TheBaroness
08/05/07, 11:12 PM
I wrote a book when I was 17. It was shit. Since then I've been trying to re-write it and somehow make it good, which is a constant struggle. I'd very much appreciate some feedback on the random bits I post here. Anywho, here's the opening chapter/prologue thingo. Thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated. Cheers.
----
I’m fixated, impotent, by the spinning incandescent beams of red and blue flickering meekly off the wet pavement at my feet. Above me, they radiate from the roof of the ambulance, up into the blankness of the afternoon sky.
The gurney shakes violently as the paramedics guide it down several small steps which lead to where we are standing. There are tears, howls of anguish, some fall to their knees, hug one another. I stand with my arms limply at my sides. I am foreign. It seems I can no longer deny this truth.
It has been nearly twelve months since I first arrived in Helsinki. Twelve months since I first set my gaze upon the vacant expanses of the Finnish coastline as a prisoner finally loosed from the confinement of her cell, the violent-white of the shoreline stinging my eyes as the black sea melted towards the horizon like an endless oil slick. A young, lost Englishwoman. Searching for something which cannot be named.
I focus my eyes on the figure zipped into thick black vinyl as the gurney is lifted into the awaiting transport. For a moment all seems quiet and peaceful, the kind of silence you long for in a hectic city. The cars, the sirens, the wailing of the wind is mute, the air thick. I lift my fingertips to my cheek, it is dry and cool. I am lying to myself.
----
I’m fixated, impotent, by the spinning incandescent beams of red and blue flickering meekly off the wet pavement at my feet. Above me, they radiate from the roof of the ambulance, up into the blankness of the afternoon sky.
The gurney shakes violently as the paramedics guide it down several small steps which lead to where we are standing. There are tears, howls of anguish, some fall to their knees, hug one another. I stand with my arms limply at my sides. I am foreign. It seems I can no longer deny this truth.
It has been nearly twelve months since I first arrived in Helsinki. Twelve months since I first set my gaze upon the vacant expanses of the Finnish coastline as a prisoner finally loosed from the confinement of her cell, the violent-white of the shoreline stinging my eyes as the black sea melted towards the horizon like an endless oil slick. A young, lost Englishwoman. Searching for something which cannot be named.
I focus my eyes on the figure zipped into thick black vinyl as the gurney is lifted into the awaiting transport. For a moment all seems quiet and peaceful, the kind of silence you long for in a hectic city. The cars, the sirens, the wailing of the wind is mute, the air thick. I lift my fingertips to my cheek, it is dry and cool. I am lying to myself.