Prisoner
There's a grimace on his face and I know he's cracked like grandma's china. His face presses to the floor, there's wet dust and the smell of urine and sweat and blood in his nostrils. Sometimes his own, sometimes not, because these rooms aren't cleaned all that often. If you leave the floor drenched in the agony of previous POWs there's a ghost in the room, and you want them scared. You want their heart slapping hard bass against their sternum before you even throw your shadow in the door.
Most people think that what I do is crude, the work of a grunt. But years of training went into this. It's an art form. You need to know you subject, you need to probe them, know what they fear, wear their shoes with the laces undone so you can step out quick smart to do your job. You need to paint an accurate picture of their character, see the scaffold it lays upon, so you can tear it down. Not all at once, not with an explosion or a wrecking ball. Slowly, carefully. A screw here, a screw there, until the whole lot falls apart into a pile of pick-up sticks, and then you can pick up any sticks you like. The more you practice, the easier it gets. Sometimes you come to crave it.
He's blubbering in a foreign tongue but I know the talk, it's the talk of man leaking out all his secrets. The officer in the back is taking notes and nodding, the recording tape whirs in acquiescence.
I've destroyed this man, I know it. But his words will save the lives of a thousand more. It's always been about the greater good and everyone agrees that improvement is desirable. Like cashing in an old horn for a guitar that sings the blues.
Most people think that what I do is crude, the work of a grunt. But years of training went into this. It's an art form. You need to know you subject, you need to probe them, know what they fear, wear their shoes with the laces undone so you can step out quick smart to do your job. You need to paint an accurate picture of their character, see the scaffold it lays upon, so you can tear it down. Not all at once, not with an explosion or a wrecking ball. Slowly, carefully. A screw here, a screw there, until the whole lot falls apart into a pile of pick-up sticks, and then you can pick up any sticks you like. The more you practice, the easier it gets. Sometimes you come to crave it.
He's blubbering in a foreign tongue but I know the talk, it's the talk of man leaking out all his secrets. The officer in the back is taking notes and nodding, the recording tape whirs in acquiescence.
I've destroyed this man, I know it. But his words will save the lives of a thousand more. It's always been about the greater good and everyone agrees that improvement is desirable. Like cashing in an old horn for a guitar that sings the blues.
Comment
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Comment by Caitlin Noakes on September 21, 2009 at 7:16am -
Thanks for the feedback, Grant!
With this one, I tried hard to step into a different voice, so to speak. I wanted the words and the sentence structure and all that to really describe a voice. So I wrote it as I imagined I might be told it by someone over a cup of tea or something to that effect. Although the subject matter is a bit touchy for tea time. :P
I figure a narrator trying to relate a story such as this - a story where it is hard to empathise with the narrator, and the narrator probably well aware of this - would employ the second person to try and 'force' the reader into his position. I imagine the narrator would feel that you couldn't really understand unless you'd been there.
I figure he probably feels a little guilty underneath it all, too. Like he's a veteran who's had his retirement years to reflect on his actions. I didn't want to spell that out, though, I wanted that to be very, very subtle, like even he himself does not know that he feels bad.
I was a bit worried about the part where the character starts to justify himself, actually. I was concerned that I might end of 'telling rather than showing', and interrupt the flow of the piece for the reader. So I'm glad you think I under-did that part. I thought I'd over-do it. :)
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Comment by Grant Dionysius on September 20, 2009 at 2:51am -
In the first paragraph you used second person which gives it a kinda impersonal narrative, yet it does not distract away from the brutality of the subject matter. I love it when you transfer into first person because the reader does not expect the story to take a more personal mood. The whole metaphor of scaffold illustrates perfectly the characters sadistic quality. It's interesting in the last paragraph where the character is just touching the surface of the conflict he has with what he is doing. I think you could lead into this in more depth.
We spoke about this kinda thing at uni actually. I find it interesting that people in these positions usually justify their actions by passing responsibility to a higher position or higher good. They start to see their identity as that of a member of an organisation rather than simply an individual beating another. And most of the time they do not see that what they do is wrong rather it is normal because of how they are culturally programmed within a certain context ie – war, the enemy.
© 2010 Created by Geoff Jennings.
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