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Original short story by Tommy Pattison
Property of PITCH BLACK Pictures ™
JOAN 2012©11/ 29/ 2008
A tiny particle cast off by the big bang, the Earth twists through space… like a cooling ember, the warmth of her life giving core now mostly gone. The magma that once filled her heart, now cold hard stone… Her surface seemingly void of life… where once majestic mountains loomed… Lay mere mounds… colossal canyons …at their deepest darkest depths only hints of the great oceans they once were. Through greed, hatred and neglect she lay withered and dying…
Greed… greed of the industries, mining her resources to depletion… ultimately… done in by their own greed… as the resources dwindled, so had their niche, they simply… died off…
Hatred… hatred of the warlords… killing… killing!… killing!!… Killing everything and everyone unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius or Killing zone as they so aptly put it, the killing zone of a hundred thousand megatons of bombing… ironically… destroying their niche… Killed off…
Neglect… neglect not only of the planet, moreover of ourselves our essence… not of our bodies… but of that which gives us life… our soul our will our spirit our love and hope… hope?
Mans pessimism and antipathy like a black wave spread, enveloping the very soul of our Earth, leaving her skin poisoned and scarred…
Amidst the dust and the smoke of this man made hell survives a girl… one of… well one of the meek I guess… one whose life began in a world of blue skies … sunny days, rainy days ,fresh air, green grass, tall trees and deep blue seas… rivers, lakes, ponds and streams… flowers, butterflies, lady bugs… birds and bees…
One whom within the first half of her twenty years of life has lost everyone she has ever loved … Everyone she has ever known…
one who used to greet the days beautiful sunrise with a smile… now cowers underground, in fear… fear that the shelter she has found today, will not protect her from the murderous curtain of fire drawn across the land by the sun… fear that in six hours when night comes, she will not be able to find food… which more often than not is the cooked remains of some poor soul who failed to find adequate shelter…
One who like everyone else has lost all faith and hope… surviving on instinct alone …
One whose only joy, comes from finding the occasional underground parking structure… where there is certain to be dead people to eat or half dead people for companionship…
One whose only luck… is that the clans that have holed up in the fortress like Costco’s, are willing to trade a day’s shelter, food and water for quick Fuck or a blow job, instead of just being raped and cast aside… usually by more than one, even two men…
One who on this night as she makes her way through a ransacked mall… scans the ruin… moon light beaming through skylights above, make visible in the shadows, protected from the scorching rays of the sun…
People…
Children playing in fountain …
A man in a tuxedo and a woman in an evening dress, barefoot, walking hand in hand on the beach, waves lapping at their feet…
A little girl in a little white dress and matching hat, adorned with a fiery red rose, laughs… as she swings from the branch of a mighty oak tree…
Seated on a washtub, a teenage girl looks up at a boy leaning over the fence above her… they gaze amorously into each other’s eyes while thousands of brilliant yellow flowers adorn the world around them…
A wonderful lime stone castle with high towers, girded by winding parapets, like a monolith, erupts from a dense green forest…
All these images, like ghosts, float about her head as she remembers…
Memories of her mother’s comforting smile as she kisses her nose softly…
Memories of her little sister clamped on her leg, laughing hysterically…
Memories of walking hand in hand with her daddy eating an ice cream…
Memories of when her name used to be…
Joan…
A sudden noise startles the ghosts back to the paper on which they are printed…
Joan turns…
like a hammer, the gaunt corpse like faces of an old man and woman, deliver reality’s crushing blow, setting her back a step, leather like skin stretched tightly over the man’s prominent ribcage reminds her… she must find food… staring at Joan briefly, the old couple, arm in arm hobble off, suddenly… violently… the old man contorts and drops to the ground… standing over him, the old woman for a moment just stares… she slowly bends down gently caressing his head… Then with her teeth, begins ripping the flesh from his neck and shoulder… looking up she gestures for Joan to join her…
Any other time she thinks…
But now …
Now something is different…
Now something has changed…
Those images…
Throughout the night she wanders aimlessly… unable to purge the images from her thoughts… images of children… babies… how long had it been since she had seen or even heard of a child… images of the old woman… oddly not of the horror of her eating her husband… but her kindness… her willingness to share…as she looks around at the nightmare the world had become, in the deepest depths of her soul something stirs… a spark… the smallest intimation of a feeling she barely knows… a feeling almost forgotten… a feeling that in the last half of her life has never had reason to live…
She spies the glow of the sun growing brighter on the horizon…
She decides …
Stepping into the open she tilts her face toward the sky, in the frigid air her breath hangs before her… the sun’s rays send steam sizzling up from the ground… like dust kicked up as an army of fire marches toward her…
Smiling she closes her eyes…
A single tear glides down her cheek…
She feels the warmth…
As the tear falls from her cheek, through her lips pass a single word…
Love…
The tiny tear collides with the earth…
The fire is now upon her…
As the essence of the tear absorbs into the Earth, oceans fill, mountains thrust upward… a wave of green devours the parched earth, Barren wastelands burst as foliage is birthed from stone… The lifeless skeletons of a Billion scorched trees, rejuvenated, again bristle with life… Deep at her heart the earth’s cold hardened core again molten, burns with life …
All of this in the blink of an eye…
Now standing amidst thousands of bright yellow flowers…the warm rays of the sun radiate her upturned face… Joan D’Arc opens her eyes to the most beautiful blue skies, while off in the distance a sparrow sings it’s praises of a wonderful new day…
The Beginning… Again… ©November 29, 2008
I was going to end this story with dazed and confused people emerging from the wood work and no trace of mans industrialism and a bunch of other crap, but when I got to the blue skies part it just felt right to stop and kind of leave it open to your interpretation, did she really change things … or did she merely just move on to the next “plane” if you will?…
However… as I was writing this story, I also started thinking… what if man in his infinite wisdom had spent as much time , effort and money on the development of the human as he has on war and building technological crutches? I mean really delved in and tried to understand the power locked away in the human machine. Is it possible that we wouldn’t even need technology or oil or the confines of an existence created by money?…
What if?… what if one person could really make a difference?… what if… the hope and selflessness of one could make right mans wrongs?… what if the belief of one could give the world a second chance to get it right? … would man get it right if he did have a second chance?…
Who would be that one person?… would it be you?… or I? … Or any one? … Who knows?… food for thought…
Thank you for listening…
Tommy Pattison Nov, 29, 2008
I would also like to thank Trace Roberts and Joe Michaud for their unyielding support of my dream…