Low-Scale Writing Update II
Promises Made, Promises Kept
I said I’d be back quicker this time, and here I am! I’ve been doing some exploration of a character that has been left by the wayside a bit compared to Normandy and Ulysses (The Journalist Formerly Known as Cassius). Gale Suleiman is the third perspective with which the novel follows, yet all I really have so far concretely designed is the beginning and ending of his story. At the moment the middle is a muddle of different plot threads that resemble something to do with a gigantic, highly subversive musical performance. The idea of his character is to show both more of an on-the-ground perspective compared to Normandy, so I came up with a quick idea that he would be transplanted away from his resources and community just as the collapse begins.
This is where his chapter begins—the performance goes so well that Gale is thrown into a black van and interrogated. When they realize he doesn’t have any information, he is thrown back out onto the street. That is where the chapter begins, so I will shut up and let the writing speak, with occasional notes for context or interesting tidbits that I think may enhance the reading.
Gale Ten: Long Ride to Wichita
Location Unknown, Date Unknown, Time Unknown
Starting off the notes pretty early here. I was inspired to write this chapter by adapting the melody of Rocky Road to Dublin into a song written by Gale during the collapse. I have no idea what to do with it (or if I should do anything with it at all) but the exercise was pretty fun and it gave me some pretty good ideas for where to take the character’s story for this part of the novel.
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Gale slowly regained control of his senses. His mind pieced itself back together bit by bit, fragments of reasoning connecting to one another attempting to find their bearings. His sight returned next, and the feeling in his body. There was very little to see or feel—he had been placed under restraint yet again, deadening him from his surroundings. He was pretty sure he was moving—riding in a vehicle, not walking. He could hear again as well, though all that came through was the deafened silence of a muffler. All Gale could hear was the low bass-notes of conversation, as if he were picking up hushed voices from another room. There was no way to figure out how much time passed after regaining consciousness, but after yet another near-eternity he felt the vehicle roll to a stop. The bag was pulled off his head, and his vision went blurry from the fluorescents lighting the inside of a Group cruiser. Gale had little time to adjust before the doors swung open, and he was battered with a million details flooding into his head all at once. The door led into a blinding light drowning in noise, but what captured Gale the most was the smell. The vehicle had a sterile scent for the few moments he breathed it in, but the outside was a miasma like nothing he could comprehend.
I just realized this is the first chapter including Gale that I’ve put on here. I can’t really provide much context without a massive wall of italicized text, so the limited insight into his character and the world around him can be seen here—it’s not a chapter or anything, just a gigantic chunk of notes I wrote up for understanding the governing structure of New Renaissance, the enclave which he is a citizen of. At least now I know which chapters I should put in here next!
Just as quickly as the doors had opened, Gale was grabbed from behind and nearly thrown out of the cruiser. The soldiers avoided his gaze and kept silent as they forced him to the ground. For a moment, Gale thought he was about to be executed. The sights outside were still too blinding to make out, and the chaos made it just as likely that he was in a public square ready to be murdered in spectacle than he was put into a crowd at a massive concert. Only a second passed before he was proven wrong. The soldiers removed the rest of his restraints, stepped back into the cruiser, and sped off. Gale’s legs threatened to give out as he stood up. The glare was receding and the noise was becoming something close to understandable, and he realized that he was neither in an execution or concert. He was standing on the edge of a mountain range of glass and concrete, the other side of him a harbor, with a causeway jutting out toward a hulking concrete structure kilometers into the sea.
Even in his addled state, It took Gale very little time to find a landmark revealing where the Group had dumped him. Closer within the harbor was the telltale oxidized bronze of America’s own Colossus of Rhodes. The Statue of Liberty stared back at Gale, torch held high, her gaze cold and stern as always. With a bag thrown over his head, Gale had been stowed away across the Atlantic Ocean, back to the homeland he so rarely returned to. He was in Manhattan, in the center of America’s largest city, and Manhattan was ablaze.
Even as Gale’s composure returned enough to stop squinting and stand up straight, the cacophony refused to dissipate. Nor did the smell, though it became easier for him to identify. The nostril-stuffing scent was sulfur, mixed with burning rubber and plastic. The skyscrapers dominating the horizon were just one of thousands of sources, with fires raging from the windows while smoking wrecks of cars and shops choked the air on the ground. The city looked to be under attack, though Gale had no frame of reference for what that would look like. The sounds were similarly overwhelming. Drones buzzed by the dozens just above the streets, some spraying flame retardant while others captured the scenes on the ground just below them. The familiar American siren wails filled Gale with both dread and a perverse sentimentality, and he lost himself in the sound for a moment while the shock of the sights fought through his system. He was pulled back in when under the wails he heard the screams and cries and furious chattering of thousands of people running in every direction. Some were crowding the gate to the causeway, yelling obscenities and throwing objects, while others escaped deeper into the city center. The scene was so confounding that Gale thought for a moment that it was yet another torture technique, but there was something about his renewed sense of place that convinced him otherwise. For the first time in over a decade, Gale was back home, and his home was at war.
He made a split-second decision to join the crowds delving haphazardly deeper into downtown. Gale had no idea what drove him to do so, or where he was going. Simply putting one foot in front of another was enough for now. The people closed in around him on all sides, shambling forward in shell-shocked malaise. The looks on their faces were blank, but it was a blankness that betrayed stronger emotions pushed deep down into the subconscious. Gale knew the reason he was in such a stupor, but could not understand why the throng looked the same. As far as he knew, the thousands of people surrounding him had not also been kidnapped and spirited away across the Atlantic Ocean as he had.
Gale’s question was answered as the the stupor in the streets broke. He heard screams and a sudden movement across the wave of bodies as a portion ahead broke ranks, fleeing back his way. Suddenly, he heard a sound of objects whizzing over his head at speed, and then the telltale crack-crack-crack of a rifle. Someone had started shooting. Somehow, there was a gun in his immediate vicinity being fired in anger. As he dropped to the ground with the rest of those around him, Gale thought for a moment about how strange it was that he carried an instinct for the sound of a firearm. He had never seen one before. Even in decades past under the expanse of Wyoming’s sky, the sound of such a weapon would have been completely alien to his senses. Yet Gale, along with everyone else, seemed to know exactly what it represented.
For anyone wanting to read more of this story that hasn’t gotten the chance yet, I have several articles of both excerpts and full chapters, links to which can be found below:
Normandy Chapter 7 (or somewhere around there, I am unsure where this is at the moment.)
The End of History III - For some background on world history.
The End of History VI - For yet even more exposition
And once again, I manage to get an article less than several thousand words! It has also made me realize that only around 10 percent of what I’ve written is actually put up on here, so I can really milk the hell outta these shorter excerpts if I want to. I am going to set a reminder for myself to publish one of these every day this week, so be on the lookout for some more juicy writing—who knows, maybe one of them will have actual plot, or character, or something more than just exposition!
And as always, for anyone really interested in this project I welcome all criticism no matter how brutal. If you are excited by the prospect of tearing my writing to pieces until I’m sobbing in a fetal position on the floor, please let me know and I can send over the manuscript. Bis Morgen!*
*That means, “until tomorrow!" though it can also mean “until morning!” because German wanted to be difficult.
Hey. What if you share a demo of the song in this article?