Old stuff

So, first, if anyone knows how to put spaces in blogger posts, that would be much appreciated. As you can see below, i've become desperate (tab doesn't work, hitting the space bar more than once does not work, que la mierda?). I haven't got a chance to write much, so, because i'm lazy, i'm going to dig up some stuff i wrote a while ago. Here's the first chapter of an interesting sci-fi piece called "The Last Battlefield."


_____Dropped


_____“Is he alive?”
_____“I think so.”
_____“It looks like he’s a new drop.”
_____“Can’t be, there are never drops this late.”
_____The man lying on the ground opened his eyes slowly, trying to figure out where the whispers were coming from. It was dark, very dark, but he could make out a few shadows standing over him. In the distance he heard strange noises that seemed oddly familiar. He tried to sit up, but he felt very stiff. One of the shadows lent him a hand.
_____“Thanks,” the man said.
_____“Do you know who you are?” one of the shadows asked.
_____The “shadow” was a tall man, probably about thirty years old. He was wearing a black suit that reminded the man of a swat uniform. He had some type of assault rifle strapped on his back and was carrying an odd looking hand gun in his left hand.
_____The man was about to say his name when he realized that he didn’t in fact know who he was. He shook his head dumbly.
_____“Ok, well… we’d better get you ready quick.”
_____“Hey,” came another voice, “Lets move.”
_____Two of the men ran off.
_____“Here take this, by the way, my name’s Mike,” said Mike as he handed the man an extra rifle.
_____“What’s going on?”
_____“Haha, all in good time. Hurry up.”
_____Mike had started to run and the man tried to follow him. After about five steps, though, he fell flat on his face. He got up and started to spit dirt out of his mouth.
_____“Just be glad it’s clean dirt,” Mike laughed. “Hurry up now, if you stand around too much longer you’ll get killed.”
_____And finally it dawned on the man what that noise was in the distance. Gunfire, constant, noisome gunfire. And that was why these men had rifles. Somehow he had been thrown into the middle of a battle. All of a sudden, as he was staring in the direction of the noises, he saw a bright red flash and heard a large explosion. He stood and trembled. Sweat dripped down his forehead.
_____“Don’t worry,” Mike reassured him, “that was one of ours. 1st has that hill covered so they can’t get their big guns up there. I guess they can still try though.”
_____Mike grabbed the man and dragged him into a nearby foxhole.
_____“Now, there’s something you’ve got to understand,” said Mike seriously. “You follow orders and you don’t hesitate. You’re lucky, you know that? We’re not going to be attacked over here. The main battle is over by that hill.”
_____“Who am I?” the man asked, still puzzled.
_____“That doesn’t matter, the point is, you’re here now, so you’d better get used to it.”
_____“I don’t think I’m a soldier.”
_____“What else is there to be?”
_____“I…I’m not sure. But this doesn’t feel right.”
_____“Drop sickness, you’ll get over it.”
_____As the man crouched down in the ditch, his mind raced. Thousands of thoughts came to him, but he couldn’t remember what they were. He remembered words like “society” and “civilization”, he vaguely thought of the words “job” and “career.” Yet these strange words were fading away from his mind, and he felt inside of himself that whatever these mysterious concepts were, they had no place here. But there was one thought that was still strong within him. He felt that he had been somewhere else before. That he had once been alive in a place where “literature” and “clocks” had existed. Then the word “television” popped into his head. He had no idea what it was, but for some reason the loss of it made him cry.
_____“I’ll be right back,” said Mike.
_____The man shivered alone in the dark. He was glad he wouldn’t have to fight tonight. He felt very emotionally unstable. He stood up to stretch, and at that moment, the war got a lot closer.
_____A bullet landed hard in the tree next to him, and a volley flew across his head as he ducked. Two huge explosions rocked the forest around him and a tree crashed down a few yards behind him. A mortar shell landed into what he realized was the fox hole next to his. Earth flew everywhere and he was knocked flat on his back. As he was getting up he noticed a severed arm across his chest.
_____A man jumped across his foxhole without noticing him, but before the man could move, a bullet knocked the other man into the ditch.
_____Finally the man struggled up with his rifle. He saw dozens of figures running around the edge of the forest towards him. He got the distinct impression that since these men were coming towards the way he was facing and were coming from the hill, they were the enemy. He opened fire.
_____The rifle shook violently in his hand as he tried to aim in the general direction of the enemy advance. The rifle seemed to be warming up fast, but the man noticed he was wearing gloves. Counter-fire came at him, but the man was low to the ground and it was dark. Now he could discern figures approaching and other figures falling.
_____“Hey, get out of there!” Mike yelled from somewhere behind him. A second later Mike was in the foxhole with him. “You’re the only foxhole left here, you’ve got to move back.”
_____Mike grabbed the man and pulled him out of the foxhole. The man stopped firing and let himself be led to the rear. Five other men had set up a position behind a fallen tree. Mike and the man jumped in with them.
_____“You got guts kid,” Mike said.
_____“Who are you calling a kid, Mike?” another man said, “This guy’s probably a decade older than you!”
_____“Well, maybe, but he’s a new drop.”
_____“A new drop held his hole? That’s impressive.”
_____The man was still and quiet. He couldn’t clearly remember what had happened. He didn’t remember consciously deciding to shoot back, it had just sort of been a reaction. What he did remember was that he hadn’t been scared at all since the first mortar shell had landed, but he was scared now.
_____“You said they weren’t going to attack here,” the man said.
_____“Well, I didn’t think they were. You just hang tight, kid.” Mike replied. Mike turned to one of the men and began to talk. The man didn’t pay any attention. He slumped low behind the tree and thought. Every once in a while one of the men he was with would fire a few rounds. That, combined with all of the constant explosions and the crackling of fires, reminded the man that he was still very much in a battle. Yet, within all this chaos, a great tiredness came upon him and he felt himself slowing drifting off to sleep.

********************************************************************************

_____“Rise and shine, kid,” Mike smiled, shaking the man into consciousness.
_____The man opened his eyes and closed them again. The sun was very bright. The man heard lots of noises of men walking back and forth and he heard shouting, but no gunfire. Last night’s battle was over. There was peace. And suddenly the man couldn’t help but smile.
_____Mike jabbed the butt of his rifle into the man’s stomach. The man opened his eyes wide open and began gasping for breath. Mike grabbed both the man’s hands and pulled him up.
_____“We’ve got an old saying here,” said Mike, “Last one to rise is the first one to fall.”
_____The man let himself be led through the woods, still gasping for breath. He noticed, to his surprise, the lack of fallen trees or scorched earth. He turned and looked at the spot from where he had risen, but he didn’t see that huge dead tree that Mike and those other men had used as cover.
_____“Where are we going?” asked the man.
_____“Back to HQ, to introduce you to our commander. It’s much farther back into the woods, out of range of artillery,” Mike explained.
_____“Like those mortars from last night?” the man offered.
_____“No,” Mike laughed, “actual artillery. Shells that can take out a whole unit. Trust me, if our line had have been under their artillery last night we wouldn’t of won that battle.”
_____“We won that?”
_____“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
_____“I get the impression that I’m not expected to live long.”
_____“About two weeks on average.”
_____“How long have you been here?”
_____“Oh, it must have been five, six months now. But you see, not many people last exactly two weeks, that’s just the average. Most people don’t make it past their second battle, and quite a few die their first night, so that brings down the average.”
_____“I still don’t understand what’s going on, why are we fighting and how long has this been going on?”
_____“Well, I’m not the right person to ask. But I suppose you’ll find out soon enough. You’re special. You’re a late drop. Guys like you get to talk to the commander when you first arrive.”
_____Mike was staring at the man now, still leading him into the forest, but now staring at the man closely. It unnerved the man.
_____“But late drops usually help us somehow,” Mike continued. “The last late drop modified our pistols.”
_____The man saw Mike’s pistol, which he carried in his left hand. He remembered that he had seen it last night when he first woke up. It had seemed strange and unfamiliar to him. Of course, everything here was strange, but he had no memory of this weapon.
_____Mike kept talking, explaining things, but the man’s attention began to wonder.
_____“…and new drops usually have drop sickness longer….”
_____“What is drop sickness?”
_____“These feelings you have that something here isn’t quite right, or random words that don’t mean anything, or how you feel that you’ve been somewhere else before the drop.”
_____“But I have been somewhere else before, I know it!”
_____“How do you know?”
_____“I…”
_____“Because you feel it. The feeling will start to fade. Ah ha! We’ve arrived.”