Summer Rain

It was a hot day, but it didn’t feel like it. Cool breeze swept through the park, sending leaves of twilight gold to shower the earth. The laughter and cries of the children soothed the heat like sweet summer rain. If a passerby foreign to the area had looked upon our world, he’d have thought that the idea of the reckoning was insane. That the idea of our mortality was something to scoff. That if the sounds and feelings of this warm summer day could be bottled, mankind would be divine. All was well.
At 2:45 the bomb went off.

-----

“Sarah!”
I know what I shout as I stumble through the burning playground, blood pouring from my ears, but I can’t hear it. I can’t hear the screams of parents as they search for their children, dialing 911 in their cell phones while crowds form to watch the blaze. I can’t hear the sirens that ring through the clearing. I can’t even hear my own anguished cry as I find Sarah lying beneath the melted slab that was once her favorite slide. The metal burns my hands as I tear it away. I snatch her up in my arms and hold her limp body close. I hear only a harsh buzzing of static as I approach the crowd.
“Somebody help me! Please, somebody help!”

-----

I sit alone upon the cold bench as paramedics and firemen bustle around the playground now yellow-taped and roped off from the public. I hold my wallet photo of Sarah against the white rosary in my hand, whispering a desperate, pleading prayer over and over again. I stand as the detective who interviewed me approaches. I can tell by the empty look in his eyes what has happened before he even opens his mouth.
My knees pop as I hit the ground, my hands pressed against my temples. I’m screaming. I can barely hear but I know I am.

-----

“Do you have the gun I ordered?”
The man nods and pulls the silver revolver from the case. He places it upon the glass counter. I give him my license for the second time. He glances up and meets my eyes as he wipes the barrel of the gun.
“Is this weapon for business or pleasure?”
“Neither.”
He shakes his head and takes out a box of cartridges. I place money on the desk and open the box, taking just one bullet. As I turn to leave the man calls after me. “Is the pain that bad?”
I answer without looking back. “It is.”

-----

The news has stopped reporting the attack and moved on to the latest starlet’s rehab run. I switch off the TV and touch my ear. It’s almost healed. Tears run hot down my face. It’s been nearly a month since Sarah died. The funeral was small, like her mother’s.
I can see her drawings held on the fridge by fruit-shaped magnets. I cock the hammer off the gun, switching off the safety, and press the barrel to the side of my head. My hand shakes as I wrap my finger around the trigger.
I can still see her pictures. I can hear her laughing as we watch the latest Land Before Time movie. I feel her against my chest as I carry her from the playground. I let the gun drop.

-----

“I want to enlist.”
My bags hang by my shoulders as the sergeant fills the forms. Sarah’s drawings are gone, burned. The house is sold. I still have the wallet photo, the only proof she ever existed, tucked in my back pocket. I step on the bus and watch as the town disappears into the distance, the leaves twisting away as the wind picks them up.

-----

“Why are you here?”
“Sir, to fight, sir!”
“What do you fight for?”
“Sir, my country, sir!”
“And who do you fight for?”
“Sir, no one, sir!”

-----

“Sarah!”
I scream as explosions rattle the makeshift tent. Surprise attack. I push myself up and rush past the flimsy cloth entrance, rifle drawn, firing into the night. I can’t hear the shouts of the confused soldiers. I can’t hear the muzzle blasts as the rifle grows hot in my hands. I hear Sarah’s laughter as she heads down the playground slide. I hear only the sweet sound of summer rain.

Nice, but disjointed. This story is like a skeleton without the muscles and tendons...or photographs in an album without the context. You have snippets of nice little scenes, but it comes across like you're shoving emotion down our throats because you've only shown us the scenes in which you can use striking words of high intensity. It was divine--there was fire and blood--I despaired--I wanted to kill myself--I channeled my sadness. An important part of the journey is the transition, too. An important part of the story is the matter of evolving and changing. An important part of the story is why. Anyone can say to the world, "There exists sadness. There exists despair. There exists redemption." But it's the why and the complexity that fuels a powerful story. You don't have to say it explicitly, but you have to at least give us something to think about instead of a photograph. Instead, it's "Happiness. Panic. Despair. Depression. Army." We don't even know why the most important part--the change from suicidal to army--came about.

I can’t hear the screams of parents as they search for their children, dialing 911 in their cell phones while crowds form to watch the blaze. I can’t hear the sirens that ring through the clearing. I can’t even hear my own anguished cry

I realize that the narrator can deduce that these sounds are happening by sight, but the repetition makes the point so forceful that it seems contradictory. Perhaps you can give us a visual, help us imagine what it's like, instead of just saying "there were sirens but I couldn't hear them." Maybe the way that the flames lick through the light. The feel of the heat. Or even give us an idea of what's burning. When I imagine a playground, I imagine soggy woodchips or asphalt and metal surfaces--not much to burn. Is it in the middle of a park? Are the trees on fire? That could be a good image.

And who bombs a playground? You'd think they'd want to bomb a business hub or something.

If a man foreign to the area had passed by

Awkward, forced phrasing.

My knees pop as I hit the ground, my hands pressed against my temples.

"hands pressed" seems like it's not proper tense. Or we're missing a word or two.

I stand as the detective who interviewed me approaches.

It seems irrelevant that it's the detective who interviewed him. The little side comment gets in the way of the emotion.

I place money on the desk

"desk" seems like the wrong word when he's standing at a glass counter.

It's first person narration, but there's little to tip us off besides the use of "I". Each "I" could have been easily replaced with "He", since we're given relatively little insight about what's going on in his head and how he responds to the issues on a mental/emotional level. "I scream. I cry. I hear her laughing. I think about the past." We're given these superficial activities, but we're missing the deeper connection.

Wow this is great but slightly confusing.
Like the reviwer above me:

"I can’t hear the screams of parents as they search for their children, dialing 911 in their cell phones while crowds form to watch the blaze. I can’t hear the sirens that ring through the clearing. I can’t even hear my own anguished cry.

This was a very deep feeling from the reader. I liked it. Good job!

I can see one of two things happening here:

Either, you have embarked upon a crazy short-story-writing tirade,

or you just decided to post a million old stories so that you may, in the near future, embark upon a crazy short-story-revision tirade.

Anyways.

In retrospect, I guess I do have to wonder who would bomb a playground, but then again, I wouldn't be wondering that at all if another reviewer hadn't brought it to my attention. So I guess I'll say that it's fine. Maybe it was just a misplaced bomb, maybe for the sort of crazy message it sends, whatever. I'm not going to worry about that, because, like I said, I didn't even question it.

The beginning was a little awkward - I mean, first of all, the fact that it's a hot day but doesn't feel like it. I dunno where you're at, but here we've had about three weeks of disgustingly hot days (today was the first nice day in forever), and it has DEFINITELY felt like it. (Muggy, you sweat so much your clothes stick to you, car is a million zillion degrees, etc. You can't escape it. EW.) Also, "cool breeze" really ought to be "a cool breeze" - it's just too awkward without the article, especially since the first paragraph doesn't have the clipped, raw, frightened feel of the part of the story immediately after the bomb's detonation. And the whole "man foreign to the area" sentence was just awkward. I mean, the "man foreign to the area" was awkward phrasing, and then "the idea of the reckoning" thing threw me. I had to read that a couple times, then when I saw (in my peripherals) "the bomb went off," and I was like..."Oh."

I disagree with the above, that the "I" should be changed to "he." Admittedly, I know that you just generally write your stories in first person narrative, so maybe I'm just used to that from you, but I think it's fine to be in first person narrative without telling the reader exactly what is going on in the narrator's head. (Besides, that would be telling, which, as we should all know here, is generally bad). Plus, look at something like "The Catcher in the Rye." I mean, you spend half your junior year of high school discussing that you can never quite be sure if the story's true, even though it's told in the first person, because the narrator may possibly be lying to you the entire time. So if that's the case, you're technically not really in his head, since his head contains the truth of the matter (presumably), and the story is (or might be) all a lie.

The only other nitpick I have is just that, this is not a cook book entry, and yet you pulled out the spice rack...

I hold my wallet photo of Sarah against the white rosemary in my hand, whispering a desperate, pleading prayer over and over again.

I believe you meant..."rosary."

Oh, well, and there was the fact that the detective came over to tell him and it sounds like he didn't already know...I mean, he grabbed her first, you'd think he would've realized immediately that she was dead. Then again, I suppose he might have hoped anyway, in desperation...so I guess you could ignore this paragraph, if you want.

Anyway, other than that, this was good. As usual, right?

~Blue

Hey,

I read this a couple of hours ago but only came to review now. I've read a couple of chapters of your novel 'Pornographic Kiss' and I liked it a lot. just sayin'

Onto the review,

I liked this but found it moving really fast, without as much emotion as needed. I understand that you gave us little flashbacks rather than a full blown story, which I liked. You rush us from one emotion to the next without giving time for whatever emotion to sink in. Like a review above me said, you could summarize the entire story in less than six sentences. That's just barely a paragraph. There are some stories where you can go on and on and on and on describing and explaining what happens, even if the story was only a page long. Unfortunately, this is not one of them, but it has the potential to be a story that someone rambles on and on about.

The story itself was not bad at all. I too wondered why, of all places, someone would bomb a playground. Maybe have a business or train station or something important across the street or next door to the playground and have that be bombed? At first, I thought the parent was a woman, probably because I subconsciously was trying to connect with the narrator more but considering the person was in battle in the army, which woman aren't allowed to do, I figured it was a man.

Overall,

Grade: B

If you have any questions, PM me.

~jas

Okay, so first off, I really enjoyed this. It was interesting how you jumped quickly from scene to scene. It reminded me a lot of a movie. I found that some parts were confusing, but other than that it was worth the read.

It was a hot day, but it didn’t feel like it.#FF0000 "> A cool breeze swept through the park, sending

At 2:45 the bomb went off.

For some reason, I loved this line. It broke apart the tranquil scenery pretty damn abruptly.

playground now#FF0000 ">, yellow-taped

The funeral was small, like her mother’s.

This confused me, I sort of assumed that the woman who is narrating was her mother, I guess the narration sounded like more of a woman's to me. I do understand now, don't you worry. Maybe you could have clued us in on who was narrating a little more in the first scene.

But anyways, PROPS on a good story.