Random Freewrite 2, Week of 1/17/11 (late): Prose 2

This is a vignette I wrote a couple of years ago. I edited the names and some of the nouns. I also edited the pronouns for the characters, going with my original concept for the scene. I left the rest of it as is, to show where my writing has come from and what I still have to try to improve.


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Summer night. Close and slick. Sweat sliding down skin. Window's open, but there's no breeze. 

The crickets are calling. Owls, too. Dogs in the distance, howling at the quarter moon. Night's rich with sound, swallowing the car. 

Lee sits there. Sprawled loose and low, head against the rest. 

Beside em, eir twin is sleeping. Or maybe not. Resting, at least. Head propped on arms folded over the wheel. Can't see eir face for eir hair. Quiet. Not a word in a while. 

Ey's tired, too, but still awake. Head throbbing from the wound. Staring across the road to the pasture on the other side, at fireflies melting in and out, cattle huddled snug under the shelter of trees, and stars embossing the sky. 

They're well over sixty miles from the old town now. Hadn't stopped until they'd crossed the state line. Now they sit parked on the shoulder, near the scraggy neck of old AL-35. It’s another fifty miles to US-72 W, and the road to Gurley. 

The tiny golden beetle is cool in eir hand. Ey fingers it absently, gently. 

There's a brush against eir face. Feather-light and warm. It's the summer breeze stirring, but outside the trees remain calm. Their leaves are silent and dense. And the dogs are quiet now. 

For a moment, ey sees a reflection of home in eir mind. White against the deepest black. Hazy and frail, caught in eir mind like the trail of a plane, fading fast into a formless mist. 

Eir hand stills. Eyes close. Switching everything off, but that. Willing the dials of time to slow. 

There is no sound now. No warmth. 

Yesterday remains a time now past, and home does not reappear. A thousand careful echoes dying there in the barren well ey's left to climb.

It's hard to breathe. Head feels dizzy, and ey can feel eirself frowning.

Ey gives it a few minutes, then reopens eir eyes. They're burning dry. Ey blinks hard and rubs eir hand over eir face. Breathes in deep over the pressing weight. Glances across at eir twin. 

Kit is awake. Ey's looking this way, and in eir eyes, a curious expression. Something Lee can see but not define, an exhausted sort of peace hovering over the emptiness there. As if ey's seen the anchor pass em by and marked its name. As if ey knows it will stop one day and wait for em. 

There is something alive here, in the air between them. It's beating delicately against the tempered rocks of Lee's shore. 

Eir lips move stiffly, twisting. Not a smile, not really. But close enough. 

It's Kit who breaks the silence. 

"All right?" Eir soft voice is hoarse but calm. 

Lee offers a nod, of sorts. Jerky and strange. Feels too much like a tremble. 

Kit is quiet, watching eir twin's eyes. At length, eir lips twitch a little, and ey clears eir throat, looking down and away at eir hands on the steering wheel. Ey's smiling. It’s fragile and messy, but there. And just as Lee opens eir mouth to speak, Kit releases the wheel with a sigh and leans back against the seat. Shifts eir body around for comfort. Eir eyes are half-open for a moment, staring down as if ey studies the pattern of the seat between them. Then they close. Ey breathes out slow, surrendering eirself to sleep. 

Unannounced and gentle, the summer breeze stirs once more. It passes over them, soft and balmy, with just enough strength to nudge the hair out of Kit's eyes. Hair that's too long, and looks greasy, besides. Unwashed in these several days. It falls across Kit's forehead in ragged clumps and curls out wildly over eir ears. 

The road stretches out for a tapered mile towards the foot of a hill. It's shadowed. Hollow through yet oppressively close. A gauntlet. Forest on either side like a bulwark against them. 

Lee's weary, still, but wide awake. Eyes open, unfocused. Waiting for movement, for a light in the woods. 

Night's rustling. Crickets with their steady hum, the dogs starting up again, and a siren now from some miles away. Headache's a dim throbbing at eir temple. Sweat's gathering at the small of eir back. It glints as it slides down Kit's neck. Hours to go before the dawn. The car is hard, but it's solid. An engine in sync with em. Old leather molded to eir frame. Sleek, yet artless. And swift.

It is swept like driftwood, this ship, in the slender black current half-lit by moon. 

There's no anchor, but the walls are strong.