August 26th, 2 am

[Traveller13]

so here's me and jeff and pauline and caroline sitting in the back with a sleeping bag hovering over us like a giant manta ray, rage is blurring relentlessly through the car speakers nobody's talking so I look outand absorb the moon with my eyes.
we arrive to the junction only 2 minutes after the white van crashes through the one-way lane that it took the wrong way, charlie and his drummer friend get out of the van water leaking headlights exploded glass and plastic everywhere
they seem very reassured to see jeff they know him see and charlie's supposed to do a 500 mile trip on the next day the guy looks drunk out of his very own body so we calm him down after moving all the bits of maimed roadsigns off the road, i find one lying on the side that says "end of roadworks" and laugh out loud
both of them are okay physically but charly looks very electric they don't want to call the cops cos he's drunk you see, so we call T who's there twenty minutes later and starts gawking at the great white carcass while charlie's passenger's girlfriend runs out of the car and hugs him and calls him stupid
someone suggests to take the licence plates off since people live nearby and the police would arrive soon, but it's a bad idea because they'd take the car's serial number instead and it would only make things worse
we try to push the van out of the road it's on the emergency lane but it's just in case some other guy decides to collide with it, but there's this piece of gate under the van that's blocking it so we can't make it budge
we offered to drive them home but they want to go to the party at T's place instead, besides charlie lives in his van and his girlfriend's over there or something so T puts them in his car while the 4 of us get back in ours
we drive through the plastic-matted alsphat and jeff realises that if we'd arrived a couple of minutes before we could've been added to the white van washed upon the shore masterpiece, and then we see a police car slowly driving towards the place where it happened and the others hope that T took off because he'd been drinking too and took the wheel because it was an emergency
and i'm feeling strange because even though everyone's thinking stuff like oh my god or wow part of me feels euphoric because it was such a beatiful scene, the skyscape was perfect, the van with it's dangerlights on was like a dying monster half-burried in the earth and it looked like the people around it had slain it, the accident debris on the road were foreign animals and vegetation, the moon was an enormous bird flying over us and silently crying out
and i'm not drunk and the others aren't either but somehow i just can't stop smiling

[Doreen Peri]

*sigh*.... I'm having a tough time reading it. These old eyes need help. I used to type all my work in all lower case, myself, until I stopped being able to read it. It's a pain getting old. Take my advice. Don't do it unless you absolutely HAVE to. Line spaces between the paragraphs would help, too. Don't mean to be a critic, just being honest about my failing eyesight.

I'll print it out and read it. Maybe that will help.

[Jenni Mansfield Peal]

and i'm feeling strange because even though everyone's thinking stuff like oh my god or wow part of me feels euphoric because it was such a beatiful scene, the skyscape was perfect, the van with it's dangerlights on was like a dying monster half-burried in the earth and it looked like the people around it had slain it, the accident debris on the road were foreign animals and vegetation, the moon was an enormous bird flying over us and silently crying out
and i'm not drunk and the others aren't either but somehow i just can't stop smiling

I love this.
When are reactions ever simple? The set up for your reaction - that is, your description of the scene and events - are easy to visualize because you've written it well. But it's your feelings, and your observations of the actions of others, that make it real to me.
JMP

[Traveller13]

lol
d I didn't necessarily have to write it like this, but I did it because at the time it was late & we were coming back from a night on the coast, so it was to illustrate the half-drunk and half-sleepy athmosphere that was kinda omnipresent

jenni, thanks a lot