This is for Lilymoore's Mix and Match Your Prompts Contest. Enjoy~
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A solitary red leaf danced through the forest with the gentle breeze, and came to rest on the small, curled up body of a four year old boy. He lay absolutely still, feeling the cold wind on his back. But he didn’t move. A single, perfectly round teardrop fell on the forest floor. Sobs echoed through the silent forest. The leaves of the maple tree that loomed above him rustled, and the tree swayed, as if trying to comfort the boy. He lifted his head and sat up properly, wiping his tear stained face. He was surrounded by mist, and maple trees that looked like they were on fire, due to the fiery red colour of their leaves.
“Mew.”
The boy turned to see the source of the sound, and saw a small, black kitten staring up at him with big, silvery-grey eyes. He reached out to it. It didn’t back away, so he moved his hand closer
and stroked its fur. It was very small, thin, and ragged. The kitten lay down next to the boy, its head in its small paws. Both boy and kitten were silent for sometime, until the boy spoke.
“Kitty, where is your Mommy?”
The kitten was silent.
“I lost my Mommy, Kitty. I don’t know where she went.”
Silence.
“Daddy said she’ll never come back to us.”
The boy fell silent, and turned away from the kitten. He looked up at what part of the sky he could see through the canopy. A flock of doves rose out of the trees and flew away.
“Has your Mommy also gone away Kitty?”
The kitten opened its eyes.
“Meow.”
The boy turned to face the kitten.
“You don’t say much, do you?”
“Mew.”
“Don’t you feel cold, Kitty?”
“Meow.”
The kitten leaped into the boy’s lap. It curled up into a little ball of black fur, and closed its eyes. The boy stroked its fur, and looked up at the sky.
“Why did Mommy leave, Kitty? Does she hate me? I didn’t eat my vegetables yesterday. Did she leave because of that? Was she angry with me?”
The kitten opened its eyes once more, purred and looked up at the boy.
“I miss her, Kitty.” A single teardrop fell on the kitten’s fur. “If I promise to eat my vegetables and be a good boy, will Mommy come back? If I tell her I’m sorry, will she hug me again?”
The kitten rubbed its tiny head against the boy’s chest and purred. The boy hugged it and started crying. “Please tell Mommy to come back. I don’t want her to leave me. I love my Mommy.”
The boy picked up the kitten from his lap and gently kept it down on the forest floor. He lay down, one hand under his head and sniffed, wiping away the tears and blinking in an attempt to stop them from flowing. The kitten lay down close to the boy, and in a few minutes both of them fell asleep.
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139,514 Literary Works • 672,595 Reviews
Hey there this was really lovely.
I loved how you used the kitty in this story. It was really adorable and ...wow!
The little boys view of the story really make it so much better. You feel sorry him for their childish inocense. It was adorable.
I don't really find the first paragraph hooking though. I guess its alright but I thinkyou could make it better.
I really liked this.
Hey there Icey!
This is adorable, and so very sad. You've captured the miserable confusion of a small child about death beautifully, and there's not actually that much I have to say about improving this. I'll try say the few things I have anyway.
First up, it's a pretty minor thing, but I'd be tempted to start a new paragraph when the boy sits up. Think of it like your first paragraph sets up the initial state - he's on the floor, absolutely not moving. Then the state changes, he sits up - and if you start a new paragraph, your structure will reflect the change. I expect some people might disagree with me on this, and I am by no means an expert on when to hit return, but this is something that I would do if it were my piece. (While I'm on paragraph breaks, I think you may have accidentally hit return between "he moved his hand closer" and "and stroked its fur".)
The only other thing I have to say about this is about your last paragraph. It's the only bit of this piece that I'm not keen on - it's such an abrupt change in tone, from really good 'showyness' of the boy's sadness and confusion, to a slightly 'telly' bit about the boy's father. I'd suggest that, rather than moving the 'camera' of the story away from this scene in the forest, it might be good to have the father come in on the scene and find his son asleep with the kitten. The reader has already worked out by this point that the mother is dead - you don't really need to say it, so you could just have the father enter, and portray something of his emotions when he does.
Aand that's pretty much it! Feel free to PM me or grab me in chat if I've not made sense at any point.
Cadi x
Cerrrrrramy!
I'm here to review for you. Hope you don't mind 8D
First impressions: Aw! This was so cute and adorable. I like how the kid gets comfort from a kitten they don't know. Comfort in bad times is something we all definitely need and it's great to receive. And that boy<333 Thinking his mum died because he didn't eat his vegetables. So sad yet adorable!
Anyway. I don't like nitpicking, but I guess something went wrong with the formatting:
That should all be one paragraph^
Anyway. One thing that bugged me was the ending. As Dems said, it was abrupt D: Personally, when I read it, I thought, "Who is this person?! Honestly, look after your own son, now get lost." I was so wrapped up in feeling sorry for the two that the father annoyed me. I guess you did want to explain what happened to the mother though, so maybe you should have him wonder if... she's dead. Or ran away. Or maybe hint to some kind of crash or accident since he seems to have known about it.
Also, did the boy run away to the forest? How did he come to where he was? Speaking of setting, did everything seem to be happy or angry at him? How is he seeing it? How did he interpret his surroundings: a place to hide, a place of sadness, happiness... that kind of thing really reveals character. Did he imagine for a split second the branches of trees wagging like someone wags their finger when you do something bad when he talked about the vegetables? Where they comforting him?
I really liked this story, Ceramy. You ought to write more :3
Keep writing and you know where to find me if you've got questions,
~Blues
Also - good luck! :3
This is a great star for a novel. It hooked me straight away with it's almost poetic description. I do have one suggestion; after the words"fell asleep" maybe you could put one of those dot or symbol things that show the change of view more obviously. You don't have to though. Anyway, I really like this piece, and I hope you continue the story.
Keep it up.
w&w
Lemon!
I thought this was simply adorable. The first "Mew." just about broke my heart. I'm such a sucker for kittens - apparently it works even without seeing them.
First and probably the least, there seemed to be something funny going on with the formatting of this work. Not that it really matters in the long run, but it might be easier on the eyes if it were consistent, so maybe see if you can do something about that.
Now for some details.
"Boy" and "kitten" lack definite articles (wouldn't need them if they were capitalised, Boy and Kitten). "Some time" is two words.
1) Here, I think the second "fur" sounds repetitive, so maybe rephrase the beginning of the sentence as "The boy stroked the kitten"?
2) The punctuation is a bit off here. You don't actually put commas in either of those sentences, because the clauses after "and" (in both sentences) are subordinate clauses. Here are parts from this story where you do it right:
There isn't a comma here, because "started crying" is a subordinate clause.
There is a comma here, because "in a few minutes both of them fell asleep" is a main clause.
We often add commas where we'd have a natural pause in speech, so it's definitely understandable to put them where they shouldn't be. Anyway, this is quite a minor thing to point out, but I usually can't resist.
I felt like the ending was a bit abrupt. It was needed to complete things, but I'm not sure if this should end with the dad. After all, the boy and the kitten are the things that matter here, so it just feels a bit funny to give the ending to a character no one really cares about (harsh but true!). I'm not sure how I'd do this myself, and I'm not saying you shouldn't keep the last paragraph in. Maybe just... try and work in it in a slightly different way? I don't know.
Overall, this was really cute. I liked how you expressed the boy's feelings through the kitten. Good luck in the contest!
Demeter
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