I had a dream last night. I stood in the tall golden grasses chilled by wind from the sea. Around me were ruins, empty. I wandered, unaware of who I was. The sun hung low like a dying flower giving off the last rays its waning strength could muster. Through stone archways I walked. Through grass I walked.
For years I went along this path until I made it to the sea. The sun cycled slowly in this strange world, three nights to a month. I had not aged, nor would I ever. Somehow I was sure of that.
Sea spray far below me crept and crashed against the rocky walls of the cliffs. Far beyond was the horizon, deep abyss and trackless sky all merged like some food difficult to swallow. Clouds marched on above me, silent leviathans mirroring whatever strange creatures awaited me below. Surely this world held life. I could not be alone; no waking thought of mine had proven to be so lonely or narcissistic.
Yet there I was, hovering at the precipice. Sweet melodies played behind me, or within me. Many things were above me.
I decided to walk along the cliffside, and as my straying feet sent sod and pebble into the depths, I happened upon someone. They smiled at me. They were wearing all white, gazing into the expanses of the great ocean. They were human, common like myself, and yet at the same time formless, without identity or gender or any defining look.
"Have you been walking here a long time?" they asked. I nodded.
The other nodded as well. "It has been so long since I've met anybody," they said. "But that comes from my human experience. I could bore you with semantics about time and perspective and irrelevancy, but I'm sure you didn't come here for that."
I had no response. Never had it crossed my mind that this empty world held a purpose for me.
"There is indeed something substantial to this place. You may visit whenever you like. Anything that happens to you elsewhere will be mended here. Your problems, your pains, will all fade away under the star here, in the grass. It was meant for you, and others like you."
I asked them what trait linked me and the others.
"Your inability to cope with yourself."
I awoke soon after. I long for that world, the sanctuary. I wonder what problem my sheltered life hides that I cannot face, waking or in dreams. I fear what may happen if I dwell too long.
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137,507 Literary Works • 672,040 Reviews
Royal here with a review!
I liked this. Eerie and sparse, like the landscape. Not much to comment here, except that the concept was interesting. However, I think the dialogue was a little wooden and told more than it showed. I'd work on making the dialogue a little less expository and a little more cryptic. I think that would fit the setting a little better. Otherwise, interesting idea.
I'll agree with SpiritedWolfe, that the imagery was choppy. But I liked it! I think it lent itself to the setting and the situation. My only nitpick is in the beginning, when you repeat the phrase "Through ________ I walked." I think variation here would make the beginning more effective as a whole.
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Great job! Keep writing, I look forward to seeing more.
Hello there! I'm here to give a review for this lovely piece of yours ^^
Let's get started ~
The first thing that struck out to me is that this has a very jerky flow. Between sentences, images just tend to skip from one to another without a smooth transition. As I was first reading, I attributed it to the shorter, more telling sentence, but later on there is slightly more variance and some attempt at figures rice language. The main cause for this jerkiness is the general jump. For instance, the first paragraph starts out with the narrator having a dream. Then suddenly they are standing in a grassy place. Then suddenly there are ruins around. See how that is? Try to make a smoother flow between the sentences within the paragraph to make that easier to read ^^
Now, I appreciate the effort placed into describing the areas, but at times I felt like it was too much. Other times, it just didn't work. For instance, the third paragraph has a lot of imagery that just doesn't work. Like sea spray crawling? That image does not at all work right. The three places merging like food? What? There's this attempt at beauty in the descriptions, but it doesn't doesn't come through and the mix of informal similes with words like "leviathans" just draws attention to the words rather than the images, if that makes sense.
Another thing that I felt was like was the emotion. How did all this scenery and trekking make the narrator feel? Where they confused before they didn't know where they came from? Concerned? Exhausted from walking for all those years? Breathe taken? Mystifies? The narrator is very flat to me, and since this is in first person, that is very bad. First person should throw us into the thoughts and feelings of the character like they are our own. I felt nothing.
(Also, considering she walked for years, she would've had a lot of time to contemplate things. The fact that this different figure brought up things she didn't think of seems arbitrary. Why wouldn't she think she was there for a reason? I mean, she was wandering for years.)
Overall, this was intriguing, but I am left kind of wondering what the point was? The fact that all of this was just of dream makes this feel irrelevant to me. As well, the message of the other person doesn't strike anything within me because I don't feel attached to the character of their journey, so that could use some work as well.
It is a good start though and if you have any questions, please ask!
Happy writing,
~ Wolfe