This one game that I played, there were three of us. One of was a some thirty year old guy that knew the owner of the property, the other guy was my friend, Mario. Well we all entered into the woods, it was our second time playing on the field, and the hill was always a focal point.
Well I sent Mario off to the left, I told him to wait until they started to fire on us and move in, or to fire when they got real close and we would come to back him. The thirty year old, was always trigger happy. I even told him to calm down a bit, even though I knew that it would not matter.
I actually expected him to fire early, so much so I made sure I had a vantage point on people passing to move up to him. Sure enough, the second they entered the field he started to fire. Two of the other team moved in to get a shot on him, returning fire the whole time.
The two passed me, and I noticed that neither of them were the four meant to come in after us. I made the decision to wait to make sure I had a shot. I was too happy to here that my teammate was shoot out. The two of them content with their victory stood up, I fired out four shots. Both ducked for cover, one right into a clearing in the underbrush, he got three to the back. I moved from my brush to the other side of the rock I was near and fired at the other as he popped out to fire at my old location.
As I started to scan the hill to see if anyone had taken notice, I saw a white spot. There poking out from under a rock twenty yards away was a shoe. After a bout of deliberation I decided that I should fire at the shoe. Three shots, one splattering paint from off the rock and the other hitting the middle of his foot. When a voice and a body were added to the shoe I was surprised, relieved, confused and empowered.
As I turned to look, I heard shots and ducked. They were both in poor cover, sparse trees only like a foot around. Weaving in and out of my rock cover on the high ground I made quick work of them. At that point I was so full of adrenaline I just wanted to be shot to prove it was still possible. I fired my gun into the air and yelled as I walked down the hill. Nothing, and then sounds of a fire fight, I started to walk toward and I saw a clear shot one another person, I made sure it was not my remaining teammate and lined up my sights. I wanted to make the shot count so I start to close the gap.
The second before I was going to pull the trigger I heard the triple fire of his gun. I knew it meant he was out of air and I felt cheated of my sixth out in one game.
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3 comments:
These two force me to think about the role of action and description in narrative. I don't think pure visual description--which is what you do here, cinematic style action--can work in prose unless it's set in a frame or context, unless we have a background narrative to give it ballast in our minds as we read.
For example, is this is the story of a young hotshot who is taking responsibility when there are older but weaker people around? Is it the story of an old pro who has lost his touch and can no longer keep up with the young pheenom? Is this the story of a young guy who suddenly enters into his power and sees the world expand before him. Any one of those potential story lines would allow the action to have meaning beyond itself and allow the reader visualizing it to fix it in his mind because of the narrative premise.
But without some kind of premise of that sort.....
I think I maybe struggling on the 'use the story' I normally write to make the person feel, this piece one of my favorite to tell people. While I retell the story I begin to act out what was going on, I become all players in the story.
The one I shot in the back, I would do my action and then do his reaction, by restating.
What is your definition of Justification?
What is your definition of Premise?
Both words, for my purposes in this course, mean the same thing: a story has to be framed. That doesn't mean that it can't start in the middle of action, but it does mean it has to be able in the end to be picked up and examined for meaning. Action is its own justification, its own frame, in action pieces. In creative nonfiction, the piece has to offer some perspective on the action.
What if we had a movie that was nothing but car chases and explosions--no context, no reason for the chase, for the blowing up, just screeeeeeeeeeee BOOM! Gets old (sort of like 'Kill Bill' if you saw that...) But if a frightened and virtuous soul is trying to escape a vicious sadist, suddenly the chase has significance beyond itself.
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