This story is meant for audio format. Listen to the (Beta) Audio Reading Here.
It's five o'clock, flood banks of darkness have already swallowed the last of daylight by the time I finish in detention. The screaming of school bells is loosing it's grip on me. Psalm 23 knells through the static in my head as I make the journey through streets that sparkle with discarded crisp packets and broken glass. As I walk through the valley of darkness I will not be afraid...
My two bedroom flat is a fifteen minute walk from school, and stinks of poverty; of stale cannabis and cheap vodka and tinned microwave meals. We can only afford the necessities. I can hear her inside as I open the door. It's Tuesday. She works on Tuesdays. At least, she's meant to.
The clang of a bottle in the kitchen and the thunk of my school bag on the floor greet each other in unison like two sides of a storm front crashing together. She's standing there opposite the doorway, wearing her 'Dark Masks Tour' tee-shirt. Her legs are skinny and bare. There is a vague memory in my head of a time when her joints didn't stick out so much and her skin was not so pale, but I don't know if it's a thing I remember or a thing I just wished on some yellowy autumn evening.
While I take off my coat she takes a drink from her glass and meanders into the middle of the room.
'Why?' She says. Her cheeks are already puffy from crying and a new swell of tears springs up. 'Why?' There's something hauntingly hostile in the corner of her eyes, like a car slowly creeping behind you when you walk home on a dark night.
'Mum?'
I know that look.
'I missed parents evening, did you know? Terrible mother I am. I didn't even know. One of the girls told me.' She is drunk and her movements haphazard. I can't figure out whether that makes me more or less afraid. She raises the glass and smiles, but her eyes don't change. 'Here, is to super mum!'
She wobbles a little more and instinctively I reach out to catch her.
Have you ever been in one of those freak accidents, where you hear it happen before you see it? Like when you hear car tires screech before you realise you're the one sliding across black ice, or the loud clatter of a paint can hitting the ground before you know that you're underneath the ladder and can't move your legs.
I think she missed at first, but I heard the sound. It takes a few seconds for the sting to creep across my skin. Until it starts to burn, and the blush spreads across both cheeks and leaks a hot flush down my neck.
She doesn't mean it. She's not always like this. Or she wasn't always like this. I think.
She's just drunk. I hear the words of my counsellor. Just calmly step out of the room and find somewhere safe. I'm supposed to go out, but instead I retreat into my room and press my head against the door and listen.
Fifty eight... fifty seven... fifty six... the numbers count down the seconds between the thunder. Every time I hear something I have to start again. Four... Three... Two...
I carry a blanket back to the main room where she's now passed out on the couch.
There's this weird thing that happens. The words just don't come out right. I've tried to say goodbye a hundred times over. Every time I'm determined, and then I go in the room to say it to her and-
'I love you mum'- tips out instead. When the lipstick is gone and the mascara melts in tear streaks down her cheeks, I find my words melted with them, evaporating in the air and leaving behind black, sooty trails. 'I'm sorry.'
Please don't hurt any more.
I pluck the bottle from her hand, turn on the tap to wash it away and listen to the water whirl and crash like the lakes of Galilee. This storm will clear. We'll find our way out. We always land on our feet... sometimes.
Sometimes I turn off the tap and just drink it instead. It burns my throat and tingles as it goes down. One drink. Then another.
One for me. One for Mum. One for the half bottle already gone. The night washes away in a hot tequila flush, and I don't care what anyone else says. I'm doing just fine.
This is my winter hurricane, my valley of darkness, and I fear nothing.
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
I'll come back to the audio recording in a little while but I wanted to give you some thoughts on the words themselves first while they're still fresh in my mind.
I think there should either be a full stop or an and after o'clock instead of the comma.Specifics
1.
2. Lovely tone here and a very nice use of sentence structure.
3. Good imagery. At first I was a little unsure as they're quieter sounds than storms but I think it kind of ties in with the whole 'calm before the storm' theme.
4. This could be a regional thing...
5. This line needs some punctuation - I'd suggest a comma after coat.
6.
7. I'm not sure why the persona doesn't immediately feel more afraid that her mother is drunk. I think it would be nice to understand her experience/ thoughts more there. Is she less afraid because maybe it means her mum's not really angry/ mean/ scary and this is easier to explain away? Drunk people are generally more erratic and even if their movements aren't quick/ alert, I would say the unpredictability is always scarier.
8. The tense switch here is awkward. It should be 'hear' instead of heard and maybe missed is wrong as well. Perhaps, 'I think she misses at first, but I hear the sound.'
9.
10. I want to see more here; it feels like a good moment to really dig into the persona's thoughts and feelings. Does she feel safe in her room? Or does she feel trapped but stay anyway because she feels tied to her mother and duty bound to help, because she knows she will need that help? I feel like this kind of decision can really define a person's personality but that may be because it was always a big difference between my sister and I. Whenever there was conflict, she always had to get out of the house/ move physically away. I preferred to either shut myself in my room and read myself away but stay close and listen to it fade away or to follow my sister and help/ watch her calm down instead. Seeing the tension dissipate was always an important part of the fixing process for me.
11. The drop from almost to sometimes feels too much. Maybe this should be 'almost always' instead of sometimes or 'usually'.
Overall
There's a lot of lovely imagery here and a good, haunted tone which comes across well in both the text and the recording. I think you have a few too many pauses/ too long pauses in the recording and the tone dips a little far into monotone. But I like the disconnect you're aiming for and the kind of emptiness.
I think there's room to expand it and to give us more than just a snippet of conflict. At the moment we don't know why there's a cycle of drunken abandon in this family or what has caused the mother's bahaviour. We don't know if the persona forgot to invite her mum to parent's evening on purpose, though it's implied. It might be interesting to have a few more lines of dialogue though and to understand if there's anything other than the drinking which has caused the daughter to be ashamed of her mother.
Also the story starts with the girl leaving detention but there's no expansion on that or call back to it later. The persona doesn't even seem to feel upset that her mother hasn't noticed how late home she is. I remember this one time I was really late home because I'd gone to the park with some kids who I shouldn't have been hanging out with and I felt awful but when my parents didn't seem to have even noticed I was missing when I snuck in, it was even worse. It made me want to rebel/ do it again/ anything to make me noticed.
As I said before, the disconnect in this is really nice but it would be even stronger if we could see more hints of the emotion beneath that as well. Even after years of this kind of thing, emotions tend to flare up when we least expect them and that will make her even more human and even easier to relate to.
Back to the recording, I think you did a great job with the mother's voice but the councilor sounded too close to the mum and that threw me a it. The daughter's voice was also very good and the kind of distant but conversational tone reminded me a little of 'Stealing' by Duffy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuP8BINVckQ
There's the same kind of coldness but the difference is that there's a real contrast between coldness and emotion to her poem (again both text and recording). It's worth a listen either way!
Let me know if you have any questions/ particular areas you'd like more feedback on.
Keep writing!
~Heather
Hello!
This. Piece. Is. Amazing. Especially heard instead of read. Your descriptions are spot-on, the flow is smooth and engaging, and though it's short you can feel the emotion through the character. You did some truly awesome work right here.
I wish I had more to critique for you! Mostly all I have are a few nitpicks, and I'll just go through with a few sentences that stand out.
I MAY BE WRONG and probably am but it seems to me that a colon would be more appropriate here as opposed to a semi-colon? At least for me that seems to read more smoothly.
No critiques for this, I just wanted to say that this is an excellent use of a simile! A metaphor might even be stronger here but the imagery gives it an essence that really fills it out.
It seems to just be me, but I found it a bit confusing how she was supposed to step out of the room but instead went to her room? Is her room not out of the room? Does 'out' mean out of the house? An extra few words might make that clearer.
This was a truly amazing read! Keep it up!!!
~ Fea
I love your writing style and descriptions! This is amazing
Oh this is super neat Tenyo! So easy to listen to with the audio recording, and you have the perfect even sort of bleak reading of it. Some of the narration came across as a bit monotone in spaces, but the dialogue, end and beginning all were just really nice.
just pulls at the heart-strings! You capture that tension there so well - the speaker doesn't quite hate their mother, but they want to leave desperately, and yet they love them.And as a short story itself it's pretty incredible. Cohesive, impactful, and pretty emotional for a short little story.
What stood out to me most, were probably the setting descriptions that were just *boom* made the story come alive.
This: "of stale cannabis and cheap vodka and tinned microwave meals." - gosh that's vivid, and says so much.
And then the part where you're describing accidents that one can hear before they happen - is just so well worded! Your descriptions have an element of poetry to them, which is great for a short story when all those extra details and symbolism are essential to the overall effect and mood.
Also this part:
I like how the end looped back to Psalm 23 too, with the valley of darkness.
Overall the descriptions were nearly flawless - I have just a few minor word critiques - I didn't think "sparkle" fit with the tone of the piece at all in the first paragraph, and then when you say, "I know that look." - I didn't feel like that was quite resolved or explained enough - I think I know what you mean, but am not entirely sure - an explanatory sentence would help there, since without it's a bit vague.
At the end of the piece, I was left feeling a bit empty, like I love that the speaker has found this sheer resolution to survive, but I feel like we as readers don't quite get insight into why they have this resolution except that they're determined. I almost wanted to know a motivation or a goal or some reason they continue to survive and stay - because I don't think it's for the mother. I think maybe hinting more to their motivation or the source of their courage/determination would help me as a reader "rally behind them" as I'm reading it.
But honestly, overall this has to be one of my favorite short stories I've read on YWS, and the addition of the audio is just a lovely idea as well.
Great work! Sorry if this review was a tad rambly - if you wanted feedback on something specific that I didn't cover, please let me know and I'd be happy to comment further on it!
~alliyah