So I got this place I want to go to, you know? Some wonderful place. In Bavaria someplace, just living in a little hut by a river, and the whole town’s around you and you have nothing to be afraid of.
It’s just a hut.
There are flowers in the spring, purple flowers as big as picture frames. They call them lions there because they’re so large, it looks like they got jaws. Looks like they got jaws of a lion. It snows in the winter, and in the summer—in the summer you can swim in the river and the water’s as cold as an iceberg, and the girls flock there every June like little boys running to the ice cream truck.
Imagine.
It’s a wonderful place. I’ve been dreaming about it for quite a while now.
I want... I want to be German. I want to be German and I want to have a German wife, and I want to live in a little hut by the river in a Bavarian village and write poems and plays. An intellectual. That’s what I want to be—an intellectual living in the forest.
I want to smoke. And I don’t want to be chastised for it like I’m some kind of low-life. I’ll be a smoking intellectual living in the forest with his German wife and German kids, if that’s quite all right with you. Dying of lung cancer. But who really cares. Death is anyways relative.
I’ve been thinking of moving. I’ve been thinking—seriously! Just picking up my stuff, locking the door and going away. Nothing special. Just leaving this place. Leaving everything behind. Who needs it anyway? My life is junk. It’s just junk, it’s-over junk, stale-bread-kind-of junk.
Junk.
And I got no place I want to go to in mind. Just a dream place. A place where I could build myself an invisible, insignificant life where my everyday bullshit won’t amount to nothing. A dream place.
If I could locate this dream place, my life would be perfect. Just perfect. It’s weird because I’ve just suddenly remembered this one day, I was with this guy—I don’t know if he’s still alive—and we were driving back from a barbecue in north L.A., driving through some really bad parts of town. We weren’t really friends, I just felt sorry for him. But he took me—he actually took me to his great aunt’s house in north L.A. It was her 80th birthday and she didn't think this guy had any friends. Maybe it pleased her to know that he did. Argentinean. They had to kill a whole herd of cattle for that barbecue. Anyway, it got me thinking that my dream place would have to be something other than that—the opposite from that. Where the houses were little cockroaches trickling around a sunny desert and where the highway seemed like a black curtain that never opens, that is never drawn.
I’ll never find it. I know I won’t. I’ve been searching for it since grade school—the perfect place. I’m searching for a big city inside a small town. I’m searching for a small town inside a big city. I’m searching... for something. I’ll never find it.
Bavaria, huh?
That’s where I think it is. I’m not sure yet, though. Those painted archways, the huge hillside barns—it’s a cultural life. I’ve never lived like that before.
It’s just a hut.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
I read this a few days ago or so, but it's not getting enough attention.
Here's what I like about this story: it's engaging. It reads like an old friend telling you about a place they want to go to, and all the wonderful things that are happening there. It's also well written; none of those 'and then' or stupid similes. Instead, your descriptions & sentences flow fast and well.
Good job.
I absolutely loved this. I found nothing to point out at you and I didn't feel like quoting things and saying 'Wow this was awesome!' because I would have done it for the whole thing
Characters:
This MC is awesome. He/she (I'm guessing he) reminds me of someone with ADD or ADHD because of how frazzled his thought process is. It made me smile.
Overall:
Absolutely great. I loved the style, tone, how fast it moved, the randomness of it. Everything. It was great.
Gold star for you
-Carly
Wow. I love this. I don't know why, but it gives me kind of a Beatnik, On the Road vibe. I think the strongest thing about this is the narrative voice. The writing itself is nervous and fidgety just like the character. I even started fidgeting when I was reading it. That is some powerful writing.
I think this is a bit awkward, the way the girls flock there like little boys. I got tripped up here when I was reading it. Maybe you could say "kids" instead of "boys"?I don't know why, but I feel like these parts are kind of inconsistent with the rest of the narrative. Like I'm hearing this guy talking in my head and these parts don't sound to me like something he would say. Of course, you're the one who knows what he would say, not me.
I love this part, the way he admits he'll never find his place, then goes right on talking as if he never said it.
This is obviously a really important line, but I don't get it. What does the speaker mean by this?
Is this just a short piece or is there more about him? He's so interesting, I'd like to know everything about his life.
Bravo.
-rachel
I liked this. Maybe because it seems real.
Hmmm.
Pork