Swamp Eyes

 So I'm reading this book called Snow Crash at the moment, and it is by far one of the best books I've ever read! The author, Neil Stephenson, is a wordsmith. He writes in such a way that's super compelling that sucks you straight into the world of his story. I think it really helps that he writes all in present tense, which has this way of sucking you straight into the action, you feel as if you're experiencing everything for the first time along with the characters. One thing that makes present tense work is that it's very in-your-face, when stuff happens he will say , for example earlier in the book,"You better fucking believe it."  

Snow Crash is the inspiration for the story today: Swamp Eyes. Emulating his style is something I've been wanting to do for a while now, it's so fun to read that I just had to do it. So I did. I give you all a story about a girl with mysterious powers and a snap-shot of what she has to deal with every day of her life; Swamp Eyes! [Warning: This is my most graphic story so far, I think it has to do with the fact that I just watched Kill Bill yesterday].

            Some call her Satan’s Daughter, other’s call her Red Haired Bitch, and those of 'Sco call her The Storm of the East. She has many nicknames, she collects them as one does with trading cards or rare coins, like card and coins she valued each name differently: depending on the creative merit and age of each name. If she was blind she could easily tell where she stood based on the names they call her. Which proved itself nicely because she had awoken up in a different city than the night before, must have been too many tequila shots, again; she thought. Yesterday in Killomine she was The Fallen Angel, today she was she is Swamp Eyes meaning she was in Gel. She wasn’t fond of that nickname, Swamp Eyes, she wound of been cool with forest or emerald eyes. Swamp Eyes sounded too much like a cheesy horror story you tell kids around campfires, but it was the only nickname she collected that didn’t mention her hair, personality or [former] nationality.

            Gel is like any small town you would encounter between Killomine and ‘Sco, in the fact that it is made of the same kind of materials and people: dirt as dry as the sand dunes, wood older than the oldest nations, and lowlifes as rich as the homeless of ‘Sco. At this moment Swamp Eyes is the richest person in town, she doesn’t need to look at the tax records to know that, it’s just how it is out here in the waste. She thinks that if she ever decides to use her full ability here she would be doing the waste a favor by leveling the town and hopefully wiping out the scum who lived her as well, but she chooses not to; it's not worth her energy, well that is if the damn sheriff and his posse of wanna-be’s surrounding her would just let her get a drink in the Burning Candle.

            “Get the fuck outta my town,” he says each word trails of saliva projects out of his mouth like he's attempting to spit each word out.

            “I got a hangover,” Swamp Eyes says rubbing her temples to prove her point, “I need to drink it off.”

            “I ain’t letting’ you in, you get drink off yer hangover somewhere else. Now get yer ass out of my town or my men and I will open fire.” On cue the clicking of a dozen rifles, pistols, and shotguns fills the air. As if the sound of cocking is supposed to scare her. They think they can scare her because she prefers swords over guns? Oh please. She grasp the handle of her favorite sword, Blink.

            This again? She thinks. Why does every fucking town this size feels as if they need to be the big-damn hero and stop her once and for all? This is the fifth time this week for crying out loud. They get radiograms like everyone else, they should know of what happened to all five of those sheriff departments, it wasn’t good for those who defied her. No, this was sheer stupidity. She's too hungover and tired to give them a fight, those other towns were fun and all but she has a god-damn hangover this time.

            Swap Eyes knows the routine like a seasoned actor, same play different set, all she has to do now is go through the motions. She steps forward.

            Bang! She feels the pressure penetrate her sternum. She doesn’t even need to look at the weapon to know it was a shotgun; the feel of the blast as it rips through her flesh and out of her back is way too familiar, like stepping on carpet you know it's carpet by the texture of the fibers as they rub against your feet, she knows it's a shotgun by the size and force of the blast

            She sighs and draws Blink, thinking about it she remembers that this town has yet to see Blink in action, there's a first time for everything. And in one fluid motion the sword blade slices through one of the deputies’, or volunteers, or whoever-they-are’s, lower torso passing through his intestines then sternum then intestines again, a trail of bio-matter flies out of his body through the air and splatter upon the the side of a building down the street leaving a crimson Rorschach pattern upon the wooden wall. Blood flies from his lower half through the air like a broken faucet, it turns the red dirt beneath her feet a slightly brighter red and when it hits her face it splatters upon it like war paint, war paint as red as her hair. His torso falls to the ground not as one, but as two pieces.

             She rests on the hilt of her blade like a cane, impaling the upper half man she just dismembered, a tiny whimper is heard. That was when everybody around her noticed her wounds. 
             Her chest itself is split open from the shotgun blast raveling all her internal organs, they're just like yours and mine, to the sheriff. Her heart sternum is shattered like glass, what used to be her lung now hang like busted balloons, the esophagus is hanging like snake skin, the top of her stomach is split wide open, and her heart is ripped in half but is still beating as a waterfall of blood pours through down the remnants of her lungs into her stomach, never missing a drop however like a perfectly poured glass of wine. She could heal now, but the feeling of the dry air circulating within her sternum is somewhat refreshing, like letting the wind blow across your bare skin after sweating beneath think cloths all day. 
            “Don't look at me like you've never seen a woman's flesh before. Now enough foreplay," she says pinning the Sheriff with her emerald stare, he tries to look away but can't, "can you please let me through? If you do I'll let you see more of me."

            The sheriff looks at all of his men, trembling at the sight of Swamp Eyes. They look at him, then back to her, and back to him again. You would think this town sat on top of a fault line by how much they shook.

She looks at one of the men, a larger man, possibly a worker at the local mine, locks eyes with him smiles and winks as one would when they see somebody attractive across the bar. His gun falls straight to the dirt road and within a few second he’s halfway out of town leaving a trail of dust behind him. The rest volunteers quickly follow suit, forming a rusty cloud around her and the sheriff.

She takes in a deep breath, her internals reform and grow back together, she’s in a trance like state focusing all her mental power on the regeneration process, but she holds onto the sheriff's eyes with her own like she's sucking his life force out of him with her stare, maybe. The sheriff sees everything out of his peripherals. The snaking of her throat as it wiggles back into place on top of her stomach, her heart beating itself back into life, the lungs inflate as her diaphragm pulls downward, bones and muscles cover up everything in seconds, and then her skin closes up like a curtain after a play.

His wide eyes and gaping jaw shows perfect that he doesn’t know what to say, so she says it for him in the best low voice she can do, it's far from a perfect mockery but in her defense she could never sing lower than an alto: “Yes you can Swamp Eyes, or do you prefer Emerald Eyes? I can't remember silly old me. Go right on ahead every drink is on the house for you. Our place is your place, stay as long as you want!”

She steps around him pats him on the shoulder and tell him, “Thank you so much for your hospitality kind sheriff, I assure you my stay won’t be long.”

She walks straight through the double doors while the sheriff still stands there like he just gazed into the eyes of Medusa.