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Penny
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#1
Old 12-09-2007, 12:26 AM

Hello all! I started this novel for National Novel Writing Month. But I didn't finish. So I'm going to keep working one it, drawing the peices together and tying it up.

Critique, comments, suggestions and such are welcome, but I'd prefer if you'd keep it on voice, story and those sort of things for now. Grammer and technical things are less important in this first draft. I assure you, I know how to punctuate. I just need to get my thoughts out first. I'm not actually going back to edit until I get to the very end.

So here it is: Narrative, by Alfred Pennyworth the Second.

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A man and a woman stand in an empty plain.
“The world is dark here.” Says Fish.
“No lights.” Says Em.
They stare at the horizon. It is very dark. They can’t see one another. You can’t see them. It doesn’t matter though.
“When faced with a pointless decision, the choice is arbitrary.”
“More riddles, Fish. What a waste of good time.”
“The sun rises here as with everywhere else.”
The sun rose there. As with everywhere else. With the same gray-toned pinks and purple-toned oranges. They catch in the eyes of the two wanderers.
“Wanderers of life-story, wanderers of false-story.” Says the woman. Em kicks a stone. It is the only loose stone on the plain. The ground is smooth clay pounded down by the weather. He sings a song to himself. Fish hears, but doesn’t say anything. They stand for some time.
A single cotton ball of a cloud drifts across the sky. They watch its shadow crawl across the earth. It crosses the sun and they are cast into a spotlight of darkness for a moment. Em curls up on the ground and shuts his eyes. The sun is high. Fish takes off her boots and massages her feet. Her socks are blue. She moves like a scarecrow, gingerly. With long knitting needle arms and legs.
“This world-plain does not offer itself to us. This long road is not the rolling sweet way that was meant for us.” Says Fish. Em rolls over and pulls his arms over his head. Soon Fish lies on the ground too. Some ways away from Em. They are both asleep. The sun reaches its apex and falls back to the horizon. It is dusk when they wake.
Fish wakes first. She draws in the dust with one long finger. She draws what she sees. She sees a bare horizon. It is a very boring drawing.
Em wakes some time later. He is not well rested.
“Haven’t we been here?” he asks.
“We haven’t left,” Fish draws another landscape on the ground. Em scoots closer and looks it over.
“It is looking good. Looks just like it I think,” he says. She nods, erases it and starts again. It doesn’t take long before she has another line.