Dear stranger,
I have never done something like this before. I wish you could resist the urge of knowing my name, my age, my home. Those things don't matter. If they did, would you still be a stranger to me?
You are living in a desert. It is wide, dry and hot. Your tired legs are trying hard to move through the merciless sand. You feel like you can sense the heat coming all the way up to your brain, killing all the neurons; although they had not worked properly, not since long ago.
At least, that is how the desert has made you feel.
You believe that somewhere there are so many little things that could make you feel happy, but somehow, most of the times those are the hardest to be found.
I am a stranger to you.
I dream about the sea, and the sky, and their reflection; which always makes me ask myself the same question: is the sky blue because of the sea or the other way around? My heart always speaks its naive story about how they are blue together. How the sky would not be blue without the sea and the sea could never be blue if the sky didn't exist. There is no boundary between the two of them. They depend on each other – if you think about it, they could never exist apart from one another. My heart likes to call that love.
I dream about love.
I meet a lot of people every day. They are making their way through their own deserts. Some of them are running to find their own blue reflection, some of them are walking slowly, some are crawling. I often slow down to pay respect to those who have given up the race towards their love.
Sometimes I pretend that I don't see them.
Stranger, you are selfish sometimes, too. Aren't you?
You thought the desert is all about the unconventional heat, and you had found only enough water for yourself. There were a lot of people who needed your help, but you didn't see them. Once the sun was gone, you realized that you were wrong and you were ashamed to ask for a blanket. All of those people were strangers to you. Right?
You are not a stranger to me.
I do not know your name, your age nor where you come from. Those things don't matter. We are both searching for that magnificent view. For the unconditional love to fill our lives. We are searching for the sea.
Stranger, am I really strange to you?
Look around yourself. Look at all those people. Struggling. Now look at yourself.
And you will have the right words all over you.
Strangers? I am not that strange.
And all of those people passing by... They are not strangers.
They are just friends you have never met.
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,842 Reviews
Hey Klara!
~ I feel that this would be more powerful if you split it up into shorter sentences. I'm all for long sentences. I adore and cherish them, don't get me wrong-- I just think that short might go better here.Shady here with a review for you this fine evening. c:
You start off this piece strong. I tend to decide I'm going to review a piece, skim the first two paragraphs, say something along the lines of "meh" and go back to whatever I was doing. It wasn't like that with your piece. Your piece sparked my interest, and made me want to read on-- and the further I read, the more I got sucked into the story. Very good.
"My heart always speaks it's naive story, about how they are blue together. How the sky would not be blue without the sea, and how the sea could never be blue if the sky didn't exist. How there is no boundary between the two of them. They depend on each other. They could never exist apart from one another. My heart likes to call that love. I dream about love."
~
Alright! This story was good! I enjoyed it from start to finish. You had interesting concepts and wrote it very well. I'd be interested in reading more of your work.
If you need any more help, or have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Keep writing
~Shady
Hey there Klara
I really enjoyed your work and didn't realise this had been written by someone whose second language is English!!
The paragraph that starts with "I dream about the sea..." was written beautifully and I found myslef entranced as I was reading it! The whole concept of the passage was also quite strange and unique to me.
I agree with Ephemeral with the corrections and errors. He/She noticed the same errors that I did, so there would be no point repeating them.
But well done and keep on going!!
I'll preface this review by stating that I enjoyed this piece very much! The concept is excellent, and you've endowed it with some stunning imagery. Kudos to you! There were a few mistakes I noted as I went along, but they were mainly syntactic, and easily remedied! I'll dive right into it, I suppose.
"I wish you could resist [the urge of knowing my name, my age, my home.]" Something in this sentence seems off, I believe. It's a subtle thing, but tangible. If I were you, I might alter that latter half to read more along the lines of, " [the urge to know my name, my age, my home.]". Although, I might be more inclined to delve even deeper there, and investigate what exactly it is that composes a person's identity, and causes them to be a stranger to you no longer.
"It is wide and dry and hot and [heavy sand is all over your body.]" Commas are an important tool in any writer's inventory! I might change it to say something more like, "It is wide, dry, and hot." For the latter half, I might suggest a more powerful description? What does sand feel like in your shoes, your clothes, your eyes? Perhaps even combine that with the next sentence ('sand' twice in a row isn't precisely mellifluous).
"You feel like you can sense the heat coming all the way up to your brain, killing all the neurons that had not worked properly since long ago, at least that is what the desert had made you to feel." A few more syntax errors here -easily remedied. Tenses are tricky little blighters, but crucial to making texts understandable. And, seated beside the comma in your writer's toolbox, you can find a variety of other little aids; semicolons (;), hyphens (-), etcetera. If I were you, I would perhaps change that sentence there to read more like this: "You feel like you can sense the heat coming (perhaps choose a stronger word?) all the way up to your brain, killing all the neurons; although they had not worked properly, not since long ago. (At least, that is how the desert has made you feel.)" I would suggest the brackets for the end (I'm a big fan of brackets, though, as you can tell), because it allows that last bit to tag onto the sentence, sort of as an afterthought, a scribbled continuation scrawled in tiny font beneath it. I liked the relation to neurons, though, being a bit of a "brain-nerd".
"You believe that somewhere there are so many little things that could make you feel happy, but somehow, most of the times those things are the hardest [things] to be found." I liked this line a lot, although I think that you might want to cut down on the number of times you say 'things', as it makes it rather clunky. I think the final one could be cut altogether.
"I dream about the sea, and the sky, and their reflection which always makes me ask myself the same old question; is the sky blue because of the sea or the other way around? And my heart always speaks its naive story about how they are blue together, and the sky would not be blue without the sea and the sea could never be blue if the sky didn't exist, there is no boundary between the two of them, they depend on each other, and if you think about it, they could never exist apart from each other." I adored this little section, I must say! What a wonderful metaphor for the co-dependency of love! But, I saw a few more of those sneaky little faults in your wording. As I've mentioned, it's a glorious phrase, it really is, but I might tweak it a little bit to fix the flow. "I dream about the sea, and the sky, and their reflection -which always makes me ask myself the same old question: is the sky blue because of the sea, or the other way around? And my heart always speaks its naive story about how they are blue together; how the sky would not be blue without the sea, and, likewise, the sea could never be blue if the sky didn't exist. There is no boundary between the two of them. And, if you think about it, they could never exist apart from each other."
(Although, beautiful as the metaphor is, it isn't actually scientifically accurate. The sky appears blue because when sunlight hits the Earth's atmosphere, it is scattered in all sorts of directions by the gas particles in the air. And, because the wavelengths of blue light are the shortest, it scatters more often, and tinges our sky blue. More or less.)
"They are [going through] their own deserts." I think this line has a lot of potential, if you were to substitute 'going through' for a stronger word/set of words.
"I often slow down to pay respect to those who have [given] in the race towards their love." It may be merely my lack of sanity, but I think that 'fallen' would be a better word there?
"You [thought] the desert [is] all about the unconventional heat and you [have] found the water that [will be] enough only for yourself. There [was] a lot of people who needed your help, but you didn't see them." Remember to be careful with your tenses! And, don't forget about those finicky little plural forms. I'm going to assume that you wanted to write this in past-tense, and suggest these alterations: "You thought the desert was all about the unconventional heat, and you had found only enough water for yourself. There were a lot of people who needed your help, but you didn't see them."
All in all, I very much enjoyed reading this piece! I tried to catch most of the major errors, but I would suggest going through again to catch what I missed. As well, I think consulting a thesaurus, or something of the same ilk, would be helpful when it comes to strengthening the imagery. It's all about the right words.
Happy writing!
Awwh, you are so great.
I am very much thankful, I'll consider all your suggestions.
English is not my first language and I kind of took a break from writing (for almost a year), especially in English, so this is my first work after a long time and I actually hoped for a kind and honest review like this (because I obviously need help).