I gently traced each sunken crevice. Whole valleys and mountain ranges of your skin beneath my gnarled fingers.
Your paper thin eyelids carefully blinked. Open. Close. Open. Close.
Your breath became raspy at the undulations of your chest. Up. Down. Up. Down.
You grasped my calloused hands in yours, wincing from the pain of moving your swollen joints; those great big balloons of knuckles seemingly aching to burst out of your skin.
It wouldn’t be difficult.
Raised veins on the back of your hand formed a river delta flowing to nowhere. The only escape now was that abyss of darkness. The vacuum of souls.
You croaked those three (stupid, ridiculous) words you’d been saying since we first kissed in the girls’ loo after school that night.
“Stay golden, sunshine.”
I wanted to slap you playfully like we did in our younger days. But I couldn’t bring myself to. You were on the brink of that abyss. My slightest transgression could’ve sent you tumbling over.
I wanted to kiss you more though. For one final time, feel our lips interlock and the world cease to exist as if we we’re the only thing that mattered- the only thing with matter.
The undulations of your chest slowed then.
Stopped.
I’d known it was coming. It didn’t make it easier.
I grabbed each withered limb and hauled them onto the bed. Our bed. Your ashtray sat on the bedside cabinet, your final cigarette butt still glowing faintly in the fading golden light. Your next packet of cigarettes lay unopened on the floor; knocked off the table by some half-delirious fidgeting session. I peeled off the wrapper, took a cigarette out, and then searched your pockets for your lighter. It was in your corduroys. I lit it and took a long drag.
“This one’s for you, my dear,” I whispered.
I traced again the sunken crevices of your forehead. The valleys seemed deeper somehow.
I closed your eyelids, careful not to tear them like paper.
Then, turning off the light, I must’ve yawned and settled in for yet another night.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hi lukekazey,
I think you have a wonderful way of writing so sensitively and almost with a kind of light, that in the end it just left me hanging there.
Mailice here with a short review!
The story was definitely something I didn't expect when I read the title. I am positively surprised by the sensitivity with which you describe it here. It seems like a little snippet of a longer story, just to draw the reader in.
Your writing style is very elegant and sometimes poetic, like here for example, I found it very well described:
It seems angelic somehow, if that's enough to describe it, and it continues to stand out in the story.
On the one hand, you create a curiosity in me to know how it came about and where it will go, but on the other hand, you also create the perfect moment with it, developing a kind of desire from the reader for that moment not to end.
You have a wonderful way of expressing yourself with the metaphors and create a really fantastic portrayal. But you also keep a touch of mystery, which I like. There are a lot of questions that are missing, but from the context, the reader can make up their own story of how this happened.
I really can't say anything against it, except that it reads like a poetic short story, covered with a glaze of metaphors.
Have fun writing!
Mailice
Thanks for your review!
Wow.
This is one of the beautiful thing I've ever read. 0_o
Thank you...
Luke, this is very good and your comparisons are amazing.
The story would be even better, if we would know the characters, so when anyone dies it would actually hurt your feelings more, cause even death in real life can be so exhausting... It's like when you are reading a really good book and it's coming towards the end, we all know the characters very well and it's more sad. Try to write a whole story, describing the people in it.
And i have to tell you that your vocabulary is sooo good! Keep on going on this story, cause it really is special.
Hello Luke!
I'll keep this quick since this is pretty short.
This is rosette, here to review this lovely piece of yours.
First off, your imagery is beautiful! (As Redbox pointed out). I like your use of figurative language - the mountains and valleys. I found that fitting for describing an older person. It kind of corresponds to what they've been through in life. The scene is vague but detailed at the same time. It was very personal and beautiful. However, I suggest that you might consider allowing the reader to know the characters a little better.
Deaths are important, usually tragic, and usually make the reader feel a little sympathetic - but that's only when we know the characters. I'm not sure what your intention was or if I am supposed to be sympathetic about this death, but I do think it would be a good idea to let us know a little more about both characters. You don't need to go into their whole backstory but little hints at what their life used to be like and why they loved each other and such would be a nice addition.
I did find it a little odd that the narrator simply yawned and crawled into bed when his or her lover died. If they've loved each other for as long as it appears, wouldn't the death be more tragic? Even though the narrator knew it was coming?
Anyhow, you wrote this beautifully! It's a lovely piece - a little vague, but lovely nonetheless. Thanks for sharing! I hope to see more of your works soon. :]
~rosette <3
This is very good. I like the imagery!
The abstractness of this piece is really what draws in and fascinates the reader.
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Hi, manilla here for a review. Let's get right into it, shall we?
I'll just help clear up a few nitpicks that could've been caught by some revision.
I understand that there was a clear purpose of not making this a complete sentence, but did you mean mountain ranges, plural? Or just mountains? It may be more fitting that way.
A river d lots? I'm a bit confused.
So, did the narrator's lover just die? Or are they old together, having grown up and married? Why was the narrator's reaction as such? There's a lot of feeling and secret insider stories written beneath and in between the lines that only this couple may to understand. In this quick scene, you make the reader curious.
Whether or not you give us context is up to you - Sometimes, in such a short story, a little mystery may help.
That's all from me - Manilla out.
Thank you! I typed this pretty quickly on my phone, so autocorrect did a trrrible job. I shouldve done a proper proofread. Im gonna make those changes now though.