Friday Flash: No Man's Land
No Man’s Land
Through her mind, plots ran like wild dogs she chased but never caught. They outran her, and now, finally, she didn’t even have strength for the chase anymore. She watched the scenes play out in fragments in her head, shattered images like reflections from a broken mirror.
She wondered why she had bothered to try for so long. She remembered Emily Dickinson’s drawer full of poetry, found after her death, and laughed bitterly. At least poor Emily lived on in a way though the people that came after her. She had no such luxury.
In the short time she had left, she lost herself in illusion, escaping the loneliness by losing herself in happy times that never were. She bent over the tattered, torn papers of her earlier efforts. She wondered how much longer her light would last before… She read and plunged into her self created fantasy world.
**
The pristine condition of the find amazed him, especially the positioning of the manuscript so close to the bones of the hand. He scraped away more dirt with a small brush, mindful of the ancient relics.
Soon he was joined by another anthropologist, a colleague who had noticed his hunched profile. Neither trill nor warble passed between the two. They exchanged a look that spoke volumes and bent to the task of unearthing the ancient human treasure.
With the help of others, they would catalog and number the finds for the museum. The site’s discovery promised to be a major contribution to the field. The wrecked buildings, the warped metal beams, the skeletal remains and parchments. Destruction of the seemingly permanent next to fragile remains of flesh and trees that had survived a billion years. Perhaps, hidden in the manuscript, they’d finally find the key to the catastrophe that wiped out the human species.
THE END.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Interesting.
Humanity’s last words.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Reading your story was particularly interesting to me because I visited the Terracotta Warriors exhibit in DC the other day. I was amazed at the things that were excavated from the dig in China, and the story that was pieced together of life under the First Emperor.
Just like the archeologists in your story!
December 11th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
[...] 13 of Pri La Fundamento. I also finished editing my #fridayflash fiction for this week, ‘No Man’s Land,’ and was even able to read some flash fiction while picking up around the house. Oh, and I [...]
December 11th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I can just imagine the wild errors that anthropologists would come up with after reading fantasy. At least her words did live on. Nice story!
December 11th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Nice story. Ha I can only imagine what anthropologists would think of our world with any of our drafts and manuscripts.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
You know, I have often wondered what future archaeologists will think Disneyworld was for. LOL
December 12th, 2009 at 2:11 am
Oooh, intriguing piece!
Adored the first paragraph, it describes how I feel to a T!
December 12th, 2009 at 9:10 am
interesting on so many levels, I particular like the way she is now catapulted passed the greats and is now the literature rosseta stone
Good stuff
December 12th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Thank you so much for your comments!
December 12th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I’ll stop writing when they pry my pencil from my cold, dead hands … Oh, wait – that’s not how it goes. Anyway – this is a very nice piece – would make an intriguing longer piece fleshing out details. As it is, it’s a great teaser
December 12th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Nice SF twist at the end there! Interesting take on writer’s block
December 14th, 2009 at 8:34 am
I loved how the first and second part of this story blended. This was a great read!