Sci Fi & Fantasy / Dogmata (previously Raven Poem): Chpt. 1 Breach (Analysis)
Chpt.1:
Breach
“I am one whose fate is not his own, one man against the hosts of hell, hunted by the throngs of heaven. The path I walk, I walk alone, my destiny chosen long before I was ever conceived. I was created as a weapon; forged by the will of God himself. Now they fear I cannot be controlled; waiting for any reason to destroy me. No place to call my own, I stand between the conflicting armies of two immortal forces, and it is I who am to decide the balance.”
–The Revelation
Face it, life is a bitch. Sometimes you have to find a reason, any reason, just to keep moving. It’s just the way things are. But I guess if life was easy, it wouldn’t be worth living would it? Me, I wasn’t born with everything, but then I wasn’t born with nothing either. I was adopted by people who actually took care of me, even seemed to love me. But becoming an orphan at less than a year old, I was never given the chance to know my birth parents. Now all I have is a name.
One of many unique ‘gifts’ they chose to leave behind, Uriel was given to me by my birth mother. It means angel of light. They say she always said I was her angel; a far cry from the man I am today. But the truth is, if it wasn’t for my foster parents, who knew both my mother and father when they were still alive, I’d know nothing of them at all. They were a comfort to me, a blessing after my family passed away. But then so were you, my Adrienne.
You have been my one constant source of happiness, the light amidst the darkness, and my reason to care. These pages I wrote for you, to maybe offer a better understanding, some explanation as to why I’m unable to be the man you need of me. I hope you can forgive me and that your love for me is not lost. You mean more to me than you will ever know. If you are certain of anything about me, please know that.
But I digress. You see there’s no real beginning to start from, no true point of origin, only an escalating series of events that I hesitate to call my life. Seemingly unrelated and never ending, I’ve found myself in the strangest situations. But then I’ve always been a magnet for the bizarre. Since I can remember things have always happened around me. Things I could never explain or seem to escape.
But somehow I learned to deal. I ignored the happenings around me, lived in denial I suppose. I spent my time trying to live the ‘normal’ life. I put on acts to make you and everyone else think I was ok, just another antisocial youth. But that’s not the case, and I think you knew that. It’s hard growing up not knowing where you come from. Living where you feel you just don’t belong. Being raised by people that look and sound nothing like you.
How do you explain it; the sense of knowing your different? Not the common feelings of teen angst or the awkwardness we all go through, but to know that something about you is truly wrong. I just don’t have the words. Maybe that’s what inspired my love of rock and metal. I don’t mean the kind with pointless screaming, sex, and senseless violence. I’m talking about that of true poetry, the kind of music that stirs something inside you. You can just feel the emotions, the frustration, the anger, and the passion the artist was feeling. Even the hope and longing for something more. Whenever I found myself unable to express or let go of how I was feeling, I always surrounded myself with music. In the end, it only made me feel more different.
I was always a solemn introverted person, dressed in dark clothes, poetic and pensive. I never really wanted to be a part of the crowd. But a black kid into hard rock, drawn to the metal scene isn’t exactly common where we’re from. I can’t say I was ever really ostracized for it; it was more of a constant teasing and berating. I don’t know, maybe on some level it was an attempt on my part not to live the stereotype, maybe it was something else entirely. End the end I guess it was just my way of embracing what I was…different.
It didn’t matter. I liked who I was for the most part. The way I saw things, the way I thought; it’s true they made me stand out a little but those are the same things that made me who I was. At least who I thought I was. Only we never really know who we are until faced with overwhelming adversity, the kind of thing that tests ones resolve and defines ones true character.
For me, I guess it started with a dream; a reoccurring nightmare that over the course of several months kept growing more vivid and intense each night. Yes, if I had to name a beginning, the dream would be it. That was when my life went to hell, literally. It was a horrid apparition of my entry into the world; so severe, every taste, smell, and feeling could be felt. To this day I still have yet to shake the feelings left in its wake. So I guess I may as well start from there.
There is only darkness, a warm enveloping darkness surrounding me entirely. No longer comforted by the soothing embryonic fluid of my mothers womb, I simply wait as the world outside anticipates my arrival. My body longs for the return of the rhythmic sloshing I had come to love. Muffled sounds, little more than echoing vibrations constantly reverberate around me.
The hospital room buzzes with the hurried movement of doctors and nurses as the thralls of labor leave my mother sore and exhausted. As the contractions grow closer and closer together the time to push is nearly upon us. She’s now fully dilated and the doctor soon gives her the go ahead. I can feel the tensing and relaxing of her muscles as she tries to urge me into the world. The strain is nearly enough to cause her loss of consciousness, but she holds on for my sake.
At first I refuse to go. But as I began to crown, my head makes way to this world; the bright lights of the room nearly blinding me as I leave the darkness of the womb. It appears as though things are going well, but an immediate threat on my life would soon become apparent. I can feel my body growing limp as it struggles for oxygen. Lacking any control over this new body I’m unable to react. Desperation sets in as I realize I’m helpless to do anything. Whether I live or die is completely out of my hands. I start to panic, trying to understand, trying to figure out what’s wrong. I can’t tell what was wrong with me. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I breathe? Somebody, tell me, help me. Why can’t I breathe?
The doctors begin to move in a frenzy trying desperately to save my life. I can still hear them talking to one another, faintly, in panicked words, as I struggle to hold on. Sounds were fading, deaden almost as muffled whispers. They still had no clue as to what was wrong. Then I heard it, the lead doctor speaking to the others. The umbilical cord was wrapped around my throat and I was beginning to asphyxiate. Damn. Death would claim me before I had a chance to live. If only. Maybe then my mother would have had a chance.
What to do? I fought to hear what they would do next, only then I wish I hadn’t. Again it was the lead doctor who spoke, giving orders to the others. His voice was a low gravely sound, probably caused by years of chain smoking. He spoke clearly enough with an authority that was not to be misunderstood. I’m still unable to get over the sense of horror and shock of his words.
He looked at my mother, quickly assessing the situation. Making a decision with what seemed like no effort on his part. He turned to the other surgeons and with a calm yet directive voice gave his orders. “I see no sense in risking it. We only need the boy. Rip him from the womb, and kill the mother. Then dispose of the body. She would’ve only been a loose end anyway, to be taken care of later. This will simply save us the trouble.” His voice trailed off.
My whole body tried to scream in protest. It was no use. They obeyed without hesitation. I could feel their hands close in around me. I knew I would live, but at the cost of my own mother’s life. I would have no say in the matter. As I was yanked into the world, I could feel her slip away, the life slowly draining from her body. And then…nothing, there was only darkness. I awoke once again drenched from head to toe, my body covered in sweat. I sat up in the bed and simply stared into the darkness of the room. I tried to clear my mind as I ran my hand over my head, the prickly hairs of my closely cut wool scratched against my skin; beads of sweat making it greasy and knotted.
I pulled the sheets closer and ran my right hand over my left arm, tracing the tribal tattoos and the ankh over my shoulder. It was a nervous habit, something I always did when stressed. But to say I was stressed was putting it lightly. I had no idea what to do. Why was having this dream over and over again? What the hell did it mean? I knew I needed answers or at the least someone to talk to.
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Intriguing is the word that immediately comes to mind as I read this piece. You set the scenario in the very first sentence. You tell us the character is male, is stuck between the rock and the hard place and that everything about his life was planned out before he even took his first breath.
There is an immediate sense of loss in the characters words and feelings and you illustrate this well with the description of his early years. His reliance on his foster parents for information about his mother, his choice of lifestyle etc and the passion the character feels is made clear in the way he explains clinging to the music. Not the senseless screaming nonsense, but the true poetry he listens to.
I was slightly confused though on whether this was a narrative or a letter and found myself having to re-read to find the separation of view points. I eventually got there but it took a little while, and I think that might detract from the readers interest if not clearly defined. Perhaps forming the first few paragraphs into a letter and this may then separate the birthing scene he describes from his personal feelings.
I found myself enthralled during the description of his birth and was rivetted to the screen since this is not something I have comes across often. You are giving us the circumstances in which this individual entered this world. In essence you are allowing us to immediately imprint on the characters, much in a similar way a baby imprints on the first person they see, and everything was going well but then I had to stop reading.
I stopped for a moment and found myself re-reading the sentece to make sure I got it right. ”Rip him from the womb.” That one statement drastically changes the scene from what should be a joyful moment to a terrifying one and even more so since the baby is completely aware. I’ll confess, my jaw dropped when I initially read it and that’s why I went back a checked. Once I realised that this was not the great joyful moment it should be I had to keep reading to justify the scene. I was fearful for the baby and conveying that emotion in words is not always an easy thing to do.
Bravo!
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I see what you mean about the graphic novel bit – your usage of language in the opening paragraphs is certainly dramatic and punchy enough for that sort of work. Short, brutal sentences that grab the reader’s attention and then refuse to give it back. Not so sure about the bit in the middle – the descriptions are a little too visceral for my liking. It’s also slightly disengenuous; how would an unborn baby know so much about female anatomy from the inside?
That’s really only a blip though. I love your style and I’d be very interested to read more. You leave it at a very tantatlising point.
It’s very compelling. I get a very dark feel from it, which is good for Gothic Fantasy. I think I would read on to see what is going on.
Please don’t take this as a dig or anything but, for a self-professed artist, the imagery is not very vivid. What I mean by that is that, as an artist, your artwork itself IS the visual image. In writing, you have to paint a mental image in the reader’s mind. Use words that evoke the same kind of graphic mental image as you would ever draw or paint or whatever you do. Spice it up a bit.
Also… “pronounced your-eye-el”—I don’t think this is needed.
I liked the story very much. The journal struck me as a bit old-fashioned in tone, almost like a man in the Victorian period would write it, with all the poetic language (the hosts of hell, the throngs of heaven, the path I walk I walk alone, etc.) That was fine, since I thought it enhanced the gothic nature of the work that you mentioned in your comments. But then the subject matter he wrote about was rather modern (his being an antisocial youth, etc). I think the mixture of old and new made Uriel seem interesting and unusual. One doesn’t normally think of teenage rebels as being poetic. There were a few spelling and punctuation issues, but I won’t waste your credits by pointing them out here. If you like, I’ll do so in a comment. Overall, a very nice piece of work.
Once again, I’m very impressed with your story. You have an intriguing plot, and I like the fact that it’s written as a letter, but you need to remember that because it’s written to Adrienne you cannont explain things to the readers that she would already know- like how to pronounce her lover’s name. The pacing got a little sluggish right before you described Uriel’s birth, and I think it would be better if you could draw your audience into his feelings and senses a little bit more. I’m still a fan of yours, and I’m wanting to read more.
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