. And isn't O a Ps:T npc?

 

Final Mark: 51/54 - A*

Cool.

 

Good for you yerril you deserved it with that masterpiece

 

*Claps* Well done that man!