Now, here is the prologue to a novel I'm working on. I write this when I have writer's block on my Boat book, and vice versa.
There was a room. The walls were a blue-grey stone that had crumbled into dust. Upon those walls were scrawled, in what appeared to be white chalk, the words, 'And so shall the maw of the heavens spread wide, and so shall the haughty breath of the sky become dragon flame unto the Earth.' The words were infinitely fresher than the rest of the room. On the floor was a thick and nearly undisturbed layer of granite dust that had gathered there over the last nearly 18 years. One could have said, though one didn't, that to look upon this room might have reminded one of a cell. Dingy is pleasant, this room was a nightmare. Five, nearly a man Five, lived in this room all by his lonesome.
There was a bench. Battered, splintering, and supporting the now substantial weight of a young orphan who at one time was no larger than an American football. In his present state, however, he was the size of a man, and yes nearly two weeks short of becoming a man. He was hunched over, his face in his hands, contemplating matters so shockingly complex that she who happened to be at the centre of those matters would have laughed in the face of someone who might have informed her that this near-man was contemplating them. Five was fairly worried about the draft. He would be, in 12 days' time, wrenched kicking, screaming, and crying from the orphanage that he, for lack of a better term, had come to call home. The world was at war, and all men of age, as Five would soon be, were given a uniform and told to march.
There was a boy. He was broad-shouldered and somehow thin, sharp in shape yet round of the edges, a sickening pale that was in some way darker than twilight, and he was terribly frightened of the world, or perhaps of himself. The boy was very much alone. Five had, for his entire life, been very much alone. Tears cut treads through the jacket of dust wrapped round his cheeks as silent sobs gripped him. Six was at the forefront of his mind and he could see no way of ever again holding her the way he had only mere hours previous. Something, he thought with terrible intensity, was terribly amiss in the world that he should discover what had been the very first true passion in his life only to be sent forth upon a battlefield where he would surely die.
There was a door. Numbered five, containing Five, and the fifth to be filled. Though by appearance alone it would have been thought of as oak, the door had in fact been stone. Long ago, a young boy with a certain talent had decided it was time for a change. With a stolen brush and stolen paints he set about transfiguring what was yet one more blue-grey, dusted and decaying slab into something warm, foreign and all-together more pleasant. So Five, at five, had painted door five. The door was reborn and the boy was locked away from human contact for a month. Punishment in the orphanage was never pleasant and rarely civil. At this juncture in time, before the masked door, stood Six.
There was a girl. Not entirely attractive but no more repulsive to gaze upon either; she was simply who she was and looked the part. Six was horribly confused and felt a certain familiar knot fighting to fill her throat with its malicious intent. She fought back the salted droplets from her eyes best she could, but this was a losing war. Her hand was on the brass knob of the door, which itself had too be painted to appear wooden. Possibly she thought of a recent embrace, a kiss, and a promise that could not be kept. Possibly she thought of a boy, soon to be a man, soon to be gone, soon to be shot, soon to be dead. Possibly she hadn't thought of a thingy thing at all; merely letting raw emotion and pent up confusion, frustration, and rage from a nearly eighteen year relationship shower her, pelting at the skin of her soul leaving welts and bruises that may never heal. Desperately, at last, she raced through the endless corridors of her mind looking for the words to cry out, to scream, to wash over Five. Six wanted nothing more than to burst through the door and grab Five never again letting go, shouting for the world to hear all her deepest desires. She could not, however. That would have been utterly simple, easy, and practical. Six was a young girl and as such understood none of these concepts. So she stood there, about to stream an ocean of tears.
There was a ward. The numbers ward in the orphanage had become something of a legend amongst the named. Only those whom had arrived upon the orphanage doorstep, nameless as wee children, were admitted to the ward. Categorized and given a number, they were cut off from those children with names and lives. The ward was far different from the rest of the orphanage. There were no windows, there were no carpets, no games, no music, no laughter. There was only the blue-grey stone, falling apart and decorating its hall and rooms with a dust that left the children embittered and feeling cast off. No one room was different from another, and down the hall was one, two, three, four, five, six and so forth. Each was small, each was battered, each was bruised. Only one though had a message hastily scribbled onto its walls. This was new to the ward, and perhaps it meant something.
There was an orphanage. It sat in the centre of a city that was perhaps nearly as dreary as the confines of the numbers ward. Surrounded by a high fence, the numbers ward stood an eye-sore upon which men dared not gaze. Cold, impenetrable, solid, stone; an obelisk erupting forth from the Earth, seeming only to exist for the purpose of cruel isolation. The orphanage had not been more than a few months old when its first abandoned child arrived. A week alive at best, the babe was left in a basket upon the doorstep and a man found him. With no name, no family, nothing to prove he existed save for a diaper and basket, he was taken in and given a number. One. As the Almighty Father, Derrik Cavanaugh, carried One to a warm bed, he passed Ricks, and Joes, and Jims, and Betties, and Delilahs. He did not pass, however, any Ones, Twos, Threes, or Fours. Cavanaugh was a conflicted man, with the world on his shoulders. He hadn't a clue what to do with a newborn babe, so he put One someplace new, someplace different, someplace where Derrik did not have to be a parent. So it came to be that the orphanage was split. There were those whom had arrived pre-packaged, named, and needing naught but a companion, bed, and warm meal. Then there were those whom had been abandoned from their conception; lost, friendless, and in a world that did not want them one bit. Upon the grounds there stood many cold and lifeless iron structures. Paint peeling from them, they grew a skin of playing children who had taken to latching on, swinging, and generally enjoying a tempered life as best they could. The grass was never green, though never had it been quite so yellow as it presently was, either. Death wisped up in steam and mist clouds hovering above the cold earth. Though it was July, a snap had broken through and the few children still acting a monkey were bundled up as well as was possible with their few possessions. Two of them gazed out into the world around them, a place they had never been and yet was so close.
There was a city. Minor Herron was sprawling in that men, women, and children were everywhere. Crowding the main-town streets, bustling busily along the weedy and cracked footpaths, and crashing in and out of the many small shops leaving scarcely a moment during the day where a door-bell was not ringing. The city was not, though, large in any respect. In fact, it had not shown up on a single map of
There was a statue. Tarnished and worn, it stood a monument to the achievements of Derrik Cavanaugh who had, in the heyday of his youth, literally built much of Minor Herron from the ground up. As the final act of greatness that he would impart upon his home city before locking himself away from the very world he had created, he built an orphanage. He was a man of myth to children, and an icon of the virtues that are perseverance and love of community to adults. Having served for three decades as mayor, Cavanaugh had met every single citizen of his fair city, and he made each of their happiness top priority. Lilly Cavanaugh died while the mayor was out shaking hands with the men who could put, as it is said, this city on the map. He resigned within months; his wife's death had sucked the hero out of him, and he had retreated. Lilly had been an orphan, and oft reflected in privacy the horror of a childhood on the street. One final diligence from Mayor Derrik Cavanaugh was to give a home to small, lost, bodies. The years of seeing children come through, and come through, had murdered the Derrik on the inside and left nothing but a withering grey-bearded shell, void of any more understanding or compassion. The statue, in an almost poetic way, reflected the deterioration of its subject. Once polished and proud, it reflected the sun high and proved a mighty sight with the gift of hope to all souls who would gaze upon it. It had however become a favourite site for graffiti, pigeon droppings, and other defacements. Once a healthy bronze, it now waxed grey, green, and orange, and had forgotten the meaning of lustre. Presently, standing in front of what seemed to him, painfully, was own reflection, stood Derrik Cavanaugh.
There was a storm. It brewed and swirled above Minor Herron, as Five sobbed silently upon his bench locked away in his room, and as Six wept with her hand upon a painted doorknob burning to grab Five up and force her lips upon his own, and as Almighty Father Derrik stood in a swirling pool of regret and sorrow facing the very embodiment of his own descent from hero to villain.
There was a storm, and it was a terrible omen.
Ok so that's that. Tell me if it has your interested or not.
Angst: I think I'm quitting my college program and changing my studies to English.
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