Published January 27, 2011
Night Man
By Johnny Schuler
In the dark a shadow moved through the forest and into the pasture. The moon lit its path into the herd of cattle. It did its job quickly and silently, slipping back into the forest. At the break of day the man, Nick, went into his barn to fetch a bucket to go milk his cows. He opened the barn’s gate and he found twenty five buckets filled to the rim with fresh milk. He ran out to his wife, Anna, to tell her the amazing event that had happened. Later that morning, they sold the milk and were paid a good amount of golden coins, which they used to pay their mortgage. The heartless landlord was astonished when they paid him because they were few hours away from losing their home.
That night, after Nick and Anna went to bed, the miracles happen again. While in field, it cut all the grain, tiding it all into neat bundles. After storing the grain in the barn, it carefully disappeared back into the forest. The wife and husband were amazed and rushed to town, selling their grain for a great price. After collecting the money they paid a visit to the landlord and bought the land back from him. After many weeks of mysterious help, Nick and Anna were living well. They bought a bigger house and more acres with many more cattle. The husband and wife were very curious of who was helping them, so they snu0ck out and hid in their barn overnight. They keep alert, waiting all night long, but no one came. The husband rapidity arrived to the conclusion that it was not going to show up, and they went to bed. The next night, since Anna was not satisfied she snuck out by herself and waited and watched. After some time, the door of the house swung open and nick stepped out in his pajamas, and headed toward the forest. She ran up to him and saw that his eyes were closed; Nick was sleepwalking! She followed him in to the forest; he walked and walked then suddenly stopped in front of a tree, then knelt down and uncovered a leather bag. He dug his hand in and took out a change of clothes. A cloak, gloves, mask, pants, shirt, boots, all these things were black and mostly leather. Anna giggled, she thought he looked ridicules. Nick snuck back out to the pasture, still sleepwalking. She followed him. He went into the barn and grabbed buckets, silently going to milk the cows. After he was done, he went back into the forest, and changed back into his pajamas, and walked inside the house, Anna followed him. She picked up a broom and gently hit him with it. Nick opened his eyes and fell over onto the kitchen floor.
“What am I doing here” Nick asked
“Follow me” Anna answered. She brought him into the forest to show him his bag of close, he was amazed.
“It has been me, the whole time!” said Nick while he held the mask in his hands. After the strange night, he stopped sleepwalking, he never did again. By the time she had stopped him they were in no more need of the help. One night a year after the incident, Nick purposely put his suit on and snuck out to help someone else.
The end
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Hey there
When I first started reading this I thought it was going to be a horror of some sort. But when it turned out to be a fairytale like story I was pleased, I'm so not in the mood for broody thrillers. I thought your little tale was warm hearted.
Heres the criticisms though. It needs mucho more detail. Like what was the landlord like, was he a long sharp looking man, or round and grotesque? Those are just the images i get when i think of an evil landlord. And maybe go into why he was a sleepwalker? If this is a fairytale I suggest may curse orrrr he's fair like creature thingymabob. And why did he decide to help other people?
But anyway apart from that I thought it was very sweet and I liked the end. Give it another go with a bit more detail and some fine tuning and I bet it'll turn out really good.
xxx
This is my first review, I hope I don't do your story well. I've seen other people use this form of reviewing so I'll try it out. Corrections in a differnt color.
So Nick is the shadow, eh? Why does he do the things he does? Why doesn't he just do what he does when "sleep walking" when awake and advoid trouble? It doesn't make sense to me. He helps others, why? I don't get it, perhaps I'm missing something.
The mystery of what the shadow was intrigued me until I found out it was actually Nick. Even when Anna saw him sleep walking I thought he could have been possessed by the shadow somehow, which actually made me want to read more and find out why the shadow possessed him. This kept me interested up until the end when Nick went out again on his own accord, disproving the idea that he might have been possesed. This whole story was like a build up, like the wick of a bomb burning down slowly, but the explosion was nothing more than small puff of air. The ending made me huff, to say the least. It was good, I enjoyed reading it, but the ending needs work. At least give your reader some type of reason for Nick doing the things he does.
As you probably already concluded, the ending needs work. With a little more insight on Nick's actions the ending can be made better. Hope I helped! Bye!
'Ello, I'm here to destory your carefully written story. ( Sorry.
)
1. I get confused as to the theme of this story, wether it's a fairy tale or a realalistic miracle. It's strange that they should be given 'gold coins' when they have a 21st century 'Mortgage' to pay. I personally think it's better just to stick with 'enormous debts'.
2. Adjective Confusion! I've been hit with a broom many times before, but never 'gently'. Perhaps if 'Hit' was changed to 'nudge' instead.
3.I like the ending, it made me smile. I think however, that more detail is needed as to why he chose to. (Yeah, it seems kind of obvious, but sometimes things call for more of a timeline.)
4. Style. The style is a little bit too short and too-the-point for a publishing fairy tale, when it cold be just that. I suggest holing up an afternoon and reading Grimm or Anderson, then editing your story. That usually helps me when trying to get a tone in my writing. If that doesn't help, just add more character details now and again, such as in the begining describe the couple's trouble with the landlord first.
I liked this story, it wasn't bad at all. It had a nice twist, and a nice ending, but like I said before; the tone is just not up to it. Sit on the tale a little while, edit, then Re-post and see what you get.