Link to Paragraph Two: http://m-a-w-h.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-tag-1-para-02.html
As he soared upwards, higher and higher he felt the tiny shards of ice bursting against his face as he crashed through the clouds and he found it both beautiful and exhilarating after the confinement of that floating metal coffin. “Surely”, he thought, “Surely I’ve done enough now...?” Still climbing, he burst through into the blazing sunlight, convincing himself that this time he was going to make it back to the heavens, but then he caught that familiar sulphurous smell as first the tips of his wings began to smoulder and then his entire body burst into flame. Max had just started forming the thought “Oh...” when he immediately began to plummet to earth in much the same way as a carelessly dropped sledgehammer would fall from a skyscraper, with little care as to whom it might land upon, and, as he fell, the very same shards of ice he had enjoyed on the way up failed completely to soothe or comfort him as he plunged back down through the clouds. Far, far below him the ship chugged inexorably onwards towards damnation, the passengers and crew already oblivious to his absence, adjusting once more to the lack of him almost as quickly as they had to his arrival amongst them. Only one dishevelled figure noticed as the distant fireball plunged into the icy waters and threw up a momentary plume of white steam, and he was the only one who heard the faint echoing anguished howl of “Nooooooooooo!” that came from within it, and, as the rest of the passengers ran to the rail exclaiming their Oohs and Aahs at what they thought had been a falling star, he smiled to himself and thought “No, not that way, Max, Not that way. You don’t get away from me that easily...” before taking a sip from his champagne flute and disappearing.
And back to you again, as the experiment continues...
Link to Paragraph Four: http://m-a-w-h.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-tag-1-para-04.html
Link to Paragraph Four: http://m-a-w-h.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-tag-1-para-04.html
When Max awoke he realised that it wasn’t over. That was the problem; it would never be over. Eternal life was a damnation. It wasn’t even as if he’d asked for it; he was just in the wrong place and the wrong time and had witnessed something that there could be no escaping from ever - and ever, as it had turned out, was a long time. He lay there bobbing up and down in the water, the sun beating down on his scorched skin. Not to worry, it’d heal within the hour, his wings would grow back in a day or two and then he’d continue. He would always continue. Far away in the distance the ship sailed on. If Max listened carefully he could hear the party music and the whoops of the passengers as the New Year was welcomed in. ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind’? Max listened; one acquaintance could never be forgotten, a single voice hummed deep in the melee of voices, a voice that Max recognised, one that would ever be brought to Max’s mind. It carried across the water like an assassin’s whisper, a promise of pain and death in every daggered word. Turning in the water, the salt stinging at the twin gashes where his wings would soon return, he struck out for the distant horizon. As he swam steadily away from the ship he thought about the girl he’d left behind, the one he’d found broken and shattered, roped to a feed pipe, deep in the engine room. As he’d swung her around, in the forlorn hope that she might be still breathing, he saw the mark hidden in the spider’s web of wafer thin gashes, some so deep that bone was visible through the blood. Damn him. He always left his mark. Double damn him. It was so easy for him to trick them. They just never seemed to realise that just because he had the face and wings of an angel that didn’t make him an angel. Her name had been Pamela, she came from Wisconsin, she was twenty-two and a smoker. Max swam on wondering what brand she used to smoke.
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