“I win again! You have got to work on your strategy Greg!” says my brother.
“I’m trying! Your boasting is not helping. I thought you were going to teach me how to play chess, not destroy me at it!” I respond. My brother Kaden and I are playing chess, he said earlier he would teach me too play.
“Seriously Gregory, I thou—“ He stops abruptly. I hear a loud alarm.
“Kaden, Greg, get in the shelter outside now!” says mommy, rushing into my room.
“But what about daddy?” I say. My Daddy is at a friend’s house, helping to fix an automobile.
“All we can do is pray that he will make it through tonight, now go!” shouts mommy. She is grabbing a moneybox from underneath a loose board in the hallway. I am running to grab my favorite stuff as well. I grab my model train I received past Christmas, my wallet, and my favorite candy. I run to mommy. As I run down the hallway I see Kaden putting his stuff in a bag. We rush out into the cold night heading for the shelter. As I go out the door with Kaden I see mom still inside, turning off the lights.
“Mommy!” I cry.
“Go, sweetie don’t wait for me!” Says Mommy.
“Gregory, lets go!” shouts my brother.
“Not without MOMMY!” I say. I am in tears now. I am stranding firm. I will not leave without mommy. Mommy is running towards us.
“GO!” She yells.
We run to the shelter. Kaden opens the doors and he goes in first. My mommy then hands me down to Kaden. Kaden sets me down on a bench, in our small shelter.
My mommy gets in and sits beside me.
“Mommy I am scared…” I say. I am only 5 and half years old. Kaden is 15 and Mommy is very old.
“What are you scared of, Honey?” says my mommy.
“I’m scared of the bombs, mama.” I cry.
It is World War II, this is the second bombing here, since the war started. A week ago there was the first bombing, after the bombing mommy told my daddy that my friend’s house was bombed and destroyed. I asked her what happened, but she said, “Your friend is gone sweetie.”. Her eyes were full of tears. I didn’t know what that meant. I still don’t. I asked her when they would be back, but she started crying even more. The next day my mommy and daddy, went somewhere in all black, but they never told me where. When they came back, both their eyes were full of tears. I told mommy, “It will be ok.” to try to cheer her up. She responded with, “Yes it will Honey, yes it will.”. She seemed like she was talking to herself more than me. Ever since that day, I knew that the bombs took my friend away. I didn’t like that bombs take my friend away, my friend never said goodbye. I asked mommy why my friend didn’t say goodbye, but mommy didn’t respond.
“Bombs are scary, but they will go away.” Says mommy. I then curled up in my mommy’s lap, and fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning, when I heard a beating n the shelter door above us.
“Mommy, wake up.’ I say to mommy sleepily.
“What is it Honey?” Yawns mommy.
“Listen mommy, listen to the door.” I say.
Mommy jumps when he hears the banging on the shelter door. She opens the shelter door, and winces as the sunlight shines into her eyes.
There was Daddy’s friend at the shelter door. He helps us all out and whispers something into Mommy’s ear and points to a man on the ground near the shelter door.
“John!” screams mommy. She holds the man’s body in her arms. The man has eyes like my daddy. He also has ears like my daddy. The man is daddy. I run over to daddy, and say, “daddy wake up it is morning.”
Daddy didn’t budge or breathe.
“Daddy, Wake up!” I say.
Daddy doesn’t move. Kaden runs to daddy and hugs him and starts crying.
“Mommy, is daddy sick?” I ask mommy.
“No, Honey.” Mommy cries. “Daddy is in a better place now.”
“Will he come back?” I say confused.
“No, Honey.” Cries mommy, she is now holding me.
“But he didn’t say goodbye.” I cry.
“He didn’t have time, Honey.” Cries mommy.
I think the bombs took Daddy away. Like they took my friend away.
“But I want daddy back.” I cry, tears streaming down my face.
“I do to, honey I do to.”
-Ten-Year Later-
My dad is dead. My mom and I miss him. All I can do now is move on, like I have been doing since that terrible day. The war took everything from us, but our family lived, everyone but dad. We weren’t the only ones affected by the war. Many of my mom’s friends lost their homes during the war. Kaden lives in Charleston, SC, USA now, he has a wife and two kids. One is named Paul, and one is named John, in honor of my father. My mom is now remarried with a nice guy named, Walter. We live in the same house we did the day my dad died. I don’t remember much of him, but what I do remember, I will never forget.
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125,022 Literary Works • 672,759 Reviews
This story almost made me cry. The twist you put on the British bombings is heart wrenching. Great Britain is extremely underrated during WW2. They endured so much, and recieve so little recognition. You have some great detail jammed into this little blurb, and yet you don't overwhelm us with information. That is a rare talent. For the short blurb that it is, it's great. However, if you plan on building on this story at all. I would for sure add more "fluff", for lack of a better way of saying it. The last part, about not forgetting, it is good. But, the dad is not the focus of the story, the little boy, bombs, and loss are. If you would like the dad to be the focusing you should move the story around him more. Like maybe the boys were playing chess, waiting for him to come home. Maybe while they are in the shelter, Momma is crying and whispering prayers for Daddy. Just to make the story about rememberence, you really need to give us a vivid picture of whom we are remembering. I hope that makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions.
Groganbabygirl
Hi there. I saw this was under 'historical fiction', and because I have a profound love for this genre, you're going to have to deal with my yammering here.
I also have a profound love for war stories, because of the emotional connections they build--and tear down--so easily.
I think the reason this story fails to make an impact is because it is ranging on the same verse as most other war stories out there. A has B, C, and D--or sometimes only B and C. A may lose either B, C, or D, or perhaps lose them all. And this is very real, but the emotion doesn't come through not because of the loss, which was expected, but because of the lack of feeling I felt toward the narrator and their situation. There was a great deal of 'telling' in the narration here, no twists or turns to throw me off track, and no false hope that the narrator's father would be alive. What was their relationship with their father like? With their brother? How did they feel, at that moment, when they were running for the shelter, knowing that all that lay between them and death was a few inches? Bring in some sensory detail--the smell of dirt being kicked up by boots, the feel of sweat welling up in their palms, hands slipping and sliding on the doorknob. Pull us into the moment. Make it real.
I wouldn't be averse to getting some backstory either. What did Gregory's father do for a living? Where is this set? London? Germany? (I'm assuming it's the former.) Why weren't the kids sent out of the city, to the countryside, as was done by a lot of parents at the time, during the bombings? Was there a reason they weren't? And what was this reason + how was this reason justified?
I feel like the ages of the characters were tagged on as an afterthought, and it really stood out, mostly because that small mention just didn't fit there. Those kind of things belong in the exposition, and even then it is better if they are implied. A lot of details were very blatant, such as the flashforward to 'ten years later'--which, honestly, the story could have done without. I like how healing was included as a theme, but I'd rather have seen the aftermath of Gregory's father's death and explored the immediate circumstances following the loss.
You have a story arc. What you're lacking is the foundation and the depth. Work on that. I liked how you started out with the brothers' relationship, and I'd like to see more of this, because it's so crucial to characterisation.
Keep writing!
~Pomp
Some quiet fixes:
-"My brother Kaden and I are playing chess, he said earlier he would teach me too play." This along with some other lines prove to be a bit redundant, since the dialogue that comes beforehand already states that Kaden and him are playing chess.
-"I didn’t like that bombs take my friend away, my friend never said goodbye" 'I didn't like that the bombs took my friend away', is what I think you meant.
-"when I heard a beating n the shelter door above us." N? Do you mean 'on', perhaps?
Actual Review:
I felt this was trying to be poignant and heartbreaking, and I can understand that. I would never stop a visionary, and I'm not going to now. However, I will say that for what it's going for, I don't think it worked too well (on me, at least).
We have a reasonably solid beginning, starting out with something completely unrelated. Ordinary, in fact. It leaves a very bittersweet taste in the readers mouths, a touch of reality in a time of great strife. However, after that the story starts to spiral a bit quicker than I think is necessary, telling the story of the World War 2 bombings and a dead friend that makes it come off like a Wikipedia summary of a novel or a movie. I mean, dead friends are emotional! Death is emotional! World War 2 was a bomb of emotions in and of itself! Go milk those emotions, dwell on the moment, live the suffering your protagonist had to feel in such a difficult part of his life. You are not only telling a story, you're giving the reader an experience.
Then we have characterization. Personally, I wasn't too bothered by the characterization in this, but I feel like once I look away from this screen I won't remember most of these characters. And I wish I could, you know? I deserve to. This is obviously a horrifying experience, and I think it would mean a lot more if we knew the characters like they were our Kindergarten playmates. I already feel bad that the kid lost his dad, but I could feel much worse if it was a kid who watched his brother battle his father intensely at chess every Friday afternoon even though they both know that their dad is going to win, because they know its the only thing that keeps their father's anxious eyes away from newspapers and all they want is to see their father smile like he did before the war began. Or something along those lines. Expand, take it to the next level. Crush hearts. Squeeze the tears out of every last sentence.
Overall, though, I would say this was nice. Despite an unfortunate flatness it has, it's definitely an outline for a greater story that waits to be used to its fullest potential.
Signing out,
--EM.