Out of Sight, Out of Mind
by admin on Nov.01, 2008, under Submitted
It had been unusually cold. Not that it had mattered much, there had been enough clothing provided to keep warm and the marching – the endless marching was something you got accustomed to rather quickly – did its part in staving off the frigid air.
Still, it was unusual.
All this marching meant you had time to reflect on all the little things, moments and nuances in life that otherwise would have been drowned out by all the noise that accompanied any modern existence.
Looking back, not seeing what went on would have been a better option.
After three eerily cold nights and chilly days – despite the sun shining bright from a clear and uncluttered sky – there was no denying that something was wrong. Besides the strangely cold weather there was a creeping sensation that someone, or something, was following in our tracks.
At the dawn of the fourth day things took a turn for the worse.
It was as if the very friends you had traveled with for so long, people you knew and trusted, were consumed by the shadows as soon as you didn’t look straight at them. It was especially disturbing when you saw them in the corner of your eye. When you saw what became of them.
They would flutter in and out of existence, like a candle desperately trying to stay lit despite there being no wick left to fuel the flame, fear and agony all too well visible in their eyes.
Watching their presence shift between the known, conscious world and something otherworldly and surreal begins to claw away at your sanity.
“What happens to them when I turn my back? Where do they go, what do they become?”
It has been a long time since that fourth day, since that turn for the worse. Days became months, years, decades.
You grow used to always having someone watch you, no matter what you do — and having to watch others in return. We sleep in shifts, with at least two awake at any given time. Work is impossible. It is an impractical, exhausting existence.
Those of us that could not handle the uncertainty, those that willingly disappeared from out of sight, have not come back to share what fate has befallen them. We never expected them to.
I am growing old, and tired, but not as old and tired as my friends.
I am unsure as to the best course of action — to make sure I do not face whatever unholy evil that exists in that gap between the corporeal and the unseen by taking matters in my own hands… or wait for the others to fade and see what, if anything, awaits me.
As for now, I wait.
November 1st, 2008 on 1:46 am
Pretty good! I liked it. I would have liked to know if this was military, or a group of friends lost on a hike — but the ambiguity works for it too.
November 1st, 2008 on 6:49 am
Hi Kris.
I wrote it on purpose to be ambiguous in order to add to the sense of uncertainty.
The idea can be developed a lot more and probably stretched into a longer story but I wrote this several years ago when I needed to get it out of my head.
I wrote one more microfiction story (not horror related though) over at my microfiction blog but then I moved on to my next project – as always.
Maybe I’ll take a stab at it again.
Thanks for your feedback.
November 1st, 2008 on 7:03 am
And it wasn’t until now I realized that the text has been altered, and in my view not to the better.
The very last line has been changed from “For now, I wait” which in my opinion changes the entire story.
When I wrote the story the basic idea was that when the characters found out what it was that made them disappear they also realized that they’d have to have someone watching them *all the time*.
The entire idea of any sort of privacy goes right out the door if they want to stay alive (or at least rooted in our existence).
With the new final line the story doesn’t relay this idea at all – now it’s more a Hollywood take on the idea with a shorter timespan.
The original text was one the first microfiction stories I’ve ever written so it lacks a lot and I’m guessing that the leap from then – when they discovered what’s going on – till now – where our protagonist states that he still waits – wasn’t all that obvious.
If you want to read the original text, check it out here: http://mytakeonprose.blogspot.com/2006/06/out-of-sight-out-of-mind.html
November 1st, 2008 on 5:35 pm
Hey Martin, this may open up an interesting/useful discussion as far as my edits to submitted stories. I hope I didn’t offend.
For the sake of discussion, my modified last line was “For now, I march.”
I got that you set these guys up such that, unless someone else was looking at you, you’d physically fade from existence. But in my mind, we needed to come back to the idea of the march and the original setting, because we leave it for a time — we start by marching ambiguously, which is good, and then the narrator talks about the flickering, which is great, and then he discusses his options and how neither is good, which is great –
And then on the last line, he says “I wait” and I feel like we lose all the original momentum of the idea of a march with unknown purpose. “I march” may not actually even be the best line to convey a continued requirement to be watched, but “I wait” — I felt — removed the initial thrust entirely. It’s as if, in the reader’s mind, they’re marching, they’re marching, the narrator is musing, and then suddenly he’s sitting on a rock waiting and I don’t know what happened to the original set up.
To my mind this story took place over the span of a couple days, all while endlessly marching. There isn’t enough additional info within the narration that says we exited the march.
Maybe the best line would be “we march” or even “we wait” because it implies that the others are having to make the same decision, and the friends have become entangled in this sort of unearthly, semi-cooperative, semi-competitive suicide pact. That angle could be fleshed out.
I’m going to open a more general discussion about my edits in the forum and see if they’re a good thing or if they’ll just make me unpopular and wreck the momentum of this site.
If it’s any consolation, your story required the least editing of the submitted ones so far. (I know that last line is a big edit, though.)
November 1st, 2008 on 5:38 pm
Ah! Suddenly I understand from rereading the original. The idea that the march ended and we may be decades down the road is semi-addressed by “old and tired,” which I edited down to “tired.”
My feeling — the story doesn’t convey enough of an expanse of time and time spent watching and being watched. I think it’s a good place to take the story, but there needed to be some more language about the dire passage of years, the fatigue, the practical impossibilities of working and having a life beyond watching while having to watch, etc. I’m going to try to re-apply your original concept, but I encourage readers to see the original version you linked to too.
Great story though, great concept. It’s worth a lot of exploration.
November 2nd, 2008 on 3:20 am
For the sake of completeness, I’m linking the ongoing discussion concerning submitted story editing:
http://ichorfalls.com/talk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14
I would suggest that any further debate on the merits of these edits be moved to the forum, leaving this space for others to discuss the content of the story as posted.
November 5th, 2008 on 8:17 am
Kris,
I agree. It’s clear to me, as the author, that a whole lifetime has passed but I’m the first one to admit that I could’ve done a lot more to convey that feeling to the reader.
Thanks for your feedback, very much appreciated. I will try and get back to writing more microfiction but I’m not sure how much of it that will be horror though.
June 22nd, 2009 on 4:12 pm
got the impression of like Gettysburgh soilders long dead and they didnt KNOW they were deadthey just kept marching each one leery of the ghosts around him
November 24th, 2012 on 4:00 pm
I will never go hiking again. thanks,bro.