Peaceful and content. Seeing her makes me forget all of my troubles. Her presence equivalents to having Saint Mary have her arms around me, telling me my life was to change for ever.
Relaxed and yet focused. Her hands clasped together as if in prayer; her head tilted to the side; her legs curled up. Wrapped in a blanket, immune to the treachery of the outside world; immune to hurt, betrayal and grief; immune from troubles, unhappiness, and fear; immune from everything bad and coated in all that is good.
Her tiny mouth twitches into a smile; I hope she remains smiling and never has a reason to stop smiling. Her hands part, maybe her prayer has been answered. So still, no sign of movement at all. She’s one of the good ones; she won’t keep me up all night my darling, my princess.
I reach out to touch my darling but my hand freezes. My hand freezes from the coldness of her body. The stillness of her stomach, the lack of pink in her cheeks. I step back shocked to silence. I should have known that it wasn’t meant to be. I should have known that I would never have something to love me. My baby was gone; like everything else in my life. Gone.
Hi Shiningstar,
ReplyDeleteI thought the opening sentence to this was a great way in. By writing 'Peaceful and content,' as a statement you are asking the reader to believe that the child the narrator observes is just that. This belief is then abruptly undone in the final paragraph while the stand alone sentence at the end 'Gone,' affirms this fact.
The image of the child 'sleeping' in the cot felt vivid. I like how details are observed - the baby's mouth, her hands. I found it interesting that the narrator projects her own fears on to the child. These are all big themes, and I admire that you compressed them into such a small episode.
Some things I felt might improve the piece further....
I'd veer away from sentiments that are very familiar to the reader: 'Seeing her makes me forget all my troubles...' This statement is something that a lot of people might utter about their children, whereas the image of Mary, to me, felt more original.
In the third paragraph, 'Her tiny mouth twitches to a smile...' I was unsure that this was compatible with the rest of the piece, as I thought the child was suppose to be dead throughout this extract? I thought 'Her hands part, maybe her prayer has been answered...' had a greater effect.
Well done, and thanks so much for sharing your work.
Liz
Hey,
ReplyDeleteThe way you blur internal thoughts and detached observations is excellent and distictive to your style. With both this piece and last week's, you've demonstrated a real ability to present a character's interiority brilliantly. Also, exemplary use of the semi-colon! (With the exception of the last one - this should be a comma or a dash, I think.) The conflation of religiosity and motherhood also works really well in a metaphorical way.
I'm not sure about the phrase "coated in all that is good", though - I think it's good to foreshadow the tragic ending with an unexpected word like "coating", perhaps suggesting a stifling feeling, but it doesn't seem quite strong enough to me. Or, if you didn't want this foreshadowing, it should be a more "nurturing" word, like "wrapped" (though you've used this earlier in the sentence). Not sure about that one, but I feel it's not the strongest word for that image.
In general, though, this is strong, atmospheric writing, with a great touch for emotion - well done.
Oh thanks for your comments, I was quite nervous about this task and I think I could have done it much better
ReplyDeleteI thought this was incredibly ambitious and, for the most part, highly successful. And I think you should be immensely proud of how much your writing has matured and evolved over the past year.
ReplyDeleteI am not completely convinced that all your sentence fragments work as fragments, but, equally, I am so pleased you are taking risks with your syntax, and, finally, making such adept use of the semi-colon too.
Careful with your tenses, which are not entirely consistent - and, as the other moderators point out, beware of the odd cliche which creeps in here and there.
All that aside, there is some maginficent stuff here, especially in the first half of the final paragraph, which I think is absolutely marvellous.
Well done indeed!