Published May 9, 2012
The two boy-men were sitting on the porch. The sun was dying, falling, shadows growing like a contagion. The boy-man on the right was rolling a cigarette. Pinching, rolling, licking, smoothing. The boy-man on the left had already lit his. He inhaled and then put his cigarette in front of his face like a telescope or a dart.
“The tip is the sun,” he said. “Like I’m burning a hole in the sky.”
The other boy-man said yeah then asked for the lighter. The other gave him the lighter and he flicked the flame and it froze the cigarette onto a course of demise.
“You still seeing that girl from across town?” said the one still holding his cigarette in front of him, one of his eyes closed.
“Yeah I am.”
“How’s she?”
“She’s good. We’re good.”
“I always liked her.”
“I know you did. That’s why I had to get her once you’d gone away. That’s why you ain’t going to be seeing her here too.” He laughed.
“She’s yours. I’m not interested no more.”
“You’ve only been gone a couple of weeks.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So? So, you wouldn’t be saying that three weeks ago.”
“Yeah, so.” He took the cigarette out from in front of him and began smoking it. The sun had fallen beneath the horizon. They sat and smoked. It was getting dark but the horizon’s skies were still colored with light like reflecting oil.
“Well, how’s it been workin’ for Uncle James?”
“Alright.”
“Alright.”
“Yeah.”
“Why alright?”
“I had to kill a calf the other day.”
“So? You butcher alotta things.”
“So, I never killed a calf.”
“How old was it?”
“Only a couple weeks. It was birthed strange. One of its legs came out wrong. All bent and small. Couldn’t walk right.”
“Hmm. Well, that’s what happens.”
“Yeah.” He inhaled. “Yeah. I was hoping it would get better. Uncle James told me it wouldn’t when we pulled it out. Once he saw the leg he said that it wasn’t going to get any better. He wasn’t happy about it.”
“It was born that way. What are you going to do about it.”
“I asked if I could keep it. He let me at first. That’s why it stayed alive for them first couple of weeks.”
“You kept it?”
“I kept it. I gave it milk. It could walk. It was slow, but it could walk and get around. Took a while, but it could walk.”
“Why’d you have to kill it then?”
“Uncle James didn’t like me taking care of it. Said it took too much time. That’d it get worse once it got older.”
“He’s right.”
“Yeah, he’s right. I wish he weren’t though.”
“You can’t have things like that eat you up. The calf was born that way. That’s just what happened. It wouldda died no matter what.”
“Everything dies no matter what.”
“Yeah. But it wouldda died sooner than what it would have.”
“Nothing knows when its going to die though.”
“No, I guess not. You can guess though. If the calf grew up in the wild, it wouldda died before all the other calfs. It wouldn’t get no food and it wouldn’t be able to run and it’d get eaten by something. It’d be the first to go.”
“But it was born on a ranch. Not in the wild.”
“I guess so.”
“You can’t know when anything’s going to die.” He sucked in the cigarette and the tobacco burnt and crackled. Only when you kill it do you know when its going to die. Only when you shoot it in the head and it falls and its eyes are still looking at you but its dead and there’s blood coming from its ears and nose and mouth and the hole is all a mess of bone and brain and blood do you know when its dead. And then you have to shoot it again because its legs are still moving. Even the gimped one. Only when you kill it do you know when its going to die.
“I guess so. But everything will die eventually. You can count on that. It’s just a matter of time. Even the sun’s going to burn out and die. It’ll happen.”
“You don’t know that.” He smoked his cigarette and blew and flicked the butt because it had burnt down to a roach. “ You don’t know if it is ever going to stop burning. It will keep burning and we will be dead and it will still be burning.”
“But, it will burn out after we die.” He flicked his cigarette because it had burnt out.
“You’ll never see it though.”
“Everything dies once it’s started.”
The boy-men sat on the porch looking at the horizon. Its orange-yellow faded into dark blue and then dark purple and then black.
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141,411 Literary Works • 674,390 Reviews
Hey there ahhhsmusch,
This is a pretty interesting scene - a nice snapshot of a couple of characters at a moment in time. I really like the way you describe the pair as 'boy-men' - that captures the state of being not-quite-a-kid and not-quite-an-adult really well. I also like the way you've tied in the deep philosophical themes with the tale of the calf. However, there a couple of places where I think this could be improved.
First up, there's a lot of dialogue in here. I have one big tip for dialogue, and it's this: read the lines aloud to yourself, and listen to whether they sound right. If it sounds stilted or awkward out loud, it will feel that way on the page. There are a couple of places in here where I think this applies - and for a piece so dialogue-heavy, nailing the speech is very important.
Second, while I'm on the dialogue, a grammatical point. If the sentence following some dialouge is a tag for it, that is, if it's a "he said" or "he asked" that belongs with what was just said, the first letter doesn't need to be capitalised. This crops up in a couple of places - for example, '“You still working for uncle James?” He asked'
Finally, just a couple of nitpicks. For one, near the beginning, you have the line 'The other boy-man said yeah then asked for the lighter.' It feels a little strange that you have this single piece of indirect dialogue, surrounded by a piece that is almost entirely direct dialogue. Why not make this bit direct, too? "Yeah," the other boy-man said. "Pass the light?" -- for example.
For another, after the 'only when you kill it' internal monologue, the sentence about knowing when the sun will die feels... off. The point seems to be that 'even the sun will die eventually', but it's a response to 'you don't know when things will die' - and there's a mismatch there that threw me.
If there's anything here you'd like to follow up on, please feel free to shoot me a PM, or come looking for me in the chatroom. (Because the site is mid-upgrade, I won't get a notification for a reply on this thread or a post on my wall, but I'm happy to clarify if you have any questions.)
Happy writing!
Cadi x
Hey there, ahhhsmusch!
I really liked this. It was short. Just a little scene where two boy-men, I pictured teenagers ageing around 19 - 21, discussed their days. The structure was simple, mostly dialogue, but the descriptions you used were nice.
Your writing style is simple but different. It's effective.
'Pinching, rolling, licking, smoothing.' - I liked this style of writing. It speeds up the pace without taking anything away from the story. It made me think that this meeting could be a regular thing between these two characters. Something as simple as smoking together shows that they have a bond. I pictured two friends catching up after not having seen each other for a while.
The piece had a nice flow. It wasn't loaded down with flowery descriptions but the imagery was nice -not the killing the calf bit, obviously, but that was effective too. It shows how it haunts the guy.
'“You still working for uncle James?” He asked, taking his first smoke.' - 'He' shouldn't have a capital 'h'
'Its never going to stop burning.”' - 'It's'
'The boy-men sat on the porch looking tat the horizon.' - I'm assuming 'tat' should be 'at'
Calling the two characters 'boy-men' kind of made me feel detatched from them, like you weren't giving too much away, even though I was following their conversation. The same as not having tags on the dialogue to explain who's speaking. It worked though, because the whole piece felt like I was listening into a private conversation, so I wouldn't know the ages of the characters of their names.
Overall, I liked this. Thanks for the read
I hope this helps and if you've any questions, post on my wall.
xDudettex