Meméré and her little purple car like to drive everywhere with me. Drive down the highway that might be longer than the way to Heaven. The one lined with graying palm trees on the way to the closest city where she likes to get coffee that smells fresh and not like the kind that sits in her pot all day and all night. Drive and drive, smelling coffee and watching blue sky.
One day you won’t want to drive with me anymore, she says. You’ll have friends to go out and have fun with and leave me behind. I promise her that I won’t.
We drive and drive to the library that’s close to the school I went to when it was the first southern spring. The roads are all on hills, you don’t see many of those away from New England. Past the too-pink house, around the many curves and turns in the road. Every yard is full of green grass and some have dogs or white fences. I get Because of Winn-Dixie, because that’s what our Florida town is like. Her grandma-car still smells like coffee. And we drive and drive until we’ve found our way home, and she waits again until she can get her best coffee.
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Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,856 Reviews
Yes, I realized my mistake and deleted my other posts to save them for another day.
I also wasn't really sure where to post it. It's more of a vignette in the style of Cisnero's A House on Mango Street than as a work of short fiction. This piece was actually for an English project that required a series very short vignettes in her style that were supposed to present a single, descriptive image to the reader. It wasn't required to have plot or strong characters, but about a childhood memory with a close relative.
Thanks for your input.
*moved to Other*
Hello Juliet. Before I begin this review, I would like to mention that you have three literary works posted and no reviews. Here on YWS, our review to work ratio is 3:1, and your current ratio is 0:3. People won't review your stuff if they see you haven't reviewed. We're all doing you a favor, so please do us one. Also, please wait a little while before you post another story.
Now, onto the review.
Is this a poem, or a story? You say that is a vignette, which means a short piece of fiction. However, you have this posted in narrative poetry. A mistake, perhaps?
To be honest, I couldn't really tell what you were trying to achieve with this story. So, you drive around, and you like Winn Dixie? Is this fiction, or non fiction? Either way, and I don't mean to sound harsh, but it's not remotely interesting.
What is the point of the story? Why should the reader care about your characters?
Depending on what genre this falls in to, there are tons of ways you could make it better, which I cannot describe in detail. I'm not saying to scrap the piece, but maybe, when you think of a new story idea, you could fit this in a scene some how.
PM if you have question.