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Locke -> Please Help - I need to trim (5/29/2008 2:55:17 PM)
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So I thought I'd finally enter something into the FaithWriters writing contest. I wrote the piece (located below), "Captivo" on the topic "The Family House." As you can tell, I was less than fond of the topic, so I did my best to nod to it while completely ignoring it. We'll see how they take that. They likely won't like that, but oh well.
Anyway, I need to get this baby under 750 words. It's currently at 960. Being my work, it pains me to delete anything. Could anyone give some some suggestions on things that I might be able to cut out? I'll discuss that at the end. Also, please let me know your opinions on this work as well! Thanks.
"Captivo"
By Michael N Lovdal
Captivo struggled against the pull of his straightjacket in desperation.
"No!" he screamed, "you can't make me one of you!" The sound of diesel and the shaking room told him that he was in some kind of truck. There were two people before him, he saw. They were dressed and groomed identically, with short cropped white hair and charcoal-black suits that were wired throughout. Tiny lights blinked on their collars.
"Refrain from motion, young one," warned the person on the left. Captivo searched the people's faces for signs of gender, but all he could identify was that these people were indeed human: their eyes were cold and lifeless, their noses small and fragile; their teeth were white as their hair, and twice as shiny; their lips were glossed and slender, and their cheekbones were recessed beyond recondition.
The boy did not cease his fight. One of his captors grabbed him by the hair and forced his head down, bashing his nose into his knee. He felt a painful sting in the back of his neck, and the sound of a air-compressor gun going off behind him. The hand released and he straightened up in pain. A tear streaked down his face as he realized that sitting up made his neck hurt even worse. He may have even felt liquid behind his neck. The people's faces remained expressionless, apathetic.
"What did you do to me?" he asked in horror.
"You have been nerve-stapled, child. Remain still, or the device will send a hundred volts of electricity down your spine." He was desperate to escape, but Captivo had no desire to feel the shock from this device. The floor shook violently under them as the truck rounded a sharp turn. The momentum slammed Captivo into the wall. True to his captor's word, the sudden jerk of his body activated the nerve-staple and a quick shock ran down his back. Despite the pain this caused, he was too busy being pulled out of the now-parked vehicle to fully appreciate his plight.
The harsh sunlight assaulted his eyes as he emerged from the truck. He was being pulled from handles on his straight-jacket. A girl screamed in the distance as she was pulled from two adults, likely her parents. The parents were held back by force, by two captors that looked much the same as Captivo's. Before him rose a massive skyscraper that was easily thirty stories tall. The windows were all tinted black, harshly contrasting with the calming blue sky. He gave up fighting quickly, finding compliance to be a much less painful scenario. The lobby of the building was a metallic-silver color, with glossy-black low-lights. A plainly written sign on the wall identified this building as "The Family Home; Reeducation Center." Tiny red-tinted lights guided their way as they approached and entered the elevator, an intimidatingly large portal into an even deeper black place. The elevator screeched as it hurled upwards. There was no floor indicator, so Captivo could only imagine how many floors they were going up. Or down. The thought of going down frightened him even more. Yes - they were definitely going down!
The elevator stopped after a few minutes and the door opened. Hundreds of brilliant lights poured in from the room before him, blinding him for a few moments. He was forced ahead into the room, which he saw was in fact a massive gymnasium of some description. Children were playing in groups and in lines and... he was surprised not to hear any laughter. Not a single child spoke, nor were any children running about. They merely sat quietly in a circle. Another group seemed to be going to a side room in single file. No adults led them, they just seemed to know where to go on their own. At the far end of the gymnasium there was another massive doorway which they made their way through. They passed through hall after hall, room after room. Captivo saw a room with white dogs, all with a single black spot on their foreheads. He saw a room of artists - they all drew the same rainbow on the same large-sized canvases. He wanted to protest with them, wanted to just tell them that there was so much more that they could be doing with their talents. But alas, he was in no position to do anything.
Captivo was finally lead into a small, empty room. He sat down by himself on the floor by the back wall, and just stared up at his two captors. One captor almost looked teary-eyed. When emotion crossed this person's face, he saw slightly feminine characteristics shine through this guise of generic gender.
"Please help me," pleaded the boy. He knew that this woman's heart had been touched. There was a soul in there.
"You can't fight it," responded the woman, "no one can. I tried, but I couldn't. No one can," she repeated. The other captor began to close the gated door.
"You'll be released into The Society once you've undergone the reeducation process." Captivo leapt up to his feet and slammed his shoulders in the door, but it was already locked shut.
"I'll never surrender! I'll never surrender! My spirit will not be broken!" He stood there crying, recovering from the pain of another shock from his nerve-staple. He collapsed on the ground, hopeless. As defiant as his proclamation had been, his fighting spirit truly had been crushed - until he heard a scream in the room beside him. He heard a steel door close and lock, and then the strong voice of a girl.
""I'll never surrender! I'll never be broken!"
© 2008 Mike Lovdal.
So basically anything that talks about The Reeducation Center being conformist is important to keep in. The references to the female hostage are also essential, as is the final exchange with the female captor. Lastly, the paragraphs have to start with those words. They were designed that way on purpose - first and last start with his name, the middle three with the world's most generic word - "the." Other than that, i'm not too picky.
Let me know. Thanks!
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