u/Backenundso

New to writing in this format (meaning not for purely academic sake). I haven’t shown any of it to anyone due to anxiety but I have a more grounded and positive outlook of it all now and just wanted to know what people thought. Thank you :)

He set forth into an ancient grove of coast live oak, the whip and bite of pacific westerlies briskly falling
away as the man cleared the first line of trees that led to the untamed anechoic sanctum within. With a
slight turn of the head over the left shoulder, the man momentarily gazed back at the bowline’d behemoth
called Rossiter, an enormous bay maned American Quarter standing eighteen hands, a sun-drenched
beacon of radiant amber, his stalwart poise towering above the never-ending bloom of shortpod mustard.
Within the grove was almost entirely silent, save for the rhythmic pulse of the man’s gait which rang out
the clinking of spurs alongside violent cracks of fallen leaf whose cordate frames were slashed to pieces
in a symphony of steel and brush like bone deep cleaves of an axe which went hacking away into the
innocent chest cavities in its path, their pleading cries silenced as waves of sound dissipated into the
infinite corridors of the empty and forgotten. Stands of weed swayed back and forth in what small breaths
of wind did make it through, their strands shaking nervously in place as beaten dogs attempt in
differentiating the benevolent from the malicious. Eruptions of sick clamorous cackles under snug steer
hide boots which cast bursts of splinter and staked twig and sprig askew the yet dewy sand dusted loam as
the man plodded toward the imminent crest, keyholes of light passing above in constellations of aureate
luminosity that seeped through the veiled canopy.
Through the twisted labyrinth of aged bark came the first returning sound. Frantic skittering
about the distorted limbs overhead revealed itself to be a juvenile black ground squirrel, lifeless onyx
spheres protruding from its head, either unaware or unconcerned with the figure standing beneath it. The
squirrel hastily relayed the length of tree branch a few times before picking a spot in the middle to
resume working on an acorn. Then began an episode of erratic gnawing, a pair of upper and lower
elongated piss brown teeth that more looked like fence posts voraciously chipped away at the acorn, its
body staying completely upright and facing toward the cliff that the man had been making his way
toward. The squirrel continued prodding and rotating in an uneven fit of gluttony as it went whittling
away at shell. As suddenly as it had began, the rodent ceased working away at the acorn and froze, the
oaken nut plummeting from tiny paws to be forever lost within the graveyard of leaves, the squirrel’s
short shallow breaths visible from the rises and falls of its chest the only part of which remained in
motion. Its head lay fixed toward the pacific, level and unblinking, perched in a stance of petrified
hypnosis that gave no response to the acorn flying past that came lobbed from a hand below. The man
continued onward.
Deep sage transitioned into blinding rays of white as the grove began to thin out, the sun shone
uncontested in the boundless cloud free midday coastal sky. The crackling of cereal colored leaves died
out as the ground was dominated in sprawls of ice plant while the ravenous stomach of ocean deep did
growl yonder. As the man crept through the last rows of live oak, a sickening seesawing duet was
materializing somewhere on the weathering bluff. In the final steps before being exposed to the brutal
gusts of wind, the nature of the sound became clear, the muffled mewing of Western Gulls, anguished
screeches that periodically met in hoarse dissonance.
Haa-hoaw...Haa...Haa-hoaw...hoaw...Haa-hoaw.
The song louder with each coming step.
As leather soles scraped out onto the dusted purisima sandstone, the two responsible came into
view, the brown cattleman hat nearly cast into the ocean when he stepped out onto the bluff, catching it
in his hand and securing it with an arm within a side of his rugged dark jacket. The iceplant had
completely rescinded its position a few feet from the edge of the bluff, the gulls nestled upon its ridge.
Haa-hoaw. The first gull standing upright in a snow white plumage, contoured with strong heather grey
siding, a non breeding adult. Haa, it called out to the cerulean abyss. Its head turned south to favor the
cruel bite of gust thrown mist, shielding the second gull who lay at his immediate front. Hoaw, cried the
second gull in agonized breaths which seemed to be in response to the questioning Haa of its companion,a half step lower in tone and longer in duration than the first gull, the body horrifically twisted and
mangled like a deflated children’s toy stowed away in a forgotten storage tote.
Haa-hoaw.
Haa. Haa. Haa-hoaw. Haa.
The man stepped forward to examine the avian dyad who had completely ignored his presence.
Two boot lengths away, the man approached, facing the same direction as the healthy gull.
Haa.
He searched within a deep side pocket for a while before finding a hand rolled cigarette and book
of matches. Securing the cattleman hat back in its original place and a coupled left hand around his
mouth, he lit the cigarette. Ethereal wisps of white smoke passed under the leather brim before escaping
behind the man as he slowly exhaled the first long drag.
Haa went the gull.
A few miles down the coast’s jagged kinks and turns, the man’s gaze stood unbroken upon a small
patch of highway in a long straightaway before abruptly curving out of sight a few miles down shore.
Primitive constructions stood off-kilter built of whatever crude planks had arrived from the tide as pale
whitewash was strewn into the pebbled dark sand of the beach that would soon be reclaimed as lost
wreckages to the rising waters of the afternoon. Another strong gust pulled at the man’s hat, he lowered
his head to shield the eyes from the onslaught of salted air. The second gull had ceased to sing, the only
movement that remained was the ruffling of feathers against the stabbing cold, the companion had vanished with the byproduct of burning tobacco.

Hell Suttree, I dont want to be no goddamned dishwarsher. I got to get up at four oclock in the mornin.
Yeah. We sleep in here till five thirty.
You get to fuck around in the afternoon, said Callahan.
Well we dont get done till seven at night.
Well if you dont want to work in the guard's mess ask if they'll put
you back on the trucks.
What if they say no?
Say yes.
What happens then? I guess they beat the shit out of ye.
No they wont. Will they, Red?

This had me laughing my ass off. I remember being an 18 year old fresh on a fast food job, and the older co workers kept fucking with me and saying outlandish shit I assumed was true, nobody would lie to you at a job right lol? Even if it’s true, the sentiment of someone beating the shit out of you over asking for a different job, in the way that McCarthy has written here, is just so fucking hilarious.