The Beginning of the End

Actually, truth be told, the middle of the end. Crossed 47k today, which means (for those of you who are math-challenged) that there are less than 3,000 words to write. I think this story could be told in about 30,000 words, all said and done. The wonderful thing about the free-flow Beckett-esque style I took on is that everything gets said fifty different ways each time. I can't imagine what it must be like to read this. I'd like to think that I'll go back and rip out the 20,000 words that need to be ripped out and then rewrite the rest, but if history is any guide, it's unlikely.

However, there is a story here. Or something. It's fun to, after the fact, write the outline of what actually should have happened. Anybody who actually reads this draft (may God have mercy on your souls) will delight in random extra scenes (1500 words on on visiting the Chicago World's Fair that go nowhere?) and disconnected and unfinished bits. There are still serious issues with connection. And with many other things.

But, there was very little outright word padding this year. Nobody had a dream. Nobody listed the contents of their wallet. Nobody randomly repeated things they said before. Also, I used many more contractions than I did last year. The speech is decidedly less formal. I just hope that the Google Docs word counter is accurate....

Anyhow -- here is what will be (potentially) a couple of the last paragraphs of the story. Need to find 3,000 words worth of backfill now....

He once thought he had nothing left to lose, that there was nothing left to find, and there is nothing left to sort, and there is nothing left to organize and there is nothing left to fall apart. And yet, there still were. Even when he thought he had hid the bottom, he managed to sink a little more, to fall a little farther. That was the most tragic part of all. To think he had seen the worse, and then he would see something more. Then he would learn another thing, forget another thing, find another thing, lose another thing. Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. It does. It always does.

When there's nothing left to lose, there's nothing left to do, but until then, he just keeps on struggling, just keeps on trying, keeps on clawing at the floor, keeps on clawing at the earth, feeling dirt replace the splinters in his fingernails, feeling rain replace the tears on his face. Feeling the dry air of his library replaced by the damp air of a devastated field, a field that has not been tended to in years, a field that has been ravaged by wind and by time and by the travesty that is Dui's mind, by the travesty that is.

He curls up, he curls up into himself, curls up into a ball, on the floor, no, on the ground. Dirt replaces floorboard, dirt replaces everything, dirt replaces all. He feels it, dry, crumbling, moving with him as he moves, slowly sinking into the ground, he wonders if even the worms are gone, if they have survived, if there is anything at all left to find, and when he opens his eyes, it is all still there. Or rather, it is all still not there. His eyes open, lying on his side, he blinks at his surroundings, at his black and white world, he blinks in wonder and a wide-eyed amazement, thinking Perhaps I have escaped and perhaps I have finally broken free. He stretches out his index finger, and digs a little in the soil, finds it dry, finds it yielding, finds it barren, and finds nothing else at all.