Semi-fiction straight from my ink splashed heart
Finch looked up, dazed. Smoke curled lazily around him, caressing gently. He lay at the bottom of a blasted crater with blackened walls.
The muffled voice of rationality in his head exclaimed “What the fuck was that?” Again. As it always did. Finch ignored it. Again. He got up. Again.
He was more than shaken by now, limbs screaming at him in a twisted choir. This hadn’t been the first detonation he’d encountered and yet somehow he kept going. Forging onward, one foot after the other pounding the earth. Soon he was running again, sprinting through the knee-high grass.
And why wouldn’t he? The pain soon fell away and besides this place was beautiful. Rolling fields of grassland dissected by slivers of glassy and too blue water. Along their sandy banks rows of little flags protruded almost like markers chasing the winding water. Here and there stoic oaks sprouted proudly, casting long fingers of shadow. From their branches flew multitudes of bunting, flags dancing merrily in the eternal gentle breeze. This was a literal Uncanny Valley, compounded by the misplaced sense of dread Finch got whenever he looked at the flags strewn everywhere.
Finch didn’t care — his heart soared as he ran. He didn’t just run aimlessly through this painted landscape. No, he ran after her. Though he never quite caught her. She? She…now she was beautiful too, in the definitive sense. Dressed in a nearly transparent white shift she ran barefoot ahead of Finch. Long golden hair streamed out behind her carefree form. Now and again Finch caught glimpses of emerald eyes sparkling with joy as the woman glanced back at him. She was looking at him! Every time she did so his heart fluttered in his chest and he ran just a little faster. Somehow, she sped up too, yet still seemed to move effortlessly.
A burst of laughter rolled over the hills, and Finch thought it was the most perfect sound he’d ever heard. All growling pains from the previous incident dissipated, blown on the unwavering breeze. He let the light from the standstill sun wash over him as he ran on.
CRACK-BOOM
Finch was launched high into the air, momentarily living up to his innocently misguided name. He landed hard and felt several ribs crack as he did so. Pain lanced like slivers of molten fire poured into his nerves, overwhelming.
He lay there, unable to move and listened to the voices in his head. This time the voice of reason screamed at him, muffled no longer. It didn’t scream to get up but to open his eyes and to see. Finch was confused — wasn’t he already seeing? He didn’t get up.
His heart clawed at the inside of his chest, insisting that if Finch didn’t get
up and chase after her, it would leap free of his chest and do so itself. But he didn’t get up. All the pain otherwise long forgotten had come sidling back now, and Finch was tired. He hurt from a thousand repetitions of the ground bucking in explosion underneath him. Finch was spent at last. He didn’t get up.
The voice of reason was calm now the urgency had passed. Finch was not getting up, and now the voice soothingly instructed him to open his eyes. Finch was still confused, but he tried anyway. Concentrating a moment, he opened his eyes, though they were never closed.
And then laying there sprawled in the crater, he saw.
All at once the illusion shattered, and see he indeed did. The too good to be true landscape was revealed as just that. As he watched the swaying grasses withered, wilting rapidly towards blackened soil. The once proud trees were merely twisted husks and the rivers ran red like arteries. She too was revealed. The emerald glinting of the woman’s eyes had been replaced by red flickers and gone was the spun gold hair.
The worst, though, was the flags. Where before they had fluttered in the breeze they now hung still. Lifeless. Each one was emblazoned with a stylised skull on a bloodied background. Red flags, red as fresh-spilt blood.
Red flags. Warning signs that Finch had treated like mile markers. Reason blinkered by heart, he had run on and on. Enduring every blast and getting right back up again, striding past every flag. Now that he was broken and could run no more, he saw things as they really were.
Saw the signs though it was far, far too late.
Originally published on Medium