Published June 10, 2009
Hell is noise. It is a cacaphony of vicious sounds, the screams of the damned, the roar of demons, the thrashing of torture. And it is the quiet spaces in between those noises, when you hold yourself and wonder if you will be next, those moments when you think of what you love and pray to whatever might be listening for a chance to see it again. Cherry blossums, spring rain, whore’s skin, you pray for the chance to experience that again, not knowing if you will be answered by sweet voices, or crunching jaws.
I am as high as I can get in this tree. Below me is the swamp, chest high water stretching on for a long ways; 8 kilometers to go, 8 kilometers behind me. The moon is a pallid eye on this place, this lonely island in the middle of the Pacific. Ahead is the rest of the Emperor’s army. That is our objective. But I do not think it will be worth it.
A splash. Someone has fallen in. They thrash about as they try to find a tree to climb back up. A rumble shakes the tree I am in and I close my eyes. The other one screams as his bones crunch and that demon feasts. The sickening sounds as another man is eaten alive, they echo in my brain even now.
Bushido. Honor in war. Fighting to the death to protect our honor. What good is honor in hell? Beasts do not care about honor. To them, you are food with foolish notions. Honor means nothing to a cold, reptilian mind.
I think of dear Iko, whom I left behind. She sent me off with smiles, sure that even my death would be glorious and worthy. I hear her shouts of joy in my head, ever so faintly, over this madness. What would she think of this fate? There is no glory in becoming sustenance. You are only essential.
I close my eyes; try to sleep as best I can.
*
Winter’s hell well spent
were we men when death came down?
only blossums gone
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139,546 Literary Works • 672,605 Reviews
I have one word: WOW. When are you going to become an official writer? When you decide to do so, please contact me! If this was done in 20 minutes, I wonder what you can accomplish in a whole year! A brilliant piece of writing! Totally hooked me from the beginning! Brilliant choice of words and everything...P.S. Sorry I'm still new, so don't know how to do a complete review yet.
I thought this was great! I love the way you get righ inside your character's mind and bring out his/her character straight away. Starting with a bang like you did, using a statement that immediately interests the reader is really good. I like your whole style, but there are a few little things you need to fix up.
You wrote, "The sickening sounds as another man is eaten alive, they echo in my brain even now." You need to put either a semicolon between 'alive' and 'they', or you need to delete the 'they' and the comma to make it 'The sickening sounds as another man is eaten alive echo in my brain even now.'
You also wrote, "Below me is the swamp, chest high water stretching on for a long ways;" You need a colon between 'swamp' and 'chest-high'. also, the word 'ways' in that context is incorrect. It should be 'way'.
In your last sentence, I think it would flow better if you had, "I close my eyes to try to sleep as well as I can."
I won't comment on the verse below as most of the others here have, but I think if you brushed up your grammar and the way it flows a bit, it would be really excellent. Overall, I really like this!
This is gooood!
All I’m going to say is that I hope Junebug won’t sue you for name theft or something. However, I have to say that the word choice was brilliant all around, most especially in that first paragraph.
I won’t say much else except that I thought this was brilliant Connie though I don’t completely understand the bit at the end.
Is it a haiku or something? I’m not really sure, but I’m not completely sure what a haiku is either.
I’m not sure; do we really need this.
It’s up to you, I still don’t even know what it is or what to do with it.
Firstly, it's "blossoms," not blossums. Secondly, this is more a personal nitpick than any real error, but I really dislike it when authors address their readers directly. As my English teacher said to me, "When you use second person, you don't really know what you're talking about."
That's just what I was taught, and it really bothers me to see "you" in the middle of a first- or third-person story. I feel like it doesn't fit. But that's just me; don't fret about it too much.
The "tree" thing is repetitive. Find a different way to phrase it, because it makes the voice of this story kind of wonky.
I know there isn't much room for it, but I think this would be better as a running theme. Maybe if you added more detail as to what exactly is going on, you could slip in a few places where you could make this into a running theme so it didn't seem as random.
Again, slightly random. You're jumping topics here, and I have no real idea what's going on. I think you could do a better job of establishing the setting and the events taking place earlier on, before retreating into the mid of this character.
He's sleeping in a tree?
What relevance does this have? Is it a proverb, or is it something you made up? If it's not yours, cite it. If it is yours, it doesn't seem to have much relevance to the story. It sounds pretty, but it just doesn't connect for me.
I'm not a huge fan of overly-dramatic flash fiction, so don't mind any bias. But I honestly think you should establish more of the setting and chain of events in the beginning, especially to help readers like me who aren't wholly familiar with the battle this is based off of. Your reader shouldn't have to come into this with pre-existing knowledge in order to comprehend it; you don't need to specify what battle it is for those that don't know, but it does help to establish what's going on in a little extra detail.
Peace, love, prosperity.
Teague
x
For future reference, this story is based off of the events of the Battle of Ramree. It does not take place in Japan itself, so that might explain the crocodiles for some.
Wow, what a lovely piece. I think your introduction is so strong and vibrant, I was hooked in immediately. The haiku was an excellent wasy to end it as well. There's really not much to pick at, so props to you. However, I do have a few questions. I'm not exactly an expert in spelling or grammar, but I get the feeling that these could be different.
Is it 'blossum' or 'blossom'? Are there two spellings? I've only seen it spelled 'blossom', so I might just not have seen the other one.
Again, just asking about the 'blossum', 'blossom' thing. This is only personal preference, but I think a colon would work better than a comma after 'whore's skin'. It just emphasizes the first part a little better.
I will also say that there are no crocodiles in Japan. I'm not sure what you could use to substitute though. Perhaps change the setting to a different Asian country? Although Bushido is unique to Japan, the honor above all concept isn't. Or you could just find a fitting animal and tweak the reptilian thing.
I'm sorry my critique is so weak, but you did a wonderful job. So perhaps my flimsy review is a good thing.
Nice work, best of luck to you!
octo
Well, I'm very happy I chose to look at Historical today. ^_^ I managed to find a gem here. You, however, might not be as happy once I'm done.
An Edit note under this and those eights aren't gone yet?
"Tree" is a bit repetitive here.
*
So, here's the part where you might not like me.
This is pretty obviously set in Japan. I got tipped off from "Bushido," the old Samurai honour word. And a lot of other lines in here set it in Japan as well. Had I not read Clo's review, I wouldn't have had anything to say. I really, really liked this.
That said, there are no crocodiles in Japan. Southern China, yes, Indonisia, yes, but not Japan.
As my mom put it: "Beam me up Scotty, I need a croc here."
~Rosey
Conrad, the devilish speed writer. Well, hey, at least you have one killer beefy profile of short stories.
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I think this is a wonderful beginning, considering I know what's coming.
Oh ho, this is gold.
Those little eights sure stand out. Write them out, I say!
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Dude.
I loved this. I can't believe this is a product of 20 minutes. This is seriously, in my opinion, very, very good.
At first I was going to say it's odd how vague you are with the crocodiles -- it's not clear that they're crocodiles, as you never detail that, yet I realized then that it makes the story seem more surreal and otherwordly. Like, you turned this real event into something that be translated as supernatural. People can ask, are these demons? Monsters? And it can even be a metaphor for war.
This. is. awesome.
No more comments, haha.
~ Clo