Published May 24, 2009
It was 1920 in the French Quarter, and this was his night.
Or that’s what everyone else had been saying. Edward had holed himself up backstage trying to believe it, stroking his horn back and forth with a rag. He was hoping to distract himself away from the nervousness that was beginning to bubble up in him, because that always came after the shock wore off; and his was still there, thick like cream at the top of a milk bottle. It was choking and irremovable. Even the bright vanity lights in the back of their dressing room, small and stuffy with heat, couldn’t shake his disbelief that the quaint little jazz group he had ushered himself into had actually made it.
He shifted in his seat, the floorboards creaking from his weight. It was oddly silent because he was alone; his bandmates were off to their own devices. He hadn’t noticed until he looked up, so immersed in his thoughts. The strong smell of cologne was beginning to dissipate through the ajar door on the right, replaced by a slight musk and staleness. It was just him alone in this spacious jazz club, holed up in the back of it; and with this realized, he shifted his attention back upon his trumpet, smooth and silvery in the bright light from behind.
He could see his reflection. For a moment, he rubbed vigorously at the spot, mistaking the muddy brown of his hair for some awful smudge; and then he realized it for what it was and stopped.
Edward had gotten his trumpet as translucent and polished as a lady’s vanity mirror sometime during his lapse; his reflection was as clear as if he were looking into the one behind him. And it seemed like everything was the same about him except his situation – dark brown hair, wavy and thick and parted to the left; light mocha skin; and his usual small, round pair of eyeglasses, the silver frames matching the luster of his trumpet. He had pulled on a dress shirt and a grey, button-up vest with green pinstriping to prepare for the performance; and his black suit jacket had been cast aside from the heat, dangling from the back of his chair.
His eyes were a dull, dark brown – not very noticeable – and yet they drew him in as he and his reflection looked intently at each other. His mother had told him they were identical in color, shape, and placement to his grandfather’s; and that was his namesake. His eyes had helped lead him to the anxious and momentous situation he was in now.
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140,280 Literary Works • 673,071 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Oooh this is an intriguing start here. We've got someone who appears to be at the sort of culmination of quite a few years of hard work about to sort of nervously embark on some sort of grand achievement, or at least that's the sort of vibe that this particular scene appears to be exuding here and I am definitely all for it at the moment. Let's see where this takes us. So far its a solid start.
Well it seems we have the old mirror trick there to give us a slightly sneaky description of this character. It is done in a bit of a different way to most so it somewhat works out okay here. I think its a nice sort of atmosphere to establish in general there. Once you established the main sort of idea here, it seems we're diving a little deeper and focusing on just this one person here with just the slightest hint of unease to make things very interesting.
Hmm the ending doesn't quite do that start justice there. We lean very heavily into the whole mirror description scenario and I feel it goes into a little too much detail there and it ends up sort of breaking the subtle atmosphere building in the background. There's also not much happening there towards the end to make you immediately want to know what happens next. A second look at that might be a good idea.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
I like this opening line because it's intriguing. I want to read on, I want to know who 'he' is.
Great simile
Characters:
I already like Edward. I don't know why, maybe it's because he plays jazz and jazz player are cool. I don't know. I don't really know him as a person yet but in this short of piece that would be kind of hard to do. If you're planning on continuing this, I would think about building up Edward a little more so that we know him better.
Overall:
I liked it. Not much happened, but it was a nice little start. You have good style and language skills.
I agree with Mars that it should be named something because right now it looks very sad and lonely without a proper title. Even if it's just 'Edward' or 'Trumpet' or 'Jazz', that would work. Most of my big stories are just called the MC's first name because I'm really bad at titles
Nice job overall though
-Carly
Hello!
I really like this. I love how you introduce Edward - I have a picture of him as a slightly insecure, but good, musician...and we don't know much else about him yet, do we? Anyway, it's great. It can be hard to do scenes with only one character because they have no one else to interact with - at least I find it hard - but this is great.
The only thing, and it's a tiny thing, is when you said 'horn' in the third sentence I was confused at first because I was thinking that Edward was...I dunno, a bull, or some kind of animal with horns, and it was confusing. Maybe it's just me. It bothers me though. You could change it to trumpet or instrument or something if you wanted.
Also I think it would be good to think of a title, however temporary, even if it's just the character's name. Because anything is more appetizing than 'Untitled.'
*star*
-Mars