Cameraman fiction

cameragod

Well-known member
I’m currently trying to get some short stories I’ve written over the years together in the vague idea of making a book. I’m working on a few unfinished ones that are just outlines and need tidying. There is one called Vultures. I never finished it and it always seemed a bit messy and ugly to me. I was just reading it again and I thought, “maybe it works being ugly?”
What do you guys think?



Vultures
By Stephen Press


The bright blood red of the tomato sauce takes me back. It doesn’t always but this time its thick texture is adding to the arterial red color to tell me a story. I find myself swallowing, appetite gone.

We were about to have fish and chips. I had just collected them hot and neatly wrapped in old newspaper. Sitting on the floor in front of the telly, I tried to unroll the paper and fend of the interest of our cat. As I pored out a thick congealing puddle of tomato sauce the phone rang.
There had been an accident at the train station near my home. The question of should I go was never at issue. I was a news cameraman and this was news. My tummy rumbled and the cat got lucky.

In the car according to the scanner traffic she had been riding her bike on the station platform, lost control of it and fallen in front of a moving train. Tomorrow there would be a lot of questions asked, how, why and who was responsible but right now that wasn’t the story, right now a little girl was trapped beneath the wheels of a train.

I got there along with the first ambulance. They opened the back doors and grabbed equipment, I flung up the back of the news car and grabbed my camera. My hands turned on the camera and changed the setting for a night shoot by reflex as my body ran so I was right behind the paramedics as we crunched across the gravel to the tracks.

“She’s under here” called a voice from the inky darkness below the train.
“Get a light, for god’s sake we need some light.”
For me there was nothing easier. A cameraman paints with light for a living. I flicked on the light on top of the camera and there was light. A paramedic not questioning the source smiled thanks and moved me in closer.
“No shots of the girl?” he asked.
“Of course” I replied and hoped it was a promise I was brave enough to keep.

A camera can’t show the smell of warm blood and diesel but the small face, white from blood loss and shock, that told of pain and fear would have been worth more than a thousand words. I didn’t roll tape. Not because I said I wouldn’t but a quick objective professional look at the damage to the girl and I knew TV would never show it anyway. War victims and the bodies of foreign black babies might be ok to parade on screen but in the homes of the nation people would be eating their dinner and the scene before me was just too raw, too horrific. At lest that’s what I told myself. It’s a bad day when you need to find an excuse to be human. A fireman was soon lying alongside her with words of comfort, holding a tiny bloodstained hand giving me something powerful I could shoot in clear conscience and he was mercifully blocking any other view I might have.

In that cramped space the paramedics worked to save the girl and I tried to keep the light where it would do most good, bouncing it to fill some of the blackest shadows. They couldn’t save one of her legs. It was wrapped and carried to a helicopter in the hope of reattaching it latter, if there was a latter.

A generator coughed light into life and I was no longer needed or wanted. I backed out from that claustrophobic hell to see a mass of curios faces. The passengers from the train were lined along the station. Their ticket for an interrupted journey giving them admission to the real live life or death drama being played out before them. A bus had come to take them onward but it sat empty as few could tear themselves away before the curtain dropped, some even lifting their children onto their shoulders to get a better view. I looked at their bright, eager eyes and couldn’t help but think of the frightened, pain filled pair below the train.

Nothing to do now but wait. I didn’t want to be there anymore so I moved back to the darkness by the helicopter. No one would see my tears there and anyway the helicopter is how they would move her once she was free. I had everything I need for the story now but the ending. Oh God let it be a happy ending.

The firemen kept working on the train, the reflective lines on their coats flashing as they moved. Special bags were slowly filled with air to lift the train off the girl. So much activity but still no end. The passengers were restless. They wanted more drama. On TV everything would have been finished neatly in a commercial hour.
A policeman move them off the platform but they stayed near the tracks determined to see the story through.

There was a change in the air around the train. Everyone sensed it. At last she was free. Grim faced paramedics and firemen crowded around her stretcher cheating the passengers of a view as they moved her gently toward the helicopter. She was still alive, she had a chance. My viewfinder was fogging up but I held the group in shot half expecting to pan to the cheering passengers. The closing shot. This part of the story had ended.
But they didn’t cheer. They didn’t clap. They didn’t want it to end.
There was a strange silence and then the passengers started a new story.
“Vultures! You Bloody media Vultures!”
The stones started before I really understood they were yelling at me. Backing away I held a hand up to try and protect my head and a stone smashed into my finger. I gasped in pain and tried to head toward my car. A few ran at me and I turned and sprinted into the safety of the night.

Later as I sat in the news car, looking at the bright red blood oozing from my hand, I thought about stories. The one about a little girl I would show the country tonight. The ones the passengers would tell about chasing off the media Vultures tomorrow.
Just stories.
Stories that would all be next weeks fish and chip paper.
The End​
 

pre-set

Well-known member
The passengers were right. We ARE vultures.... So? Nature NEEDS vultures. Nature NEEDS parasites (lawyers). Nature NEEDS all sorts of ghastly things to make the world go around... So yeah, I consider myself a vulture. Or perhaps a mercenary 'cause I'm only in this for the money... Either way, I'm fine with both lables....

Besides, if people hated - truely hated - us for doing what we do, they wouldn't watch. We wouldn't have viewers and we'd be outta business. But that hasn't (and won't) happen. Why? Because people HAVE to rubberneck at car wrecks.... They HAVE to.
 

amp

Well-known member
The next day, I go to the police station, armed with the tape of last night's horror, to file charges again the self-righteous a$$holes who tried to stone me like an Old Testament whore.
 

Frank McBride

Well-known member
I really liked the themes you worked in of the blood/tomato sauce and bringing the paper back around.

Some things I would have liked:

An earlier reference to the idea of "stories" so it doesn't seem to be coming out of nowhere.

More about the girl at the close. It seemed like she became forgotten and made the vulture accusation seem more apt.

Perhaps a closing mention of the cat, as well.

I love to see ideas come back and get new perspective, and you did much of that. I think your ending has potential to be expanded on even more themes.

I'm probably telling you things you aleady know. You said at the start it was unfinished. Rather than going with it "ugly", which I believe it is far from being, I would like to see it polished and perhaps expanded a bit. For a story from such a specific point of view, you have very universal themes in there. Thanks for sharing.

FMc
 

BluesDaddy

Well-known member
Stephen, don't change anything. There were a couple misspellings and grammar errors, but any editor will catch that. The storytelling was raw and seemed to use the stream-of-consciousness technique. (I'm no expert, I just know what I like.) I disagree that the story should be expanded or otherwise jacked with. Brilliant, man.
 

cameragod

Well-known member
Thanks Frank and Bluesdaddy. Now I’m really confused :D
I did think it needed polishing but was worried it might lose some of its power.
I think I’ll keep this version and play with a copy, if it sucks I’ll go back to this one.
 

rocky1138

Well-known member
I don't like how it starts, the first paragraph. It feels too much like a "roses are red" or a formula right out of creative writing for dummy's.

I don't like pointing at something & say "Change it." w/o saying what I think it should be changed too.

so... good luck!
 

cameragod

Well-known member
Thanks I see what you mean. It’s not how I would normally have started a story true but it seemed right for this one.
Ok how about “It was a dark and stormy night…” :D
 
Top