Here is the first part of a short story I am currently writing. Just thought I'd post it to get some feedback on how it's going. The basic concept of the story is that the narrator tells a series of horrific urban legends involving industrial accidents (some based on real events, such as this first one) to a listener who remains silent (it's really the reader). The stories become more and more gruesome and horrifying, until finally climaxing with an extremely disturbing, horrific and tragic event which, it is finally revealed...
Basically, the stories-within-the-story are told in a very simple conversational manner, similar in style to oral storytelling, with little interludes that are a little deeper and more like philosophical musings on the phenomena of urban legends (but still in the first-person). I just want to know, really, does it work for you? Does anything about it suck, and if so what? Any feedback - positive or negative - would be very much appreciated.
What follows is maybe the first quarter of the story, but seems like a good (and reasonably self-contained plot-wise) hpoint at which to stop and get some feedback. Be warned, it's partly based on a real Urban Legend and it's a little bit gross.
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Industrial Accident
Do you really want to hear? Are you looking for a juicy little urban tale, something with a snappy twist ending to give you a shiver and a new anecdote to entertain your slack-jawed friends? Friend-of-a-friend stories; buddy, I know a few of those, if that’s what you want. You laugh and shake your head, but you know you want to hear them. The nastier the better. Don’t be ashamed, it’s natural. There’s an angry red hole in all of our heads that pines for the sword and the flint-tipped spear, the screams of pain and the hot flow of blood. Think about it - three million years of hunting, fighting and killing our way down from the trees, conquering mountains and oceans and deserts along the way, free as beasts and facing violent death with every fucking step. And all so you could sit in a crowded office, strapped into a microphone, droning on and on about insurance and credit cards to disembodied voices who hate your guts.
So sure, if you’ll listen, I’ll tell. I’ll start you off easy. See how you go with this one, first.
You’ve heard the one about the guy’s nuts and the drive-belt, right? You know the one I’m talking about: some dude hobbles into an E.R. ward – it’s in the States somewhere – he’s pale and trembling, and his clammy skin is slick with sweat. Nurse says: “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you sick?”
The guy doesn’t reply for a few seconds. His eyes scan the floor. With his hunched shoulders and his hands thrust into the pockets of his dirty grey duffel coat, he looks a little bit someone you might meet in some bushes near a playground.
Eventually, he murmurs something: “Not sick. Hurt.”
So the nurse asks him what happened, but the wide-eyed guy just shakes his head and stares at his boots. “I want to speak to a man doctor. Someone who takes care of men’s troubles,” he groans, and sinks his hands deeper into his coat.
Finally, the nurse manages to find a male urologist, who leads them both into an examination room. The doctor coaxes the guy into taking off the overcoat. One button at a time, grinding his teeth in agony, he unfastens the front of his jacket. The first thing to strike the medics, as the garment falls open to them, is the large, unnatural-looking bulge in the man’s crotch; the second thing, following immediately, is the smell. A rotten, foetid stench, like a urinal clogged with fish guts, even the poor bastard with the lump in his trousers looks up from the floor, for the first time since arriving, just to tilt his nose away from the source of the obnoxious fug.
The doctor swallows the acidic lump in his throat and asks the trembling man to take a seat on the stretcher and drop his pants. But the guy is in too much pain to sit, and his trembling fingers fail to navigate his zip. As the patient whimpers like a baby, the medics gently, gingerly manoeuvre him out of his pus-encrusted jeans.
So now the guy is standing there in the middle of the room, trousers at his ankles, gazing down at his crotch and unravelling four yards of bloodied, stinking gauze from around something that looks like a featherless turkey crushed by a bus. The guy’s testicles are swollen to about the size of a honeydew melon, or rather one of them is, the other is missing entirely. The remaining tissue is bruised black-and-blue, and bloated with purulent fluid that oozes from a huge ragged wound across the left hand side of his groin. Upon closer inspection the doctor discovers that whole bloody mess is also riddled with a dozen or so rusty industrial wall staples.
So this guy, it seems, has a lot of explaining to do.
Turns out the stupid prick worked in a machine shop. Bit of a loner, never hit the bars with his colleagues, didn’t sneer and guffaw when they bragged about their sexual exploits, rarely ate with them. And, he wasn’t interested in sports. I guess they figured he was a weirdo, probably a queer. He was so meek that even pranks and taunts quickly exhausted their entertainment value, and so, by and large, they left him to his own devices. One day, while working through his lunch break, he discovered, quite by accident, that holding certain parts of himself against a moving canvas drive-belt felt… well, kinda nice.
Before long, this act became part of his work routine: every day, while his colleagues went out to lunch, he would voluntarily stay behind, just like a truly dedicated employee, and stick his dick under the lathe.
During the last of his ‘daily grinds’, a full week before he finally sought medical help, he lost concentration just long enough for the lower part of his genitals to become snagged in the pulley wheel. The sharp, rapidly-spinning metal scissored across his tender extremities with such violence that it propelled the man’s entire body halfway across the room, and fired his left testicle into the ceiling so hard it became lodged there.
Lying alone on the dusty concrete floor, stunned horror slowly gave way to the sickening realisation – his co-workers would soon be returning from their break. He imagined them blundering through the door, still chattering and chortling at some puerile joke, to find him lying spread-eagled on the floor with his mangled reproductive organs hanging out of his overalls. Welcome back guys, guess what I’ve been doing!
Surging on adrenaline, the guy clambered back to his feet. The initial white-hot burst of agony had almost subsided; his heart battered like a pneumatic drill, his legs felt like they had all the weight-bearing strength of foam-rubber, but the blinding pain in his groin had settled to a deep, dull ache.
Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he thought… oh please, please. He stood there shaking, gripping a workbench, afraid to look south. Blinking tears from his eyes, he ventured a trembling hand downwards. As his fingers reached the top of his open fly, he heard a wet sound - spat! spat! -bon the floor, and for a burning moment an image flashed through his mind of a raw, bloody gorge where his genitals had once been.
His fingers made contact with something. He exhaled a little. The main attraction, raw and badly grazed, was still there, at least. Now to check the jewels. He knew he was bleeding from something, but maybe (please, God!) it was just a… Aargh!!
He cried out as his index finger contacted something soft and damp and agonizing. The pain overrode his cowardice and his eyes snapped down onto his machine-chewed groin. The sight, perhaps not has horrific as the Giegeresqe picture his imagination had painted, was nonetheless nauseating. His scrotum was still in place, thank the heavens, though bloodied and oddly misshapen. A filthy zig-zag perforation ran diagonally across it, and through the red blood and brown grease he glimpsed the light pink of knotted veins exposed to the world for the first time.
Continues below...
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