The Scrap Colossus, Pt. 1 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
Picture this: inside a meeting room in Irún’s main library, an assortment of office workers, students, and pensioners hunched over their notebooks around a large rectangular table. Coats and bags hung on the backs of their chairs, and at the center of the table lay a box of chocolates. While pens scratched against paper, the writing instructor hovered nearby, often pulling out her smartphone to shoot group photos for her Twitter feed, without consent I might add. Isabel Zubiri. A forty-year-old woman with warm olive skin, hair worn in a casual topknot, dangling earrings, a chainlike necklace, and cat-eye glasses with off-white frames. But nevermind those people. By then, I had deemed the course pointless, and I attended because among us sat an anomaly: Elena. Late twenties, last name unknown. You could feel her presence like a shadowy figure in the corner of your eye. Her almond-blonde hair fell limply around her pale face. Slavic features. A ghost’s beauty. Dare to look into those haunted blues framed by reddened skin, and you may have glimpsed echoes of commissars starving her ancestors’ village. Listen closely and you’d hear a distant wail, that of a newborn child abandoned by her mother. Elena was a quiet bird, born tired and with a heart full of holes. She usually wore a loose gray sweatshirt, likely the same one, in which you could barely make out her tits. I won’t get into how she behaved; that’s coming up. All in all, she was sexy as fuck. Her look and demeanor screamed “fix me.” She would ruin your life. But as the old song says: better to burn out, yeah, yeah, than to fade away.
Isabel, our teacher, her cheer a barricade against life’s harsh truths, adjusted her cat-eyed glasses and tapped her fingers lightly on the wooden table.
“Well then, let’s see what creative adventures you’ve cooked up for me in your time-travel stories! Who wants to be brave and go first? Remember, no wrong way to tell a tale… unless you’re not telling it at all.” She laughed. “And please don’t worry too much if you’ve sent me somewhere outlandish, okay? God knows I could use a vacation, even a fictional one!”
Elena eased the chair back, her slender, underfed figure rising. Her fingers held gently the edges of the printed paper while she focused on the words.
Isabel’s cheer faltered at the volunteer who had once stated that literature’s purpose was “to make the reader cry, scream, and bleed.” She quickly bolted on a professional smile.
“Ah, Elena, always the trailblazer. I must say, your commitment to sharing your work is inspiring. You’re one of the bravest souls in our little circle. Or should I say the boldest? Please, do regale us. Let’s hear where you’re whisking me off to.” Isabel’s gaze swept over the group. “And remember, everyone, we’re looking for those conflicts we’ve discussed: whether it’s a clash of personalities, a moral dilemma, or just the universe throwing some cosmic curveball. We’re all about the drama here.” She gestured at the silent ghost. “The floor is yours, Elena.”
Elena, her tired eyes fixed on the page with the intensity of a cryptologist, sighed, then began to weave her tale. I wish you could hear her voice: soft and creaky as if from disuse, and burdened with the weight of a thousand unsaid things.
“Isabel Zubiri, writer and teacher of writing, clutched the armrests of her time machine as the jostling journey shook the frame. An indicator glowed in the dim cockpit: July 1st, 1497. Florence, Italy. She would stroll through its streets, observe its people. Men in doublets and ruffs, women in gowns flaring out to their ankles like closed flowers. The air would smell of bread and dung and sweat, of herbs and spices from the markets. Amid the clucking of chickens and human chatter in that old Italian dialect, she would hear the bells of Santa Maria del Fiore. Secretly she would photograph the crowds, the palaces, and the churches. In the end, she would vanish without harming anyone nor pushing them off their paths, for fear of snapping the thread of history. The ultimate tourist in this land of the past, a voyeur to the lives of men and women long turned to dust.”
Isabel, seated, had leaned forward slightly, her fingers interlaced on the table as she listened. But she straightened up in relief.
“Well, Elena, that’s quite an evocative opening!” she encouraged. “I can already feel the weight of history in your choice of setting. Renaissance Florence, no less. The period clothing details were a lovely touch.” Some classmates nodded. “And I’m glad you’ve taken the ‘no harm to history’ rule to heart. That’s an interesting conflict right there, the struggle to remain unobtrusive and avoid altering events. It’s like the ultimate challenge for a writer, isn’t it?”
Elena’s eyebrows twitched. Somber and distant, she resumed her reading with the alienated air of the perpetually exhausted.
“Inside the time machine’s cramped cabin, a flash of light flickered. A jolt threw Isabel around, slamming her against the curved wall. She blinked to clear her vision. The indicator’s numbers blurred. While cursing, Isabel groped in the darkness for the control panel. She pressed buttons meant to reset the circuits, but the indicator’s digits kept spinning. The time machine crashed with a metallic crunch, squashing Isabel into the padded chair and rattling her teeth. Then the machine tumbled down, rolling over as Isabel, strapped in place, flipped and spun. The contents of her stomach rammed against her clenched throat in waves. Suddenly the time machine groaned to a halt, rocking Isabel against the seat, and its hatch door popped open, letting in a blast of heat. The indicator displayed dashes instead of numbers. She shuddered. Her head throbbed, her stomach churned. She tapped at the panel, but no sequence of buttons revived it. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Stay calm. The time machine came with a user manual for such emergencies. After unbuckling herself and crawling out of the hatch, she stepped onto cloggy ground. Hot, humid air filled Isabel’s lungs, heavy with the pungent stink of sulphur. Isabel, dizzy and nauseous, kept coughing. She stood wobbly in a vast swamp that stretched out into a brownish haze. On the horizon rose the dark bulk of a volcano, from whose peak climbed a column of ashy smoke lit by flickers of lightning. A ceiling of gray clouds hung heavy, casting the landscape of mud and reeds below into gloom.”
As Isabel listened, her smile had grown rigid, and she had shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Now her fingers drummed a nervous beat on the table.
“Oh dear. This is getting… rather intense, isn’t it?” she said, her voice carrying an edge of unease like a mother who has stumbled upon her teenager’s morbid drawings. “That’s our Elena, though, always taking the path that’s anything but well-traveled. Keeping us on our toes! A vivid departure from the serene Renaissance Florence, I must say. And those sensory details, they’re so… I can practically feel that sulphurous air choking my lungs.” Her eyes darted to her students. “And class, notice how Elena has woven multiple types of conflict into this scenario: person versus technology with the malfunctioning time machine, and person versus environment with that hostile landscape.” She adjusted her glasses and cleared her throat. “Would you like to continue, Elena? We’re all, uh, dying to know what happens next.”
Elena, while fidgeting with the sleeve of her gray sweatshirt, offered a thin smile. Then, gaze locked on the paper, she continued reading with the detached demeanor of a funeral director.
“The time machine, its hatch gaping like a wound, lay half-sunken in the muck. Isabel crouched beside it, coating her sneakers and ankles in mud, and inspected the metallic hull, which reflected the somber sky, for dents or cracks. A low moan rose from somewhere in the swamp, as if the earth itself suffered. Isabel wiped her forehead, her palm coming away slick with sweat. Her clothes clung to her body. The air burned her throat and lungs, forcing her to cough and spit. Isabel tugged her foot free from the clinging mud and nearly lost her sneaker. She trudged through the sludge, her feet sinking ankle-deep, to the time machine’s rear, and pried the storage compartment open. She pulled out the user’s manual, a thick binder of glossy pages, sealed in a waterproof bag. For a couple of hours, she followed the troubleshooting section’s steps. She tinkered with the innards of the contraption, wrestling with tangles of wires, flipping switches. Repeatedly she ducked inside the cockpit to check the control panel, then scrambled back out into the mud. The controls remained lifeless, and the indicator’s dashes glowed like the eyes of a corpse. In the gloom, Isabel, her eyes aching from strain, read the troubleshooting section to the end, and stared at the fine print: ‘In the event of a catastrophic failure, please contact your nearest time travel agent.'”
I chuckled, which earned me a swift glance from our instructor.
“Isabel hurled the binder into the distance.” Elena went on in her soft, creaky voice. “It sailed in an arc, its pages flapping, then landed with a wet plop. She slumped to the mud and wept, her chest heaving with sobs, the tears cutting grimy tracks down her cheeks. The time machine had become a useless sculpture in a world that never knew her name. Stranded. Abandoned. She would die here, her bones mingling with the mud.”
A few students exchanged uneasy looks. Isabel toyed with her necklace as a furrow deepened on her brow.
“Okay, Elena. You’re certainly throwing our intrepid writer-protagonist straight into the deep end. A classic case of Murphy’s Law, right? Anything that can go wrong, will. Just my luck! But hey… you’re not planning on stranding our poor heroine in this dreadful swamp forever, are you?”
Elena’s eyes lifted to meet Isabel’s, her gaze as blank and distant as the moon’s. She then resumed her reading.
“Isabel took deep breaths, inhaling the sour, sulphuric air, and her sobs subsided. I won’t die like this. I am a writer. My place is not among ghosts but among the living, men and women who have yet to read my works. She hauled herself upright, her legs trembling, her clothes heavy with mud. Calm down. Stay optimistic. Maybe I’ve landed in a bad spot, but the rest of this world can’t be so bleak. She pulled out her smartphone and turned on the camera to study her stained, wide-eyed face framed by dark, disheveled hair. Wisps of ash clung to her eyelashes; snowlike ash drifted gently in the half-light filtering through the ragged cloud cover. Isabel, her hands shaking, snapped a panoramic shot of the volcanic wasteland, the phone’s flash briefly illuminating the mud and reeds in stark white. Once she returned home, she would share the photo with the caption: ‘Guess who’s on vacation! #SwampLife. #TimelessTravels.'”
A faint smirk tugged at the corners of Elena’s mouth, and vanished as quickly. Isabel leaned forward, her fingers steepled. She opened her mouth to speak, but Elena, her gaze glued to the paper, soldiered on in a flat voice.
“Isabel set out across the swamp toward the volcano, its slopes a smear of black, its summit wreathed in smoke and lightning. The mud sucked at her sneakers with a rhythmic squelch, and the reeds brushed against her thighs. She would keep on trudging until her legs gave out. The swamp stretched out before her, a steaming expanse of mud, reeds, and fetid pools of bubbling water shimmering in the heat. The volcanic horizon flashed with lightning. Isabel walked for hours, treading when she could over narrow banks of earth that crisscrossed the marshes, where clusters of reeds rose with wide, yellowish leaves. Otherwise, her feet sank into the warm mire. The heat pressed down on her, thick and stifling. Her skin glistened with sweat, her hair was matted, her clothes reeked of sulphur, her trousers and sneakers were caked in thick mud. Isabel’s eyes watered and her nose burned from the acrid vapors. The muscles of her thighs and calves ached. Intermittent thunder silenced her labored breathing, the squelching of her steps, and the burps of the mud pools. A loud crack shook the ground, making Isabel lose her balance and fall forward, plunging face-first into sludge that swarmed with tiny, wriggling worms. She scrambled upright and clawed the sludge’s surface. While crawling onto solid ground, Isabel cried out. The echo mingled with the earth’s moans: a low, unsettling rumble. The reeds swayed and the water rippled. The volcano was hurling rocks and ash. Its peak, a jagged black crown against the leaden sky, spewed forth a towering column of smoke. Lightning danced in its depths. Down the sides of the mountain oozed a glowing orange trickle.” Elena, whose gaze was lost in the depths of the page, cleared her throat, then continued reading in a tense voice, as if the text was holding her at knifepoint. “Isabel had exhausted her emergency kit: the fresh water of her canteen, and the pack of vacuum-sealed astronaut meals. She yearned for a drink. Her face was a mask of dried mud, her hair hanged in muddy strands, and her clothes were caked in grime. Her heart pounded, her hands shook, her stomach growled, her tongue swelled from thirst. She found a pool of slightly less brackish water, where she washed her face and hair, her fingertips stopping at knots and tangles. Soon enough the landscape grew darker until the gloom forced Isabel to pull out her phone and switch on its flashlight. The pale light revealed a watery world of tall reeds and gnarled, barren trees rising from the mire. The volcano’s black slopes glowed in the darkness with streaks of red lava, and in the sky, the cloud ceiling swelled and churned like a living thing, flickers of lightning outlining its roiling contours. Isabel lay down on solid ground and slept as thunder rolled overhead and the earth trembled beneath her. She woke up ravenous. The sky had dawned with heavy cloud cover and a dusky glow. The volcano loomed like a titanic boil, and its slopes glistened with molten lava sliding down like charred cheese. Her throat burning, her eyes bloodshot from the volcanic ash and the acrid atmosphere, Isabel roamed for hours through the endless bog until she heard waves crashing. As she staggered toward the sound, the ground grew firmer, and the mud gave way to dry land. Out of the fog emerged a coastline where waves crashed against rocky outcroppings. Following the shore, Isabel came upon a beach. She crawled to the water’s edge, scooped up some in her palms, and drank. The aftertaste clung like rotten eggs. Isabel, spent, collapsed on the sand, and curled into a fetal position. The volcano loomed sideways, bleeding streams of lava. The rolling of the waves lulled Isabel to sleep.”
Isabel’s expression showed barely concealed horror. Her eyes darted around the room as if searching for a fire alarm to pull. When she spoke, she tried to inject a bit of sunshine into the oppressive atmosphere, but it came out strained.
“A frankly terrifying landscape… Endless marshes, being baked by a volcanic environment… I can practically feel the mud and the oppressive heat. Not the most pleasant sensation, of course. A bit too vivid for comfort. I must say, Elena, you have a knack for painting a bleak picture.” As her fingertips tapped on the table, she spoke like a negotiator trying to talk a person down from a ledge. “Do keep in mind that conflict can’t just be a relentless onslaught; it needs moments of reprieve, of hope, or even humor to balance the tension. Readers need a breather now and then, even if the character’s situation remains dire. Otherwise, it can feel a bit, well, hopeless, right? And hope is what keep us turning the page. You see, our craft is a careful balancing act. Too much tension can wear down the reader.” She turned to the rest of the students as if imploring them to save her. “Take note of the escalating stakes and the sense of isolation that Elena’s crafted here. They aren’t just setting elements; they’re creating psychological pressure on our protagonist. It’s not just about overcoming her immediate situation, but also about the emotional weight of being stranded in time and space. She needs to stay sane in the face of adversity. There’s a hint of existential crisis there, I think. Class, I’d love to hear from you. What conflicts do you recognize in Elena’s piece?”
A hamster-faced college student wearing a pink hoodie raised her hand, then spoke in a chipmunk voice.
“I liked that whole thing with the protagonist taking photos. It added humor in the midst of a very weird scene. Even in this strange, desolate world, she still thinks of posting it on Twitter or Instagram. I would do the same thing.”
“Right. A nice touch of absurdity. I appreciate that.”
Elena’s reddened eyes sought our instructor’s.
“I wish to continue,” she said in a hoarse murmur from a distant planet. “I’m almost done.”
Isabel straightened in her chair. She put on a porcelain doll’s smile.
“Of course, Elena. I think we’re in a good place to take a breather, do a little feedback round. Maybe give our other would-be authors a chance to test-drive their time machines.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “But please continue. Let’s hear the conclusion.”
Elena sighed, then focused on the paper like a diver following a spotlight in the murky depths.
“Isabel dreamed of water. Clear, cold water dripping from a faucet, gushing from a tap. But she awoke to the roar of the sea, the sun a faint smudge behind the cloud cover. No sense of how much time had passed. A thin layer of ash had coated her, ash that drifted down onto the beach and the waves that rolled in from a dark, metallic sea. Isabel’s throat was parched, and hunger twisted her guts. The sand was black and coarse, mixed with fragments of pumice and obsidian. She stumbled along the shoreline, her bare feet leaving footprints that were soon washed away by the waves, their white foam hissing as they receded. At times Isabel dipped her arms into the cold current, searching for fish shapes. When she gave up, she lay exhausted and shivering on the sand and passed out.”
“Elena…”
“She opened her eyes to blackness save for the fiery veins of lava throbbing in the distance. Thunder rumbled in rolling peals. Her swollen tongue clung to her mouth. She felt dry as the dead leaves from last autumn, brittle and ready to crumble. She pulled out her phone, switched on the flashlight, and illuminated the damp, coarse sand. The bubble of light glinted off flakes of ash drifting in swirls. By the water’s edge, she spotted a foot-long silhouette. Isabel dragged herself forward. Her vision blurred and flickered with dark spots, but she distinguished a short-legged, flesh-colored salamander. Its gray eyes looked blind, its slimy skin shimmered sickly. A pang of hunger glazed Isabel’s eyes. She snatched the salamander, that wriggled weakly in her grasp. Her heart pounded. I’m sorry. She dropped the phone onto the sand, clasped the salamander’s head and snapped its neck with a crack. She chomped into its belly and tore out hot, pulsing chunks of viscera. Once the offal sat in her stomach, she picked up the phone and pushed herself upright. Activating the front-faced camera, she took stock of her ash-stained face, her mouth gleaming with blood. She forced a grin and lifted her index and middle fingers in a victory sign. When she snapped the photo, the flash blinded her. No matter; she already imagined the photo caption: ‘Conquering the elements. #KeepOnGoing.’ Isabel vanished. Before the phone plopped onto the the soaked sand, it blinked out of existence. A breaking wave lifted the salamander off the sand, and the undertow swallowed its carcass.”
Elena marked the end of her tale by sitting down, scooting closer to the edge of the table, and looking down at her paper with a blank face.
-----
Author’s note: today’s song is “I Was Born (A Unicorn)” by The Unicorns.
Hell yeah, new novel! I hadn’t been this antsy to return to my writing since I was immersed in a certain tale about a motocross rider. Could barely sit still at work while rearranging my notes. I hadn’t created anything totally new in months, and I’ve felt a bit rusty. Anyway, I thought this was quite the impactful introduction for our new protagonist, at least when it comes to the first outer layer of such a hopefully intriguing woman.
The next part should conclude this scene. I hope you folks stick around, because this one’s going to be lots of fun.
Picture this: inside a meeting room in Irún’s main library, an assortment of office workers, students, and pensioners hunched over their notebooks around a large rectangular table. Coats and bags hung on the backs of their chairs, and at the center of the table lay a box of chocolates. While pens scratched against paper, the writing instructor hovered nearby, often pulling out her smartphone to shoot group photos for her Twitter feed, without consent I might add. Isabel Zubiri. A forty-year-old woman with warm olive skin, hair worn in a casual topknot, dangling earrings, a chainlike necklace, and cat-eye glasses with off-white frames. But nevermind those people. By then, I had deemed the course pointless, and I attended because among us sat an anomaly: Elena. Late twenties, last name unknown. You could feel her presence like a shadowy figure in the corner of your eye. Her almond-blonde hair fell limply around her pale face. Slavic features. A ghost’s beauty. Dare to look into those haunted blues framed by reddened skin, and you may have glimpsed echoes of commissars starving her ancestors’ village. Listen closely and you’d hear a distant wail, that of a newborn child abandoned by her mother. Elena was a quiet bird, born tired and with a heart full of holes. She usually wore a loose gray sweatshirt, likely the same one, in which you could barely make out her tits. I won’t get into how she behaved; that’s coming up. All in all, she was sexy as fuck. Her look and demeanor screamed “fix me.” She would ruin your life. But as the old song says: better to burn out, yeah, yeah, than to fade away.
Isabel, our teacher, her cheer a barricade against life’s harsh truths, adjusted her cat-eyed glasses and tapped her fingers lightly on the wooden table.
“Well then, let’s see what creative adventures you’ve cooked up for me in your time-travel stories! Who wants to be brave and go first? Remember, no wrong way to tell a tale… unless you’re not telling it at all.” She laughed. “And please don’t worry too much if you’ve sent me somewhere outlandish, okay? God knows I could use a vacation, even a fictional one!”
Elena eased the chair back, her slender, underfed figure rising. Her fingers held gently the edges of the printed paper while she focused on the words.
Isabel’s cheer faltered at the volunteer who had once stated that literature’s purpose was “to make the reader cry, scream, and bleed.” She quickly bolted on a professional smile.
“Ah, Elena, always the trailblazer. I must say, your commitment to sharing your work is inspiring. You’re one of the bravest souls in our little circle. Or should I say the boldest? Please, do regale us. Let’s hear where you’re whisking me off to.” Isabel’s gaze swept over the group. “And remember, everyone, we’re looking for those conflicts we’ve discussed: whether it’s a clash of personalities, a moral dilemma, or just the universe throwing some cosmic curveball. We’re all about the drama here.” She gestured at the silent ghost. “The floor is yours, Elena.”
Elena, her tired eyes fixed on the page with the intensity of a cryptologist, sighed, then began to weave her tale. I wish you could hear her voice: soft and creaky as if from disuse, and burdened with the weight of a thousand unsaid things.
“Isabel Zubiri, writer and teacher of writing, clutched the armrests of her time machine as the jostling journey shook the frame. An indicator glowed in the dim cockpit: July 1st, 1497. Florence, Italy. She would stroll through its streets, observe its people. Men in doublets and ruffs, women in gowns flaring out to their ankles like closed flowers. The air would smell of bread and dung and sweat, of herbs and spices from the markets. Amid the clucking of chickens and human chatter in that old Italian dialect, she would hear the bells of Santa Maria del Fiore. Secretly she would photograph the crowds, the palaces, and the churches. In the end, she would vanish without harming anyone nor pushing them off their paths, for fear of snapping the thread of history. The ultimate tourist in this land of the past, a voyeur to the lives of men and women long turned to dust.”
Isabel, seated, had leaned forward slightly, her fingers interlaced on the table as she listened. But she straightened up in relief.
“Well, Elena, that’s quite an evocative opening!” she encouraged. “I can already feel the weight of history in your choice of setting. Renaissance Florence, no less. The period clothing details were a lovely touch.” Some classmates nodded. “And I’m glad you’ve taken the ‘no harm to history’ rule to heart. That’s an interesting conflict right there, the struggle to remain unobtrusive and avoid altering events. It’s like the ultimate challenge for a writer, isn’t it?”
Elena’s eyebrows twitched. Somber and distant, she resumed her reading with the alienated air of the perpetually exhausted.
“Inside the time machine’s cramped cabin, a flash of light flickered. A jolt threw Isabel around, slamming her against the curved wall. She blinked to clear her vision. The indicator’s numbers blurred. While cursing, Isabel groped in the darkness for the control panel. She pressed buttons meant to reset the circuits, but the indicator’s digits kept spinning. The time machine crashed with a metallic crunch, squashing Isabel into the padded chair and rattling her teeth. Then the machine tumbled down, rolling over as Isabel, strapped in place, flipped and spun. The contents of her stomach rammed against her clenched throat in waves. Suddenly the time machine groaned to a halt, rocking Isabel against the seat, and its hatch door popped open, letting in a blast of heat. The indicator displayed dashes instead of numbers. She shuddered. Her head throbbed, her stomach churned. She tapped at the panel, but no sequence of buttons revived it. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Stay calm. The time machine came with a user manual for such emergencies. After unbuckling herself and crawling out of the hatch, she stepped onto cloggy ground. Hot, humid air filled Isabel’s lungs, heavy with the pungent stink of sulphur. Isabel, dizzy and nauseous, kept coughing. She stood wobbly in a vast swamp that stretched out into a brownish haze. On the horizon rose the dark bulk of a volcano, from whose peak climbed a column of ashy smoke lit by flickers of lightning. A ceiling of gray clouds hung heavy, casting the landscape of mud and reeds below into gloom.”
As Isabel listened, her smile had grown rigid, and she had shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Now her fingers drummed a nervous beat on the table.
“Oh dear. This is getting… rather intense, isn’t it?” she said, her voice carrying an edge of unease like a mother who has stumbled upon her teenager’s morbid drawings. “That’s our Elena, though, always taking the path that’s anything but well-traveled. Keeping us on our toes! A vivid departure from the serene Renaissance Florence, I must say. And those sensory details, they’re so… I can practically feel that sulphurous air choking my lungs.” Her eyes darted to her students. “And class, notice how Elena has woven multiple types of conflict into this scenario: person versus technology with the malfunctioning time machine, and person versus environment with that hostile landscape.” She adjusted her glasses and cleared her throat. “Would you like to continue, Elena? We’re all, uh, dying to know what happens next.”
Elena, while fidgeting with the sleeve of her gray sweatshirt, offered a thin smile. Then, gaze locked on the paper, she continued reading with the detached demeanor of a funeral director.
“The time machine, its hatch gaping like a wound, lay half-sunken in the muck. Isabel crouched beside it, coating her sneakers and ankles in mud, and inspected the metallic hull, which reflected the somber sky, for dents or cracks. A low moan rose from somewhere in the swamp, as if the earth itself suffered. Isabel wiped her forehead, her palm coming away slick with sweat. Her clothes clung to her body. The air burned her throat and lungs, forcing her to cough and spit. Isabel tugged her foot free from the clinging mud and nearly lost her sneaker. She trudged through the sludge, her feet sinking ankle-deep, to the time machine’s rear, and pried the storage compartment open. She pulled out the user’s manual, a thick binder of glossy pages, sealed in a waterproof bag. For a couple of hours, she followed the troubleshooting section’s steps. She tinkered with the innards of the contraption, wrestling with tangles of wires, flipping switches. Repeatedly she ducked inside the cockpit to check the control panel, then scrambled back out into the mud. The controls remained lifeless, and the indicator’s dashes glowed like the eyes of a corpse. In the gloom, Isabel, her eyes aching from strain, read the troubleshooting section to the end, and stared at the fine print: ‘In the event of a catastrophic failure, please contact your nearest time travel agent.'”
I chuckled, which earned me a swift glance from our instructor.
“Isabel hurled the binder into the distance.” Elena went on in her soft, creaky voice. “It sailed in an arc, its pages flapping, then landed with a wet plop. She slumped to the mud and wept, her chest heaving with sobs, the tears cutting grimy tracks down her cheeks. The time machine had become a useless sculpture in a world that never knew her name. Stranded. Abandoned. She would die here, her bones mingling with the mud.”
A few students exchanged uneasy looks. Isabel toyed with her necklace as a furrow deepened on her brow.
“Okay, Elena. You’re certainly throwing our intrepid writer-protagonist straight into the deep end. A classic case of Murphy’s Law, right? Anything that can go wrong, will. Just my luck! But hey… you’re not planning on stranding our poor heroine in this dreadful swamp forever, are you?”
Elena’s eyes lifted to meet Isabel’s, her gaze as blank and distant as the moon’s. She then resumed her reading.
“Isabel took deep breaths, inhaling the sour, sulphuric air, and her sobs subsided. I won’t die like this. I am a writer. My place is not among ghosts but among the living, men and women who have yet to read my works. She hauled herself upright, her legs trembling, her clothes heavy with mud. Calm down. Stay optimistic. Maybe I’ve landed in a bad spot, but the rest of this world can’t be so bleak. She pulled out her smartphone and turned on the camera to study her stained, wide-eyed face framed by dark, disheveled hair. Wisps of ash clung to her eyelashes; snowlike ash drifted gently in the half-light filtering through the ragged cloud cover. Isabel, her hands shaking, snapped a panoramic shot of the volcanic wasteland, the phone’s flash briefly illuminating the mud and reeds in stark white. Once she returned home, she would share the photo with the caption: ‘Guess who’s on vacation! #SwampLife. #TimelessTravels.'”
A faint smirk tugged at the corners of Elena’s mouth, and vanished as quickly. Isabel leaned forward, her fingers steepled. She opened her mouth to speak, but Elena, her gaze glued to the paper, soldiered on in a flat voice.
“Isabel set out across the swamp toward the volcano, its slopes a smear of black, its summit wreathed in smoke and lightning. The mud sucked at her sneakers with a rhythmic squelch, and the reeds brushed against her thighs. She would keep on trudging until her legs gave out. The swamp stretched out before her, a steaming expanse of mud, reeds, and fetid pools of bubbling water shimmering in the heat. The volcanic horizon flashed with lightning. Isabel walked for hours, treading when she could over narrow banks of earth that crisscrossed the marshes, where clusters of reeds rose with wide, yellowish leaves. Otherwise, her feet sank into the warm mire. The heat pressed down on her, thick and stifling. Her skin glistened with sweat, her hair was matted, her clothes reeked of sulphur, her trousers and sneakers were caked in thick mud. Isabel’s eyes watered and her nose burned from the acrid vapors. The muscles of her thighs and calves ached. Intermittent thunder silenced her labored breathing, the squelching of her steps, and the burps of the mud pools. A loud crack shook the ground, making Isabel lose her balance and fall forward, plunging face-first into sludge that swarmed with tiny, wriggling worms. She scrambled upright and clawed the sludge’s surface. While crawling onto solid ground, Isabel cried out. The echo mingled with the earth’s moans: a low, unsettling rumble. The reeds swayed and the water rippled. The volcano was hurling rocks and ash. Its peak, a jagged black crown against the leaden sky, spewed forth a towering column of smoke. Lightning danced in its depths. Down the sides of the mountain oozed a glowing orange trickle.” Elena, whose gaze was lost in the depths of the page, cleared her throat, then continued reading in a tense voice, as if the text was holding her at knifepoint. “Isabel had exhausted her emergency kit: the fresh water of her canteen, and the pack of vacuum-sealed astronaut meals. She yearned for a drink. Her face was a mask of dried mud, her hair hanged in muddy strands, and her clothes were caked in grime. Her heart pounded, her hands shook, her stomach growled, her tongue swelled from thirst. She found a pool of slightly less brackish water, where she washed her face and hair, her fingertips stopping at knots and tangles. Soon enough the landscape grew darker until the gloom forced Isabel to pull out her phone and switch on its flashlight. The pale light revealed a watery world of tall reeds and gnarled, barren trees rising from the mire. The volcano’s black slopes glowed in the darkness with streaks of red lava, and in the sky, the cloud ceiling swelled and churned like a living thing, flickers of lightning outlining its roiling contours. Isabel lay down on solid ground and slept as thunder rolled overhead and the earth trembled beneath her. She woke up ravenous. The sky had dawned with heavy cloud cover and a dusky glow. The volcano loomed like a titanic boil, and its slopes glistened with molten lava sliding down like charred cheese. Her throat burning, her eyes bloodshot from the volcanic ash and the acrid atmosphere, Isabel roamed for hours through the endless bog until she heard waves crashing. As she staggered toward the sound, the ground grew firmer, and the mud gave way to dry land. Out of the fog emerged a coastline where waves crashed against rocky outcroppings. Following the shore, Isabel came upon a beach. She crawled to the water’s edge, scooped up some in her palms, and drank. The aftertaste clung like rotten eggs. Isabel, spent, collapsed on the sand, and curled into a fetal position. The volcano loomed sideways, bleeding streams of lava. The rolling of the waves lulled Isabel to sleep.”
Isabel’s expression showed barely concealed horror. Her eyes darted around the room as if searching for a fire alarm to pull. When she spoke, she tried to inject a bit of sunshine into the oppressive atmosphere, but it came out strained.
“A frankly terrifying landscape… Endless marshes, being baked by a volcanic environment… I can practically feel the mud and the oppressive heat. Not the most pleasant sensation, of course. A bit too vivid for comfort. I must say, Elena, you have a knack for painting a bleak picture.” As her fingertips tapped on the table, she spoke like a negotiator trying to talk a person down from a ledge. “Do keep in mind that conflict can’t just be a relentless onslaught; it needs moments of reprieve, of hope, or even humor to balance the tension. Readers need a breather now and then, even if the character’s situation remains dire. Otherwise, it can feel a bit, well, hopeless, right? And hope is what keep us turning the page. You see, our craft is a careful balancing act. Too much tension can wear down the reader.” She turned to the rest of the students as if imploring them to save her. “Take note of the escalating stakes and the sense of isolation that Elena’s crafted here. They aren’t just setting elements; they’re creating psychological pressure on our protagonist. It’s not just about overcoming her immediate situation, but also about the emotional weight of being stranded in time and space. She needs to stay sane in the face of adversity. There’s a hint of existential crisis there, I think. Class, I’d love to hear from you. What conflicts do you recognize in Elena’s piece?”
A hamster-faced college student wearing a pink hoodie raised her hand, then spoke in a chipmunk voice.
“I liked that whole thing with the protagonist taking photos. It added humor in the midst of a very weird scene. Even in this strange, desolate world, she still thinks of posting it on Twitter or Instagram. I would do the same thing.”
“Right. A nice touch of absurdity. I appreciate that.”
Elena’s reddened eyes sought our instructor’s.
“I wish to continue,” she said in a hoarse murmur from a distant planet. “I’m almost done.”
Isabel straightened in her chair. She put on a porcelain doll’s smile.
“Of course, Elena. I think we’re in a good place to take a breather, do a little feedback round. Maybe give our other would-be authors a chance to test-drive their time machines.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “But please continue. Let’s hear the conclusion.”
Elena sighed, then focused on the paper like a diver following a spotlight in the murky depths.
“Isabel dreamed of water. Clear, cold water dripping from a faucet, gushing from a tap. But she awoke to the roar of the sea, the sun a faint smudge behind the cloud cover. No sense of how much time had passed. A thin layer of ash had coated her, ash that drifted down onto the beach and the waves that rolled in from a dark, metallic sea. Isabel’s throat was parched, and hunger twisted her guts. The sand was black and coarse, mixed with fragments of pumice and obsidian. She stumbled along the shoreline, her bare feet leaving footprints that were soon washed away by the waves, their white foam hissing as they receded. At times Isabel dipped her arms into the cold current, searching for fish shapes. When she gave up, she lay exhausted and shivering on the sand and passed out.”
“Elena…”
“She opened her eyes to blackness save for the fiery veins of lava throbbing in the distance. Thunder rumbled in rolling peals. Her swollen tongue clung to her mouth. She felt dry as the dead leaves from last autumn, brittle and ready to crumble. She pulled out her phone, switched on the flashlight, and illuminated the damp, coarse sand. The bubble of light glinted off flakes of ash drifting in swirls. By the water’s edge, she spotted a foot-long silhouette. Isabel dragged herself forward. Her vision blurred and flickered with dark spots, but she distinguished a short-legged, flesh-colored salamander. Its gray eyes looked blind, its slimy skin shimmered sickly. A pang of hunger glazed Isabel’s eyes. She snatched the salamander, that wriggled weakly in her grasp. Her heart pounded. I’m sorry. She dropped the phone onto the sand, clasped the salamander’s head and snapped its neck with a crack. She chomped into its belly and tore out hot, pulsing chunks of viscera. Once the offal sat in her stomach, she picked up the phone and pushed herself upright. Activating the front-faced camera, she took stock of her ash-stained face, her mouth gleaming with blood. She forced a grin and lifted her index and middle fingers in a victory sign. When she snapped the photo, the flash blinded her. No matter; she already imagined the photo caption: ‘Conquering the elements. #KeepOnGoing.’ Isabel vanished. Before the phone plopped onto the the soaked sand, it blinked out of existence. A breaking wave lifted the salamander off the sand, and the undertow swallowed its carcass.”
Elena marked the end of her tale by sitting down, scooting closer to the edge of the table, and looking down at her paper with a blank face.
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Author’s note: today’s song is “I Was Born (A Unicorn)” by The Unicorns.
Hell yeah, new novel! I hadn’t been this antsy to return to my writing since I was immersed in a certain tale about a motocross rider. Could barely sit still at work while rearranging my notes. I hadn’t created anything totally new in months, and I’ve felt a bit rusty. Anyway, I thought this was quite the impactful introduction for our new protagonist, at least when it comes to the first outer layer of such a hopefully intriguing woman.
The next part should conclude this scene. I hope you folks stick around, because this one’s going to be lots of fun.
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