Young Writers Society

Boss says I need to take a break, go to a psychiatrist twice a week, smile and make do. He says I'm good at what I do --but apparently not good enough.

'No man is an island, Carl.' He said, but I'm not Carl. I'm Lily. That was the last mistake Boss made, I warned him. I warned them all.

I don't see Boss's problem with Islands, they're sweet places with swell weather, and water- water's always a good point. The sound of water lapping against rocks makes me smile, it makes me feel like Lily. Lily tip-toes on stars, twirls past milky ways and has the world in her palm. She doesn't snap and kill her boss, nor does she wear a peroxide blonde wig, paint on a new facade and entertain people that aren't worth her time. Lily doesn't need to be Lily. Lily is Lily. I am Lily.

Am I Lily?

I pull on a coat and wash my face in the sink. Step over Boss's body and walk out the backdoor. Noone will care, noone will come looking for me, Boss was a bit of a psycho anyway. A bit of freak. He liked Lily.

I've become used to hardly ever leaving the 'office', and the smell of the place clings to me. The music blares out of the abandoned warehouse and soon the screaming begins. Sunlight is harsh on my skin, it burns into it and sears my soul -- but I'm just overeacting. I just don't like it, Mama never liked it. She had shutters all over the house just to keep it out.

I pull the hood of my jacket up, I hate to think about Mama because when I do I can't stop. Mama clouds my head all the times, when I'm dancing in the warehouse smiling and laughing as dirty old men call me Lily. She used to call me her Lily.

'The way I see it, we're all dead.' She used to say, repeating it all the time until the sentence lost it's ability to make sense. She would scribble the words on the walls using the blood she retrieved from her gnawed fingers.

She used to take my hand in hers and prick my arm with needles until it bled, mumbling her mantra. Afterwards she'd hug me so tight, it would be close to asphyxiation and then cry herself to sleep. She used to call me her little flower, her little lily. She said I was all she had and then she left. Stole away in the dead of the night leaving behind a stone cold corpse for me to deal with, she forgot - - she forgot that she was all I had too.

But I don't care anymore. I don't. Carl does, but Lily doesn't.

Home sweet home isn't so sweet when Boss's stink fills it to the brim. I killed him. Snapped his neck, just like in my dreams only he didn't squeal, he just stared - -he saw it coming.

He never should have called me Carl. I fall to my knees and weep but my tears aren't real, they're tears of joy. I'm happy, I'm free. He's dead. --and they all lived happily ever after.

Death is so simple, and so is love, almost too simple. Boss saw me in a club, just 21 with no home, singing my heart out in a Tranny bar. It was okay for me to be Lily there, but the place disgusted me. I wasn't a tranny, I wasn't attaining to be something, I am Lily.

Boss said he saw something in me, he picked me. Gave me a home for a life, gave me Lily. Boss really liked Lily.

I pick up the can of lukewarm beer on the table, and savour the taste. 'cause the way I see it, we're all dead.

Hey, AM!

Well, I liked reading it. I didn't find myself having to stop because I got bored, so that's a good sign, and you set everything up really well so I feel like I know where things come from (his mom and all that), but something's missing. Well, a few things are missing.

First of all, a reason or a plot. Right now we are with this person and nothing happens. He tells us what's happened in the past (haha, or she, please don't kill me!). But nothing actually happens while we're watching. And that could work except the one thing that DOES happen doesn't really seem to matter to anyone. It's like the boss was killed but that's normal. That doesn't change anything about the narrator, so why is he bothering to tell us this? What is his purpose, his reason in telling us this? Usually a reason revolves around a change, where maybe the narrator learns something new about himself through this murder and wants to share it. Or something outside of him changes and he has to learn to deal with it now.

Secondly, I'm not saying your character isn't original, but I'm not sure that the way you've built him is. Every crazy person has a PARENT problem. Doesn't it seem that way? And when I read he was picked up in a "tranny bar" it almost made be go, "duh, of course, where else" like this was all just fitting into a mold of forming a crazy person. It's a difficult territory to tread because we're imagining here. He's so far away in the magical crazy person land that we don't know exactly how to pin him down otherwise.

So my suggestion to you, if you continue to work on this, is: take him down closer to us. Give us a way to identify with him so we don't just see him as a "crazy person" separate from a "person". Show us the person part, not the raving lunatic part, so we might be more interested. Consider him as a real person when you write him. Let him do what he'd naturally do. Maybe one day he wants to stay home and be Carl and doesn't give a crap about Lily. Maybe he wants to order Chinese food. How is he still crazy when he orders Chinese food? Give him more thought and more time with you and see what happens!

Let me know if you have any questions. ( :

Hannah

Hi!

I liked this a lot! For various reasons. Two being that this is my mind set to a tee and lily is my alter ego if you would

The only thing i'd really want to see more of, is description. The emotion behind the piece is truly truly excellent, and i understand this was the theme behind the contest? but at the same time i think you need to make it a balanced story
I would like a bit more description of the bosses depth or of Lily herself?

But I think this was truly amazing! and I hope you win the contest with this!
Keep writing like this please

~Retro Disco666

p.s. - is the title relevant? or am i being dense?

Wow, this is really powerful. I see no grammar mistakes, except that in the beginning paragraphs you use the word 'no one' a lot, and you put it as a joint word. It is separate.

Liked it a lot, very interesting how you put it

Deanie x