Nationstatelandsville wrote:Nationstatelandsville wrote:I had an excellent idea in the shower. I should finish by Monday.
Or now.A Legal U-Turn
"Mike!" Elise whined in her nasal tones, the whipping winds sending her cinnamon hair a flutter.
"What?" Mike groaned in his baritone.
"Are we there ye- ?" she began
"Do not finish that question! For the love of God, do not finish that question!" Mike snapped. That was the eighth time she'd asked. It was getting extremely annoying, like a continuous title drop for Ice Cube.
"Fine!" Elise scoffed, turning her attention to her phone. Mike rested his left elbow on the wheel in order to rub his forehead, weary with his life and it's many troubles. It was an old cliche, but it rang true in Mike's life: Growing old makes one tired with life. He was indeed tired, so very tired. Not just with life, but in a general sense. A nap would be nice, but he was driving. Unless he wanted his head smashing through his windshield, he'd be soldiering on through the trip.
Elise laughed a bit, bemused at a joke she had received via text. Her annoying giggles,, like a hog snorting, did nothing to lighten Mike's spirits. Nothing much would lighten them anymore, however, other than the toxins that Mike did so love to ingest. He was a poor man, never successful through legal means, never successful to afford more than chicken wings and a beer at the pub, anyhow. He was never successful through illegal means either, a petty crook from an episode of the Twilight Zone got off better than him. He was an unemployed bum who did not try to improve his situation nor particularly wanted to, that would require his effort and attention, which was not something he readily gave out anymore.
No, despite what the shiny new Corvette he was coasting across the highways in said, he was an apathetic failure of a man. Truth be told, the car wasn't even his. It wasn't Elise's either. Stealing hardly met Mike's moral standards, but he rarely met any of his own standards to begin with. In regards to personal success, he was bitterly divorced and abandoned by his mistress.
Elise was his most recent girlfriend, though Mike knew it would never last. She was young, eighteen years his junior. He'd met her at the bar he so loved, the one where they played his favorite blues and served his favorite beer of draft. They had shared a drink and spent the night in her apartment "exercising". This was only their third date, yet they were already going on a cross-country road trip from Phoenix to Las Vegas. It had been Elise's idea, she had said she'd gone traveling with her father as a child quite a bit and had always missed it since his health deteriorated. The whole father thing made Mike mildly uncomfortable, he wasn't one to exploit daddy issues despite what his lechery might suggest.
They were not going on this trip because they kindled emotionally, don't make that mistake, but because Elise was a naive young girl with daddy's credit card. She could be called a "victory", Mike supposed, but it felt hollow as a coconut without it's milk. Even the Pyrrhic victories that were his wife and mistress felt better than this, even if they did end in flames and in court battles. His victories financially were non-existent. Four months ago, he'd been working in retail, selling phones at the Apple store like Steve Job's zombie slave. Even then, he'd been bitter and mean. And tired... just so tired. He wasn't working any longer, he had been fired when his attitude took a turn for the worse. His wife had left him afterward, having discovered his affair, his mistress soon followed, and then finally, his sobriety left him.
He'd gone six years, six years and that cold-hearted bitch ripped his heart out, leaving the numbness of alcoholism to claim like the Grim Reaper claiming the souls of the dead. Under the influence of the vile liquid, his exhaustion was replaced with rage. He'd start fights, he'd crash his car, but most of all, he'd roar! Oh, he'd roar at the Heavens and at God for daring to strike against him! He'd curse the witch of wife he had! He'd scream, he'd cry at the sky! He'd wish for his mistress to burn for her lying, cheating ways! He'd shout at the devil! He had challenged all the gods, all the angels in Heaven, all the demons in Hell, and all the mortals on Earth to make his life somehow worse! And they did, with their mere existence, with life itself, Mike was ruined.
Mike's neighbors thought him scum of the earth, a dangerous beast of a man, and they weren't far off for obvious reasons. Mike himself didn't think much more of his actions, but not his soul. Oh no, Mike knew his soul was something much more putrid, more vehemently volatile then anything in this world. He was black-hearted and remorseful because of it, his blood hellfire and his mind guilt, his breath that of Satan's diluted with poison and his tears pure despair. Oh, but he was too tired to cry and too taken by the seductions of sleep to look over his life and feel guilt or remorse, at least he was when he wasn't drinking anyhow.
Mike looked over at Elisa and sighed lightly, an exasperated sigh. She wasn't the most attractive, but he'd take any woman he could get at this point. Companionship kept the cold steel of a pistol away from his forehead. She was only a bit better than homely, but had beautiful blue eyes, oceans of gorgeousness. Mike himself was a portly, balding pig. They were both dressed in casual ware, which was Mike's only kind of clothing. They were the only ones on this lonely expanse of desert road. Well, they were the only ones that they knew of. For, on the side of the road, was a man. An invisible man, one could say, but he was merely concealed from the couple's eyes. He was a short and rather large man, somewhat like Mike. His hair was leaving him as well, though it was white in color as opposed to Mike's jet black, and the man on the side of the road had two sizable mutton chops going down his face.
The man was squinting with his tiny green eyes, taking in every detail of what he saw. He saw much more than us, and recorded it all in a small notepad. He clutched his notepad in meaty hands covered by white gloves, little sausages in their packaging. He wore a long black trench-coat, too big even for a man of average stature. He wore an equally long red tie, though the rest of his ensemble was perfectly fitted. A wide-brimmed fedora, also black, was perched carelessly on his head, casting a shadow over his eyes. His eagle eyes that saw so much, so many bizarre and wondrous things that one usually only sees in a drug-induced hysteria. Mike would soon see the same, as it was procedure for the man on the side of the street to show him these things. It would be shocking, obviously, but the man was confident that Mike could handle it. Even if he couldn't handle the horror, he was going to see it anyways. Nature doesn't wait until you're ready.
"And here we go," the man on the side of the road mumbled absentmindedly, "it's show time. Or perhaps it's HBO." He added the last bit with a chuckle and a snap of his fingers. A single snap to save a man or damn a man.
Mike buried his head in his arm, which was now entirely on the wheel. He himself was almost falling out of his seat. He very easily could as well, with his seat-belt off. Elise was distracted by her phone, or so Mike thought. She hadn't squeaked for a second or two, which suggested total attention on the blasted device. Most likely gossiping with those friends of hers Mike hated. Not that he knew them all that well, they were just some of those judgmental people who automatically assumed the worst of Mike.
This was the truth about Mike, close enough anyhow, but it was rude all the same. Her friends were very much against Mike and Elise's relationship, which made him want to choke them to death. But why did Mike care? He didn't know himself. He had no particular feelings for Elise, she wasn't exactly someone to die for. She was not worth a fight if it should ever arise, even though Mike doubted one ever would. Her personality was just as plain as she was, and her voice... god, her voice was the most annoying sound in the universe.
It was odd, his defensiveness of his character and his bond with Elise, if you could even call it that, but it was his honor. He didn't appreciate it being tarnished any further, even if it was excruciatingly sullied by drink and sin at that particular point. He was man, not a demon, despite how he felt sometimes. He had good qualities, even if they weren't as evident as his poor ones, he was sure of that. Otherwise, why would Elise ever want to come on this trip? Perhaps he was flattering himself by assuming she wouldn't have gone with anyone.
When Mike lifted his head up once more, he was no longer on the interstate and Elise no longer sat next to him. He was passing through a darkness, a nothing, a region completely devoid of existence. There was nothing anywhere, save for him, the car, and the dark. No sound, no smell, no color, no light. He looked around him but saw the same continuous nothing. The car was driving on the nothing as if it was solid, but it obviously was not solid. How could nothing be solid? How could nothing be? It was though, and that more than terrified Mike.
A realm of no existence... was this the realm of death? The thought sent shivers up his spine, even if he welcomed an end to his life. He didn't remember dying, but maybe that was a side effect of ceasing to exist. Why was that car with him though? The car wouldn't have followed him if he had died... right?
"Hello?!" he called desperately, trying to fight back the fear that was now building up at the fringes of his psyche. There was no answer.
"Hello?!" he cried again, the tides of his worry and fear beginning to break through the dam of rationality.
"Hello?! This is Michael Sharp! Where am I?! Hello?! Answer me!"
Mike's questions were answered by a tick. It was a clock's tick, a familiar clock's tick. But then, most clocks sound the same. Mike quickly dismissed the sound as a trick of the mind and was about to shout again. He never got the opportunity.
He was suddenly driving down the streets of Phoenix, past his old house, the house that his ex-wife, Mallory, now lived in. How he got there, he did not know. There was nothing to announce the change in scenery, save for the clock tick. He had suddenly been there, no explanation. However, there was no explanation to how he had ended up in the prior void to begin with. His vehicle was moving slowly, and the car was certainly not under his control. He was panting, eying everything suspiciously.
What the hell was going on? He looked into the window of his house and saw himself arguing vehemently with Mallory. She was a young woman then, it was at the beginning of their marriage. Mike still had all of his hair and the glow of his wedding ring caught his eye. He'd pawned that off a week after Mallory had left him. The argument with Mike striking her hard enough to start her crying, the slap quick and leaving Mallory's cheek red as a fire ant. The sound of the strike resonated across the neighborhood like a gunshot, unnaturally loud, the Mike in the window's drunken rage culminating in a yell of pure animalistic anger.
The Mike in the car blinked and shook his head, his confusion suddenly interrupted by a burning pain deep in his skull. It was though someone had lit a match inside his head and pressed it against his brain. He tried to scream in agony, but nothing came out of his mouth. He grasped the rear-view mirror and adjusted it to allow himself a view of his cap, only to find a burn mark shaped like the number one on his forehead. The car radio came to life all of the sudden with audible static, delivering to him a simple message.
"Sin," it said in a woman's pleasant voice, which was crackled and distorted to make it sound demonic and sinister, "Rage."
Mike gasped, reaching towards the radio and bashing his fist against it hard. He then looked back at the road, but there was no road. It was the nothing again, but now there was something. In the distance, if the nothing had distance, was a shape he could not quite make out. Another clock tick came out... from the shape. Yes, it was definitely a clock...
A second later, he was now driving past a seedy motel, He recognized it was the place he had met his mistress, Angela, throughout their particularly short-lived affair. He watched himself kissing Angela passionately through the window and shivered. It was hard to pinpoint the exact emotion he felt at that second, but one could call it fearful anticipation. Another unspeakably painful burn came upon him and he threw himself against the wheel, hot tears streaming down his cheek. His forehead smashed into the horn, setting it off.
Angela and the other Mike were not disturbed in the least bit, and in fact, Mike assumed that they could not even hear him or the horn. No, he was definitely there... he was simply passing through his own memories. None of this was real, but that did not dull the pain.
"Sin," the radio growled with interference, "Adultery."
Mike whimpered desperately and clutched the mirror, scanning himself. The mark had changed to a two, as he had assumed. His face morphed to a pained expression of horror, one unrivaled by any released by him before. It all went black once more, and he was back in the nothing. He approached the shape, now close enough that he could make out what it was. Yes, it was a grandfather clock... his grandfather clock. Well, his grandmother's anyhow. He'd lived with her and his father in her house when he was a kid. She was the only one he'd ever really loved, the only one who'd ever really understood him. She had died when he was still young, and that was when he began to spiral into the shadow that was his life.
The clock, however, had always terrified him. It was bathed in darkness, it's features casting a shadow. A shadow. A shadow on Mike, even though he himself was cloaked in the shadow of nothing, how was that even possible? Dread overcame Mike's being in a way it had not before, milking him for another weak cry that made no noise. The clock ticked once more and it struck twelve, letting out a ghastly banging from it's haul to signify the hour.
Bang-bang! it came oh so abruptly and violently.
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!l like a small church-bell throwing itself wildly about and causing horrid sounds to erupt from it's haul.
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Oh, that most hated of sounds! It had haunted him as a child, it had forever been his ghoul! His boogeyman! It's very resonance caused Mike to fall against the wheel wailing, his inner terrified child pouring out with the most desperate of howls! It began to tick again, counting down the moments to the next day. Mike, weeping profusely, fell out of the car. He crawled up and clutched the body of the clock, hugging it tight. He began to shake it rapidly, trying to make it stop somehow. Trying to knock something loose. Trying to end the ever-repeating sounds that would count down to tomorrow. Trying to keep the banging that would emanate from it upon the next day, the sound that continued to pound in his ear.
Bang-bang! it continued in his mind, Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
He shook it like this for half of the day, until the sound came once more to signify the end of the morning.
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Perhaps it was the end of the night, it was impossible to know with no sun. The original sound did not leave his mind, oh no, so now there were two copies of the same infernal noise ringing about in Mike's ears. This continued for another day... two days... six days... a week... three weeks... a month... a year... a millennium! He did not know.
Bang-bang!, it came.
Bang-bang!, it came forever and ever with no end.
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
He never aged there. Time did not exist where he sat, despite what the clock said. Mike let out a single scream in his entire stay in the forever nothing, a scream that never made sound but lasted his entire punishment. His screams would never make sound again. No one could hear him, no one would care if they could.
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang-bang!
And then, out of nowhere and after a lifetime, he was driving down a new street once more. It was the street he'd lived on when he was little, the street his grandmother's house had been on. He drove past the child version of him making off with his father's wallet, stolen while the man was collapsed in a drunken heap. He was stealing it to go buy cigarettes.
At age nine.
Mike's grandmother had been dead for about a year by then, and he had not taken it well. His single tether to his family was fone. He watched himself saunter down the street, off to the shop. He cared not that his father would need that money for bus fare, to go to work, to help them live. Why should he? That was his father's problem, not his. Mike had barely even remembered doing that until that very moment, when he was faced with. The man on the side of the road remembered, however. He remembered all.
"Sin," the radio broke through, especially menacingly this time around, "Thievery. Many cases of thievery exist on this soul, but for the sake of mercy, we have condensed them into one."
"We?!" Mike screamed, smacking the radio, "Who's we?!"
"We have condensed them into one," it repeated.
"Who?!" Mike reprised.
"We have condensed them into one."
"ANSWER ME!" Mike screamed, his boiling temper returning. He smashed his fist into the infernal messenger of a radio as hard as he could. He broke the glass displaying the channel and song. The text read simply "SINS: RAGE, ADULTERY, THIEVERY".
"We have condensed them into one," the radio stuttered, "w-w-w-w-w-we have condensed them into one. We have condensed them into one. We have condensed them into one. We have condensed them into one..."
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang! Bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang-bang!
Mike inhaled sharply, breaking into hard sobs as the fiery pain overcame him once more. The mark was now a three, but Mike did not need to check to know. He looked outside his car again, horrified and morbidly curious as to what he would see. He was now driving through a hellish land of fire and brimstone surrounded by unmentionable tortures and horrid abominations.
He screamed again, sound finally bursting forth when he did so! This delighted the demons surrounding him, monsters of blue flesh and mighty ram horns, long fangs and beady red eyes that looked upon with pain with glee! These minions of Beezlebub closed on the car, laughing with madness and scratching their mighty black claws across the haul, peeling away paint and Mike's remaining sanity all the same.
Bang-bang-bang-bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang-bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang! Bang-bang! Bang!
The automobile stalled, and Mike looked around him in shock! He began to bash his fist desperately against the wheel, but it did nothing... oh, absolutely nothing! The demons began to prod Mike with branding irons they had produced, searing their marks into his hide as painfully as possible. The wounds immediately healed, but the pain lasted in his mind, accentuated by the banging.
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang! Bang-bang-bang!
This continued on... and on... and on... the hot metal searing him and leaving his skin black... burnt. It seemed to be a year, but it was much, much longer than that, before things changed. Mike closed his eyes tight, suppressing tears and begging for it all to end. It soon would.
He felt the pain subside, and when he opened his eyes once more, he back in the car with Elise. Unfortunately. It was slamming head on to a pick-up truck that must have approached while the two were distracted. Elise was screaming and hurtling towards the window, death itself waiting for her there. Mike's own head was flying forward, but his arm was close enough that he could stop his own collision. Despite this, he reached across the dashboard and blocked Elise's trajectory, throwing her backwards into her seat while he himself smashed into the window.
He was tossed through the windshield and over the hood of his own car, smashing into the truck's window before him. The impact cracked his skull open, red blood streaming from onto the blue truck, puddling up. His heart beat not. He took no breaths. His skin would soon be cold, his body soon rigid. He was dead. Physically, at least.
He expected to find himself in the Hell he saw earlier, but instead he found himself bathed in a soft, warm light. He did not know what it was... but it soothed him. A voice called out for him from the light. His grandmother's voice. She reminded him of a time when he was young and innocent, a glorious time. She was his salvation, his glorious, glorious salvation! It was posthumous, of course, but it didn't matter to Mike.
He stood up, finding himself standing right out of his body. He was a soul now. He looked up at the light, which was not the Sun, but resembled it. He looked into the very heart of this star, and looked into the very heart of Good. He was gone then. He was in that heart, with his grandmother, and with everyone else who had ever deserved it.
The man on the side of the road blinked. The burns on Mike's forehead, which no one but he could see, were gone, as if they'd never been there. Amazing what saving a life could do.
A tad long but... buzz off.
Characters - 15/25 We don't see much of motivation for the characters. They're sort of one-dimensional.
Plot - 20/25 It's self-contained, and seems to have the parts that make a complete plotline.
Setting - 10/15 Not much to say about it. Not exquisitely detailed, but we know when the setting has changed, and you explain the basics of the new settings.
Creativity - 10/15 Not the most original premise, but you ran with it fairly well and this story is your own.
Style - 7/15 Could use some revision. Paragraphs especially, I had to edit it and preview my post, so that's minus points.
Grammar - 3/5 Numerous errors, but they don't detract from the story itself.
Overall - 65/100 Decent work for a first draft. Deadlines make writing difficult.
