Desert Trek by churchmouse

The Cruel mid-day sun beat down from a cloudless sky directly onto the lone figure of a man as he stumbled along. The soft hot sand beneath his feet making progress difficult.
He could feel the heat burning his head and shoulders. The day before he had lost his hat and he now cursed his carelessness. With no shade the sweat trickled down into his eyes and made them smart.
"Not far now" he thought. "Just got to keep going"
He alone had volunteered, and he regretted his foolishness. He now envied the others who had stayed, but they were depending on him and he had walked too far now to turn back.
He put his head down and watched his feet moving automatically one in front of the other. The glare of the sun reflected back from the hot pale sand and he closed one eye.
He came to a slope and his progress slowed further, but he kept moving forward although his legs began to feel heavy.
His breathing became more laboured as he sucked  the hot air into his lungs. When he reached the top of the slope he stopped and raised his head, and looked before him.

"Two cones and a choc-ice please" He said to the spotty youth manning the ice cream van.

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Comments

Grampa Pogi

01 March 2010

Churchmouse,

First, I looked at the title.  Then the story took me to the 'soft hot sand'.  Then with great descriptions, you had the reader hooked on a "desert scenario" and just when it was getting very interesting, you twist it.  Good stuff.
You are the master of twists.  And it was never disappointing.  The fun part was looking for it and of course, it's usually in the end.
Can you imagine someone reading through perhaps a few pages of this only to meet the "spotty youth manning the ice cream van". 
:-)
Grampa

m n m n I

01 March 2010

This time it's about the indomitable human spirit and not about money
Hope he didn't have a hole in his pocket
and the cones and choc-ice make it on his way back

Fun read, churchmouse

bobchoi

03 March 2010

Another quirky, suspenseful, funny piece from the "Churchmouse".  Bravo... Oh, just a minute, how about a different ending that will please some of the male chauvinists in the Circle:

"Two cones and a choc-ice please," he said to the sweaty, bikini-toped, young thing manning the ice cream van.

Also see: The Whispers (989 words - need feedback) (ThePaperGypsy) • To mnmnl (stargazer) • The Roller Skate Factory (churchmouse) • Mr Letterman's Volcano (churchmouse) • Re: Writer 113 The music, the writer and the mood (Evita Sagalongos) • Memory Of the Minnie Steam (NoelLynn) • Tess and the Priceless Treasure (Anstice Potts) • Jellybeans (GenieRaine) • Souls of the fire dragon (j_wrieden) • I havent titled this story as of yet, although its saved in a document called '18 balloon' :) (Miss P)

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Writer churchmouse	Total posts: 435
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Heating engineer by day. Writer of whimsical rubbish by night. Trying to replace the former with the latter. A few articles previously published in club/in-house magazines. Couple of short stories recently ... (Read more)

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