Cliff Face by Talitha Brewer
Clinging to the rockface Stevie tried to remember what had happened. He could feel fingers going numb and cold as they clung onto the narrow opening in the rock and his feet precariously balanced on the ledge below him. He daren’t look down or up as he was not sure what was below or above him.
Listening out he wondered if anyone was looking for him. Had he been with anyone? He couldn’t even remember that. How long had he been hanging there for? He closed his eyes trying not to panic.
With his eyes closed he began to see an image. There was a path, a girl with a dog and a man, was it him? No it was an older man, he wasn’t that old was he? The man walked with a stick, no wait crutches, and the girl was small and was walking beside him holding the dog’s lead and a doll in the other hand. Perhaps it was him. The man was not walking properly he was dragging one leg relying on the crutches to help him along and rather than running on ahead the girl was holding back walking at his speed, he then realised that the leg that was dragging was a prosthetic leg. The little girl was talking to him, he tried to listen but all he could hear was screaming and a noise that sounded like gun fire. Why gun fire where was he what was going on?
He opened his eyes again and now the scene was different he was still hanging on but he couldn’t tell where it still seemed as though he was trapped somewhere. This time he couldn’t feel his feet or legs at all he felt as though he was suspended from his fingers but he was dangling and someone was calling his name telling him to hang on rescue was coming. He just had to hang on for a little longer.
He closed his eyes. The little girl was there again this time she was sitting on his lap and he was reading her a story, who was she, why was she looking up at him with such adoring eyes. He tried to focus on her and bring her face into closer vision but she seemed to be blurring. The noises from afar were interfering with what he was trying to see and to focus on. “Hang on Sir, help is coming, please hang on”.
Stevie opened his eyes again and looked up. This time above him he could see a young man’s face looking down at him. The man was in mud spattered, khaki uniform a cut across his face and he was leaning over the edge of a precipice with a vehicle behind him that looked as though it had been damaged in some way. “We’re going to come down and get you sir”, the young man said. “You got thrown out of the vehicle. We didn’t realise you were down there and still alive till we heard you screaming”.
“You were calling out a girl’s name!”
I could imagine this shown as a a flashback in a film…… a wartime incident relived in a dream/nightmare? He is the old man with the prosthetic leg walking with his granddaughter. That’s one take on it but I can visualise the others. I was drawn in.
A powerful and neat story-I agree with Simon about it being in the future. The only comment (hopefully helpful) is that some of the sentences were very long. To aid pace, they could usefully have been split into two or more sentences, or had punctuation to break them up. I had to read them twice to know what was going on.
I like the juxtaposition of the horror of present events with the healing images of life and love in the future.
From Simon: A haunting piece set inside the mind of a man clinging on to a cliff face, literally for his life. The ending suggests that he got into the predicament in a wartime accident. There is a time shift, as he has visions of his life at another period, though I wasn’t sure whether that period was in the past or the future. There is a young girl involved and a man with a prosthetic leg, who he sees in his dreams or hallucinations. I’m not sure whether the writer wanted what had happened to be clear or aimed to leave the piece as a puzzle which could be interpreted in different ways. Either approach is quite legitimate. But, for what it’s worth, I’ll say what I think happened. The vision the man has while he is clinging to the cliff face is of the future. He is rescued but was injured in the initial accident and had to have his leg amputated. The little girl he sees is his daughter (or possibly granddaughter), and he is the man with the prosthetic leg. I will be fascinated to know if that’s what I was meant to think. A forceful and intriguing bit of writing, though.