and the snow is falling up into the sky

July 6, 2018
Short Story: Realistic, Mystery / Suspense
4 comments (4 reviews)

The garage is dark and silent, the door wide open. Jack can see a thin slice of the night sky, and it is more of a rich, dark blue than anything else, embellished by a scatter of stars. A tree sways in the wind, seems to whisper gentle words.

Jack sits in the car and stares at a small brown stain on the windshield. He knows that his mother would be livid if he took the car out at this hour - at least one hour past midnight. Even aside from that, there's the broken car door. He's not sure what had actually happened, but he does not want to go and investigate, so the passenger seat will have to remain inaccessible for a couple days.

However, if Jack damages the car any further, he would probably be grounded until he graduates high school, maybe even longer. His father treats the car like his own child.

Two good reasons to not take the car out.

"What are we just sitting here for?" Ben laughs beside him. Jack's fingers jump, his heart taps out a couple extra beats, then he settles down.

Jack glances over at Ben, and finds himself looking at a near-perfect copy of himself. His twin brother grins and taps out a quick rhythm on his knees with his fingers.

"Let's go!" Ben sings.

Jack's brain gives a little head shake and frowns, but he finds his mouth forming the words, "Alright, where to?"

"To my favorite pancake place, of course!" comes the exclamation. "Some pancakes for me, waffles for you."

Pancakes and waffles. Jack nearly smiles. Of course Ben would want pancakes and waffles at this hour - never mind the fact that the restaurant had probably closed for the day hours ago.

"You know," he starts, turning to face Ben again. The passenger seat is empty.

Jack reaches out and feels the leather on the seat, where Ben had been just moments ago, where Ben always sits. Cold.

Blinking, he opens the door and steps out of the car, and his feet take him around the car and to the passenger seat door. It's almost completely crushed. A huge crater, and the car is the moon.

The moon. Jack turns and walks to the open garage door. When he tips his head back to look at the sky, some of the rain splashes his face. The curtains of rain hammer the ground and when he reaches his hand outside, it returns wet.

After a moment, he closes the garage door and walks back to the car. He takes another look at the little reddish-brown stain on the windshield. There's more of them near the ugly crater. For a second, he wonders how they had even gotten on the car, but he knows that he's definitely letting Ben clean it up tomorrow.

Jack turns off the garage lights and walks back upstairs.

Comments

Points: 15630
Reviews: 364

Donate

Sat Aug 11, 2018 12:47 am

zaminami wrote a review...

Yo! I don't know what to call you, and I don't know if I should call you angel since i'm a demon lmao

Also, your profile pic is fabulous oh my gosh!

Anyways.

So I absolutely disagree with the reviewer below in that this is choppy. It flows really well! Also, the writing is absolutely exceptional. Definitely better than mine lmao.

There are also most definitely a few grammar issues. First of all, whenever you use dashes, you, instead of doing this:

oof - roasted.

you do this! :

oof--roasted

I didn't know this until two months ago either so you be good lol

The ending really took me off guard. I assume that Ben is dead from a car accident and that Jack is suffering from a form of schizophrenia because of it? I did really like it. It was subtle enough that it'll take a few reads to figure it out but just enough obvious at the same time!

I also think that this would benefit enourmasly if you make it longer, like if you make us feel more about Ben's and Jack's relationship. I get that you wanted to make it short and sweet, but maybe include a few things that imply that Jack and Ben were extremely close and to make you get more attached to Ben before the twist at the end!

I loved it! Keep up the great work! If you do revise this, tag me next time!

Have a fantabulous day!

This review was brought to you by zaminami

{insert non-existant banner image here}

mephistophelesangel says...

Thanks%u2014you%u2019re the only one who realized what%u2019s actually happening in the story

zaminami says...

lol really??? it was just a wild guess based off of the fact that i write about schizo all the time lol

Points: 29
Reviews: 11

Donate

Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:11 am

vannilawriter wrote a review...

You took a well overdone premise and really breathed life into it with this one. I enjoyed this immensely and am definitely going to read more of your work after seeing this short.

That being said i do have few notes I would like to share:

the story really seems choppy. While a story should easily flow, with each idea being expressed and then moving to the next. This story feels impersonal with its wording. I often run into this problem myself and as far as i have experienced it usually comes from either a change in tone or an overuse of names. This time i feel it is the latter. When you use the name of your characters too often it can often read as something jolting, as if every sentence is something entirely new and not one action flowing into the next.

Also in the beginning the way you set up the imagery reads as somewhat forced. It seems as though you are listing off characteristics instead of describing them naturally as your character sees them. It helps to put yourself in your character mind and to think of how you would normally experience the world around you.

Finally I want to bring up the style of writing this is done in. Details and imagery are incredibly important in writing, but when used with a heavy hand beautiful poetic language can pull from the beauty and the tone of the story. I feel that this is one of those cases where some blunt wording would better improve how the reader experiences your world.

thank you for creating amazing content and please keep writing because you are obviously very talented.

Points: 392
Reviews: 9

Donate

Sun Jul 08, 2018 1:40 pm

Chase7 wrote a review...

Hey mephistophelesangel!

FIRST THINGS THINGS FIRST, you are naturally amazing at writing. I love the way the contrasted each each character. The insecurities, fears, and nervousness of Jack and Ben who seems to be the fun, outgoing, a little childish kid. Even though they are twins they are completely different. Just the description in the beginning shows how amazing the story already is.

I only have a problem with one sentence which i would reconstruct to fit in with your writing.

"A tree sways in the wind, seems to whisper gentle words."

I would change it to:

"A tree whispers gentle words as it sways in the wind."

Apart from that i completely loved and enjoyed it. The way you compared the dent to the car to a crater and the car as a moon was interesting. This is another great piece I've read and i hope you write more that i can read

Great readings
Chase

Points: 246
Reviews: 415

Donate

Sat Jul 07, 2018 2:15 pm

Eros wrote a review...

Hey there, mephistophelesangel!!

This is Eros here with a review for you!!

The title just caught my attention. It had a mystery in the title and I was like, Oh my God I just want to read it. I was filled with curiosity. I live this feeling that I got.

Now into the content. The theme of the story was a completely unique. I like the way you have described everything here. Especially loved the very first paragraph,

The garage is dark and silent, the door wide open. Jack can see a thin slice of the night sky, and it is more of a rich, dark blue than anything else, embellished by a scatter of stars. A tree sways in the wind, seems to whisper gentle words.

I loved the whole piece. No grammatical errors or tense mistakes. I personally find it hard. But after reading this little short story, I got to learn it.

Reading is not just for entertainment you know. We get to learn many things when we read. And I got to learn the tense part from here. I like the theme of the story as I said.

The choice of set of the words is also superb. The characters seem very realistic. Loved the piece. Superb.

Keep writing such awesome and amazing stuff and we would love to keep reading and reviewing them !

~Eros.

Young Writers Society

and the snow is falling up into the sky

Comments

Sponsors

About / Info

Forums & RPG

Literary

Resources