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A Matter of Time
It was only a matter of will; just a few more meters and he would be at the top.
Tightening his grip on the rock, the man shifted his weight on his left leg, and pushed as hard as he could. He managed to get another grip a few centimeters above the latter, and look at what was left to climb. He just had to repeat what he just did a few more times. No problem.
After a long moment of fierce struggle, he finally saw the top of the mountain. The vision granted him the energy to get his whole body on the plateau, and, rolling on his back, he enjoyed the pure white light basking and warming his face.
He stayed this way, listening to his heartbeat, the most beautiful sound in his whole world at the moment, until a woman’s face appeared in his field of vision.
“You’re right on time,” she said. “Very good.”
He stood up, sweeping the dirt on his clothes to make himself at least presentable before her.
“Follow me."
He freed himself from the rope around his hips, and walked behind her. They arrived to a door standing in the middle of nowhere.
“You probably already know why you’re here,” she said. “But if not, let me tell you that, behind lies your future. Cross it and you’ll find what it has in store for you. Let the door closed and stay here. The choice is obviously yours.”
This sounded like a bad joke. He hadn’t go through all the climbing if he hadn’t already made up his mind. Still, an odd feeling forced him to learn more about what was beyond the door.
“What will I find?” he asked.
“New doubts.” His expression had to be obvious because she kept going on. “You won’t find any absolute certainty, but you will get new doubts about yourself. Stay here and you’ll keep the doubts you’re already familiar with.”
He contemplate the idea, and the more he pondered the thought, the more unsure he became. After all, his present life was great, cosy and warm. What would he gain, aside from ‘new doubts’? And yet, the same feeling that held him back from immediately open the door was also holding him from going back. A second of eternity flew by and he was still at the same point in his reflection. He needed something else.
“Will I be able to go back?”
He wasn't sure if she was smirking or simply smiling. “More or less. You won’t be able to come back here if the future you find isn’t appealing to you. However, you’ll discover on the other side that you can still reach the same end you would have reached by staying here.”
He was about to go back to his thought, but the woman warned him. “You should hurry. Since you got rid of your rope, you don’t have much time left.”
He turned around to check on it and saw it had blackened, like it had burned.
“How long?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the fading rope.
“I can’t really say.”
He went back to the door, his eyes on the knob. “Will I see you again?”
“That’s the only absolute certainty I can offer.”
He gave her one last look. “Goodbye, then.” She only smiled and he felt his heart tightened. He turned the knob nonetheless.
The moment he opened the door, a strong force pulled his body, and everything went black. He was suffocating, waving his arms, trying to grasp something to hold onto, and found nothing but emptiness. Suddenly, everything turned from black to a blinding white and he felt an immeasurable pain going through his body.
For the first time, he screamed.
With one last sigh, his world fade back to black. This time, the force pulling him was gentler; a warm embrace he thought he would never feel again. His heart stopped and there was light.
The woman’s face appeared, bearing a sad smile. “You’re early,” she solemnly said.
He tried to stand, but only manage to sit. She kneeled and took him in her arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “I wasn’t strong enough.” She tightened her hug and he broke down, trying to hold onto the words of comfort she was saying. “How much time do I have?” he said between two sobs.
“As much as you need.”
It was only a matter of time. It had always been.
Tightening his grip on the rock, the man shifted his weight on his left leg, and pushed as hard as he could. He managed to get another grip a few centimeters above the latter, and look at what was left to climb. He just had to repeat what he just did a few more times. No problem.
After a long moment of fierce struggle, he finally saw the top of the mountain. The vision granted him the energy to get his whole body on the plateau, and, rolling on his back, he enjoyed the pure white light basking and warming his face.
He stayed this way, listening to his heartbeat, the most beautiful sound in his whole world at the moment, until a woman’s face appeared in his field of vision.
“You’re right on time,” she said. “Very good.”
He stood up, sweeping the dirt on his clothes to make himself at least presentable before her.
“Follow me."
He freed himself from the rope around his hips, and walked behind her. They arrived to a door standing in the middle of nowhere.
“You probably already know why you’re here,” she said. “But if not, let me tell you that, behind lies your future. Cross it and you’ll find what it has in store for you. Let the door closed and stay here. The choice is obviously yours.”
This sounded like a bad joke. He hadn’t go through all the climbing if he hadn’t already made up his mind. Still, an odd feeling forced him to learn more about what was beyond the door.
“What will I find?” he asked.
“New doubts.” His expression had to be obvious because she kept going on. “You won’t find any absolute certainty, but you will get new doubts about yourself. Stay here and you’ll keep the doubts you’re already familiar with.”
He contemplate the idea, and the more he pondered the thought, the more unsure he became. After all, his present life was great, cosy and warm. What would he gain, aside from ‘new doubts’? And yet, the same feeling that held him back from immediately open the door was also holding him from going back. A second of eternity flew by and he was still at the same point in his reflection. He needed something else.
“Will I be able to go back?”
He wasn't sure if she was smirking or simply smiling. “More or less. You won’t be able to come back here if the future you find isn’t appealing to you. However, you’ll discover on the other side that you can still reach the same end you would have reached by staying here.”
He was about to go back to his thought, but the woman warned him. “You should hurry. Since you got rid of your rope, you don’t have much time left.”
He turned around to check on it and saw it had blackened, like it had burned.
“How long?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the fading rope.
“I can’t really say.”
He went back to the door, his eyes on the knob. “Will I see you again?”
“That’s the only absolute certainty I can offer.”
He gave her one last look. “Goodbye, then.” She only smiled and he felt his heart tightened. He turned the knob nonetheless.
The moment he opened the door, a strong force pulled his body, and everything went black. He was suffocating, waving his arms, trying to grasp something to hold onto, and found nothing but emptiness. Suddenly, everything turned from black to a blinding white and he felt an immeasurable pain going through his body.
For the first time, he screamed.
With one last sigh, his world fade back to black. This time, the force pulling him was gentler; a warm embrace he thought he would never feel again. His heart stopped and there was light.
The woman’s face appeared, bearing a sad smile. “You’re early,” she solemnly said.
He tried to stand, but only manage to sit. She kneeled and took him in her arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “I wasn’t strong enough.” She tightened her hug and he broke down, trying to hold onto the words of comfort she was saying. “How much time do I have?” he said between two sobs.
“As much as you need.”
It was only a matter of time. It had always been.
You’ve got my interest, author, but I’m not sure I have your meaning. I’m going to sleep on this story and come back to it. One way or the other, thanks for writing!
It was only a matter of will; just a few more meters and he would be at the top.
Tightening his grip on the rock, the man shifted his weight on his left leg, and pushed as hard as he could. He managed to get another grip a few centimeters above the latter, and look at what was left to climb. He just had to repeat what he just did a few more times. No problem.
Whilst the opening does a good job of establishing a setting, it could be stronger; describe how the man feels to be doing what he's doing, rather than what he's doing. The old "show, don't tell."
After a long moment of fierce struggle, he finally saw the top of the mountain. The vision granted him the energy to get his whole body on the plateau, and, rolling on his back, he enjoyed the pure white light basking and warming his face.
This section did that much more effectively.
Possibly due to the constrains of the word limit, the whole intro feels a little jumpy; he needs to repeat something "a few more times", but the following sentence "he sees the top of the mountain." The sentence after, he's close enough to "get his whole body on the plateau." The jumps make it a little hard to follow, though that might just be me.
As for the rest of the story, I'm confused. The man climbs to the top of the mountain, is greeted by a woman (a goddess of sorts?), goes through the door he had come to find, experiences new doubts, dies (having failed? having been unable to cope with them?), and is greeted by the woman again. I feel like this is intended to be a metaphorical piece, some allegory - but as it stands I don't have enough clues to inform me of anything, and I'm left without context as to the events. Why did he die? Was he shown the future, or did he go there? Why did the visions give him physical pain? Why did he meet the woman again? Is she meant to symbolise death, or acceptance, or some variant thereof? I'm also confused as to why the man, who'd "already made up his mind" and climbed a mountain to get here, isn't even vaguely aware of what's behind the door.
I'd be interested in learning the story behind the story, as it were.
I'm also a bit lost here. I'm pretty sure I can comfortably say this is all a metaphor for death/suicide and the cause is the loss of a loved one, but elements of the metaphor don't really hold up for me. Like, why is this a crossroads decision? It seems he already made it, based on the rope. And the nature of the woman's questioning similarly doesn't quite mesh up in any particularly way I think of death as functioning.
Basically I am left ultimately unsatisfied, particularly because I don't feel there is sufficient information to really come up with a better workable theory.
Basically I am left ultimately unsatisfied, particularly because I don't feel there is sufficient information to really come up with a better workable theory.
I'm sorry, author, this really isn't your fault but... I just can't read the first scene in this story without constantly being reminded of the scenes in The Incredibles where Mr. Incredible is inside the volcano base and flirting with Mirage. I'm not sure I can even explain why.
MOVING ON FROM THAT
I'm with >>AndrewRogue and >>Foehn here. I find neither character in this story particularly interesting, nor do I find the plot engaging. As is, all the story gives me is cryptic conversations followed up by a somewhat touching, but generally unmeaningful romantic ending. Give me a reason to care about your characters, and I might find myself caring more about their possible death and resurrection.
MOVING ON FROM THAT
I'm with >>AndrewRogue and >>Foehn here. I find neither character in this story particularly interesting, nor do I find the plot engaging. As is, all the story gives me is cryptic conversations followed up by a somewhat touching, but generally unmeaningful romantic ending. Give me a reason to care about your characters, and I might find myself caring more about their possible death and resurrection.
I read it as a metaphor on the certainty of death, death being embodied by the woman. But I failed to see the meaning of the whole story? Is the guy invited to tour in the hereafter, and then he discovers he's not cut out for that? Was it a sham all the way? I can't say. It's extremely obscure. The only possible answer I see is that the guy was going to fall from the cliff turning back, and that's what he experiences on the other side.
But I agree it's really hard to give even a tentative explanation.
But I agree it's really hard to give even a tentative explanation.
What everyone else said. I don't get it. I can think of a few possible explanations, but they all feel like projecting and reading in things that don't really have textual support. Something about death... maybe? But also maybe time travel? There's a Matrix reference?
If this is about some sort of death choice, it unfortunately runs headlong into Memento doing the same idea in the same round but substantially better.
There's so little to go on, though. Give the readers information! Don't be afraid to be direct with your concepts! Name your characters!
Congrats on finishing an entry, though. It doesn't not make sense, it just doesn't make sense, if you get what I mean. Thanks for writing!
If this is about some sort of death choice, it unfortunately runs headlong into Memento doing the same idea in the same round but substantially better.
There's so little to go on, though. Give the readers information! Don't be afraid to be direct with your concepts! Name your characters!
Congrats on finishing an entry, though. It doesn't not make sense, it just doesn't make sense, if you get what I mean. Thanks for writing!
There's an interesting idea here, I don't doubt it. The problem is that the vagueness makes it a bit too unclear what's going on, so it's hard to get invested in this guy's journey. With another draft, maybe something more interesting could be obtained, but as is, it's not really clear what this story was aiming at.
2/10, gotta go climb up this mountain
2/10, gotta go climb up this mountain
>>GroaningGreyAgony
>>Foehn
>>AndrewRogue
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
>>Monokeras
>>Ratlab
>>Ranmilia
>>libertydude
Late retrospective is late. Since this round is over and a new one has already started, I won't go in full details. See at the bottom for the explanation.
>>GroaningGreyAgony
I'm still waiting :p
>>Foehn
I don't get how this is 'tell' and not 'show'. Moreover, the sentence 'No problem', is supposed to show the man's feeling, a sarcastic comment on the climbing.
Indeed, time constraint and word limit was a big problem with this one. First draft ended with 1.100 words, the rest was cutting off everything.
As for the meaning, look at the the bottom.
>>AndrewRogue
As I said, look at the bottom for the explanation
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
Don't really know if this was possible. Since it's a metaphorical piece, the characters couldn't be really defined. And since you didn't get the meaning, I can understand how uninteresting these two 'hollowed people' were.
>>Monokeras
You read it not like I intended it to be. Too bad. Let's meet up at the bottom for the explanation.
>>Ratlab
See at the bottom/
>>Ranmilia
More or less. Since it's about chosing, Matrix is not really far.
I'm not sure but you mean that the story makes sense in the way that you get a man iclimbs a mountain, talks with a woman, crosses a door and goes back after a moment, but you don't get what the whole story is supposed to mean, right?
>>libertydude
Another draft maybe, 500-1.000 words more will also probably be effective.
Anyway, thanks you all for your review. Now here comes the 'fun' part.
EXPLANATION
This was supposed to be a metaphorical piece about being born and dying. The whole first part is from a baby POV, while he's still inside his mother's womb and he's about to be born.
Since I was over the word limit, I had to cut off some of the clues pointing in that direction but I thought I left enough and the obvious ones. It seems not.
The rope represents the umbilical cord. Since he had left it behind him, he can't stay, because he's gonna die pretty soon.
Now that you know he's a newborn, this one should be more obvious. Same for the paragraph above.
The woman isn't supposed to represent something specifically (like a goddess, or the mother). She is here to have some dialogs and add dynamism in the story. You can't look at her like a loving motherly figure, the person you see before and after your life.
As for the last part, he's here early because his life ended earlier than planned. Suicide? Probably.
The whole story was inspired by the tragedy that happened to one of my cousin I'm really closed to a few months ago. She lost her newborn baby. He was only a few weeks old and the doctors confirmed he hadn't any illness or any malformation. He just refused to live. It seems that newborn babies can already chose if they want to live or not. At least, that's what I believe. It seems to be the only explanation as to why some newborns simply dies while they should have lived.
Anyway, thanks again for your comments. I'm a bit disappointed to see that the joke story, written in one hour, did better than the one I put much more efforts in. I don't know which conclusions I should draw from this but I'm sure there are some. See you.
>>Foehn
>>AndrewRogue
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
>>Monokeras
>>Ratlab
>>Ranmilia
>>libertydude
Late retrospective is late. Since this round is over and a new one has already started, I won't go in full details. See at the bottom for the explanation.
>>GroaningGreyAgony
I'm still waiting :p
>>Foehn
Whilst the opening does a good job of establishing a setting, it could be stronger; describe how the man feels to be doing what he's doing, rather than what he's doing. The old "show, don't tell."
I don't get how this is 'tell' and not 'show'. Moreover, the sentence 'No problem', is supposed to show the man's feeling, a sarcastic comment on the climbing.
Possibly due to the constrains of the word limit, the whole intro feels a little jumpy; he needs to repeat something "a few more times", but the following sentence "he sees the top of the mountain." The sentence after, he's close enough to "get his whole body on the plateau." The jumps make it a little hard to follow, though that might just be me.
Indeed, time constraint and word limit was a big problem with this one. First draft ended with 1.100 words, the rest was cutting off everything.
As for the meaning, look at the the bottom.
>>AndrewRogue
As I said, look at the bottom for the explanation
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
Give me a reason to care about your characters, and I might find myself caring more about their possible death and resurrection.
Don't really know if this was possible. Since it's a metaphorical piece, the characters couldn't be really defined. And since you didn't get the meaning, I can understand how uninteresting these two 'hollowed people' were.
>>Monokeras
You read it not like I intended it to be. Too bad. Let's meet up at the bottom for the explanation.
>>Ratlab
See at the bottom/
>>Ranmilia
There's a Matrix reference?
More or less. Since it's about chosing, Matrix is not really far.
It doesn't not make sense, it just doesn't make sense, if you get what I mean.
I'm not sure but you mean that the story makes sense in the way that you get a man iclimbs a mountain, talks with a woman, crosses a door and goes back after a moment, but you don't get what the whole story is supposed to mean, right?
>>libertydude
Another draft maybe, 500-1.000 words more will also probably be effective.
Anyway, thanks you all for your review. Now here comes the 'fun' part.
EXPLANATION
This was supposed to be a metaphorical piece about being born and dying. The whole first part is from a baby POV, while he's still inside his mother's womb and he's about to be born.
Since I was over the word limit, I had to cut off some of the clues pointing in that direction but I thought I left enough and the obvious ones. It seems not.
The rope represents the umbilical cord. Since he had left it behind him, he can't stay, because he's gonna die pretty soon.
For the first time, he screamed.
Now that you know he's a newborn, this one should be more obvious. Same for the paragraph above.
The woman isn't supposed to represent something specifically (like a goddess, or the mother). She is here to have some dialogs and add dynamism in the story. You can't look at her like a loving motherly figure, the person you see before and after your life.
As for the last part, he's here early because his life ended earlier than planned. Suicide? Probably.
The whole story was inspired by the tragedy that happened to one of my cousin I'm really closed to a few months ago. She lost her newborn baby. He was only a few weeks old and the doctors confirmed he hadn't any illness or any malformation. He just refused to live. It seems that newborn babies can already chose if they want to live or not. At least, that's what I believe. It seems to be the only explanation as to why some newborns simply dies while they should have lived.
Anyway, thanks again for your comments. I'm a bit disappointed to see that the joke story, written in one hour, did better than the one I put much more efforts in. I don't know which conclusions I should draw from this but I'm sure there are some. See you.