the long version

The thought only took a half a second but...

My thoughts come in letterbox and usually there are at least three camera angles.

"Wow, where'd that come from?" I asked myself, for some reason I looked up from the keyboard and at the last word I typed and then read it aloud but to myself - deadline. In a flash I saw it as a short film.

I was standing alone next to a long black line. The line had no visible end, it looked about two inches wide but it would probably measure wider, black is a sliming color. I was standing in a desert encircled by a far off mountain range, it was windy, dust was blowing all around but no dust ever settled on the line, the line always shone sharp and flat black. The line seemed to hum but in actuality there was no noise, not even the noise of the wind. I thought about making some noise just to see if I could but I didn't dare to try, finding out that even sound couldn't pass by the Deadline would be more than I wanted to know.

The camera angle was from behind me and about at knee level. The line was to my right, about a foot away, the evening sun shone from the other side of the line, just above the mountain range, so I must have been facing south. I was in a white shirt that was billowing to my left in the wind, which was odd because the dust was blowing to my right. There must have been an upper and a lower wind. I wore black jeans but the black looked gray compared to the line.

The line started from the right of the letterboxed formatted screen, the line looked thicker due to the proximity to the camera. It disappeared from view about a quarter width of the screen from the left side. The camera was close to the line but the viewer could tell that it wasn't too close, the cameraman would have been a fool to put the camera any closer or at least that's what the director wanted to portray. "This ain't no movie. That's the real Deadline" is what was written in the margin of the screenplay that corresponded to this point in the movie. I think there may have even been an exclamation point.

I turned to face the line and thought "So, this is the line" which meant the famous and feared Deadline. When referring to the Deadline, it was always spelled as one word but always said as two. I took a half a step towards the line.

The camera angle changed to a 'through my eyes' shot, the screen was filled with what I could see as I looked down. I could see a pair of dusty black squared toed cowboy boots, the part just before the shaft. An inch in front of the square toe, was the line. The line before seemed to have some sort of mass, it seemed like one could touch it but looking down on it, at this new angle, it seemed to be a void which bisected the Earth.

The view then changed as if I looked to the left, right down the line which traveled further than I could see. "It has no end" I remember thinking. I was looking for signs of death: bones, decaying bodies, I was looking to confirm what I knew about the line, that nothing ever lands on it, nothing living ever passes over, but there weren't any signs of death. I questioned how I knew that such a thing was true, I knew it as if I had witnessed it a thousand times but I could not remember ever seeing it happen or in this case not happen, but then I wouldn't have because this was the first time I was actually at the line. The legend of the line repeated in my head "Nothing on, nothing over."

If you touched the line you would die. If you tried to pass over the line you would die. The death would be instant, immediate, definite. Everyone talks about deadlines, it seems like deadlines are everywhere but in actuality there is only one Deadline and I was standing at it. People would come to the Deadline for different reasons but they would never some by choice. Everyone would see the Deadline at least once, there would always be that one time in everyone's life where all their lived life leads them to the line and forced them over it. There are also those times where some people just put themselves in a situation that leads them to the line unnecessarily. In either case the Deadline is just as final.

I wondered why people feared the line as much as they do, there I was standing right at it. I thought it no big deal but granted I really only wished to met the line once. The view changed to one above and a little to my right, looking down, you could see my whole profile, from the top of my head looking down at the line. I mocked people's fear of the line with a one syllable laugh, but then I was just visiting the line, I wasn't required to be there, it wasn't my time for the line. Just then the wind stopped blowing and I almost pushed myself over the line, I hadn't realized how much I was fighting the wind until it stopped, until I almost fell over the line.

Things got quickly serious and I heard the line say "Who's laughing now" or at least that's what I thought I heard the still deathly quiet line say.

I took a full step back from the line. The angle changed to what was the first view, only now I was one full step from the line and facing it. I stood for a moment, letting out a deep breathe, trying to not let the line know I was letting out a deep breathe, I turned a little more than halfway to my left and walked away, kind of along the line but also slightly away from it.

Then a fade to white.





"Thems a lot of words" I said to myself. I'll often use bad English when I talk to myself, profanity too.

The posts seem to be getting longer and coming in bunches but I guess three really isn't a bunch. My routine has changed due to my internet access.

The posts I like best are on the short side, under three hundred words, with a twist at the end. When's the last time I wrote one of those?

I think I might go back to just writing the point of the story. Or maybe I'll have two versions of the same post: the long, and the short. I think I actually have done that twice. When I think of something to write, it usually starts off as some little nugget of a thing and I'll build around it, sometimes I build too much. I'll be typing away and usually what gets me first is the amount of time I've spent typing, not so much the amount of words. I'll scroll back to see how far I have gone and guess where I will finish. Often I'll think it's too much so I'll start the revised short version at the end of the long and then go back and delete the long. When I get lazy only the long version gets typed.