Sunday, June 04, 2006

He Said Little As They Paddled Their Way Along The Sunken Streets

Oppure, "La Venezia Appassionata"

He said little as they paddled their way along the sunken streets, only the top floors and roofs of the taller buildings were still above water. What centuries of rising tides could not accomplish, an earthquake did in one day as the foundations of Venice, Italy gave way and the entire city collapsed like an elephant standing on a pallet of eggs.

Archaeologists owned the city by day, looters and pirates by night. His hired-on partner and he wouldn't risk any kind of motor, gas or electric, because that meant that they would surely be discovered. Their night vision goggles seem to pick up the signature of the pirates more often than the houses, their paddling slow and methodical to match the gentle lapping waves against the buildings.

Not many knew of her whereabouts, yet their window was shrinking and it was only a matter of time before she was discovered.

The levees, sea walls and breaks yielded to the Adriatic, and the sea helped the lagoon reclaim all. The once magnificent buildings and homes when they weren't doing their impression of a certain tower in Pisa, collapsed onto each other like a house of cards to a sudden gust of wind. He lived there off and on for about five years, and he believed that he knew the city by heart. But that was from a street level that no longer existed and once he left what was once the Grand Canal, all bets were off just like his favorite reference points.

Sure, he'd recognize a church steeple here, or balcony where he held a woman there, like a Romeo and Juliet that had finally consummated their passion. But now? It was one huge green slime-covered crap shoot. He had tried to triangulate using satellite photos from the Internet in comparison with known archeologicall digs, but all that went out the window in the darkness.

GPS did absolutely no good here, the pirates had figured out ways to manipulate or jam the signals so that everyone who relied on it would become disoriented, and thus become, the easiest of prey. So they rowed onward, silently and for the most part, aimlessly.

His partner's head whipped around at him in askance as stopped them in the water by grabbing onto an eave, despite the algae compromising his grip. A boat of looters glided some fifty yards away and the looters had on night-vision goggles too. One of the looters deliberately took his time in aiming a rifle at them when the spotlight of a pirate speedboat blinded the looter.

The looter screamed at the intensity of the light and at being discovered. He blindly fired at the pirates. The pirates returned fire and cut the looters down in a hail of red tracers. He and his partner slowly rowed backward as the pirates descended on the looter's boat like nocturnal vultures.

It's said that "it is always darkest before the dawn" and in this case, no truer words were spoken. He had to give up on her, someone else would find her, though they wouldn’t appreciate half as much as he did and they wouldn't take care of her as tenderly as he had.

She was the truest of loves, she gave all and asked nothing in return. And all he wanted to do was bask in her warm beauty just for another moment, but it seemed that only memories would do from here on out. Or would it? Because in the pitch black of the four A.M. darkness with only a quarter moon to light the way, he saw a white fin on a nearby roof.

The fin was actually a rudder from a radio-controlled P-51 Mustang replica airplane that one of the neighborhood kids used to buzz everybody in the piazza (plaza) with. He and the next-to-last girlfriend that he had went for a romantic walk when the kid pushed things too far and the plane nearly hit them. The girlfriend waited until the kid turned his back to them and she jostled the punk, sending his remote to the ground and the plane up on a roof.

Here was the perfect reference point, faintly glowing in the night. He rowed over to the building that the plane was perched on and brought it back to the boat, after an incredible amount of effort. If he couldn't find her, the plane would be the consolation prize and proof to himself that he at least came close. They then rowed due west across what he subconsciously knew to be the piazza boundaries.

He know recognized his grandfather's mansion, though without the aid of the plane, he wouldn't have known it at all. Someone had repainted the building and changed the tiles on the roof from terracotta to blue. Though the house looked like no one had lived there for centuries, something greater than hope told him that she was still waiting there for his return.

The window of his grandfather's office was still intact, somehow. He used a glass cutter and suction cup to open it as quietly as possible, then he climbed in.

As the sun rose over Verona, some one-hundred and twenty miles east of Venice, his partner gave him a warm tap on the back.

"She's-eh-prettier than you deescribed," his partner sung in that strange British English that always sounds odd coming from Italians. He nodded and beamed. Taking that beauty in again and reveling in the role of both lover and savior.

"My grandfather would broker deals and ransoms between art thieves and the authorities. But that doesn't mean that he always gave the authentic artifact or art work back to them. Whatever sits in the Mauritshuis, in the Hague, is not the real Vermeer. This is the real Girl With A Pearl Earring."


Random House is just that, while JJ's Flash Fiction Friday has direction, content and is phat

http://purgatorian.blogspot.com/2006/06/flash-fiction-friday-39.html

14 Comments:

Blogger Girl With An Alibi said...

Great Story. I love the mystery leading up to who "She" is. I want to go to Venice now.

Sun Jun 04, 10:53:00 AM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great job : )

Mystery seems really hard to write, at least from my beginners view, and you did a super job with this piece.

I love Venice.

~Calli~

Sun Jun 04, 10:58:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Diamond said...

Excellent job - I couldn't wait to find out who the "She" was.

Sun Jun 04, 03:11:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

GWAA,

Thanks and the best time to go is now as it doesn't rain as much and the streets are above water. Incidentally, it's the only city in Italy where the streets are "Calle" ("Ca'" for short) as in the Spanish word, as opposed to "Strada."

Calli,

Thank you. You will find out that this flash fiction is the easiest kind of mystery to write, regardless of the genre that your story is. JJ points you in the direction, but it's a mystery to you as to how and why you will get there.

Debby,

Thanks. She would've been the Mona Lisa, but I've been DiVinci'd out since the hype for the book started.

Sun Jun 04, 05:11:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Ubermilf said...

But... but... I don't want Venice to be gone.

I like stories with pirates in them.

Sun Jun 04, 09:43:00 PM PDT  
Blogger sweet trini said...

i agree with ubermilf about pirates, but this was a lovely intrigue too.
walk good.

Sun Jun 04, 10:22:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Mackenzie said...

Great story. I really didn't see it going there.

Mon Jun 05, 06:29:00 AM PDT  
Blogger AngelConradie said...

I like it dude! I had a feeling right from the beginning he was looking for an artwork, but REALLY I like the twist.

Mon Jun 05, 01:09:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

Frau Uber,

Danke.

"But... but... I don't want Venice to be gone."

I don't either, but if anything in this planet is going to be effected by global warming and the resulting rising tides...


Trini,

"i agree with ubermilf about pirates"

Aye, a pirate story next week 'tis.

"but this was a lovely intrigue too. walk good."

Thanks.

Mon Jun 05, 07:55:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

Blonde,

"Great story. I really didn't see it going there."

Thanks. I knew where it was going, but I had no idea how I would get there.


Angel,

"I like it dude! I had a feeling right from the beginning he was looking for an artwork, but REALLY I like the twist."

Thanks. If I was looking from the outside in and going with such a vague description of "her," she had to be either artwork or a boat.

Mon Jun 05, 07:59:00 PM PDT  
Blogger justacoolcat said...

Creepy love stories really are the best, sort of a modern chapter of Grimm, "Faithful John".

Nice work.

Tue Jun 06, 01:14:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

"Nice work."

Thanks.

"Creepy love stories really are the best, sort of a modern chapter of Grimm, 'Faithful John'."

I had no idea what you were talking about...

http://www.faithfuljohn.com/en/story

The sentiment is very much the same, who hasn't fell in love or lust with a painting?

That's a great fable, I don't remember reading that one in the few Grimm stories that I read as a child. It's also a sign that I have to diversify my reading and something other than short stories and "bullets and broads."

Tue Jun 06, 05:37:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Katie Schwartz said...

ooh, I love it. such romance and nostalgia! I was sucked in from word one. beautiful! loved it.

Fri Jun 09, 08:37:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

Thank ya Katie!

Fri Jun 09, 10:28:00 PM PDT  

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