Voices Carry Only So Far

The breeze sifted softly through the dust that refused to settle; the last of the days sunlight illuminated the haughty breath of this mountainous region. The onset of night was never looked upon as a positive though the comfort of shadow was nevertheless an appreciated blanket. I sighed. The many contradictions of my life always glared me in the face, yet try as I might, sense would not prevail. Indeed, there was no sense to be had in the world I lived in, a retired Renaissance Village in the middle of a modern metropolis! Where olde english rang out along with american slang, it seemed as if the soothing smiles of your very friends could dissolve into taunting sneers and that was only a mild disconcertion. A rabbit sped off into the distance, a dusty breath being kicked up.
I walked amongst the now deserted village and felt an awe. The scenery wasn't amazing or impressive by any means, it was an absence of the imposition of force, the lack of purpose where once existed ultimatum. The people of this now hackneyed Renaissance were a strange sort indeed, they were of all walks of life and were of many verse. Sometimes there words strung together in an unintelligble blurb despite the many tiered thought represented by their words. But they had about them a presence that was not so subtle, as if they knew the secrets of the world. Yet another contradiction, betrayed by their innate sense of reality, they're ignorance never was interpreted as real. The absence of force. One never truely understood what the word force meant until they understood the combined will of a small population.
And that small population was now gone. It had begun slowly and without any concerted effort. Some had said there used to exist a family atmosphere, work and play were amongst the same people. Now, as I walked through the dust settling streets, I reflected on the soundless mood that held the hearts of everyone as they walked past each other towards a task. The confidence held by an uproarious past had dissolved into half glances, not furtive, but tired.
I stopped at a shed-like structure that had the looks of many an aged night. It was worn indeed, but at this time was exactly what I needed. The chill in the air had become brittle and the shed would provide me the illusion of warmth, a kind of pacification that could lead to sleep. Illusion. Amazing how much that concept had come into play in his life. Years ago, his friends had been the purveyors of illusion. Reality had been paraded around in front of me and words couldn't describe my inability to react back then. A sigh let go into this current incarnation of illusion and I fell prey to the erratic images that would flash into yet another way to describe illusion.

Dreams were not kind on this night.........social isolation........implorations for a car accident...*what am I supposed to do?*.....the keys to a code....my experience....incomplete....*condemnation from who?*......the voices as remembered.....they spoke all around me....*why do I never feel like "I'm here"?*......

...I woke up to find that the night had qualled all thought and there was no resistance. A buzzsaw was screaming in my ear and I couldn't move. My body was numb as if all the circulation to my appendages had been stifled and I realized that I didn't know for sure if I was alone. By all reasonable accounts I should remember, but the dissociative state that was dreaming could have left my awareness of the real world completely blind. I found movement again, as if my arm had just woken up from sleep and gasped at the impossible nature of what I now considered very possible indeed............in the distance, voices talked around me.

Lots of good imagery. Nice work . That's something I've been trying to fix in my own writing actually- i never seem to paint much of a setting.

Thanks.......I don't really know how or where this will go, but I intend to find out! I usually start all of my writing with a kind of meandering through the words in my mind and then find a good hold of something that I can throw into overdrive where details are concerned......

....pretty much, if it seems erratic, it admittedly is and will hopefully improve.


Thanks again.....

Here is a 'non-entry' for the AIASP contest....that I wrote a couple of years ago.

I found it interesting that the contest subject was one I had wrote about...

Judges - Do Not Consider This Story As An Official Entry.