A lonely procession of foot steps echoed down the street. The night had calmed down to nothing more than empty streets and somber shadows. A man staggered silently with a girl following loosely behind, her silhouette bounced obediently by his side.
“Do we have to go far?” The tone in her voice had a bratty taint and lolled in an unintelligent way.
“No.” The one solemn word came from his mouth in a labored breath.
The man’s skin had taken a pale hue. The moonlight had done it’s part but anemia took the color from his body. Thick clots of blood filled in the spaces between his toes. At first it had brought a warm comfort, but had long since turned cold and insatiably sticky.
“I’m going to need some extra scratch for all this.” The girl’s youth was apparent and the man was grateful he couldn’t see the wanton greed in her eyes.
He simply said nothing as he retrieved a wad of ratty bills from his pocket.
“So?” She asked impatiently.
He balled the loose dollars tightly and hurled them over his shoulder.
“If you’re gonna be a dick I’ll just leave!”
“I’m not going to stop you.” His voice was ragged but didn’t falter.
The man heard the young street walker’s foot steps die, her shadow ceased to keep pace with his. He didn’t stop, didn’t look back, just kept going. Blood was still pouring furiously from a deep wound in his thigh. There was no way he could afford to stop. The only comfort was the dense spot of trees just a few blocks away.
When he had made it he found a strong, healthy oak and began to dig at it’s roots.
“Is this where you want it?” The familiar bratty voice filled his ears but carried a different tone in it.
“Help me, I’m starting to get tired.” He stared at her with pleading eyes and went back to digging.
He could feel her eyes, her quizzical expression without even looking at her again. A few silences pass before she began scooping loose earth away in her track marked arms.
“What’s this all about? Are you going to bury me out here or somethin?” She let a nervous laugh slip as the hole became a trench.
“It’s for me.” He pulled the rest of the money from his pockets and tossed them to her side of the hole.
The girl reached for them but stopped when she saw they were crimson soaked. She stared at him as he dug and noticed how matted his worn jeans had become with blood.
“Oh my god are you alright?
“I will be.” His vision had already begun to fade but he felt no fear.
“ can call 911 or something.” Her voice had become shaky and panicked.
“Once this hole’s done with get yourself some help,” He said with slow breaths, “I been a bad man most my life, this is too good for me.”
They had stopped talking as they dug. One had become sad, the other finally at peace. The man slumped against the tree, he didn’t expect the young tramp to continue as he embraced death. From some deep enigmatic emotion a tear was shed for a man buried shallowly in the ground,a single bouquet of wild flowers placed obediently.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,856 Reviews
I reread the first couple lines a few times, then I saw Krzyh's suggestion to switch them, and thought, "Genius!" It's just that
1) the first line is so specific and then in the second line we're pulled away to the general description and
2) Both sentences on their own, are good. But as soon as we have the "lonely procession of footsteps echoing" we immediately picture an empty, dark, and calm street, thereby nullifying the need for the second sentence. So if you want to keep the "The night had calmed..." sentence, it needs to go first so you don't give away too much too early.
Only once or twice do you ever say "'Dialogue,' he said." You could stand to use it more. Just a little more, enough to give us direction without having to move into another sentence to figure out who was speaking.
Also, I'm not a fan at all of "lolled in an unintelligent way."
1) Lolling is a physical movement, not used for speech cadence. There are many other better words to describe cadence, like the similar "droll." Loll sounds more like her words are spilling out of her mouth with no muscles (like a tongue lolling from a dead man's mouth).
2) "In an unintelligent way" is a vague, insubstantial description. Do you mean a southern accent? Ebonics? Country? G-Dropping? Valley girl? Bahston akcent (pahk ya cah)? Be more specific so we can hear it. Unintelligent makes me think of those big, loafing, comic-relief henchmen in movies.
Shorten to "The solemn word came in a labored breath." The "one" is irrelevant because we know how many words it was and the use of "word" emphasizes it nicely on its own. And we don't need to be told that it came from his mouth.
Where "insatiable" means "impossible to satisfy." So things that demand other things can be insatiable, but insatiable does not describe an object you find unsatisfying.
Very strange wording. What does youth have to do with wanting money? And the line about the greed...so he's obviously aware it's there. But the very act of seeing it would...what? The structure and meaning is so abnormal, but it doesn't actually seem to mean anything.
"So?" she asked--That's the proper grammar and capitalization for dialogue. Examples (observe the difference in capitalization and punctuation):
"...get yourself some help,” he said. <--in your story farther down, fix it.
"Get out of my way!" she screamed.
"I don't like this." His voice quivered.
"Where are we going?" They walked for ten days.
When did they go from being a wad to a loose collection? And you can't really "hurl" money; it neither goes very far nor does it take a whole lot of effort. You hurl shot puts.
Comma. "If you're a dick, I'll leave."
Footsteps. And maybe "die out?" Or "fade away?" Footsteps retreating into the distance don't just die.
If that verb and adverb are correct, he'd be dead in half a minute. "Pouring furiously" is just way too strong a description for a guy who has time to solicit a prostitute, walk a few blocks, and dig a good portion of a hole.
You can't just not tell us what happened, why he's bleeding, why he needs to go to these trees, why he's a bad person, etc etc. Unless this is just a simple exercise, this short story is far too short and without context or meaning. Let us understand who the man is, what he does, why he does it.
Lose the "had." The past perfect tense is used usually to make a point about a sequence of events.
"I wanted to explode because I had eaten ten hamburgers."
"I had studied Latin for nothing; no one spoke it in Latin America."
"I had eaten." (before now)
But not:
"I had punched the wall."
"I had blinked."
Past perfect is no excuse to simply spice up past tense. It's used to make a point about two points in time, to emphasize that one had bearing on another outside of "this one occurred and then that one occurred."
And that tone is....?
You can't just say things and let us guess whatever we want. Show us, guide us, and take us along for a ride.
How many silences? At what point does "a silence" end and another begin? In short, rephrase.
Holes take a long time to dig. Especially with your hands. If it were this easy (that a guy bleeding to death and a nervous hooker can do it with their hands), ditchdigging with shovels would be a breeze. Even a 50''x30''x6'' cavity in the ground is quite the undertaking with your hands.
Again, you can't just ask us to believe it. Show us somehow.
You're going to need to tell us that he dies, as we might interpret him as embracing death before he actually dies (y'know, embracing the concept of dying).
And you need to give us a separate paragraph, and tell us who's crying and where these wild flowers came from. After we've read the whole sentence, we can backtrack and figure it out. But this is your last sentence. You want us to be captivated. You want us to be in the zone. But instead, we have to read
"[He died, maybe]. From some deep enigmatic emotion (whose emotion? What emotion?) a tear was shed (by whom?) for a man buried shallowly in the ground (ohh, he's dead now), a single bouquet of wildflowers (one word) placed obediently (by...the street walker? Maybe a friend who found his grave or something? And why obediently? Did he instruct someone to leave him wildflowers?)"
So there ya go. Lemme know if you have questions.
Hey sheperd
This is interesting, though not strictly captivating. Usually short stories have something to say, and all I can read into this one is one person on the street helping another rest, which in a way is a...nice thought.
Your grammar seems fine, so I won't go too far into that.
'lolled in an unintelligent way' doesn't seem to flow right, it sticks in my head as being an odd sentence, so consider rewording? Maybe 'Lolled with unintelligence'? 'Lolled unintellectually'? I don't know, experiment and see what you can come up with.
Apostrophes are hard. That's why, instead of struggling to explain, I would suggest you would read this awesome article. It explains apostrophes better than I ever could.
I think you are missing an 'I'
Overall, I would suggest you just add some details, some description. How did the air taste? Was he cold? Did his hands shake, or were they steady? What were the sounds, the sights, the smells, was his heart pumping fast or slowing due to lack of blood? These are all the little details that brings a story to life.
However, you have a solid story here, and I cannot find much to fault with it, so awesome!
PM me if you need anything.
-Nutty
Hey Sheperd,
I'm going to review this piece for you today.
I am not the best when it comes to grammar and punctuation so I will leave that alone and let someone else handle it. I would like to say that this was an interesting story to read and really pulled me in. It felt like I was reading something written by Frank Miller.
Alright down to business.
First thing I would suggest is to switch these two sentences around. I can see what you're trying to do but the way you have phrased it make it seem a bit odd to read.
This line I do like but I would replace had made it because it just doesn't go with the flow of the story. I kind of stopped right there when reading it and had to reread it and make it work.
I don't know if you wanted to do this but it seems like you forgot to the "I" in this sentence.
This part I would add a break between "With" and "get" that way the reader can tell that he his telling her two different things to do.
Overall it is a good story I would like to see why the man has a large wound in his thigh and what he has done. You could very easily write an entire story about this character and events that lead up to his death at the foot of the Oak tree.