Mafyew

This is a piece i wrote for my english portfolio in school. I just wanted to see what you all thought about it.


LP (Life)


My hand loosens on the wheel—a smooth, lengthy track of road ahead of me. My subconscious takes over as I continue on at a creeping pace. The trees branch out into a seamless blur. Wind cyclones throughout the car—blink, gasp, sigh, blink—I rub my eyes and then gaze at the distant blacktop horizon. Reflex tears wash away fresh spores caught in the drifts of life. My irritated eyes are coated in a film of unholy water. At this point my ears tune towards the music while thoughts and recollections take form. The song happens to be one I haven’t heard in a while. The familiar ambient melody brings a vast feeling that radiates from my body; feelings of an old life pulsing—faint, strong. Music déjà vu .Why has this song forced such intrusive sentiment of my scattered innocence? Increased breathing, and longer sighs…

Discomfort

…I forge on, heading towards my destiny—work. I attune my ears to the music of my past. There is a growth in my stomach dispersing pain like a sleeping foot; I envision a girl. Her short ragged locks all grease and dirt; such nature and beauty. Her degrading habits—I gain the slightest feeling to vomit—I hold back. Head rush—I swerve, but then it stops. I check the speedometer; I check my rearview. A loose nanothought dangles in my head. I wonder if the people behind me think I’m drunk. Then—my foot in a routine motion accelerates, and I am back to speed.

My eyes veer from my lane as I check my surroundings and recall what has just happened. Why did I get so heavy for that eternal-second? I then realize what song has been playing, and I make sense of it. It was a song that I had avidly listened to a few years ago. It caused an (un)reasonable reaction to the thought of an old crush—red faced, eye roll, pfft whatever.

My mind now content, I reflect on the episode. Music is the key that opens the door to distant thoughts. It’s a reoccurring blip, an odd element of time. What is important to learn from this is that music has meaning. A sound-track of life is an alluring concept—the idea of music constantly playing into an ambient crescendo. A car crash: a ringing symbol. Music is more significant than I had first surmised. It is no longer the off stage noise that keeps the attendants interested—a ghost echoing in the halls of existence. Music is the essence of my happiness, of my contentment. It draws in such an odd euphoria that follows the forgotten path to emotions of my past.

The parking lot grows to life size. Then there is a jerk that follows with an instant focus, a sigh. I turn off the car, step out, and continue on this temporary, proverbial path. I continue on trying to prolong the inevitable. I am at ease.

Mike

You can do without "blink, gasp, sigh, blink" - this makes things weird.

Awkward. We're there in the car, feeling the wind, watching the horizon and then come these reflex tears? Are they aliens from Jupiter? I think this can be worded better to make it sound less unnatural.

What do you mean by "unholy water?" Usually the word 'unholy' is uttered by shamen, crusaders, and parents after seeing their children's messy room.

I don't think ears actually tune anything. They catch noise, but to 'tune' is to adjust - your mind does that. You know, you can tune someone out even though you're ears are working just as they always do.

"Scattered innocence?" I don't believe you.

"Increased breathing and longer sighs" - POV shift.

Here, the character, is lost in reminiscence. He/She should be remembering a girl rather than 'envisioning' - to envision is to see into the future, i believe. (check dictionary.com - also, the thesaurus feature is useful when words escape their cages.)

The rest of the story seems to be in cahoots with these first few sections. From a storytelling POV, the erraneous uses of punctuation might work in stream-of-consciousness stories, but to me it just gets annoying pretty fast. There's all these images and nothing's holding them together. I say you can also work on keeping things in the present - the whole wishy-washy reverberations of the past is too overdone in a lot of stories (especially in the beginning of stories, and especially when driving - is it safe to fade into memories when driving along this seeming void of road?).