Feet First

A survivor trys to overcome his having survived.

Feet First

 

     We survived the crash (most of us, anyway), then we went into a sort of modified, free-form, freak out.  Most ran around in the nude, while some simply sat and sobbed or moaned.  I was among the latter.  I hadn't cried like that (complete with snot rivulets and broken blood vessels in the eye) since Martha left me.   The next day was worse; we ate the dead... and liked it.

     I cannot put together a clear time-line… I'm sorry about that.  Victoria wanders in and out of my hovel near the fuselage, she seems as disconnected as I am.  I want to talk to her, but my mouth seems gummed up by something.  It must be a part of the emergency protocol.  It doesn't interfere with breathing, sobbing etc… but I just can't talk.  If only I could recall what the sequence was, or is…. or even what the mission was.  I cannot quite put together a point-by-point reference guide for the way things are.  I'll just write them as they occur.

     Victoria has pushed me into the hard metal body of Rescue Pod 7.  I want something from her, but it won't come to mind.

     "I want to love you," she said, "but I find it more rewarding to think first of your death."       I didn't know what to make of it.  She said it while peeling a melon (or some sort of local fruit….[fruit?  is that what it is?]).  I moved to kiss her, under the wing, not her wing, of course she had no wing, but rather under the wing of the landing craft.   She recoiled.  

     "Not while you're still alive," she said smiling. The vivid green sky framed her like a rock-art poster.   She kissed me, hard, then strode away, eating her stinky local fruit.  I was confused.

Reviews

[Trigorin]

Not bad, and the setting seems intriguing, but the ending is a little too abrupt to come across as meaningful. I feel like you ought to expand this more, as the reader really isn't left with much after this story. It's a shame because you write very well and there's a great deal of potential with what there is here.

[Blotter]

Yeah, I never really thought of it as a story, more like a first chapter torn from a weird magic-realism book. I'm not sure there's anywhere to go with it without sacrificing its non-sequitorism. Thatnks for reading, I hope to post more soon.