There was blood and fire and ambulances. There were shrieks of utter agony. There were sharp pebbles and a potent stench of smoke. There was the taste of iron metal on my pallet. And beautiful lights.
Not the stinging light from the ambulances reflecting off the crooked metal door. No. A welcoming light. You have never seen such a beautiful light. Unless you are dead.
EMT's were scattered in all directions. Shouting. But no noise came out. Running. In slow motion. Their faces slightly blurred and lacking concrete features. Was that his nose or mouth? Opening and closing but no words flowing out.
The metal casket. Coffin. Behind me burned and the thick veil of smoke penetrated my eyes. I could not move my eyelids to escape. Salty drops welled and slid across my face. Hitting the black pavement that scraped my side.
A crimson, shiny liquid splattered the ground. It brought pain. Gushing from my head. My side. My legs. My arms and hands.
I saw another limb beside me. Cold. White. My sister. A man, dressed in fireproof pants kneeled down and shook his head mournfully. I reached my hand out toward my sister.
Another man, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt wobbled nearby. A policeman interrogated him. Broken bits of glass lay on the blacktop near his car. An amber liquid dripped from the fragments.
The fireman saw my feeble hand grasp at my sister. Alive. Alive. But oh-so cold with fingers the colour of ice.
EMT’s approached slowly. Hurrying.
There was a stretcher. They took Alicia. Her dead hand hung loosely over the stretcher.
A medic palpated my face. Clenched my wrist frantically. My eyes iced over. I could feel it.
There was red and blood and fire. There were distant screams. There was a pebble-covered surface beneath me that I couldn’t feel. There was a grey cloud spewing from the metal coffin. There was my mother’s corpse burning inside. There was a wet substance coming from my mouth. Scarlet.
And I welcomed the beautiful lights.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,006 Literary Works • 672,809 Reviews
I liked your piece very much. I loved the way you set the scene. I think the "There is...There is...There is..." is appropriate for the type of story you portrayed here.
I think you set very good visual imagery.
The only thing I would really watch is choppy sentences. "My side. My legs. My arms and hands."
All in all, your story is one of the best I've read today.
Thank you
'Ello! It's little ol' Willow C.! Just thought I'd stop by, you're the one who wanted to read all of my Sheridan Holmes stuff, correct? Dang you review a lot, I don't have my 3rd star and I've been on for a year. WOW! *mouth drops*
Anywho, review mode activate! To be completely honest, with no cushion what's so ever, I didn't really like this story all that much. It flowed weird, using words like "There was.....There was...There was..." etc. To set a scene, you need to have new ways od expressing the completely obvious. I like to use the old explain two things at once. There is blood and there is gravel. Is there no blood on the gravel, or on your sister's pale skin. It's cold, but is it sticky with something red? You have to trust your audience to be smart enough to know something even when you don't just say "There was...There was...There was" (that sounds like a good line in a poem...Gotta rememeber that) (SORRY! REVIEWING! Focus Willow!)
Also when you are in a serious accident, you may not really notice everything all at once. You said time slowed around you (or around that) is it entirly possible that you yourself weren't noticing things at full speed or staying on tract of what was going on? Maybe when you saw the pebble you started to loose the world again (that's what the light is right? death coming toward you?) Then a fireman or police officer walked in front of the gravel and you were thrown back into the world.
I deal with staying in character a lot, and it's hard. People say I make faces when I write. Like if I want to know what the expression I need looks like I try it on. Try imagining yourself in that exact senario and see where your mind goes, but you need to think vividly so remember the exact scene then narrow it down to what your character should be noticing in their current state.
Peace out,
~Willow C.
Thank you for taking the time to review my piece
thank you for taking the time to respond
Hey Emjay!
You know, as I keep returning to your works, I realize I might have someone to put into my favorite YWS members folder. Namely, you.
I love how you manage to write so much emotion within such short scenes. So far, all I have read from you have been powerful as well as food for thought. This is no exception.
Despite its lenght, this sticks with me a lot more then other pieces, works that I'm invested in do. I don't know what it takes to do that, but this is one of those moments. Throughout the story, you use excellent descriptions of what is happening around your character and how he thinks.
As I'm writing this, I originally weren't going for a review. I just had to comment on how fantastic I thought this was. But as I did so, I noticed a couple of things I would have changed. I'll quickly go over them:
This repeats maybe a couple of times too many.
This is mainly what I would have changed. I would remove this entire paragraph. If you do this, then your ending line will have a lot more punch and emotion.
As with the rest of the story, I just have to comment on how much I love your descriptions. This is so good.
limb, meaning appendage, goes for body parts. Most likely arms or legs. I realize he might only see a part of her, but I'd just remove the 'limb' and rather say he sees her beside him.
As we read through this story, we are already reading his thoughts. Having this in italics breaks that aspect.
Again, so good.
This line is nothing short of amazing. I love it. Its a perfect way to end the short, and it duals great as the title of the piece.
Looking forward to more from you, Emjay!
Cheers
Birkhoff
hey.
so I think you have a strong sense of voice in this story. you know how people say stuff like, "I could really hear so and so speaking to me", well that's what you have in this story. the problem, however, is that there was very little specificity in this story. voice without specificity is like a car without gas, or an acetylene cutting torch without an oxygen tank. you know? a Volvo brand L150E front-loader without fork and bucket attachments. it's there and it's powerful but it can't get the job done on its own.
when your narrator sees (his?) sister's arm we need to see some detail on it that makes it different from all the other arms of the world. and that detail should lead into a memory about life before the accident, thereby reminding the reader what's at stake. maybe he sees the arm and recognizes the tortoise tattoo on her wrist after her mother expressly forbid her to do so. you know, something like that.
that's all I got, really. nice work.
Wow!! emjayc, that was amazing!
I love it! You have done an amazing job of writing this!! It is sad, but there doesn't seem to be any sadness in the piece of writing at all! What I do feel is a sort of ... not contentment ... hang on, the word will come to me soon ... an acceptance of fate? Best I could come up with right now, sorry
I was a little confused though. If the light can only be seen by the dead, then wouldn't that make the main character dead? Yet they were reaching out to their sister. Was their sister dead as well? I'd think so because "Her dead hand hung loosely over the stretcher."
But hey, just my opinion. But this is undoubtedly an amazing piece of writing! Love it
Sage
I meant if you see the light you eventually die. Does that make a little more sense?
And I can see how you are a bit confused about the sister. I wrote this nearly two years ago and when I went back and read it even I was slightly confused. The sister is dead, but the narrator has conflicting thoughts of wanting their sister to be alive.
Aaah ok, yes, makes more sense.
I still love it, though!!
This was achingly beautiful. I love your description so much! Honestly I would give you a review but there isn't much to review and partially because I don't believe in reviewing, people should have the freedom to write whatever way they want to.
I'm going to do 2 things right now: 1. Congratulate you for making me cry (that doesn't happen often) and go look up some more of your work!
Such an amazing piece. Keep writing!
Thank you so much for such an encouraging comment!