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Young Writers Society



Asking the Time (V2)

by Liminality


I’ve learned so much giving the time to people on the streets. I’ve learned how some people are quick and race away as soon as the numbers leave my lips, as if from a toll plaza. I’ve learned how some people are slow and like to touch, pat their warm hand upon my cold shoulder and smile. I’ve learned how some people stare with white faces. When I realised I could predict which person does what looking at their posture, eyes and lips, I knew I’d learnt too much. But it was an especially bad month to give away a wristwatch.

All along the street people pushed carts back and forth, timed only by the pulse of hearts and the soaking of sweat through their clothes. They only had the date of the calendar on their mind, these people in red. Hours and minutes meant nothing to the old lady squatting by the roadside baking folded sheets of dough to a crisp over an open flame. The wrinkles in her face were all laugh lines. These were all signs of a month when no one would even lay eyes on anything even slightly inauspicious, much less a teller of dying time. Someone had thrown their alarm clock in with their recycling, perhaps hoping someone could take apart the years they’d lost and fashion them into something new. I sidestepped the bins and walked on.

Each day brings in something new on the surface, at least, as if the world is putting souvenir shop goodies on the conveyor belt of life: each differing by only one thing (a colour, a decal, a shimmer on the side) and all of them being things. Things that happen. Things that are real. Things that all leave your mantelpiece eventually, thrown in with the recycling. We know so little of the things we care most about. It’s why I withheld my tongue when I saw you, sir, marching down the pavement with your briefcase in hand, the tie waving from the inside of your pocket. Immediately I could feel the urge to lean over and pull it out, the smell of familiar aftershave and soap overpowering me the way the touch of a starving child can overpower a rich man. These things were those I thought had been taken away by trucks, but instead had fallen into cracks and crevices in my tiles, discarded but not forgotten. I remembered.

Nobody had to give you a wristwatch for you to go away. You had left politely, quietly, in what you’d seen as morning but the rest of the world considered night. But you hadn’t taken all of you with you. There had been pieces left in my house, these little finnicky things like scattered hairs and fingerprints and scents and smells that I couldn’t scrub. This part hadn’t been nearly as courteous. But you had no duty to be courteous to me, so I’d taken what I got and walked out onto the streets as always.

Again, about that tie of yours.

I wanted to loop it around your neck and demand you wear it properly. Maybe knot the other end to my wrist so I could follow you to wherever they make old things into new things. So much so that, when you asked me the time, I failed my duty; the years had slipped from my fingers and with it went the months, days and hours between when I last held a tie and now. I watched your back push past me, recede, fade, searching for someone else with a watch. I watched you until you were nothing at all. And then I went home, and I made dinner, and I spent another Chinese New Year alone. 

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66 Reviews

Points: 400
Reviews: 66

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Sun Feb 24, 2019 2:40 pm
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Starve wrote a review...



Hey Liminality! Traves here for a quick review.
-The Short story is one of my favourite genres for reading and writing, and this one definitely does not disappoint at all. I've only read your poetry before, but this is pretty good too.

-A 600 word flash fiction can be difficult to write as I learned recently. What made you choose this length of the story? A lot of what follows could be moot depending on the answer, especially because this story is definitely one whole, if not yet complete if you get my drift.

-There's also the fact that this is a second draft? And that is clearly visible, because usually most of my reviews contain what can be cut down upon and I feel there's no fluff in this one. Thus I can only talk about what I liked and would've liked more.

-A Chinese new year is something I've never celebrated or seen celebrated, so if I miss out on the significance of some part, please lemme know.

- I liked how analytic and referential this story was, letting the reader feel by focussing on a particular train of thought while leaving enough breadcrumbs to piece together the whole thing, maybe answering some of the questions about why the other person left, and why it affected the narrator to the point that they're in the place they're at right now, would be cool. (Although it would perhaps require more scenes or longer transitions, so if there's a word limit that would be prohibitive)

- I have no qualms with the language or the imagery etc. they rubbed in the loneliness of the narrator in multiple ways, and that along with resignation was the general emotion I got from the tale.

- Although the same distanced /dissonant feel that the first person narration gave plus the story length you chose also limited the range of the whole thing. This is a single scene, one-shot and did leave as many questions as it answered (the flashback felt a bit tacked on because the back and forth tense change in the 2nd-3rd-4th paragraphs was a bit jarring), and it would be interesting to see how it would be written say if it were 2 or 3 times in length. I mention that because other short stories/flash fiction I've read of similar length on YWS (which go to the same depth of detail as yours) also do the same, and it can get a bit monotonous.

- Again, this was immersive and went to the proper depths and the proverbial other side of the coin, and left me asking for more.

Keep writing and sharing !




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64 Reviews

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Reviews: 64

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Sun Feb 24, 2019 3:02 am
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Aliceinhorrorland wrote a review...



Howdy y’all! I’m here to review this. I’m going to start with what I like. I really liked the beginning, it pulled me in and kept me fascinated, making me yearn to read the next line. I also liked the symbolism you used throughout this; it gave me a clear picture in my mind, which was really nice. Now on to critique, keep in mind this could be just my opinion, but it’s just my personal advice to you. Okay so with your paragraphs, I think it would appeal to more people if it were broken up into smaller pieces. A human sees a big chunk of text, and flees. So I think it would be more aesthetically pleasing and would keep more people hooked if you divided each paragraph in half or so. Again, just my advice. One more thing I want to say is this was all a little confusing, you kept towering information and my small brain couldn’t digest it all. It left me a lil confused, and I didn’t exactly know where it was heading because I kept trying to comprehend the metaphors and such. If that makes sense. You threw metaphor after metaphor and kept using all of this, making me in a state of confusion. Maybe that’s just me. And this concludes my critique! I really did like this, I feel with more tidying up this could be absolutely magnificent! And I hope you do intend to do that :) You’re on to something here! I can tell you’ll have a bright future. Welp that’s about it, always keep writing!



~CAKEEEEEE~





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