Published December 19, 2009
Forever
By:Layla
A loud knock on our front door awakes me. I look to my left to see the time on my alarm clock.It's 3:47 a.m. In the other room, I hear my mom fidgeting, probably trying to find her glasses. I jump out of bed and walk over to my bedroom door. As I open it, my mother stops on her way down the stairs and tells me to stay until she gives the okay to come down with her. I do as she says and wait.
As she opens the door, I see to police officers. Instantly I feel scared and worried. My father has a late shift tonite at the construction site,has something happened to him? He should've been home by now. I stay silent and prepare myslef for the worst.
"Are you Mrs. Katharine French?" asks the taller of the two officers.
"Yes," my mother answers.
"I'm Officer Green and this is Officer Taylor. We're with the LAPD. May we come iside?", asks Officer Green.
"Certainly, certainly," says my mother as she let's them in. She leads them into the kitchen, while mouthing to me to go back into my room. I do as she says, but once I hear them talking again I sneak down and sit quietly at the bottom of the stairs, as their conversation continues.
"Nice home you have here Miss," says Officer Taylor.
"Thank you. My husband and I have done a lot of remodeling in the past years," says my mother.
"We've cam here tonite, Mrs. French-," starts Officer Green, trying to get to the point, with a slight bit of sadness and nervousness in his voice.
"Oh, call me Katie"
"We've come here tonight Katie...because there has been an accident...involving your husband, Mr. Alexander French."
I hear my mother gasp. Then a long silence.
"is he okay?" she asks, her voice cracking, on the verge of tears.
" Well actually, Mrs French, he lost a lot of blood. The car hit him directly from the side."
As I hear this, I realize what's coming next. But it can't be true. I close my eyes and try to make myself believe this is all just fake. Somehow, he'd be okay.
"He didn't make it to hospital," Officer Taylor continues,"He died at the scene"
The last few words repeated over and over in my mind, 'he died at the scene'. I start to feel light-headed, clamy, and sweaty.My mouth becomes dry and the world mutes. My father, dead? No way......there's just no way.
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Canary word: Present
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Try "the" instead of "our".
There should be a space between "clock." and "it's".
Unless the house only has two rooms, you should say "the next room"
Take out the "at the top of the stairs", it makes the sentence too long and funky.
Should be "wait", not "waits".
"Two", not "to".
Try "anxious".
"Tonight" is the proper way to say "tonite", and there should be a space after site. Also, it seems strange that she would suspect that something has happened to her father, unless a similar situation has occurred in the past.
Myself.
"Yes," my mom answers.
Inside! And take out the comma.
Haha, I can't imagine anyone's mom saying "certainly, certainly". Oh, and it's "lets" not "let's". "Let's" is the contraction for "let us".
I would say "for" instead of "to".
Take out the "conversation continues" part.
Comma after "here".
You switched from "mom" to "mother". Commit to one of them, and stay with it.
Should be "come" and "tonight".
You have changed the spelling of Officer Greene/Green's name.
Try "apprehension" instead of "sadness and nervousness".
Should have a period after "Katie".
Comma after "Katie"
She would probably say "Is he okay?" instead.
Get rid of the "obviously"
I'm going to totally rewrite this as:
"I'm dreadfully sorr, Mrs French, but, you see, a car hit him directly from the side. He lost a lot of blood. There was nothing we could do."
Period after "continues" as well as after "scene".
The world around me mutes.
By the way, if you continue this scene, the officers will not leave immediately. When someone dies, they will stick around and make sure the family is okay and stuff. I think they are special condolence officers.
-Lena.
Technically, this is a scene and not a story.
Anyway add feeling to the persons sorrow by using imagery and diction. Similes and metaphors would also be good to add feeling to. When addding them, don't overuse them.
I have a question about the man on the phone. Is he a cop? In that case it should be Officer Kyle Williams or just Officer Williams.
Try showing more feeling in Kyles tone. Does he sound sad, scared,or even happy?
Make it longer to be short story!
could be interesting!
Keep on typing
-RyanX
I was just wondering if this is a short story or if you are going to continue it on? It would be a good long story. What I didn't understand is the title. Does it mean her dad is going to be gone forever?
Well, as I said before this would be a good story plot.
Keep Writing --Jessie!
Hi,
I think Lena and Juniper made some good points, but I wanted to tell you that I liked it. It is a little too short, though. It doesn't tell much of a story. I could see this as the first scene of a story about life after.
I really like this line because it shows what type of person she is. To me, it says she is naive, but also that she was really close to her father and that life will be very different from here on out.
Hey there! June here.
Space between that colon and 3, dearie.
I know she feels like something's wrong, but why would she do this?
Why is the mother stuttering? Unless intuition told her so, she hasn't had anything go wrong just yet.
Is this Kyle a cop? Usually a cop takes care of breaking the news, and formally introduces themselves, "This is Officer Williams, department of blah blah"-- depending on ease of access of number, they would call in enough time for the relative to get to the site.
Throw in the mother's reaction! Her reaction's a little more important.
A few things!
As mentioned, cops usually take care of breaking the news. They do it slowly; I would expect the mother to get pretty nervous after she has a hint of what's going on.
Is the father out this late, usually? Why wouldn't they be suspicious of his absence when it's 3 AM?
I don't understand the girl's motives.
This needs work, dearie. A brief run over, polish on grammar and such -- don't forget to evenly pace your work. No point in rushing any of it.
Best of luck,
June
Hey Layla
Thanks for posting something so short, it makes it much easier to read and review!
Its better to not start your story with "I", so try changing it around, like "The loud ringing of our telephone awoke me". Also, I HATE present tense. Obviously, you can write it however you want. But I also noticed that throughout the story you switch between past (I ran, I walked, I said) and present tense (I run, I walk, I say). I'd keep it with past tense
Your semi-colon use is incorrect, you need a space between the clock: and the 3:47. It'd be smoother if you made it two separate sentences, ie: I lookED to my left to check the time on my alarm clock. It was 3:47 AM.
There should be a comma after "room". Plus, instead of "it" I'd say "the phone".
I'd take that out completely, but whatever.
Slowly, I sneak over to the other side of the room, grabbing the other receiver, and listening in on the conversation would sound much better.
There's no need for the comma, and they would call her by her real name, like Katelyn or Katherine.
Alex would also go by his full name, Alexander. And a lot is two words
Just so you know, when someone dies, you do not get a random call in the middle of the night. A police officer will come to your house, spend time with you, make sure you're okay. Trust me, it's happened to me. Haha.
Anyway, I'll look forward to seeing where you go with this