tanks very much! sorry i stamped on your own piece that i reviewed. i appreciate your positive feedback.
Novel Treatments / Legacy- "What am I gonna eat?" (Analysis)
The hot wind ripped skin off his face and the desert sunlight bored right through his sunglasses, humping the back of his head like an Afghani hooker. Phil surveyed the countryside with dissatisfaction. Arid, empty, golden desert reaching off on the left, a whole bunch of camel fuckland on the right. He sighed, considering whether to make the signal to ‘hurry it up’ to the stressed out truck driver behind them. Last time he did that the bugger looked as though he might ram their little Mitsubishi ute if he did it again, regardless of the big fuck off M-60 mounted in the tray.
‘Interminable fucking highway,’ he thought, scratching at the blonde locks peeking out of his cap. Four hours, two of them in the baking sun, with no company but his radio, the pissed off truck driver’s face and wind-chapped lips. The money was good, but the assignment was bullshit. Forty crapped up ancient trucks in a single line convoy, guarded by 8 ex-pat, ex-special forces “mercenaries” plus untrained Kurdish cannon fodder, not even in armoured vehicles, making the eight hour trip through insurgent Iraq from Baghdad to Jordan. A rolling goat-fuck, Mark and the boys called it. Sixty ks an hour through searing, exposed wasteland, open to a wide world of shenanigans.
Shifting his AK round to his side, Phil squinted down at his ration pack. Sighed again. 23 and still longing for mum’s cooking. The Kurdish backup in the cab at the front was shouting something, but his broken English was snatched away by the wind. ‘Use the radio, idiot,’ he thought, ‘what am I gonna eat?’
A sound like a fridge door gently closing floated by. Phil dropped his pack and adrenaline hit him like a heavyweight cheapshot. His radio spurted tech talk. The early warning cars had been ambushed up ahead, under the overpass.
“Jesus Fuck!” he muttered, heart in mouth, forcing the gun off safety. He ducked down behind the cab as the ute slowed to a stop, pulling in close to the slight embankment that flanked the 6-lane highway.
Rounds of RPG smoked overhead. They were following the wrong diagonal, thankfully.
Bullet spray filled his ears. He chanced a quick glimpse of the action.
Black hair, black shirt, pants. AK like his own, infidel in its sights.
The training took him. He let off a couple of rounds, breathing hard through a line mouth. The boy’s face changed. Panic. He wasn’t even 18. The kid stooped out of sight.
The Kurd struggled out of the cab, shouting abuse at the barely seen enemy. He started striding towards the bank like John Wayne, shooting from the hip and shrieking at the top of his lungs. Phil cursed, shocked and annoyed.
“What the fuck are you doing, you crazy cunt, get back in the vehicle, get back, get the fuck back!” The balls on this idiot!
“Mark, get him back! Mark, fuck! What the fuck?!” he bellowed, providing cover fire for the mad fucker strolling towards certain death. Mark launched out of the cab and took the Kurdish Kamikaze to ground, wildly shooting off his sidearm while they tussled on the road.
Time for the M-60. He wrestled it from the mounting and slammed it down on the cab roof, just in time to catch sight of the grenade hurtling towards the white ute like screaming hell. It smashed through the windscreen, scattering crystals and heat, and lodged under the backseat. Phil felt a scorching surge of air and suddenly the vehicle incendiarised, nightmare flames licking up the seats. The rush kicked him square in the face.
In the split second it took to clamber off the tray, his mum and his dad, his brothers, his sisters, his gorgeous girlfriend, his hometown, his best mates, everyone who loved him appeared in his crosshair sight, glaring, staring him down.
“I’m not impressed Phil, what do you want to go shoot at people for?” His mum’s accusing voice penetrated his headrush.
“Son, do what ya gotta do, but don’t get killed, or I’ll kill ya, orright?” His old man’s halfjoke that caught his heart strings. His sister’s sick face, patience-pairing his woman’s anxious expression, grey as the airport seats abandoned behind them. Guilt besieged him, then his boots hit the tarmac and it was conquered and forgotten.
‘I’m not fucking dying here,’ he thought.
“Get back, pull back!” Mark’s voice like spurs in his sides. Squealing radio static smashed through his consciousness. He ducked back behind the other truck, the Arab driver was huddled under the exhaust, coughing from the engine smoke but unable to move from fear. A handgun cringed in his shaking hand. Static blared through Phil’s piece. He snatched it off and dumped it on the Arab’s lap. He sqeaked and dropped the sidearm.
“Just hold this, mate, just listen, you’ll be orright, mate, when the static stops press this button, I‘m going to go fetch my mates, orright? Just press this, forget about shooting, just hold it, orright?” he forced the man’s trembling fingers onto the device and looked him in the eye and pushed the button down; the man didn’t speak a word of English but he nodded, desperate to understand. The forsaken gun was never touched again.
The ute was demon-blazing. They had embarked with 10 000 rounds and 2 tanks of diesel fuel, that fucker was going to go up like Guy Fawkes, and Mark and the Kurd were pinned down to the right flank of it. Mark was cradling his left side, shooting with his right. Shouting.. something, gunfire blaring.
A neon sign flashed in red his brain- MARK’S LEFT-HANDED. TEAM LEADER IS HIT.
“Mark, I’m engaging, get back, I’ve got you!” Phil roared.
A target popped up, he took it; a fine red mist unfurled like a rose in the air and the kid slumped forward.
Time slowed. Mum’s voice ripening the stifling air with foetid accusation.
“What do you want to go and shoot at people for?”
The mist hung, he could smell the heat, the boy’s last thoughts. Suffocated, but for a moment only.
Mark shimmied on his back over the highway, clutching the hysterical Kurd, until they got behind the burning ute. Phil pumped out another round, and the pair scrambled to foot and pitched back behind the truck.
The rear guard ute pulled up alongside and the trio jumbled in.
“You right mate?” Phil demanded of Mark. His radio was busted up, and shrap was lodged in the right-side of his flak-jacket, but no blood.
“I’m fine, fuck off,” Mark was too well-trained to freak out but he was ashen when he gave the order to assist.
A ground-shaking BOOM. In the rear-view mirror, Phil saw the Mitsubishi explode and expire, a massive fireball comandeering the shaking rectangle of glass. He twisted in his seat and saw the inferno blossom into the sky, punching a petal fist in the desert glare.
Phil and the feverous Kurd let out a WHOOT! but Mark merely shook his head and cursed.
“Shut up, ya dogs, that’s just more fucking overhead that I have to report,” he blustered.. Metal bits hailed on the back of the armoured truck, so the driver hit the pedal and they high-tailed it under the bridge.
A squeal of tires, and the rout was over. The enemy had turned tail while they were invading the shadow and everything was suddenly a lot quieter. Phil was off-chops from the rush of the clash, and the image of the rose was lost in the feverous flurry of activity. For a good hour or more he was rushing around, making hysterical jokes, meeting with stricken laughter. Like the a lot of the company, this was his first gamble into professional soldiery.
“Did you see those dickheads, mate? All over the place!” Ha ha ha, we’re still alive.
After endless radio relay and mopping up, they moved out. It was difficult to persuade the smoking convoy back onto the road. Phil bundled in with the Arab driver.
The driver’s thoughts were with the handgun which he could not wield, and he saw its guts and pieces glinting in the afternoon sunlight, after he had backed over it with his truck. He had abandoned his voice to diesel fumes, and said nothing.
“Nobody likes being shot at, mate,” Phil attempted, into the thick air, but the radio crowded the space between them. A supposition of cowardice is kept silent between men.
The sun set bloody on the black snake winding into the distance. The heat poured off it, making a red fog mirage in Phil’s weaving sight. He was alone, the mute driver a wooden box of dead thought in the seat beside him. Alone, in the front of a shitty fleet truck, wanting to fall over. Praying for a cigarette, praying to click his red shoes together and be back in dreary Kansas, Western Australia, bored rigid but safe. Fuck this.
“That’s it,” he whispered out loud. “I’m going home.” The driver didn’t respond, but he was thinking the same thing.
Phil’s body crashed and the dark closed in. A tremor shook him, dislodging a tear. He tried to blank his mind, but even the noise of the rickety old engine couldn’t drown out the image of the rose, unfurling in the desert afternoon, and the kid’s half-a-face, staring him down.
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TDavino reviewed Version 1 -
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Naushad reviewed Version 1 -
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blakkangle reviewed Version 1 -
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doktorsarcasm reviewed Version 1 -
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Mikkosgirl reviewed Version 1 -
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I like that you use less- than lilly white english for this piece. It makes it more enjoyable to put it into context. This offers an interesting insight into a world other than our American-fast food empire, and use blend setting and characters nicely into something greater than most. I noticed a few typos, but nothing horrible. Good luck putting all this together.
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crimsonarchon reviewed Version 1 -
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Overall, this is quite a good piece. I do have a few gripes with it, however. Some of the description, especially a few of the metaphors, are unnecessarily vulgar. Don’t get me wrong, a little swearing for enhancement of the story is the tits, but it just seems a bit forced in some places.
The dialog is all rather natural except that (considering you indicated at least one of them had just been involved in his first cluster job) perhaps it could have been a bit more frantic. Everyone keeps their shit together a little too well.
Small nitpicks aside, I will say that this stands alone as its own story pretty well, but would likely work better as a piece of a larger story. I prefer character development and tension to pure action though, so I almost always opt for meatier fare.
Elven_Vampiress reviewed Version 1 -
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This is a beautiful piece even on it’s own! Might I reccomend that, if it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the Novel,which I haven’t read any of-so if this doesn’t make sense then ignore it; use it as a short story. It greatly appealed to me, by reason of the down to earth human language used. Cheers!
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