posted
Hi this is a piece that has been haunting me. Here is my opening let me know your thoughts. This is rough first draft.
JB Skaggs *********************
Yona hoed the hard red earth. The African sun roasted her bare back as it pummelled her soul into the parched dirt. The hoe’s blade whacked the baked ground leaving fruitless tiny nicks. Hunger and fear of starvation drove her. No potatoes would mean death for her family this winter. The god of the soil laughed at her and spurned her labors. He knew if he could halt her plantings he might get to eat her child. His mouth the open grave. Her eyes burned. Useless and determined she chopped, turning the ground no more than a broom turns concrete. Her sweat and tears spotted the dusty ground as she grunted along.
A sound froze her and she spun around. The field rang with the explosive burst of a baby’s wail. Her baby. She had left him inside the hut to protect him from the sun.
“Mwamba!” She cried and rushed for the house. Images of cobras, scorpions, feral dogs rose into her mind. Her heart beat in cold rapid frenetic seizures, fear gripped her by the bowels. “Mwamba!”
She rounded the corner of her hut and saw hairy black chimp galloping away with her baby. He drug the infant carelessly by it’s leg.
“Help Me! Somebody help me it’s got Mwamba! Mwamba!” Yona screamed.
[This message has been edited by JBSkaggs (edited January 21, 2005).]
posted
I don't think "drug" is the right word there, I think you mean "dragged."
Other than that, it's interesting. For some reason I'm extremely drawn to the line "His mouth the open grave." I can't explain why, but I really like that line.
posted
Yeah, "dragged" sounds better to me, too. Kind of a grim cosmology there, the death god and the fertility god being the same guy like that. The "broom turns concrete" thing didn't work for me either, not in a milieu where chimps are stealing human babies rather than the other way round.
"A sound froze her and she spun around" bothered me for a couple of reasons. For one thing, a "sound" isn't specific enough to indicate a loud noise. More obviously, this sound doesn't freeze her at all. And "explosive burst" didn't connect me to "baby’s wail." I was thinking the house exploded and then the baby started wailing.
The phrase "hairy black chimp" struck me as both redundant and off. "Chimpanzee" would work better even if it didn't come from an African word for the species.
But overall, it seems like a pretty interesting opening.
posted
I agree with the concrete thing Survivor pointed out. Perhaps changing it to "stone" or "rock" would be more appropriate for the scenario.
I like this--it's got an excellent, dark feel--but I don't particularly like the order of the first 3 sentences. Rather, I feel they should be combined... reworded slightly perhaps, in any number of possible combinations.
quote:Yona hoed the hard red earth. The African sun roasted her bare back as it pummelled her soul into the parched dirt. The hoe’s blade whacked the baked ground leaving fruitless tiny nicks.
The second sentence could likely be combined with the first sentence, or the the third with the first... But as is, the second sentence seems out of place to me. You could even combine all three to some effect if you wanted to do it. For instance:
"As the African sun roasted Yona's bare back, she hoed the parched, red earth, leaving fruitless tiny nicks with each whack of the blade."
Of course, you lose the soul-pummelling in that example, which probably could be put in somehow...
posted
The African sun seared Yona's bare back as she hoed the hard red earth. Her very soul burned into the parched dirt. The hoe’s blade whacked the baked ground leaving fruitless tiny nicks. Hunger and fear of starvation drove her. No potatoes would mean death for her family this winter.
The god of the soil laughed at her and spurned her labors. He knew if he could halt her plantings he might get to eat her child. His mouth the open grave. Her eyes burned. Earth and Sun. Man and wife. Earth, that ravenous lazy husband. You give him wheat seed and he gives you thorns, snakes and locusts. And his wife is no better. She sits in the sky proud and cruel. Look at my beauty, she cries. Then the woman burns you and your crops to death. She steals all the waters. Of course Old Man Earth has hidden water that he stole and hid. If only Uncle Rainmaker would come, but like most men he is away drinking. Leaving me here to dry up and die in this heat.
Useless and determined she chopped, tilling the ground no more than a broom tills stone. Her sweat and tears spotted the dusty ground as she grunted along.
A baby's wail pierced the air. Her baby. She had left him inside the hut to protect him from the sun.
“Mwamba!” She cried and rushed for the house. Images of cobras, scorpions, feral dogs rose into her mind. Her heart beat in cold rapid frenetic seizures, fear gripped her by the bowels. “Mwamba!”
She rounded the corner of her hut and saw a huge chimpanzee galloping away with her baby. He dragged the infant by its leg.
“Help Me! Somebody help me it’s got Mwamba! Mwamba!” Yona screamed.
edited to correct it's typo
[This message has been edited by JBSkaggs (edited January 22, 2005).]
posted
Better. The Uncle Rainmaker line needs attention, tho'... perhaps it would be better as two sentences, the first being a question: "Perhaps Uncle Rainmaker would come?"
And, minor nit: use "its" instead of "it's" where the chimp drags the baby...
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