Published January 2, 2013
It was a grave oddity that he found himself sitting on that particular street corner. Elikai couldn’t figure out how he had gotten there, nor could he bring his attention away from the cracks in the streets seemingly twisting in and out of perspective. He didn’t suppose that he had any real qualms with this menacing caricature of himself, but if it chose to manifest itself at such an odd place, it might as well give him a good reason for doing so. Elikai wasn’t too fond of such pointless encounters, especially with odd and apparently dissociated realities as this.
The fact of the matter was that these occurrences were becoming quite noticeably frequent. Nodding off and finding himself in strange places sounded like a clinical problem at first, but the existence of what was now apparently not a hallucination sort of ruled that idea out.
He recalled last week when he had found himself wondering around a local food court. The figure had quietly slipped the keys to a cash register out of a managers pocket and then placed them in Elikai's hands without a word. The figure rarely spoke, but he had a tendency to point and make vague references to which Elikai could only guess at.
In this particular scenario, the figure seemed to be gesturing for him to follow. It's face face very much like his own face, but instead it was contorted, much like the face of a cartoon character. He wasn't sure why at the time, but Elikai was comfortable with the idea of treading in the figure's footsteps. Maybe it was due to a sense of similarity to looking in a mirror, but who was the reflection and who was the reality?
The soft packing of footsteps against cobblestone was the only thing that could be heard other than the quiet pounding of his own breath. The figure himself made no noise at all as he led him down an alleyway to his left. The walls on either side were covered with soot and smelled somewhat like rotting corpses mixed with lemon juice.
“Turn around” commanded the figure.
Elikai did as we was told only to find no trace of the alleyway he had just previously traveled. In it's place was a long door very much unlike the scenery that surrounded it. It was heavily polished and made of brass, and in place of a door knob, there was simply a tiny key hole.
Somehow he understood what he was being asked to do. He pulled out the key he had received from the figure out of his waistcoat pocket. Only now did he realize that he hadn't bathed in weeks.
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140,301 Literary Works • 673,080 Reviews
Very interesting concept that you have going on here. This figure that menacingly and unnoticeable follows this character around and almost forces him to do his will. It's both scary and an interesting plot device. I felt like everything that was happening was very nonlinear. That can be good with a longer story, but with such a small piece of writing it can get confusing. I'm also in agreement with the other reviews about the ending. I wasn't really sure what was going on. I also didn't think that the previous paragraphs gave any indications that your protagonist was so disconnected from reality that he hadn't bathed. It just seemed random without any build up.
Overall, your words and writing style are very pleasing to me and I can't wait to read more. I would recommend adding more substance to this piece so that the reader is given more back ground and drawn in better. Happy Writing!
Hello there!
This is a pretty short piece but I think it speaks of promises. You have a very interesting idea of this figure which follows your protagonist and makes odd request. I'm still a bit confused with these 'dissociated/alternate(?) realities' or something that you mentioned in the beginning. Is he some type of traveler? Is this figure a version of himself that is trying to accomplish something? I'm left wanting to know more about this and that's a good thing so your introduction has left a nice imprint that provokes curiosity from the reader.
However, I will agree with Kasim with the oddity in the ending. The whole 'hadn't bathed in weeks' was just random and didn't connect to anything in the beginning of the introduction. Unless you mentioned something about how long he was wandering? Following? In this alternate reality or something? I don't know and it acts like a mechanical bull, throwing me off.
Your writing is pretty great and I didn't really spot mistakes so all clear. ;] You had some wonderful description and the words weren't too difficult to follow. I like it so far.
Overall, I have more positive news on this than anything negative. Keep up the writing and let me know if you have questions.
-S
You said face face on the first line of the fourth paragraph and in the seventh paragraph, you said "we was told" and I think you meant "he"?
I liked this. I don't know why but I did. It was extremely well written and just flowed. The words just flowed. I found myself reading on because the way the sentences were phrased was just really good and I wanted to read on to see what other "good" sentences there were to be found.
As for the plot, I'm a little confused as to what's going on. Elikai seems to be waking up randomly in places that he doesn't remember going to and is followed around by this apparition that only he can see? And this apparition has his face and tells him to do things but it's not a hallucination? I really want to know what it is...
I don't get the ending though. Why did you end on the bathing part? Is there more to come because that would be a strange ending to end on but, at the same time, could be so strange that it would make a reader read on just because it was so strange...
Kasim.
Thank you for the kind words. Yeah, I sort of cut it off there, because I wanted to get a feel for how it was going. I'll fix the typos. Writing at 5 O'clock in the morning probably isn't conducive to typing perfectly.