Rusty: Short Story
Wow - Hasn’t time gone by? It only feels like two weeks have passed since I posted the, Almost a Cult Classic on Wing Commander, then I had to rush out my last blog.
The only difference is the budget
This month, I’m posting my last Uni assignment. I skipped one because that led into what became my first chapter of book one of the next trilogy. Did I mention it has deterministic time travel? Not the easiest story to write. Hard science fiction fans expect something that tastes real, and time travel fans expect another level of realism — so I’m writing to two fan bases with different ( but with Venn diagram overlap) requirements for a great story.
The brief on this was 2500 words +/-10%, and the story had to start with one of the provided half sentences. The one that spoke to me the most was - That space made me feel…
As usual, I wrote a reflection of the piece at the bottom.
As with all my creative writing assignments, they are posted unedited.
This piece slowly developed through discovery writing (pantsing), so there was no development or outline written down. Most of the feedback provided by my lecturer was: More detail - expand on this - tell me more. My assignment was already close to 2500 words, and felt more detail would push it well over the percent cap.
This is the last assignment I’ll be posting until I have more chapters written of the trilogy.
I’m looking forward to it.
In the meantime, this story is called -
Rusty
That little space made me feel claustrophobic. How many times had I explored these caves?
Darkness closed in with a startling touch of frigid air, creeping along my arms and legs and finding that horrific spot deep within my back; that place from where all fear spreads.
Silence filled the void. Beyond my accelerated heartbeat and breath, there was nothing.
Details removed for privacy
Batteries. Just a few batteries to give my torch new life and maybe some hope of ever reaching the surface again.
Turning the torch off and giving it a moment before turning it back on offered a flash of light; it was enough.
The flash burned my worn backpack into my vision like an old computer monitor. It had landed in the middle of nowhere. While it offered some hope of how close it was, only the flat weave of artificial fibres teased my fingers. Hope crushed like my ankle beneath the rock that pinned me to this place.
“Where are you, Rusty?” I yelled at the top of my lungs. The dull reverberation in the cave could have muted his reply.
The ground turned cold and slick, with water trickling in from the darkness, its icy caress stealing my breath.
Clay squelched between my fingers, and my foot felt like life was squeezing from it with every desperate reach for the pack.
The trickle became a gush, turning the ground into oozing sludge, making it slick, pushing, sliding, and swivelling me away from my goal.
Maybe the pack will move with the water.
A repeated attempt at the torch trick provided nothing helpful, just a blink of a faint glow.
Leaves and other debris created a wall along my body as the water flowed faster. And yet, that damn pack hadn’t come with it.
Cold water quickly pooled at my ankles.
“RUSTY.” My voice broke in desperation.
Thoughts swirled, and I wondered what I could have done to avoid this situation.
Gentle raindrops tapped against the lush green leaves, creating a melodic symphony. They cascaded down onto the already-saturated natural mulch covering the rainforest ground. The air was heavy with an earthy dampness mingling with the pungent aroma of my sticky perspiration. The rain slowly penetrated through the mugginess, and I took time out to absorb the moment and listen to the wildlife go about their day while I waited for Rusty.
Rusty looking for mobile coverage
Rusty pushed past the last branch and stood in my personal space. His heavy breath masked the tranquillity, and it slightly annoyed me. This was the first time he’d come to my secret place, and I couldn’t help but worry he might spoil its magic.
“Oh man, thanks again for the invite,” Rusty said.
“That’s okay, but that’s the third time you’ve said that. Can’t you just enjoy the quiet?”
“But I love caving. I haven’t done it in ages, man. It’s been ages since I’ve actually been out anywhere.”
“You’ve never gone caving, Rusty. You’re not even appropriately dressed.”
“Why, what’s wrong with my drip?” he said, gesturing at his outfit.
“Drip? Rusty, you’re wearing five hundred dollar designer sneakers and a Hawaiian shirt.”
“What are you talking about, man? I look dope.”
“C’mon, it’s been twenty years. That mullet has to go.”
Rusty seemed to ignore the comment, pulled his phone out, and waved it around high in the air.
“Rusty, you know this far out, that’ll be nothing but a techno-brick.”
He paused his search. “Ah man, that sucks. New edition of Sports Illustrated is out today, and I want to see who’s on the cover.” He resumed hunting for that elusive bar.
“Who cares when you have this to look at?” I said, gesturing at the natural wonder.
“I got a bar,” he yelled. “Aww, man, it’s gone.”
The forest fell silent.
“So have all the birds.” His persistence left me baffled. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”
In the distance, a catbird screamed like a baby, its creepy wail adding to the shriek of several curlews. A kookaburra laughed at me as I pushed through the undergrowth. These birds couldn’t scare me from escaping the oppressive heat and humidity.
The weight of my helmet caused the slim backpack to slide across my soaked shirt, and the coiled rope over my shoulder left a lingering burn-like sensation on my neck.
Rusty caught up again and noted the fresh mark. “This far out from nowhere, and you get a hickey. Man, where’s the speed demon that gave you that?” He gave a cheeky laugh. “I can give you some time and meet you at the falls.”
I really don’t know why I’m friends with this guy, but he’s harmless. Even through high school, when others picked on me, Rusty was always there with his fists. Annoying, but harmless.
Rusty still had his phone out, and I left him in his futile efforts.
The waterfall in the distance called out to me with its constant rumble of white noise. It knew my name, as I had been there before, as though I’d always been there. I kept moving before Rusty caught up.
The forest thickened, and I pushed through the green undergrowth, but then, there was that moment of welcoming: the wind flowed over the cliff with the water and carried the spray into the forest, like open arms embracing and giving life.
“Hello, old friend.”
As water rained from the surrounding trees, my soft, flexible hat flattened against my forehead, blocking my view of the artistic vista, so I dragged it away, replacing it with a head torch to prepare for the next leg of my journey into the heart of this wonderland.
The sun shone through the canopy above, and part of a rainbow filled the small canyon.
“I’ve missed you.”
“You talking to yourself again?” Rusty shouted from behind. “Man, I told you talking to yourself is a sign of madness.”
To a certain degree, I wish Rusty had gotten lost.
A green carpet of moss covered most of the rocks, and it was easy to tell that few people visited the falls. My feet retraced the same steps, like every other time before, to avoid marking the environment.
This close to the plunge pool, the deafening roar vibrated through my body, and the constant spray washed away the humidity and the grime from the city.
“Now,” I shouted to Rusty, “I’ve told you how to find the entrance. Once I’ve gone, I’m not coming back for you. The tunnel is just wide enough for one person.”
“Man, chill. I got it. See you on the other.” Rusty stood there with that stupid crooked smirk, highlighting his bent nose.
The torrent tried to defend the world we were about to step into. The rock face behind disappeared, and that’s where the narrow, underwater tube led to the cave system inside the mountain.
Taking a few deep breaths in the shallow undercutting, I dropped feet first into the hole, hollowed out by aeons of water flowing onto a vein of soft rock.
The swim with the water flow was short before it angled toward a breath of air. Dim light coming through from the waterfall outside left a magical shimmering over the cave walls, my headlamp marring the effect. Its light guided me deeper into the cave until it opened into a cavern. A narrow stream of golden light beamed down the star shaft, imbuing dust and insects into magical creatures of this underworld. After seeing a documentary in hospital on the Great Pyramid of Giza, I liked and reused the name “star shaft”. The light emphasised a damp boulder propped up on a pile of muddy rubble.
That boulder had never been damp before. Could it be from the light rain outside?
Rusty materialised from the dark. “I forgot my torch.” He sounded more sober for some reason.
“Man, I can’t believe you forgot your torch.”
I think I’ve been around Rusty too long.
Rusty shrugged.
“I told you we’re going caving. Your torch and extra batteries are your life in here, and you fucking forgot.”
“Yer man, well, things happen.”
“Were you on drugs or something?”
Rusty took a step back, his wet, dark hair hung over his face, and he peered between dripping strands of hair. “Nah man, I don’t do drugs, you know that.”
“The first day in months, and you have ruined my outing. I can’t look after you in here. This was the only day I had.”
Rusty’s brown eyes glowed from my head torch. “Yer, well, since we’re being narcissistic, I’ve not been able to contact you in months. I’ve not seen or heard from you. Do you know how that makes me feel? Hollow, that’s how. I’ve felt like everyone ignored me, and my only friend doesn’t even answer my calls. After all the times I’ve bashed someone to defend you, and you shrug me off like a coat.”
“Did I ever ask you to hit someone? Get yourself locked up?”
“Man, you’re my friend. You supposed to help friends.”
“I am your friend. I stood up in court for you. But I can’t handle your, ‘fluctuations’.”
“You can’t leave me,” he sneered.
“Wanna bet.” I stepped back; my heart pounded as the air grew tense, and I turned to move on. A bone-chilling strike landed on the side of my head, jolting me to my knees. Pain radiated through my skull, and a dull throb echoed through all my senses. A metallic tang of blood matted my hair and stained my trembling fingers. Droplets fell onto the smooth, unforgiving rock floor. “What was that for, man?”
“I told you, you can’t leave me.”
Everything turned blurry, and the cave spun.
“Geez, man, you’ve been out for some time. You okay?” Rusty’s voice seemed a little slurred.
“What happened?” The torch cast shadows on the ceiling, including a dark patch right above my head, and it took a moment for my eyes to regain focus. “I thought you would have left me or something.”
“Look, whatever happened before was an accident. Man, we’re friends, remember? If you’d worn your helmet…”
I wanted to yell, storm off and leave him, but he was right; I can’t leave him.
“Hitting someone is no accident. Violence doesn’t fix things. Besides, you’ve never hit me before.”
From the corner of my blurred vision, Rusty sat cross-legged about two metres away. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”
“How can I be sure of that? What if your emotions boil over and you can’t control yourself?”
There was silence from him.
“Rusty?”
“Let’s get moving, man. The exit is a little way off.”
My body was heavy, and I struggled to turn over onto hands and knees. “You going to help out?”
“Nah, man. It’s best you take your time and get up at your own pace.”
“How long was I out?”
“Meh, long enough.”
Rusty’s lack of empathy was getting to me. One foot struggled before the next, and I climbed up the wall to stand. “I think I’m okay to move on.”
Rusty followed me into the next cavern, all the time working in my shadow. It gently rained from the ceiling in this part of the cavern. “This is where it gets tight. Are you ready?”
Rusty acknowledged with a nod while I tied my backpack to my right ankle.
The passage ran several metres from floor level and was only wide enough for a person to squeeze through. At the other end, I rolled away so Rusty could follow my light. The cave ceiling rained harder here, and the floor had a shallow pool developing. “It really must be raining hard outside.”
Rusty crouched in this ‘room’ and licked the mineralised water running past his lips. “That’s a bit chewy,” he said with less enthusiasm.
This day should have been my freedom, but I’m trapped in a cave with this person. I wasn’t much into his humour right now, so I pressed on into the next tunnel and pushed my pack in front this time. A small lip of rock at the end made shoving my pack out more difficult. I thrust it out of my way with frustration. Leaving Rusty in the dark and continuing crossed my mind.
Commando crawling out of the tight opening, my ankle caught on something. “Are you screwing with me, Rusty?”
I thought his silence was part of his humour, but a hand doesn’t dig into you through leather boots, and my other foot kicked at something hard.
My headlamp faded quickly, dimming to a glow before leaving me in the dark.
“RUS-TY!”
The trickle of running water covered any hope of hearing Rusty again, and the chilling layer of soundproofing creeping up my leg sent shivers through my spine, suffocating any lingering sense of reassurance. In the eerie silence, I realised how isolated and vulnerable I truly was.
The cold penetrated up to my waist, and soon, I was taking my last few controlled breaths. The cold embrace swallowed me whole with an energetic gush.
From the sound of it, the power of the flow reduced, and the cavern was full.
With my heart beating in my ears, my lungs tightened, and the urge to take a breath grew. My free foot stomped in slow motion at the mud covering that rock.
My lungs burned to a dull gurgling sounding somewhere in the water.
I moved, slipped.
Pulled.
Like the flushing of a toilet, the water expelled my exhausted body, a rag doll tossed in the wash.
Carried between the smooth walls. Muscles and bone, no match for the power of nature.
Forced through the narrow passages I’d entered earlier, the water ejected me into muted daylight like oil out of a well.
Rain drizzled over my beaten body, and I counted every bruise along with a stabbing pain in my left knee.
Multiple voices in the rainforest called out for Rusty.
What happened to Rusty?
I called out to the voices for help, and a large Scottish man with red hair and a beard soon stood with his hands on his hips and looked down at my broken body. He called out over his shoulder. “Oi, I found the poor lad.” His round face carried a relieved smile. “Rusty, thank God we found you. How on Earth did you get out?
His face seemed almost dream-like in my addled mind.
“Oh, Rusty, my lad. We thought we’d lost you. I don’t know how you got out, but we’ve missed you in group therapy.”
“Hi, Doctor McGregor. It’s me, Ronan, not Rusty.”
“Oh, sorry, Ronan, I mixed you up with Rusty. Three days without your meds…’
“It’s okay. I think Rusty drowned. He’s gone. I think I finally left him.”
Doctor McGregor kneeled down, smiled and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Good to hear, Ronan. Let’s get you home.”
Reflection
This piece originated from week 1, exercise 1; Pick one of these phrases and, beginning with it, use it to freedraft a page, and the opening line I chose was “That little space made me feel…”. The only word that came to mind was claustrophobic, and no other word would do after that. With my word chosen, the next thing I thought of was an airlock, but I wanted to write something other than sci-fi, my favourite genre. After considering different options, I settled on describing the airlock as a cave and wrote the short piece submitted in week one exercises. Once I finished the opening, I recognised its similarity to the movie ‘127 Hours’ (Boyle, 2010), which compelled me to change my direction.
The story originally had one character with limited dialogue, creating that loneliness versus nature. After considering the subjects over the previous ten weeks, I asked our tutor, {REDACTED}, if dialogue could be from one person. When the response was yes, I felt a monologue wasn’t right for the story, so Rusty was “born” into Ronan, and the comfortable dislike of Rusty became part of the conflict. Before I asked this question, I didn’t have a direction and meandered with description until something came to me. At this point, I wished I’d written a component of assignment two in the exercises for the earlier weeks so I could have used the larger word count for a story I knew in assignment three rather than creating a new story. Workshopping in week 11 guided me towards the story’s ending, while Kyle recommended adding specialness to create a magical underworld. Without these suggestions, the ending would have been very different.
Although I’m nothing like the characters in this story, I have experienced mental health issues in the past. I felt writing a more serious side could highlight some pains of mental health, even though my depiction of schizophrenia and dissociative identity is inaccurate.
A lot of news and entertainment outlets portray mental health negatively for “the conflict”. If Hollywood made this into a film, I feel they would have Rusty come back with a vengeance in the second act.
The notion of Ronan’s rebirth through the demise of his alter ego, leaving a clean mind behind, appealed to me, although, in reality, mental health has destroyed many relationships and lives and isn’t to be taken lightly.
Boyle, D (Director). (2010). 127 Hours [Film]. Pathe.
https://pathe.com/en/
