Storywriting

jedi;2242 said:

Buckley?s To None
I was driving along the road at night with an old shovel beside me, against the passenger seat, its head in its own floor space. A tin can, stuffed full of receipts since the last time I?d emptied my wallet, moved about on the floor and rattled against the shovel.
1 X Second hand shovel . . . $30 ?
An Adventure-of-a-life-time; priceless!
The night sky had been broken up by stringy patches of moonlight-whitened cloud that held an eerie presence. There was nothing out here besides me and the faceless spirits I sought. For this reason alone an eerie feeling was enough persuasion for me that there was something to be found here; in which case, I would be determined to find it.
I was given several eye witness accounts as testimony. It was one of these accounts that I?d been privy to which enthralled my imagination, launched my departure at the earliest ?convenience?. The winds of those spirits are alive with howling, I was told, brought about by their burning desire to live again. The scream?s of the damned howl of a strong desire for beyond an after-life, and fulfilling this, they live upon the winds that are carrying their very souls. I was Hell bent, for nothing in the world appeals more to me than proof of a life-after-death, hell-bent, I was, on finding something.
I?d just put twenty dollars of fuel in the car, releasing the trigger on the gun a fraction too late; overshooting the mark. I had only a twenty dollar note on me. I had over filled by seven cents, and so, wondered if I would be able to make the journey at all. She stood there looking at me from behind the counter while I searched my pockets for a pretend five cents that might?ve been there. ?That?ll do ya?, the console operator said. ?Thanks?, I replied, smiling cheerfully to her, while she herself, out of lack of a concern for such a small matter, simply smiled back.
It had been a four and a half hour drive to where I?d run out of fuel, then nearly twenty minutes walking to the slope of the hill. There I was trudging up the hill in the dark with the old shovel, held out in front slightly in case of an unseen object that might make me stumble; and, a bottle of water that would see me through five hours of digging. I dug in the moonlight. I had been digging all night long keeping an eye out. I found neither a smooth flat stone to signify a plot, nor buried human remains of any sort. It was at sunrise that I was thankful for refilling the bottle at the servo even though it was empty.
My situation wasn?t dire despite not getting reception out here. Someone would likely come past whom I?d wave down, or I could call someone once the reception came in or I found a spot. My mates knew where I could be found, although, that wasn?t my main concern; neither was surviving without water throughout the wait.
I had decided to push the car into the middle of the road. I still wanted to find a spirit out here and didn?t want to lose a potential lift while I was digging up the hilltop. I?d have lit a fire on the hilltop, probably the best idea I?d had, only I had nothing to light one with. Ironically there was plenty of water in the radiator and the window wiper reservoir. Hell, who was I to be picky.
So my state of being right at this point was this: searching for a ghost while waiting for a lift. That was it. My water supply would hold out, I kept reminding myself as the worry would try me on. That was until my state of being fell to: making my water last as long as possible, while waiting for someone to turn up. But all this was incidental.
The pick between two spots was an easy one: On the hill, in the shade, or in the car, in the middle of the road. The breeze would blow a little nicer up there and allowed me to survey the grounds below, not only for the wake of track dust, thrown up by would-be approaching vehicles, but also for an apparition of the departed. Something strange had occurred to me while looking about from this vantage point on the hilltop; a severe disturbing of my senses was happening as I looked on the object, and what I saw was that of a dwindling waterhole, that I called my car.
My search efforts were rapidly, albeit gradually, being put aside as the days swept past. It wasn?t the digging itself, or the water shortage crisis, but the snickering of their voices inside my head that made it all the harder. I had been gullible to their suggestions and had acted impulsively. Thinking back on the so-called eye witness account, other minute details emerged within my memory?s eye of the sly, yet barely, concealed smirks they?d exchanged as I?d listened too intently to take notice at the time, but was now revisiting. In the back of my mind they were there watching me in a similar way as I was able to see them. Only they were laughing, I could almost hear them.
In all there are about forty trees atop this hill. Every now and then the rushing motion of something jettisoning swiftly enough to keep my vision from seizing its identify would have me yanking my head about. I would pull the shovel up from the ground before lurking amongst the trees guardedly. I looked long and hard. Every so often it would catch my attention in the corner of my eye, literally sending chills down up my spine with the sudden rush of wind that accompanied its every motion. A strong presence that rested heavily upon my chest and worse on my conscience, for I must have walked over most every square foot of this ground by now. They must guard themselves; just as I would. I had hoped to have been found by this point in time. In light of what I was about to discover, I wish I had been.
Under the circumstances I didn?t find it strange of having had partaken in another state of being: searching for a ghost that didn?t want to be found, while I myself wanted to be found but had no one looking for me; All I was really after at this point was for someone to find something me, it, them, I didn?t care. I could handle dying of de-hydration as long as I could die with my ultimate accomplishment.
I repeated the process of arriving here - over and over in my mind. The thirty for the shovel and the twenty for the fuel. The trip was doomed from the start. If I budgeted for the trip, planned a little better and so forth; I could?ve camped out here for weeks, maybe even months.
I had been infected with a subtle plague from the moment I arrived, slowly taken me in with its natural comfort of harmonious and tranquil scenery before hurling the hard truth my way like waking up in a nightmare that was real. It had persuaded me gently before jolting me to the conclusion; it was as simple an idea of this spirit being out here in the first place, whom, knew its state of being yet roamed about aimlessly haunting this place in the wind and still knowingly aware of the only power left in its being ? to roam about the hill, this hill. The ghost I had been looking for, as it turned out, was me.
Total . . . $30 ?
I know I?m dead now, I understand there?s no way out of this oblivion. I might at least live on as story in a pub, only mine will be truth, this is my after-life. The odds are that I?m at the wrong hill, so nobody will know where to find me, but I will be dead at the top of this one, this is now my resting place. I found a pen in the glove box (for once). Ironically the best piece of paper in the car was the receipt from Buckley?s to none which had been printed on a4 size paper. I found it scrunched up inside the tin that had clashed against the shovel on the way here.























Copyright David Gleeson, 2009. All rights reserved.

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