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Young Writers Society


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The Cafe

by whit921


Her imagination took her elsewhere: most days it was a petite café in France, partially covered by flowering vines whose fragrance intertwined with that of the coffee served inside. She would seat herself at a table nearest to the cobblestone street in order to watch handsome strangers pass by, sometimes catching their eyes. And her mouth would curve flirtatiously at passersby and her cheeks would blush like the sunset as the sun bowed below the horizon, leaving traces of pastel pigment in the darkening vast blue as a parting gift. And as darkness grew the vanilla moon would reflect in her eyes and she would sigh unto the stillness of the night, and closing her eyes she was the night, immune to the flock of memories that constantly pecked at her skin every day, reduced to this single moment of solace. And the moon would take her chin and guide her to the stars which reflected in her coffee cup warming her hands. “Isn’t it magnificent?” The moon would tell her. “This world.” She would agree with her eyes. And she would raise her coffee cup to her lips and drink in the moon and the stars. In this moment, however imaginary, she was content.


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Fri Jun 25, 2021 3:40 pm
MailicedeNamedy wrote a review...



Hi whit921,

Mailice here with a short review! :D

I don't know what exactly the meaning of the text is, but I have the feeling that even the woman who is drawn away into her conceit there is not happy. She places herself so much in the centre and wants to be loved and seen by everyone, but in the end she longs for something even more distant, which she only attains through her imagination within the imagination. It seems like a formula that she tries to recite to herself over and over again in order to escape even the portal where she once felt at home.

While falling into this world you describe (very beautiful, btw), one quickly forgets that the woman being told about there is only imagining it. The bubble that opens up here bursts with the last sentence. It's this ending that gives me a kind of melancholy. Everything seems so bland and weak when you consider that she is only imagining it all. I think that gives your short story a strange, elegant and yet realistic undertone. I don't know if it was intended to make the reader think like that ,but you manage it. At least with me. :D

One thing I noticed about your short story is the attempt to create long sentences. You connect some things very well and create metaphors and descriptions, but ultimately most of your sentences are too overstuffed with information that stops the reader in their tracks. For example, what else happened at the beginning of the sentence when you get to the end?

What I also like about the structure is that the whole text is one section. It seems like a block, a house of cards that you build up and that actually falls apart very quickly when you look at the individual sentences.

Some points I found while reading:

petite café in France

Here is a tiny spell error. Since it´s “un café” in French, the adjective related to it “petit” has to be written in it´s male form without an “e”

And as darkness grew the vanilla moon would reflect in her eyes and she would sigh unto the stillness of the night, and closing her eyes she was the night, immune to the flock of memories that constantly pecked at her skin every day, reduced to this single moment of solace.

Some of your sentences are quite long, but this one will probably have set the record. :D Nothing against longer sentences or possible connections, but by the time you get to the end here, you don't even know where you were at the beginning. Also, with a repetition of "would" you create a kind of stumbling block where it becomes difficult to follow the rest of the narrative. I think you could at least split this sentence into three smaller sentences.

“This world.”

Here is a question mark necessary, since you are posing a question with this sentence.

I liked reading the text because you give the reader a lot of room to interpret.

Have fun writing!

Mailice




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Wed Jun 23, 2021 9:25 pm
WinnyWriter wrote a review...



Hey, there! Dropping by to leave a review. I read this awhile back, and now that I've come across it again, I should write the review I meant to write before. :)

First of all, I like how you leave the subject relatively unidentified, giving the reader room to create her as whomever they perceive. You've done well painting the picture of a character who prefers to romanticize life than be caught up in its drudgery.

I like your comparison of the character's blush to the sunset. It may be a little flowery, but for a romantic-ish feel like this short story evokes, it kinda fits - as does the description of the "vanilla moon." The whole things gives a sensation of stillness and peacefulness, a place where the character can go inside her own mind, to escape the worries and cares of reality. And the final sentence powerfully clinches the piece with the point that the imagination can be a safe haven.

Thanks for sharing!




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Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:53 am
slubbs24 wrote a review...



Slubbs here with a review :D

This was a fascinating piece! It was so elegant and dreamy word by word. You painted a picture in my eyes.

The only thing I would suggest is putting it into paragraphs, it’s a bit blocky and my eyes struggle to read straight.

Anyhow I love the concept, you were so detailed in the writing you could vision everything.

I do like how this is different from a lot of the stories I read, I’ve never read a story with imagination and from I know you did a splendid job with approaching this idea.

Overall it was a very warming story that makes the reader leave with calmness while thinking of the image you put in our heads... if that makes sense xD, if it doesn’t blame it on my tiredness.

Loved it!

~slubbs




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Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:07 am
KateHardy wrote a review...



Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! A late welcome to YWS!! Hope you enjoy you're time here :D I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression:

Anyway let's get right to it,

Her imagination took her elsewhere: most days it was a petite café in France, partially covered by flowering vines whose fragrance intertwined with that of the coffee served inside. She would seat herself at a table nearest to the cobblestone street in order to watch handsome strangers pass by, sometimes catching their eyes. And her mouth would curve flirtatiously at passersby and her cheeks would blush like the sunset as the sun bowed below the horizon, leaving traces of pastel pigment in the darkening vast blue as a parting gift. And as darkness grew the vanilla moon would reflect in her eyes and she would sigh unto the stillness of the night, and closing her eyes she was the night, immune to the flock of memories that constantly pecked at her skin every day, reduced to this single moment of solace. And the moon would take her chin and guide her to the stars which reflected in her coffee cup warming her hands. “Isn’t it magnificent?” The moon would tell her. “This world.” She would agree with her eyes. And she would raise her coffee cup to her lips and drink in the moon and the stars. In this moment, however imaginary, she was content.


Hmm....well that appears to be some sort of dream sequence or just plain imagination there, which is certainly an interesting way to write a short story especially cause that way you get to toss out most things related to realism. And I think you have in fact managed to take pretty much full advantage of that hear with some really lovely imagery there, especially as it gets towards the end of the story.

And yeah, as the far as the content of the story goes, it seems to be on the surface just a bit of innocent imagination of someone finding themselves in a place that they've perhaps always had a dream of being in and doing something that they always perhaps wanted to do. But of course towards the end there, it appears to hint that perhaps this imagination is just some sort of escape from a far more sinister situation that's taking place in reality, and well, that's always going to make things very interesting there, isn't it? At any rate, this is quite an intriguing little story, and it certainly leaves you thinking, trying to understand exactly what might have been going on there.

Well at any rate, it was a very enjoyable read this one, and despite being as small as it is, it manages to pack a surprising amount of mystery into it. :D

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall:

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry




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Fri Jun 11, 2021 3:28 am
TheWarriorMingan wrote a review...



Hello Whit! I am once again doing a short late-night review. (Maybe early morning where you are!)

First of all, I'd like to say that I enjoyed this little piece, and I would love to know more about the narrator's imaginings. I like that you kept it short, but not too short. It would be nice if you separated this into two or three separate paragraphs, though. One other thing, do you have an introduction to this character? So that we can know a little bit more about her because of the beginning:

Her imagination took her elsewhere:

It sounds like you took an excerpt from a story and posted it, so maybe a little intro if this is a stand-alone! ;)

I love all the detail and her interactions with the moon! This part is especially elegant:
And she would raise her coffee cup to her lips and drink in the moon and the stars.

Overall, I love the whole thing! Welcome to YWS!

-Sincerely, Mingan

Remember: Follow your heart and nothing can go wrong. (concerning writing)




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Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:58 pm
RandomTalks wrote a review...



Hello, here for a short review!

First of all, welcome to YWS!

This was such a beautiful piece. You paint this scene with just your words and the image is so beautiful. Your descriptions were so pretty and the words you used almost made it sound like poetry. I can't wait to see you expand this into a story.

My favorite lines were:

' “Isn’t it magnificent?” The moon would tell her. “This world.” She would agree with her eyes.'

One thing I noticed, is that you wrote this entire thing in one paragraph. I understand that this is not long enough to break up into smaller paragraphs, but maybe adding a few more spacing between the sentences would make it a lot more neater and easier to read. It is just a suggestion.


Once again, this was wonderful work. Keep writing!




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Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:12 pm
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whit921 says...



I wrote this on a brief burst of inspiration, and I wasn't sure what to do after I had written this. I think I might come back to it and make another story around it, just to make it more of a story with a plot instead of just a single moment. I'm eager to hear your thoughts on this!





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