The Adjuvant
1
The man lay in the midst of some woods in a ball clenched to his knees, shivering as his body suffered from being bare to the world. The darkness around him imposed a much greater fear than the one of freezing to death, so the man, though cold and confused as to why he continued to wake in these woods, remained coiled until the sun made light over his pasty white body. It was then that he decided to stand erect and glance around at the tall trees; trees that he had seen every night for the past month or so. The leaves beneath his feet were hardened and made noises as he stepped across them in slow, heavy footsteps toward the direction of his home.
The woods where he would awaken were located only a few miles from there and opened into his backyard. When he finally stumbled, fatigued and skinny, into his backyard like a pink skeleton, he noticed that the back door of his home was opened wide. Any average person experiencing this sort of peculiar event would most likely call the police, and in reference to his rare case, see a doctor, or someone who could explain, why, during every night for a month over, he continued to find himself nude in the depths of the woods. But he had made his case many times before and all had said that it was a minor to severe case of sleepwalking.
Then explain me being naked, he would say. And each would have a rehearsed explanation. Why is it in the same place every night? They would then try to inquire information about his past life and try with great eagerness to connect it to the woods. But there was no connection, you see? Just a strange row of days in which this ordinary man, James Clarke, found himself in the woods naked with no recollection of the previous night, but, surprisingly enough memory to withhold the events of the previous morning and afternoon. After securing himself in his home, he looked around the kitchen and oddly gave no reaction to the room that could now be considered a mess. The refrigerator door was ajar and seemed to be exhausted from being open for some time; the light flickering and the body moaning.
He made his way to the shower, tracking dirt onto the carpet as he dragged his tired barefeet. Usually, or at least before the past month, his bathroom during the morning hours would be messy and compact with his clothing. But subsequent those days, considering his nude arrival, the bathroom was spotless and bare with only a mirror above a sink, a toilet, a cabinet of Men’s products, and a bathtub. In short time, the small room filled with steam as the water ran down into the drain, brown and with moderately sized chunks of dirt drowning through the small, V-shaped holes designed for water escape. And as the hot water washed down nearing the conclusion to his shower, he began to shake.
At first, the shaking was mild and subtle, like one does in the cold. But after some minutes had passed, the shaking became violent and brutal, like a seizure (although I have never witnessed a seizure in person, I have seen examples and they all seem to be very uncomfortable). His head faced upwards with great stiffness, held in place by the bulging veins throughout his neck. A bubbling, white substance began to pour from his mouth, then soon after, from his ears, eyes, and nose. Then his body stopped sudden, as a deer does when alerted.
“No,” his lips parted and out came a deep, fast moving voice. “He is busy. He is tired. Let him rest. Yes. Let him rest. 10 days is not long. Not long. Let him rest.”
Quickly, regaining his body, he fell to the acrylic bottom of the tub and began to expel his insides until the orange fluid completely washed away, along with the white foam that formerly excreted from his holes. For the next half an hour or so, he curled into a familiar state and wept heavily with the drops of water pinning to his body like a rainy night in those woods.Points:
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Canary word: Present
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Interesting piece. I like your extended descriptions -- particularly your description of the bathroom. The imagery you used helped to paint a scene and put the situation in deeper context at the same time.
However, the opening seemed slow, and I think it's because there was too much description. For example, saying ", shivering as his body suffered from being bare to the world" is unnecessary as you later demonstrate both; the shivering from being clenched in a ball and describing the cold night, and the bareness from his "white, pasty skin," and later when you explicitly state he was naked.
The ending also came on somewhat sudden. It was a bit of a shock, to say the least, when he started to expel his insides. That part is fine, but then it just ends.
Imagine your story like a rollercoaster. You were building it up, but then just as you reach the apex, the rollercoaster suddenly fell through the tracks and plummeted toward the ground below. Consider adding more description following the expelling of insides to give your reader some time to digest the information.
Well - you can say that I'm most definitely intrigued! I haven't read anything like this on here before!
I'm very interested as to why he's ending up blacked out in the forest every night. I'm also wanting to know who spoke through his own lips! You dragged me straight into the action and took me somewhere where I never thought I would end up. Something new!! How refreshing!
The only niggly things I noticed were these lines:
"Any average person experiencing this sort of peculiar event would most likely call the police, and in reference to his rare case, see a doctor, or someone who could explain, why, during every night for a month over, he continued to find himself nude in the depths of the woods."
"But subsequent those days, considering his nude arrival, the bathroom was spotless and bare with only a mirror above a sink, a toilet, a cabinet of Men’s products, and a bathtub."
I feel that these may be too long and I found myself wanting to stop even though you wouldn't let me.
Good luck! I'm excited to read more! Feel free to look at any of my work in the future
BYE!
Hi Antonio! Here to review your story
What I liked about this is that the pacing was pretty good, you seemed to have varied sentence lengths which is great! And the language you used was very nice. Also, I must agree with the other reviewers in saying it's a very interesting idea! Not necessarily something I've seen before. It wasn't always executed very well, so I'll talk more about that now.
Basically, sometimes I felt that it was pretty unclear what was going on. What confused me quite a lot is one minute the man is in a field, and the next he's taking a shower? If you did in fact explain that I didn't quite get it, so try and be a bit more clearer next time. I mean, you had quite nice descriptions, but when it came to actually telling the story it wasn't up to par. So, just something to think about
Now, I think there is space for a bit of character development. I mean we don't really know who this guy is and I'd like to know more. I appreciate that you perhaps want to leave some thing untold for now, but I feel that too many questions are raised not to say something. So, maybe even just describe his physical appearance a bit more. Anything that will help the reader understand more about who he actually is.
Overall, this was good. Like I said before, you had some interesting ideas and I commend your imagery so well done! Next time, try and not make things so unclear, and really focus on telling the story. I hope this review helped, PM me with questions or if you'd like another review.
Keep Writing!
-Arc x
I smell what you're stepping in here. However, I feel that you need to expand more on the idea. You have a great base to a longer story. Also, I would re-read through it a few more times and fix some grammatical errors. This is mainly with your commas and quotations (we all hate fixing them, I know). As always, good luck to you and your writing.
Yeah it's going to be a longer story! Thanks for the suggestions.
Hi there!
*the first comma isn't needed here. The second one definitely is, but not the first one. And I'm not so sure about the part I put in bold. I understand that he's naked and all that (at least I think that's why he's shivering...) but isn't there another way you could express that? I don't know, just something about that part doesn't sound right to me. And I don't think the part about him being close to home helps anything. Since this is the first line of your story, you want it to be a little mysterious and not give away much. That way readers will want to continue on. If you just come out and say that he's near home, it takes a certain something away from the story. I'd suggest leaving that out and slip it in later, like when he exits the woods in his backyard or something.
*I don't think you should use an exact number here. You could say instead, "trees that he had seen every night for nearly a month now". Something like that. It just sounds better.
*so I really like this line. There's some great imagery in this and you described the situation well. This is my favorite part of the entire story, mainly because of how you wrote it. I just really like this line. Did I mention that I like this line? ^-^
*okay, so this is a big no-no in the writing world. Unless the "I" is the narrator here, never, ever speak as the writer. It takes from everything you've built up. Here you're creating this world, this character, this situation. And the reader is eating it up! They're buying into this world, getting to know the character, feeling bad when they screw up and cheering when their plans come out successful. But then you add your own voice. Gone; all of that is gone. The reader is pulled back into reality, drawn away from the world you've created. So cut out the "I say" and just leave it at "Any average person experiencing..."
*Sheesh, sorry for the lecture :/ I'm very passionate when it comes to writing and I can get carried away at times. Like now apparently.
Overall this is a good story. It's very interesting because I'm still not sure what it's exactly about. But that's good, really, because you've left me thinking about it. Even as I'm typing this review, the story is nagging at my mind. I really want to understand! Who is this man? Why exactly is he in the woods every night like this? What is the orange stuff he's puking up? And what's made him this way? I'm left with so many questions that may never go answered. But the important thing is that I'm still thinking about your story.
I like the way you wrote this. It's very descriptive. I could see everything in my mind as I was reading. Good job with that. I don't see any grammar or spelling mistakes. Your character is well developed as well. There is almost nothing I know about him, but that's fine because I don't need to know what he looks like or where he lives. All I need to know is that he turns up in the woods every night and then comes home and showers like this.
Great job overall. There are just a few things I think you can change, but for the majority I think it's great.
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Thanks Noelle! Great review, honestly! The lecture was something I actually didn't know haha so that seriously helped! Thanks again and I didn't mean to put this under the category of short story .___. It's the first chapter to a novel!
This story was very interesting. To my extent of story knowledge I think it was really good.
Ok some positive comments:
Most stories that I read that are meant to be freaky or something usually don't freak me out. But this one managed to get me a bit freaked out! So congrats!
It also seemed to have potential this story so yeah, it's always good to have that.
Now negative comments:
At times I got a bit bored and I just really wanted to stop reading so you might want to work on the interesting factor or whatever you call it.
Last one!
Sometimes the story didn't make any sense. It all just started to get jumbled up in my head which is not a good.
So yeah! Keep it up though!
Thanks for the review! I tell you, it's tough to keep the story entertaining all the way, but hey, that's my job so thanks for pointing that out! And as far as it being confusing, I'll look at it again and edit to see if I can clear some things up. It's totally my fault that I labeled this a short story. It's a novel and I explain everything in the next chapters!