Hey, everyone. This is the second story I am posting. Now, before you read it I want to tell you guys a couple things. First, I wrote this in the start of last year, so 2008. So, it isn't that wonderful. Second, I wrote this for an English class. We had read Wieland, which is a Romantic piece (Romanticism). The work we were do was was to create a piece--whether it be creative writing, a poser explaining the book, or a fanfic--closely related to romanticism. I chose a creative story. I'm not quite sure how a poster would show romanticism but, that was one of the choices. We were also, if we chose a fanfic or creative piece, told to attempt to follow the author's writing style. So, this was pretty new to me.
Anyways, I was looking through old e-mails and I found this piece sent to my teacher and myself to save it. I was pretty stoked that I found an old writing last one or two years ago. I read it over and didn't edit it at all. That's what I have you guys for. I want to submit this piece somewhere or, perhaps, just have it and make it better. I realize how utterly icky this piece is. I know I might be able to do better now. As I read it over, some things didn't even make sense. But, I want another voice to help me fix it.
Wieland is an amazing book. You guys should read it. I also re-read this piece and it reminded me of The Giver. I don't remember basing it off of the book but, like, I probably did. Haha.
So here you guys go. Remember what I said. This is an old piece and shows not much of my writing now. Again, I just want to make it better. Like, because, the writing doesn't make that much sense. I was attempting, as the the teacher told, to try and write in the author's style. Good luck helping me fix this, I know it needs a bunch of work!
There was a town; small and it was all the inhabitants knew. For there was nothing of color, only contrasts and light. Shades of grey and if it were even so they knew not what grey was, only life as itself. Living breathing, eating—and there was no taste, yet they never knew, as nothingness was what the palate was accustomed to.
The children knew not to speak too loudly.
A playground empty with the groan of rusted metal against its kind, the clasp of the chain so old and brittle, it the only noise.
There was no rain, there was no heat, nor did the cold exist… Or, perhaps, there were, they, the populace, just didn’t know.
Johanna, seven years of age was so very beautiful and those around her were stunned. The silver of her sleek strands fell delicately about her shoulders, always pouched from a darker grey hat. She wore her coat for as the wind blew, the shade of her skin flinched. She could not contemplate what caused such a feeling, because there wasn’t any such element of sensation. It was all just so.
She stood in the schoolyard’s playground idly with not a sound but the school bell’s ring. Breathing so heavily, stillness, and she viewed before her as the children, her classmates, ushered themselves back into the building. But she stayed put and she knew she might be punished, yet was curious as to the question of life was the same during the hours she spent in school. She wanted to know. She wanted to know it all: what the cause of the tingled sensation of her skin, why she felt unlike she had moments before the wind picked up. Because nobody else brought up the change, none of them expressed what seemed to be the norm.
The sky had been changing, the black trees—leafless in all the glory of autumn—forced from side to side and howling with branches masked as terror. She had looked up; the sky’s grey had dimmed a darker shade. White clouds painted themselves with gloom, and Johanna watched with a willing awe. She was aware, which was unlike the rest, that her gut felt a distinctive difference… However, nothing in language lived to describe such.
Suddenly all was still and she felt frozen, not even a swing creaked. Mind blank, eyes averted upwards, she dared not move a muscle. Time had past and with the silence; slowly Johanna tilted her chin down, eyes darting towards the woods.
She wasn’t allowed to enter, a gnarled metal fence isolated the yard from it but she had a hope of unlocking the unknown while her mind whispered Joey, no. Joey. That was what her mother named her. But her mother had been lost years previous when the little girl was four. Your mother had quite an imagination, her father would always muse, she was just so… different. One day she went mad. Saw what she shouldn’t have saw… left for a walk, never came back. Johanna always pondered, bringing herself to wonder if her mother had a mind like her own, if she had seen beyond the town, if she knew there had been a difference from what was known.
Something stood out, with the child’s hands trembling out of an emotion she didn’t quite know, beyond the fenced forest, tangled in a tree. Rouge, and it was terrifying. Yet no such word as terrifying graced her mind. If one of the townsmen were to see such a horror, he would not be able to acknowledge so, he would just be.
Unfamiliarity came upon Joey, what wasn’t known as courage had her travel to the fence. Grey against black, her fingers grasped the metal and she knew the sensation in her hands felt different from just moments ago. There was no word for cold. Pushing up with tiny strength, her leathered penny loafers pressured through the openings of the gate and she climbed over, landing on the other side with a thud. But she didn’t cry, she didn’t know pain. The dark color from her scraped knee had no impact on her fright, although he flesh wrenched with a difference alien to her.
She stood and limped slightly to the tree with the contrasting piece of which she noted to be a scarf. How to describe it, she hadn’t a thought to what way it seemed… Foreign, different, and it was of that fact, which confirmed the little girl’s frame of mind. There was something else—Something beyond her known life.
After retrieving the scarf by a struggling climb, she admired it with awe and yet the nasty wind had stolen her pride and key to mystery with a gust. Her heart, from this, had leapt and she let out a soft moan of distress, distress of which she knew not, and she determined herself to follow the escapee.
Through a grey scale of befallen leaves and grey dirt, the dreary overcast swept her hair and shivered her skin, the child stepped. Over branches and wicked little entities so unfamiliar, her travel took on such a time that grey muted to black and she felt wet around her eyes—sadness and crying did not exist.
That strange shade met her eyes, the bright red scarf, it had dropped from the wind to a nest of foliage. Her poor hands shook with anticipation, her bloody knee slumped towards the ground and with such anguish, took the fabric—so soft and nurturing—to her cheek, inhaling the scent she long desired. But all was not silent; a raspy moan, chilling and haunting, emanated to what she didn’t know was terror. With not a moment to consider, the young thing brushed aside the leaves, it having only been, perhaps, instinct.
What she had seen birthed curiosity once again. A handle, rusted she could feel from her grasp of it, dark ebony had fought her as she pulled back. Strength and determination, persistence and resilience, Johanna managed to release the wood from earth, lift the opening and she peered down into nothingness. Nothing she had ever seen before had stunned her like so, not even the scarf in all it’s gorgeous crimson, for this emptiness had been so black and so dark. A moment of deep breathing to calculate her next budge before her body leaned forth with a tentative might, descending.
She felt nothing.
Silence as she stood, in the horrific black, her hands flailed in a meek manner, promising to herself to be calm… As she was not, this newfound anxiety had touched her thought process as being a sign to breathe in and out deeply.
She knew.
Her fingers, at least, had contacted a knob, of which she knew was cold, clenching and twisting, light so bright and bold poured in nearly blinding her with marvelous color. And she dropped the scarf. She dropped it as when her eyes, affixing away from the palettes of handsome difference from what she had grown up in, upon a photograph. The single piece of colorless, right before her on the wall, next to contrasting paintings of floral shades, had captured her very state of mind. For what she saw was a young girl, seven years of age, with a hat atop her head. Eyes averted upwards towards the dimmed sky and gloomy clouds, and a still swing set. All looked frozen.
“You found my scarf,” she heard a voice say, while the corner of her eyes glimpsed the movement of the red scarf. A lady, so gorgeous with blonde locks to match the child’s, smiled with an essence of maternal care. “I knew you would, Joey. I just knew you would.”
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Thank you so much C:
I might edit it, I might not. Or I will in time.
I want to focus on my novel, haha.
You were very helpful, though. I really appreciate it.
- Lily.
Hullo, I'm Hawk and I'm here to review your story.
Well. I'm not exactly sure what to make of it. It's interesting, no doubt, and a little creepy. I've never read Wieland before (never even heard of it, actually), so I have nothing to compare your writing style to. Therefore, I'm just going into this blindly and will give you my thoughts on it.
Quite a bit of the wording in this piece sounds awkward to my ear. I know you have the ability to really paint a great picture with your words; you've just got to wrestle out the right way to portray it.
My thoughts are in blue, and anything else I want to highlight is in red.
Well, that's it. I found that it's a dreary, oppressive-feeling piece, but intriguing nonetheless. The wording, however, is the only thing that would put me off of wanting to read it.
Please PM me if you have any questions!