Published May 7, 2019
Mom fixes that stare on me. The unblinking, penetrating stare that in a split second torpedoes all the strength you have inside, making you lost for words.
Mom asks again, “Did you do it or not?”
Her voice is calm, but the effect it has on me is utterly the opposite. I feel a storm rampaging through my mind.
I surrender helplessly and let out the truth, “Yes, mom.”
***
My insides burn as I face it again. The feebleness. The wrecking of the mind’s defenses. The fear of the truth.
I know I have to answer straightaway if I want to sound convincing. Still, nothing passes my lips.
And before I can control myself, the words sprang out, “No. I-I didn’t do it today.”
Mom deepens her stare, as if inspecting my inner self through her eyes. My stomach quivers.
“Are you sure? Don’t lie to mom.” Her voice is rumbling.
I regret for the lie. But there’s no turning back now. I reply, “I’m perfectly sure.”
A slight furrow appears in her brows. She has her stare on me for another moment, and then turns away.
My head feels light, being able to see the storm off.
But the relief fades away soon, and something else takes its place. Something strange.
***
I stare back at mom and say, “No, I didn’t do it today.” The confidence in my voice satisfies me.
I expect mom to furrow her brows. But she doesn’t. She gives me a tiring look, her eyes no longer the fierce, penetrating pair of fireballs. She turns away, a sigh escaping her nostrils.
Euphoria fills my mind, and soon disappears. And yet again I have that strange, foreign feeling.
***
I take a sidelong gaze at mom to my right. She has her hand on her purse’s side-pocket, where she keeps her money. Her eyes are glinting with suspicion.
My heart thuds frightfully. I prepare to encounter that stare.
But mom doesn’t even call me; she just sighs in a familiar way.
The strange sensation reigns in my mind again, and for the first time, I understand what’s causing it.
I miss that stare.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
139,437 Literary Works • 672,563 Reviews
Hello! I just wanted to say that I really liked the way you've written a story about a lie without ever telling the reader exactly what the lie is. It's a great little piece of interest that you've left open all the way through. I read the story hoping to find out what the lie was, but the trail carried on to the very last line, which hit hard! You've done a really great job with that entire aspect of tempting the reader all the way to the big conclusion,
For the sake of criticism, here's some mistakes I've found in your sentence structure, punctuation, and grammar, even though I usually don't focus on these in my reviews:
Should be:
Also, watch out for using short sentences that could easily just be parts of a longer sentence. Breaking every phrase with periods make the sentence clunky to read:
Should be:
Re-read your work and look out for stuff like that. Sentence structure and grammar are necessary to bring out your story, after all!
Thanks for the review.
Hi! I'd like to give a short review of your story.
I enjoy how it starts out, with the action of the child being unclear. We don't know why the protagonist is lying, and that keeps the reader reading. The way the story is written provides a sense of suspense. All the short sentences and description of the mother's anger add together to make the reader's heart beat just a little bit faster.
The dialogue adds to the story - right off the bat, the reader gets a feeling of the dynamic between the mother and her child. Oftentimes in writing, dialogue is overused or underused. You seem to have hit a nice balance between the two.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this.
Hello,
This is a nicely written story.. . It's short yet it's descriptive enough to tell a relatable story. I like how you end off with that line to show the effects of lying on both people. Lying makes us all feel guilty after, and I could really see that here with the MC missing how his mom usually reacted. This also gives us perspective from the mom in that she doesn't want to bother confronting the MC about lying... she just wants him to realize his own mistakes.
Overall it's a great story, and I have nothing to point out about it!
Keep Writing.
very descriptive. really very good contains good analytical verbs, I can really feel the emotion you have with your mum here quite traumatic but this lead it to be quite dramatic and it built up intensifying tension towards me as the reader. i alos liked how you talk about a quite easy topic but make it sound so harsh i think what would make it better if you used harsh sounds such as sibalence because it would make the mums tone seem very angry but it would make your writing very effective
well done 8/10
Thanks for the review.
I'm sorry, but I think you faced some technical difficulties while posting the comment. It has a lot of words misspelled. Please look into it. And, I'm not being rude.
I think this is a really interesting piece. I enjoy the ambiguity of it where the reader is never quite given what the speaker is lying about. I'll admit I had to read it over a couple of times to completely grasp what was going on but once I did I appreciated it fully. Nice use of the parallels each time the speaker is asked the question. I also really liked the last line, and I had no idea that it would end like that. Overall a highly enjoyable story
Thanks very much.