Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language.
1.
The first time it’s with a mirror.
James is standing in front of the sink, brushing his teeth. His head is still buzzing pleasantly from a long, good night’s sleep, and his eyes are still half lidded as he bends down to spit out the toothpaste in his mouth. He gets back up, looks into the mirror and sees himself smiling.
He’s not smiling. At least he’s pretty sure. Right now he can’t really tell if he’s wearing his shirt inside out or not.
“Hey,” he says under his breath. “Hey David, c’mere, the mirror’s trying to communicate with me.”
Only a low, muttered curse comes from the bed where his twin brother lies, still half asleep. Blinking, James turns his gaze back to the mirror.
“Hi James,” the mirror says.
James promptly puts his fist through the mirror. He faintly hears David crash onto the floor, shouting, “Dude, what the hell?”
Ignoring his brother, James shakes his head in an attempt to fully awaken himself. He lifts a bleeding hand and points at the broken remnants of the mirror, hoping to prove a point to David, who has now crawled over to the bathroom door.
“It was trying to communicate with me,” James protests. Then he realizes how stupid he sounds and tries to come up with a better explanation. “It said hi to me.”
“It, it said hi to me,” David repeats like a broken doll, then sputters on his words, visibly unable to form an actual response. Finally, he settles on yelling, “Well, do you usually break people’s faces when they say hi?”
“Dude,” James says slowly. “Mirrors don’t say hi.”
“Oh,” says David.
After they clean up the floor, David schedules an appointment and James doesn’t protest.
2.
The second time it’s with the car.
James is driving back from the grocery store, David riding shotgun. David is munching loudly on a bag of skittles, exactly the way that James hates it, and James attempts to think through the loud classical music blasting from the radio. Probably stress, the psych had told him, but there’s also the fact that you had just woken up, as you said. Come back if it happens again.
He thinks about the way that the mirror had said, Hi James, and wonders if his voice had always sounded so damn cheesy.
Crunch, goes David’s mouth. Crunch, crunch, slurp, crunch.
Hi James, goes the mirror inside James’ head, each syllable drawn out to be as cheesy as possible, apparently. Hi Jaaaaameeeeees.
Crunch, slurp.
Hi slurp James crunchcrunchcrunch.
“Will you stop that?” James finally snaps, and does his best to elbow David in the neck without crashing the car.
“Stop what?” David says, and stuffs another handful of candy into his mouth.
“You know what—“ James begins to growl. As he nears a yellow light, he glances up at the rear view mirror halfway out of habit.
“Awesome car, James,” neighs the unicorn from the back seat.
“Holy shit!” James screams and doesn’t even notice that he’s driving into a garbage truck until the windshield shatters.
Later, David swears up and down on his hospital bed that, no, he did not see a goddamn unicorn in the back seat, but yes, he will strangle James once he’s out of his colorful assortment of braces and bandages.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,023 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
Hi there Mephistophelesangel! This is Kays here dropping in for a review on your short story as requested. I remember reviewing another short of yours a week (or maybe a couple of weeks, who knows) back that I enjoyed a fair amount. Hopefully I can say the same for this. Without further ado, let's review.
Hopefully in the second part what's going on with David is further explained because at the moment the topic is pretty open. Huh, actually I wouldn't be surprised if both of them share a form of mental illness--Schizophrenia? I don't want to assume that this is a short story about the two of them slowly realizing and coming to terms with their diagnosis (David isn't the only one hearing or seeing different delusions). I figure it's alright to say that to an extent because we and even David knows that the unicorn wasn't real yet James didn't know that.
I figure that the two of them both share this trait even though James's part is a little more subtle than David's behaviour which is a bit more outright. I won't go too much further into that and I'll leave that bit alone to delve deeper into the rest of the work. I know I've said this before but my enjoyment of this part truly depends on how the next part is handled. If the next part is handled well and the short story is an accurate portrayal of what's going on, I can say that I enjoyed this.
If this doesn't however I believe I'm going to be sorely disappointed. I hope this lets go of the comedy or horror aspect in a way for the characters to shine through and for this to become...realistic. Contemporary. Even though this is labelled humor and horror, I'm hoping that's a disguise. I'm wondering the ages of these two? I assume that the two of them are at least 16 because one of them is able to drive but I'm not quite sure.
I actually don't mind how the scenes are written because I assume that the numbers are different periods of time and I'm okay with these not being right after each other? Instead of a short story that follows their lives for a long period of time I see this being a shorter period probably leading up to why these hallucinations are happening (whether the two are being haunted or a real life circumstance) and instead of a completed timeline this is only partially completed.
This is built with fragments that reminds me a little of the short film Scenes from the Suburbs that also isn't crystal clear. I admit that I'll be disappointed if this ends up being horror or just another dark comedy of some kind but we'll see what happens. The pacing is a little fast and there's the possibility of this being longer but that isn't a huge issue--if I have any large problems with the work it'll be after I read and review the second part since so far I'm on the fence. Time to see if I'm pushed into the lush grass or into the dirt.
If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day. Have any more review requests? Just hit up my Will Review for Food thread!
Hey there mephistophelesangel. I read through your story last night and I was hoping it would still be in the green room when I finally managed to sign on this morning. Anyways it's just lizzy dropping by real quick, so without a further ado, let the reviewing begin.
I admit that I really loved this story, which is something I rarely say about the shorts in the green room. Usually there's one or two elements that will interest me but here you have presented me with something very fun. Most of the reason I originally picked this out of the pool was the label of humor, which is quite possibly my favorite genre. Being totally honest, I don't find most of the things marked as humor to be humorous.
The premise of the story is rather outrageous and the unicorn popping out of the back seat is what hooked me in for the long haul. Usually I like to focus on the first lines of a piece so I guess that's the lead in to the next section.
With an opening like this, it brings a lot of possible ideas to my mind about where you could go from this, from rather simple to alice in wonderland. One of my first theories was a through the looking glass situation but it was nice to find you weren't going with that. Mirrors as portals to other dimensions are one of my pet peeves for a short story, a bit too overused and often not fantastical enough. Even though I did think for awhile something was gonna pop out of the mirror, the mirror speaking to the character is kinda hard to imagine. The best picture i could piece together in my mind was it just having a sort of mouth but I don't know how accurate that is to your original vision.
This might sound rather like lines of ramble but it's just the easiest way for me to work through your piece and give you some helpful feedback. This all basically boils down to the idea is nice but the imagery is kinda wonky because you never describe anything. The story itself is rather short and the lack of description acting as a buffer, quickens the pace even further. I'm still wondering why you opted for two parts but I guess that'll be revealed farther down the road.
The strategic placing of the italics were yet another thing that appealed to me in this work. Usually I either see a piece that's composed entirely of italics that really don't need to be there or a piece with no italics that really should be there. This is sort of a rant and compliment all thrown in to one, so I'm just gonna apologize and move along now. As far as grammar and all that crap you're clear but I would like to take a stop off at dialogue.
In a spot like this, the dialogue tag just doesn't match up with the words. Like I imagined this to be a rather sarcastic comment at normal level but the tag tells me the brother is screaming. Maybe that's just something that I noticed and part of my weird list of things I am bothered by.
Lavvie has really covered all the other things I wanted to say so I think I'll just hit the road now. (And you know jump over to the next part.)
Good day for now.
~Lizzy
Hi there mephistophelesangel!
This is really interesting. Am I correct in coming to the conclusion that James is schizophrenic or something along those lines? If so, I think you've really approached writing mental health into a short story in the right way. Already, you're addressing it from both the sufferer's point of view as well as a non-schizophrenic's point of view, and how that can have some serious effects on day-to-day life. The approach is also somewhat lighthearted and comedic, but also clearly dark. Dark humour. It's interesting.
This is a well-written piece, and the only issue I have is that it just feels so... distant. I feel like I'm reading snippets, but nothing that's totally cohesive. The snippets are impactful, but they don't feel cohesive enough to deliver something that will sit with the reader for awhile after they're actually done reading. I know there's a second part to come, but I'm not entirely sure how you're going to make that connection if you continue down this route. Don't get me wrong - I think your style is appropriate and successful, I would like to see something tie it all together. I don't want a montage, but something that seems seamless, despite its cut-off feel. Does that make sense? Maybe not - it's quite late here xD
Overall, I'm intrigued and impressed and dying to read more. Please let me know when you've posted the second part and I'll be quick to review!
All the best,
Lavvie