Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The Cows are 10 Years Old

Almost exactly 10 years have passed since I sat down to write my very first short story. I had spent a few years filling my head with the words of Ray Bradbury and George Orwell, and I believed that I was ready to write some impactful piece of apocalyptic fiction just as they had. I'm really glad that, in spite of my lack of experience, I had the guts to take on a couple of the greatest authors of the 20th century. Their work inspired me to begin my own, and I was awfully proud of it... at the time.

What follows is as an early draft of that first story. It's fairly easy to see my attempt at Bradbury even though the story itself needs much revision.  I am working on a drastic rewrite of the story to make it something worth reading.

And so I present to you "Until the Cows Came Home".



     Ever so slowly the red sun rose on Lake Victoria. Two aged men sat in a small metal boat, fishing polls held loosely in their wrinkled hands.

     "Fish don’t seem to be bitin’ much today, do they Lenny?"

     "Well, we haven’t caught a single fish from this old pond in 10 years." Lenny looked out over the pond and the burnt skies reflected in its waters. He leaned over the side of the boat and looked at his own reflection in the green, muddy water—the same water that had been crystal clear when they were children. He took a deep, patient breath and let loose a soft sigh. "I remember when we were young kids… we would sit almost every day out here and fish till…." He paused for a moment at the sound of distant gun fire. "Till the cows came home."

     An odd look came over Sam’s face. He was apparently perplexed. "Hmm…Cows…I can’t seem to remember the cows." He nervously fingered his fishing line.

     "Sorry, it’s just an old, old figure of speech."

     "Are we old, Lenny?"

     "Yes, I’m afraid so, Sam." He spoke gently towards his senile friend. Lenny looked into the water and smiled to his reflection. In a way Sam had become a child again.

     "Lenny?"

     "Yes, Sam."

     "Oh…nothing."

     "Yes, Sam." Lenny looked up into the sky. He listened carefully to a far-off whistling noise, which after a few moments stopped. A low rumbling noise followed. The water beneath the boat slowly rippled outward.

     "What’s that?" asked Sam as dark cloud rose over the horizon.

     What was it? It was a tool of destruction, an element of war, a display of aggression: a bomb. "Why, that is our ride home."

     "How much longer till it gets here?"

     "Not long." Sam’s wristwatch began beeping. He looked at it confused, obviously having forgotten its purpose. A soft, melodic robotic voice spoke out from the tiny band: Time to take our medicine Samuel. It repeated itself. Lenny reached over and switched the tiny voice off. All the while Sam watched Lenny with child-like curiosity. He then reached into Sam’s tackle box and presented a small plastic bottle.

     "What’s that?" asked Sam.

     "This is your Alzheimer’s medicine." Lenny twisted off the top of the translucent brown bottle and poured the small blue pills into his hands.

     "What’s Alzheimer’s?" asked Sam.
Sam had asked this question on several occasions since he began loosing his memory. Each time, Lenny got better at explaining it. "It’s a monstrous disease that lives inside of you, and without warning it destroys all of your memories and turns you back into a child. These tiny little pills hold your memories, and when the monster comes, they remind you of who you are. They re-acquaint you with yourself." With that Lenny lifted his hand into the air and threw the pills out into the blue water.

     "Oh no! Why did you do that?"

     "Don’t worry, old friend. Once we get home, you’ll not need them anymore." Slowly a whistling noise grew overhead, steadily growing louder.

     "It’s time to go. Are you ready?" By now the whistling had grown deafeningly loud.

     "Oh, yes." Sam’s attention was drawn from the sky back to the water. "Look!" He shouted over the noise. "I’ve got one."

     The whistling stopped. "I guess so." Lenny whispered to himself. A split second later a blinding light surrounded the two old men and their tiny boat. "I guess so."

1 comment:

David Clements said...

It's always nice to look back and see where you were when you started doing something, whether it was for fun or for a potential career.

Thanks for sharing this draft. I enjoyed it and hope that you finish the entire story.