Sons of Abraham -------------------------------------------
The smoke slowly clears.
The world is silent,
though the faces around you
appear to be screaming.
The boy next to you on the right
is too still.
The girl on the left is staring
without seeing.
Dust, smoke and broken rock
cover you.
You wonder what happened.
Gradually the world becomes less silent.
The noises grow in intensity
until your ears are overcome with the keening.
Your head is bleeding and
it really hurts.
It's another day
just like yesterday,
but this time you were caught in the cross-fire.
I felt like I was watching live footage of an explosion/bombing while reading this piece, and while I thought I knew what the title implied, I have to admit you threw a curveball that hit me right in the face.
"The smoke slowly clears.
The world is silent,
though the faces around you
appear to be screaming."
The immediate aftermath of the explosion seen through the reader's eyes do a lot more than describe the scene. The world is silent in the temporary or permanent damage to hearing and shellshock, and while that sense is impaired, sight is perfect and painful.
"The boy next to you on the right
is too still.
The girl on the left is staring
without seeing.
Dust, smoke and broken rock
cover you.
You wonder what happened."
You have a brilliant way of saying things without making them obvious and that's something I love about writing, it adds a little ambiguity and room for the reader to make some of their own decisions and reactions instead of reading something like
"a dead boy on the right is motionless, a young girl's lifeless eyes stare though you."
The boy could be unconscious, the girl could be blind, but I have a feeling that my fears for the worst are the sad truth in this piece.
"Gradually the world becomes less silent.
The noises grow in intensity
until your ears are overcome with the keening."
Hearing is returning to the speaker at this point and the only suggestion I have is to maybe include the washed-out ringing type of sound being replaced by the wails of everyone around. I had a firecracker go off by my face and distinctly remember the fear that my hearing wouldn't return, and that awful noise that was slowly replaced by familiar sounds- to the point where I wince if a grenade/artillery shell lands near me when I'm playing a first person shooter video game.
But it's by no means a must, you get your point across, I just feel like it might add to the extremely powerful image and first-person experience you've created.
"Your head is bleeding and
it really hurts.
It's another day
just like yesterday,
but this time you were caught in the cross-fire."
The first sentence is the weakest part of the piece for me, it just seems too straightforward in comparison to the slightly vague descriptions above. Maybe if the sense of wonder is replaced by pain and the blood obscures his/her vision or just drips onto the body or the ground to mix with its brothers in the dirt, rubble, and blood of others.
So the "unclear" parts don't distract from the piece for me, they are perfect because they get the reader to do a little bit more thinking. It reminds me of some pictures I've seen online from riots and bombings in the middle east and my own experience with a much much smaller explosion that damaged my hearing for about a week.
I'm interpreting this not as a pro-Israel or anti-Palestinian piece because the last three lines sum it up for me.
"It's another day
just like yesterday,
but this time you were caught in the cross-fire."
It feels completely original to me and opened my eyes a million times wider than the 10PM news ever will. Attractive news anchors in suits with perfect hair dissociate their viewers from the horrors that take place in foreign countries, with a short 1 minute spot (brought to you by Ford) consisting of the attack, # of dead and wounded, and maybe a 15 second helicopter shot of the scene.
I'm a fan, mae - I might have to stalk you, because your writing is making me question my own limits and things I choose to and can try to write about myself, and that's a huge reason why I put things on here, I want to get better and I need all the practice and help I can get.
Submission Name: Sons of Abraham
