A Lesson in Semantics
"Okay, Maddie. You're done for today. Go explore or something, say hi to visitors." My father waves me away from the labs after my checkup, his hovercam beeping helpfully beside his ear. "Another kid, Miggles?" he asks and it chirps again, instantly updating him on the patient's stats. He turns around, mumbling possible diagnoses as he heads back to his room. And just like that, I'm just another Problem Solved.
But I can't live my whole life trying to be another Problem for attention, so I walk towards the Visitors Area. A spot guaranteed a few glances in my direction, maybe that whole "pressed-up-against-the-glass-with-wide-eyes" reaction. I feel a tug on my shirt.
"Can you read my mind?"
I turn around. It's that question, this inquiry that I've heard my entire life. Repeated for the 241st time, and judging by this kid’s Bambi look, it won’t be the last time either.
"Maybe," I say, taking a different road for once. "Maybe not."
The little kid wrinkles his nose in disappointment. "That's no fun," he says. "What's the point?" He turns to waddle back to his parents, still carefree and unaffected.
And I realize that there’s nothing for me here, not when I’ve got an identity on display for everyone to see, 24/7. So I take my dad’s advice, the only one that ever proved useful to me, and I “go explore or something.”
This is easier than reading minds.
The town of Caldwell, New Jersey isn’t the smallest town in New Jersey anymore. But it’s not the biggest, which is why it still has the last few fresh-brewed coffee shops in America as opposed to auto-caffeine. Then again, I see why people skip out on coffee for some altered genes to stay awake. Not.
“A…caramel frappe,” I tentatively order at The Bagel Loft. The barista smiles.
“Whipped cream?” she asks, and I nod. This is being normal. This is fading into the crowd.
I sink down into one of their aromatherapy chairs with the frappe, until a sickening cherry-vanilla undermines the use of my nostrils.
“Yeah, you sort of learn to avoid those early in life,” someone says behind me.
I stand up, wincing, and turn around. “Early in my life,” I carefully reply, “I was surrounded by a psychic community and learning how to read minds. How’s that for a childhood experience?”
He shrugs, black hair falling into grey eyes. “I get the feeling that this is all a big lie,” he quotes. “Problem is, I don’t know who’s lying.”
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower?” I guess. Clear as day, hovering around in his mind.
He brightens. “You’ve read it? Wow, I barely know anyone who actually reads books. I hate e-reads and e-hears; it’s just not the same with the actual pieces of manuscript in your hands…” he trails off. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, tapping my head. “Wonderful, superhuman me.”
“So, Wonderwoman,” he ventures. “Might I have the honor of knowing exactly who you are?”
“My dad’s one of the scientists,” I say automatically.
“So you live your identity through your dad?”
“No,” I say, “I don’t. I’m Maddie.”
“Ian,” he replies easily. I can hear him thinking, loud and clear, and everything’s like bouncing off the walls, these echoes. Do you know me? This place smells weird. Where does she live? God, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like this. She even acts normal.
Suddenly, things change for me. I don’t know if it was this common afternoon, talking to a normal boy, sipping this caramel frappucino and just being me. No shows. No showing off, actually. And I don’t want to be Wonderwoman anymore, I don’t want to be different. I just want to be normal. So, I take the leap. It might as well be off a cliff, not just a chair.
“Actually,” I start. “I was just kidding with you. I’m just a scientist’s kid. And I’ve read ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower.’ It’s one of my favorite books.”
He flashes me a grin, no questions, and starts walking. We’re out the door, and this is better--way better--than reading minds.
“So, you said your dad is a scientist, right? Ohhh!” he smacks his head. “The psychic community, right outside of town. That’s all they talk about here.” I nod, tuck my hands into my pockets, and keep walking.
“I’ve always wanted to see the field,” he said wistfully. “You know.” He looks at me, like nothing could be more obvious than this curiosity.
“All right,” I give in. “Let’s go.”
I hold onto this moment. Dearly. Because, for once, no one is asking me to read their minds. This guy wants to see some flowers.
“So what time is it now?” he asks as we walk down the dusty road. We’re out of Caldwell, and the cluster of buildings, all chrome and glass, are appearing in the near-distance.
I look down at my wrist. The holographic tattoos swirl on my skin, and I read it aloud. “April 25th, 2027. 3:23 P.M.”
He stares at the tattoos. “Cool. Very useful.”
I shrug, something that I’ve picked up, already, from him. “Benefits of being surrounded by technological advances, I guess.” And now we’re surrounded by grass, all sun and nature seeming to crowd together in one immense field.
“They grow hybrid flowers here,” I say, treading through the greenery. “Flowers and anything green, really. It’s just a branch off of the main company, Edrix. ‘Expanding their horizons’ is what my dad always says.” My fingers brush a new species of strawberry-flavored corn, and I stare at the stalk wistfully. He shoots me a puzzled look.
“I miss corn-flavored corn,” I sigh. And he laughs.
There is a comfortable silence, only for a while. It’s so easy to pretend, just like it’s so hard to be yourself. And this was me, without the identity. My personality, without possibly the biggest part of me that I never wanted in the first place.
The sun and its warming rays give me reason to sink down into the field of flowers. How cliché, I think as I stare directly into the sun with Ian, my contacts already shielding my eyes with a layer of Ray-Bans, compliments of the lab. I’m out here, under the sun. With some flowers. And a boy.
His mind was humming with so many different thoughts, streaming through here, through space. And I still remember that same humming, haunting my childhood. Horrified faces, awful fights over badly expressed opinions. Being psychic didn’t, unfortunately, ensure that you didn’t hear other psychic people’s thoughts, too.
“Did you ever wish you were like them?”
His voice catches me unaware, and it’s one of those questions that have the potential to punch you in the gut and leave you breathless. Worse, I don’t know what to say. Is there a right answer here?
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not.”
He turns his head to stare at me, his head crushing some more crysanthe-lilies.
“You’re already extraordinary, you know that?”
And I might’ve even agreed with him, if it was Ian speaking.
“Dad!” I scramble up, brushing off the leaves and this time I see the eyes of my father. "What are you doing here?"
There’s this charged silence, so full of shock and there’s this sick moment where my father’s face is frozen in this ecstatic, Oh-My-God expression that slowly fades away. He looks at Ian, a stranger, then me. I swivel myself around, breathe in and out, and already my mind is spinning.
I’m sorry, Maddie, I can hear him think. You and I knew nothing would be normal. Everything has changed.
He doesn’t understand. And now the game is over.I listen to my father's retreating footsteps, crushing the grass and the flowers.And when I look at Ian, it’s like his face is frozen, half puzzled and half something like horrified awe… What? I don’t understand…
Please, this is, I just, wanted to be normal, I weakly reach out to him, as if he could understand and this would all end, had never happened.
The sun is shining too hard, the silence is too loud, the flowers suddenly become unbearably ugly. I take a step, breathing hard, my eyes stinging. Like I could turn away from this so easily.
We’ll try to leave everything behind. We’ll keep pretending, hiding behind our excuses to be extraordinary, or for me, simply to be ordinary. This is a cruel and beautiful moment in which everything is stripped away and exposed, and normality is beyond our attainment. All these lies I've woven together now tangled, so helplessly as I stand here, caught between my old self and the one I can become.
I take a step.
Backwards or forwards, this is up to me, now.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please critique this as much as you can. I really want to make this a good piece to send into a scenario writing contest. This was about 1,488 words. No holding back. :]
Thanks!
--Seree.
Ooh. I see. Yeah, I was trying to have him say "hi" without sounding cliche or awkward. XD
And yes, the last part was the hardest to do. I was trying to cut out parts, to explain everything more completely. And the logic, God, the logic. XD
I'm going to keep on working on it. Then again, I have to turn it in tomorrow.
I guess I missed that you're under a word limit here (I suppose "identity" is the theme you have to use?). I'll try to clarify some stuff.
Regarding the smell business, i was referring to the fact that he thinks to himself that the place smells funny, despite the fact that he just told her he avoids the aroma chairs. He's familiar with the scented nature of cafes and their chairs, and yet he's thinking about the strange smell of the place as though it were some unexpected thing. It sounded like he had walked into a strange place and gone "man, it smells weird in here."
As for the way he speaks, when was the last time someone said something to you started with "might I have the honor?" It's antiquated and far to eloquent for normal, everyday speech. He might as well call her "ma'dam" and kiss her hand.
Lastly, and I suppose this is most important, I definitely got that she's psychic (the whole "she's psychic" thing tipped me off). What I didn't get was what happened at the end. I don't get why that whole last paragraph even comes up; what just happened that ruined everything?
The way I see it, she gets surprised by her dad while she's in the field with Ian, and...suddenly everything is shot to hell. I'm probably doing a terrible job explaining it, but it's hard for me to describe what I'm talking about because I really have no idea what happened. To put it as succinctly as possible; why did she flip out at the end?
And like I said before; I liked it. Good luck with your contest.
The shining characteristic of all of your writing is your strong, clipped, omnipresent voice. You easily describe emotions and personality with each sentence which makes your characters vivid and unique. I really envy your talent for style and inner dialogue.
However, this piece was extremely confusing. And I think that's because of your lack of description. You've got so many ideas, so many things to say and give to the reader, and yet they all fall flat because of that same voice that dominates your writing. Your most impressive quality is also your most detrimental quality. If you can find some sort of cockatail, some sort of happy medium between character and setting, the world is your oyster.
Mainly, the description is lacking when you introduce characters like Ian (who is this guy?) and Dad (who is this guy?). And also your transistions. You kind of lurch from plot turn to plot turn. For instance, our heroine is sitting in a chair in a coffe shop and all of the sudden this stranger is talking to her. What? There was no sort of smooth development of the plot. The same thing happened when Dad suddenly appeared in the field. Extremely confusing. Describe the situations more.
In short, this piece does not work as a stand-alone. It could work if it was longer; novella or novel sized. Your voice is great and now you need to work on your setting and descriptions. Action as well.
Then again, I see why people skip out on coffee for some altered genes to stay awake. Not.
"Maybe," I say. "Maybe not."
"Dad!" I scramble up, brushing off the leaves and this time I see the eyes of my father. "What are you doing here?"
The shining characteristic of all of your writing is your strong, clipped, omnipresent voice. You easily describe emotions and personality with each sentence which makes your characters vivid and unique. I really envy your talent for style and inner dialogue.
However, this piece was extremely confusing. And I think that's because of your lack of description. You've got so many ideas, so many things to say and give to the reader, and yet they all fall flat because of that same voice that dominates your writing. Your most impressive quality is also your most detrimental quality. If you can find some sort of cockatail, some sort of happy medium between character and setting, the world is your oyster.
Mainly, the description is lacking when you introduce characters like Ian (who is this guy?) and Dad (who is this guy?). And also your transistions. You kind of lurch from plot turn to plot turn. For instance, our heroine is sitting in a chair in a coffe shop and all of the sudden this stranger is talking to her. What? There was no sort of smooth development of the plot. The same thing happened when Dad suddenly appeared in the field. Extremely confusing. Describe the situations more.
In short, this piece does not work as a stand-alone. It could work if it was longer; novella or novel sized. Your voice is great and now you need to work on your setting and descriptions. Action as well.
Then again, I see why people skip out on coffee for some altered genes to stay awake. [s]Not[/s].
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not.”
I'm a bit confused. So you're saying that you don't get that she's psychic?
The extra space was a typo thing. For some reason, I can't correct it.
And..
He's obviously been to a cafe before, if not that particular one, and knows about the smelly chairs, so why is he thinking about the smell as if its strange?
This Ian guy doesn't speak like a normal person. "Might I have the honor of being a jackass?"
There were a number of times in this story that I had no idea what was happening. Right off the bat, the labs and Visitor Area left me wondering just where, exactly, this was all happening. It could use a lot more description there in particular; the way it is now, I have no idea what this place is like. I imagine you're shooting for a hospital-like environment, with sterilized white walls and perfectly neat everything, but that's just me.
You say that "a pot guaranteed a few glances." What does that mean? A spot of what (or where)?
Is identity supposed to have a special connotation here? You seem to use it a lot, and it doesn't always make sense. She has an "identity on display for everyone to see," which I'm assuming means that she herself is "on display," but it really isn't clear. And if that's so, how is it that she can just walk away (and no one recognizes her)?
The coffee shop part struck me as having a lot of problems. First, the sarcastic "not" bit might be changed for something in a more narrative style, but honestly I didn't mind it so much when I was reading so it doesn't really matter. More importantly, where did she get the money to pay for the coffee? The entire point of this is that she's been isolated from the world living as a research project or whatever, and yet she has the cash to go out and a frappachino.
She goes out trying to be normal and talking about blending in, and how great it is that no one is looking at her and asking her to read minds, and yet the first thing she says to someone is "I AM A PSYCHIC." That makes no sense. Also, there's really no indication as to her age.
This Ian guy doesn't speak like a normal person. "Might I have the honor of being a jackass?" No one says that. And again, with the identity stuff, "live your identity through your dad" could be "identify yourself through your dad," which I think sounds better.
His thoughts are also weird (not to mention her "like bouncing off the walls" description of them). He's obviously been to a cafe before, if not that particular one, and knows about the smelly chairs, so why is he thinking about the smell as if its strange? And is the whole "never met anyone like this" and "she even acts normal" supposed to be because she said she's a psychic (which he has an incredibly underwhelming reaction to, considering she's generally some sort of spectacle), or because he fell in love with her after thirty seconds of conversation, in which she told him she was a psychic with a traumatic childhood?
And since she can and has read his mind, wouldn't she immediately know that he knows she's lying? Or is he seriously convinced by her "oh I was just kidding" story?
You've got an extra space after that (between them leaving and talking). Not sure if it's supposed to be there, but it is.
She really shouldn't be reading the entire date when he asks the time; ok, it let's you know it's in the future, but we already know that. 3:23 will do just fine. Presumably, he knows the rest.
From there on in, I have no idea what's happening. They're in a field of flowers, and she's thinking about...arguments? And he asks if she wanted to be like "them" (who are "them?"). Is the question shocking because he believes that she isn't really psychic, and that's what he's asking about? Was he hearing her thoughts and asking about them? I can't tell. And then her father shows up, randomly telling her that she's awesome. And she flips out. I have no clue why. He sees her with Ian and leaves. That's all that happened as far as I know. Because of this, the monologue-thing at the end seems...ridiculous. Sit back down. Tell Ian "that's my dad." Talk about how embarrassing parents are, or something. No need to go nuts.
That's pretty much all I have to say. It was good, up until it lost me.
-dies-
The first critique, and it's awesome! I knew I needed to work on the pyschic community a bit more, but I hate wordcount frames.
Thank you so much. This critique helped A LOT. :]]
And, no. There is no mark to identify who's psychic or not.
Come to think of it, I didn't really think about that until now. XD
Elaborate on Psychic Community: Check. [sort of, in as many words as i can spare]
Elaborate on Coffeeshops: Check.
Elaborate on Fields: Check.
Get rid of first lines: Check.
And there is no mark. Check. :]]
Hey, Serena!
*dies* A sci-fi story without aliens or orcs or wooden dialogue! Yes, let's just say I'm a little biased towards science fiction as a genre. I'm slowly snapping out of it, but...it's taking a while.
I really did love the way that you wove the technology throughout the story without it being too intrusive. It's more of a fact of life for you, and not a feature of the story--something that is really quite grand.
A quick thing before I before I begin the Ramble Royale: your first line really didn't seem to fit. It was a good line, but the transition between it and the beginning of the story was nonexistent--it just seemed to be there. Not a good thing. Save it somewhere, so you can use it again, but for this particular story, you'll want to start it off with the dialogue instead.
A LESSON IN SPECIFICS:
When you throw readers into a world that they might not be familiar with, you want to be as specific as possible when describing things. You don't have to be The Clique annoying and describe every single little handbag's brand name, but you don't want to be vague. In sci fi, vague is bad.
Throwing your reader into a world like this one without description is a bit like dropping someone into Uzbekistan without a traveller's guide and pronounciation tips on "Where is the bathroom?". Filling in the blanks will make everyone happy.
There were a few things that caught my eye that I really didn't understand what you were talking about:
- Does the girl have a mark that allows the other people to tell that she was psychic? She goes and buys a coffee later without problem, so I'm assuming she's not (in)famous.
- Fresh-brewed coffee shops, as opposed to...what, exactly? Descibe a modern coffeeshop that your main character is trying to avoid. We'll better understand her disgust.
- Describe the psychic community. If you have the words for it, it would be an excellent flashback opportunity.
- What are the fields for, exactly? I thought they meant the fields at the psychic community, and then they started talking about genetically engineered strawberries.
With your personal style, I wouldn't worry about going overboard. It's simply not going to happen for Serena. ^_~
___
Thanks for the read! Please PM me if you have any questions or want me to take a look at something else.
120,613 Literary Works • 651,076 Reviews
Points: 890
Reviews: 125
Donate