Published May 3, 2012
Screams. Gunshots.
The thud of a human, in complete form and might, against the ground.
And dust.
In the blur of fleeting moments and the clash between two worlds, I can see everything. I can see every speck of dust that belongs to the storm breaking out. I can see the life of every one of them, the most beautiful of moments in the hands of bloody men, the innocence in a child’s question, stars of a moonless sky bowing to the eternity of darkness, and the brilliance of scars etched into the hearts of these young men.
All of them, wasting away to nothing.
Fathers, sons, and brothers. They fall one by one. They fall because others have yet to see a new dawn, to see the crashing of waves against the shore.
But all that’s assuming that they’re alive. For all we know, they might have already added to the statistics, to the mass of dead bodies lying in our hospitals.
Welcome to our lives. Welcome to madness.
So I do what I do best. I keep reciting the same words over and over and over again only so I can make order out of chaos. My mother, my father, my sister, my niece; it’s all in my head.
My country.
I remember dreaming about the mirth of my 3 year old niece, the love my mother fed me with, and the pride my father took in me. I remember believing in the world I dreamt for all of them. I also remember when this was never about the rage of a thousand men, or using my brother’s corpse as a shield. And believe me God, this was never meant to be about shooting a hundred bullets towards the same man.
But that was so long ago. Time feels heavy now with the weight of dread, and pained souls but even when it belongs to the reality of a crippled world, it passes without much notice. This war, right now, is about all the things it was never about. The rifle’s all I’ve got.
So I shoot. One, two, three, four….I shoot till all my emptiness pours out, till I avenge for every one of my brother who’s fallen, till I’m shredded to a million more pieces.
If there’s something called harmony, I hope I never know. Because the rubble needs more substance and God knows if I’ll ever go back…maybe someday in wounded bits, but till then,
My mother, my father, my sister, my niece. My country.
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139,365 Literary Works • 672,540 Reviews
Hello there.
This certainly seems like an emotional piece here! I can see you like to use lots of metaphors and symbolism, and that can be a great thing. Now since I'm not nearly as adept as Dreamwalker when it comes to analyzing metaphors and the like this will be a more general review.
Now I first must get out of the way the fact that because I cannot really analyze or interpret symbolism very well I tend to not like pieces that heavily feature metaphors and symbolism. So why do I like this one? Maybe it's because it depicting madness and confusion, and since I'm kind of hopeless with symbolism I guess I enjoyed a madness of my own in my head. Kind of like enjoyment on a more meta scale. Was this intentional on your part? Probably not. But I still enjoyed what I got out of reading this.
And aside from that I'll just pick at some grammatical things.
Now, if I recall correctly an ellipsis is only three dots, not four. And that's all I really have to say. This might have not been very helpful critique wise, but I wanted to say how much I enjoyed this, even though I didn't get much of the symbolism.
Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.
--Dover
Okay, so the first thing that popped into my mind whilst reading this was how formal the diction was. You obviously like to work with words and metaphor, which is a fantastic quality to have when writing prose for a more mature audience. But we've also got to look at the flow of this work; strength of the passage.
And, dear, it really sounded forced.
I don't mean that it wasn't good, because there were some very sound, and interesting aspects of this bit, but you also have a few sections where the diction is so stark and formal that you start to move towards the passion that is words yet not the passion behind them. In which case, you're writing something that shows all your writing chops but nothing that showcases a storyline that's really interesting or exciting.
In fact, it was a bit bland. As if the point of writing this was to simply showcase your capabilities.
My first suggestion is to breath. Drink a cup of coffee. Stretch your wrists out and close your eyes for a moment. What topic are you passionate about? What makes this original, and if nothing does, how can you make something that is? Inspiration comes in all forms, whether poetry or prose alike. And without it, you'll find everything comes out as starchy as it did up above.
Now, as a prose review, I'll break down an example of this.
Strong diction. Weak concept.
Isn't the human body, in complete form and might, a living body? A tall, brave soul still attached? This sounds really cool, diction-wise, but the idea that it implies seems kind of silly. After all, how is one mighty if one is dead?
Another thing that I caught myself twitching over was the fact that, in this entire piece, you don't put a name to a face. Though we don't need to know a character's actual name, especially in a short story, there is nothing special about this character. Nothing that set's his thinking off as anything other then bland and basic. The kind of ideologies you would expect to hear, and have been depicted many times before. You want originality? Make him out to be something completely different in his head then his actions depict. Because, often enough, the human mind is not so straightforward, and not so... courageous.
I would like to see more fear in this piece.
Anyways, when it comes to your diction, you know you want to write something worth note. It's clear in the fact that you're playing on your words and images to try and encompass the topic rather than simply state it. But this topic is overused and bland.
Keep writing, dear. And when you post something new, drop me a comment. I want to see you grow as a prose writer, and, if you should ever feel the need to attempt it, a poet too. After all, you like words.
Much love,
~Walker