It was hard to sit in the tent and stare at her husband during the day. Every blemish of Gautam’s face hinted at the past. Every movement of his mouth showed another dimple that reminded her of Anjali, the daughter she had given up. Every blink brought back the disgust she felt for a man who could lose himself to anger.
So instead Farah walked up and down The Line when they went there on weekends. She packed up the small navy tent they’d bought to take Anjali on camping trips, and Gautam drove her out to Bucksville so they could leave the car by the side of the road and walk into The Line inconspicuously. For Farah, there were never so many hours in a day that they couldn’t be filled up with pacing and hoping. She wondered once if she was leaving a rut behind her, but distracted herself with thoughts of how Gautam had been when her parents and his father had first arranged their betrothal.
“You and I belong at the top of volcanoes with the whole world below us,” he’d say, and the thought of brimstone would bring heat into blossom in Farah’s stomach, erupt up to her cheeks. He told her that even on days he felt hollow – the morning they found out about their first visa delay, when the house filled with the worry that they wouldn’t be in the US before Anjali was born – even on those days, her hair was full of nooks he could explore to find star dust or touch to feel the strings of the harps of angels. He said these things to her with lips straight and full, eyes with heavy lashes. She believed what he said meant he loved her, and she also believed what he said.
It was a hot day and the main pathways on either side of The Line were mostly deserted. People crammed in under blue-striped, red-striped awnings, buying smoothies to earn the right to sit near generator-powered air conditioners. Even the large tent that looked like a cloud and hung over dancers at night looked less like a celebration space and more like a refugee camp. People sat cross-legged and fanned themselves with flimsy brochures from wandering missionaries, but even the missionaries stood in the shade and fanned themselves. A bug droned from a crooked tree somewhere beyond the line, its riff echoing off and fading in the dried grass fields that stretched away from Farah in all directions.
And all the time Farah’s mother’s oval pillbox weighed heavy in her pocket.
“Do you need cigarettes?”
A boy with sunglasses slipping off his face, a dark smudge on his nose, looked up at Farah and shook his cardboard boxes so that the loose cigarettes tumbled over one another. Piles of loose tobacco welled up in ponds from the bottom of the box as the tubes of paper knocked against one another, sounding as though they’d been gutted.
Farah blinked and put her hand in her pocket. She would try. This would be the first time she would try this weekend. Maybe this time? Maybe this boy?
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Look, do you want some or not?”
She put her mother’s box in the palm of her hand and held it out toward the boy. Even in the heat, she shivered to see the way the silver top reflected him, warped.
“Wait a second,” Farah said. Her finger found the front release button with ease, and the pillbox clicked open. When she offered the handkerchief to the boy, he raised an eyebrow and turned away. Farah sighed. She thought of her daughter. She thought of her mother. She squeezed everything shut again with a little reluctance: her eyes, the box, her heart. When she heard the boy’s graveled foot steps fade out of reach, she looked around for another child to test, but a woman was staring at her through the screen of a tent. Farah quickly moved behind a stall.
Why was this so hard to do? She jammed the handkerchief back into the pillbox with one finger and with so much force one strap of her camisole slipped down over her shoulder. She quickly righted it, pulled at the waist of her khaki cargo pants, and sighed.
“Never,” she said quietly to herself. “It will never work.” The corners of the handkerchief hung over the metal rim of the pillbox. She could see her daughter’s initials embroidered there in red thread. Farah shook her head. This was never going to work. Anjali would never be replaced. Even if it was possible, even if her mother had proven it so, no one was coming. No one wanted it.
When Farah was in America and her mother, Deepti, was still in India, Deepti sent long letters by air mail. That was when Farah first found out that her mother had loved someone before her. Deepti wrote that once she had carried her child, the daughter she had before Farah, down the length of the river. She had died from pneumonia, when it had wandered like a cat through town, brushing up against every child softly and quietly. Deepti had listened to Anima’s breathing as it slowed and stopped with the light of the evening. When the village they lived in was dark except for a few lights in the houses on the hill, Deepti finally acknowledged the silence in the room and bent to press her ear to her daughter’s chest. Her skin was still soft, and she was still a child, and people still slept in their homes with their families, so what made this moment different from the one that came before? How?
She wanted to run outside and pull the sun back up so that everyone, everyone, Anima would wake up. But the breathing of her first child had stopped.
She told Farah that she had looked around and nothing was there but dust and pebbles.
And who decided that the world got to go on being dust and pebbles with this gaping void before it? If something so large as a life had disappeared, why should the pebbles stay still on the ground?
She said it was not fair that someone had determined death would change everything, when the trees were still quiet and the river still ran along beside them. So she cradled her child fully and carried her down the side of the river. And then she dragged her. When she could bear to carry her no more, when her arms gave out, she dragged Anima over the ground.
At the end of her walk, when she’d come to a grove of trees that seemed right, Deepti stopped. She turned her daughter over. Dirt had scraped Anima’s face, buried itself in her hair. So Deepti let her child slip into the water and waited three days to leave the river bank, finally leaving the dead child for someone downstream to find.
And Farah, when she folded the pages up and stuffed them back in the battered envelope, thought about how much it hurt her and freed her when she realized her mother had loved someone before her. She had once had a sister. Her mother’s heart had belonged to and burned in a child who was no longer present, and she had moved on to love Farah. In some present, Farah could be sitting her holding her sister’s hand, confiding in her about the stress of the move, her worries about Gautam. Some how, Deepti had let that future go and become content with just one daughter, just Farah.
Even though Anjali was gone, across the ocean with distant relatives in Calcutta as instructed in Deepti’s will, Farah could love another. Farah could love another. She could; it had been done before. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and slipped back into the tent with Gautam. She found him sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, same old ragged book open in his lap.
“How many times have you read that?” she asked.
“Do you love me yet?” he said.
“Please don’t ask me that right now,” Farah said.
“Then I don’t want to talk.”
Farah sat across the tent from Gautam. She peered at the book every so often. It was old. She had known it for many years, now. He had held it and set it down behind him the first day they had been introduced. It was odd to see an object from a time she thought was gone here in front of her. They had been so happy. It was as if the Gautam there, in the lights of Mumbai, was a completely different Gautam than the one here, in a dim tent, in The Line.
Gautam had always been one of the most educated men she knew. He’d grown up watching TV shows in English and used a perfect American accent just like Farah’s. So it never felt like a loss to her that her parents and his father had made arrangements for them. Farah knew she was headed out of India with him, just from the way he spoke. She knew it when he spoke to her in English, and their parents all looked on with blank faces. It had just been something simple, like “Nice to meet you”, but she had had to bite her tight to keep from laughing out loud. Possibilities arced through her mind like shooting stars, and she had given him a small smile.
“It’s nice to meet you, too.”
But Gautam also thought the word meteorology had something to do with comets. The day after they’d wed, he’d told her that the adventure of meteorology was nothing compared to what their life would be, and when she laughed he must have thought it was out of giddiness because he wrapped her with his arms until her elbows dug into the bones in her hips. She never corrected him. She remembered his mistake many times, but it was difficult to go back and correct him so many months later.
He was the one who came home, face sheened with sweat that hung in pools beneath his thick, flat eyebrows, with the July sun following him in through the front door, and said,
“Did you know meteorology is weather?” Farah looked at the rag in her hand while she shook her head.
“It’s weather. It’s what the weather people do on television.” He mumbled “weather” to himself for the rest of the night, and Farah heard it in her dreams, lying next to him.
What would drive that kind of person to be so angry? He had been so angry he had put his hands around her mother’s throat until she screamed. He had been so angry he hadn’t noticed his daughter in the doorway behind him until she had screamed, too. Farah knew it had begun that afternoon, this lack of feeling. She had slept on the couch downstairs with Anjali because Anjali had been too afraid of her father to go anywhere near him. They didn’t sleep much that first night, because Anjali shook and started every time the house creaked. Farah’s lips were chapped from saying, “Shhh, shhh.”
In the tent, Farah ran her tongue over her lips and reached for the bottle of water near her husband’s bare feet.
End of chapter
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140,653 Literary Works • 673,580 Reviews
Hey Hannah! Iggy here to review.
So, this seems like a promising story to read! I font know much about other cultures and the way third world countries live, so I can't critique anything about that. From what I read, you described Farrah's situation perfectly! She's just a poor emoter who lost her only child. But how? The description suggests the father has something to do with it. Why is he so angry?
Another thing I'm curious about I'd the pillbox! Does she mean to drug children and kidnap them? Is there some sort of voodoo in the pill that will make the child want to go with her? I must know!
As usual, your use of imagery is spot on, and your grammar is perfect. Your story flow was consistent, so good job! I plan on reading all chapters, but it may not happen tonight. Definitely soon, though!
Keep on writing!
~ Iggy.
Hi Hannah,
Finally here for your re-review! I sort of maybe got a little obsessed with getting my Knighthood...
Ok, so, you asked for me to point out where I felt there was superfluous description. I'm going to read through this bit again and whenever I get bored or start to skim...I'm going to paste that section into this review! Hopefully that will constitute as being helpful!
Here we go -
1. - It was a hot day and the main pathways on either side of The Line were mostly deserted. People crammed in under blue-striped, red-striped awnings, buying smoothies to earn the right to sit near generator-powered air conditioners. Even the large tent that looked like a cloud and hung over dancers at night looked less like a celebration space and more like a refugee camp. People sat cross-legged and fanned themselves with flimsy brochures from wandering missionaries, but even the missionaries stood in the shade and fanned themselves. A bug droned from a crooked tree somewhere beyond the line, its riff echoing off and fading in the dried grass fields that stretched away from Farah in all directions.
Now there is nothing particularly wrong with this section. Like I said in my last review, you write well! Your description makes me wobble like a big wobbly jelly but towards the end of this paragraph I found myself skimming. I got a little bored. I think there is just a lot of description and I'm not sure how it impacts on the story. I mean of course you need to create atmosphere to pull us into the story world but you kept talking about the fanning people and I sort of got it the first time you said it. I was like 'Ok...so it's hot.' And then you just seemed to keep repeating that it was hot through different means. You even say at the beginning of the paragraph 'It was a hot day' You write good description, I know that but it sometimes feel like you continually want to remind us that you know all these nice ways to say things. Maybe it's how I am as a reader but I really only need a couple of words and I can picture the atmosphere myself.
2. - Piles of loose tobacco welled up in ponds from the bottom of the box as the tubes of paper knocked against one another, sounding as though they’d been gutted.
Generally just felt this line wasn't needed. You'd already described the cigarettes and the box. I didn't need you to do it again.
3. - What would drive that kind of person to be so angry? He had been so angry he had put his hands around her mother’s throat until she screamed. He had been so angry he hadn’t noticed his daughter in the doorway behind him until she had screamed, too. Farah knew it had begun that afternoon, this lack of feeling. She had slept on the couch downstairs with Anjali because Anjali had been too afraid of her father to go anywhere near him. They didn’t sleep much that first night, because Anjali shook and started every time the house creaked. Farah’s lips were chapped from saying, “Shhh, shhh.”
I skimmed through this last bit...but I'm not entirely sure why. It wasn't overly descriptiony...maybe I just got a bit bored because I didn't get to see it happen and was just being told about it. There is a lot of telling in this part of the story.
Soooo! Having read this a second time through, it makes much more sense. Yay! However, having said that...I don't tend to read pages twice when I am reading a novel. Maybe this is just not my sort of thing? I did warn you that I am pretty dense when it comes to this sort of stuff.
I think perhaps a lot of what I found was repetition of description and perhaps this time around I had more of a problem with Farah's character. I find her wonderings and being in her head a little...dull. I know that sounds awful but she doesn't seem to have much that interests me or makes me want to keep reading. Maybe she gets better later on! I don't know but there's not much of a hook going on here. I feel like the fact that Gautam killed her mother should be a hook, or the daughter missing...but I'm just not hooked.
Anyway! I'll stop rambling! This could all just be a case of my preference but I hope that helped even a little?
If you have anymore questions then you know how to get hold of me
Bex
x
The first paragraph comes off strong. Although I notice early on that when it comes to sentence structure variety and length -there isn't much going on.
These two sentences drag on long enough for them to lose the impact. I suggest:
Every movement of his mouth showed a dimple. It reminded her of Anjali. The daughter she had given up. Each blink renewed her disgust for this man; a man that could lose himself to anger.
Another dimple makes it seem that he has multiple which in my mind became four, for unknown reasons. I altered "brought back" on the basis that it seemed passive while renewed intimates to something fresh and potent. I warned you, I'm particular with my words.
This sentence is clunky due to the latter portion I set in bold. I understand you're trying to go for a conditional phrase, but it's too much information for a single sentence. The italics come off to me as superfluous words. The segment in bold can be introduced in the exposition that follows sentences later.
It is curious that Gautam leaves the car nearby rather than driving directly into The Line. I'm not sure what this implies, but I believe it suggests that they either don't want to be noticed for reasons or this place isn't too reputable to begin with. This is possibly foreshadowing.
A general note, I advise you to be wary. Your sentences can run a bit wordy. Here's the biggest offender:
That is fifty-two words for a single sentence. By having a sentence go on for so long, it slows down the piece to a crawl. Also, it never ends. It drones on and I lose the significance of what's going on here. Variety is crucial to give a good sense of pacing.
I observe throughout the piece you used had along with contractions of had and had not a total of 46 times. I mention this since had only adds to the word count of the piece. It does not give us any new information -particularly when you already establish this is set in the past therefore it becomes redundant.
The quote I cited now exemplified this perfectly: "The day after they’d wed, he’d told her. . ."
My suggestion:
A day after their wedding, he told her that the adventure of meteorology was nothing compared to what their life would be. She laughed. He wrapped his arms around her, thinking it was out of giddiness.
That must be one strange hug because to dig her elbows into her hips -she has to make the effort. Trust me, I tried to do it and it didn't work out.
I find the ridiculousness of Gautam's statements perfectly ideal for his character: top of volcanoes, meteorology -because it shows us how he's trying to impress her with pretty sounding words. These lame attempts at "poeting" so to speak are great for that reason. However, it does become painful.
Repetition is a great tool: however, I question if it is doing anything. Having two sentences using the same verb, now that's just overdone. My issue is that "said" doesn't give us any new information. How about in its stead, you employ: cooed, murmured, whispered, or something to that effect?
Try to make it concise: The entire time, her mother's oval pillbox weighed heavy in her pocket.
This whole business of Farah's mother's -is too much. It may be what often confuses readers when it comes to the familial relationships. I read this piece over a dozen times for this review so I've got it down at this point: however, others won't put in that time.
Awful implication time, the first time read through this comes off as though she's contemplating having an affair with the boy. She's evidently not happy with her husband for reasons involving her daughter who for all purposes sounds dead at this point and something about his temper. I don't know what to tell you. It doesn't help that a stranger is staring at her the entire time. Or the phrasing in general implies she's on the prowl for a victim -another child. I know that's not what's going on, but it sure is questionable. Perhaps, that's what you're going for. I know it made me uncomfortable. Especially since Farah is blessed with this ability to make this particularly creepy.
Reword this please, the earlier implications paired up with squeezing everything shut is too much. This is what I'm thinking:
She squeezed her eyes, the box, and her heart with reluctance.
Little reluctance is tacking on an extra word that isn't necessary.
Reading this multiple times over, I didn't realize this until Aley pointed it out. Pneumonia victims will experience: labored breathing, rapid breathing, painful breathing, coughing, fever, and chills. The quoted section makes it sound peaceful when in truth, Anima was fighting until the "bitter" end.
I get confused at this bit, every time. Why does Deepti feel compelled to move the child? It is a natural death, there's no reason to dispose of the body. Furthermore:
The child is small enough for Deepti to cradle. All right, I can believe that. The next line throws me off balance: "And then she dragged her." All right, that's acceptable. Then it continues on with how she's tired and drags her over the ground. Hold on, wasn't she already dragging the child? What's going on here?
Then Deepti stops only to turn her daughter over. This is when my suspension of disbelief snaps. Deepti is a mother. She deeply cares for this corpse. Why in the world was she dragging the child face down? I say this due to this line:
What follows next can only be described as bizarre -she rids the body into the water. This is India, I'm not sure how well developed the area is: however, I assume it's a general no-no to dispose corpses in bodies of water.
Deepti then proceeds to linger for three days. Dead bodies tend to bloat in the water. It's also India. Meaning it's a tropical environment, it's hot and the process of decomposition is sure to speed up. My rice goes bad here in Hawai'i if I don't store it properly within weeks (growing mold, it's nasty.) Back to Deepti, it's surreal that she leaves the body to be discovered by someone else rather than give the child a proper burial. It's been stated that it was common for children to succumb to this disease.
What is Deepti's deal?
Later on, the dialogue between Farah and Gautam astounds me. It's as though they've been reduced to children. I expect more from these two after losing a child and the strangling of a mother-in-law. As you know, I spoke to a few people while writing this review. Aley surprised me with the curious observation that it seems that Farah is past the emotional bit of grief and has settled for the empty husk phase. I don't know, it's too dead to me.
I expect with her disgust to be more fire or at least seething resentment.
I don't care for arced. Possibilities tend to broaden horizons. I can see an implosion -destruction of preconceived restrictions. But arced isn't doing it for me.
The lack of communication between these two is infuriating. Granted, the reader doesn't know how long it has been since the strangling incident: however, the fact this wasn't confronted early on is maddening. Again, this may be how their relationship is, but I'm ready to throttle something cute and adorable. All we know is that Deepti had been alive, must have still been alive afterwards to write it in her will to have the child relocated, and that she died -so it's been plenty of time. What gives between these two?
They have been together long enough to have a child.
These two lines are sheer genius. It's as though the memory sparked the need to lubricate her lips. That speaks volumes that the line of distinction between past and present is blurring.
I will concur with adelina's comments about: the transitions between past and present being rather jarring. Each change isn't sufficiently developed enough for us to get a full picture or even a smidge of comprehension (in which I agree with Lauren2010.) I'll admit this is one of the major reasons I couldn't sympathize or care about the protagonist. She doesn't seem concrete or tangible -there was nothing for me to sympathize with besides "I lost my daughter" and "my mother was strangled by my father"- or perhaps I'm hard to win over. Ultimately, the poetic prose is interesting: however, it was too dainty for my taste. As Beckiw, I noticed myself getting lost at times since it wasn't succinct or it felt focused on sounding pretty (which didn't always make sense.)
Hey there, Hannah!
First of all, I adore your prose. It's very poetic, but not in an overbearing way! There were a few places where it got hard to understand (you always have to be careful; not everything benefits from being dressed up), but for the most part it flowed very well and was very pleasant to read.
I really enjoyed reading this in general, and am really interested in knowing more about the story already. However, for a first chapter I still feel pretty lost. I understand than Farah is in an unhappy marriage with Guatam, that she has lost her child (and Guatam killed her?), and that they're at some sort of refuge(?) camp? Other than that, though, I'm fairly lost.
First chapters are an important place in a novel, where you want to hook your reader and make it interesting and exciting (which usually means not giving too much away just yet), but it's also a place to ground your readers in the story. The sooner a reader can feel hooked and grounded, the better.
I don't think you need to go out explaining everything. I like that we aren't sure what exactly happened to Farah's daughter, and what Guatam's role was in her death. It works as something only hinted at, since it's a greatly emotionally straining event and something Farah probably doesn't want to face especially with Guatam still in her life.
However, I really think we need a better explanation of this place they're in (the camp), why they're there, what they're doing there, etc. Having no idea what's going on in the present is really detrimental to a reader in the first chapter. I'd also like to know more about this pill box, which is the title of the piece, and its significance. It kicked me out of the story when she was holding up the handkerchief, since I didn't really understand what she was trying to do and why it was important. It's a really beautiful moment, and I'd just like to fully understand it!
Other than that, lovely piece! You're a wonderful writer and I can't wait to read more!
Keep writing!
-Lauren-
hi i'm adelina and i'm going to be reviewing your peice of writing
ok let me just say i've only understood a jist of the story.
it's very confusing.
it's like you are having difficulty between showing the viewers when farah is thinking to herself,
and when you are narrating the story.
i would suggest using italics for when she is thinking so that you readers don't get confused.
also i would like to point out that though you have been able to accomplish the art of NOT running through the story, which believe me many writers including me find it difficult to do, you somehow or for some reason keep jumping scenes, which i must say will definitely confuse the readers.
i suggest leaving lines after one scene is over. i hope you get what i am saying.
also the way you've placed your chatacters.
very important.
see i couldn't understand in the beggining itself what farrah's exact role in the story was exactly.
now this anjali girl has her mother found her or not?
and the father the most confusing of them all, please try to keep you character changes smooth.
when your trying to change the behaviour character make it very clear to the readers how exactly the character changes.
other than that i found your usage of words and discriptive skills highly qualitaive. if you make the little changes i've suggested i'm sure you'll be a great writer.when i first joined this place i was not that awesome at writing but with the help of the other yws members i found writing skills and my quality of english improve not just here but in school as well.
best of luck hannah
Hi Hannah!
Time to repay some of the work you do around here
Just before I start I wanted to say that poetic writing is largely lost on me and not something I usually read. So take any opinions with a pinch of salt I suppose!
Largely I was confused by what was going on here. I know you said this is part one so maybe some of that confusion will be cleared up with the conclusion of this piece. I think what mostly confused me was that were too many 'She' 'Mother' 'Daughter' going on. I had to keep stopping and trying to figure out in my head which mother she meant. Did she mean her own? Was she referring to herself as a mother? Was she talking about her daughter? About her Mother's daughter? I just got all wrapped up in trying to figure that out and got a little distracted.
And then my other problem was that, for me, there was a lot of superfluous description. You kept going on these long tangents describing things (very well and beautifully) but after a while I just kept finding my attention drifting and my eyes started to skim over the words. At some points I found myself becoming impatient. I don't want to know what's going on with the sky or how pretty it is, I want to know what's going on with these characters and what this situation is.
I think you need to flesh out the disjointed time a little better as well. This story seems to slip into wonderings about the past but I think you need to make those moments clearer and perhaps this will help with some of the confusion.
Again, though, you say this isn't a complete piece so a lot of this could be disregarded on reading the full piece. For instance, when I was finished I felt a little bit like 'What?' I didn't really get what the point was or what you were trying to say to me as a reader but that may be because this is not the end and you're going to pack me with a punch later on. If that's the case then I can't wait! Because right now I just feel a little disconnected and a little confuzzled.
Having said all of that. You write very well. Your descriptions are lovely and make me wobble like a big wobbly jelly. I suck at description. But I just wanted to feel a bit more of a connection to this story than there was. It left me a little cold.
But like I said at the beginning...me and poeticness do not mix well lol
Hope that was useful!
Let me know if you have any questions
Bex x