The AK-47 Suicides
"We're on a mission from God,” she says.
I look at the bleeding clouds: The towers mirror pieces of red glass to the sidewalks like a mosaic on the Manhattan asphalt, crimson and ginger and blue. Her voice is diamond, sharp and scarring into my ear, and her eyes flutter with fervor, widen with eagerness, water with odium.
“You’re insane.”
"Insanity runs in my family,” she says, her eyes flashing in the twilight. “It practically gallops."
“Fine. Where would you get them?”
“My boyfriend,” she says, and a cool warmness plays on my lips. She is looking at them and a chilly, wet breath smogs them like glass.
“Tomorrow,” she says. “Let’s do it tomorrow.”
I watch as she lowers the shooters, kicking them down the stairs. They’re too heavy for her pale, feeble arms.
“We’ll change lives,” she says. "It's like in those films: If you step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race."
I don’t know if I should smile or laugh, or say something. So I quiver.
We step into the hall and shoot everyone—everyone: stereotypes included, blonds and stoners and teachers—we don’t care. Her arm droops as she fires. In seconds, the hallway floor is one immense sunset, and she screams “Do it!” and I can hear a roar from the side of my face, and a rush of heat seeping into my shoes, and a stringy thud on my ankle. It’s her head, scarlet and little and sad.
I loved her.
I drop the AK-47 and a man runs and embraces me like a father, his elbow poking my neck, and I feel the air pouring in my chest like blood. I can see Mr. Sardon’s body, and Lauren Flash, and the principal’s face behind me.
They all look at me.
I wish I had never dropped the gun.
They all look at me, and I wish a million things.
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139,362 Literary Works • 672,540 Reviews
I enjoyed this. You definately have a distinct, practiced style of writing that's very entertaining to read. I almost wanted to say something negetive about the poetic nature of this piece, but then I realized that this is short fiction and anything goes. And what's more, it's mostly good too.
I must warn you about a few things though:
Excessive wordiness: avoid it like the plague. Words like "odium" and how you structured your first full paragraph. It's a little too much. Poetic fiction is nice, but don't overdo it. Say things somewhat straight. Fiction doesn't do obscure.
Too much poetry: I am completely aware that you are a poet by nature, but again, don't overdo it. For instance, "a stringy thud on my ankle". How is a thud stringy by any stretch of the imagination. It just doesn't work. Suzanne pointed out a second problem, I noticed...
A few quick questions/comments:
What's a shooter?
Looking at what?
So yeah. Just remember: be more direct, leave the poetry where it belongs for the most part, and keep writing!
Good stuff here. My kind of story.
-Kylan
Thank you!
You didn't discourage at all! As always, you were helpful. I sort of agree with you one everything, I was in a mad rush to finish it. So thanks, you helped!
I don't know. I kind of like it, but I think it was done way too fast and it could have so much more power, or at least, more impact on me. Some of your descriptions just.. didn't work, in my opinion.
How can a voice be pink?This just seems too over the top. Instead of being beautiful and give me chills I think, "He tried too hard."
Others opinions might differ, though. I think it's too simplistic, to empty of real story. It's short, and the thing about short things is you have less space to do a lot. Do I care about the characters? Am I shocked? Have I been told something new? Any number of questions that one could present to a short story and I'm not sure how I could answer any of them positively.
I'm terribly sorry to be so negative, but think of it that I'm telling you to expand it, make it larger, fuller. Don't restrict yourself in the walls of words, you have infinite space to play out your masterpiece. Why not do it correctly, and catch your reader, and nearly crush them like the butterfly?
I do hope I didn't discourage, and if I did, I did not mean to.