Published June 23, 2011
Our fourth session.
“Have you been drinking again, Mr. Barrow?”
“A little.”
“How much is a little?”
“It's enough.”
Eyes red. Shining.
The crunch of leather as he sits, adjusting to the form of the couch.
Clock ticks behind.
“You've served with the NYPD previously?"
"That's correct."
“And why did you return home?”
“You already know, why keep asking?”
Fingers missing on right hand. Pinky and Ring.
AC's runs too high. Goosebumps rise against the skin.
Cold leather doesn't help.
“They're not letting me come back, are they?”
“That depends.”
“No. No it doesn't. Not until I talk. Even then.”
“I suppose not.”
“I don't like talking about this. I don’t. I want you to know that.”
“We can talk about anything, Mr. Barrow.”
“No. I’m here until I get this off my chest, so they can ‘assess’ how fucked up I am. This has nothing to do with what I want.”
His eyes glance across the medal.
It sits behind glass too often polished.
Starred for courage.
Tightening of the jaw.
“You seen combat, Doc?”
“I did a tour.”
“Lose anyone?”
“We all lose someone. His name was Sam. We went to class together, same high school, but I didn’t see him die. I was lucky there.”
“I saw Charlie.”
“He the one you lost?”
“He is.”
Clock sounds out in rhythm.
Still air, all but silent.
“He was a good man; carried me through the harder moments.”
“The best men always do, Mr. Barrow.”
“It’s John.”
His boots tap against the carpet.
Torn on the sides, zipper broken, held together with safety pins.
His next words are unexpected.
"He liked pudding."
"Charlie?"
"Yeah. Always carried a cup with him. Ate a pack before every patrol. Some kind of weird tradition his family had. Supposed to keep him safe, I guess. Seemed like bullshit to me. I don’t know. His girl sent a big case to him every month. He was always trying to share them with the rest of us. They didn’t arrive that month. Some kind of mix up at customs. I remember me and the squad poking fun at him. Guy was actually nervous about going out on patrol. Place had been a safe zone for over two months, yet the guy was worried about not having his pudding pack.”
“We all have our beliefs.”
“That we do.”
Chain hanging from his neck.
A crucifix.
Turned in towards his chest.
“It was the nineteenth. Our patrol had been marked for the alleys. It was our turn in rotation to take point outside the Humvee. He was right next to me. Fucking feet away. We were joking around, making cracks about each other’s girls. Last thing I said to him, called his girl a promiscuous whore. Something like that. We were just laughing. Then he was gone. Completely gone. There was a clash of metal that rose from behind me, shrapnel hitting the truck, then I couldn’t hear a thing. I didn’t notice what had happened, not at first. I thought he’d snuck around me. But he wasn’t there. Sam, the guy in the Hummer, must’ve been shouting, but it didn’t get through.”
The sound is gone.
The running of the AC, the ticking clock, the birds and wind outside.
Just his voice.
Just him.
“There was this plume, this mist, in the air. I thought the blast had knocked up the dirt. But it wasn’t that. It was Charlie. His blood. It coated my uniform; my face and skin. So much of it. I didn’t even notice my fingers weren’t there anymore. I didn’t scream or cry. I…I just went and got in the truck. Left my gun on the ground. They took me back. Sam was shouting and cursing something about the ‘sand niggers’ and how they’d get what was coming to them. I didn’t pay attention.”
Tears in the eyes.
They threaten to fall.
So close.
“It was an old landmine we’d missed, the lieutenant told me. I spent the night at the hospital. I was covered in his blood when they brought me in and sewed me up. I didn’t wash it away. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to be gone.”
He stares down at his hands, rubbing them together.
Slowly.
As though he can still see the blood.
“I spent a couple days at the hospital before they sent me home. Nerve damage. I remember how I fell asleep right away on the first night. Exhaustion. But the second, I woke up crying. Screaming. Because Charlie was there. He was there...waiting for me. I wake up, many nights, crying over him. I still see him when I dream.”
So silent, this room.
His sobbing is all there is.
His eyes meet mine.
All the strength there was long gone.
“I don’t know how to forget him.”
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138,337 Literary Works • 672,105 Reviews
Oh my God. This is the best story I've read on YWS so far. It was touching, emotional and very believable unlike other ones. I loved this, so beautiful and smart. I've read and heard stories about the war, but this was the best by far.
Keep Writing!
Nike(:
Hello there, sorry this is horribly late. (But, I suppose, better late than never.
)
You've already got some good reviews on this piece, so I'll try to keep away from areas that have already been covered.
1) Description.
Though I would say you've hit the nail on the head in some respects with your description - for instance, you imply with it, rather than telling - it's also quite lacking. I didn't feel myself enjoying the descriptive parts hugely, and there are a couple of things you could do to improve.
With the example piece, I understand that you want it to sound clipped and tense, but honestly in some cases it just comes across as forced. It's possible for you to smooth it out a little without removing the atmosphere that you're trying to create - however, trust me when I say that the atmosphere needs to be naturally created, and at the moment it isn't always.
2) Dialogue.
One of the reasons that you really need to improve the descriptive parts of the piece is the fact that your dialogue, by the end, is really very good. All of your emotion is packed into the dialogue, which makes it really very powerful.
What I'd love you to do with the dialogue/description is create a little more transition from the uncommunicative man to the part where he inevitably starts talking. The transition would be better suited to the description, just body language or something similar.
Also, keep the level of the dialogue continuous! Your end dialogue is very, very good, but the beginning seems stilted. Similar to the description, actually - I see what you're trying to do, but it's too forced. Even when people are speaking bluntly and not giving anything away there is a certain flow to the speech pattern that you could try to capture here.
Overall, though, nice piece.
Hope this helps - drop me PM if you want to talk further.
Amy
Hi there!
Wow, this is a great story! I like your style. I think it's great that you kept the words and sentences simple; they really put a lot of emotion into the piece. You did a great job with the interaction of the two characters. They're bonding over a simple subject, one they can both relate to.
There's nothing that I can say bad about this piece. I enjoyed reading it and it's apparent that you really read through and changed it before you posted it. Good job!
Sorry if you were expecting a more in depth review, but there's really nothing I can critique about this. Keep writing!
There's a lot of suspense in this story. Alright, here's my review. I think the dialogues are chosen perfectly here. What I mean is that the way of talking describes a person's personality and that I could pretty much understand about these two characters. It was like I was in the story watching the whole scene with the way you described it. That was another thing I liked. It's that you didn't focus entirely on the dialogues, you described the person's actions after a few lines. I think your use of expressions is another thing which helped create the whole serious atmosphere. For example,
It's short but I liked it. That's about all there is to say here. Keep writing.
There's a lot of suspense in this story. Alright, here's my review. I think the dialogues are chosen perfectly here. What I mean is that the way of talking describes a person's personality and that I could pretty much understand about these two characters. It was like I was in the story watching the whole scene with the way you described it. That was another thing I liked. It's that you didn't focus entirely on the dialogues, you described the person's actions after a few lines. I think your use of expressions is another thing which helped create the whole serious atmosphere. For example,
It's short but I liked it. That's about all there is to say here. Keep writing.
Hate to sound mean but your example of depth has been done 1000 times before in every emo poem ever written. Please don't confuse subtlety and sparse description with a lack of depth
Hate to sound mean but your example of depth has been done 1000 times before in every loss poem ever written. Please don't confuse subtlety and sparse description with a lack of depth
Since the reviews before me nitpicked grammar, I'll focus more on the impression and the style of your work. The lines of descriptions you have... They kind of resemble a raw, distinctive sound of a hammer hitting metal. Generally speaking that's good, actually gives the story a kind of intense or serious atmosphere. The problem you have there though are the descriptions themselves. They are short, repetitive, your descriptions never go behind appearance or simplicity. They lack depth. For example I've picked a random moment in your story and editted it.
Your version
My example of depth
It could've been done much better, but I do not exactly know what you had in your head when you wrote it. "Go away" can be both the voice in the soldier's head or what the Doc imagines, your call. You could elaborate on how his voice is shaking or how it carries tears or pain, a matter of your imagination. You could elaborate on how he must be shocked or nervous. There is so much one can write about when it comes to depth, just one thing matters - go behind the appearance. There's a sound - appearance. What kind of a sound? - Depth. From my example you can see that there's no need to abandon the hammer hitting metal style either, the paragraphs are just longer, yet they are still raw.
As about the dialogue, I see you stick to the dots a lot. You could at times use - as a sign of a pause or him getting stuck for a moment.
All that aside, the story's actually quite good. The only shame is lack of depth.
Best regards,
~Kyousuke
First of all, you’re right. I really liked this story, so much that I’m planning on coming back to read more of your work. Your style is very interesting and sophisticated, and I don’t come across many short stories so this was really refreshing.
I really have to echo what everyone else has been saying. There’s nothing wrong with this piece whatsoever, technically it’s great, and the concept is interesting. I can see what they were talking about when they said your narration was a little unclear. I kind of liked it though, it felt like you were focusing on different things at different times. John, and the shrink, and the room itself. It felt like you were bouncing back between these three things.
This didn’t have much description. The parts where you did describe though were amazing. I loved the pieces about the too-polished medal, the boots zipped up with safety pins, the crucifix hanging on his chest, and the invisible blood on his hands. These all really stood out to me. And when I think about it, what more description do you need x)
So all in all, I really enjoyed this and can’t wait to read more! Sorry I can’t be of more help. You’re very talented.
I like this way of writing and I do think it brings the story onward. And the only thing I can think is negative is that you sometimes reuse a couple of words to closely. Like the word still. But other than that I really can't think of anything. The story has a nice flow and I really like it.
This is very good; I could really get into the characters and imagine the story. I did think some parts were slightly confusing, especially at first with who was who, but all in all it was pretty easy to understand and think about. This piece and its characters felt honest and emotional, even without much descriptive language; the transitions help tie everything together and worked well. This left readers with something to think about, definitely, and was well- written. That's about all I've got here; I can't really critique anything since there were no errors. As always, keep up the good work!
Marvelous. There really isn't a negative thing I can say about this story. The flow of his consciousness is seemless. Your descriptions are spot on. I could almost feel the concussion of the landmine. Keep up the good work!
This is really good. I love how you alternate--first a few lines of words, then a few lines of descriptions.
I love this part--
So silent, this room.
His sobbing is all there is.
His eyes meet mine.
All the strength there was long gone.
“I don’t know how to forget him.”
Really, really excellent.
Hi, Mike!
I actually quite like this, there's something about it that says so much without really saying a great deal at all. It's a very interesting little piece that certainly left me thinking, so I'm not sure how much there is that I can say about it.
I'm going to put things out simply, I guess to make sure that I'm explaining everything properly. So, this is between a soldier and a psychiatrist, yes? I'm not sure if it was your intention, but I got the impression that I got from the italicised sections was that these are as if they're from the psychiatrist's notes, as they're mostly in a different tone from the rest of the piece. I'm not sure if it's because of YWS's formatting, but it seemed to me like there were some cases which should have been in italics, should have been part of those notes and yet weren't. For example :
The other thing with this, although it could just be due to me interpretation of this, is that some of what I'm considering the 'notes' sections don't' really seem to fit the sort of tone that I was expecting.
From the other sections, we've had Mr. Barrow referred to in the third person, which I think it what lead me to the impression that these little sections were like psych's notes, but it's the ones like this, the ones that don't really seem to be meaning anything, talking about little parts of the scenery in the office that aren't quite so important, that don't really seem to fit in with what I'd expect in such notes. I think it's like you were trying to show the passing of time, in silence, without explicitly saying as such. You've got one of these little sections with Mr. Barrow looking at his hands, as if he can still see the blood there, and I think it's those little almost tic-like motions, little bits of body language, that you could perhaps substitute in.
One last time to point out is that, while at the end of this is was clear to me that this was about a solider and his PTSD, at the beginning, with the mentioning of drinking combined with it being the fourth session, initially lead me to believe that it was an alcoholic attending a meeting or seeking some specialised treatment, and so there was a little moment where I had to catch up with myself and right what I was seeing in my mind.
I do really really like this though, there's this feeling about it that stays with you, lingering in your mind after you've finished. I've read a few things on YWS that have left me with that, but it's only a few of them, so kudos to you for that. I think I'm also interested to know how other people might read this, if it was with the same sort of view that I did.
Sorry I've not much more constructive to say! I hope that I've been of some use to you. If you have any questions, or anything you'd like me to elaborate on, feel free to shoot me a PM and whatnot :D
- Tinny
Wow, I really like this. It's very interesting the way that it was written, but you can really get into the story and feel what the characters are feeling. There wasn't really much description, but I feel like it wasn't really needed here. You did a great job of conveying emotions through your writing and letting the readers empathise with the characters. It flowed really nicely, although there were a few parts that were a little confusing as to what was happening and then as to who was speaking, but it wasn't really anything big. I really liked this and it was really easy to read. None of the sentences seemed forced and they all just flowed really naturally.
I couldn't find any grammer or spelling errors, actually, I couldn't really find anything wrong with it at all, I just wanted to complement you and your story. I really thought it was good, keep writing! And let me know if you post anything more
Sorry I couldn't really be of any help.
~Tayla
I really liked it. Well written, and I couldn't find any mistakes. Can't wait to read more of your work
This story is sooo good. The lines are all powerful and it's narrated very well. This is the best piece I've read here, so far. Keep up the good work!!