Published August 11, 2011
His eyelids were half closed, and long strands of brown unshorn hair fell on the cold forehead. It was hard to say whether he was awake or not. His breath was heavy and deep, and every heartbeat made the emaciated body shudder under the white terry bed sheet. He had a very strong heart; anyone else’s heart would have stopped long time ago. Tanya, not daring to come closer to the bed, didn’t know what to say: all words were inappropriate at that moment.
“Hey, daddy… How are you today?”
She was afraid that he wouldn’t recognize her, wouldn’t answer. But he, without opening his eyes, tried to smile, and slowly, making long pauses between the phrases, answered her.
“Better, Tanya. Sometimes it even doesn’t hurt. Guess… Guess who came today to me.”
“I don’t know, dad. Sasha and Noah?”
“No, no… Grandpa Lyonya came, my father. I haven’t seen him for so long… I’m so happy that we talked.”
Tanya didn’t answer and bit her lip trying not to cry. Her father didn’t look at her anyway; he was somewhere between dream and reality, somewhere on the verge when the already illusory line between imagination and consciousness was erased decisively. Listening to slow respiration, Tanya almost whispered to him.
“Father…”
A deep wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows and disappeared in the very next second. Barely moving his lips, he whispered back.
“Who is here? Tanya?”
“Yes, dad. I want to tell you something about Grandpa Lyonya.”
The sunlight that made its way through half-closed curtains made the father’s body look as if it was sculptured of yellow wax. This time, his voice reminded barely audible rustle of dry autumn leaves.
“Who… Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“Nothing, daddy, it’s not important. Sleep well”
Tanya threw a long look on the father and quietly left the room. She closed the door and walked down the stairs. Irene nervously stood up from the chair, came to the window in the kitchen and leaned on the window sill so the daughter could only see her back.
“How is he? Did he… Say anything?”
“ He said that Grandpa Lyonya came and talked with him today.”
Irene didn’t respond, didn’t ask anything, didn’t even move. Tanya walked closer and touched mother’s shoulder. The woman kept standing still, and her facial expression didn’t change. Only a single tear glistened with the brightness of the passing day, left an invisible trace on her cheek, and got lost in the long bronze curly hair. She didn’t want to show her weakness to her daughter, she needed to be strong as never before at that moment.
Because Grandpa Lyonya was invisible for everybody except the inmate. Because for some mysterious reason, Grandpa Lyonya talked only to his son, but didn’t talk to others. Because in fact Grandpa Lyonya hadn't come to the house that day.
Grandpa Lyonya died eleven years ago. And now, he came back to take his son with him.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
138,271 Literary Works • 672,093 Reviews
Good piece. Emotional, though if placed in the wrong context it might not have the same effect. Here are a few things I noticed:
You don't need the comma after deep.
Did you mean "his eyes"? The "to" isn't needed as well.
Inmate makes me think of a prison. Maybe you should use patient, though I'm unsure if there is a specific word for people staying within a hospital.
I would also like to note that this was extremely easy to predict. The minute he said, "Grandpa Lyonya came, my father, your grandpa," I knew that: A) her father was very close to dying and being dillusional and B) her grandfather was already dead. Because of this, I half heartedly suggest throwing something else in to split this apart from other stories with the same scenario (however the events leading up to this could be completely different, so we should keep that in mind). Still, I worry that if you put something else in, it'll lose some of the emotional impact.
Hi!
I think that you have a very sweet piece here. I liked how you put some description between the dialogues, I think that was really good, because we get a sense of what's been spoken as well as the surroundings around the characters. However, make sure that your dialogues still connect to each other, even when you put the descriptions in. Like here:
You mentioned that the girl wanted to tell her father something about Grandpa Lyonya, but her dad asks what she wants from him. Should he asks what it is instead of what she wants? I think that it can be connected up a bit more smoothly, it just seems a little strange at the moment.
Another thing I want to mention is, I don't think that it'd hurt if you tell us a bit more about Tanya is feeling when she is talking to her father. I know how Irene is feeling because you tell us of a tear and also how you told us, she didn't want to be weak. But what about Tanya? What is she feeling when she's talking to her dad? Is she sad? Empty like she no longer cared? Or what? I think that you can tell us a bit more about how Tanya feels in the story. At the moment, she feels like she's drained of emotions to me.
Overall, this is a really good story. I liked how you 'showed' instead of 'tell', that always makes a story a little bit better in my opinion. The flow of the story overall is also pretty good. I'd recommend that you put in a bit more emotion in it thought. But other than that, this is a story well written!
Hi there,
This was good. Quite well-written, I just have a few little nitpick things:
That part sounds awkward.
Don't say 'The father' it sounds kind of strange. Maybe replace it with 'her father'.
This kind of threw me off. I thought she was going to tell him something about Grandpa Lyonya, and then..what? If she decided not to ask him after all, maybe you should make that clear.
For some reason, 'didn't' sounds wrong. Replace it with 'hadn't', maybe?
Apart from ^^, it was good. It was interesting, you made me feel for the characters. Keep writing! ^.^
Hey there, ndioro! Interesting piece you have here.
This sentence confused me a little at first. I'd suggest changing it, to something the end of it to something along the lines of: "fell on his forehead - covered with cold sweat."
This isn't necessary, but I think this part would sound better if you removed the "the".
This isn't really a suggestion of changing anything - I'd just like to say I like the words you used here.
Capitalize the beginning of "grandpa", since it is part of the name in this situation. You also have to do this in a few other parts later on in the story. ^^
Other than those, if you run it through a quick spelling and grammar check, it should mostly be fine. This is a great piece, and I wish you luck with it. Keep it up, and feel free to PM me with any questions or if you want more reviews in the future.
--Heather