Jones' Jarbs
... Things to say
| 60. J.A.R.B - Thank you, reader. | 59. J.A.R.B - Let's just pretend this never happen... | 58. J.A.R.B - Lacking that "human touch"? | 57. J.A.R.B - Interpretations | 56. J.A.R.B - Words. | 55. J.A.R.B - A little Napoleon, please? | 54. J.A.R.B - My conscious just got the best of me... | J.A.R.B - The top ten. | 53. J.A.R.B - Chillin | Some awesome pictures... | Current
Saturday, March 18, 2006
61. J.A.R.B - Three Day Road - Brace yourself; this one's the longest Jarb on record.
Well then, another novel finished, and, I’ve managed to not post any of the quotes for half of it. So here’s half a book’s worth of interesting little moments.
- “He is disappearing in front of my eyes, sitting across the fire with a blanket over his shoulders, the smoke causing him to shimmer. I feed him with my story instead. He’s listening, I think, his eyes staring at the water.”
- “I couldn’t move. That’s when it dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t the hunter anymore.”
- “Words. The rumors fall like rain here.”
- “I can see how the men are quite even though they now have a day to themselves without worry of dying.”
- “But here Elijah is something more than just a bird, something more than the rest. Bigger and yet still more slight. Invisible.”
- “The only cure is time”
- “The only sight at The Brickfields that is not depressing is straight up in the air. Despite the wreck of the world below, the birds continue to fly above as if nothing has changed.”
- “You must realize once more, Nephew, that in this world of hardship we must grasp the moments that are offered to us.
- “The not-knowing was a strange relief.”
- “I smiled at this story, my first smile in months, it seemed. For the first time in a very long time I felt sure now of my next move.”
- “They are not good from concealing thoughts from their faces.”
- “I can’t worry, me, about what I can’t control.”
- “It is the wrong time for melancholy, it will ruin his mood, and so he straps his rifle on his back and makes his way out the window of the tower and onto the ledge.”
- “The quite is unsettling”
- “I look around at the ruins and wonder if this place will ever heal”
- “The booms of the guns sharp in the cold air.”
- “I watch the raiders slip from the trench and get eaten by the night.”
- “The cruelty of living and dying can be astounding.”
- “I stared at the wound for days, watched as blood seeped through the white bandage, life leaking out of me in a trickle. Maybe it was then that I decided to die.”
- “My mind could not focus on the field, and that is dangerous when what you hunt hunts you as well.”
- “I run my finger along the cold flat metal of a bullet casing and wonder what is happening all around me.”
- “The world explodes around me, shells landing fifty and a hundred yards ahead, wreaking the German line. I order my mind to drift, to shut down, but it will not.”
- “For a second I wonder if this will be the last morning of my life.”
- “The whole earth is on fire in front of me, exploding in huge fountains of mud and fire. I can feel the rumble below me, through me, swallowing me.”
- “I think that in a little while no one will be left but me. The world has gone almost silent in my head but for a deep hum and what sounds like the faraway surge of waves crashing on a beach and then pulling away. I try not to think, but a memory of me playing on the muddy shore of the great salt bay comes to me, a presence near me, my watchful aunt protecting me. You, Niska. I don’t know why I think of you now as bullets zing by my head so close that they whisper to me. One cuts through my coat and I can feel my side burning. I think I have been shot but the pain is almost absent, just an annoying bite. I begin to mouth your name over and over, like a protection against the bullets. Niska, I whisper as I run up the hill and approach a stretch of barbed wire. Niska. Niska. Niska. Niska. Niska. I realize as I stumble and fall to my knees that the sound of the waves crashing in my head is my own breathing.
- “The men around us stare at me as I stand up and walk away. Me, I won’t let them forget who I am.”
- “It is like a game to him, but behind his friendly smile burns an obsession that is frightening. I fear many things in this place, but I do not want to fear my friend.”
- “A mist rises all around and in the darkness I’m reminded of my first month in this place, when it seemed I’d been thrown into an underworld full of skulls and quick, brutal, death. So much has changed since then. I realize that the place hasn’t changed. It’s me.”
- “The story is not a happy one, but something in me has to tell it.”
- “If Elijah can come back to me, he will help me. We will fight together again, fight against this medicine that consumes us. We will get better together. He will help me overcome the pain and I will help pull him from the war madness that swallowed him whole. Where is he?”
- “A bomb from under a plane screams through the cold air. Then we hear the whomp of splintering wood as it pierces wood and the tiny breath of silence before an explosion.”
- “And still the rain falls and the shells pound and churn the mud. That is my nightmare, to be wounded and in my agony, sinking into the mud to be swallowed forever. Gone. Missing in action, and you, Niska, waiting for me for years to return.”
- “I drink the rum and more is passed around. I take it greedily. Anything is better than another night of waiting for the shell to land close enough to kill us.”
- “The world seems suddenly less real than it was yesterday.”
- “A half moon floats above me. I let whatever this is pull me along, take me where it will.”
- “In a few hours I will fall and shatter on the rocks of this hard place, but for now I will float free of myself and won’t feel any pain.”
- “He sees a bird floating on a current of air on the horizon and focuses on it. Elijah is flying.”
- “The medic has time only for the wounded.”
- “Death is everywhere around them in the forest, staring at them from behind trees. But something far worse than death crouches close by. It is felt rather than seen. It waits for the moment when they close their eyes to approach.”
- “Their eyes have the look of long and terrible fighting, of seeing things that men should not be witness to, the same look that is in my eyes, I should think. For them, at least, the war is over. I wish I could say the same for myself.”
- “Sometimes I find myself hoping that Elijah will go too far, will be killed in action. I will be able to rest easier then, my conscience clean enough at least to turn myself in for what has been done, to the woman and the child, to Grey Eyes and the lieutenant, to the countless others Elijah has surprised and massacred in the night. The others watch Elijah in action, say that he is brave, a warrior of the highest order. To me he is mad. I am the only one to know Elijah’s secrets, and Elijah has turned himself into something invincible, something inhuman. Sometimes, though, I feel as if I’m going mad too.”
- “It seems as if Elijah knows that something approaches. An end to this, maybe.
- “What’s mad is them putting us in trenches to begin with. The madness is to tell us to kill and to award those of us who do it well. I only wish to survive.”
- “If I choose my words right, and speak from that place inside that tells no lies, he will hear.”
- “You made up your mind not to be afraid.”
- “The arrow whispered off, moving quickly across the distance.”
- “I allow myself to believe that I am Elijah. In this way he is still alive.
- “He lies there a long time, staring down at the world below. Reaching into his pocket he pulls out a cigarette, lights it and inhales. He unstraps the rifle from his back and peers through the scope into the night. There isn’t much light, just the rage of battle on the horizon. He focuses in on that, the dancing colors just like the Wawahtew back home. He cannot escape thinking of the place he comes from on this night. He slips off the safety and aims at the dancing colors, squeezes the trigger, firing a single bullet into the night.”
- “By tomorrow we’ll be home.”
-Jones.
hah.. nurrd
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