Boredom breeds creation; crit my short story.

PeterWojnar

PeterWojnar

Active member
I was bored today, so I decided to write. First time in a long time; I'm going to take it up more often, it was good. Tell me, NS, what do you think of it?

if a tree falls in the woods

When she had grown up, she had moved out and was living on her own.

When her parents died in a car crash, she went to the funeral. Not a tear was shed; it was their own stupid fault they drove drunk.

Her friends from school broke off contact; they all said she was too cynical. She figured she probably never liked them anyway.

She didn’t have a job; her parents’ house had sold for enough to hold her over for a few years.

She spent a lot of time alone. Soon enough she discovered a grocery delivery service; she ordered food online and her only human interactions were with the kid who brought it to her.

She hated people, she thought. In her solitude she wrote. Every day, she wrote the same words in her journal, at the top of a new page: People suck.

The rest of the page she would meticulously fill with words— Not one was out of place; each had been chosen with intense care and deep thought.

At the end of the day, she tore out the page and watched it burn, between her and the rest of the world, at her window. She didn’t like lighters; the smell of matches was comforting.

One day, she held the paper to the side as it burned, and looked out at the world without flames dancing in her line of sight. She noticed things she had never noticed before: the sun setting behind a church shone through a stained glass window; the throng of people unloading the bus was disbanding, all it’s members heading hurriedly home; the aging man watching her burn the paper, as he had every day for the last year.

She noticed a warm sensation come upon her; the first since her childhood. She also noticed a peculiar smell; at first she couldn’t place it. She remembered the accident that killed her parents; the smell of the vinyl seats burning. She had been there that night, the lone survivor of the crash.

Any thoughts she had that the world wasn’t out to get her were erased as she noticed the heavy fabric blinds burning; the vinyl tablecloth resting adjacent on the wooden table beginning to smolder.

The grocery boy did not miss her; she lived up four flights of stairs.
 
Dark. Disturbing. Creative. Good style and voice, and consistency with both. Short and to the point. A little depressing. I would read more of your work.
 
I wrote again this morning, I'm less convinced about this one, but I think it could maybe turn out alright with some more attention.

Nathaniel

Daily, the two old gentlemen would walk along the pier, and sit together on the bench at the end to watch the sunrise. It was their special thing, watching the sunrise. They both wanted a good reason to wake up early. They were best friends; only friends. Neither was married, neither had family to take care of him. Any acquaintances they had looked upon them with a distantly removed respect, the kind that every seasoned veteran of life commands if he is reasonably fit.

Good day, Mr. Ayn. The cashier never greeted the other man, nobody did. Randy Ayn could never understand why. Hello, Mr. Ayn. ‘Afternoon, Mr. Ayn. Always Mr. Ayn; never the other man.

Mr. Ayn was known solely as that; only the other man knew his first name. The postman, too, he supposed. He was alright with that, it was refreshing to hear the name Randy spoken to him from another mouth than Nathaniel’s every so often.

Conversely, Randy Ayn did not know Nathaniel’s last name. He did not much care, he could never imagine himself using it to address Nathaniel. Mr. Ayn, when they were together in public, felt like nobody else knew Nathaniel; nobody else acknowledged his existence. This, Randy thought, was some form of injustice; some crime against his friend. Nathaniel said he liked it, that nobody acknowledged him; that it made special the connection between himself and Randy.

Mr. Ayn and Nathaniel had known one another since their childhoods; in their old age they lived together. Nathaniel hadn’t been getting his Social Security checks— he never got them. Randy never asked why; he had walked into enough money to support them both until they died.

When Randy Ayn did die, nobody knew of it for several days. Nathaniel did not tell anyone; he was never seen or heard from again.

Their house was a distance from the others in the neighborhood, separated by a dense eucalyptus grove. Randy had loved the smell, Nathaniel wasn’t bothered by it.

After a few days of Randy’s absence, people began to notice he wasn’t around, that he hadn’t bought food, that he wasn’t in the church on Sunday.

The town’s Sheriff was granted a warrant; he and two others from the force went to Randy’s house. They found two bedrooms, identical in their layout and furniture as though for twins. One was neat, orderly, perfect. It could have come straight out of a Pottery Barn magazine. The other was also neat, but the sheets weren’t perfectly flat on the bed; the wardrobe door was hanging slightly open, an area rug was slightly ruffled.

They explored further. A bathroom, two identical sinks. One clean as though it were new, one with little bits of food stuck to the walls and stains from tooth paste. The counter surrounding it was more cluttered, too, but not very much— just enough to be noticed. Neither sink looked as though it had been used for several days.

The Sheriff and his two deputies continued into a living room. In it was a coffee table with two chairs. One looked as though someone had sat in it daily for many years. The leather was worn at the seat; it was a little loose over the cushion, stretched, smoothed, and softened by Randy’s daily routine of napping in the afternoon. The other chair was identical, but showed no signs of wear. If the Sheriff had to guess, nobody had sat in it for months, maybe more.

In the kitchen, they found Randy Ayn, collapsed in a heap on the floor. He didn’t move when the younger deputy nudged him with his boot. An autopsy was conducted; Mr. Ayn had died of a heart attack.

The minister and the Sheriff were the only attendants of Randy Ayn’s funeral. Nathaniel, Randy’s only friend from an otherwise lonely and neglected childhood, died with him.
 
I love these, definitely keep writing man. These types of stories always appeal to my reading, I don't know why...
 
First one really felt it and got attached for how short it was. You should turn the first one into more of a novel it had a good story to it.

keep it up man, post up here if you get anything published.
 
I'm surprised at your responses, they're overwhelmingly positive compared with what I had expected. That you so much as suggest my getting published at some point in the future blows me away, thank you. I've not even graduated high school; that is a massive compliment.

I think my plan for now is to write whenever I've got down-time, namely Saturday and Sunday mornings when I wake up but haven't the willpower to get out of bed. That's when I wrote these.

I've thought about developing the first one a little more; for the moment I think that what makes it draw you in is that it is so brief and to the point. I'd imagine it would be difficult to carry that shock-value cynicism at the end through into an extended text; but I'll see what I come up with. For the moment, I'm going to ask around locally for an opinion or two from one or two English teachers who I am certain would have some scathing words backed up by something constructive, which I look forward to immensely.

 
the fence

The fence was there to protect the public, not him. It was the precise hour of the morning at which everybody who was going to work was already there, and everybody who wasn’t was still mulling about the house. But he was there.

Somehow, he managed to slip past the fence. Her parents had warned her to hold on to him, but for just a moment she forgot. She wasn’t paying attention, and he got away from her. Her heart sank when she realized his hand wasn’t in hers; she saw him falling.

It was a long fall. He had all the time in the world to feel the city’s static air blow by him like wind. It was a unique perspective; nobody had ever taken the opportunity to enjoy it. One man before him passed it by, filled instead of wonder with regret.

But he wasn’t regretful. He didn’t think about the pain he might feel, he didn’t think about the pain others might endure.

He passed birds and nests, he could have seen the ground, the sky, a car going 50 up a one-way. He shot through a million-mile-per-hour slideshow of windows buzzing past him. One or two people saw out of the corners of their eyes for a brief moment something flash across their window from top to bottom; they quickly forgot. He didn’t wonder what the people behind the windows thought; his mind was blank as he fell.

She was the only one who knew he wasn’t on the roof, on the observation deck any more. She was the only one who cared.

He didn’t weigh much, he was just heavy enough to make a dull sound as he hit the sidewalk. Nobody saw it; were he a showman he’d have been thoroughly disappointed.

The fall had been much quicker for him than for the average suicidee, without the life-before-your-eyes or the doubts, but he wasn’t the average suicidee.

She sprinted out of the elevator; soared over the three steps down to street level at uncomfortable speed. Out the door and around the block. Two or three passersby looked to see what she was running from; nobody suspected she could be running to anything in the city, not at that speed, that age.

She rounded the corner; kept her speed until she found him.

The girl rounded the corner again, going back elated. A relieved smile covered her face edge to edge as she walked back to her parents dragging Roscoe behind her, his feet sweeping along the ground.

“See? Told you he’d be fine, honey,” her father spoke. “Come, lets get something to eat.”
 
Dude i love the first two, your writing style is so creative and the form that i would like to have someday. The third one the i didn't understand what happened or exactly what it was about, still liked the style but it was a tad confusing. Really nice job, i really enjoyed these!

 
The third, I figured I'd write something that would contrast the structure of the first two. Those described something that took a turn for the more cynical, whereas the third is meant to be the opposite- something that sounds depressing at first and takes an unexpected turn for the better at the end.
 
I like the idea, tried reading it again but still didn't understand it. Is roscoe a dog, if not what is he/she, is roscoe dead?
 
I like the idea, tried reading it again but still didn't understand it. Is roscoe a dog, if not what is he/she, is roscoe dead?
 
pretty sure Roscoe is a stuffed animal of the little girls. Also, cool little stories, very cool style of writing.
 
Do none of you dislike them? I feel like I need a harsh crit to smack these into the ground; for some reason I don't like them nearly as much as do you, I just can't pinpoint why, and I feel like someone who thinks they suck might be able to help me there.
 
A lot of writers/ artists criticize their own work much harder then the audience the work is made for. I can't really give you any harsh crit since I very much enjoy them and would like to read more.
 
theres not a lot of writers on NS, so its hard to be harsh on something we don't know shit about. I thought they were pretty cool, but the first one was my favorite, i can't tell you why tho
 
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