Flash Fiction #1 - Saturnalia
August 15, 2008I’ll be dabbling in flash fiction for a bit. I was trying to write album reviews on this website; but I wasn’t satisified, so I tried this as a form of album review. Here’s one I did for The Gutter Twins‘ Saturnalia
Kung malabo… well… oo malabo talaga. ^_^ I’m not good at describing music, pero I can at least try to replicate how I feel about a certain body of music through a medium such as flash fiction.
(sama ko na din yung cover art. wala lang.)
“This is it,” Mark said as he gazed from the hillside overlooking the city, “here comes humanity’s big fall from grace. No rising up from the ashes. No coming back from the dead.”
Greg kept silent. No response. Not even a hint that he heard and had absorbed what Mark had just said. He was staring intently at what was left of the town they called home and was absorbing it all. With a cigarette pressed subtly in between his lips, Greg took a long deep breath.
“Just like Sodom and Gomorrah,” he sighed, as thin trail of smoke came out of his mouth; and Mark echoed with a tone of sobmer acceptance, “Exactly like Sodom and Gomorrah.”“How long have we got?” Greg returned.“An hour at least, maybe two. I heard it over the radio that the time can’t be exactly accurate.”
“Hrmn…”
Once again they kept silent.
Mark squinted towards the horizon. The sun must be there somewhere, he thought. Beyond the thick dark cloud rising up from the remnants of the city, the setting sun was indeed there. However, only shafts of light that found their way through the black blanket of smoke were the only things left of it to be seen.
At one point in time, the sunset was a glorious sight to behold. On this day however – as the sun waved it’s final goodbye to mankind – Mark would have none of that glorious sight. Mark pondered over this sad reality as the light turned from bright yellow to orange and then red. Later on, it will be totally gone like everything else.
Greg on the other hand had no interest in sunsets. He was keenly observing the slow demise of their world. He was looking at the houses and buildings being gobbled up in flames. As he did this, he threw a question towards Mark’s direction: “Did you ever realize that all over the world, seven-billion people simultaneously went through the five stages of grief in a matter of a few weeks?”
Mark didn’t answer, but instead posed a question of his own, “What stage do you they’re in right now?”
Greg returned his gaze to the chaos below, and then settled with a resigned answer of “I have no idea, and quite frankly I don’t really care,” which was true. Greg really didn’t care. The question was rhetorical and he was thinking out loud. What occupied his thoughts right now is a much more disturbing thing altogether: How low humanity has sunk to in the last few weeks.
On the eve of the end of everything, everyone has been revealed: Rapists, robbers, murderers, pedophiles – everyone was trying to cram in all of their hidden pleasures and repressed desires into the limited amount of time we all had left. People were fornicating on the streets and blowing up everything in sight. Others we’re running around with knives and guns… It really is true that the freaks come out at night.
One last cancer stick and one last can of beer. As everyone was having their fun below, the two brothers were lounging on the hood of their truck with the last two objects of pleasure in their possession. They wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Cheers,” the younger brother said as he raised his brewskie, and Greg returned the gesture as he pointed his cigarrete back. The sun was totally gone now, and the whole city was covered now in blackness more than the eye can see.
As the countdown to extinction slowly and inevitably crept up to T-minus-zero , Mark let out a chuckle. For as long as he could remember, people have constantly been asking what they would do if they knew for certain that today was the last day of their lives. Now everyone has their answer.
