A New Day Dawning

Partial, First short story.

        

A New Day Dawning

The iron grate gave a grinding squeal before falling back onto the cobblestones with a clang. Chez climbed from the stormwater drain and into an alley bathed in pre dawn darkness. He was just a boy, by most peoples standards, but he had seen much in his thirteen years; perhaps more than any thirteen year old before him.

He walked swiftly down the alley sliding his fingertips along the old brick wall as a guide, until he came out onto George Street and the glow of the transients' fires. Burning garbage cans lined the cluttered footpaths, lighting the way North and South. As soon as he had that light he began running, north towards the harbour and the Circular Square.

The air was cold against his face as he sprinted down the broken street, past the car bodies and the shattered shopfronts long ago looted of anything useful. Past the grand old Town Hall where the Vols hung out sniffing glues, solvents or anything else they could scrounge from the corpse of the city. Past the fallen domes of the Queen Victoria Building, the once beautiful landmark now a burned out skeleton. Chez kept running, ignoring these distractions and the burning in his chest. He had to make it to the top of the square. They were all depending on him.

Nan had told him, “Today is the day, Chez, I can feel it. You have to be our eyes now. Run and don't stop until you reach the top of Circular Square.”

Chez ran down the length of the shattered streetscape, passing the empty buildings that had made up the, once proud, city of Sydney. He was born after the Crash, and though Nan had taught him all about it, he could not imagine what those days were like. How these glass and concrete ghosts were filled with people. There was plenty in those days and people either thought or pretended that it would last forever but it didn't.

“It was foretold that there would be terrible times in the last days and they were,” Nan had told him.

“But that is not the story's end,” she would say. “No, this is just a breath taken by the Great Storyteller before he continues. Sixty years I have waited for him to speak again and one day he will.”

“Today is the day, Chez, I can feel it.” Nan's voice in his mind strengthened him and soon he could feel the others. One by one he could feel them entering, like guests arriving at a feast.

As he ran beneath the starless sky, his mind wandered a little to a moment in his past when they had all been gathered together for a great meal. Dredge and Stalk had managed to raid a stash of old canned goods owned by the Hyde Park Rangers. None of the cans had a label but most of them had rip tabs on top making them easy to open. The group sat around a fire on the underground platform at Museum Station, opening tins and exchanging contents. Tinned beans, stew and pet food, all opened and shared until everyone had eaten their fill. Then Chez had opened one more can, just to see what was in it, and there were these orange balls chopped in half, floating in thick yellow liquid.

“What's this?” he asked Nan, whose eyes lit up at the sight of the apricot halves. She insisted he share them with everyone else but there was not enough for Nan or himself.

“That's okay,” she said with a smile. “You drink the juice.”

He had sipped the nectar of the apricots that had infused over the years in the sugar syrup and it was like heaven. He drank it slowly, savouring the sweet draught until it was all done and he cut his tongue trying to lick the last few drops out of the tin.

“Focus,” Nan's voice in his mind suddenly brought him back to the present. “You're nearly at the Square.”

Up ahead stood the cylindrical building, a tall silouhette against the lightening sky. Leaping over a low wall where a long dead garden had been, he cut across the courtyard to the skyscraper's foot. He didn't have long before dawn and he still had the stairs ahead of him. Moving swiftly through the vacant window frames and over the debris in the circular foyer, Chez forced open the fire door and slipped inside. Forty eight floors to negotiate, one step at a time.

Floor by floor Chez rose, using the hand rail to haul himself along, and using the strength of those gathering minds to keep himself going. He had to get high if he was going to see it but by the fortieth floor he began to question whether he had not gone high enough. Nan's voice and the expectations of his peers drove him on anyway.

Finally he reached the observation deck with its panoramic view of the city. The sky had lightened somewhat, revealing the grey cloud that always hung over the city. In the gloom he could make out the shapes of the harbour and its landmarks. The rusting Bridge, supported on its sandstone pillars. The Opera House, now an island seemingly afloat on the risen tide.

The sky was brightening still further, revealing more of the cities decay. Buildings that had once blocked the view of the eastern horizon were now fallen, the result of catastrophic fires before Chez was born. He could see all the way to the silouhetted Sydney Heads, like dark lions guarding the mouth of the harbour. He waited and watched the eastern skyline, as more and more detail was revealed.

Suddenly, there was a green flash, like a distant signal over the ocean and then a slash of red-orange light grew from that place, splashing colour across the clouds, painting the sky with crimson brushstrokes. It was beautiful beyond his ability to articulate; had the others not been there in his mind he

would have experienced it alone.

The bright rent grew wider but no higher as the sun emerged, passing through the slit between the

horizon and the usual unbroken cloud cover. Nonetheless, the sight was irrefutable; there was a gap in the cloud that allowed that hopeful splash of colour to escape.

 

 

Author's Note

This is incomplete

Reviews

[Hans von Lieven]

Good work Chris, you have set the scene. What are you trying to do with it? It is evidently leading up to a quest of some sort. Good. Have you got a clear idea where this is going to wind up.

If not, let me tell you about a trick I use to keep me on track. I will not even start a story until I have the last paragraph, or at least the last sentence on paper. This gives me direction and prevents me from getting side tracked. It is a great writer's tool.

For what it's worth give it a try It works for me every time. You have made a great start, now make sure the rest does it justice.

Hans von Lieven

[Azeremen12]

I liked you use of paragraphs. Making them brief and brisk made the story go at a pace akin to what the character was going through. This reads more like a script at parts (which, considering the narrative structure, I would say is a good thing). Keep it up, man.

[Lela]

I have to say, most of the time I try to read some of the stories, I give up after the first paragraph. But for this one... I just want to know where is the rest of it? I WANT to read more! It's such a great start and I really hope you'll keep it going. I can see you added it in 2009 and there were no other additions, but I'll still keep an eye out for more. I really enjoyed it!

[mark slade]

i liked this alot.

[Samuel Dickens]

This is quite interesting and very well written. A post-apocalyptic tale, no doubt, as they tend to be so popular nowadays. Even so, stories about people getting by under terrible conditions, hoping for a better future, have a very strong appeal to me.

[Jesse Przewoznik]

Very well done. The setting you have described is very quickly absorbing, and I already find myself wishing there was more above to read. Nonetheless, this is a great taste of what will eventually come. Keep up the good work!

[Luke Masters]

Aww... I was enjoying that!!! He. No, great start. It put me in mind of "Taronga" by Victor Kelleher, which offers a look at a post-apocalyptic Sydney and a telepathic boy named Ben who could communicate with animals and control them. Don't know if you know it. This is a good start and hooked me right in quickly. I liked it and would definitely be interested in reading more. The writing was great too.

[AJChallenger]

This is a very interesting piece, I really like the movement of it. I have a few small things, though, that I think will really help.

The iron grate gave a grinding squeal before falling back onto the cobblestones with a clang. Chez climbed from the stormwater drain and into an alley bathed in pre dawn darkness. He was just a boy, by most peoples standards, but he had seen much in his thirteen years; perhaps more than any thirteen year old before him.

Let us experience all this through the eyes of the character. Let the noise of the gate hurt his ears, let it falling shake the ground, maybe he'll fall back in surprise, or not be surprised at all. (Which shows something about him.) Show, don't tel, as the saying goes.

I would also look at what a dialogue tag should be like. One of yours is like this .

“Focus,” Nan's voice in his mind suddenly brought him back to the present. “You're nearly at the Square.”

That's not a dialogue tag, that's just a statement. A dialogue tag is: "Hey," john said. His voice shook Margie from your thoughts. "Get your act together."

We can say: "Focus." John's voice shook Margie from her thoughts. "Get your act together."

You also don't have to say: "What are you doing?" John asked. We already know he asked, so you don't have to tell us.


those are just small, technical things, though. I really enjyoed this piece. You've got a lot of talent.

[Michael Jewel Davis]

Good start, I like the mood, and it reads easily. Good luck with the rest, you're good.

[Luke Logan]

I'm sensing a bit of Byron Kennedy and George Miller here. Perhaps--not yet, anyway--a dystopian future, not unlike Mad Max's world. Wonderfully paced and easy to follow. I love the oxymoron of the"circular square," and I have seen many of them, driven around them. "He could see all the way to the silouhetted Sydney Heads, like dark lions guarding the mouth of the harbour."...brilliant imagery. "Suddenly, there was a green flash, like a distant signal over the ocean and then a slash of red-orange light grew from that place, splashing colour across the clouds, painting the sky with crimson brushstrokes."...simply marvelous: the blank piece of paper is your canvas, your world, and you have brought it to life in living colour. You have created the fictional dream, and I have remained there from beginning to ??? Well...you haven't taken me to the end yet, have you?

James

[PhantomDancer]

Nice intro. Hope to read what comes next soon.