Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: This was an interesting story. I adore that ending, but the setup has a few things that need a little touch of streamlining before they can fully work. Otherwise, I think you've done a great job here. I just still can't get over how perfect that ending was.
Anyway let's get right to it,
John was bored, and his grandparents wanted him to visit them on Mars, so he got into the teleporting machine. A few minutes later he was on Mars. In order to go to Mars because there were too many people on earth, people invented the space shot. The shot lets you breathe, even if there is no air. The needle is so big, so the shot hurts a lot.
The effects of the shot only last a week, unless you get the permanent shot, but the permanent shot makes you unable to touch oxygen, so you can’t go back to earth. That's why John usually never visits his grandpa. But John has nothing better to do, and he wants to see the new dog his grandparents got. After getting the giant shot, he rents a hover car. Mars was much redder than he remembered.
“A few years ago wasn’t it dark red, why is it bright red now?”
Okayy...interesting start here. It's a little heavy on the needle based exposition but considering this is science fiction and that's often kind of necessary especially for a short story, I'm willing to let that slide for now. We're off to a half decent start I think. Also love that tiny sense of mystery with Mars' color being darker for some random reason.
A
s he continued to drive, he noticed a lot of other things like, the houses were much bigger, the streets were much wider, and the people were a lot fatter. Finally, he got to his grandparents house. The house was also giant, and weirder. “It looks as if they dropped another house on top of the house, it isn't even connected very well.”
As John walked towards the house, he also noticed that some of the bushes were shaped like dogs. Right when he was about to knock, the door opened. John's grandpa, Jude, was at the door smiling, “Welcome, John! Come in and go to sleep. Why did you come at 1am?”
John didn’t notice, but it took him 5 hours to get to his grandparent’s house because he took a lot of detours to explore the new things on Mars. John went into the house, but he could not see anything because all the lights were off. After setting up all his stuff, he fell asleep.
Little fast on the transitions there. The house description is appropriately wacky and and a fun image for something in the humor category, but this just kind of flashed right past John's arrival to him just sleeping and I feel like that's just going a little bit too fast here.
John remembered the old ones. They were the plainest plates there were. White, plastic plates with no design. Then John looked at the new plates, they had flowers and a bunny in the middle. But as he was moving around the food, John noticed a film-like substance on his plate, and asked, "Are these plates clean?"
His grandpa replied, "They're as clean as cold water can get them. Just go ahead and finish your meal."
“Seriously, grandpa? How do I eat my favorite food if it’s covered in slimy stuff.”
John kept eating, but there was so much slimy stuff, it felt like he ate slime. John said “I'm going to throw up!”
OKayy..not entirely sure where this is going...sounds like this grandfather's place isn't a particularly clean place if that's how the food is prepared. If the food is like that, I don't want to imagine what kind of slimy stuff could possibly be present in the toilet....well well, off to an interesting start already in this house.
“Why are you choking yourself, John?” his grandfather said. His cheeks puffed up, but after a few seconds, he went back to normal. As John was walking towards the garbage to throw the food away, his grandpa stopped him, “Don’t you know there are many kids that don’t have enough food to eat on Mars? Imagine if you were one of them, would you throw food away?”
“But…”
“No buts”
John continued to eat very slowly, trying his hardest not to get any of the slime, but he had to eat all of the food, and some of it was covered in the slime stuff. Why do I have to eat this food? Can't grandpa see that there’s slimy stuff on the plate?
“Is my cooking that bad? I thought bacon and eggs were your favorite.”
Hmm, first moment of slightly genuine humor, still not really the funniest considering he's being forced to eat something that's not just horribly tasting but also probably bad for his health. A little concerning here at the start...hopefully we get some good humor soon, this is in the humor category after all.
“Yeah…. I guess I’m just not that hungry. It was probably the long trip, all that space travel upsets my stomach. Remember how sick I got when we went to Neptune last year?” John tried to hide his grimaces as he took his last few bites. “I’ll be ok, Grandpa. I think I’ll just go to bed.” He hoped his grandfather didn’t hear the raspy disgust in his voice.
“Well, I hope a good night’s rest will make you feel better. I’ll make sure to give your plate 5 extra minutes of cold water tonight.”
John went to bed. After finally finishing the breakfast, and almost throwing up he was tired.
For lunch, Grandpa made hamburgers. Again, John was concerned about the plates, as he appeared to have dark yellow streaks. Is that dried egg? Grandpa, what are you doing to me? "Are you sure these plates are clean?" he asked.
Okayy...well this is continuing with the food, the excuses there and stuff are coming across as a nice sort of awkward conversation here between these two rather than anything else....well, let's hope this isn't going to simply continue with the whole horrible dishes thing cause that could get old fast.
John didn’t want to eat anything that touched the dried egg, so he took away the bottom piece of bread and only ate the top part. He glanced at his grandfather, who had begun sweeping the floor. It was already clean. There was only one crumb on the shiny green tiles, and John couldn’t figure out how his grandfather could have such a clean floor and such dirty plates. John didn’t trust his grandparents any more. He was going to be leaving before dinner, but he needed an excuse.
John walked up to his grandpa “Hi grandpa, I need to leave right now because there is an emergency that happened on earth. I planned to stay longer, but I need to go. Bye!” John was hoping that his grandpa wouldn’t ask about the emergency because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
That sounds like a brilliant idea by John there, considering how this place was shaping up with those plates, getting as far away from it as humanly possible is the smartest thing to do here...now perhaps we can have some proper humor here.
John's grandmother was walking by and overheard their conversation “Don’t ask John about stuff he might not want to talk about, Jude. Now go keep cleaning the floors! Don’t make me do all the work.”
John was so relieved that his grandma was home from her shopping trip. As John walked out the door with his suitcase, his grandpa's dog was outside growling at him and wouldn't let him pass.
John said, "Grandpa, your dog won't let me get by!"
Hmm, well that was a rather lucky escape there, it seems his grandmother cares a little more for his privacy and hopefully general health as well, although this new dog might end up becoming a bit of a problem from the looks of things.
John was frozen. If he moved at all, the dog would pouce at him. When is grandpa going to get here? He slowly picked his leg off the ground, staring at the dog intently with his eyes wide open, not even blinking, so he could react if it did anything. Slowly, he pulled his leg back into the house and set it down. The dog was still motionless which made John even more scared.
John kept backing up and backing up until he felt safer. He turned right towards the kitchen and saw his plate still on the table. He was still wondering about the plates. How is it possible for these plates to be dirty? Grandpa said he gave them TEN extra minutesof cold water, that's so weird. “Where are you grandpa! Help me get past your dog!”
Grandpa slowly came down the stairs with his eyes barely open. Oh, so grandpa was taking a nap. No wonder he took so long.
Grandpa yelled to the dog, "Cold Water, go lie down!"
John’s stomach started growling, and he ran outside to the bushes next to his car.
Ooooh, love that punchline though. I totally didn't see that coming and as disgusting as the plate descriptions were, this is an awesome little reveal here. Ahhh, this entire story just comes off looking much much better now...that line at the end definitely saved the entire plot here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, this was a really fun read. For what it was meant to do, I think it managed to justice. It just needs a teeny bit of ironing out in a couple of places but its pretty good as it is.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
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Reviews: 4093
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