TheNeverEndingStory

Forgotten password?

User Name
Password
Not a member? Join Now - It's Free

Our Stories & Poems

By Famous Faces

Non-Fiction

Classic Last Lines

	Moby Dick by Herman Melville
	Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
	Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
	The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
	The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
	The War of the Worlds by HG Wells
	Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Poetry in Motion

Your Stories & Poems

My Favourites

By Invitation

Members Stories and Poems

My Stories and Poems

Start your own Story
or Poem!

Send us your Poem!

Ashtar [Goddess of Love and Fertility]

Page

of 7

Write the Next Page (page 8)

I wanted to play with the lips of the dead camel. His top lip draped over his teeth, like a heavy velvet curtain. Where was the halo of flies, which besieged the other butchered flesh on display? There was no dribble trickling out from his chops either. Perhaps the camel was actually alive but sedated, or was not quite dead but bleeding horribly underneath the table. The camel continued to pout nonchalantly in my direction. Had he been sliced at the neck or had they poked his head through a hole in the stall? I nearly laughed aloud at the thought, as I pictured two burly Arabs trying to manoeuvre the head of a sleeping camel up under the stall cloth and up through a hole. My crewmates clearly didn’t share my macabre curiosity. The months at sea seemed only to have immunised me. I was the fish killer. How many afternoons had I spent analysing fish guts for disease? 

Jake and Matt dispersed to rape the vegetable market. Good luck to them. I feared rice and plantain for the rest of our passage up the Red Sea. There were about 32 over-ripe tomatoes with spots and a crate of rotting runner beans between all the vendors. What did the local people eat? Not many vegetables, I guess.

“Sash! We’re leaving you!”, Jake cried, as they wove deeper amongst the stalls. The scorching African sun began to pound a heart-beat rhythm in my head. Even in the shade of polarised Oakley’s my eyeballs felt like they were on slow bake. A man in a floor length white shirt was adamant I exchange them for a pair of antlers. There was an unnerving air of distrust.  

“One sec…”, I shouted back, my dry-throated voice trailing into my bag as I fished for my camera. One snap of the camel’s head and we could go. It might be the Sudanese version of a pig’s head on a platter! I rummaged dollars, sun block and paper aside. I hadn’t left it on the boat, had I? 

Fingers clasped at my throat. I will not forget the inside of the draw-string cloth bag with its Indian threads of green and red. In a swipe of opportunism, the Oakley’s were ripped from behind my ears. A thrust jaw slammed my mouth shut, the cry to Jake trapped inside. In the naked light, I glimpsed the contents of my bag scatter, dollar bills fluttering this way and that, as a cacophony of aggressive Arabic erupted around me. Amid the blur of white cloth and brown limbs, my left arm was cracked so violently backwards, that it surely parted company with its shoulder socket. The stab of pain was as raw as the slabs of decaying camel meat. My feet were no longer in touch with the ground. 
 
A melodic woman’s voice wafted over me. My chest heaved. An engine spluttered into life, to shudder the floor with its vibrations. The voices I couldn’t understand were drowning in the diesel’s roar. Apart from the left torso, was I…?  My attempt to move was met by a steel bar in the ribs. I rolled over gagging for breath, the shoulder and chest joining forces in a blazing mutiny of pain. Blood trickled into my right eye. A terrific screeching noise re-scrambled my senses. More stifling dust choked the air. We were on the move.

Page 1

Details

Started by
Lia Ditton
18/04/2006 16:36:00

View profile

Summary of the story so far

Current page by
Lia Ditton
18/04/2006 16:36:00

View profile

Shop

	Visit our shop for great products like these:
	Spaghetti Top
	Cool and sexy and made from 100% cotton. This tailored but casual cut top is a must for every gorgeous aspiring author out there.

	Promodoro Raglan Shortsleeve
	This stylish baseball t-shirt, featuring colour-contrasting raglan sleeves, is ideal for hip and trendy story and poem fans.


Summary of Ashtar [Goddess of Love and Fertility]	Close
This story was started by international yachtswoman and artist Lia Ditton. Read about Lia on her author profile page. No summary yet.


Why I wrote this page	Close