The crocodile slithered onto the bank and approached a man in cardboard-stiff starched khaki clothes. The man jumped instinctively but then he recognized that the animal meant him no harm and sat down cross-legged and began speaking to to him.
"Why've you come out of the water sir?"
"Give me reasons why I wouldn't have."
"If you're capable- I don't see why you shouldn't. It just seems strange, you don't really belong here."
"By what standard?"
"Nature's."
The crocodile dismissed this statement with a wave of his scaled hand and slunk over to a nearby antelope.
"Watch this."
The crocodile tapped the antelope gently on the shoulder. The antelope recoiled initially but the n looked on at the reptile in a friendly manner.
"Will you be participating in the chain today?"
The antelope nodded sweetly, and the crocodile instantly suffocated the animal in a blur of lacerations. Bloodied and victorious the crocodile turned back toward the horrified man, with a lethargic displaced look in his slit eyes.
"That is nature's standard. So I will be rejecting at every moment I can."
Oscar Arnold 6fl1n3P
4 years ago
3 comments:
You're right. It's not a poem- more of a short story or dialogue with introductory and motion-making images. Stylistically uncharacteristic, yes, but decidely blunt and cynnical, which is not at all that uncharacteristic of you. The matter-of-factness of the crocodile's question and the antelope's submissive, slyly sweet response was shocking and took your point and punched it in my gut. An interestng comment on human misunderstandings of nature. I also like the way it is structured. I'm a fan of short and powerful. Power evolves from the concise combination of your detailed images and casual dialogue- dialogue that is entirely important to the point, and carries the motion of the story compulsively forward. Through the course of reading even such a small passage I am struck with feelings of confusion, hysteria, violence, shock, and philosophical reflection- word!
Gracias dude. I'm developing a love for short intense pieces of work over long-winded expressions that are more amorphous.
yeah, short and concrete is sort of what i have grown a preference for. but still continue to embrace the fact that you can release long-winded streams of conscious like you can. i have trouble writing for extensively for extended periods of time and it is sort of limiting in many ways. i have to work on and experience both!
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