Young Writers Society

I like to compare my life to a strand of silken scarlet—how I pine to be fashioned into anything to give me purpose, the way I always find myself strewn from proverbial windowsills as if to say Pass by me, Angel. Even tonight, I am that swatch of silk, pulled taut against a seamstress’ jagged blade.

Tonight, I am bound to sin and sweat for the sake of my father. It may seem a waste of silken skin, to sell away for an intangible cause; but this—my longing for him to be well, it is too much to overtake with selfishness.

It’s when I weave throughout the hanging tapestries and heavy drops of roaring merchants that I hear his heartbeat growing stronger. On each bearded man’s dark face, I see him smiling once again, and imagine myself in a safer place—the room in Jericho marked by the garnet cord. By Allah, I breathe, I must endure.

Only as a man approaches do I fear; he is tall, laden with oxen shoulders that remind me of my father, but his face is shadowed by his Ghutra. By my dove’s wrist, he wrenches me from the street and seizes me into the darkness where both light and sound are held captive by the throat.

Between heated breath and the razing grip of his scimitar fingers, I resign myself to Rahab’s sanctum, to safety until a glint of light reveals his face and my haven crumbles.

Father.

Sorry if this is completely wrong but...was it to with an arranged Muslim marriage? I thought that where "Father" came in, because anywhere else it may have been a little weird.

I really enjoyed it, I love how she compares herself to a silken scarf and how you repeatedly come back to this point, it's really beautiful. Also the imagery of the markets is to die for, to be honest I love all of the imagery.

This is a beautiful piece, I am glad I've had the chance to read it. Was I right about the arranged marriage angle? Xxx

Hiya Lumi!

All I have to say is just wow! I really loved your story; I guess Joshua's competetion got us all into flashfiction! I'd normally start with critiques and then work my way through to some positive points, but the latter are all I have!

Your prose is so sharp, attuned, and defined. Your passages of prose are particularly enthralling in this piece. It flowed so smoothly and in such a lovely way.

The only nitpick I have is to do with this sentence here:

Lumi wrote:Only as a man approaches do I fear

This is a very blunt sentence. It seems too quick and too fast-paced compared with the rest of the story to me; I'm not sure why. I realise that this is a flash-fiction piece, and you have a word limit of 250 words: did you use all your words up? Do you have room for just a small, preceeding sentence to build up the feelings fo fear? That's just a suggestion, though. It's not a big thing at all, so don't worry!

Erm...I think that's all! I hope this review helped a little...If not, you know that I really, really enjoyed reading it, anyway!

~ Amelia

Oh dear, this was quite the mouthful.

Not that that's a bad thing, or anything like that! After all, it is flash-fiction and every word counts. Which makes me enjoy how poetic this was. And it was very poetic. Rather than the harsh reality of what you tried to make happen in this, it had to be read a couple of times before any of the real plot kicked in, as the words and metaphors were stunning and gorgeous.

Which brings me to my first point. Did you use your wording effectually?

In this case, I feel that you tried to find beauty in madness. Rather, beauty in pain, and this felt very painful. That's a clever and interesting way of attacking something head-on, but it didn't do the story justice as prose. It has the mentality of a piece of poetry, capturing pretty images and extended metaphors to smother that initial shock of actuality. In prose, you don't need to muffle it all out.

As if goes, I found this confusing. And generally, prose is not confusing. It can be ironic and it can be shocking, but this lost me without really putting up any sort of a fight. You work very subtly here, making a very... well, provocative ideology either purposefully or by accident, and I'm starting to think it was the first of the two choices after having read it a couple more times. Its all rather visceral. And to think on that path would be rather shocking and disturbing.

I'm just not quite sure where I'm supposed to be going with this. There are two many specifics left out, and so much subtlety that I end up thinking that this is going in a certain direction whether it is or not. And it sure looks like it went in a very serious and very.. well, creepy direction.

That being said, other than all of what I've stated, I liked this. I like the realization, and the way the narration sounded even if I had to read it a couple of times to get past the beauty and see if for what it really is, or what it really could be. You have such an interesting way with words that even your prose comes out looking like a bouquet of flowers rather than one single flower. One facet. And prose usually has a very straight forward, single facet.

I'm definitely torn on this one.

~Walker

Geez, Lumi. Finally you write something in which I can actually sorta kinda maybe review for you.
You know poetry isn't my strength, lad. :3 But I can give your flash fiction a shot.

By the power of southern sweet tea and grits, let me go forth! <3

Alright, so maybe I'm not the only one. I'm a bit confused with what you were going for in this piece and what you mean as the overall message to it. It makes me think... I'm quite familiar with the arranged marriage concept for my culture also enjoys doing the daddy picks the groom thing. I had a similar arrangement last year where some guy's family was like, "Hello!" And I was like, "Goodbye!" 8D. Anyway, that's not the point.

The point is, I don't exactly get the marketplace scene and it looks like your headed towards something dark, some sort of passion which goes unquenched and then feeling the pain over losing yourself to a wrong path or demon. That's what I get out of this and yet, I feel like I'm wrong and there's something else to it. *Was never good at this.*

Your writing, however is very poetic and it's not surprising. I knew before I began that I was going to have to dive deep with this and probably might have to dissect each sentence. However, it is prose and you might need to settle down and try not to stuff too much wildness into a short passage. That's just me though, my advice is something you should take with three cents. Not two because I'm your southern buddy.

Overall, this is beautiful and painful, as said. You are gifted in writing things that are usually, always amazing and I never get tired of reading your works no matter how many times I have to go through to tear out the meaning, the reality that hides behind your blockade of wonderful words.

Much love,
-Pink
(And I know that wasn't very helpful but you get what I can give.)