Reviews for my story? (1 Viewer)

[BusinessPhysics]

Hi everyone,

In my Extension 1 we are doing some creative writing and I wanted some feedback from people who hadn't heard me talk about it. Thanks in advance.

I don't have a title yet though.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they,
Do not go gentle into that good night

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight,
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.
- Thomas Moran


<FONT face=Calibri>He continued to trudge over the landscape. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he kept looking. Since the commune had been destroyed he had wandered, finding cans in houses and water in streams. Everyone was gone. Sarah. He came across many empty roads and multitudes of empty houses. His pack got heavier with each step and his canteen got lighter until it was gone and his mouth grew dry. The road was desolate, his only company the wind, who blew the ash into his eyes, chapped his lips and threw mountains in front of him. He came across a street that seemed friendlier and he followed it to the bush at the end, beyond the cul-de-sac. He passed a small dilapidated bench, with rust on the braces and rotten wood with the paint stripped away. Weeds devoured it hungrily. Wooden poles with cat-eyes divide the road from the bush. A thin path snaked through the grass. His mouth was open with thirst. He tripped on a rock hidden in the ash and fell, winding himself. Pink, surrounded by grey and brown, caught his eye and he regained his feet. It was graffiti, sprayed on a tree before the ash had crusted it. “NASHY”. He wasn’t sure whether he was glad people had left their mark on the world for him to see, or angry that his only contact was scrawled across a tree in spray paint.

 

[BusinessPhysics]

Damn, apparently that didnt work. Here's the rest hopefully.

He reached the end of the path, a lookout over the city. Coughing, he sat down by a stone, placing his weapons at hand. He pulled out his last pack, and hit the pack against his palm, tamping the tobacco. Slowly, he drew one precious cigarette out and ran his thumb along it, putting the pack away with his left hand. Placing the cigarette in his mouth, he patted himself for the lighter in one of his pockets. Finding it and after fumbling as he pulled it out he cupped one hand around it and paused to stroke the textured wheel. He started the lighter, the precious flame flickered. As the ash drifted in the grasping air, he lit his cigarette. He enjoyed the little ceremony, the ritual of it, it stopped him thinking about things, and gave him something to do. He looked out as he blew the first smoke out without inhaling, he didn’t like the taste of first smoke. The buildings seemed smaller than they ever had in life empty, desolate and broken. The light had gone out in their eyes as he had seen so often in the past weeks. People don’t realise how loud the world really is, there is never silence always a car, a birdcall, a dog in the distance. But now, with a pause in the breeze, there was nothing. He felt infinitely small. He wondered what he would do until nightfall.
He exhaled loudly, blowing the smoke into the already dense air. The pine trees behind him whispered, releasing the fine debris their hair had snared. He ashed the excess from the cigarette as the sun descended. It was hard to believe there had even been a sun in the past days. Days had been spent preparing for the night and nights used so they could see the day again.
He returned the cigarette to his mouth and ran his rough hands over his arms and legs, exploring himself. He hesitated over the wound on his thigh, crudely stitched by his wife. His sigh rattled in his throat. The sun was bleak, deadened, leadened by the ash. With the ever-present ash, the day was hardly light at all. This sunset would not be a glorious ceremony, merely a change from one state of night to another.
As the cycle of inhaling and exhaling carried him away, his mind turned back to the events of the previous weeks. Faces blurred through his conscience. He had not loved many of the men on the commune but they had kept each other alive, until the sickness had set in. He was the only one that had walked away from the pandemonium(or damned place). The sickness, whatever it was, turned people mad. It had become rampant with the favorable conditions of communes with low levels of hygiene.
Inhale, exhale, Inhale, exhale.
He lacked the strength for this world, an empty world. The wind rustled through the trees. He leapt up, grasped his hatchet and savagely assailed the transgressor. In his blind rage the blows did little, and when was spent he buckled, supporting himself with the hatchet. Empty, he slumped into the roots of his foe and tears leaked from his eyes. He was scared.
When he opened his eyes there was a woman on the stone. She was inspecting his pistol and he could tell she knew how to handle the weapon. His initial instinct was to run, to leave the pistol to the woman and steal away among the pines. However, there was something that told him it was okay to stay. He was desperate for people. When he had closed his eyes earlier in the day underneath the great tree, he had thought he was the only living thing in the world. He spoke, or rather, coughed and she looked at him with blazing eyes which were caring so quickly he thought he must have imagined it.
“Don’t try and move, just sit still” she said soothingly and she came and knelt by him.
“I took the stitches out for you.” Rage flushed through him.
“Why the hell did you do that?”
“They were getting infected.”
He went silent, but then realized that he still didn’t know who this woman was. He turned around to look at her and tried to focus his blurry vision.
“Don’t you remember me?” she murmured, moved.
He sat upright and clung to her like a child. He did remember that face, the voice, he remembered her.
“I’m not strong enough”
“You were very brave”
“I’m sorry, about the gun-”
“You did the right thing”
“Sarah”
The trees bristled in warning. The sun was descending on the man and his wife.
***
Eventually, he turned to her and looking at the ground, with his voice full of raw emotion spoke; “When you were sick, you begged me not to do it but I had to, you were in pain, and it was getting worse. Can you forgive me?”
“Only if you do something for me first.”
“Anything”
“You shot me so that I could escape pain, but I’m still in pain, I need you with me”
“But you are with me”
“Not for long though, this is only temporary, I won’t be here forever”
“But you can’t leave me, I need you” Suddenly he was scared. He knew he would go mad with grief if he lost his wife.
“The only way for us to be together is if you do what you did for me for yourself. Isn’t the pain of this world too much? Isn’t it empty? Why bother anyway, we all know a man can’t live forever?”
She pulled him close “Wouldn’t you rather cling to me than this pitiful existence?”
He felt his resistance fading. She had a point, what was the use in continuing? Would it be more noble to continue on, to fight the good fight or embrace his mortality and accept it? Could he even continue in this empty world with his only company his tortured memories? The regrets of all the things he’d done? Wouldn’t it be a paradise to stay forever with his darling wife?
The ritual. That would help him clear his head and think. He pulled the cigarette pack out as she wrinkled her nose beside him, she had never liked him smoking.
“I’ll quit after this one, I promise” he said with a half-smile as he pulled the last cigarette out of the pack.
She smiled reluctantly. The sun was setting. He realized he hadn’t drank in more than a day.

***
The smoke from the gun hung momentarily, as if connected to the barrel before mingling with the smoke of his last cigarette and joined the smoke in the air.
Usually, such a resonation would startle flocks from their roosts. This time, however, there was no birds to startle, not a starling or rook nor even a flash of forget-me-not from a solitary bluejay. There was nothing.

Sarah looked on with disdain, “Fool.”

 

[-may-cat-]

I only just flicked over it but in this sentence

'The smoke from the gun hung momentarily, as if connected to the barrel before mingling with the smoke of his last cigarette and joined the smoke in the air.'

You use 'the smoke' too much