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Iron Quill - The Duel - An Improbable Poet


ThePandaDirector

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I am an improbable poet; my sword is my quill and my deeds are my stanza.

 

In a holy garden I practice my art. I do this day and night, for one simple reason; my life depends on it. Yet it is a peaceful prison I have chosen to condemn myself too. The breeze is ever shifting but the cherry blossoms kiss my face all the same. The green sheet I compose on is wide and open, yet secluded. There are no walls.

 

In this slice of Eden I practice. I practice for my master, so that I may kill him.

 

When I am ready, he comes, day or night. For hours we duel in steel verses, but every time he writes the last line and I am left to practice in solitude once more. This routine has now carried on for so long that my failure has turned from pathos to bathos.

 

Cherry blossoms spell "cabbage" on the ground.

 

I never give up, for doing so would leave my body in eternal servitude to my master.

 

Inspiration comes from everywhere, as the world is as much a muse as it is a canvas. The old styles of tiger, crane and dragon have long been imprinted on my mind. While my master needs no sword to beat me, my quill is my crutch. Where it goes words dart across the air, but without the ink of my foe they are swiftly erased.

 

I often think of the past, and those thoughts guide my hand. My sword writes a tragic story of a man born into slavery. Only his name saved him from death, but during his many travels he lost even that. A slave he had been born, and so a slave it seemed he would die.

 

The master comes and goes, the slave remains.

 

A bird chirps "carrot".

 

Rain falls, and the last few cherry blossoms fly freely into the mud. The clouds grow darker and despair leaves my words illegible. My mind falls deeper into the past, but it feels like I'm falling backwards, trying desperately to find something to hold onto.

 

The master comes and goes, his last words written in blood.

 

Never look back.

 

The wind cries "potato".

 

The rain and pain do not relent, but neither does my practice. I write with ferocity, this time not of the past, but the future yet unwritten. My dragon does not smoulder in regret, but ignites my desire, while my tiger stalks dreams like they were prey. My eyes see the garden melt into pulp, but my mind sees my master fold.

 

I'm ready. The master comes.

 

For the first time our swords are like rhymes, and our duel becomes a duet. Our tempo increases, dragon, crane, tiger, past, present, future, our quills thirst and then suddenly the master is no more. His bloods seeps into the pages and words form, words to free a slave. I say-

 

"Gggrllfcklr..."

 

My eyes flash open and meet the dark eyes of a man. With a whelp he flies backwards in surprise, letting me get a better look of him. He's an ugly brute.

 

"Oh you sure got me Cabbage, I thought you were dead, I did!"

 

My eyes dart across the scene before me. This is not my garden. The room is dank and cold, likely a basement, with a lamp creaking back and forth from the ceiling. Nothing decorates the room bar a table with some wire and a tool bag.

 

"S'pose it's hard to tell if you're dead Potato, I mean you don't know when a vegetable's dead till it's gone rotten, right?"

 

My mind's a blank page, I struggle to find a bookmark of sorts.

 

"What you thinking about Cabbage? C'mon, you can tell me, I might be the last person you see. S'pose that makes me like a priest or something." He gives a wheezing cackle. "If I'm a priest then you're a Freikorpsman. Bet you'd love to come at me, wouldn't you Cabbage?"

 

I give up trying to look back, I focus my gaze on the man. All I know is he must die.

 

"If I'd had my way you'd been dumped in the river by now. Or maybe we aught to give you to a cook-" He burst into more laughter.

 

Hate builds in me. I grit my teeth. He doesn't know it, but I'm already free.

 

"What a waste of flesh and blood, there just ain't no point in you, none at all." He walks over to the  bag of tools and takes out a chisel. "Least a cabbage feeds people. You, you just leave less air for the rest o' us."

 

The man swaggers closer to me, overconfident in blissful ignorance. He draws so close I can see the veins popping on his forehead, the darkness behind his eyes. Sensation begins to overwhelm me, words unwritten pump through my veins and my muscles shake off their shackles. I fear he'll notice, but he's too close to my face to see my limps twitch and tense.

 

"Are you judging me with those eyes?" Anger seems to build in him too. "You haven't felt pain so far, wonder if you'd feel me chisel out your eyes." I glare at him, saliva dripping from my trembling lips. "What's that, you trying to say something Onion Lips?" H presses his ear to my mouth.

 

"I- I- I-" Is all I can manage.

 

"What's that? I can't hear you? C'mon, speak up" He cups his left hand to his ear.

 

My left hand grabs his right hand. He nearly jumps out his skin with shock but my other hand grabs his throat. I spit the last of my drool in his face, and words form from my onion lips.

 

"I- Am- An im-prob-able poet." My hold on his hand is like a vice as I twist his wrist. He fights me as the chisel turns towards him. "My- Sword is my quill-" His face is red, his veins near bursting as he tries to struggle. My grip on his throat is pinning him as he struggles to breathe. Saliva froths in his mouth, and all he manages is one last insult. The chisel impales his lungs and blood drools down from gasping swollen lips that tremble to a stillness. As he goes limp I whisper "and my deeds are my stanza." I knock him over to the side like an inkwell.

 

I stand up.

 

A wave of dizziness washes over me as I adjust to the new altitude. Numerous sensations threaten to overwhelm me, but the words in my blood give me strength. I walk, rather than stumble, towards the table. The bag contains various tools of a carpenter or the like, nothing interesting. I take the wire without really thinking.

 

My hand trembles over the door knob. Looking at my large hands, the hands of a killer, it dawns on me I don't even remember my face.

 

Don't look back.

 

My hand turns the knob and I walk out the room. A dingy corridor leads to stairs that open out into a modest house. No one is at home, but there are signs that a group was here recently. I don't hang around, I look for the back door and escape into the night... and the half dozen people watching the house.

 

I don't see myself walking out of this one. Three robed figures stand like sentinels, their masks expressionless. Two seem to glow with an aura, both carrying a tome under one arm. The final member stands out among her companions. On first glance you might mistake her for some skinny, wounded miner. On closer inspection her mechanical left leg and right arm are far superior in design to the union's foot soldiers. Yet before one could make such an assumption, they would be immediately drawn to her face. There's charm in there, even if her features are a little boyish, but what captivates is that great big toothy grin, with two parts casual insolence and defiant optimism. She smiles at me.

 

"Took you longer than usual." She japes.

 

"Pardon?" I ask, caught unawares. The girl gestures to the robed figures.

 

"Better fetch the Master his kit, he clearly ain't gonna find it himself." The figures stiffly march off to a stagecoach on the other side of the street.

 

"I'm sorry, I-" I'm interrupted by the girl.

 

"Best not. I'll give you the short version, cos last time I gave you the long version you took advantage and made me look a right plum." She strolled towards me, her leg sounding like a switchblade folding back and forth. "You're the Master, the boss man, and we're your humble servants." She bowed theatrically, the gesture more seriously copied by the two other men. "Problem is, you've got issues, like your body playing dead and your mind turning into a blank page every now and then."

 

"I don't-" She interrupted me again, just as the robed figures returned with what looked like some kind of harness.

 

"Don't worry, cos despite your issues, you're dead smart and pretty mean in a fight when you want to be, and even when you are playing plum, we're here to look after you."

 

"If you here to look after me, why did you not come for me, why-" Interrupted again.

 

"Wait? Cos you told us to of course. I swear sometimes you let yourself get caught just so you can practice."

 

"Who-" And again.

 

"Nabbed you? A local gang with ties to some plum calling himself the Mole King. In fact I can hear the rest of them coming now." The sounds of hooves on cobbled stones could be heard in the distance. Without asking, the robed figures begin securing me to the exo-skeleton.

 

"You know you usually don't like it when I-" This time I interrupt her.

 

"Interrupt me? Yes, Yvette, it is rather grinding." I finish the last buckle on the harness myself, my mind on a written page once more. "Roderick, Marshall, hope you did your homework on the properties of fire." The two men open their tomes like archers drawing their bow.

 

"You wanna make the "improbable poet" speech?" Yvette grins at me and bittersweet memories return come flooding back.

 

"No, but I don't think our quills will be short of ink tonight." I grin back at her.

 

"The Masters back boys." She calls out.

 

I'm back, I think, but for how long?

 

_____________________

 

 

1749 words. Used all ingredients. Feedback greatly appreciated, don't hold back.

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I was a little confused at first. However, the end brought it all together and I was able to see how you worked his "dual personality" into the story and thought it was an interesting way to convey it. It reminded me of the movie Fight Club and how Tyler Durden was a part of him but also separate. Sorry spoilers, but that movie came out a while ago.

 

 

As always,

The Grue

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I felt a bit lost throughout, though I liked the concept overall.  I read it start to finish 4 times in a row, and each time added some little piece to my picture.  Subtle genius or a bit too obscure, but I'm not too sure which just yet.  Regardless, I liked that it made me read hard and think.

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