Showing posts with label Mario Esquer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mario Esquer. Show all posts
A Problem of Narrowed Vision
By Mario Esquer
The massive chassis of the Caterpillar loader rocked and bounced as it broke free of the landslide and punched out onto the surface. Mikael thought he could make out the dull, stomach wrenching squish of soft body parts through the steel hull of the bulldozer. The louder pinging sounds he imagined were being made by the crunching of bones being ground to meal.
For three weeks the young miner worked alone, welding heavy metal plates to give protection to the small control seat of the bright yellow dozer. He had been successful in ramming his improvised tank through the cave-ins which had sealed him into the mine, however he had also unintentionally succeeded in mostly crushing his only means to see outside. He and the dozer were out in the open, but he would have to guess at what lay outside of the solid granite of the mines.
Mikael thought he could make out groups of stumbling awkward figures coming towards the rumbling contraption from across the scattered desert sands.
“Mein Got, I am zee only von left.”
The brilliant sun poured blinding through the tiny ruined view slot. Mikael, who had long since given up any sense of direction, couldn’t tell if the sun were rising or setting. The beauty of the yellow beam was caught in the swirling dust blowing into his small control space and it filled his heart and his mind with hope. He dropped the clutch, floored the gas, and headed across the valley, sure that he would find the safety of the mountains in a few hours...
Ten hours later, Mikael stared down at the black needle as it slowly passed the red portion of the gas gauge; at any second his rolling sanctuary would choke, sputter, and die. The mountains could not be more than another hour away, but there were probably hundreds of the things, following the rumble of his big diesel, out there in the darkness. Within his mind’s eye their ghoulish clumsiness was captured in the scant moonlight. The whole of the valley had echoed with the sound of his heavy metal and by now any zombie in earshot would be here, following and waiting.
“It vas vorth the try.” Mikael whispered, patting his canary yellow mount’s shifter as the choking motor ground to a final and abruptly silent halt.
The first muffled pounding noises started only a minute later. They had been closer than he could have guessed. With a resigned sigh the Afrikaner lit his last cigarette and after a long puff and longer exhale he held the red hot end to fuse he had improvised weeks earlier while he and the dozer were still deep beneath the ground.
28 seconds later the explosions of the acetylene welding rig and the rapid incineration of all the oxygen the tanks held was all but dulled by the thick walls of what was now Mikael’s steel plated tomb.
The armed rescue patrol which the huge bulldozer had nearly crushed in its escape from the guarded mine entrance had finally managed to catch up with the great engine. They had been trying for hours to signal it’s occupant with thrown stones and open handed pounding on the inch thick steel armor. For hours these men followed the dozer further into the desert; every moment they followed taking them further away from the safety of the quarantine zone.
It was only now the sun was rising that they noticed the tiny fingers of smoke wafting from the crudely armored front-end loader’s only smashed-in slit of a viewport.
- - -
Mario Esquer is a dreamer and student of social science. His proposed solution to society’s ills would include any or all of the following:
Zombie Apocalypse, Invasion by Martian Tripods armed with heat rays, a world wide Captain Trips pandemic, or giving every household on Earth Beatles “Rock band” and a coke.
By Mario Esquer
The massive chassis of the Caterpillar loader rocked and bounced as it broke free of the landslide and punched out onto the surface. Mikael thought he could make out the dull, stomach wrenching squish of soft body parts through the steel hull of the bulldozer. The louder pinging sounds he imagined were being made by the crunching of bones being ground to meal.
For three weeks the young miner worked alone, welding heavy metal plates to give protection to the small control seat of the bright yellow dozer. He had been successful in ramming his improvised tank through the cave-ins which had sealed him into the mine, however he had also unintentionally succeeded in mostly crushing his only means to see outside. He and the dozer were out in the open, but he would have to guess at what lay outside of the solid granite of the mines.
Mikael thought he could make out groups of stumbling awkward figures coming towards the rumbling contraption from across the scattered desert sands.
“Mein Got, I am zee only von left.”
The brilliant sun poured blinding through the tiny ruined view slot. Mikael, who had long since given up any sense of direction, couldn’t tell if the sun were rising or setting. The beauty of the yellow beam was caught in the swirling dust blowing into his small control space and it filled his heart and his mind with hope. He dropped the clutch, floored the gas, and headed across the valley, sure that he would find the safety of the mountains in a few hours...
Ten hours later, Mikael stared down at the black needle as it slowly passed the red portion of the gas gauge; at any second his rolling sanctuary would choke, sputter, and die. The mountains could not be more than another hour away, but there were probably hundreds of the things, following the rumble of his big diesel, out there in the darkness. Within his mind’s eye their ghoulish clumsiness was captured in the scant moonlight. The whole of the valley had echoed with the sound of his heavy metal and by now any zombie in earshot would be here, following and waiting.
“It vas vorth the try.” Mikael whispered, patting his canary yellow mount’s shifter as the choking motor ground to a final and abruptly silent halt.
The first muffled pounding noises started only a minute later. They had been closer than he could have guessed. With a resigned sigh the Afrikaner lit his last cigarette and after a long puff and longer exhale he held the red hot end to fuse he had improvised weeks earlier while he and the dozer were still deep beneath the ground.
28 seconds later the explosions of the acetylene welding rig and the rapid incineration of all the oxygen the tanks held was all but dulled by the thick walls of what was now Mikael’s steel plated tomb.
The armed rescue patrol which the huge bulldozer had nearly crushed in its escape from the guarded mine entrance had finally managed to catch up with the great engine. They had been trying for hours to signal it’s occupant with thrown stones and open handed pounding on the inch thick steel armor. For hours these men followed the dozer further into the desert; every moment they followed taking them further away from the safety of the quarantine zone.
It was only now the sun was rising that they noticed the tiny fingers of smoke wafting from the crudely armored front-end loader’s only smashed-in slit of a viewport.
- - -
Mario Esquer is a dreamer and student of social science. His proposed solution to society’s ills would include any or all of the following:
Zombie Apocalypse, Invasion by Martian Tripods armed with heat rays, a world wide Captain Trips pandemic, or giving every household on Earth Beatles “Rock band” and a coke.
The Last Work of Pedro Torrez
By Mario Esquer
“The eyes are always the hardest to capture. . .” He bent over his easel and studied his inspiration.
He had gone from the cerulean blue penthouse studio he lived in down to muted shadows of the city to rescue her.
Left the secure world of his colors and canvas then descended into the writhing darkness of a metropolis in its death throes. He fought his way through the polychromatic riot of the panicking masses. All the way, always just a scant block ahead of the crimson tide of horror and death.
He had found her then, found his lover amongst her family in the affluent neighborhood of rouged brick and gray stones. It was the place he had been told all his life he was not good enough for, that the affluent and pastel colored angels did not smile upon the lowly such as he. A bright silken angel had noticed him however. Golden haired with azure eyes, the creamy marble–like goddess had noticed his passion for creating master works, works which displayed the tragedy and futility of living in a dark world full of sorrows.
She told him his paintings rivaled the masters. Yes, she had seen his passion, promoted it tirelessly around the art circles and highborn of which she was a member, and then, when he was recognized as a success, she fell to his passion, came to him in an affair for which her own people had rejected her. She feared that they, the sullen navy blue and slate gray suits of her father and betrothed who lorded in their ivory tower of money and position would not approve. She was proved right; they did not approve and together her shadowy captors conspired to forever keep the lovers separate.
As he arrived at her brownstone flat they were greedily loading her and their other possessions into their German made car, its chrome and metallic black paint no doubt headed to a waiting pristine white private jet which would wing them away to safety beyond the horizon. They planned to escape to the emerald of the Bahamas, perhaps, or the sage of the Azores. They tried to push him away as he approached, but he had risked his hands, lithe and delicate, stark in their dark completion-- the tools of his trade, to strike her captors and lift her willingly out of their coach. Together they escaped her world, down the charcoal colored side streets littered with discarded lives and livelihoods. The rainbows cast by the trinkets of the world being swallowed by the dead. The dead that walk, casting darkness before them.
The mauve and indigo faced monsters set upon them a few scant blocks after, and though they escaped with their lives, one had tasted the flesh of a fallen angel. The two lovers made it back to his towering, glittering high-rise, and now finally, with the moans of their demon subjects below them, they lorded over all alone.
“The eyes, the eyes…” he whispers to himself. "I must get the eyes right."
After a lifetime of capturing the crimson emotions and blues of the human soul on canvas; why was it was so damn hard to express the creature’s lack of any resemblance to the strikingly beautiful woman his lover had been. The opaque void which filled her dead gaze and violet traced rotting face had captured his artist's interest. Her lifelessly writhing frame was tied to the trellis railing. It presented him the greatest challenge of his life. Pedro mixed a little more acrylic white into the mottle of colors on his palate.
She, his lost seraph, his love Sarah, would be his alone, always, and his final, greatest, unpresented masterpiece. . .
- - -
A Teacher, student, who lives with his family in the 'burbs. Mario Esquer has an appreciation for most fictional genres which speak to mankind's desire for more than what is. Occasionally, he even creates a work himself. (Generally speaking he also does not tend to speak of himself in the third person.)
By Mario Esquer
“The eyes are always the hardest to capture. . .” He bent over his easel and studied his inspiration.
He had gone from the cerulean blue penthouse studio he lived in down to muted shadows of the city to rescue her.
Left the secure world of his colors and canvas then descended into the writhing darkness of a metropolis in its death throes. He fought his way through the polychromatic riot of the panicking masses. All the way, always just a scant block ahead of the crimson tide of horror and death.
He had found her then, found his lover amongst her family in the affluent neighborhood of rouged brick and gray stones. It was the place he had been told all his life he was not good enough for, that the affluent and pastel colored angels did not smile upon the lowly such as he. A bright silken angel had noticed him however. Golden haired with azure eyes, the creamy marble–like goddess had noticed his passion for creating master works, works which displayed the tragedy and futility of living in a dark world full of sorrows.
She told him his paintings rivaled the masters. Yes, she had seen his passion, promoted it tirelessly around the art circles and highborn of which she was a member, and then, when he was recognized as a success, she fell to his passion, came to him in an affair for which her own people had rejected her. She feared that they, the sullen navy blue and slate gray suits of her father and betrothed who lorded in their ivory tower of money and position would not approve. She was proved right; they did not approve and together her shadowy captors conspired to forever keep the lovers separate.
As he arrived at her brownstone flat they were greedily loading her and their other possessions into their German made car, its chrome and metallic black paint no doubt headed to a waiting pristine white private jet which would wing them away to safety beyond the horizon. They planned to escape to the emerald of the Bahamas, perhaps, or the sage of the Azores. They tried to push him away as he approached, but he had risked his hands, lithe and delicate, stark in their dark completion-- the tools of his trade, to strike her captors and lift her willingly out of their coach. Together they escaped her world, down the charcoal colored side streets littered with discarded lives and livelihoods. The rainbows cast by the trinkets of the world being swallowed by the dead. The dead that walk, casting darkness before them.
The mauve and indigo faced monsters set upon them a few scant blocks after, and though they escaped with their lives, one had tasted the flesh of a fallen angel. The two lovers made it back to his towering, glittering high-rise, and now finally, with the moans of their demon subjects below them, they lorded over all alone.
“The eyes, the eyes…” he whispers to himself. "I must get the eyes right."
After a lifetime of capturing the crimson emotions and blues of the human soul on canvas; why was it was so damn hard to express the creature’s lack of any resemblance to the strikingly beautiful woman his lover had been. The opaque void which filled her dead gaze and violet traced rotting face had captured his artist's interest. Her lifelessly writhing frame was tied to the trellis railing. It presented him the greatest challenge of his life. Pedro mixed a little more acrylic white into the mottle of colors on his palate.
She, his lost seraph, his love Sarah, would be his alone, always, and his final, greatest, unpresented masterpiece. . .
- - -
A Teacher, student, who lives with his family in the 'burbs. Mario Esquer has an appreciation for most fictional genres which speak to mankind's desire for more than what is. Occasionally, he even creates a work himself. (Generally speaking he also does not tend to speak of himself in the third person.)
