Young Writers Society

6/8/09

041 – Shapes

“Damn fog. I hate having to use infrared.”

“Oh shut up, Parker. No one cares.”

“I think my helmet’s too small. The goggles give me a headache.”

“Parker! Geez! What part of ‘put a sock in it’ don’t you understand?”

Private O’Malley held his gun with clammy hands as his squadron skirted the edges of their patrol. Major Carter sat alongside him, gun hanging by its strap across his shoulder. Captain Parker was still going on about something and the entire vehicle echoed with the rest of the squadron trying to shut him up.

“Anyone here have a cancer stick?” Parker asked.

“Yes! Give him one and maybe he’ll choke to death!” someone called.

“For shit’s sake, will you all just shut up?” someone else asked desperately.

O’Malley looked at Carter, who was grinning.

“Should we be making this much noise, sir?”

Carter had a cigarette in his mouth and he took it out to answer, letting it dangle from two loose fingers.

“It’s not going to hurt anything.”

“But won’t the Mutts hear us?”

Someone laughed, having overheard O’Malley’s question.

“Mutts? That’s real funny, private.”

Carter took a long drag from his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly through his nose.

“Our engines would alert them anyway,” he said. O’Malley clutched his gun a little tighter.

Parker, who had actually been silent for a full five seconds as he lit up a cigarette, spoke.

“The Mutts aren’t really a threat anyway,” he said, his cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth as he adjusted the strap of his goggles.

“But aren’t we at war with them?”

Parker laughed; a good-natured bark.

“Just out of basic, eh?”

He leaned forward conspiratorially. Smoke blew in O’Malley’s face.

“All that stuff they told you? All that about ‘pressing danger’ and stuff? It’s all bullshit.” He leaned back. “Me?” He thumped himself on the chest. “I’ve been here three tours and I’ve only ever seen one Mutt and it was dead in a laboratory.” He sucked in a lungful of smoke and let it out in a cloud as he laughed. “They’re just trying to scare the folks back home into behaving.”

O’Malley’s fingers tightened even more on his gun as Parker leaned forward again.

“It’s a conspiracy,” the captain whispered.

The rest of the squad, who had apparently been waiting for this moment, all burst into laughter and catcalls.

“Come on, Parker, not this again!”

“No, go ahead. Tell us about the aliens and how Bigfoot was your uncle.”

Parker stabbed the jesters with icy glares and waved his arms in a way that was meant to signal for quiet, but just came off as insane flailing. No one paid him any attention and everyone continued to laugh and toss comments around the truck.

O’Malley looked up at Major Carter, who was exhaling puffs of smoke with his chuckles.

“But, why are we out here if the Mutts aren’t a threat?”

“Weren’t you listening to Parker?”

O’Malley looked at the captain with a confused expression.

“Yes, but I…” His voice dropped down to an ashamed whisper. “I thought he was –“

“Insane?” Carter laughed and clapped the private on the shoulder. “And you’re probably right. But we’re just here to put people’s minds at ease.”

“So what happens if we run into any Mutts?”

“We wo—“

There was a noise like a rock hitting a windshield and the whole vehicle stood on its rear bumper. O’Malley saw Major Carter lean forward with a trickle of blood running down past his ear, then saw the dark wet patch were the back of the major’s head had been. Someone was screaming in pain. O’Malley found that he was sleepy and he closed his eyes.

It was Parker that woke him up.

“Hey, are you all right?”

O’Malley nodded. He wasn’t in the truck anymore. He couldn’t see anything except Parker and fog. He turned his head and beside him was Major Carter. The major’s eyes were closed.

“What—“

“Landmine,” Parker said, looking out into the fog.

“Mutts?”

Parker did look at him then, with a fleeting smile., There was something beeping somewhere.

“You’re really hung up on that idea, aren’t you? No, this area’s been a battleground before and we can’t find every mine ever set. We just got lucky tonight. Rarer than being hit by lightening at this point, you know.”

O’Malley looked back at Major Carter.

“Major—“

“He’ll be all right,” Parker said hurriedly, looking back out at the fog again. “Everybody’s going to be okay. There’s a chopper on its way.” His voice was quiet and he wiped a hand across his mouth.

O’Malley blinked a few times, working his way more fully into consciousness. The beeping continued. Now he recognized it.

“The scope…” he whispered. He couldn’t seem to make his voice any louder.

“Don’t get your shorts in a knot. There are plenty of false alarms. Antelope, mostly.” Parker was still looking out at the fog. Another soldier came to stand next to him and Parker said something softly. O’Malley couldn’t hear what was said, but the other man nodded and pointed into the fog. He had his gun in hand and was peering through his infrared goggles.

O’Malley turned his head.

“See ‘em?” This time he heard Parker’s question.

“Yeah.” The other man’s voice was uneasy.

Even without goggles, O’Malley could see shapes moving in the fog.

This was really, really cool. The tension at the end was especially perfect for the setting. The characterization was very good, and I think that was the strong point of this particular part of the story.

I hate to say it, but there really wasn't anything I could find to point out as an error or anything that needed a fixing. EVen the humor was refreshing to read. I think I'm gonna have to read the rest of these things that you've done. I haven't read anything like this in a long while.

I feel terrible about this, but...

This was just so good, I couldn't find anything to really critique.

What I really love about these stories is that they're all so small in scale. It's a beautiful way to build up an overarching universe, by looking at different aspects of it--taking snapshots, so to speak--through different characters' eyes in different scenarios. You have stories of the lives of policemen (Heart), of reporters (Passing), and now one from a green soldier's perspective. I even remember that story that was essentially the Mutts' version of their founding myth. The stories are short reads, but reading each one gives the reader a marvelous sense of satisfaction at figuring out how it fits into the puzzle of your greater universe.

And I'm impressed by how well we're able to connect to the characters, despite hte piece being so short and the characters one-offs. I could feel Private O'Malley's tension like it was my own, and his fear at the end of the piece was as acute to me as if i'd been there. The soldiers' interactions all felt real and helped cement their personalities further. Parker's nuttiness made me laugh out loud at parts.

And as usual, your minimalistic prose is such a joy to read. ^^

My only problems are completely minor quibbles. It was a tad hard to tell the soldiers apart at the beginning, but by the end I'd have never mistaken O'Malley, Parker, and Carter for one another (on a rather odd note, I like the names--they all sound so very soldiery). Also, when the vehicle is attacked, I wasn't sure what was going on at first. Was it really a landmine, or was it the Mutts? You might want to make that more clear. At times, I felt that the soldiers interactions didn't have enough proper military protocol as well...granted, they obviously don't care about miltiary protocol, and it's definitely a part of Parker and Carter's characters not to, but O'Malley is a green little private; it seemed odd to me how he didn't call his superiors "Sir" more often.

All in all, great job. I look forward to more of these Mutts stories (though I should probably read the ones you've already written...).