A closed cab rattles through the streets of Whitechapel. Thomas and Ellen sit side by side on the rear bench. Ellen is soaked to the skin and shivering uncontrollably beneath her own coat and Thomas's greatcoat, both left open.
Ellen presses her keys into his hand.
ELLEN: Upstairs. First door on the right.
THOMAS: Why?
ELLEN: I'm shaking too much to unlock it.
A pause.
ELLEN: There's a lamp on the table.
A pause.
ELLEN: Mind the stove. The damper sticks. You'll have to force it a little.
THOMAS: Understood.
A long silence.
ELLEN: My dress.
She tries to undo the buttons down the front. Her fingers are too stiff, and she can't stop shivering.
THOMAS: Let me.
He shifts to the bench opposite her and opens his reefer coat. He takes her hands.
THOMAS: Keep them here.
He tucks them against his sides.
By feel, he finds the first button at the collar of her dress. The fabric, heavy with water, resists. He pulls, tries again. The button finally gives way. Then the next. His movements are slow but steady.
ELLEN: You're good at this.
THOMAS: Dolls' dresses have even smaller buttons.
ELLEN: Then I'm grateful to them.
He keeps working in the darkness despite her shivering and the jolting of the cab. He parts the soaked bodice just enough and rests his palm against the top of her sternum.
THOMAS: You're far too cold.
ELLEN: As long as I'm shivering, I'm all right.
She closes her eyes.
ELLEN: If the shivering stops... Don't chafe my arms or legs.
How can people live in such a place?
Pounding hammers. Scraping saws. Thundering hooves and wheels. Workers and foremen barking at one another worse than dogs clamoring for attention. Sights and sounds overlapped, offending her senses and rolling over Charlotte with the force of a wave that threatened to sweep her off her feet. A few passersby snickered at how she grasped the corner gaslamp to keep upright as a herd of cattle ambled past. Many let their agitation be known as they were led through the crowded streets.
A Reclusive Cowboy, Widow, and "Retired" Gunslinger Expose HUGE Murder Conspiracy (You Won't Believe What Happens Next!)
Tag Game: Clickbait WIP Description
📝 Explain the plot or premise of your WIP(s) as if it were a clickbait Youtube video.
Hell's Half Acre: When death comes to Fort Worth and claims one victim too many, Elijah Addison, a reclusive cowboy, resolves to hunt down the killer. By his side is Charlotte Grace, a widow he knows is dangerous, and Captain Sam Quinn, the most controversial man in town. As they navigate power struggles, old blood feuds, and the dangers of the frontier, Elijah realizes the killer somehow knows their every move and is closing in on a secret Charlotte will do anything to keep buried.
Intro | Tag | Excerpts | Updates | Inspo
Thanks to @winterandwords for the tag! Tagging @gioia-writes-and-others, @in-seas-of-green, @afrenchwriter, @dragon-swords-prophecies, and @orphanheirs.
Mini haul from Oxfam today - I wouldn’t normally bother with the book on the right. Not necessarily because it’s from Lettice’s point of view but mainly because it’s very outdated/downright inaccurate and the writing doesn’t make up for it, but I could not RESIST that cover
God I wish they still make histfic covers like these!
just saw pressure, the d-day weather prediction movie with the inexplicable brendan-fraser-as-ike, which is for reasons unknown to me NOT being released on actual d day, some thoughts:
- overall had the vibe of an okay tv movie. an expensively produced tv movie! a tv movie which can afford lots of actors you’ve seen in things! but still.
- omar bradley had a 6 second cameo and someone in my row gasped and whispered “omar…” when he came on screen
- damian lewis having a lot of fun as montgomery doing his damian lewis tight-mouthed grandiose freak thing, his agent clearly having a lot of fun getting him callback roles, glad everybody in the lewis camp is happy,
- interestingly damian lewis is doing a monty impression which pairs somewhat strangely with brendan fraser not even doing a little bit of an ike impression at ALL not even a LITTLE BIT. they could have taken a guy off the street and put him in a bald cap and pleated pants and it would have been ikier. bold choice! lots of shots of brendan fraser stanced up like bigfoot looming over a room, doing something either hilarious or odd with notions of military masculinity depending on the scene. despite this a performance with absolutely no gravitas. really a master class in cinematic vacuum
- intersperses colorized archival footage which is a choice i liked as a person who likes archival footage but also i am suspicious of this choice and can’t really articulate why
- also reenacts d day, like private ryan but worse. who is this for. anybody who is watching this movie has seen other, bloodier, higher budget depictions of utah beach and i think it would have been a stronger choice just to straight up not show us d day. this movie isn’t actually about beachhead combat. it is not about the front-line experience actually.
- however, because every wwii movie has to be about Our Brave Boys……Who Have Mothers And Wives…. they keep cutting away from weather bureaucracy and high command infighting to shots of extras in uniform clowning around to remind the audience that it’s about the boys…the individual boy-lives…..the central conflict the movie sets up is whether concerns for the boy-lives (empathetic, correct, represented by ike loudly fondling photos of individual boy-corpses, no i’m dead serious) will outweigh the strategic demands of the invasion (abstract, detached, somehow effeminate because monty is the wrong kind of british person). of course we all know that the notion of the us army operating in a mode that considers the soldier as individual was invented in the 90s by Big Brokaw to sell more gulf war. and to get sag affiliation for 70 new gi-faced young actors per year
- a mediocre movie in ways that are sometimes funny and sometimes just boring. andrew scott’s performance was perfectly good. could have used more war machine. show me the teletype machines MORE, cowards
