Published September 23, 2015
I rapped my fingers against the desk. Nothing. I rapped them again against the hard surface. Nothing. I coughed into my fist. Finally, the secretary glanced at me from above her glasses. Her short red hair matched her fingernails, both fake, and her pale skin matched the “be green” poster that hung on the wall behind her. Her professional outfit betrayed the relaxing look the office was trying to convey.
“Doctor Marsella will be with you shortly. Is there anything I can get you while you wait?” Her voice was as fake and dry as her hair.
“No. I’m fine thank you,” I answered as coolly as I could, but my irritation was noted by the secretary who grimaced and turned back to her computer. I slumped into the depth of the waxy black armchair. My butt squeaked as I slid a bit farther than I meant to.
“You must be Presley Johnson,” I looked up and standing in front of me was a woman dressed in casual clothing. Her hair was thick and curly. It hung around her face like a picture frame. Her dark skin looked good with the olive colored cardigan she was wearing, and her smile was wide and bright.
“Uhhh, yeah. That’s me,” I answered pushing myself up from the sofa.
“Right this way,” She led me into her office which was adorned in decorations that were reminiscent of her dark green and beige outfit. She offered me a seat and sat in the one across from me. Her office had no desk, just four chairs facing each other.
“I assume you know why you are here. I also assume they told you who I am,” She leaned forward as she spoke. Her voice was filled with soft undertones and a gravely base. It reminded me oddly of my home.
“Yeah they mentioned a thing or two,” I said this with every intent to be taken as sarcastic, but doctor Marsella did not crack a smile, she just stared at me with her brown eyes.
“They say you need… Some assistance,” She seemed like she changed her words at the last minute as if afraid to offend me by saying the wrong thing.
“Well I guess if they say I need help then it must be true,” I rolled my eyes and leaned back into the chair. This was stupid. I knew why I was here, but I didn’t need what they were trying to implement on me. They were the ones with their heads full of things.
“Please Presley, this is serious. You almost jumped off of a building,” Doctor Marsella looked intently at me as if trying to prod me to speak. If words were what she wanted then I’d give her what she wanted.
“Fine. Yeah I tried to jump off of the school,” I answered.
“Why,” Her face was scrunched up in concentration.
“Why?” I looked at her hoping she would detect my annoyance. She only nodded at me.
“Okay. Well, you see, I wanted to see if I could fly. And now I’ll never know, thanks to you and your cronies,” I rolled my eyes. This was so pathetic. I started to bite my finger nails. “Snap”. Now I was cracking my knuckles.
“When you leave this office there is a team of medics waiting to take you to a psychiatric center. It is important for you to be cooperative with me so we can assess you properly,” I could tell she was annoyed. This was actually a good question. Why? Why was I about to jump off of a building? Could I even answer that myself? Suddenly I began to panic. “Snap”. I continued to rapidly crack my knuckles. Why did I try to jump? Think Presley. Think. Go back to that day. I squeezed my eyes shut, and it all came rushing back into my brain.
“It was like every other day. You see I started off by waking up. My body moved. It moved me. I put on some clothes and got my backpack ready for school. Like every other day it was. That day was exactly like every other day. Only I was in control after I ate breakfast.”
“In control? What do you mean? Are you not usually not in control of your body?” Doctor Marsella interrupted. I opened my eyes and glared at her. I was doing what she wanted and she just interrupted me.
“As I was saying,” I closed my eyes again. “That day was exactly like every other day until after breakfast. A feeling came over me. A feeling I rarely ever get. I’ve gotten this feeling only about two other times in my life. Well this is how I can explain it. Usually it seems like I’m just drifting. It feels like rather than doing things I’m watching a T.V. show. Like I could look at my hands but they seem like they aren’t mine. They do what I say, but I don’t usually know what I tell them to do. Anyways after breakfast, I had control. I could move my hands and know what I told them and why. I was no longer the audience but the actor.” I paused for a moment to crack my knuckles.
“Anyway as my day went on I remained in control. It was weird. My friends said hello to me, but part of me didn’t know what to say to them. I used to be able to just do things then suddenly I had to think about what I was doing and where I was going. Most of my day was experiencing everything in extraordinary detail. Instead of a blur of just life, I was able to concentrate on things and react to what I was seeing. Then it suddenly started to fade. My mind was retreating into the back of my skull. I didn’t want to go back into my world of muffled sounds and T.V. like vision…So I….Well I…” I opened up my eyes as I trailed off. Doctor Marsella knew how the story ended. There were reports of a kid going up to the roof of the cafeteria and before I was able to jump off I was whisked away by the campus police.
“Were you trying to kill yourself?” Doctor Marsella asked. I shook my head no.
“Then why did you want to jump?” Her eyes sparkled with concern as they studied me.
“I wanted to be in control. That was all,” I answered.
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140,699 Literary Works • 673,672 Reviews
Hai, fruit ~ interesting piece you have here. Quick preface, I'm a little tired and on a phone, so please excuse any typos or incoherent phrases. Please just ask for clarifications if you're confused; I'm happy to help! Let's get started!
Alright, the first main thing that stood out to me while reading this is there isn't a lot of sentence length variation. Most of, if not all, the sentences are slightly basic with the same form over and over of starting with a pronoun, having its predicate and then maybe some extra info. While the descriptions are nice, the flow is still choppy just because of the repetition of that sentence structure. Try to very it more: have a different word to start on (different things than just her, she, my, I -- these things aren't bad, but all one after another over and over makes the reading not as smooth.), combine sentences and make something longer with things like dangling participles or extra dependent clauses (these will become your best friend.)
Another thing that I thought of was that the dialogue in the second half was very long. It didn't really fit right for me, because it was just a huge chunk and while it didn't feel necessarily dry, it was a lot. It felt a lot like an info dump in the sense that we learn so much at once, and dialogue can also serve as an info dump -- which isn't good. My recommendation to you to stagger the dialogue a hit. Have him start explaining, then her interrupt him or they start conversing about something.
To add on to that, there are definitely things in that dialogue that are unnecessary and you can cut out to shorten it down, because at this point it's a little too long as well as information packed. Perhaps if you cut up the dialogue into smaller fragments, describe more of the movements and tone of voice of both the characters, because right now it feels a little like talking heads in the sense that there's just a ton of dialogue and no actions backed behind them.
Throughout this, I felt like the narrator was lacking. He told us a lot inside his dialogue, but there isn't a lot of him in the narratoin and here's what I mean. We're given his basic actions and thoughts as am he's going on throughout this, but I can't tell his emotions or how he's feeling throughout this. In first person, it is best to fully immerse the reader in the head of the narrator. How they feel, their inner thoughts, conflicts, annoyances, worries, joys, the place they would rather be than stuck in this office. Those kinds of things. And he's like thinking about the visit, about how he felt before and what he'll have to explain so maybe he's thinking that over and assessing himself. For instance, when he was tapping his fingers, you could hint at the control thing by saying something like, "My fingers moved for attention. Did I want them to move? I wasn't sure anymore." Etc, etc.
The idea itself is interesting, and I see you have a nice start. It feels a bit on the short side, so perhaps add a little more to the narration, because the end starts to get a little dialogue heavy. Best of luck ~
Happy writing,
~Wolfe
Thank you so much for the info and criticism. The main character is supposed to be a bit dull because for much of this he doesn't feel in control. He feels he really isn't fully there. Like he really isn't supposed to even know himself or understand himself. The only thing he and his audience will know about him come from his attitude and his recounts of life. Most of the story is going to be a first person narrative of him by him, to the best of his abilities, while switching to the present. The beginning, this, is filled much with the present, but as time progresses in the present he will become more and more inclined to tell his story. But I understand the info dump feeling. I'll try to make his explanations more fluid sounding more like a memoir than just a memory. Thanks.
Hey, Fruit4You! Thanks for the fruit.
I'll go straight to the nitpicks, because it's probably best to get the tedious stuff out of the way.
I rapped my fingers against the desk.
I hate to be picky, but it would sound better as 'tapped'. I guess it's just easier to instantly image fingers tapping as opposed to rapping.
Her dark skin looked good with the olive colored cardigan she was wearing,
'Good' sounds a bit plain, try to think of another word. Complimented? Well-matched?
I started to bite my finger nails. “Snap”.
The punctuation makes it sound like someone is saying 'snap', but I assume it's just the sound of knuckles. I'd get rid of the speech marks and put it in italics.
I love your description of the receptionist, especially the sassy way your character said both her hair and nails were fake. It was also clever how you snuck some descriptions of the surroundings in there as well.
The recount of the failed attempt was well-written, you told me exactly what I needed to know and nothing else. Not only was the character reluctant to speak to the psychiatrist, but it seemed like they were reluctant to share things with myself. That's great- it added to the mood.
The end of the chapter is perfect, you've introduced your character and now I want to see what happens next. Well done!
Thanks so much!