A note and a ring

I


"Like a gun shot I flew.

I didn't look behind me.

I didn't open my eyes.

But let me open yours."


Alex had read it over and over again in the past seven minutes. She could recite it in eleven different accents, some making it sound more tragic, others making it sound more light-hearted and gay; another made it sound as though it had been scribbled on the wall by a toddler at his first meeting with the objects called crayons. These words were written on a crumbled piece of yellow stationary with pink flowers sprinkled across its face, in deep blue ink. The letters were beautifully written, as though these words meant everything to the writer. Alex had found the note under her pillow when she awoke just minutes ago. Looking at her clock she saw that it was 9:19am. She'd slept in late. She jumped up and threw the note on her pillow, scrambling to get dressed before her mother came up. Running downstairs she wondered if it was her Mother who had left the note under her pillow. It had to be someone in her family she thought, who else could have gotten into her room at night? The thought of a stranger placing the note under her pillow at night frightened her and she instinctively looked behind her to see if someone was watching her, no one was. She sighed a sigh of relief as though someone actually could have been watching her.


She stepped into the kitchen to discover it empty. Where was her family? Why wasn't her Father sitting on the counter scribbling notes on scraps of paper, notes for his half finished book about children and imaginary friends? Why isn't her Mother cooking eggs and toast for her breakfast? Why wasn't her brother teasing her about how messy her hair was? Where were they? She felt a chill for a moment; maybe something happened to them. Then she realized that perhaps they too had slept late. She shrugged and looking at the calendar tacked up to the the kitchen wall she realized that it was only Saturday, no problem. She opened the fridge and grabbed a jug of Orange Juice. She poured herself a glass. The citris scent seemed to bring her to life, she felt good. She no longer worried about the note, or who it was from, all she wanted to do was live. She ran back upstairs and into her Mother and Father's room. They weren't sleeping in their queen sized bed, infact they weren't in the room. Alex smiled. So they're up. They must be in the bathroom, I must have just missed them. She tiptoed past her brother's room, no need to wake Luke, and returned to her own. She made her bed neatly and folded the mysterious note slowly before placing it in her nightstand drawer.


II

Luke awoke feeling very cold. Without opening his eyes he reached down to where he thought the bottom of his bed was to pull up his blanket, it wasn't there. He opened his eyes angrily, thinking that Alex had stolen his blanket again in an attempt to wake him. He was in darkness, he couldn't see anything, but he felt very cold. He realized he wasn't in his bed but on a cold stone floor. Where the hell was he? How did he get here? He began to whimper; he was cold, scared and alone. Suddenly he heard a voice call him, the voice was screaming his name over and over again.

"Luke!" It yelled, "Luke, wake up!"

He did. He jumped with a start, threw his covers off him and began to get ready for the day, throwing on a pair of jeans that were lying on the floor and a pink and red t-shirt with the words 'Ready for me?' on it, that had been under his pillow. Somehow, when it was happening he could never remember that it was a dream, he'd been having this dream on average twenty times a month since his ninth birthday and his thirteenth was fast approaching. Luke stumbled downstairs and was greeted by his mother in the kitchen.

"Good afternoon, Luke." she taunted, smirking.

He ignored this and began to tease his sister about her messy hair. Alex obviously did not appreciate this because she proceeded to pour strawberry jam in his hair. Luke barely noticed his strawberry flavored hair and continued to munch on his dry toast. Luke had never told anyone about his dream and he didn't plan to anytime soon, he used to wonder what it meant, but he didn't care anymore. It was just a routine now; have dream, wake up, live life, go to sleep, have dream ...

Alex said something about the jam making Luke smell better and their Mother told him he had better go and wash it out and wasn't that the same shirt he wore yesterday? Luke quickly finished his toast and walked slowly, swaying slightly, up the stairs. He went into the bathroom, got his hair wet and brushed it out. Hopping down the stairs he heard his sister ask their parents if they had left a note under her pillow last night. They answered in the negative, laughing, and she laughed with them, as though she thought it was funny, it was a fake laugh, it was too high, something only Luke could catch. He knew someone had left a note under her pillow.

Wait, what?

That was essentially the pervasive feeling for me. Certain things just didn't make sense, or perhaps were expressed incorrectly, or were ambiguous. One thing I do during editing is to read the story out loud; even better, have someone else do it in front of you. Are you conveying the ideas you want? Do you feel the urge to ask the questions you've planted? Do things feel right?

Here are some examples - some minute, others more broad.

1. I'm going to assume that you intentionally left the first line in the poem italicized but the other three normal. Does this mean that the first line is in cursive and the others in print? Are you just trying to put more emphasis on the first line? What's up with the odd phrasing? It doesn't seem to have to do with rhyme or meter, and instead of seeming to be an obvious character trait, it appears to be an even more obvious syntactical error.

2. "the objects called crayons"? This makes it sound as if Alex is deliberately holding herself distant from the concept, but that's contrary to the imaging you've given us of her. When you say the paper is crumbled, it means that it literally is not stable physically. Do you mean to say that it's crumpled?

3. In the second paragraph, you place the actions of Father and Luke in the past tense, but those of Mother in the present tense. I can't find a reason why you would purposefully do this in a 3rd-person narration, which again lessens your believability and professionalism. Respect is a powerful tool, and most readers, when they pick up a book, will start with a fairly high level of it. You don't want that to go down at any time.

4. So Luke has chronic nightmares. Okay. You don't do that great a job introducing this fact, and quite frankly I don't find myself that worried about him at all, at this stage. The sensations just aren't very sharp, and the fact is that if he isn't losing sleep over it and is psychologically stable after close to four years, there's no reason to stress. I imagine that you want us to.

5. Alex pours strawberry jam into Luke's hair. Why so detached? Your prose sounds like it's something out of a surgical procedure, at this stage. Is he really that brain-dead? Doesn't seem like it, though he claims that his life has been scheduled to the point of meaninglessness. Give us some rich, juicy details to make us believe this! It's easy to dismiss things without the proper level of conviction.

6. The closing sentence was just so out of whack. Either you meant to say he knew who had put the note there, or he really is brain-dead, and that goes a long way to supporting the above. Please tell me that this is the case and that I've completely misread your work. That's the problem with interpretative comments, after all.

Know that I mean absolutely no offense in any of my thoughts here. I merely wish to give something for you to think about. After all, it's what most authors are after, right?

Cheers.

I agree with MG on this. Though in saying that, it IS your writing style and it is different. It's almost as if it is your characters mind writing the piece, rather than a third person or such.

"Good afternoon, Luke." she taunted, smirking.

Maybe smirked was enough for this. As you could express her taunting through that alone.

I found the second paragraph kind of poetic in the way you described it.

Where was her family? Why wasn't her Father sitting on the counter scribbling notes on scraps of paper, notes for his half finished book about children and imaginary friends? Why isn't her Mother cooking eggs and toast for her breakfast? Why wasn't her brother teasing her about how messy her hair was? Where were they?

It kind of reminded me of a poem for some reason. I like it though. I'm a big fan of the writing of James O barr so I'm not easily thrown off by strange descriptions or that sort of thing. All in all I quite liked how it was written. Maybe you should submit it to a short story site, just to see what others think of it also! Authors give you the writers perspective on stories, but its also important to see what the simple reader thinks.

Good luck! I look forward to the next!