Quackerdrill
say yes to love
Yep, a one-shot by Quackerdrill. Yes, it's strange even to me... I'm not trying to jump on the Summer Fiction Awards bandwagon, I probably don't have the skills to get there anyways! No, this is just something that kinda came to me while writing Distant Appreciation (yeah, I know I need to get Chap. 6 done...) and it needed to be written. Whether it needed to be POSTED is up to you! Yes, it's very short, and yes, I probably don't know how to write a sucessful one-shot (Probably?). So, here goes nothing....
Frozen
It was the end of the beginning. One word had said it all and before she knew it that train had left, its charcoal finish and clamoring noise glimmering and echoing from the dark tunnel of lost dreams it set through. She sat down in the ice on the corner of the station, propped up by an elm tree with grand branches laced with powder-white snow. Upon her arrival, the branch directly above gave way and dropped its load on her auburn hair. She stroked through it with her bitterly cold hand and threw off the snow onto the concrete. Was it really happening?
The last thing he said was, “You don’t need me, it seems like that Articuno of yours is all you care about.” With that and a hasty and sarcastic, “Salutations,” he boarded that behemoth to a destination of no return. Looking at the bleak sky above her with the hopeful sun behind it trying to emerge only confirmed her thoughts that she had no hope. No chance. No way of continuing on. Her mind was locked in a state where glasses were half empty and the jug ran dry. Her strength was gone; she tried lifting her hopeless body off the snow but was unable to melt her frozen joints.
Am I really that dependent? Do I really have no possible way of living without him? Is it really this bad? Thoughts bounced around her head like rubber jackhammers, all trying to grasp the fact that something so trivial, something so very small and minute could rapidly expand to eventually encompass her mental and physical states. Maybe if I laid off training Azure I would have been able to spend more time with him…
People walking by stared, passing Rattata stopped to glare, and the Treecko on the limb of a tree across the tracks sat with its pale yellow eyes piercing into her mind. It was as if they were all trying to tell her that it was the end, that there was no more, and that her Articuno was all she had left. But looking to her right she saw a mural painted on the wall of an ancient, decrepit building showing a Flygon soaring through the white, pure clouds with the bright sun above it illuminating its red outlines and creating beautiful shading on the perimeter of the wall. She gazed at the “sun” and saw a bright new horizon where new love could be found, new happiness could be enjoyed, and a new life could be lived.
Then she looked down. All that was there was a continuous mass of white snow, powder, ice; pain by any name. It constricted, it hindered, and it was the “no” to the sun’s “yes”. The falling material only made the pain grow, and created even more as it piled on top of her head, shoulders, and denim skirt as she sat with only a single branch of defense against its bitter powers. As her hands became numb and her once crimson lips became blue, her mind came to a halt, just as the rest of her body had.
Was it meant to be? Did it have to end up like this? These thoughts were left to drift with the snowflakes. She looked at her left hand, then towards the tunnel where her life had left through without a goodbye. Then she looked at her right, then to the sun where life began again with newborn splendor. She sighed. Choices were painful, but dependency on something dear… that was deadly. She grasped snow in both of her hands, feeling the sharp, sudden bite. There was emptiness where she sat, but there was pain everywhere else. She was ready to make a decision, but the decision was not ready for her to make. So she remained sitting, to face the consequences, whatever they may be. He would have wanted me to suffer, anyways. Bring on the ice; I’m already frozen anyways…
She sat there. Sat away a life that could have been wonderful. And while she sat, a man had changed his mind.
Frozen
It was the end of the beginning. One word had said it all and before she knew it that train had left, its charcoal finish and clamoring noise glimmering and echoing from the dark tunnel of lost dreams it set through. She sat down in the ice on the corner of the station, propped up by an elm tree with grand branches laced with powder-white snow. Upon her arrival, the branch directly above gave way and dropped its load on her auburn hair. She stroked through it with her bitterly cold hand and threw off the snow onto the concrete. Was it really happening?
The last thing he said was, “You don’t need me, it seems like that Articuno of yours is all you care about.” With that and a hasty and sarcastic, “Salutations,” he boarded that behemoth to a destination of no return. Looking at the bleak sky above her with the hopeful sun behind it trying to emerge only confirmed her thoughts that she had no hope. No chance. No way of continuing on. Her mind was locked in a state where glasses were half empty and the jug ran dry. Her strength was gone; she tried lifting her hopeless body off the snow but was unable to melt her frozen joints.
Am I really that dependent? Do I really have no possible way of living without him? Is it really this bad? Thoughts bounced around her head like rubber jackhammers, all trying to grasp the fact that something so trivial, something so very small and minute could rapidly expand to eventually encompass her mental and physical states. Maybe if I laid off training Azure I would have been able to spend more time with him…
People walking by stared, passing Rattata stopped to glare, and the Treecko on the limb of a tree across the tracks sat with its pale yellow eyes piercing into her mind. It was as if they were all trying to tell her that it was the end, that there was no more, and that her Articuno was all she had left. But looking to her right she saw a mural painted on the wall of an ancient, decrepit building showing a Flygon soaring through the white, pure clouds with the bright sun above it illuminating its red outlines and creating beautiful shading on the perimeter of the wall. She gazed at the “sun” and saw a bright new horizon where new love could be found, new happiness could be enjoyed, and a new life could be lived.
Then she looked down. All that was there was a continuous mass of white snow, powder, ice; pain by any name. It constricted, it hindered, and it was the “no” to the sun’s “yes”. The falling material only made the pain grow, and created even more as it piled on top of her head, shoulders, and denim skirt as she sat with only a single branch of defense against its bitter powers. As her hands became numb and her once crimson lips became blue, her mind came to a halt, just as the rest of her body had.
Was it meant to be? Did it have to end up like this? These thoughts were left to drift with the snowflakes. She looked at her left hand, then towards the tunnel where her life had left through without a goodbye. Then she looked at her right, then to the sun where life began again with newborn splendor. She sighed. Choices were painful, but dependency on something dear… that was deadly. She grasped snow in both of her hands, feeling the sharp, sudden bite. There was emptiness where she sat, but there was pain everywhere else. She was ready to make a decision, but the decision was not ready for her to make. So she remained sitting, to face the consequences, whatever they may be. He would have wanted me to suffer, anyways. Bring on the ice; I’m already frozen anyways…
She sat there. Sat away a life that could have been wonderful. And while she sat, a man had changed his mind.
And kudos for the use of ice/snow/cold as a metaphor for despair. You also did an excellent job of getting the point of the story across effectively and concisely, especially for someone who doesn't frequently do one-shots. You should definitely consider doing more of them.