I know this part is small, but it's pretty irrelevant to the story. The only reason I wrote it is because it happened in the dream and I'm recording the dream.
~
When I step onto the train platform after a relatively short journey, I am both astonished and confounded at the scene before me. The air smells normal, not like a warzone. Small puddles on the ground shine blue like emeralds, a child splashes in one, not a care in the world. A clean gravel road leads to the white platform, not a spot of blood or debris or anything indicating conflict. A man sits on his verandah, rocking back and forth. He's not fighting, he's not worried. Houses dot the road and they've been inhabited this whole time, the occupants were not shoved into residences. This town seems oblivious to the war that's only miles away.
The other new workers standing either side of me appear just as bewildered. How could anyone, any place, feel so relaxed? Even if they say the war is coming to an end, even if it hasn't touched their homes? How could you rock and forth knowing what's happening?
"Out of the way, please!" A man wheels a wide trolly towards us and we disperse from our positions on the platform. I try to ignore the frustration which burns my bones; if this job is going to work out, if I'm going to get back to John, I'll need to adapt to my new situation.
"Excuse me." I stop on the edge of the road, my narrowed eyes focussed on the rocking-chair man. "Where is the antique store?"
"Keep heading down that way." He pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and waves his hand, as if I'm a fly he's trying to swat away. "You can't miss it."
The man was right. Not too far along I come to a bend in the road, and sitting on the corner is a white cottage, its paint peeling away. There is no sign that tells me it's an antique store, but the mass of shelves and knick-knacks on the verandah leave me with no doubt.
The floorboards creak under my weight and the air smells musty, but I can't help but admire the antiques. There's glass bottles of all different shapes, with rainbows just like my crystal. Leather-bound books are stacked under a display of chandeliers whose asking prices I don't dare to think about. Directly to my right is a table full of gnomes, cheeky looking creatures with doorknob noses. Beside it is another table, an old lady sits behind it, serving a customer. I pull out my work paper and wait for her to finish the transaction.
"Ah." She looks me up and then, then her eyes rest on the paper. "You're the girl I asked for?" I nod and she continues, readjusting her slipping glasses. "Come out the back, my babe's out there. You better look after him; prize-winning canine, he is."
Behind a door marked 'PRIVATE' is a backyard perhaps larger than the entire residence. You wouldn't know it though, with all the junk strewn in it. There's broken statues and packing boxes and cracked plates and more things than I can describe. The whole dump is surrounded by a tall wire fence, and I think that this is more like the warzone I recently left.
"C'mon, he's this way."
I don't understand how a prize-winning canine could live here, but then she leads me to a shed and I take back my thoughts. It's more of a house than a shed, a wide open space with dog toys every few metres. On the far side is a dog house, which looks like a palace with its pointed roof and immaculate bedding. There's a dining area and a corner for storing food. Everything the dog could want.
"You'll be sleeping here." The old lady turns my attention to the wall beside us. Against it is a bed and a bed-side table. I might have laughed at the idea of being a guest in a dog's home, but it is ten times better than the pillow I had at the residence. Still, I'd rather be in the residence with John than here.
"Where is your dog?" I ask, placing the piece of paper (now my only possession) on the bedside table.
"He's sleeping of course. He does a lot of sleeping, canines need it." The lady shakes her head at me as if I should have known that already. "He'll come out to say hello in an hour or so."
After explaining my tasks -playing, taking him on a specific walking route, cleaning, cooking meals and grooming- she leaves me alone in the dog-shed. I've never felt more ridiculous, or useless.
My hand reaches for the bare skin of my neck, the spot where my necklace used to be, and I close my eyes. That is my one connection to John; the crystal. I know that back home he is keeping it safe, and I grow desperate for the glorious day when he will be able to return it to me.
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140,605 Literary Works • 673,549 Reviews
Hey, Dracula! Happy Review Day!
Ideas received in dreams are the best; dreams underline everything with a poetic quality. (I'll try to scribble down my thoughts as I read, which tend to be fragmented and all over the place, so warning in advance for any incoherence. I'm also rusty on words and reviewing.)
This is a bit off-putting; it crams the details of the character's situation into the opening clause, where things are tentative and the reader's struggling to grasp a handhold on the story. I'd also recommend against starting a piece with "when," as "when" delays the sentence's main focus; you can create the illusion of hesitancy by neglecting to start with the subject.
It's also just a chunky clause in general. Step, train platform, after, relatively short, journey--there are several bits of information to chew. It might be better if it was distributed among multiple clauses, or if it used more unique verbs/nouns; trains are common with short stories and I can already expect time playing a central theme, so defying expectations by using unique nouns and verbs, or distributing information, would really help grab the reader's attention.
The description's amazing, though. The sentence variation, the abundance of harsh-pronounced letters, the way the narrator focuses on one detail at at time. "A clean gravel road leads to a white platform" has such a great rhythm, and I love the way "clean" is used adjacent to "white."
Quick grammar thingy: A comma splice is when two independent clauses are separated by a comma instead of a semicolon or period--basically two sentences in the space of one. Here's some more info. Try replacing the comma after "emeralds." I found several of these in the first paragraph.
Emeralds are associated with the color green, so sapphires, maybe? I'm also wondering what causes the puddles' blue quality. They're typically silver/grey-ish, unless they're reflecting the sky, but even then they're dominantly blue. And jewels are dazzling. It's difficult to connect them with "puddles."
Jewels are common in similes concerning reflective objects--puddles, though, being a product of rain, which is defined by gray skies, clashes with the image of emeralds/sapphires.
Really small nitpick here: I'd recommend the word "previous" before conflict, seeing as blood and debris are evidence that a conflict had occurred.
This guy is wheeling a trolley down the street and yelling at people to get out of the way, but as he's talking to the main character, trying to make conversation quick, he's also idly pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. The actions don't correspond. The "as if I'm a fly" part also feels excessive.
Same here with the superfluity--I feel like the narrator's trying too hard to illustrate the characters' body language. Things would roll smoother with it cut. It's also generally good to keep dialogue tags clean and straightforward.
And the rocking-chair man seems irrelevant; he just suddenly pops into the dialogue chain without much justification.
Noun-verb consistency: should be "there are glass bottles."
(amazing description)
"Cheeky looking" should be hyphenated, since it's serving as a singular adjective.
I love this piece of dialogue, as it really bears a distinct voice. All the people seem to have a trait that characterize them: the elderly man in the rocking chair, the guy with the trolley who acts urgent, and now this lady adjusting her eyeglasses and using parenthetical phrases when she speaks.
Even the narrator, whose voice is made strong with rhetorical questions and loads of casual words like "just." They also maintain a perfect balance between show and tell.
(There's just a small grammar issue here, regarding the semicolon. Semicolons serve as replacements for periods; they can't connect an independent clause with a dependent clause. [YWS article: Commas vs Semi-colons])
Comma before "of course"--parenthetical phrase.
Quick thing--those dashes that connect strings of words (like the one I just used) are called M-dashes, and they show up as two dashes typed consecutively. Word automatically corrects this to one long dash. Or you can use an N-dash, which has a space both before and after it.
The atmosphere was wonderfully well-crafted throughout the piece. I received the brightness and cleanness of the exterior world, followed by the nostalgia of the antique shop and allusions to a special crystal, which then transitioned to sadness as the narrator reflects more on the crystal and John. And I love what you did, making the antique shop's backyard appear more like a war zone than the region as a whole did. It's kind of a reflection on people, I thought; exteriors and interiors don't always share common qualities.
I'm obviously reading this out of context, but I hope I can get to #1 and #2. I feel like I spent too much emphasis on the negativities when I really loved the piece--your writing style's amazing, ugh. Everything possessed a seamless flow. I can't wait to discover the crystal's significance and who John is
Looking forward to reading more! (And thanks for enduring all of my incoherence. XD)
~Flame
How far away is she from the war zone? The phrase above indicates it’s somewhere near. If that’s so, won’t the war also affect the area she’s now in?
I know it’s a dream and some parts are not supposed to make sense, but how does John know the lady at the antique store?
I don’t understand why you think this chapter was irrelevant. I think it fits in well with the previous ones, and that it was necessary. The story’s playing out nicely and I’m enjoying it. I like your writing style. It’s simple, yet engaging.
Well done, and keep writing!