“Next!”
The feet began to move. They dragged themselves slowly to the old wooden chair and they stood in front of it, doing nothing. After a while, the legs bent and sat. The hands laid on the table, nervous, sweating, the fingers touching themselves in an almost morbid way.
The Man coughed and said something. The ears were pale and scared to death, so they basically didn’t hear anything. The Man took the gun off the table and held it up in the air, to show it as it was: a revolver, an old six gun with nothing in particular.
In a heartbeat, the Man introduced a bullet in one of the chambers, gave a quick spin to the cylinder, locked the gun, put it in his mouth, pulled the trigger and… click! Nothing. He then put it back on the table, smiling the whole time.
The eyes looked at the Man, then the gun. The Man, the gun, the darkness of the room, and the gun again. The right hand, sweating, reached for the revolver. It was heavy. Without ceasing to shake, the hand pressed the cannon against the temple. The eyes were about pop out, wide open as they were, trying to see the metal tube that aimed directly to them. An annoying buzz came from the ears. The index fingertip felt how cold and rough the metal trigger was, and began to pull of it. Slowly, slowly, slowly…
Click!
An abrupt sigh came out of the mouth and the hand dropped the revolver with a spasm of revulsion. The eyes closed, relieved.
The Man laughed, though the ears did not hear it. He took the gun, put it in his mouth, pulled the trigger and… click! Still nothing.
The eyes watched carefully at the gun, and suddenly they knew. Somehow, they knew! But there was nothing to do. The hand was getting closer to the revolver, ready to… “No!” the mouth yelled. The legs, which had been stiff as two logs the whole time, rose in an instant. The anxious feet ran, and they ran as hell.
Desperate, the eyes moved in all directions, looking for a way out.
The Man wasn’t smiling any more. He reached for the revolver and raised it with a steady arm, as his eyes locked on their target. He pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The ears heard the shot. Then they heard a buzz. They heard nothing more after that.
The Man showed a grin that almost covered his whole face. He coughed and, with a rough voice, he cried out: “Next!”
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139,511 Literary Works • 672,595 Reviews
Hey ROD,
I like the intense way you describe what's going on in this story, but there is some room for improvement in how you help convey what's happening to the reader in a way that's interesting, and that makes sense.
I know you've gotten a lot of feedback about the piece overall, so here are some little things.
First of all, in the intense, not-knowing tone you've developed in this piece, you need to stay away from saying things like "basically", "almost" and phrases along those lines. These take away from the scary effect you're trying to get by making the narrator hesitant, when the action should be moving on.
Also, definitely add many more details about setting, emotion, thoughts, ideas, and happenings, not only to make it more clear to the reader, but also to paint a more vivid picture in your writing as an author. You have a cool perspective and way of narration that will work if you make some edits to this piece, and I'm looking forward to the result!
Best of Luck with this
-Scout
Howdy ROD.
I'll cut to the chase and say I found this kind of boring and awkward to read. The story wasn't that original, to be honest - Russian roulette, so what? Where is the conflict, the drive, the interest?
I found the method of describing the other man by body parts to be the extremely awkward part. I read below you were trying to depersonalize him, but instead it just made him random body parts floating in the room, doing things of their own will that they don't normally do. Like the concept of "Her eyes jumped out of her head" - eyes don't actually jump, do they? It's just a way of speaking, but the way you did it is like taking it to an extreme. There's no adjustment period so by the time the read is done, they still don't really understand what is going on. I was able to pick it up but only because I read the reviews below. If that's the only hook this story has - I think you need to get a new hook.
Sorry to be so blunt, but in a piece this short there isn't much room for muss ups. Thought you'd appreciate a true comment rather than a gentle pet, anyway. If you have any questions, just PM me.
Hello there.
I read your piece, and I liked it. It had a kind of daunting feel to it. You weren't as descriptive as I would have liked, but a reader with an active imagination could have easily pictured the situation. But still, not all readers make your scenes for you. Where are they? I don't know. What do they look like? I don't know. These are all things that will come in handy when writing a story. I hope I helped a little bit with this review.
Hi there! This is a pretty interesting piece. I think you have a really neat style and you did a good job giving this an ominous an eerie tone.
Despite this, I thought this story was kind of hard to follow. While I like the idea of personifying the body parts, how you execute it didn't grab me. I'm not sure if you're talking about one person or the collective body parts of several people.
My main advice would be to focus on story and character first, because the impression I get is that you're trying way too hard to be stylistic without giving much focus to other important areas. If a plainly composed story has a really good story and characters it would still be really good; think of your composition as sprinkles on a piece of cake with frosting. It will still be good if you take away the sprinkles, but they're a bonus. If the cake and frosting are nasty, no one is going to pay attention to the sprinkles.
I hope this helps! Feel free to shoot me a PM if you have any questions.
Hey, ROD!
And anyway, I do think you need to keep that up throughout the story to maintain the atmosphere. After all, if you gave the other character a name, or even a gender, or described them further, they would lose that "cattle" type of feeling I attribute to them now. It's really cool and perfect for this story.
Wow, this was pretty intense! I really liked how you were able to create a tense, suspenseful atmosphere in this and keep it up through the whole short story. Really well done.
I liked how the other character was almost de-personified (not sure that's a word...) by describing only their body parts. After the first paragraph, I wasn't sure whether it still worked, but after *that* I decided that yes, it still worked.
One nit-pick:
Should probably be "death", but since ears can't really be scared, I'm not sure how this works in the first place.
Well, I really enjoyed this! Good job.
Demeter
x
Hello, Demeter.
I'm glad you liked the story. I indeed de-personified one of the two men by using the personification of it's body parts. I took that risk because, well, this was meant to be a very short story, so that would catch the reader's attention and would create some suspense. Besides, it gives me the opportunity of writing and exploring this scene in a different way, especially because I could create faceless characters; they both can be anyone (that "cattle" feeling, as you say) and that connects the reader a little bit more with the story, you know? At least I think it does.
Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the story and I'll correct that error right away. Thanks for your comment!
Hey there ROD! Nice piece you got here
The ears were pale and scared to dead...
The Man took the gun off the table and hold it up in the air...
First of all, I liked that you were able to bring the beginning and the end together with the Man. That was very cool to me.
And even though at first I didn't really understand why you had been saying 'the feet' and 'the hands', after I got it I found it to be really clever.
You had a few grammatical mistakes though.
First:
Spoiler
I think you meant 'death'. Though I don't suppose that makes much sense either.
And second:
Spoiler
Here, 'hold' should be 'held'.
There might be more mistakes, but none were bad enough for me to notice.
Other than that, it was a great story and I love it.
Keep on writing
Hello, Veeren.
I really appreciate your comment, and I'm glad you enjoyed this story, which I know can be a little bit confusing at first (but I'm also a big fan of the ending, so I think it's worth it. Haha!). I'm also glad that you have pointed out these mistakes, for I'm not that good with grammar when writing in english, so any help someone gives me it's something I really appreciate. I'll correct those errors right away!
Again, thanks for your comment and it's a good thing you liked it.