(The Silence of Ancient Light, continued)
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That night, Anna could not sleep. Much weighed upon her mind, not least the disturbing death of the avian sailor at the hands — sorry, tentacles — of whatever sea creature it was they had encountered. The mood of the entire crew was obviously somber, their joy at the bounty of the catch shadowed by the loss of their crewmate.
She rolled out of her hammock and found her way up on deck, careful not to disturb the other sleepers. The crew mostly slept the entire night through, more hours than a human required, with just a minimal number on watch to guide the vessel through the dark. Anna supposed they considered fishing strictly a daylight activity, or perhaps they had caught their quota and now just wanted to get home.
She could understand that. She just wanted to get home, too. At this point the mission appeared an abject failure, and living to tell the tale remained her only interest. She knew Laxmi, and Jaci too if he was still alive, might feel otherwise…
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Will Anna, Laxmi, and Jaci ever find their way home? Is Jaci still alive? And what was that tentacled thing?
At least Anna is able to find a few moments of peace and quiet, gazing at the stars, to ponder her fate. Things have been a little hectic lately, after all. It would be easier if she could talk to the avians, but that seems out of reach for the moment. Although there perhaps may be some small amount of understanding….
Readers, I have a question for you. Would you find it helpful if I posted word counts, or the average reading time (or both), for each scene? The scenes have been mostly in the range of 1000 to 2000 words, averaging right in the middle around 1500 words. If you knew in advance that a scene was on the longer side, or shorter, would that make you more or less likely to read it? I realize, if you’ve been following along from the beginning, that you’re probably reading through each scene anyway, so knowing in advance likely won’t make a difference to you, but what do you think it might do for new visitors to the site? Of course, jumping right in at the middle would probably be confusing, so perhaps it really doesn’t matter.
As a for instance, this current scene is 1,093 words (so on the shorter end of the spectrum), and Scrivener, my composition program, tells me it should take 4 minutes and 22 seconds to read (that’s very precise, though not necessarily accurate).
Let me know what you think in the comments. I’m undecided on this idea.
Until next time!
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header image credit: user:7645255 / pixabay.com under Pixabay License
Matt Fraser 