In response to LilMisha's writing prompt.

http://lilmisha.xanga.com/738864164/entries---writing-prompt-1/

Faded Sun

Consciousness comes slowly.  Smoke burns his lungs.  The light is dim.  The sunrise is peaking through the trees.  His head is pounding from the beers he had poured into his blood the night before.  What happened?  Where is he?  He had to remember.  Weren't there girls here before?  What did they do to him?  Something black stripes his skin.  It smears as he touches it.  What is this?  There is no smell to it.  It is cold to the touch.  Where are his clothes?  They apparently stopped at his tighty whities.  He picked the wrong day to wear these, but how was he to know.

"Looking for these?"

Turning to the sound he can see something blue in the bushes.  A path to a clearing, but nobody is there to embody the voice.  As he stoops down to pick it up his jeans, he can see something dark red in the clearing.  His shirt lies in the grass.  Is it getting darker?  How could that be?  He came here at night.  This can't be sunrise though.  The grass began to turn a pale blue as the light began to fade faster than what seems right.  His shirt feels rough against his skin as it moves against the filth he is covered in.  What now?  How on earth did he get to the woods.  Where were the girls?  Where was the beer?

Walking along the path he watches the last bit of light fades as he enters more nameless trees.  The path leads somewhere.  It is all he has.  Ahead he hears water trickling over rocks as the bugs begin to hum.  What the hell is going on?

"Hello!"

Nothing but bugs answer.  It is starting to get cold.  The path comes to a small river.  A white bluff glistens on the other side in the moonlight.  He can see three little orange lights moving back and forth.  As one bounces up it faintly illuminates a face behind it.

"Take it off party boy."

"Whoohoo, why'd you get dressed?"

Anger swelled up to his head.  Who had he gone out with?  Who was doing this to him?  "What the hell.  You just left me out there, and what the hell is this stuff all over my arms, my legs.  What the hell!"

"What's wrong?  You don't like waking up in your own vomit, not knowing what happened the night before?  Don't worry, we didn't do you like you did me."

The night before started coming back.  The dancing, the girls.  He had taken off his own clothes.  One of the girls had a bowl filled with something rank.  She had painted him head to toe before he fell to the ground laughing.  The firelight made everything seem exciting.  He was ready.  What were they waiting for?

"Yeah, I think you got me confused with someone else doll."  He started feeling the chill of the night reach just beneath his skin.  "How do we get out of here.  I don't remember the way back."

"Back, oh you're not going back, you're our sacrafice."

What the hell were these crazy women talking about?  He hadn't done anything wrong.

"Come on, stop fooling around.  How do we get back.  It's getting cold.  Let's get out of here."  His insides sink into him.  This can't be right.  His breathing gets hard.

"Oh, don't worry honey.  We won't kill you, she wants you alive."  The voice moves up the white wall stretching up across the river.  The small orange lights bounce with the hands that hold them.  They are leaving, and the branches give away something too loud to be the wind.

"What the hell are you talking about?  Come on.  How did you get up there?"

The rustling is louder now.  Something is coming.

"Wait!"

The lights are over the crest now.  Something is getting closer.  His heart pounds blood into his temples.  He runs into the river.  Fear grips his limbs.  The bluff taunts his falling against smooth washed stones.  Water splashes behind him.  He looks back slamming into the rock wall now behind him.  Nothing.  Absolute nothing.  Blood runs down his back.  Darkness.  Nothing, but another day to another faded sun.

One of my favorite plays is Peer Gynt.  You probably don't know it, but I doubt you have missed songs from it.

This will be an interactive post, so I need your answers and reasons for your choices in the comments below.  It's also a bit like choose your own adventure, so follow the paths:

Choice 1

In Peer Gynt a man's life is laid out for us in epic fashion following many hard choices like any good life.  You don't have to be Peer to know how you would choose to live your life, and I'm curios what you would choose.  The first choice boils down to love or fame and fortune.  If you could only have one, which one would you choose and why.  Would you go the way of love finding the mate of your dreams and a quiet settled life?  Do you instead dream of the more exciting life seeking out fame and fortune?  If you choose to love, go to the Love choice section.  If you choose fame and fortune, go to the fame and fortune section.

Love Choice

Your life is just beginning to get interesting, and now for the choices.  You don't just have one chance at love, you have four.  If you are after men for love, then just respond as if the people listed here are men except for what is obviously impossible for a man.  In that case improvise. 

The first woman is Solveig.  She's the new girl in town, and you get a one night stand with her on her wedding night.  The unusual circumstances of your meeting obviously presents some complications for your future.  The family instantly dislikes you.  The jealousy of the former fiance could be a danger, and you really know nothing about this girl except for one thing, she is filthy rich.

You don't like this choice, that's fine.  After leaving your home town to avoid the consequences of your action, you come to meet an amazingly beatiful girl.  You fall so deeply in love that you go home to meet the family.  This family has a very strange motto, "Be true to your self-ish."  After a short time with the family, you begin realizing that they are all crazy.  Every last one of them is completely nuts, and they want to make you just like them.  On the plus side, she turns out to be royalty, and you will be too if you are willing to stay.  Oh and one last detail, you managed to get this woman pregnant.

Didn't feel like being royalty, then you are in luck.  Solveig has followed you.  Something about you has entranced her from that small time she spent with you on her wedding night.  She wants you to settle down with her and start a family.  She has left her family wealth behind, but she turns out to be a great home maker.  The only problem is that every night you go to bed you think of the woman with child that you left behind.  The guilt drives you completely insane, and you start to literally go crazy yourself.  You start seeing and hearing the previous woman just by being around Solveig.  Do you live with the guilt and settle down, or do you do the only thing that cures the insanity and leave?

So you've spent a good deal of your time screwing up more than one relationship.  It's about time you get something good.  A drop dead gorgeous woman willing to entertain your every fantasy enters your life.  She flatters you just the way you like it and makes you feel good about youself.  The only problem is that she has very rich tastes, she's a liar, and she is a kleptomaniac.  Can you pay the price for the rewards of this woman, or do you want to go back to one of the previous women?

Whatever you choose, go to end.

Fame And Fortune Choice

Your life is just beginning to get interesting, and now for the choices.  You want to go your own way.  Fame and Fortune doesn't come from one path though.  You must choose one of these paths as they present themselves to you.

The easiest way to get rich and famous is through evil.  If you choose the path of evil, you will be granted the ability to get anyone to do whatever you want.  Your wealth will be limitless, and your every desire will be met.  Your concious and your soul are all you risk if you believe in such things.

Don't feel like being evil, then you can choose the middle path.  You don't have to be extremely good or extremely bad.  You can just be you.  If you choose this path, it will take extremely hard work to earn your fame and fortune, but you can get there.  The problem you have is that you are a little less memorable without the exploits of the other paths.  None of your fame and fortune are permanent, and in the end you will find yourself in abscurity and lonliness.

Don't want to be evil or work hard, then maybe fame and fortune is not your's to have after all.  Maybe you would rather be truly good.  So good that you sacrafice your own desires for the betterment of someone else.  You spend your entire life elevating someone else to a fame and fortune that won't soon be forgot.  If you choose this path, then whatever you wish for the one lucky enough to have you behind them will come true.  The downside is that you yourself have to live a life of loneliness and dullness.  Even the person you make famous will pay you little attention.

Whatever you choose, go to the end.

End

So you've made your choices, and you have lived your life, but the end draws near.  Despite the fact that you don't want to die, you will.  The question now is how did you live your life.

If you made bad choices and chose to be evil, then all is not lost, except who you are.  It turns out that the devil actually has a duty charged to him by God.  Your soul is fit for nothing but the fire, with the devil being the black smith.  In the fire he will temper you into a negative image of your former self to be placed back on earth as an exact opposite of your former self.

If you weren't extremely evil or extremely good then your fate is as lack luster as your life.  The devil is left in a quandry.  How can he make a reversal of something that won't become good.  Instead, you'll simply be melted in a pot of other souls until you are nothing more than a thousand small pieces of a thousand other new souls being born again on earth.

If you were really good then your fate is both familiar and mysterious.  You get to go to heaven, but heaven is a hidden place, so you have no idea what this truly means.  All you know is that it sounds good and you remain who you were.

Post what paths you took and whether you except your ultimate fate and why.

If you I got you curious about Peer Gynt, there is a good translation here:

http://www.archive.org/stream/peergyntdramatic00ibseuoft#page/17

A Vagabond
    after "A Soldier" by Robert Frost

A Vagabond he is that stone fallen hard to earth
in firelight his brothers around the heat
amongst steel rebar raking the road clean.
The view below, a dark canvas touched softly
with marks of dust providing halos of innocence
to those with home undone from up above.
The stunned flung victims resonating in shock
prepare to witness to a world of ignorance
and loss.  We all stare at our watches failing to move.
A victory and yet a loss.  Our wreath adorned we walk
with our surroundings undone with all we have known
now lost.  Now to turn is to expose our jaw.