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Memories in the Sand



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Tue Dec 27, 2011 11:19 pm
AelitaLienne says...



Nothing ever changes here, the sky is still a milky white that drips like a wet watercolour painting and the only sound one can hear is the murmured lie that promises a new and more vivid world. There is no real light here, or none that anyone can see. Though the landscape is of blinding, bloodless white sand, the explosive luminescence is only an illusion that solidified everyone’s collective presumption; that there is no sun anymore. It isn’t hot, not even warm…in fact there is a constant zephyr that blows the bitingly frigid sand in circles around the desert.

There was once a city here. The sand that knew the people then was still cement and real snow settled on compact, sympathetic ground. Once this snow would melt on the skin and offer water and the warm reminder that life is not missing, only departed for a 100 todays. Now the snow has been replaced by sand, which obstinately bites and tears the skin and clogs the lungs and eyes. It throws itself against the ruined towers, as if in inconsolable sorrow.

One woman journeys here. She does not look human, she looks like a white phantom that sinks and drifts through the violent breezes reappearing once in awhile like a mirage. She is covered in sheets that lend her their warm embrace against the mourning sands that cry out their sadness in desolate screams. The woman carries herself carefully through here, as sand is not the only thing that can be blown against razed, and no more merciful, buildings. These buildings thrust their misery unto this figure as well, as if blaming her for their slow and painful reduction into the very creature that is eating them away. She turns to one, examining it’s gaping mouth that is howling through the sand that is caught in it’s concrete teeth. She kneels down and picks something up. She turns it over and examines the front. A nude girl, as pale as the sand that suffocated her, grins up at the woman with ruby red lips that are wearing away into nothing. Her blonde hair, which is freely abandoning her tough plastic scalp, whips across painted baby blues. Through the sheets the woman smiles at it.

“All my relations,” She whispers fondly.

She rises up and suddenly hurls the doll into the bleak sky. It smiles pleasantly at her as it is whipped through the air and slammed into the building.

The woman walks on, clearly staggering into the wind that whirls around her relentlessly. It whimpers into her ear, blaming her for its eternity.

“All my relations.” She breathes heavily in response, her voice scratching its way up her throat.

She almost cries in relief as she finds a mountainous building that once pitted itself against the sky. She throws herself into it and stands collapses against the floor for a moment. She notices a picture that still clings on by a nail driven deep into the wall. As she removes the bright, framed Polaroid carefully it looks up at her with such overwhelming melancholy. She sees a mother and two children that are looking at each other with limitless affection. They embrace each other as if they would never leave each other’s arms. A ferocious gale hurls itself into the fragile frame and as it flies away the woman commits the family to memory. As she sleeps that night she joins them, forever locked in such a beautiful moment.

“All my relations.” She whispers in her sleep, reaching out for someone who has long abandoned her.

She drags herself back into the deluge of sand, tripping over the sheets that are slowly unraveling themselves. The wind almost carries her as she runs away from it. As she runs she can see papers being propelled around her. They all paint the colourless sky with almost coordinated precision. They all say something that doesn’t matter anymore. They ask the woman if she wants to buy perfume to make her smell beautiful, or shampoo to make her hair longer, or pills to make her skinnier.

The woman is already skinny, she is too skinny and her body breaks as if bent in half. Papers swirl around her as she accompanies them into the sky. Her sheets swirl around her too. At the last moment they turn against her, whipping her body and tearing her into shreds. But all she can do is smile. From here she can see her entire city that softly crumbles as she does.

“All my relations.” She sighs into the wind; briefly silencing it’s anguished sobs. The wind and sand sigh with her as they remember what used to be. Then they return to their endless tears that pour into the desert and reduce everything to dust.
Sometimes all there is left to do is to dream.
~Murakami
  





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Wed Dec 28, 2011 1:37 am
Kafkaescence says...



Um. Wow.

I guess it was good. I'm assuming that its purpose was allegorical, if anything. If this reflects your opinion (which I hope it doesn't), then your views on society's present and future are dark indeed. Reduce everything to dust? Eesh.

You have a detached, thickly atmospheric style, which is...good, I suppose. So do I. A detached, thickly atmospheric style tends to do well in allegory. However, a lot of times your stylistic metaphors and personifications would regress into incoherence or, at least, sound a bit off. Let me provide you with a few examples of said regression.
real snow settled on compact, sympathetic ground.

I've never known the ground to be sympathetic, and I seriously doubt that your experience would conclude anything different. It's good to experiment, but there is a fine line between clever personification and unintelligibility. It's a detached, thickly atmospheric writer's job to be acquainted with this line.

Let me give you another one, eh?
Though the landscape is of blinding, bloodless white sand, the explosive luminescence is only an illusion that solidified everyone’s collective presumption; that there is no sun anymore.

I think I know what you mean, but the phrasing completely slaughtered this sentence. I think you're trying to make yourself sound more sophisticated than you are. Sentences like these bespeak the use of a thesaurus: "bloodless white sand?" Isn't sand already bloodless? "Explosive luminescence?" You're overdoing it. And how could illusions solidify any presumptions? Illusions are murky by definition, and so could never serve as a means of corroboration. It's not my job to know whether or not you use a thesaurus, and even this is insufficient confirmation, but I just want to point out that your ubiquitous awkwardness as far as word choice isn't helping your case.

Also: I hate to go into this, especially because your story is purely allegorical, but your "uh-oh, the sun's gone" thing is breaking obvious scientific boundaries. First, the sun does not simply sputter out. It first swells to a red giant, swallowing Mercury and Venus and scorching the earth. Earth's atmosphere gets toasted. Only then does it proceed to shrink. No life or even remnant of life would survive the process. Secondly, Earth would be completely and utterly dark. The only light would be starlight, which, needless to say, is insufficient to illuminate something to an "explosive luminescence." There are a few other issues, but these are the most obvious and I'd like to refrain from rambling too much.

All I can think of when you say "all my relations" is the annoying Charles Lloyd album my dad plays over and over again. I Google the phrase, and all I get is said Charles Lloyd album, some Native American song, and a 1990 Joanna Priestly animation. No definitions. So aside from the obvious meaning, which in and of itself is oddly worded and oddly placed, I can't attach any significance to it.

Finally, there are quite a lot of grammatical errors in this. The its/it's problem is an obvious one, but there is also a good supply of comma splices, run-on sentences, and stuff like that. Might want to go through and edit this once more.

Have a nice night.

-Kafka
#TNT

WRFF
  





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Sat Jan 07, 2012 11:25 am
Angelreader77 says...



Hey Aelita!
Reviewing one of your works again.
This was ... whoa. Again, your writing style hooked me in, along with your amazing descriptions. There is a beautiful flow to your writing, capturing the reader in, and your choice of words is really good.
AelitaLienne wrote:Though the landscape is of blinding, bloodless white sand, the explosive luminescence is only an illusion that solidified everyone’s collective presumption; that there is no sun anymore.

Although in this line there are too many descriptions. Way too many.
AelitaLienne wrote:There was once a city here. The sand that knew the people then was still cement and real snow settled on compact, sympathetic ground.

Sympathetic ground? It doesn't fit. When I first read it, I thought you said synthetic. You know, artificial.
AelitaLienne wrote:She throws herself into it and stands collapses against the floor for a moment.

Stands collapses? I think it was a typo.
As she removes the bright, framed Polaroid, carefully it looks up at her with such overwhelming melancholy.

Those two words should be reversed. As in: it carefully.
As she runs, she can see papers being propelled around her.

I put a comma.
There are a few punctuation errors but a quick read through, and I think you'll find them. :)
I like the way you've ended it, described the way she perishes (which I assume she does?) with enough detail and precision for the reader to imagine it.
Overall: Great story and keep writing :D
- Angel
"The cure for anything is salt water- sweat, tears or the sea." --Isaac Dinesen
  








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