Pink Tassels
He had pink tassels on his bike handles.
I watched as he rode in circles, white rubber against heated cement. His smile was short-lived, though it never left his cheeks that warm summer afternoon. He would, one day, lose the ability to have such a carefree, childish eccentricity.
For now, though, he smiled.
His bike had pink tassels; fluttering ribbons that showed the reckless abandon which he would never partake upon. He said they were beautiful. That they made him feel pretty. Pink tassels that left an unwanted, underlying impression on my skin. A brand all its own that raised the bumps of flesh and blurred my eyes with regret.
Pink tassels floated without cause, drawing attention he didn’t need. Marking him as a creature, not a person. Making him all the more perfect.
Perfect in his sweet, blissful ignorance. I loved him all the more for it.
~~
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138,497 Literary Works • 672,143 Reviews
This is amazing. I promised to critique every piece, but Sarg has been here already and it seems everyone has covered it all. I will say though, that your handling of this theme isn't entirely unique, I mean when I hear prejudice I think gender bias, then sexual-orientation bias, so it's not ground breaking, but you have done well by framing it with the parents point of view. Whilst the child isn't overcoming prejudice just yet, the parent is overcoming an internal prejudice, in a way. So well done and good luck!
Grammatically, there were only slight comma and hyphenation problems that you could probably find if you looked hard enough and then fix them. As for the important stuff, this story has a cliche but important theme that people tend to ignore in our society. With the message of individuality, and the inevitable truth that the boy would be one day bullied, I thought it was simple but strong. The vagueness makes it all the better. I liked it.
I love this story! The sad part is, it turly is ignorance in our society. I boy with pink tassels on his bike would be made fun of in our society, yet he loves them. I think we all go through a stage like that though, I used to love hot wheels whenever I visted my family in Canada, I wanted to play with the hot wheels instead of the barbies. In our society people would look at that with disgust. I should have been playing with my girl cousins and the barbies not the hot wheels. My other cousin who was a boy, loved my little ponies.His father hated it, and his mom as well, but she would only buy him blue, or green my little ponies, becuase thouse are know as "boy colours"... I'm sorry I just went on a huge rage. I loved the story and concept behind it. Keep up the amazing work
I thought this was a great piece.
I loved the topic, since most people are afraid to write about something such as this. You, though- You were bold enough to write this. I'm impressed by that. I also love it because I could already get the sense that that was the topic from the story itself. It also made me yearn for the times such bliss could come from something as simple as pink tassels on my bike handles. Of course, I have not really learned to ride a bike without shrieking from fear, let alone having pink tassels on my bike handles, but I still enjoy the light-heartedness (yes I know) of it.
It made me nostalgic, so to say, even though I am still very young. Of course, it also saddens me your description of how, in the future, he would have a rougher time with such eccentric behavior. I thought that was good to have in there.
I like the detail you sprinkle around in there; it pulls the piece together, to me.
Overall, I thought it was a good piece- well done.
Kayla here!
I liked this. In away you described something amazing in very few words. You created an image or picture with 150 words even though pictures are worth a 1000 words. I understood what was going on. I thought it was amazing how you illustrated this story with your words. The part about his smile made me smile. This story makes me think of someone who is misunderstood.
Well, I really liked this storyy
---Kaylaa!
So. You're probably going to hate me since I have nothing but praise for this piece. You were lucky to get such an intriguing topic, and you really made it work. These kinds of pieces always intrigue me though I'm not quite sure why. I think its the confusion of it all, and the anger that I feel knowing that people just others based on such miniscule details as gender or preferences. This piece is beautiful, sorry. But thats really all I have. I don't see a single thing that should be changed. Its beautiful.
Overall, I like it. It works without being preachy, without being melodramatic. The overarching idea and mood are good, but I think that a line-by-line brings out some sticking points. Mostly, the language can be inefficient or a little rigid. It doesn't flow in some places. And, if you could pull out some of those inefficiencies, I would like to see a more profound statement here or there.
So, some of the line-by-line things.
Awkward/rigid phrasing? "Though never did it" sounds rather Shakespearean and gives the reader pause. "though it never left his cheeks" is a little more contemporary-friendly and gets you 1 more word to spend elsewhere.
The "fine" contributes little and sounds a little gimmicky--like we're listening to a old southern belle talking about fine, summer afternoons on the plantation. If we are to just take our memory of a "summer afternoon" by itself, it usually lends a nostalgic quality on its own.
I might like a little reference at some point that would give us an idea of how/when he loses that innocence. It would not only give us an idea of the severity of the issue but also a waypoint to guess how old this child is.
Vague. Not sure what you're going for. And even if I were sure, an "unwanted impression" doesn't lend itself to vivid images or thought-provoking consequences.
Again, the language is so vague that it doesn't quite hit home with the reader.
I liked the idea of that. That's an example of a phrase that carries more weight than the simple words that are written. Those are the kinds of things that are crucial to flash fiction. Maybe not every line, because then we're getting slammed left and right with philosophy, but interspersed.
The image is a nice way to introduce the idea above--carefree, out of focus, tarnished memory--but I don't like the words themselves. The inanimate objects floated without trying...? Eh.
Again, I like the idea you're putting forth, but the words don't do it for me. "Creature" isn't powerful enough for me. If you were to open a newspaper and read about a hate-crime, what word might you conjure up? "They treated him like a ______." Or if you were to overhear some kids slandering someone for no good reason, what words might come to mind? I dunno, but for me, "creature" is just underwhelming.
Like. Good ending.
Hi, Dreamwalker!
I don’t know how harsh I’ll be, but I’ll do my best. 
It reminded me of one of my childhood friends. He came over to play at my house once, and all he wanted to was play with my dolls. As little kids, we thought nothing of it, but it greatly disturbed his dad. That being said, I am very curious about the age of the boy in this piece. I don’t know of anyone who would really discriminate against a five-year-old boy who had pink tassels on his bike handles. If your character is much older, it affects how I interpret the piece.
I liked the general imagery and concept of this piece with the boy and his pink tassels, but I didn’t get the arrogance vs. happiness metaphor from it that anasn did. But I’ve been called dim before.
The way you word a lot of your sentences is very poetic, and I like that. But in flash-fiction, as with poetry as well, you need to look at every word and decide whether or not it 100% contributes to what you are trying to say because your story has to be so concise. Some sentences confused me, and while I thought of several possibilities of what they could mean, not one of my potential “explanations,” if you will, was clearly conveyed to me. I’ll come back to that.
You use several paired adjectives, which can make the piece somewhat “tell-y.” I know that it’s difficult to do more showing in flash-fiction, but even take out some of the adjectives that say the same thing about the character will help. I’m terrible with adjectives, though, so I have no room to talk.
I love this opening. It’s a nice simple sentence that grabs the reader.
I really wanted this sentence to foreshadow something in the piece. At first, I thought the boy would be killed with the short-lived smile that never left, as in he was still smiling when he died, but then that didn’t make sense with the next sentence. You make it seem like something will happen. I kept hoping for a switch from the cheerful, innocent tone, but it never came. Does something happen that takes away the boy’s ignorance? People aren’t born knowing about the gender roles; they are taught about which toys and colours are for boys, and which are for girls. I expected the tassels to be taken away by one of his parents in an attempt to teach him. But I know it’s flash-fiction.
This was one of those sentences I mentioned earlier. The second clause contradicts what you’ve said in the rest of the piece. You say the boy is ignorant, blissful, childish, eccentric, but then you say that he will never know “reckless abandonment.” I understood the isolated sentence, but in context, it confused me.
I’m not blown away by the second sentence. I feel that you’re trying too hard to make your point about the gender issue. That’s just me, though. Also, the parallelism is a little off because of “that.” You could either take out that word, add it after “He said” in the first sentence, or combine the sentences: “He said they were beautiful, made him feel pretty.”
Again, I’m really confused. Is this a memory? From this sentence, I get the impression that the narrator is looking back on himself as a child and feels like a different person because he has lost his innocence. That would explain why the tassels affect the narrator with regret and are a symbol to him. But again, that wasn’t really clear to me.
This second sentence is one that you could do without. Personally, I don’t think it contributes to the overall story as much as it could. It doesn’t seem to fit with the preceding sentence, and only makes sense when you read the next sentence. Without it, though, the following paragraph seems to come out of nowhere. My suggestion is to mention his ignorance in that sentence: “….not a person. His ignorance to it making him all the more…” I don’t know exactly what you want that sentence to say.
Okay, I *tried to be harsh, so now I’ll focus on praise.
-Sea-
Hey there. Its a very well written story. No matter how short it appears to be, its quite alright. The metaphors you're getting through are quite clear to me. I understood the boy to be arrogance and the tassels to be happiness. You say that for now he'll smile, and I agree. Arrogant people tend to be happy a lot less than humble ones. Your idea may have been quite a bit more on the better side of things, but then again, I am known for my dark ideas. As for tearing it apart, all I could find is down there.
Keep it up. Reading it was wonderful.