winterowned

This is the first story i ever wrote and i have no clue what i'm doing. I'd love to have some criticism

Samantha O. Smith (S.O.S.)


It was 6:45. Micah hadn’t ever been this distressed in his life. His veins were swollen above his skin as if they had been torrent-rivers of mercury and the mercury was expanding under his heated passion. His heart wasn’t beating so fast as much as hard. Every heartbeat made the already flooded rivers in his veins swell. He’d been like this for about a minute now. Or was it an hour? It’s hard to keep track of time when you can’t hear yourself think. It’s hard to hear when the sound of your blood bubbling is drowning out that voice inside your head. It felt and looked like he was dying. Maybe he was. He wanted to die just so he wouldn’t have to hear his lungs expanding and contracting as he drew and released breath. He was better off dead. How was he going to live with what happened last month? He looked over past the black cold Iron Gate to the sun. It was just falling over the western horizon. There were thin wispy clouds in front of the sun, too thin to block it out. The blood red sun had dyed the thin clouds dark orange. The sky was screaming murder at him. What he didn’t notice was the mass of black clouds coming in from the East with the wind. An angry and violent end to the most hateful day anyone had experienced.

***

Micah looked down at his watch. 5:57. He needs to be there at 6:30. It takes about half an hour plus there’s that stop along the way. On the way out the door he looks in the mirror one last time for good measure. His hair was messed up in a fashionable sort of way. He always tried to tame it but she liked it a little messy.
As soon as he gets to the floral shop he walks through the last of three aisles. He stops and looks at the carnations. A single red flower catches his eye. The first time he gave her any flowers at all he gave her a single red carnation. It just so happened that was also the first time they’d kissed. Giving her carnations caught on and became somewhat of their unspoken tradition. He reaches toward the carnation and right past it to the daffodils. No carnations. Not today. Impatiently, he works his way up to the cashier. The cashier is young, not a day older than 20, no wedding ring, obviously a college student trying to work her way through school. He doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that she’s beaming at him. She gets the message that he’s taken, after all he is buying flowers and she doubts they’re for her. It must feel odd to be a single girl selling flowers. Most of the guys who walk in there any given day are romantic, and more importantly, taken. She rings up his total. $14.92. He takes a twenty dollar-bill out of his wallet. Samantha got it for him last year. She had decided that some day, it seemed like a random day to him, was some kind of important anniversary of theirs so she had gotten him the much needed black leather wallet. There’s something about a leather wallet, something more loving and comfortable than any cheesy cloth or vinyl wallet. He holds out the twenty-dollar bill so long he’s convinced the cashier isn’t interested in money. After feeling he’s aged a considerable amount while holding this bill, the cashier finds it in her heart to take his twenty and slowly make his change.
As he sits in the car he realizes he probably should have tipped her. It’s the last time he would be giving the floral shop any of his business. Ah well, she was taking her sweet time and his expense. He starts up his VW and speeds at least ten over the speed limit all the way to his rendezvous. As he pulls into the long paved driveway he glances at the clock. 5:33. The car clock has always been five minutes fast. He has managed to make it with two minutes to spare. At least he’s not late like he used to be.
The sky’s bluer than it ever gets on the East coast. It’s so brilliantly blue today that it seems to be daring anyone who sees it to try to be in a bad mood. The sun is going to set soon but it’s still a healthy distance from the mountains on his west. He gets out and opens the black Iron Gate. It’s so cold and unforgiving. The rusty hinges scream at him as he pulls the gate slowly open. There are several fairly large stones in the brilliant green grassy yard. Some come out of the ground quite a bit but most are laid like stepping-stones. He makes his way hastily over to the big oak in the corner of the yard. It’s a very old oak and it’s beginning to grow over the fence. There’s a burnt mark where lightning struck one of the boughs. He can’t help but think of a scar every-time he sees the damage. He notices a large pile of fiery red raked leaves on the other side of the fence. As a strong gust blows through the yard the red leaves on the ground flare up at him like a blazing furnace while the green leaves on the tree more sympathetically resolve not to declare their disapproval. Autumn is burning out into another cold harsh winter. He walks over to one of the stones, one laid like a stepping-stone, with daffodils in hand. Not the usual passionate carnations, but the softer more soothing daffodils. He lays them by the stone then steps back, trying his best not to read the lines engraved into the stone. Even though he already knows what they say he’s finding it progressively harder to avoid looking at them. Nothing can be more permanent as something set in stone, yet he couldn’t wish more that the stone said anything besides the words that are so painfully etched into this one. As always he eventually surrenders against his will and glances at the 3 lines so meaninglessly carved into the stone.



Samantha O. Smith
Jan 11, 1986 – Feb 22, 2004
R.I.P.

S.O.S. Those were her initials. Some how it doesn’t strike him as a curious or funny thing. It might have in some other life when it was a joke said in good humor, but now it did nothing but stir his anger and frustration, emotions he’s been harboring a lot since last month. Feeling his heart beat out of his chest and his veins swell, he looks over at the bloody red sunset. For the first time he noticed the black clouds moving in, blown on a wind from the East, desperate to cover the sun before it sets. It was 6:45. There was only one way to deal with the pain. He had $300 dollars in the car. That was definitely enough. Love was over and pain was coming back with an undying vengeance. Some people do certain things when they get highly emotional. Even though Micah knew he was emotional, he was 100 per cent positive that he would have made the same decision even if he was thinking normally. He walked back to the Jetta stone-faced. He knew what he had to do.

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boring sig

daniela

Nice for a first attempt. It would be much easier to read, though, if you add some spaces in between the paragraphs. If I guessed correctly where the line breaks should be, some of your paragraphs are a little too long. I find some of your imagery clunky ("His veins were swollen above his skin as if they had been torrent-rivers of mercury and the mercury was expanding under his heated passion.") and you switch tenses in the middle section ("Micah looked down at his watch." - past, "He needs to be there at 6:30." - present). Pick one tense and stick with it throughout the story or at the very least keep each section in the same tense.

Like I said, "The Blood Flows" is nice for a for a first try. I would love to see what you do with it when you learn a little more about writing.

--DM--

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"When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable." - Mark Twain

Ilan Bouchard

I agree. Re-write this a few times, it has the potential, but it's unpolished. Good for the first time though.

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Ruthless comments encouraged!

DarkElenaTwilight

If this is your first story ever, it's a very good try. The idea is very good and I like the way it's shaped in your head, but it needs some refining as far as technique is concerned. But don't worry. Technique comes with time.
Keep it up and write some more,

DarkElenaTwilight

blackswan

A good first story. I agree a bout the description, a lot of it was unnesscary. You also changed tenses. You started in past, and the rest of the story seems to be in present. There were also some details that weren't essencial to the plot and should be taken out...but revision and writing and reading will fix all that in good time.

kitaria

I really like this.. but i'm not sure why you decided to relate the story to blood... you wanna let on on what happens later on??

i quite like it, but the way you describe the veins and blood, makes me think this is a vampire story.... and the name micah aswell...

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Hollow hearted, and want only his love to invade my emptiness