Well now, someone's been reading a bit of Milton lately, eh?
I've commented before that I quite enjoy when you do non-Odan stories because I think it gives you a chance to stretch out and try other things that Odan stories by their nature don't necessarily allow you to do. That said, this actually feels really close to an Odan story in terms of feel, even if you're skewing more than mythology than fantasy (although the Odan stuff tends to lean close to forming its own mythology) and drawing upon stuff that's been written down by others.
One thing I found interesting is that you explicitly seem to indicate that this is the First Battle, as it were, the grand war between God and Satan, although the implication at the end seems to be that Satan has won and God is the one who is cast down (or Christ, still paying for sins, which would be an interesting tactic to take that Jesus isn't paying for man's sins but both God's and Satan's, that by sending him down they're saying, "Well, gee, sorry. We suck.") A little flip that threatens to turn everything on its head. I like how the details are sparse, coming in great shades of broadly drawn action, like a battle between loud primary colors, or that you're witnessing it with your eyes closed and only the sound is coming through, bold bursts that create pressure on the eyelids and form images in the dark, abstract expressions of tangible madness.
What would have been a different way of approaching it, to me at least would have been to essentially anchor the events directly into a folk memory so that it's not explicitly a story of mankind but of the entire universe and all creation, a constantly shifting tale underpinning all moments of the collective memory. We've all got this story, humans and not humans and whatever else is left, because it's the story that underscores creation, the foundation that everything is built on. The Witness isn't just seeing a battle for the souls of mankind, but a physical recreation of the Big Bang, the struggling throes the universe went through in the midst of the chaos to finally settle things down and get the real work started. The battle writ large between entropy and progress, the need for everything to break down grappling with the basic desire to keep going. Putting it in Biblical terms to me oddly diminishes a tale that should be too big to even properly comprehend. I should recognize these characters only through iconic archetypes, as forces of nature, pasted on names where names don't exist.
I like the idea of the Witness, though and the constant repetition of "I am the Witness" which gives the otherwise chaotic events a sort of dire rhythm, a pulsating inevitability. At some points it isn't clear how involved the witness is, at one point he claims to have slain thousands which detached witnesses really shouldn't be doing. Is he in the struggle or merely watching the struggle, you know? The only thing different I would have done or considered is interspersing the proceedings with snatches of dialogues, random fragments and stray words, although your prose does a good job at conveying the nuttiness going on. But it would help with the feel of a thousand voices crying out in all different directions in different languages, in different forms. It's people only because we perceive it as people but really it's every story, the only story, the first story, you know?
The Witness gives it a vibe not unlike that of a Michael Bay version of Olaf Stapleton's "Star Maker", with a bit more intelligence . . . you're seeing things that you have no actual words for, so you do the best you can. The witness' pen running out and him using whatever mode of writing he can get his hands on to get it down, opening a vein for ink if he needs to because it's just that important that he not stop writing, no matter how bad things get.
I like this. I think it works best as a one-shot to never be referred to again (probably your intent) and the open spaces and hints at the back story for the Witness are intriguing, like a really loud jazz band that knows when to use a bit of silence to let the listener color in the gaps for contrast. It's got a bit of that Odan bombast and swagger but without the need for characters it sort of frees the tale to go balls out. As I said, my only change would be to make it less overtly Biblical and more expansive, so that our Bible stories are just shadows of this, people trying to make sense of a conflict so old that even the echoes of its nightmares still haunts their waking fears. The rumbling notes of the first explosion, falling like invisible molten snow on everyone in creation.
And this is officially longer than the story itself so I'll leave it off here. I wrote it outside Facebook so let's see how many comment boxes I take up. And to anyone who was going to comment, don't let me frighten you off!
Send your comments on this story to the author:
