Slowing down every time she glances around, he continues to trail her petite figure down the pedestrian infested street, transfixed on her silky strands of chestnut hair gliding in the wind. For months, he’s dreamt of being at the wheel of the knife that accelerates into her heart; for years, he’s loved her.Now, he has the courage to end it.
The photo of them sits by his bedside. He remembers her whispers of “Catch me, catch me,” the invitations of playful innocence ricocheting off forest trees and royal skies. That summer, she had delivered back his heart mutilated and dried of love, sewn together to produce the handiwork of a blind woman. No matter how hard he has tried to relieve the pain that counteracts every attempt to think of her, his trials only culminate with more pain.
Her goodbye was said with eyes that felt sorry for this epitome of queer. A fusion of disgust, sympathy and guilt radiated from that farewell hug, a cold warmth that he’ll never forget. Since then he has tried to cope, but her figure still dances over him when he sleeps, mocking him with the impossibility of ever being able to embrace her again. Never a day passes when he doesn’t wish that he were one of those men she greets with her grandeur, that he had the luscious pleasure of bathing his eyes in such radiance.
What a star.
As the forecasted rain begins to drown his clothes in a weight lighter than sound, he smiles, thanking God for his assistance in obstructing him from her view. However many times he has tried to cleanse his soul, the holy water from God’s basin cannot wash away the emptiness that subdues him. The pattering rain dances off the ground, glowing in the evening gloom. The rain dances off of her back, too, skidding off her irresistible aura.
She retains the role of the only one that he wants, the only friend he needs. What he needs is to moisturise his fingers with her life source, rub them into the folds of his dry skin. He is the south to her north, only she didn’t want to admit it.
The rain falls heavier now, a beat to his song of lust. Very soon, she will reach the quiet road on which she turns and finally feels at ease. He feels his hands turn to wax in his coat pockets, melting at the rush of heat that echoes through his veins.
Her pace quickens, and so does his. Her wet black jeans suffocate her refined legs as she strains her muscles to get home. He licks his wet lips, blaspheming without words as he does so.
Devoid of a warning, she stops. Slowly, she turns around, her face alert of something out of place on this autumn evening. He turns quickly to the shop window beside him, staring into a conveniently placed lingerie shop as though intrigued by the intricate displays of cheap love, lace and silk. Straining his eyes, he stares to his left as far as his sockets will allow. She takes a few steps forward, seeking help from daylight to guide her towards the threat she senses nearby. He scratches his head and peers deeper into the window, almost touching the glass which has yet to be introduced to a friend called soap. Patting his coat in search for his purse, he motions his feet in the direction of the shop entrance, swaying her conceptions. She moves off quickly after, determined to reach home. Unsure of whether or not she recognised him, he waits thirty seconds before turning back onto the pavement to follow her again.
As she collides with oncoming pedestrians in a flurry, he laughs to himself. Washed with rainwater and battling fear, she is desperate to clamour her way to warmth and reassurance. She turns at the junction into her road, a quiet, slim, neglected street. He too, turns, now only a few metres behind her. He can smell her, and she begins to jog away from his near grasp.
“Heels don’t make good running shoes, do they?” He says.
Reaching her, he grabs her arm. Terrified eyes stare back at him, the same eyes that had suffocated him with her pity. She is too stunned to speak, too paralysed to move, unable to pull free from his kiss. She feels the warmth on her jumper, the stickiness of fluid in between his body and hers. He feels her lips tremble under his and pulls away, staring at where lipstick meets blood.
Dropping to the ground, she grasps the hole where a draught can be felt from her insides. Blood empties out onto the street, contaminating her bag and her clothes with the cream he could never place a price on. He bends down, rubbing it into his hands, enjoying the texture of death as the rain washes it off only for him to re-moisturise his hands again. He wants to say goodbye, to say how sorry he is, but all he can see is her smile, now mocking him with the impossibility of ever having her alive. He hadn’t known that she was his sister until that summer, he hadn’t known. Even as he reaches for the knife and stabs her once last time, he hates the fact that they both know.
He fixed it, and now only one of them will have to.
This is very polished. The careful proof-reading, your skilful control of chronology (the “hook” of the stalker, followed by the filling in of the flashback), and your patterning of imagery (e.g. the moisturiser) all go towards creating a refined and reader-friendly work.
ReplyDeleteYour setting – rainy urban streets – is vividly evoked. It works most effectively when idea and environment intersect. For example, the lingerie shop segment both hinted at the stalker’s lust/love, and was enjoyably dark humoured (what better way to throw your murder victim of the scent, eh?).
You do well to ensure that the reader knows who the characters are, and what they are doing (a man stalking his ex-lover): you definitely had the ‘what’ of this story covered. However, I was a bit confused as to the ‘why’? In order for the reader to fully buy this odd situation – a psychotic man stalking the woman he loved – you need to make sure all the smaller details seem realistic. However, I was confused about why it was today, of all days, that he wants to kill her – why has he suddenly now got ‘the courage to end it’. Also, the “sister” twist was OTT, and on re-reading it didn’t really sync with the earlier part of the story.
In terms of the prose itself, there are some nice turns of phrase: ‘he feels his hands turn to wax in his coat pockets, melting at the rush of heat that echoes through his veins’, for example. The hyperbole you often use fits if we read the narrative voice as being sourced from, or reflecting, the mad, exaggerated thoughts of the stalker. However, this often turns into overwriting. I’ll pull out just a few example to show what I mean.
‘Slowing down every time she glances around, he continues to trail her petite figure down the pedestrian infested street, transfixed on her silky strands of chestnut hair gliding in the wind. (this is pretty torturous for an opening sentence. Something shorter, more “hooky”, would be more effective. Also, none of your adjectives – ‘petite’, ‘pedestrian infested’, ‘silky’, ‘chestnut’ – are doing that much, and all could easily be cut out). For months, he’s dreamt of being at the wheel of the knife that accelerates into her heart; for years, he’s loved her.’ (An awkward mixed metaphor)
‘a cold warmth that he’ll never forget.’ The end of this sentence is too telling – SHOW us instead.
‘Devoid of a warning, she stops.’ Just ‘without warning’ (or something less cliché but equally snappy) would do.
You’ve got a very mature control of narrative, of what voice and order to utilise in order to tell a story in the most effective manner. Now, you need to get to grips with the nitty gritty of the prose; to cut out every word that isn’t doing a job, and to make every sentence have a purpose. Keep at it!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteWow - ace stuff eternity.forever. The way you bring out the tension of this is great. It's pacey and easy to read. Line by line it's clear, with good sensory detail, and a strong sense of both movement and place, which is an especially tricky thing to pull off. Great stuff.
I have something to think about that isn't so crucial to this story, but just generally useful for your future stuff (and I'm sure you will keep writing. You should. You're good at it, and that's not something that's easy to come by). I wanted to talk about consciousness. Look at this bit:
Her pace quickens, and so does his. Her wet black jeans suffocate her refined legs as she strains her muscles to get home. He licks his wet lips, blaspheming without words as he does so.
Your piece makes a lot of progress from the stalker's perspective, so: 'No matter how hard he has tried to relieve the pain that counteracts every attempt to think of her, his trials only culminate with more pain.' Shows that we're in his head. That would be what we call a close 'psychic distance.'
By going close we get a great depth to what progresses, and a sense that the information is perhaps filtered through one character's mind. That's all cool.
An issue that it poses is how you get out of that close distance to decribe other actions.
So: 'Her wet black jeans suffocate her refined legs as she strains her muscles to get home.'Shows something else at work - her head. Also here 'she grasps the hole where a draught can be felt from her insides,' shows the same.
It's not wrong to do this, but it's an extra tool to consider. A useful way of thinking of it is not to have close 'psychic distance' on multiple characters in short sections - so don't jump from one head to another. To control this, you can use 'seemed' to descirbe what other people might be thinking, or 'probably' or even 'obviously' - just something to show it's percieved in your main character's head.
Anyway, that's big tangent, but hopefully a useful one. I hope it doesn't feel like too much on an anti climax for me to say it's not a big problem here - I loved the building tension in this, and found the ending powerful. Your writing has continued to improve in all the time I've read it, and I enjoyed it from the begining, so it's exciting to see where you'll take your skill in the future.
Take care,
Andy
Eternity, hi there. I've not commented on your work before but I wanted to say how impressed I was by your writing in some of this piece. There are some lines in it that just pull me up short, they're so good.
ReplyDeleteFor example, "For months, he’s dreamt of being at the wheel of the knife that accelerates into her heart". On the face of it, what you've written there is (as another moderator has pointed out) a terrible, terrible mixed metaphor, but I'd stick my neck out and say it's actually something different, a short-circuiting of the language that hugely magnifies its power and effect. To turn a knife into a car that you can be 'at the wheel of' is a brilliant way of describing how a particular kind of male brain works. (I've driven plenty of cars in my time, but I'd shudder to describe myself as being 'at the wheel' of one.) Equally, a knife 'accelerating' into someone's heart is a subtle, shocking alternative to the usual verbs - stabbing, slicing, cutting etc. (And, similarly, I like the way you avoid describing the actual moment of violence at the end.)
Another great one: "her figure still dances over him when he sleeps" - again, you're mixing things up. in those lines she's dancing above him (i.e. she's sort of hovering above him) but also she's kind of trampling him underfoot. in either case, the 'dancing' is key - somehow otherworldly, though in this case the end of the sentence lets it down a bit. "mocking him with the impossibility of ever being able to embrace her again" spells the situation out too concretely - though the use of 'mocking' is crucial, as i say below.
"He feels his hands turn to wax in his coat pockets" - another striking image, but also a sentence with a winning rhythm.
Finally, as I said, I very much like the use of 'mocking' again in the final paragraph, linking back to the earlier use mentioned above. That shows a keen organising intelligence at play. More of that, and whereever you get those unlikely fertile images from - the hands turning to wax, the man at the wheel of a knife, keep that place open. don't go there all the time, you'll end up confusing your readers, and yourself, but make sure you know where it is.
I'm a bit late in commenting. It seems you already have some great feedback on this piece.
ReplyDeleteAs I have come to expect from you, this piece was beautifully written and poetically subtle. However, as Sarah mentioned, the main problem I had with this piece was the over-writing.
You create some beautifully elegant and origianl turns-of-phrase (just picking out a few: 'the texture of death', 'desperate to clamour her way to warmth and reassurance', 'a cold warmth that he’ll never forget'). BUT, you often drown these phrases with too much flowery prose around it.
For example:
'A fusion of disgust, sympathy and guilt radiated from that farewell hug, a cold warmth that he’ll never forget.'
Could be made much simplier:
'Their farewell hug radiated a cold warmth that he'll never forget.'
Some of the phrases you use don't quite work for me. For example: 'this epitome of queer', 'the wheel of the knife', 'sewn together to produce the handiwork of a blind womam'. The first of those phrases didn't make sense to me. The second one combined two images that didn't mesh. And the third one is an example of too much writing - if you removed that image, the image before it would be stronger.
I found the beginning slightly confusing. I wasn't sure where it was set, or in what time. It was only when I could see the man stalking the woman that the story began to take shape for me.
I was also left wondering why the man had finaly found the courage to murder the woman.
However, I thought the final revelation DID work. The 'twist' that she was his sister worked nicely with the title. And it gave us a bit more of a reason as to why he wanted to kill her. I think, though, that you could make more of this and have some subtle echos throughout the piece so that it isn't just a 'shock' tagged on at the end.
You created setting and tension well. I did enjoy reading this piece. As I say, you have a talent for creating a beautiful and original style of prose, and I don't think you should limit yourself while you are writing your first draft - just write what comes to mind! That's how you open yourself up to these creative phrases. However, when you re-read your piece and re-draft it, try to pick out your strongest phrases and think carefully about the writing that surrounds it, making sure your piece doesn't drown in itself.
I hope you keep on writing after Word Voo Doo. You clearly have a lot of talent.
This is very vivid, and I love the sting in the tail ending. I think it really picked up when you realised he was following her. You've got some great imagery, really evocative, but I think the key for you, to be the best writer you can be, is to be very aware of becoming too wordy.
ReplyDeleteA great way to consider this is to read aloud what you've written, there are definately a few phrases in your story where you'll stumble because either there's too many words, or they're in a difficult order. Sometimes simple is best. For example your sentence 'What a star' really stood out, because it contrasted with the wordiness of the rest of the piece.
But overall, really evocative and full of suspense, I really enjoyed it!