My100: One-Paragraph Story Hooks Twenty-four and Twenty-five

A quarter of the way. Today's two tales come from Crete and Phoenicia, two of the world's oldest civilizations, and because this middle twenty (ten more to go, after today) are all the same genre--pulp noir--there isn't a lot of introspection, slow scene-setting going on. Pretty much, in pulp, we go right for the jugular with the action, and because it's noir, that action is crappy and deadly and awful. Great way to start a book!

Twenty-four: Crete

The earthquake rumbled down from the hills like a falling rain. Not a gentle one, a mild shower that feeds the fields, but a massive, thunderous cataract, the kind that crushes and kills. Tarina started to roll over and go back to sleep, but the rumbling deepened and she vaulted from her reed bed, scooping up her stylus and her tablet--it would be better to be dead than without her oldest friends--and sprinting into the night. Behind her, the roof canted sideways and fell, fronds showering down. The hard path under her feet bucked like an arena bull. A fire started downhill of her, toward the harbor. The boats. Something was wrong with the boats. They lay at impossible angles, like models on a bench...they were beached. The harbor had emptied. That could only mean one thing.

Everyone ran downhill, to the water, to safety, and she shrieked at them, "No, back, come back. We must go uphill!" but they listened to her only in the calm of the day, when they needed something discovered, a secret laid bare. In the terror of the night, they paid her no more attention than the bull gods. They ran to their ruin, and Tarina sat and helplessly wept as the great black wall of the returning sea smashed her village to bits.

Twenty-five (Phoenecia):

Sixteen leagues out Ashtzaph saw the smoke. The harbor always smoked, of course, and stank like a decaying corpse, but this was different. Malignant and black, a column rose into the sky like the battle of Baal and Yamm. "Put up," Ashtzaph said as they neared, and Bodashtart let the sail drift, the line sliding through his hands, spilling wind. Stench, even from here, but not the offal of five thousand souls scratching a living from the sea, packed together on a rocky ledge between water and sky. This was the scent of rancid meat, half-burned and cast into the sun to rot. The hull of a charred ship drifted into view, not a low-slung sailer, but a high-prow rower, with bank of oars above the waterline. A figure in white, an arrow lodged in his back, bobbed on the greasy waves nearby. Short locks. Metal greaves on his wrists. Bodashtart spat. "Argosites." Hellenes. Agamamnon's foul brood. I should have recognized their stench from over the horizon.

Photo Credit

I have tomorrow off, because it's Sunday. I'll see you all in two more revolutions.

~Cristof

P.S. This series is the brainchild of The New Creatives, which challenged us to create 100 of something as a way of attaining mastery of a particular art form (or beginning the process, more like). This is my attempt. #TNCmy100