A leave of absence from Sunday Scribbings
I chose not to participate in Sunday Scribblings. Nothing against Meg and Laini, but I just found the prompt…less than inspiring.
So I constructed a Six Sentence instead.
Twilight
So often when he thought, the image of rust, flakes of corroded metal, came to mind.
There were times, late at night, when he wrapped himself in that old wool Army blanket, a candle burning on the mantle, that brought flickers of clarity.
He rarely slept more than three hours at a stretch, his prostrate now in complete command of his bladder, so it was just as easy to sit in the murky darkness near the crapper and play the memory games his doctor had suggested – the ones he remembered, anyway.
He sighed, long and heavy, as the many forms of rust – like a Kodak slide show – flipped grainy across his mind.
He squeezed his eyes tight, concentrated as the therapist had taught him, and ran the set of three numbers that now took on various forms – hands on a clock, brass apartment numbers on doors, that dates on his leather-bound desk calendar – over and over again.
He had “committed the numbers to memory” (ha!) – 31-9-39 – and knew the time was becoming short where he would be able to put the digits together and unlock the black metal hardcase where he stored his .45-caliber sidearm.
So I constructed a Six Sentence instead.
Twilight
So often when he thought, the image of rust, flakes of corroded metal, came to mind.
There were times, late at night, when he wrapped himself in that old wool Army blanket, a candle burning on the mantle, that brought flickers of clarity.
He rarely slept more than three hours at a stretch, his prostrate now in complete command of his bladder, so it was just as easy to sit in the murky darkness near the crapper and play the memory games his doctor had suggested – the ones he remembered, anyway.
He sighed, long and heavy, as the many forms of rust – like a Kodak slide show – flipped grainy across his mind.
He squeezed his eyes tight, concentrated as the therapist had taught him, and ran the set of three numbers that now took on various forms – hands on a clock, brass apartment numbers on doors, that dates on his leather-bound desk calendar – over and over again.
He had “committed the numbers to memory” (ha!) – 31-9-39 – and knew the time was becoming short where he would be able to put the digits together and unlock the black metal hardcase where he stored his .45-caliber sidearm.
Comments
Your "Twilight" is another meaty piece keeping the bar raised and your readers coming back for the good stuff :-)
so nicely woven...