TAKING OVER
I woke up a bit drowsy on this particular morning. Today, to many people's beliefs, was the last day of the human race: December 21st, 2012. I stretched as I slowly eased off my comfortable bed. I glanced around my bedroom and out of the window, expecting some type of horror scene, but to a somewhat surprise the day had just continued normally like the countless others that have passed throughout my life. I had made my way out of my cramped bedroom and into the living room where my parents were into a heated conversation that I could not keep up with nor had any ecstatic interest in. I sat down onto the poofy, leather couch and grabbed the remote control off of the glass table.
I flipped on the television ahead of me, drowning out my parents’ voices in my head. The president appeared upon the recently blank screen - making an important announcement, or so it seemed. "And...as I conclude, I declare myself president for life." After the announcement was concluded, there were several gasps from the television. My mind went in circles around the statement which I had just heard. The feeling that gloomed over me was like nothing I had ever experienced, and I sensed that my parents felt the same way – like an ominous cloud arriving upon the perfect day. The three of us remained frozen, sitting in expectation. I flipped through a few channels and the announcement was on repeat, broadcasting through each channel, almost like a scene from some type of end-of-the-world, cheesy film.
All of our eyes were glued to the TV screen. It hadn’t made sense to any of us what was prominently declared by our president; we all remained in awe of what had just became.
----
I wrote this a couple years back; I edited it, added a few details, and pretty much just improved it. I've been wanting to create a tragic-political story for sometime now but when I wrote this it was just for the moment. Not sure if I will continue this or not - just want to know someone's thoughts of it as of now. :)
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.
140,533 Literary Works • 673,403 Reviews
Hi Logan!
I see a lot of things going on here that I like. I got glimpses of the narrator's personality, and we also got glimpses into his (I'm assuming he's a he) life. In other words, the beginnings of a strong first person narrative. For that, you need a personality and his surrounding circumstances.
I also like the problem you elected here. Without going into anything too dramatic, you have the president declare himself president for life, and obviously this is a huge gigantic problem for so many reasons, and it gets the reader's head spinning, wondering if this came out of the blue, what else was going on in the world, etc. Lots of questions and curiosity is what you need from the reader to keep the reader reading. That you did it so simply is the cool part.
What I didn't like so much was the business with 12.21.2012. That made it a little too dramatic/cheesy/cryptic for me. Even though no apocalypse happened, it was still there, and the president announces himself a dictator on this day. In addition to that, you date your work by having that date, because after the 21st all anyone has to do is say, "That didn't happen at all" and it loses all its poof.
It'd almost be more exciting if the character were just there on the couch, munching cereal and not paying attention to either his parents or the president on the TV because he's mad that his regular programming isn't showing, and then BAM, world changes. But that's just my opinion there.
In conclusion, you have a lot of stuff going here, and for just coming out of a not-writing spell, your skills are still pretty good! So work on that personality, and maybe do something with the 12.21.2012 aspect, but most importantly write more. That's how you'll get the story flowing, and I'm kind of curious as to how this all happened.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Rach
Thank you - hmm, thinking about it now, it is a biiit cheesy, so I can definitely agree and I will be adding more substance. Sometime soon I will continue the story, as I have a few ideas floating around in my mind - I just have to reach out and take a lunge forward.