Published October 2, 2009
It was a chilly, quiet evening in the highway to Ramgarh, a Rajasthani village. Evenings and nights in this highway are usually infinity of blackness containing a blanket of thick vicious fog. There is no source of light; the highway is surrounded by dense forests.
Mr. Walter, a foreigner was traveling on the highway that evening. Even after repeated warnings from the locals,to not to travel on this isolated highway, specially after dusk, he did not wait for the sun to take over the sky. He went on travelling.
" Sure woman, that highway is haunted by a ghost."he had said when an old woman told him a tribal story about the highway being haunted. "Now let me tell you a secret, I am no man, but an evil spirit who has preferred to remain on Earth to take revenge of my death." And then he had burst into fits of laughter.
He was young, carefree and reckless.
Engrossed in his music, he did not realize how far he had come from the town. Suddenly, his car started giving jerks and then stopped. He got down from the car with his torch and opened the bonnet of his glossy car. Fumes of hot smoke started coming out of it. He tried to repair it but in vain.Annoyed, he looked around .
A few meters away, he saw a young girl wearing a white robe.
Unable to understand what she was doing on a highway in the middle of the night, he called out to her.
Swiftly, but gracefully, she came forward. Her eyes were deep green, her face was pale. Her hair hung like a cascade of black waters. She looked very charming.
“Can I help you sir?” she asked in her serene but soft voice.
Walter chuckled, wondering how much could this delicate girl actually help.
“No, thanks. What are you doing here?” he said.
She ignored his question and walked towards the bonnet of his car.
A wire here and some oiling there and within minutes she repaired his car.
Stunned, Walter thanked her.
“No problem sir.” She replied sweetly and walked off.
Wanting to look at her charming and appealing features for the last time, he quickly paced towards her, calling out to her. He took her by the hand and turned her shoulders towards him.
No eyebrows. No eyes. No lips. No nose. Just a round sphere of flash and skin.
Walter gave out a cry. Suddenly, she turned into vapours and diffused into the air. And what was left of her was a handful of ashes in his palm where her hand had been.
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141,368 Literary Works • 674,383 Reviews
Hi, this was a very unique and interesting story. Everyone has basically touched up on everything so I'll leave my comment for what was good about the story. It was short and yet you truly seemed to be able to give Walter his depth as a character and the older woman was just as round although only having a few lines in the story at all. The ghost was very well described and, if I may say so, extremely beautiful. I'd only wish that you'd have elaborated a bit on who she was, how she did, why she died, who killed her and why she was haunting an old highway and, since most ghosts wear what they died in, why was she wearing a robe on the highway when she died?
Anyways, nice story and keep it up.
-Rena.
Hey, I liked it a lot! The Girl on the Highway sounded like a nice folk tale... are you making it a short story? I suggest that you go back and look at the commas you put in because I caught some errors in the beginning.
"Never sacrifice the things you want most, for the things you want most at the moment."
~ James A. Owen, Author of Here, There Be Dragons
You did very good. Though when I was reading this I wanted to have more details on the characters. And I also wanted more description on the girl, more on what she looked like and how she fixed his car, I think that you left out details that are very important.
Keep up the good work!
Hey,
This is very, very interesting. It has a different, abstract feel to it that makes me want to read more. There were only a couple of things that I found lacking.
As was mentioned above, it seems to me like it was written quickly. It could use some more description. You can really get an idea of what the girl looks like from the description there, and if you applied that to Mr. Walter, then that would make this good piece even better.
Once again, this story is very interesting, and I think that you really have something here. Hope to see more from you in the future!
Hello, this is blackpencil here to review your work!
First off, you changed tenses from past to present in only two sentences. You got to watch that. Also, your sentences seem to be choppy and rushed. Try smoothing them out to enhance the reader's general understanding of the book. Remember you're writing to writers, not to small children! Another thing, you desribe the mysterious girl well enough, but we know nothing of Mr. Walter! He isn't described at all! And you have some grammer errors, but that's common to everyone. Over all, a very mysterious and chilling short story. Sounds like a bad dream. Creepy...
Hey,
I liked it. It was not very descriptive. I felt like you wrote this so quickly just to get to the main point. If you are thinking about continuing, I suggest you give some depth to your characters first. I hate it when a good story is ruined when the author rushed through too quicky, one of my main problems.
It seems like you have something here, though. I really hope you didn't rush into this cause i really want you to be able to depelop this!
Good luck, please PM me if you post more!
~Skip
Show don't tell, what sounds did the car make? etc.
tried to repair what? And what tools were he lacking?
Ok good description, now apply that to other things. I now see you're capable of detailed description. Don't just do it for people.
Any adult with common sense would not grab a child like that.
I'm guessing you mean flesh and skin, but that's repetitive. Flesh is skin, so get rid of one.
For some reason the word diffused doesn't sit well to me. Say dissipated or evaporated or something else.
This was good, although you lacked description. I'd say this could be made into a really good short story.
Hmmm, very unique and strange; random and weird, but good nonetheless. It could use a bit of editing...
Notice how I put IS and WAS in Caps? That's because they contradict each other: different verb tenses. A few other verbs in there are also in disagreement; that needs to be fixed.
Also, these few sentences are also choppy. Almost like this. They could use some work. Soon...You see what I mean?
What sort of warnings were these? What did they have to do with sunset? I can kinda guess what you mean by it -strange faceless girl comes out when the sun sinks- but you might want to put some more information in there, unless you mean for it to be mysterious.
Once again, choppy sentences. You could fix this by merging a few of them, or even cutting them out. Like this: "Fumes of hot smoke billowed out as he tried in vain to repair his engine. After a while, he gave up; mainly due to the fact that he had no proper tools." or something like that.
Transition is important in keeping the reader up with the idea of your story. You should mention him turning away from his car, or maybe scanning the area around him, looking for help. That'd get the reader prepared to read about what he saw.
You can merge these two sentences with a comma between them.
SOMETHING -but- SOMETHING is a format of description you use often with this girl. The repetitiveness does not help smooth reading.
Choppy sentences and unclear action confuse me here. I think you could say it something like this: "The girl ignored his question and walked towards the bonnet of his car. Her white fingers twisted wire nimbly before Walter's stunned eyes: even oiling was nothing to her. When she finished, the bonnet was eased down into place and Walter could only thank her dazedly.
A sphere is a ball: a globe. What I think you mean would be a plate, or a circle.
Into gas? Maybe dust would be a better image. Also, you need some closing words, maybe about Walter walking back to his car or something.
Over all, it's a good story, very mysterious and unexplained, but you'd need to flesh it out more if you want to make it into a chapter-story. If you meant for it to remain non-understood and dark (mysterious actually) then keep it the way it is (with minor editing), but if you want to go farther with it, you'd need to give the reader more than what can be found here.
Keep Writing!