** Working title let me know if you have any suggestions**
“Jesus, can I just have one more moment at home? Smell the tulips in the front yard, pet Skippy one last time, and tell Steve he's going to be okay?” I looked down past the light of heaven, onto my home, well my earthly home anyway.
“I wish I could, but that still wouldn't give your family or you any closure. Here, we have to go through the handbook and orientation. Waiting here for your family won't be that hard.”
Jesus guided me by my shoulders to a golden, yellow couch and handed me a packet. Once all the rules had been explained, mostly about worshipping with Jesus and His father for the majority of the time we're here and what we are allowed to do with our free time, I headed down to a stream flowing through a sunflower field.
“Hey, Winnie, long time no see.” A thousand dollar smile flashed from my best friend in high school.
I jumped to my feet, “Woah! You scared me. So... I'm guessing suicide isn't a sin?” I slowly made my way over to Mark.
“Nope. Just a little misunderstanding between you and God, so you kind of have to go to a heaven version of court before they let you stay here permanently. What got you here?”
“Brain cancer. Can you believe I married Steve? We have four beautiful babies, and...” I felt lightheaded and sat back down.
“It's okay. It'll take sometime to get use to everything, but number one rule is, we're not allowed to be sad or cry. We start to deteriorate that way.” Mark placed one sun-kissed hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah, I read that in the handbook. I just... my kids are four, eight, twelve, and sixteen. They need me... Does God ever answer our questions? I gave them to Jesus to pass on... I need to know why He took me away from my family.” I starred at my faded reflection in the stream.
“In time, He will. Not all at once. You married Steve? That's one lucky nerd.” Mark chuckled to himself.
“Yeah, he was my nerd, worked for some banking company to do all their numbers. I never quite understood what exactly he did, but I know it's what paid for my hospital bills when he decided to quit and become a stay at home dad. Mark, you have to help me get out of here. Just once. I need to tell him something important. I need to hold him one last time.” Hoping the urgency in my body language would persuade Mark to voluntarily give me the information I needed, I nervously bit at my finger nails.
“Woah, woah, woah. Winnie! Only two people have gone back to Earth and successfully made it back to the afterlife. One, Jesus, and two Satan. You know the guy who lives directly below us. It's not safe. It's even in the handbook don't-”
“No listen, I have to go, and I don't care if I get stuck. Have you ever thought, the only reason there's a rule against transporting is because of overcrowding or they just don't want you to figure out you're just as powerful as Jesus?” I stood up interrupting his thought process.
“You were always so stubborn. You're not fighting against the system this time, Winnie. You're going up against Jesus, the one who created you... maybe you should be a little scared.” Mark took a few steps back.
I got up and started walking away, aimlessly.
“wait, wait. I'll help you. There's an ancient portal just down the hill. No one dares goes around it, in fear they'll be sucked back down to Earth for all of eternity, but you will do just fine just-”
Interrupting him again, my body started running down the hill, faster and faster until I reached level ground, and Mark skidded to a stop with his elbow in my lower back.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi, Rascalover.
Your opening is pretty strong. I like the opening dialogue and the brevity of the introduction of the story. I do agree with Zoom regarding the ending; it was a bit confusing and ambiguous. Perhaps clear that up a little bit (unless that was what you were going for?)
I found no technical problem with the punctuation in the dialogue. I just found the ellipses a bit excessive, and perhaps you could remove some.
Anyway, overall, this was really interesting and I was hooked till the end.
Keep writing,
Jash x
Hey, Zoom here for a review.
Interesting concept. I wonder how you can expand on this to the proportions of a novel.
I like this opening. It introduces the concept of your story, raises a few questions to intrigue the reader, just does the job. Opening with dialogue can be tricky but this was quite a smooth start. My only suggestion here is to make “Well, my earthly home anyway” its own sentence for a punchier effect.
I isolated the dialogue here so you can see Jesus’s answer doesn’t make sense. I’m assuming the story formerly opened with “Jesus, can you give me one more moment at home” and you forgot to amend the answer.
A simple rearrangement of sentences would make this dialogue flow better. My suggestion is something like:
“I wish you could, but that wouldn’t give your family closure. Waiting here for them won’t be hard. Here, we have to go through the handbook and orientation.”
That way the sentences transition better from one to the next. It doesn’t make sense for Jesus to mention her family, then the handbook, then her family again.
To me, golden =/= yellow so this contradicts itself. I also do not recommend doubling up on adjectives but if you do, probably shouldn’t dedicate both to colour. Maybe change one to texture.
*stared. I’m going to point out small mistakes because I can tell you have done a good job polishing this piece already and it would be a shame to leave the last stragglers in.
The “my” begs for italics.
Stay-at-home
Would that not be god? This confused me.
“Walking” is a weak verb. There are better ones you can use to help portray “aimlessly” –
“wander” seems like a fitting choice.
Well he gave that up pretty easily. All it took was her walking away aimlessly? Didn’t quite buy that. If he’s a pushover then that’s fine, but portray that better.
Two things wrong with this. 1) Running away isn’t interrupting someone. 2) “my body started running” sounds like she is detached from it and the body is running on its own accord.
I was really confused by this. Didn’t even know he was chasing her, or what exactly was meant by this action. Did he tackle her or?
Overall:
1) You have done a great job capturing my attention and helping me submerge into the story.
2) I like that the tone isn’t taking itself too seriously. There is something light-hearted and fun about it.
3) Your dialogue needs work in the punctuation department. I felt there were places commas should have been. Unfortunately, I am not an expert with those things, so hopefully someone more qualified will come along, see this review and help us out here . . .
Please tag me if you post more.
-Zoom
Thanks so much!!