Time in a creative mind is not static
Clearly you noticed that I missed blogging a few classes.
Two weeks before this we met and had read our Chapter 1 stories to each other, most of us had life events unfolding this week that were stressful that took our focus off of writing.
Today was a smaller group then normal, Sherry was visiting out of state and was missed along with Cane who I miss every time he is not there.
Tracie was happy to report her dad’s progress from surgery and shortly we were reading the stories we had crafted from two weeks ago.
Chapter 2 is a lesson in presenting an action the character is doing that the reader should be concerned with…
This is a pretty brain invoking challenge because of this next part.
…but, as the action builds, they are not thinking what the reader is.
This is the story I read in class today, it is fiction but holds a deeper meaning to me.
In my teens, my friend Ryan had past due to cancer and he was my rock climbing, pier diving, rappelling partner. If there was adventure afoot Ryan was the finder of it.
I had a lot of anger at God for taking him, yet looking back over my life I wonder if Ryan is not one of my guardians who has been with me keeping me safe ever since. The emotion I read this with was real and raw.
The Rappel
By: Jeremiah Stillings 4-27-2019
“Rappel number 100,” Zach peered over the hand rail of the area marked intermediate skill at the rock climbing center of Ringing Rocks, Pennsylvania. His web seat was uncomfortable, and he aligned the back straps looser and outside his natural seat, knowing if he needed to brake, it would hurt more than the discomfort he felt.
Cindy yelled, “ You are up Zach.” Hesitating, she added, “You have to get back in the saddle… Kelly would not want you to stop,” trailing off…
Normally Zach would edge out backwards after clipping in his eight ring and do a radio check to the belay below. Today, he walked face first, forward to the edge.
“He who took Kelly can have me!” was all Cindy heard and he stepped off.
Zach plummeted thirteen foot with his harness pulling line fast enough through the eight ring that he knew the belay below would break him, they can tell a free fall by the vibrations in the line.
“God, you let Kelly FALL!” “WHY?” “Why did you take my best friend?” “WHY!!!!” The line was still slack, Zach’s feet not finding the magic ninety degree angle mark and his butt slammed into the granite face and he did not care…
“I don’t care God, you left me!”
The events of the next fifteen foot would be the most told and speculated story at camp fires in Pennsylvania for the next ten years.
The rock face is shale in this area, and every normal rappeller pushes out at the top of it and drops back into the granite area for safety to avoid the razor sharp shale edges.
“So what, it is how you killed Kelly!” ….. “BRING IT!” yelled Zach as he was now face first at the jagged outcropping of layered shale.
The shale suddenly broke away as the belayer ran out from base and zip lined Zach so hard that his feet flipped past his head and he thunder kicked his enemy, breaking it loose.
“What!!!!” “NO GOD!” “Why! I don’t deserve this! “
Zach looked down to see his belay under the pile of razor sharp shale he just send hurling down. The decent line was still taunt, easily 300 foot from the base in the opposite direction of where it normally is.
“God, I don’t understand?”
Zach reached down and hand braked to slow down,and as he approached the bottom, he spun and landed with the line coiling around him like it was a bungee cord.
He started to grab shale and throw it. “ There, a helmet!” WAIT!” “NO!” God, he is gone!” Kelly’s Helmet started to emerge.
As Zach was digging Cindy took the emergency sprint down the trail and arrive to see Zach bent over the shale with his hands cut and wildly throwing it. “It is Kelly, Cindy!” “HELP, help get him OUT!”
Looking down, Cindy saw nothing and looked back to where the belayer was. He was new to the crew after Kelly had past on, there he was 300 foot away. “What was he doing way over there?”
“Cindy! HELP!”
Zach tossed every bit of rock and chunk of shale farther then any man ever shot put in the Olympics, but Kelly was not there.
Cindy walked up to Zach and hugged him, she was crying, “ Zach you are so stupid – Kelly, just saved your life – He was your belay.”