The Dead Beating Drums

Two men are stuck in a battle far greater than just themselves, struggling to ward off death, darkness, and the grueling grips of exhaustion.

Blood flowed down the street he stood upon, coursing through the cracks in the sidewalk with the same solemnity as his own blood that coursed through his very veins. The core of the earth below him pulsed and throbbed, echoing the beating of his own boiling heart as it forced his skin to tighten, acting as though his body was but a trap, and the blood he called his own wanted nothing more than to tear from his being and join their brothers that raced in rivers at his feet. 

Though he was the only man standing tall, he was filled with a strangely intense ache that surged throughout his body, creating an agony that must have been tantamount to that felt by the men that surrounded him. The hand that held the cold pistol began to quiver, and his eyes darted restlessly across the land he had plundered, feasting uneasily on his bleeding treasure.

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

The stoically fearless voice of his last victim ripped him from his questioning trance and forced him back into a shaky reality. As his gaze settled upon the helpless man that knelt before him, he felt his eyes glaze over with the same darkness that encompassed his soul.

The last living victim bore a face smeared with the red of his fellow men, and his stare held only a glint of life,  glowering up at his capturer much as a dead man looked up to the heavens from his grave. It was pathetic, really. A man with a beating heart should not bear the stare of the deceased. That is nothing but a slap to the face of Death.

“Shoot me already, won’t you?” The dead man urged with a contemptuous snarl. “You’ve tortured me enough as is; at least let me join the rest of my brothers.”

The solider opened his mouth to speak, but his voice evaded him. The blackness that shrouded his soul began to overtake the rest of his being, forcing his limbs to shake with the cold that it induced, and making his legs uneasy to stand upon. He suddenly felt himself craving the simplicity of yesterday. He found himself yearning to sit before the fireplace in the home he had left behind, indulging in wine, company, and the pleasant life of a man ignorant to the stark harshness of death. He wanted nothing more than to stroll hand-in-hand with a beautiful woman down a street that wasn’t flooded with turbulent waves of red, to read a book in the presence of nothing other than peace, warmth, and tranquility, and to lay upon his sofa, resting his head and succumbing to the glorious confines of sleep.

Oh, how badly he wanted to sleep.

The darkness that claimed him, though, demanded one more heart to be brought to the earth. It demanded one more bullet to be shot, one more voice to be lost, one more lifeless head to beat against the ground like a drum, and one more sad, pitiful story to end. This darkness, much greater and more powerful than any incitation he may have been able to conjure, easily squelched any guilt or inclination towards justice that may have arisen in a rebellion, and it forced his finger to twitch anxiously upon that trigger. Just one more pull and then he could sleep. He could sleep for nights and days and years. He could sleep until all the blood beneath his feet had soaked far, far into the ground. So far, perhaps, that, when he finally woke, no one would know of the scarlet rivers that had cascaded across their land. No one would remember the stories of the men who had fallen, no one would care about the lifeless gazes that were all fixated on him now, and no one would understand the darkness that shadowed him with a relentless snarl and a sinister strike. All they would know is that he is but a man with the gait of the guilty but the heart of the trapped. And they would welcome him. They would wipe the blood off his face and fix his broken heart and mend his tattered soul and they would welcome him.

All he needed to do was sleep.

“Put me to rest or let me go,” the dead man requested without looking up. “Either choice is cruel enough without you taunting me with the promise of death. Put that bullet in my head and be on your way. I don’t know what you’re waiting for, anyhow.”

“Stop talking,” the solider finally growled. “Don’t speak to me.”

What did he want then? He didn’t want the man to talk, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. Adding one more body to the sea of graves before him would take from him another beating heart, and then his only company would be the darkness. Once alone, there would be no one to hear if the darkness leapt forward and decided to take his soul back down into the fiery pits of Hell with it. There would be no one to save him if the demons decided to make his desire for sleep be only a dream as they clawed and bit at him, slowly peeling away the layers of his sinful being in order to attain his withered, beaten soul. He would be all alone with an entity so black that it absorbed the very essence of light and left it to die.

Oh, how so badly he wanted to sleep.

“I’m tired,” the solider confessed for no reason more than to simply indulge in the company of another while there were still ears to hear him. “I’m very tired and I want to go home.”

“Well you have had quite a taxing day, haven’t you?” The man growled sarcastically. His voice cracked with an exhaustion different from the one felt by the solider, and his eyes dropped incessantly as the fatigue of mortality bore down on him. His clothes, tattered and torn by the test of war, hung off his body like drapes, and his curly, blonde hair dripped with the dark, red blood that belonged to the dead. Through the darkness the solider could begin to feel the agonizing stings of pity, and for a moment he could swear his finger was pulling away from the trigger.

“Why did you fight?” The solider ask, his stance wavering as his conscience commenced a grueling battle with the darkness. “Why would you die for this? For poverty, for dirt, for scum-”

“For freedom,” the man replied, his gaze turning back up to the solider with a fire that had just been ignited. His face perked with a flush of life, and the tenacity of his cause could be felt throughout the graveyard. “We wanted to be free from the life of poverty, dirt, and scum. This war gave us that chance.”

There was something admirable about the way his face contorted into the face of the rebellion he had supported. It was almost respectable the way his dying body found life through the words of his belief. The lines of death seemed to fade from his skin, the wounds of war seemed to be healed by love, and his helpless demeanor was replaced with a snarl of stubbornness.

“And look where it got you,” the solider pointed out bluntly.

The man shrugged his shoulders and lowered his gaze; the fire was extinguished. Lines were etched back into his face, the wounds were carved into his skin once again, and he resumed the poignant crouch of a dying man. The land lost the heat of desire and was overtaken by the cold. “No better than living in the gutter. At least now I won’t have to starve. At least now I can sleep.”

Oh, to sleep.

The darkness clawed at his skin as his arm began to move. It wasn’t a conscientious decision of his, but he made no attempt to thwart it. His mind had wondered off again, eagerly gallivanting after the promise of sleep and forgiveness. Waves of euphoria rushed over him as he reminisced over the magnificent sanctity of dream. He imagined falling effortlessly into his bed, his head beating against his feather pillow as he pulled his scarlet night sheet up to his chin. His eyes would close, and with a smile he’d enter into his other land, a land where he was accepted and revered and loved. A land where darkness never existed because the sun never set. A land where nothing flowed but wine and nothing died but Evil itself.

“I’m very tired,” the solider murmured, his voice hardly more than a whisper as his eyes swept over the black horror that surrounded him. “Dear God, I’m so very tired.”

The dead man before him didn’t speak a word. His eyes watched motionlessly as the solider suffered before him, tortured by his guilt, his sin, and by some sinister force that wore him like a puppet. Speaking to an unknown entity and staring off into some far away void, the solider was lost in his own occupations, struggling with demons that were slowly but surely gaining the upper hand.

The darkness had reared forth. Bigger than Hell itself, it encompassed not only him, but the entire world, blocking out the sun and leaving nothing but a ghastly array of black and red. The pistol shook fretfully in his hand, and he tried with every ounce of effort he could conjure to replace the terrifying horror that lay before him with images of peace, love, and home. He tried to replace the demons with beautiful women, the flaming pits of Hell with springs of baby blue water, and the face of the Devil with the face of God, but it was all in vain. The Darkness had won. It had demanded one more victim, one more soul, one more story… And he had no choice but to oblige.  

His inclination towards justice had fought a valiant battle, but the Darkness had seized his hand and forced his finger down hard upon that trigger. The ring of the bullet cascaded across the land in a domineering boom, forcing the essence of life to hide away in the shadows as it resonated off the mountains and reverberated its hymn of death throughout the body of the earth.  Once the last echo sailed across the wind and sank back into the depths of the ground, it brought all of the demons down with it, and the light of life could be seen once more.

When the final head of the dead beat against the ground like a drum, the Darkness was silenced. The sun glared through the haze of sin upon a world that was tainted red, and the reflection of heaven could be seen in the hundreds of stoic eyes that littered the ground.

One man stood alone amongst the wreck. Though free from darkness and delusion, this man was trapped in a world that no longer held a heart for him. Being neither a war hero nor a lone star gazing out at his bloody spoils, this man gazed around uneasily at the land he had called home. Surrounded by a sea that surged with the blood of his brothers, he felt like nothing more than a helpless prisoner washed up on the Island of Agonizing Solitude.

Refusing to be immersed any longer in a world of hate and death, the dead man stood up, grabbed the pistol from the solider who lay at his feet, and began to limp away from the massacre that encapsulated him. He trudged toward the sun, allowing himself to be engulfed in the comforting confines of warmth, and hoping to find some sort of tranquility.

He was, after all, so very tired.

 

 

Author's Note

I realize that this story might not make a whole lot of sense, and that it is extremely dense. Any reviews at all, however, will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Reviews

[richieb]

Megan,
Your story makes sense in the struggle of the soldiers mind trying to make sense of all the bloodshed and death. When the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal surveyed the battlefield of 50 thousand dead Roman soldiers his army had slaughtered ,he no longer wanted to fight. Your story reminded me of this true bit of history. So you see your story makes a lot of sense.
As your writing goes I think it is very well written. The density of your description of thoughts and emotions needs to match the intensity of the battlefield and the soldiers last actions. Your story was very thought provoking and created lasting imagery. I enjoyed the read and applaud your skills and efforts.
Sincerely,
Richie b.

[JayG]

To illustrate the primary problem I see, look at two storytellers.

The first strides to the podium smiling, obviously pleased to be there. She surveys the audience with approval, then extends a hand to the audience, as though presenting a gift, as she says, "Nadeen loved her mother,"

And with those four words a mood is set. We clearly know that the story that follows will flow from that simple fact.

But at another time a different storyteller approaches the podium, her face in lines of disappointment as she scans the audience on the way there. For a moment she looks out over the audience, one arm across her chest, the other, elbow cupped that hand, supports her chin. She is, obviously, not happy with what she sees, and her head is shaking in disapproval.

Finally, she takes a deep breath and flips a hand at the audience in dismissal, as in a voice dripping with sarcasm, she says, "Nadeen loved her mother." The same four words but a very different mood has been set, and we know that Nadeen's love was a much darker thing.

Four identical words, but such a different meaning. And here's your problem: I start my now story with, "Nadeem loved her mother." How will you read it. As I intended? Only if you're lucky.

My point? You cannot use the techniques of verbal storytelling in a medium that reproduces neither sound nor picture, because what the reader gets is dependent on the meaning they assign to the words, based on their background and needs. And given that the reader has a different background, cultural assumptions, and perhaps even gender, what they get will not be what you intend.

To better understand what I mean, and how to fix the problem this article might help:
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/inside-out-the-grumpy-writing-coach/

It's not a matter of talent or potential as a writer, or even the story. It's that you're using the techniques of verbal storytelling in a medium unsuited for them. And that's a problem simple, though not easy to fix: to write like a pro you need the tricks of a pro.

It's simple because there are so many books, workshops, retreats, even cruises devoted to helping. Not easy because like any profession it takes study, practice, and perhaps a bit of mentoring. You are, after all, learning an entirely different approach to presenting a story. But if we spend no time or money on acquiring our writers education can we say we're serious about writing?

The local library system's fiction writing section can be a huge help. And when there, seek the names Dwight Swain, Jack Bickham, or Debra Dixon on the cover. They're pure gold.

This article is a condensation you'll find in any of those books:
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/scene.php

You might also want to dig around in the writing articles in my blog. They're written with the newer writer in mind.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

Finally