I found I've been severely lacking in my attempts to practice my creative writing skills recently. So here's the challenge I've set before myself: I'm going to write one piece (poem/short/essay) every week until I run out of ideas or I get officially published...or nursing school melts my brain.
Here is the first attempt. If you are kind enough to read, please leave feedback in the comments. It would be much appreciated.
~~~
Everything was dark on the bahn. The stars hid away behind the blankets of clouds. From across the rolling hillocks came the crash of the ocean, softened by the wind into a low sound and a taint of salt. Rocks turned underfoot as he made his way toward the top of the hill.
His boots were cracked leather and mud with well-worn rubber soles that had long since lost any kind of tread. His pants were denim and mud to the knees where his long jacket had protected the rest. The collar of the jacket stood up around the gray woolen scarf that he wore to keep out the tearing wind, and he had a battered brown hat on top of his head, the brim broad and dusty. He wore a gun at his hip, a heavy piece of metal that threatened simply by being present. In his right hand, he carried a lantern.
He told people his name was Carter or Carson or sometimes Richard, depending on his mood. His name was Samuel. People who truly knew him called him Yuel, but there were few enough of those people. There had been a time when a name was simply a name and even a stranger could be trusted with it. The world had turned since them. It had changed. A civilization had fallen in that time. It had fallen so suddenly and so hard that no one had been prepared for what happened next. Food had run short. Tempers had run shorter. People died, from violence, from starvation, from stupidity and from simple illness.
Still, the world turned on as if did not notice the dead melting into its thick skin. The people who survived were a different breed from those who had been born to the world that was. The world-was had been filled with convenience and knowledge abounded in so many mediums that people gave up trying to discern what was useful and what was useless. The world-now had little time for trivia and popular art. There was only one thing of any use to anyone, and that was survival: how to grow crops in the summer, how to store food through the winter, how to find clean water, how to treat sickness, and how to protect what was left to you. It was a harder world, but in many ways, it was a simple world.
In that simple world, Yuel learned new things quickly, ruthlessly. He had lived when many others had not. Sometimes he had survived only on luck. Other times, it was certainly skill. He had lost friends and gained enemies, and he had moved on with the world. He had become what was known as a blackhand. In the world-was, he might have been called a mercenary or a bounty hunter. He didn’t much care what people called him as long as he was paid.
When he reached the beach, the blackhand bent to lower the lantern closer to the sand. Footprints, one set small in a pair of soft soled boots, the other larger...and stumbling from the look of the drag marks in the sand. He followed the footprints down the beach, the lantern swinging in his hand. The sand turned from gold to black and back again. A splash of dark red on the sand caught his passing attention, and he nodded to himself as he kept walking. The Man, that is, the head of the Dubh and the one who had hired the services of the blackhand to fetch back his daughter and the boy, had said his guards thought they’d tagged the boy on the way out. It seemed they were right.
A hundred meters down the beach, he saw them, shadows in the sand. He took his time in getting closer. He didn’t think the boy had a weapon, but he’d learned caution over the years. He stopped before the light of the lantern touched them.
“You can’t run any farther,” he said. “There’s nothing out this way but water. Best you just come back with me, Anna.” He didn’t expect it to work. It never did, but it was all part of the process. No reply came from the huddled figures. He took a step closer, raising the lantern so the light fell across the boy and the girl sitting in the sand. Her eyes were red from crying, while his face was pale and still from blood loss. The crude bandage around his right thigh was a damp crimson. Boy was perhaps not the best way to describe him––he was twenty at least and the girl was not much younger––but it was the word the Man had used, and most emphatically at that.
“Please, don’t hurt him,” Anna said, pushing a lank strand of blonde hair back. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Yuel stepped closer and set the lantern down in the sand. “He’ll be dead if he stays here much longer. Do you want him dead in the sand?”
“No,” she said with a gushing of tears.
“Then I suggest you come back with me.” He put his fingers around the boy’s wrist. “It’ll happen either way.”
“You don’t understand anything, do you?” she said, grabbing suddenly at his sleeve.
“No.” Yuel shook her away and stood, lifting the boy over his shoulder. “Nor do I want to. Come along or stay. It’s your choice.” He took up the lantern in his free hand and began to walk back along the beach.
“Do you know why my father wants him?” she asked. Her feet kicked through the sand as she ran after him. She caught his arm again. “Or did he just give you your money and you didn’t ask questions?”
Yuel said nothing.
“How much did he promise you? How much do you want?” She dashed in front of him and threw herself on her knees. “What do you want?”
Another voice, a woman’s, joined in suddenly, startling him, and he was not one to be easily startled. “Put him down.” The command was followed by the distinctive click of a hammer cocking back. He stood quite still with one hand holding the lantern and the other steadying the boy.
“This isn’t your bother,” he said over his shoulder.
“Actually, it is,” the woman replied. “Súil.”
A man appeared from the direction of the bahn.
“Make sure Eels is all right,” the woman said. “Anna, take his gun now.”
Súil took the boy from Yuel’s arms while Anna scrambled back to her feet and tugged Yuel’s gun from its holster.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” Anna said breathlessly.
“I told you we’d be here,” the woman said. “Go with Súil. I’ll handle this.”
Handle had a nasty sound to it.
“You can turn around. Slowly,” the woman said as the others disappeared over the hill.
So he turned, still holding the lantern. If all else failed, he meant to throw it at her.
“So you’re the blackhand,” she said. She was tall, as tall as he was, and not thin but not heavy either. Her hair gleamed true red in the lantern light. Her eyes were green. The gun in her hands was a beauty of a blue-barreled revolver. She held the weapon easily, and he didn’t doubt that she had used it before. She looked him up and down. “What’re you doing working for the Dubh, Yuel?”
“I remember you,” he said.
“Aye, well, you should, shouldn’t you? I pulled three bullets out of your chest.” She tapped her own chest to emphasize the words.
“Do you mean to put them back?” he asked, waving at the gun.
“I’d rather not,” she said. “It was an awful lot of work to pull them out.” She gave a thin smile and lowered the gun slowly.
“It’s a shame I couldn’t find them,” Yuel said slowly. “I suppose they’ve crossed the channel by now. There’s no telling how far they could have gotten.”
“They must have had help,” she agreed, her smile growing wider.
“Aye,” he said. “Good help. It’s hard to find these days.”
“Not too hard, if you know where to look,” she answered. “I assume you still remember the way.” She turned and walked away.
After a moment, he set the lantern down in the sand. Leaving it there, he followed her into the bahn.
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