14 August 2012 fiction, Untitled, written from Exercises For Fiction Writers

Exercise # 1: Write the first 250 words of a short story, but write them all in one sentence. Make sure that the sentence makes sense, and is grammatically correct.

A small white flag waved, breaking the silence that had been present for what  seemed like years; moving as the grass rippled from the warmth of the summer breeze that had just blown in, or as the trees waved their smallest branches in a salute to anyone who cared enough to look up, or as the wings of the butterfly that had just landed on the nose of a fallen comrade: a person who had a family, who had friends, who had a life to live for, plenty of things to say, to do, reasons for his heart to keep beating, for his blood to keep flowing, for his eyes to continue to have their depth and not stare aimlessly up into space, at something that no one could see and live to tell the tale about, something that made people wonder about what happened after death, after one had already passed on into the next life, when they were gone but still right in front of you; and yet, the white flag was waving, equating everything this comrade had done to nothing, because of the wind, the white flag was waving and was rippling; though it was coming from the east, from his homeland, from the hands of his commander, the one who had ordered him not to give up the fight lest he be forever labeled a coward in the war that was plaguing his nation.