itesser ink: progress, uncensored

I got myself this book for my birthday. It arrived on Friday, and I arrived this afternoon, and got to work straightaway.

The first prompt was to write a story in the first person but only use 2 personal pronouns. I somewhat skimmed the rest of the assignment and only saw "600 words" before getting to work.

It took two sittings, but I came up with this (680 words):

The view from up here, tucked against the ceiling of the abandoned cathedral, is amazing.

Most of the pews are gone, either looted during the Days of Silence or broken down for firewood in the nameless cold months that followed. The few that remain were blessed by saints who prayed from them. Priests deemed those slabs of wood more valuable than their own lives and wrapped their bodies around the pews when the armies of Voiceless soldiers and, later, mobs of destitute peasants stormed and swarmed this castle of God. These pardoned pieces of holy furniture have been pushed away from the cathedral's main floor. They now line the walls of the vast room, and where the pews once stood, a few dozen people now tread rhythmic circles and switchbacks.

It might be impossible to pin down their exact numbers as they swirl and bob, hand in hand, hand to hand, across the polished floor. Occasionally two or three will slip through the heavy wooden doors. People shuffle in to join the patterned dance, or bow out to take a breath of cool midnight air in the courtyard.

The dance continues for hours, quite a feat with no music to guide them. Occasionally a single voice will be moved by the movement of his own feat and lift up the first words of a song. Others who know the lyrics will join in, and the humming tune will curl upwards to the rafters, but only for a short time. Each song begun is left unfinished, as the end of music, a cappella though it may be, could bring about the end of the dance. The time for that has not come yet.

Some of older folk, white ovals of hair from this vantage point high above, spin out of the group like fractals, faltering on old joints. They make their way to the pews to rest, leaning against each other for support and tilting flushed faces towards the ceiling. Fortunately this hiding place is well chosen, and their eyes fall from the cathedral's peak and trail down the walls, tracing the veils of soot that partially obscure ancient murals.

Only when every face is shining with sweat and every arm is drooping with exhaustion, every shoe scuffing the floor, does Arianna appear. She held her breath for a minute in the back room before entering into the midst of these people. Arianna knows that if she seems to calm and collected after the others have danced themselves to exhaustion, they will not listen to her well. Arianna knows what she is doing.

She moves easily among them, bringing stillness in her wake. The minute without air made her eyes shine and her breath deep. The people see her intensity and gather around, crowding skirt to cloak. Arianna leads them in a wide circuit around the room and they follow like iron filings follow a magnet. She sweeps the full cathedral making sure she commands the attention of every man and woman. At last she speaks.

Her words are low at first. They do not reach beyond the last row of people, and even that outer ring has to lean in and concentrate to hear clearly. All shuffling and gasping subside, and after the lull of Arianna's voice has worked its way into every crevice of the crowd, they breathe in unison.

Her cadence rises slowly, tightening the grip she holds on her audience. Their eyes remain fixed on her as Arianna's voice rises and her movements become more animated. She paces and uses her arms to emphasize the words that are just now loud enough to reach the rafters.

Arianna's rhythm is quick now, quicker than the fastest boots at the height of the dancing. The people are leaning forwards, nodding slightly in time with her speech, mouths agape. With hardly any warning, she turns her back to the assembled people. The crucial moment is here. Arianna speaks the cue, "... mercy from above!"

My hands tighten on the railing one last time, and I propel myself towards her outstretched arms seven stories below.

I'm very pleased with myself for completing the assignment. I even did a tiny bit of editing (tweaking the second paragraph to have tighter sentences)! Two-thirds of the way in I thought I'd have to do a little extra song and dance to fill the requisite 600 words, but that turned out not to be the case.

On the other hand, I might rework this in a couple weeks to add the extra material back in. It expands a little on the "Voiceless Army", what Arianna is, and the state of things. Plus, a rework would let me add in a little more of the narrator, and indicate things like him calling Arianna his sister. Granted, I don't even know what Arianna is, or all of what's going on. It's interesting to write something in which my narrator knows more than I do.

I'm not sure how well I fulfilled the spirit of the assignment. Two bits from the prompt: "The point of this exercise is to imagine a narrator who is less interested in himself than in what he is observing" and "It is very important in this exercise to make sure the reader is not surprised, forty or fifty words into the piece, to realize that this is a first-person narration." Perhaps the use of "here" in the first sentence, and other hints at the narrator's current location did well to indicate it was first person, but I'm just the author.

All in all, if I had read the full book intro, chapter intro, and prompt intro, the resultant piece might have been very different than the bit of fiction above, but, hell, I'm doing this to help me practice writing, not for a grade. :D

Labels: 3am, fiction, writing