apblair

**I went flipping through some old files of mine and ran across this. Tell me what you think.


Let me give you a description.
Here I am, in my room, sitting atop my horribly uncomfortable, twin-sized bed (although it's way better than my other sitting option, a plastic chair). Every light in the room is on, not counting the small desk lamp that gets all too hot anyways. It is mainly silent other than the light, every-so-often humming of my computer and the ticking of the green clock that hangs on the left side of the room. It has been raining all day, so you can only imagine the aura of humidity mixed with a little bit of gloom. The bottom of my jeans have that awfully uncomfortable walking-on-wet-ground feeling that takes forever to dry. There is a window to the right of me in alignment with my feet at end of the bed. A window that I always see as just another part of this room, but tonight, for some reason, catches my attention. And that is what separates me from what I am about to get into.

A piece of glass, that is all. The only component separating me from a world going on right outside my window. A world with someone always awake, someone always asleep, and someone always in the transition of the two. A piece of glass separating me from the emotion in here to the emotion bouncing around out there in the rain or sunshine in whatever part of the world. A piece of glass that lets me see what is going on but does not let me experience it.

But it is not a clear view. It is not some hole in the wall where I can walk up to it and feel a breeze in my face. It is a shield from the free swaying of any type of fresh air. It taunts my eyes to what is there but compels me to stay inside among these cemented walls. It freezes my vision upon what is out there versus what emptiness lurks in this room. The outside charms me in such a way that the inside seems bleak and lifeless. It allures me so forcefully that I almost feel myself ripped from this cubbyhole of a room and thrown outside into the depths of the world. For a moment I feel free before I am snapped back into the reality of these four walls that trap me. I feel my eyes begin to dry out from gazing so intently as my focus shifts in and out. As my eyes end their journey of the outside world my focus is once again united with the piece of glass that once seemed so insignificant. As I step back, I notice something: specks of grime on the looking glass in which I gazed through for long, tainting the only view I thought I had…

Wintermute

Not a bad exercise in imagery to say the least. It's nice to just write little exercises no one will see just to get some practice in.

__________________
"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read." - Samuel Johnson

Olly Buckle

Agreed wintermute, sometimes it can lead you into other things too.
A few comments:-
Some of your constructions are very American (nothing wrong with that) like "atop" for "on" and "way better" when I would say "much better". However I think "not counting the small desk lamp that gets all too hot anyways." is carrying this a step too far. consider "except the small desk lamp that gets too hot". OK it is not how you might phrase it but it contains the same meaning for a lot less, that is usually a good thing to aim for.

"the light, every-so-often humming of my computer". This threw me, firstly you had just been talking about lights in another sense, secondly you need a comma after "Every-so-often as well as before.

"so you can only imagine the aura" The "only" in there makes it mean something I don't think you intend.

"The bottom of my jeans have that awfully uncomfortable walking-on-wet-ground feeling that takes forever to dry." This sort of commonly shared experience is a powerful way of drawing a reader in, but I wish you hadn't used "awfully".

"in alignment with my feet" This might just be US versus UK English but I would have said "Aligned with my feet"

"A piece of glass separating me from the emotion in here to the emotion bouncing around out there in the rain or sunshine in whatever part of the world. A piece of glass that lets me see what is going on but does not let me experience it." This really seems confused, what is separated from what in the first sentence? My guess is the emotion in here from the emotion out there, but that's not what you have written. The second sentence is untrue, it does not prevent you experiencing the outside, it restricts your experience to the sense of vision.

"It taunts my eyes to what is there" Taunts with, not taunts to

"on the looking glass in which I gazed through" Looking glass= mirror, not window, for me "on the glass which I gazed through".

I hope this helps, I always feel slightly bad pointing out all the things that catch my attention in a piece that I basically like as a way of looking at the world,

__________________
Google Olly Buckle and click on my Associated content page, or find me on youtube.

I had a tremendous advantage in life, at the age of eighteen I caught polio and for eighteen months was totally paralysed except for my eyes. Milton Erickson

apblair

No, thank you both so much. I am always up for constructive criticism. Thank you, again.