Carter knows of bloodshed and heartbreak.
She's told him in whispers that despair is always followed by the scent of blood- and while in the next few years he never truly understood what that phrase meant, the moment ashes flick into his face and blind his eyes, his throat raw and hoarse from screaming and begging, the faint pungence of blood in the air- that is when he knew.
He wonders if her gunmetal eyes once mirrored his grief-filled ones.
He's never pried deep into the personal things of his... what was she to him actually? A mentor? A pseudo-family figure? A confidante? A raggedy fool whose company he enjoyed?
That question digs deep into his mind, and so he buries it into the depths, briefly acknowledging that these thoughts were like cicadas- wait a few years and they arise once again, screaming and all over the place.
But none of that right now, as long he doesn't recognize those sorts of things, he won't get too attached. He's learned after Cedar, and Carter was just a normal appearance in the monotony of grief and frigid schedules he had; the same with the weather, it comes and goes.
The woman seems to be aware of it too, as there was no need for words in this unusual friendship of theirs.
In the end, he is still an academic- a scholar in pursuit of knowledge.
He lives (and will probably die) with the trivial and interesting biology facts he's spent years on learning and discovering, and it was only understandable it overreached to other forms of knowledge. Carter was both an enigma and an open book to him- he can read her, but she was written in gibberish.
Both important and insignificant facts he knew about her piled up all over the years into a convoluted puzzle game. While he knew better to see people as something to play with, the woman was just like that cube puzzle thing his foster father gifted him on his 19th birthday, infuriating and interesting at the same time, and up to this day, he still had no idea how to solve the damn thing.
Carter is a mess of a person, a put-together pile of contradictions. She's sometimes incredibly lazy but has one of the most fixed one-track minds he's ever seen. Always quick to crack a joke- but incredibly morbid ones.
She was kind and nurturing to a fault, but she often broke and snapped things that she held in her hands. Idly, he wonders if that was the reason why the woman was so detached and heartless at times. Sometimes, he witnesses her lively gray eyes darken, becoming a hollow abyss of untold horrors.
He doesn't know what she's seen or been through and sometimes he wonders if he knew, would he meet it with a satiated curiosity or abject terror?
Cedar sometimes chuckled about bizarre theories of the woman, and although his partner meant no harm in it, one day he accidentally catches her run a hand on her dark hair, face contorting into nauseated and disturbed after hearing his partner drop a joke about poison.
He subtly forces Cedar to stop with the jokes, and his partner was none the wiser. It was the least he could do.
After Cedar's passing, she was not the one to give him pitying glances, just like the others. She doesn't offer him her outstretched arms, a certain comfort based on her warmth and dark sleeves. Instead, she takes one look at him and asks him if he wants a cup of tea.
He hates tea.
She shoves a hot mug into his hands anyways. She invites him to go sit at the porch and watch the sunset, even with the distinguished light pollution of the city lamps.
Her presence is a steady pillar, and he leans into it. They don't talk of grief and guilt or the familiar jacket of his deceased partner splayed on his shoulders.
"It happens." That's the only thing she says that evening. "You just gotta live with it, I suppose."
For a brief moment, anger curls at his stomach and he almost barks out 'what the hell do you know?'. At the sight of the faraway look in her eyes and the memory of 'despair is always followed by the scent of blood', he clamps his mouth shut.
No, the wounds he sustained did not heal after that moment, it was more of her slapping a bandaid at the gaping wound on his chest.
He... appreciates it nonetheless.
Together, they remained watching the setting sun, steaming cups of black tea between them.
Misery makes strange bedfellows, as they would say.
~~~~~~~~
Author's note:
First time posting here, so I guess enjoy my work? I wrote it in the span of a single afternoon and shoved it into Grammarly to check for misspells and grammatical errors. Anyways, feel free to comment your thoughts on this work.
Constructive criticism is welcome, I'm happy to become better at writing.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi Fried_Trout,
Mailice here with a short review!
First of all, welcome to YWS!
This was a very interesting story. When I started reading it, it was unexpected how it ended. I was also very surprised by the way the story was told, at the beginning it seemed very much like the recording of a silent scene of a film, where you follow the main character through his thoughts. I think that's what I liked about your structure, that as a reader you were swimming a little in the unknown before you emerged and realised what the overall work was supposed to be.
I found very beautiful descriptions in your text and they seemed, through your way of writing them, like a mantra that the narrator wanted to repeat, which gives the whole context of the story an edgy undertone. I like how this relationship is portrayed and how you manage to build up tension until the end. As a reader, you can imagine and further interpret quite a bit (especially when it comes to the title, as I couldn't find a direct connection there yet, but maybe I didn't read between the lines too much). Also, your short story gave me a bit of a feeling of having missed something and yet having found something. It seems like a contradiction at first glance, but I think if you look at the dialogue at the end, you can think enough as a reader into what you were trying to say, and you find out a lot of new little information.
I think you could describe some things in more detail so that the reader doesn't have to interpret everything, but I like the story so far. It's precisely because it's so special that it feels different and stands out.
Some other points I found while reading:
I think your beginning is particularly good and dramatic, I would just advise that you split the sentence that takes up an entire paragraph a bit and make it several sentences. Otherwise it reads a bit awkwardly as you go from comma to comma and don't get a breather.
Since we are still at the very beginning of the story, I cannot say what you mean here by "gunmetal eyes". Does it mean the colour of the iris or can I literally think of it that way. Either way, I like this sentence.
Unique descriptions are what I like best. This one is original and a great pictorial representation.
This sentence is a bit long and loses a bit of meaning when you read it. I think a split is needed here too and you'll get a better paragraph.
You have some wonderful descriptions and metaphors, this section in particular is just bursting with them.
In summary, it was an interesting first attempt at writing. I liked the story in this way, especially because you try to insert descriptions in repetition that are always unique in their way.
Have fun writing!
Mailice.
Thank you very much for reviewing my work!
I'll make sure to keep in mind all your tips in writing. I do think I have a bit of a habit of overusing commas or dragging out sentences.
As for the title... uhh just made it up and found it nice, even though it doesn't really have any correlation to the story, hehehe. And I do wish I fleshed out the story of Cedar in particular and his relation to the MC besides being well... partners, but I sadly ran out of writing juice.
This is really good and I really really enjoyed it. I'm really glad that you portrayed a non-romantic friendship between a man and a woman, that's rare in writing and I'm really happy to see it. You also have some really good writing.
"That question digs deep into his mind, and so he buries it into the depths, briefly acknowledging that these thoughts were like cicadas- wait a few years and they arise once again, screaming and all over the place." This passage especially spoke to me.
A few things. One, I don't quite see where the title fits in. What are the agreements? Also, I'm not sure what its talking about in the beginning about the smell of blood and the ashes blowing in his face. When I read it, I assumed it was foreshadowing that would be explained later, but then it really wasn't.
In the first few paragraphs, I couldn't tell if Carter was the main character or the "she" he was talking about.
"He can read her, but she was written in gibberish" I think this should be "he could read her"
"Cedar sometimes chuckled about bizarre theories of the woman, and although his partner meant no harm in it, one day he accidentally catches her run a hand on her dark hair, face contorting into nauseated and disturbed after hearing his partner drop a joke about poison." This is another spot where its unclear who's being referred to and what's happening. I wasn't sure when I first read it wether Carter or this Cedar person is the one being referred to as a partner or who's telling the jokes or which one's running a hand through their hair.
Overall, more information in general wouldn't be a bad thing. Things like how he knows Carter, (do they work together? Are they neighbors? how did they meet?) What Cedar is like, more description of all the characters, what their relationships with each other are like, what their lives are like, etc. This is really quite short so you can definitely flesh it out a bit. There's a lot to work with here so that shouldn't be hard. Its a fine line between leaving out enough information that the reader is curious and intrigued, but putting in enough that the reader knows whats going on and feels that they know the characters enough to really care about them. In this case, I think you could use a bit more background.
In general, though, this was really enjoyable and had a lot of potential to be quite a touching story.
Thank you very much for your review!
I'll make sure to keep in mind all the things you've said and pointed out and to try and become better at writing.
The cicada passage- it's becoming my pride and joy out of all the things I've written.
As for the title, well, to paraphrase what I've said in another review, it really doesn't have a relation to the story, I'm very sorry. I admit I am kinda at fault for not expanding on the whole "smell of blood and ashes on his face" part, but let's say it has something to do with his partner, Cedar.