Final Collapse

TerrorFirmer

I haven't written anything in an awful long time, so bear with me. This is a rough draft of a short story...... about a futile war. It's not very original, then. But opinions welcome. So far I'm focusing more on characters then actual violence and I'm not sure what direction I'm taking.







There was a bridge, and it was the only prominent memory I have of my childhood. I was probably no more then five years old, but I remember my father, a car salesman, bringing me fishing there during the summer months. I never caught anything, he rarely did either; but I don’t think we needed to. It really was one of those clichéd bonds, but it was there all the same. I don’t think he ever fully understood how much it meant to me, even at that age.

‘Do not fear the enemy advance. If they attack, our armour will be here in two hours.’ We were told, virtually at gunpoint, as our engineers demolished the one tentative link I had to my past. It disappeared in a terrific show of thunder, smoke and dust that temporarily blocked out the sun and forced us, cursing, into the damp grass along the river bank. Of course, we still feared the enemy advance, and more often then not, our armour never did arrive, either already destroyed or immobilized before it could reach us. We have been in retreat for the past eighteen months. The spin of the Federal Government is an ‘organised withdrawal’. The propaganda might have worked initially, but it didn’t take long for people to see through the lies. But no one dares question the regime. Now we defend the ‘Gates of Arcadia’, with merely 100,000 men. They tell us that here we will stop the enemy horde and force them back. They do not give us estimates of enemy strength, but an acquaintance of mine located in central intelligence HQ told me that they believe enemy maintains superiority in the region of ten to one. Here, there is no respite. There is nowhere to retreat anymore. We are on our own territory and our backs are to the wall.

Once the smoke clears, we go back to digging trenches along the river bank. It all seems so futile, and has done for the past two years. There’s no hope in anything we do anymore. I sneak a glance at what remains of the bridge. Its twisted structure is still intact on our end, stretching out several meters before snaking and twisting grotesquely into the water. I am only digging for a few moments when the lieutenant tells me that this afternoon I am to join the reconnaissance patrol probing the river bank further downstream.

‘Hope you’ve handed over your letters.’ Kale says to us as he chambers his carbine, a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth. He doesn’t expect an answer and no one gives him one. I was on patrol yesterday too, in an area that is now already under enemy control. Kale found a youth smashing the glass of a bus shelter yesterday; it was probably the only thing left to smash in the entire town. Most of it had been flattened by artillery. His friends ran away; Kale let them go. He made the youth pick up all the glass with his bare hands. I watched as he scraped the glass slowly into piles, leaving smears of blood behind him. He didn’t even protest. That haunts me. He knew what was about to happen to him. It was all so pointless. When he was done, Kale shot him though the back of the head. I could see the tears on his face, but he didn’t even try to escape. I will never forget that.

The weather changes as we move down the river bank, the sunshine giving away to a murky, threatening sky and a light screen of drizzle. I don’t know any of the other soldiers; not even a single name. One of them, a skinny girl wearing oversized fatigues, looks younger then my own daughter. She turned fifteen last week, at least, she would have done. I still watch with concern the seemingly endless waves of enemy bombers passing our positions daily, unopposed, en route to their targets, probably the capital. But it’s just a familiar routine; my wife and daughter were killed two years ago in a particularly heavy bombing raid. I’ve been so long at the front that sometimes it’s hard to comprehend any other sort of reality. I look at Kale with indifference. He is nothing more then a thug given free reign by desperate circumstances. Yet I owe him my life. The field police wanted to shoot me in the aftermath of the fighting on the border, telling me I was a deserter and a traitor when they found me wandering around in a daze by myself. It’s better for the nation’s defence, they said, for it to be rid of such cowards. That the rest of my unit had been annihilated in a futile defence imposed on us by the military authorities did not interest them in the slightest. Kale saved me. I was drafted into a scratch unit. Maybe it would have been better for me to die back then, but I’m not convinced when I tell myself that. The human survival instinct, despite it all, is frighteningly strong.

Earthhorse

Hmmm, it's kinda hard to critique a draft for a story. As it stands the story doesn't really go anywhere, it's just an introduction. For what it's worth I think you write well. The second last paragraph is the best passage, almost perfect.

Where I would recommend making changes is to some of the exposition. When you tell us that "(your) wife and daughter were killed two years ago in a particularly heavy bombing raid" it sort of comes out of nowhere. Not entirely, as you are discussing the devastation of the bombed city before this but such heavy handed exposition really stands out in a short piece.

What is far more skillful is when you manage to included this smoothly in the piece as follows, "One of them, a skinny girl wearing oversized fatigues, looks younger then my own daughter. She turned fifteen last week, at least, she would have done." That's fine. Excellent even. You don't need to say anything more.

HavoK wrote:

I never caught anything, he rarely did either; but I don’t think we needed to. It really was one of those clichéd bonds, but it was there all the same. I don’t think he ever fully understood how much it meant to me, even at that age.

I also think you need to work on the bolded sentence above. As it stands it's too intrusive. Go back and have a look at the piece. See if you agree with me.

And finish the story!