I had always been afraid of death. The very thought of it terrified me. I once heard that evolution had caused us to develop the ability to forgot about death; to carry on. I guess I did most of the time, but when I did remember I realised why those who couldn't forget died out pretty quickly.
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We were shopping, I was going into one clothes shop; finding something I liked and then putting it back for later. I could never decide whether to buy a thing or not. The main problem? I loved brands and hated spending money. As i looked at the crisp new notes in my hand I wished I wasn't so vain.
"Hurry up, I wanna look at the shoes." My girlfriend moaned. I turned and smiled, her blue eyes pleading with me to make a decision. As I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek I smelt the new perfume I'd bought her for Christmas. Good decision there my son, I thought.
"I'll be quick, but what does it matter; we've got all day?" The jumper was returned to the hanger and we left for the shoe shop just across the way.
-
First I imagine black, a pure, continuous existence of black. No stars and no people. No world. Nothing. I briefly think that I'll be bored and then realise I'll be dead. For some this is enough. For some the fact you won't care means it doesn't matter. Rubbish, I care now. If that's enough, then life is not good enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm probably more frequently miserable than most; but I'd rather be miserable than dead. Even better I'd rather be happy. Sometimes I even am. In fact quite a lot of the time. That's when it's worst to think of death. It can ruin even the best day.
-
We meet our friends at the cafe' on the third floor. There were my boy's, sitting and trying to flirt with my Anna's friends. I smiled, thanking God for once that I was the one in a relationship. I also realised that while i had at least partly hated my best mates girlfriends, they where all just happy for me. I thanked God again for friends. Then quickly checked myself realised I was an atheist and debated with to thank Dawkins or Stephen Fry. I decided to settle on Obama.
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The Ambulance. The Crying. The Funeral. I was there for all of it. In a way.
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We were in the old time style sweet shop when it happened. There was a blast across from the fountain. I could see the flames inside the shop, it looked containable and as the alarms went off we all started walking out without much fear. That ended when the fountain blow up. A piece of the metal work hit a man right next to me. I dropped straight away and knelt by his side. Once side of his face was mangled. My breath was caught in my throat and I was pretty glad when someone picked him up and carried him away. As I rose up, I heard the screaming for the first time. I never stopped hearing it.
-
After I realise that I'll die. That It'll end. I go cold. My skin starts to creep sometimes. My breath goes cold, just at the base of my rib cage, it gets caught and I'm terrified in a way I never am in any other situation. There's a feeling in the pit of my stomach, an empty, empty feeling and I can think of nothing else. I put on music or watch a film but it does nothing, it just ruins the song.
-
The fire surrounded us on all sounds. There been eight blasts in all. Me and the boys had got split up by the 3rd blast, I had no idea where Anna's friends were. I grabbed hard of Anna's hand and dragged her forward, towards what I hopped would be an exit.
She stopped dead at the fire in front of us, we'd managed to avoid going through flames up till now, but forward, left, right they were all on fire. We couldn't go back. This was the only way.
Anna wouldn't go, I tried to tell her we had to. She wouldn't go.
I had to. I had to go.
She wouldn't go.
-
Maybe that fear of death, didn't drive her. Maybe she was just terrified of fire. I don't know. I ask myself every day.
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"She wouldn't go." I told the fireman on the outside. I started to cry as I justified my actions. The fireman nodded and moved on.
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I saw Anna carried out, by some sort of rescue worker, she was out in an Ambulance. I didn't try and get on.
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She died in the night. Smoke inhalation. Her mum was there holding her hand. Same as me, except I was at home and I could feel my mothers hand.
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My boys survived, I told them I had been split up from Anna. I never told them how.
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I'm terrified of death. I needed to survive. That's my excuse.
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I once heard that evolution developed us into cowards. Because cowards survive.
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I've always been terrified of death.
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125,011 Literary Works • 672,840 Reviews
I actually really liked separating the scenes from internal thoughts to external narrative. And I LOVED this story. It's really great. There is some switching of tenses, but I hardly noticed it until the second time I read this through, because the story was so great. At the beginning I thought your main character was going to die, and to have it be his girlfriend instead was an awesome little twist.
I think a quick run through to edit some grammar/usage mistakes will make the story that much better. Great job!
I think I know what you are doing. You are trying to write one paragraph of narrative then the second which was his thoughts. Okay that is were your problem is: It is all too confusing in some parts.
Firstly, try to identify the amount of words that one must have. For example, the thoughts should be shorter than the narrative because the reader could be interested with the narrative which is the reason to why he is thinking like that. As well, it must be connected: the first one when you mentioned about fear of death, try to link it with the shopping by picking (maybe) a t-shirt about death or that there was news being broadcast about violence. That way, the reader can easily understand and not be confuse with the style.
Now, the style: When you are introducing a thought. Try doing it that makes it a thought and not some random narrative. Try the phrases: “There is something that I had always wondered.” Or “Let me tell you something.” Or “Are you afraid of death well I am” that way, we can be attracted to what you’re character is thinking.
Hello!
Very interesting piece. I wasn't sure what you were doing with the hyphens for a while, and still I'm not sure what their purpose is. I thought maybe you were jumping from the present, where the MC was talking about how he felt, and the past, when the actual event happened. If this was the case, the ending is way too jumpy for me.
Despite my hypothesis on that, you had some crazy tense changing in there. A thorough edit will take care of that as well as some grammar though.
I'm not sure what the evolution thing is. You only mention it in the very beginning and at the very end. There's no tie between it and the story that stands out to me, anyway. You focused more on the event when Anna died in the fire. I understand the philosophy behind your evolution metaphor, but it doesn't fit with the story at the moment.
Does the MC really not have any clue why Anna died? Something went through her mind, and as her boyfriend, surely he had an idea? Her family too? Once you get to know someone really well (especially family members), you can almost predict what they would do or why they did something. As the reader, I'm rather frustrated at this point that even I can't make my own assumptions. I don't know Anna (hint-hint, work on character development), so I have no chance of guessing why she did that.
But then maybe you were going for a really confused and depressed MC. You did mention that he was sad a lot of the times, which is kind of weird. He has a girlfriend, and the story when they were together, he was downright pleased to be with her. This thing with being sad all the time was left hanging.
Anyway, interesting story! I like the idea you had with the format. The whole story was voiced in my head, and it was pleasant to listen to!
Keep writing!
Jabber, the One and Only!
I liked your story, and I think it could be developed into something really great. Sometimes I had a difficult time following it. I would recommend going sentence by sentence and editing it to flow better. Otherwise I see some great work in there and Im excited to read more.