I tried to pretend that he was dead. That seemed like the easiest method to get over him; I mean, holding on to someone who’s buried six feet beneath the ground is much harder than holding on to someone who’s one plane-ride and apology away. I thought about how competitive we always were, how he always had to beat me at whatever it was that we were doing. I thought about how annoying he was when he teased me. How brutally honest. How fragile he was. This would be easy. Two days from now, I wouldn’t even be thinking about him.
Two months later, I tried again to pretend that he was dead. I imagined going to his funeral, standing before a mourning procession and going on about how I had once been his best friend, then (momentarily) his girlfriend, and how countless nights had been spent awake with the tears rolling down my face as I concluded that I would never see him again. I imagined seeing him cradled in a coffin, his messy brown hair making him look boyish in a suit. I imagined being sad, but this part was less imagined than the rest. Two weeks, I told myself, and you won’t even be thinking about him. Because there’s no point in holding on to someone who’s gone.
Another two months past and he sent me a letter, and I tried to pretend that he was dead. I didn’t read it. I tucked it into my Catch-22 novel that was sitting on my bed stand, unopened, and pretended that the scribbly handwriting of my name was actually in his dad’s hand, and that the letter was a thank-you for attending the funeral and preparing such a nice eulogy. I imagined his father calling me to ask me if I’d loved his son as much as his son had loved me. To which I would answer a consoling yes. Then I would tell him that it wasn’t that way anymore, that I hadn’t loved him for a while, because loving someone like his son was just too complicated when I was someone like me. And he would say “Okay,” and then sadly murmur a goodbye. Having already gotten over him, I would only hear the ringing of a dial-tone for a few seconds before I put it down.
Six months passed and the letters stopped coming. I imagined going into a psychiatrist’s office and sitting down on a comfortable leather chair, and it would be there that I would vent my feelings for the boy who died. She would ask me if he was a friend, and I wouldn’t know how to answer. A few months ago and I would’ve said he was my best friend and maybe even more, and I supposed that that’s the irony – the strongest feelings fade the fastest. I was ready to let go. I wanted to – honestly, I did. The psychiatrist would tell me to find someone else, and I would try and fail accordingly.
My phone rang two days later. It was his dad. The words were of the fragile, whispered kind.
He passed away.
In a car accident.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
His father invited me to the funeral, and I went. I wore a black silk dress that made me think of all the times he’d teased me for my lack of a chest or hips, and for my scrawny legs and noodle-arms. I imagined maggots. I imagined them tearing through his pale lifeless flesh and burrowing into the marrow of his bones and breeding more maggots and all of those maggots had my name because he’d always said that I would destroy him, and he was always right about those kinds of things. I spoke a stumbled eulogy. I went to therapy. I imagined that I had opened his letters months before, and responded with the most heartfelt apology that words could weave. I imagined that he had known why I had left him, so that maybe he wouldn’t have felt so betrayed.
I imagined that he had known that I was dying. I imagined that he’d died just to beat me to the grave.
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140,535 Literary Works • 673,405 Reviews
This is something I'd read again and again and again AND AGAIN. Oh dear God! That was beautiful- and I do love morbid things.
But really though. The plot was so intricately woven and yet simple in that it was easy to follow. I was hooked from the get-go. I just HAD to keep reading. That's good. That's very good.
I love your diction. Very beautiful indeed. IT compliments to somber tone. Like:
"The words were of the fragile, whispered kind."
It may seem very simple and an easy pass over but when you write a story- especially a short story- every detail that makes the word count greatly impacts the total effectiveness of the piece. A truth that has always left me personally displeased with my pieces.
I would go at this for grammatical errors but I shan't because this was so beautiful.
I absolutely love how even though the subplots were shifting/different the common thread as well as the consistent mood tied it all so well together.
At first glance when I saw no dialogue I was admittedly a bit skeptical but as soon as I started reading it suddenly was irrelevant and there seemed no better way to present your ideas. I could even go on literary analysis (XD) and say how the absence of a dialogue added to the mystery, suspense and even morbidness of the piece- again, a perfect fit for the theme of death(silence).
Please keep writing!! Great job!
Tears in my eyes right now....
Storeyy.. You made me cry... That's not fair at all... I'm crying... And it's all your fault!
Oh well, not like this piece needs to be glorified anymore than it already has because you should know by now that it was quite heartwrenching and awesome. Anyhows. You made me cry, so that's that.
well well well !!
this is one hell of a beautiful piece. imagery was as its best and so was the flow. save a few grammatical errors the story was heart rendering and well comprehended.
irony was one of the very minute things that made the story subtle.
there was this what-will-happen-next kind of temptation and it added one more jewel to the already diamond studded crown.
"I mean, holding on to someone who’s buried six feet beneath the ground is much harder than holding on to someone who’s one plane-ride and apology away."
^ this was simply awesome.
this made the story extra catchy and exuberant.
i must congratulate you on your endeavor.
continue the good work
This was a beautiful piece. It was very sobering and very real. I could feel the emotion within myself as I read the narrator's. I loved the situational irony. There is nothing I would urge you to edit other than a few minor grammatical errors. Fantastic work.
Besides tid bits about grammar, I would have to say this is a very well done piece. The flow was smooth and the story was easy to follow and very human.
Excellent piece. The only thing I would complain about is some of the grammar. Sometimes it would throw me off a little (but I got your message in the end). This is a very interesting piece, and I liked the twist you threw in the end--where she had left him because she was dying. Also, fantastic ending and descriptions. I look forward to your next piece.
Keep on writing.
Dragon Rider
This is really good. You are very talented!
Wow, just wow! =D
Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah! I'm still in shock as to how well-written this piece is! Absolutely, positively, adoringly, dotingly, with earnest, I saw well done on writing such a wonderful piece - you should be as proud as an Olympian's parents!
I got the sense that tension was building up as I read this piece, slowly but surely building in pace, and I thought that when the 'lover' died was when it had been reached - 'surely that was the climax' is what I thought- but no! You go and flip-the-script at the end there, well done! You genuinely had me right to the last word!
In a touch more detail I'll tell you a few things I liked disliked, but to be honest there's not much of either, the whole piece fits together so nicely that you can't really nitpick on what makes it so good (the tone is perhaps the winner there!):
"I thought about how annoying he was when he teased me. How brutally honest. How fragile he was. This would be easy. Two days from now, I wouldn’t even be thinking about him." - great use of slowing down the pace, making the impact of the words felt, at exactly the right time. The short-sentences really highlight the potency of the memories, which, obviously, is befitting of your story.
"I imagined being sad, but this part was less imagined than the rest." - the first time the latter end of this sentence was used, it had a great feeling of weight/power to it, but you use it again later, and it just faded all the potency that the first time I read it had on me. It's hard to explain, but I really felt that the repetition of this phrase ruined its original (and later) potencty: 'less is more', perhaps is what I'm trying to get at. I understand that it was probably an idiosyncracy of the protaganist, which is why you repeated it, but I really didn't feel it was so necessary - however, I'll stress that this is most likely just my personal opinion.
Again, great piece of work, probably one of the best that I've read on this site - I'm fairly new here, so bear with me. Keep writing, and I'll definately look forward to reading more
Its interesting. Nice job.
Hey there! Just something I noticed and squinted my eyes at uncertainly: "Six months past ..." (Also occurred at two months, as well) This seems a little odd to me. Like it should be "passed" because that is the time that has lapsed ... Unless "past" was intentional, and I'm just wrong ...
Now, other than that, this was beautiful. I really like the concept. Its written with a very ... sentimental kind of simplicity, one I very much like. There were a couple of passages I especially liked:
^ Just beautiful.
^ Just a gorgeous way to end it.
The one nit-pick I really have is the transition you have between his imagined death, and his actually death -- when she receives the news.
I can't say I have a particular solution for it, but I feel like it is very sudden. Like you somehow need to work into it more. Make it seem a like it follows the pattern a bit more -- like its not quite true at first, like the others. I dunno.
It's still beautiful nonetheless.
I love this. It is a really good piece.
I was absolutely captivated when i started reading, i am just marvelled.
You are seriously one of the best writers on here in my eyes. I hope to see you famous some day!:D
I can't see anything wrong here to be honest... only that it ended way too quickly!:(
I would have loved to carry on reading, but i guess having it short is a good way to have peoples attention, making them want more when they can't have it.
Truly well done.
Good luck, and i'm off to read more of your stuff.
KEEP IT UP!!!:D
I have actually felt this way about someone before - imagining that they're dead makes everything so much easier, only in real life the person is still alive and I actually do read and respond when he writes (which is rare). I should tell you, I think, that I had a feel this would end with the boy actually dying - although that last sentence was unexpected, so good job there. (And maybe it was just me, anyway - maybe I was the only one saying, "I bet he'll really die now.") The only improvement I can see is: You used "past twice" when you should have used "passed." As in, "six months passed," not "six months past."
Other than that, awesome job!
~Blue
Ok, the first sentence was why I wanted to read it(and the title)the last one made me realise that it was worth it.I would really like to have the kind of inspiration that you do, and you are only sixteen years old.To be honest, I thought that it would be a predictable story, about getting over someone, but it was kinda more, in a very good way.Your words and the way you describe things is just simple with a lot of feeling, which is something that makes them true.I was in the story myself, and I transformed into the character and without realizing it I read it out loud like I was in an audition or something.So thanks for the experience.
Greetings! I want to first say that, wow. Just.. wow. But I'll get to that later on, perhaps.
I loved how immediately, your first sentence had drawn me in, and how it already presented to us the issue at hand, the thoughts of who's view we are trying to see from and how well you kept us on hand and on topic throughout the entire piece. As it progressed, it got thicker and fuller in the plot of what had happened and how we went over it slowly almost teasingly. As I finished it up, I have to say that I most certainly fell in love with how you had to make me think over the beginning and try to connect how it connects to the concluding final sentences. It's so.. mysterious and so strong in emotion in a rather subtle way. Reading through the relationship with the boy who later died and had no name given with our point of view, it was so.. empathetic with my own feelings, and continued to pull me in. I have to admit, I had to repeat some sentences from how foreign yet familiar they seemed.
I normally hate first person, but you wrote it so well. So on topic and how the title represents the slight chill that the piece presents to us readers; I fell in love with this, truly. The images given, the flow of the words and how you crafted the word to give us such a feeling made this truly a great read. I mean.. WOW. The last sentences make us think, "what?" And rereading it to let it fully sink in.. is something that I haven't been able to do for quite a while. This was a great writing piece with its aura and changing feelings throughout really catches attention to properly read and become in awe. Amazing. Truly.
I sincerely hope to be able to get a feeling like that the next time that I find one of your pieces. Great work.
~IRI
i absolutly loved it. it almost made me want to cry
This is really amazing! Truly incredible! I imagined from the start that it was just going to be about someone getting over someone, but then that was really interesting!
It was brilliant when he actually died, and it felt like she'd caused it with her imagining.
And then the last line is just awesome. This story is so twisty and turny and interesting.
I too am a fan.
i think that the way you never told the authors name really helps the story be mysterious.
I can't say I understand the hidden meanings which you so artfully hid for one in turn, artful enough to find them. And maybe one day, someone will.
StoryWeaver, you truly are very good.
Wow, Weaver! I'm officially in awe of you. Just thought I'd say that and be on my way.
And if this piece doesn't make top story, I'll be incredibly surprised.
-Rosie
This... is simply... beautiful. Well done. I've never read something better. I'm officially a fan.
This is a great short story
I love the short story. Even the first sentence hooked me. I am now one of your biggest fans ^_^
Hello StoryWeaver,
First of all, thank you for your review. I really appreciate it.
Wow, that was amazing. I love this story! I love everything about it. I love how he really did end up dying, and how she was supposed to die. I can't even imagine how you came up with this! I do wish there was more detail about their relationship. Wow, that was just absolutly amazing. Sorry I couldn't say more, but that was brilliant!
I'll definatly be reading more of your pieces.
Thank you for posting.
That was really amazing. My favorite part was
You have definitely made a fan of me.
Wow...just...wow. That was...wow. Talk about irony. That was fantastic! I also loved the twist at the end, that she imagined that he knew she was dying, after she imagined he was dead. There are no critisms here, I can't find a single thing to critize about! And I love to critique others' work. Just...wow.