As I was riding across the steppes of Outer Mongolia (it hurt to sit down for a year afterwards), beneath horizons that appeared to be of limitless blue, I thought this was a country that called for an elemental style.
Photo by Anurag Agnihotri.
I’ve always loved Cormac McCarthy and amongst his many talents is the nature of his prose. “Clean and hard as pebbles,” says the Independent on Sunday; “language as subtly beautiful as its desert setting,” the Sunday Times. His style has been likened to The Old Testament and described as, “formidable,” “overpowering,” “transcendent.” To me his writing is beautiful and direct, naked and almost pagan in its connection to the landscape and base human nature.
In All the Pretty Horses, his most accessible book, he begins:
At the hour he’d always choose when the shadows were long and the ancient road was shaped before him in the rose and canted light like a dream of the past where the painted ponies and the riders of that lost nation came down out of the north with their faces chalked and their long hair plaited and each armed for war which was their life and the women and children and women with children at their breasts all of them pledged in blood and redeemable in blood only.
Every writer has their own distinctive voice but I believe style can be altered at least somewhat to match your subject. Even though PD James is writing detective fiction, for instance, by setting her latest novel, Death at Pemberley, as a sequel to Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, her writing resonates with Austenian style.
My trip to Mongolia was to research my third novel, The Naked Name of Love, and whilst I did not make it too McCarthy-esque (it’s set in the Victorian era), I did borrow some of his terseness and his grandeur and, above all, the lack of speech marks. I felt that in a country as raw and ancient as Mongolia, the words of those who spoke as they traversed the steppes or the Gobi desert, should be an integral part of that primitive landscape. I did use commas, though.
PRACTICE
Write a paragraph in the style of Cormac McCarthy about a recent travel experience.
Think about the way McCarthy juxtaposes very long and brutally short sentences with little punctuation and alternates between the mundane (‘They bought baloney and cheese and a loaf of bread and a jar of mayonnaise. They bought a box of crackers and…etc’) and the transcendental (‘should all horses vanish from the face of the earth the soul of the horse would not also perish for there would be nothing out of which to replenish it’) and raw description (‘the shapes of trailing moss in the rips below the ford flared and twisted electric green’).
Write for fifteen minutes. When you’re finished, post your practice in the comments.
And if you post, make sure to comment on a few other Practitioners’ posts.
Dr Sanjida O’Connell is a writer based in Bristol in the UK. She’s had four works of non-fiction and four novels published. Sugar Island, her latest novel, is about a young English actress whose husband takes her to Georgia, where she finds herself caught in the middle of the American Civil War.
Do I dare admit that I have never read Cormac McCarthy but now can’t wait to go buy one of his books? And Sandjida intrigues me as well. Loved this post – how style can be altered to match the subject. Something I have had to learn as a freelance feature writer for magazines. So different from blogging.
Try “The Road” or “No Country for Old Men”, great novels.
He wrote Blood Meridian which is one of the most brutal books I’ve ever come upon. It’s good but I never could finish it. Maybe I’ll try again. It is well written, very well written, maybe too well written for those of us who are hypersensitive to cruelty.
You read that, Marianne (or part of it)? I both loved and was quite frustrated with that book. The ending is crazy. I still don’t fully understand it.
I never finished it. I tried to read it because someone highly recommended it. I don’t like westerns very much anyway and it was just too gory for me. The writing was amazing though. Maybe I should try to read all the pretty horses.
I agree with you, it’s brutal. Although sections of The Road are also hauntingly savage.
The Orchard Keeper is also pretty violent in a quiet, singular way.
But you’re right, the language is beautiful and he seems to be saying something profound, even if I can’t always grasp what it is!
I don’t blame you. I listened to a few teachings online about it from literature professors and they all said they quit reading it, too, including Harold Bloom. As Sanjida said, All the Pretty Horses is much more accessible. It’s one of my favorite books. You’d like it, I think.
Thank you so much, Shelly. I know what you mean. I also work as a journalist and you have to alter style considerably switching between different publications. I still struggle sometimes to make the change from the style needed for a UK newspaper feature to say, New Scientist.
I was from Cork city, a civilised place with gas to heat us in the winter and a coal fire on special occasions. I married Dan when I was twenty two, fresh out of college and full of life, Dan was a fully paid up member of the bachelor club until I arrived this year according to the old men gossiping after Mass, he was forty four.
We had first met when I was sixteen and running away from home because my brother, the sneaky little pup had stolen my diary and read it to the gang of kids we hung out with. Full of teenager-angst he told them all I had a crush on Timmy, the unofficial leader of our pack. My diary no more said those words than if the Pope had a baby, himself. So I was on the train to Mallow, with a bag of clothes, a tenner and a packet of biscuits. Dan, was just the man sitting opposite, nose in a book, he didn’t blip on my radar, owld one. The train had been getting up speed over the viaduct when it made a sudden stop. Dan fell forward over the table and we banged heads.
There are some interesting rhythms to this writing.
Thanks Marianne, I like your writing too further up the page, lovely descriptions
Thanks Suzie. I wish I could develop that Gaelic lilt but I think my family lost it generations ago.
It feels very Irish to me, or maybe Irish-American, in the lilt of the language.
thank you, I am living in Ireland but a total blow-in
According to most teachers of the sacred craft of fiction, if Joe-Blow submitted to an agent an opening like this, he could expect his SASE in the mail forthwith. The charge: Too long a sentence… too many adjectives … there’s no action. But it didn’t happen to McCarthy, which tells me more is at stake than the formulaic trifle passed on by our literary sages.
True, but Cormac has been publishing for 40 years. He also won a MacArthur’s Genius grant. By the time Pretty Horses came out, I think he could publish whatever he wanted.
I had a similar experience, even though I’ve had 4 novels published. My agent said that I could not write a sci-fic book because I’m classed as a literary writer so I wouldn’t get a publisher. Yet people of Cormac’s stature are able to write sci-fi that is then marketed as literary fiction not sci-fi (I’m thinking of The Road).
That’s very surprising, Sanjida. Would your sci-fi novel be kind of literary, like Cormac’s?
He also had the benefit that apocalyptic literature is kind of in right now.
I have read passages of description that were so long and detailed that when I finished I had forgotten what it was the author was describing.
It’s true. I’ve had that happen myself, particularly with Faulkner. Liz once read over my shoulder as I was reading Faulkner and said, “Yuck. How do you read that? It doesn’t have any commas!” I said, “Yes, but it’s beautiful.” It took me a long time to finish that book, and maybe the only reason I know what it was about is because I read the synopsis on Wikipedia, but it was beautiful.
I love Faulkner’s writing too Joe. It is beautiful. I’ve read some of his books several times and still don’t feel like I understand them fully, but I’m not sorry I read them. His short stories are much more accessible. I read that he has a sentence in one book that goes on for a page. They definitely give a picture of the deep south in my grandmothers’ times, and for me that makes them important. It helps me understand to a small degree the thought of the region.
It definitely does give a picture of the south, a south I’ve caught glimpses of every once in a while since moving here.
I sort of strayed from the rules of today’s practice. My story below is not about a recent travel I had but it is still a travel.
Hope you all enjoy 🙂
***
I hear the boosters die down. The rocket is now descending purely on gravity holders alone. I look at Father seated beside me with my eyes pleading. He studies me for a minute then I see a smile appear behind his mahogany colored beard followed by a small nod. With all haste, I unbuckle my seatbelt and I rush to the nearest circular window. Outside, I see Silcarine for the first time.
Stretching out before me is a sea of red. The red soil of Silcarine is dotted with small hills here and there. The land was still barren and uncultivated but when I squint my eyes and I look beyond the horizon I can see the outline of the Colony—spires jutting out of the red hued ground of the planet Silcarine. From here, they were so small it looked like they were needles planted on the ground. I raise my hand and I hold the Colony between my thumb and index finger. I smile at our new home.
The gravity holders are turned off. The rocket touches the rough surface of the planet and the ship violently shook. I lost my footing and the Colony slips from my fingers. Fortunately for me, strong hands grab hold of my shoulders. I look up and I see the bearded face of Father. Father helps me on my feet. I try to take another glimpse of Silcarine but the circular window was closed. But that’s all right, because it means that it’s time for us to get off the ship and to this alien planet.
Father passes to me a helmet shaped like a fish bowl. I put it on and the visor automatically closes down as I lock the helmet to my suit. Inside the helmet I see gauges and meters and all sorts of stuff appear on my interface. There’s one for oxygen left in my tank, another one’s for the gravity of the place where I am currently in. The others I’m still unfamiliar with. In front of us, the locks of the door of the ship twist and turn and steam emanates from them as they slide open. Father takes hold of my small hand. The huge metallic door rises up and we see Silcarine up close for the first time.
The Shepherd tells us that Silcarine is a planet plagued with violent sandstorms once every Earth week. Aside from the sandstorms, Silcarine is a safe planet void of any other living things aside from the humans who came before us. Today, according to him, is a safe day for us and we should have no fear of sandstorms. By pair we step out of the claustrophobic rocket ship and onto the red soil of our alien home planet.
I look above me and I see the sky bursting with stars. There are millions, probably billions, of them. I stretch my palm upwards and I try to gather them in my tiny hand. I remember Father telling me once about stars. He said that because of the great distance between the stars and us we could still see their light sometimes even though the star itself had already died. As I crane my neck up and my eyes drown with the million burning stars, I know that one of them is the ghost of our Sun still haunting the people it once gave life to. I don’t know which one’s our Sun but I know it’s still there watching over us even though it had already passed away. I smile at the thought and I utter a silent thank you. Father grabs hold of my shoulder and together we make our way to a hovercar that’ll bring us to our new home.
That is really good. It reminds me of a desert landscape or bleak landscape in the American West. What I love though is the part about our sun being dead and still watching us. That’s just a wonderful thought. Is that part of a book? I hope so.
It’s not actually. I”ve only thought of it for this exercise. But I don’t see any reason why I can’t expand this into a full blown novel 🙂
I’ll give it a shot one of these days.
Ooh, I’d love to read more!
I’m really happy you liked it 🙂
Here’s something from a story I’m working on. I’m not sure if it what is being asked for here. I took a lot of punctuation out of it, so tell me if it’s still understandable or not.
He remembered the Great Dismal Swamp where on summer vacation he and his father stomped in high boots, with canteens and collapsible tin cups and compasses. They looked for great blue herons which stood like statues and then in a rush of huge wings took flight, trailing their long legs behind them. They flew low to thickets of gray cypress trees where they hid until the hikers left
The heat, and the boots, and the long sleeved shirts exhausted Jimmy but he followed his father. His father admired the ancient spartans. As he trailed his father Jimmy looked at the sandy ground, blotched with patches of black decayed swamp matter. Where the ground was wet it slushed up and left a dried gray residue on their boots. They took off their boots when they returned to the trailer where his mother had dinner waiting. Jimmy ate and then slept.
Marianne, the sounds pretty close to what the post is asking for.
I don’t think I’m going to try this one.
Ha!
Thanks Angelo.
I thought this was beautiful, Marianne.
Thanks Joe
Hi Marianne, Thanks for sharing!
Great job describing the scenery. Your words helped me pa
int a vivid image in my head. My favorite part is about the birds flying through the trees.
Thank you JB. I appreciate your reading it and commenting. It means a lot to me.
That’s great. I too liked the part about the herons. You’ve captured Cormac’s terseness and the relentlessness of nature and living. Fantastic!
Thanks. We used to go there when I was young and it was so uncomfortable but beautiful.
Thanks Marianne.this was very informative for me. Please continue this awesome work. Sincerely…The article is very well!
very nice, I like it . Thank Anurag Agnihotri.
a very nice picture
it is very nice i like this photo
The trees were forced to grow sideways, stacked on
top of each other, twisted together like giant wooden vines. The further in
they walked the more tangled the leaves and vines and branches and thorns were
becoming. Soon they were all tangled together the plants and humans holding
fast until they all became one again and sank into the ground, feeding the
earth with death in ways they never could in life.
He boarded and sat and the bus was late and he was sure he
wouldn’t get there on time. His clothes were stiff and awkward and not those he
wore regular and he felt like an ill-wrapped bob-bon. In the tinted glass his
reflection peered back with crimson eyes and hair awry and he avoided it and shuffled
the presentation folders so the loose slips not fall out. His keys and wallet
were bulbous in his jeans and he sat uncomfortable and even though he felt he
had what it took to do the job he wasn’t sure he’d make a good impression on
the powers that be, on the key-holders and gate-keepers of this world.
The bus arrived with a minute to spare and he alighted and there were direction
signs all around yet he was unsure as to their meaning and he simply stood as
other applicants surged about and moved on and some gave him wry smiles as they
went as if they knew his inner-state and then he sat in the gutter and looked at
the dull grey clouds above and the light rain that had begun to fall and he sat
as the rain dampened his clothes and penetrated his being and felt dejected and
respondent and he knew he could not go inside.
Here and there in the city could be seen a destitute man laying across the sun-reddened brick of public walls and old condominiums, with a tattered sheet of cardboard gripped desperately between dirty hands. Almost all walked past. Their skin was drawn loosely around their faces which showed unfathomed misery and hunger not known by those living in the civilized world.
I walked past these men. I have no ground from which to judge those who’ve done as I have. An identical indifference is all that we may share.
The lobby of the hotel was cold and the lights had been dimmed so that one standing at the threshold felt as if the night sky was running forever in front of them. I caught the glance of an old man sitting and reading from a newspaper. I hurried to check in, avoiding the glance of the young and limp woman standing behind the gleaming marble counter. I took the elevator alone. The metal interior portrayed me as limpid like a stream does to the image of the sun glaring down at it.
The time had come to sleep. My room was sparse, but I did not mind. I fell on the bed and turned my head to look at the yellow curtains. They were parted to allow a sweeping vulture’s glance over the street. I thought again of those poor, hungry mouths. The darkness dragged me down. I slept in the least credulous consciousness one could have thought of.
As Banquo and Macbeth walked through the battlefield all smeared with blood and cluttered with bodies Macbeth was looking at a faraway point and thinking.
Why do you start and seem to fear what sounds so pleasant?
There is no chance that I shall be king. And Cawdor lives which means they are mistaken.
Macbeth knelt over and looked at a soldier. His face was blank and he could feel the life escaping him.
They told me I am going to be king. And also thane of Cawdor. What if they say the truth?
Banquo was distracted with the approaching Thane of Ross and didn’t hear what Macbeth said.
If I must, I will have to kill him.
I love ‘looking at a faraway point’
I think to be more McCarthy-esque, you need some repetition within a sentence or from one to the next.
Or how about alliteration?
The plane stood ready. The nose was poised for liftoff the wing flaps stretching the wheels loose. The light came on and the attendant called now boarding first class. People shuffled forward whether they could board or not it didn’t matter. Finally after an eternity it was our turn the stern ticket collector scanning the measly paper and letting us pass everyone walking swiftly down the hall almost afraid it would collapse in on them yet moving just as fast in the plane like they were going to walk instead of fly. Quickly quickly everyone thought we must pick up our bags put them in their bins and sit down and make sure we don’t look at anyone else because they mustn’t know we are here. I sit down. Each person blindly waiting to move while sitting. To fly.
posted this on wearewasatchacademy.tumblr.com
I am going to do the practice (at lea
As the train was going from the coast, we could see the sea that looks like a grey blanket on the earth beneath it. The weather’s pessimistic color was matching with the white fluorescent light in the train. It was creating the perfect depressive moment that reminds me my sadness of leaving this beautiful country.
more! 🙂
and maybe’the pessimistic weather matched the white…”
Gray Blanket, Fluorescent light, prefect depressive. WHAO! Enough said! Those are some killer combinations that flow so well. Good Job!
They rode up to the cabin in the small van. They drove and
drove and passed miles of trees with leaves and without leaves and miles of
little rivers and big rivers and flocks of leaping deer and lumbering moose and
slum towns and sparkling cities and tiny cars and ate on the road without
stopping still cramped in their own tiny car and went for miles and miles and
saw little houses and massive mansions and cabins like the one they were going
to. For peace and quiet. So much in a little world. Such a long road and a long
drive on the road. They wanted to get away from the pollution in the sky and
the blaring of the cars and the yelling of the people. They needed a break.
They needed to relax, to enjoy the quiet and the lake and the sun. Better that
all the magnificent malevolent machines of mankind were to go away and leave
the planet and its people in peace.
you’ve got it all in one paragraph. (!!!)
and i posted this on wearewasatchacademy.tumblr.org
“…trees with leaves and without leaves and miles of little rivers and big rivers…” That’s my fav part for sure, but everything about this is so McCarthy it’s insane! Well done good sir.
I don’t have to tell you Christian. You know you’re a genius. But there is a sentence that stood out to me “all the magnificent malevolent machines of mankind” WOW! That is saying so many things in one sentence and that is McCarthey style for sure! You know how to make the “read between the lines” creative and wonderful!
When we arrived in the city the doorman greeted us by our last name and whisked our bags upstairs. Stepping into the apartment it was all fine china and winding staircases leading to closets filled with Chanel suits and refrigerators filled with Cristal and pictures of children and grandchildren at Andover hockey games and Columbia graduations lining marble shelves surrounding flat screen TVs and expectations to live the life set up for you. The city where people go to chase their dreams has nothing more to offer for the children living in penthouses on 1st and Sutton than private planes and trust funds and invites to parties so you can wear Alexander Wang couture and meet the man whose going to put a Harry Winston diamond on your ring finger- the finger thats haunted by days spent down your throat vomiting up the dreams you had but couldn’t achieve because society wants you to forget what you want and focus instead on getting a reservation at Park Avenue Winter and hiring someone to renovate your Hamptons house. Happiness doesn’t belong here.
one good thing about this paragraph if we were to disregard the assignment…i would know this was yours. this means you have a unique ‘voice’-we want that, right? (!!) nice.
as far as mimicking mccarthy’s style, you have the long vs the short down, and i like the ‘and pictures of grandchildren and children’ (the use of and )
good job.
I just had to tell you that I thought this was amazing. The description of the scenery is incredible but the meaning is very clear. You know how McCarthey like to hide things from us lol. So I think that one thing that should be consider. But I love this piece better than his!
These days are unruly. These aren’t the mornings and evenings and dusks and dawns that I fought for. Watching my country slip into chaos like daggers pierces my heart and buries me in the dungeons of ambivalence and showers upon me the wrath of the masses. I am lost. Wandering in a terrain full of foes bereft of friends filled with fiends disguised as my own I look for the exit to the world I am made for. Or the world made for me.
These days are unruly. These aren’t the mornings and evenings and dusks and dawns that I fought for. Watching my country slip into chaos like daggers pierces my heart and buries me in the dungeons of helplessness and showers upon me the wrath of the masses. I am lost. Wandering in a terrain full of foes bereft of friends filled with fiends disguised as my own I look for the exit to the world I am made for. Or the world made for me.
‘These aren’t the mornings AND evenings AND Dusks AND Dawns…”
Nice 🙂
‘Or the world made for me’ is good both in structure and theme.
Nice:)
Agree with Mrs. Beckhams comment about “…the world I am made for. Or the world made for me.” That’s awesome and vaguely philosophical. Radical
Driving on the wet and dark gray road and puddles from the morning rain while somber clouds were hovering across the valley I could see the sun starting to warm the earth and watch the rays grow larger and larger until it filled the valley with warmth. Finally getting to my location a place where there is no happiness on this cruel day the frisk air under my shirt and the dampness of the earth around me lead me to realize this day would not be pleasant. A dark and dreadful day.
‘the wet AND dark gray road AND puddles from the morning rain’ …greatness!
‘somber, sun, starting’ …nice alliteration
‘dampness…dark and dreadful day’…” ”
good job, Kid
The wind and the whistling of the wind whirls around my porcelain face nudging me to step away from the edge of the veranda the city chirred beneath me where hell smirks up at me opening the world that lie wretched but divine the lucifer fondles his wings, a heavenly facade while i think of the fluttering note of nonsense sentiment i have left inside the room all i did was take a step towards infinity and i was rolling in the air the wind screaming my sins following with the fall the nonsense sentiments screaming my own words, whirling. thud. ow. mom won’t be happy with the bruise.
‘The wind and the whistling of the wind’ …spot on! Perfect.
‘hell smirks’…Love!
I think the last sentence is less McCarthy-esque but still a strong, stylish voice. Good job, ‘freak sum’ 🙂
“The city chirred beneath me where hell smirks up at me opening the world that lie wretched but divine the lucifer fondles his wings…” OMG LOVE! So good! So McCarthy it’s insane.
Hey, I think this is my roommate yega. Hehe Anyway, I love your use of alliteration. Also they personification is amazing. Hell smirks up at me that is definitely McCarthey style. Good Job!
Rain drops smashed into the windows of the sand tinted truck. They
raced down to disappear off the border as if they were trying to avoid the
other oncoming raindrops that could easily consume them because they were a lot smaller since they had already left most of their bodies behind. He would have
wanted it to rain today so that we wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time looking at his rock. Said Mom. What should happen if all the raindrops leave their bodies behind so that others could see where they went and where they traveled only to have their marks covered up by the another round of drops. We can’t forget him. I said accidentally. Not your fault. Inside the glove compartment was the five dollars and thirty two cents that would buy us the yellow magnolias and fiery tiger lilies that we would put on top of the tombstone of my past deceased father who used to have black curly hair and pasty skin but the last time I saw him had no hair and even pastier skin. The welcome bell chimes as the door opens.
i think mccarthy may have just made up a word like ‘sandtint truck’ instead of sand tinted. what do you think? 🙂
i love ‘they raced down to disappear off the border’ (!)
i think you should get rid of ‘as if’ in the second sentence
I love the last few five lines! So great, Daniel. Ahem…I mean ‘So great LAnie Beckham Made Me’ Ha
As the crisp morning air brushed her face she ran up the stairs to get her last suitcase then made her way to the car and towards the airport she go. All she could think about was laying on the cool sand in her two-piece bathing suit looking out toward the ocean in Panama City, Panama while sipping a fresh cup of iced lemonade. Her mother on the other hand was rummaging through the airport to buy calling cards to let her aunt know they were on our way and five hours later they landed in a hot sticky airport where all around her sound like gibberish and the people was speaking an unknown language called Spanish. She heard this come out of my mother mother’s mouth all the time and she would constantly make fun of her but now she was the laughing stock. She spoke English. Venenca, Venenca, her mom said but the remembrance of English slipped through her head. Come here she said and stick by me for this a place that you can not be and so that image erased in her head that this is not a vacation but a learning experience instead!
‘the remembrance of English slipped through her head’ Whoa? I love!
…
Nashuba, have you ever seen McCarthy use an exclamation point? I don’t sink so, silly. (alliteration:)
Nice job, I think there is a little bit more of Nashuba here than McCarthy, but this was your first try, AND that just means Nashuba has a ‘voice’! WE want that, for sure. #satisfied
A thud was heard as the car door shut and the last of his luggage was loaded into the crowded confinements of a 1998 Honda Civic. He embraced his mother as she spoke softly into his ear repeating the phrases he had heard from her all too often:
Remember who you are.
I will.
Be safe, don’t get into any fights.
I know.
Call me when you get there.
Okay.
Don’t forget to say your prayers or go to church.
After he listened to his mothers directions they said goodbye he got in his car and he drove away looking at the life that he once knew from the rearview mirror.
Things will be different now.
He would no longer feel the pressure of attending church meetings that took place far too often and to say prayers in the morning and in the afternoon and in the evening and each time his family sat together to have a meal and each time he went somewhere with or without the accompaniment of his family. He would no longer have to read scripture after scripture being asked to interpret the meaning of the scripture so that the scripture might edify him and might cause him to believe in the things which his family believed in so fervently. He no longer had to listen to sermons of old men preaching to him as if they cared for him or understood who he was or to go to church or to repent for sins which he did not believe were sins or to thank God that he was born in the one and only true church of God or to go and to preach others to believe in this doctrine that he wasn’t certain he believed in himself.
He didn’t have to think about going to hell for drinking things that were bad and for listening to bad music and for watching bad movies and bad television shows and for having bad thoughts or for speaking bad words or for associating himself with bad people who did bad things and believed that good things were actually bad things and who did those bad things because they must love everything that is bad because they must believe that bad is good and good is bad.
That was behind him.
The images that were once projected in his rearview mirror had now changed to unfamiliar sights and scenery. He shifted his focus from the rearview mirror onto the long road ahead of him, reaffirming that one familiar phrase,
Things will be different now.
As we stepped out of the van and stepped onto the pavement and onto the
nice silky sand we knew we were at the beach. The fresh breeze hitting
our faces and our faces hitting the breeze and everyone enjoying the
breeze that only at the beach it is found. At our left there are people
and to our right there are people and all around us there is many
people. This is life. We are surrounded with people and sand and water
and laughter and happiness what more could a person ask. This is
enough. Water that cools you down and sun that keeps you warm and the
fresh breeze that hugs you. This is called The Beach.
High dunes rose into the azure sky that extended far into the horizon where they faded into the white caps near the edge of the earth where a fishing boat tugged along a tightrope with its arms extended for balance. The dunes served as a halfhearted barrier of protection from the gales and sand and eyes of the other tourist who struggled to reach us on the torrid beach. A life guard or park ranger approached walking stiff in newly pressed safari garb.
How is the water? he asked my six year old son.
Cold. Wet.
How do you like the beach?
It’s too damn sandy.
The life guard eyed me as I reclined in my beach chair and maneuvered the illegal beer bottle into the rough of my cargo pants. He said nothing. From my boy he already knew I was smart and most likely would just cause trouble upon hearing his first words. I did not break my gaze off the horizon in front of me but he could tell my eyes were shifted sideways and lay heavy upon him behind the dark mirrored lenses of my glasses.
He shook his head and walked on.
Wait, my son called to the ranger.
I have to ask you a question.
He stopped.
What is it young man?
The boy cocked his head skyward momentarily before placing his hands on his hips and pushed his pink belly forward. He twisted his stance one way and then the other.
How come my turds sink in the toilet at home but they float all over the damn place in the ocean?
— Now that’s the way you do it, Cormac ; ) —
He picked up the gun and checked for bullets and saw there
were none, but held the gun low and walked off as she watched his head turn
from dirty browndrenched curly hair to a dark curly shadow against the peach
and red sunset.
We’re still fighting?
He turned around and looked at her and didn’t answer, and
she started off toward him, and he turned back to his walk. They found a trail where the dirt had dried
and cracked and was caked bread with ants and it was life but it didn’t
surprise them the way human life did.
I don’t know what else we would do Shell.
Shell turned to him when he answered, and he looked at her,
and looked at her gray blue eyes with red tendrils reaching up for the iris and
watched a gnat land on her eyebrows, and run through the hairs then down to her
nose and she smacked at it, and it left and she momentarily stops focusing on
him, then looks back at him for another question.
But we’ll die Sam. There’s nothing else we can do but
die.
What way do you wanna die girl?
She is slightly taken aback, and she moves her chin inward,
and she doesn’t have any extra skin when she does it because she is lean and her
facial and neck muscles show and Sam can see a blue vein on the side of her
face leading to her right eye and it’s active.
She may be the last woman on Earth.
I don’t wanna die.
We’re gonna die Shell.
I don’t wanna die.
Sam turns to her, and stops her. Their walk ends, and they are both on sides
of the small trail, and the air stops moving with them and surrounds them but
it doesn’t hug them. Instead it lays on
them and tries to smother them and they both have to breathe a little harder to
catch their breath. Sam clinches his
teeth, and licks his lips, and wipes sweat from his forehead, and wipes the back
of his neck.
Shell ther ain’t nowhere else woman. Ain’t nowhere.
She starts to tear up, and she reaches for her machete in
her waistband, and pulls it from her back, and brings it around, and she holds
out her arm.
Then why don’t I do it now?
Why don’t you?
Shell’s eyes widen, and she furrows her brow, and she
clinches her jaw, but her lips are open, and she’s breathing harder now. She shakes her head and switches the machete
in her grasp so that it’s pointing down, and she looks at her arm.
You know why you won’t do it girl.
That don’t mean nothin to me no more Sam.
Means something to me.
Sam turns, and starts walkin again, and Shell doesn’t put
the weapon way. She follows him, and they
follow the trail into the woods, and out of sight and into their mission.
the eyes of the man pierced right through the woman, blue as lapis, as though her soul had just been unlocked.
Here’s my first try at resembling something close to Cormac McCarthy:
He picked up the knife from the shelf, eyeing the sharp blade with his blue eyes. He felt the silver blade against the palm of his left and he felt the aged wooden handle in the right hand. The wrinkled and crinkly face gazed through the old collection of antique knives, machetes, swords, and ancient muskets of ages past, and they were stacked neatly, one with another, until they met together in perfect harmony and symmetry. Yea, the weapons were harmonized, in a glorious symphony of violence and of blood and of glory and of manhood and of war and of honor.
Man how did these weapons survive? After all these darn years? said the old man.
The cozy wind swam over the head and the figure of the old man, and the blue azure of the sky loomed through the open window and into the room, and it gave a cool solace to the man and the freshness of cool air and the beauty of the blue sky, until it engulfed over him and the weapons. He twisted the knife with his hand slow and clinical, and he practiced swiftly taking it out should he get into a fight, when his life would be threatened and he would need his trusty blade to do the job of aiding him and wounding his enemies.
The old man placed the knife in the scabbard, and in the presence of the azure he went to his rocking chair on the brick balcony and he laid there and he dreamed and he snored soundly that his snore may swing to the high heavens that would watch over him and his trusty knife.
First was the hollow. This was the ancient reminder that not at was sacred in the world save for this untouched corner of existence where darkness did not reveal death but life in a singular pause between living and dying. As we descended our hopes grew stronger as our fears diminished into what appeared to be a caricature of the void between us and between our souls and the Earth that lived below us. A gentle darkness not unlike the dominion of night greeted us into following made only real by the touch of the dirt beneath our weary feet where sacrifice and blood once spilled into a beautiful casualty of nature eternal.