I never liked my name. No one on earth who considers themselves to be sane would name their own daughter after a flower. Only my mum would, and to be honest with you, she is not the type of person you would call normal.
Worst yet, she might have thought up of my name while preaching about “connecting to the wonderful world of nature” to our neighbours when she was still high on those drugs she used to take way back when. I try not to think about it; the very thought terrifies me.
“Goodbye, my little daffodilly,” my mum cooed in our minivan, waving her hand, her bracelets and bangles jangling on her tiny wrist.
“Have a nice day at school! And remember to eat your lunch!” she trilled after me as I tried my best to ignore the looks and stares that followed me on the path to my school.
“Little daffodilly? Seriously?” a guy whispered to his mates, his eyebrows rising. Another guy shrugged and continued on his way to school. “The Heiners have always been weird.”
”Plus, her mum’s a hippie as well!” another chimed in, scratching his head. I ducked my head and hurried on, my face flaming and heating up until I was sure it was as red as my hair. I didn’t want to hear anymore.
I barged into the building, nearly crashing into a bunch of lower formers carrying their art project and very nearly had paint splashed onto me; then I ripped off the very headband that my mum had especially sewn for me for spring break and chucked it into my bag, before she and her gang could see it.
But it was too late.
“My, my, look who it is, girls! Our belladonna lily has come back!” she sauntered over, her perfectly permed curls bouncing up and down, blowing kisses all the way with her rouge red lips.
I casted my eyes down, hoping that she would finish her tormenting earlier than usual and pick on someone else, but I could never be so lucky. I was too gullible, too special, too me.
The air was already thick with anticipation; everyone in the hallway was watching how it would play out. I could feel their eyes searching, peering through my soul (is she insane?), trying to make sense out of my loganberry and lime frock and cheap bracelets and lucky charms from Peru, but they couldn’t comprehend who I really was, couldn’t figure out why I was so different from them.
Cold, hooded eyes laid in wait for the act to begin, for the pen to splatter ink all over the paper, for the record player to start screeching---
“I hear you were born on a farm. Any more in the litter?” she laughed long and harsh, and the ones in the hallway started to harmonise with her, joining in her cruel acapella until it climaxed into a beautiful, painful fortissimo that echoes in the bright, white hallway illuminated by the early morning sun.
The angels had won once more, proving their fearsome might to me, a mere mortal; chastising me for what I was: a freak of nature that had evaded their teachings for the past three years.
I, like the cowering dog I was, began to run, clumsily trying to escape my fate, eyes blinded with tears, running all the way to the classroom; entangling my legs into the long flowing dress, tripping over a carefully placed foot and falling face first onto the ground.
The dying embers of the song burst anew.
I collapsed into a heap of purple and blue fabric and wild red curls on the classroom floor, stuck dumb and deaf by the laughter, too tired of everything to even care anymore.
But then he, with his bonny blue eyes, came and pulled me up with his warm hands; of course I didn’t want to meet his sunflower eyes, I was too ashamed of who I was and why I was here in the first place.
I never liked my name. Too much like my own nature; a flower so weak and frail that cannot endure anything.
But he, he said it so beautifully and so alive, like a ray of sunshine bursting through a crack and into an abyss, giving me hope that I was not alone and friendless after all---
“Amaryllis.”
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
This is a really good story. I liked it alot. I loved how you started it along with the way it ended. Everything I was going to ask you about was already taken so good luck and keep writing!
Sierra
I enjoyed this story. I generally don't care for the lyrical writing style but I think you pulled it off very well. In all there are very few things I would change about the story itself but I saw several areas which needed improvement.
The intro works very well. The only problems I had with it concerned grammar and punctuation. This should all be one paragraph and you don't need the hyphen in "no-one."
Why parenthesis?
I don't think the continuous present tense works very well here. As a matter of fact I don't think I've ever seen a 1st person story written in the present tense that I liked. As a reader it creates a sort of anarchism when a character is telling your story as it's happening. 1st person narrators sound the most natural when they are telling a story that happened sometime in the past whether it was a few hours ago or a few years ago.
If I were you, I'd rewrite this entire section in the past tense.
Verb tense confusion, doesn't fit well with the previous paragraphs. But like I said the whole story needs to be in the past tense anyway.
Why is me italicized?
The word breathlessly always makes me cringe. I know you are going for the more lyrical writing style but using words like breathlessly in this context cross into the area of something called "pathetic fallacy." A pathetic fallacy is basically a simile that doesn't work because it's cliche, artificial or forced. For example: "The doorknob greeted her hand as she opened the door."
If I were you I'd either omit the word breathlessly or rewrite that entire paragraph.
Again this seems like a pathetic fallacy, but in this case it seems to be merely the result of the way you've arranged this sentence. Try rewriting it to emphasize the contrast between the narrator (the mortal) and the angels (the girls bullying her).
One way you might rewrite it is : They were like angels whose laughed pierced through me, a mere mortal. It's been like this for the past three years.
You're laying it on a little thick with the metaphors here. Remember the difference between good fiction and great fiction is subtlety.
I was really enjoying the story up to this point. When you abruptly switch to the second person it takes the reader out of the story in a very sudden and uncomfortable way. There are two ways to fix this:
A) Rewrite the entire story so that we know she's speaking to this "bonny blue eyed" person from the beginning, which I do not recommend you do. Stories in which the 1st person narrator is talking directly to another character in the story is something that is very difficult to pull off even for the most skilled writers. And considering that this story works very well as a strictly 1st person narrative up to this point I think it would diminish the story as a whole.
B) Rewrite this section of the story so that the narrator stays in the simple 1st person mode instead of having the narrator talking to another character. You can still include Bonny-blue-eyes, but have your narrator describe him (or her?) to the reader rather than to the character himself.
I like the way you connect tie it in with the beginning of the story right here.
Again, why italics. Also I wish you wouldn't end the story right here. One thing I usually recommend to short story writers is to always end their stories with a scene or with an action. That way you can avoid the somewhat phony "too poignant" summary ending.
All in all I like this story and I think with some revision it is well on its way to becoming a great short story. One thing to consider is trying to inject a little more humor into the story. Humor always is always the most effective when contrasted with something dark and/or serious. Stories that don't do a good job contrasting tragedy with comedy end up appearing to be trying too hard to be sad and therefore become unintentionally funny. I'm not saying that you did that in this story but it is coming dangerously close to it. Look up the word "Bathos" to get a clearer idea of what I'm talking about and how to avoid it.
As for the title I think that simply calling it "Daffodil" might work, at least as a working title until you think of something better.
Good luck and keep writing.