Pawn

[an:b2a738c031]This is the one and only short story I have ever written (besides those like daniela's recently posted school work); it is also one of the pieces of writing that I am genuinely proud of. It would mean a great deal to me if you would endeavour the not easy task of digesting it. Please feel free to make absolutely any critique that occurs to you - from a single line to the thing as a whole - particularly grammatical concerns (I'm looking at you here, daniela). Enjoy![/an:b2a738c031]
The pale world was long yet to wake. The light was cold: grey like softer shades of pigeon’s wings, which fluttered at intervals across the tiled roofs, across the lawns wet with morning tears and the humble shadows of chimneys against the early dawn. Through bricked up windows, in plaster and stone, there lay the silent breathing of the bedside, and the quiet ticking of clocks, making their way through each voiceless moment toward the second of waking. I inhaled. The windowsill was of a paint façade, cracking over poor timber bones. An hour past, I had lifted the pane that curtailed my vision, and I felt the morning air keenly upon my cheeks. It drifted down through my collar, loosened and disregarded, into the warmth of my body, and brought the shuddering chill of the earth reawakening to my chest. A gust of wind swirled a school of leaves far distant, sweeping a dozen up for a moment, and resettling them in their nest as birds not yet ready to fly. I exhaled. I watched my hand’s descent from my mouth to its resting place on my knee, perched in stillness upon the window ledge, and felt again the caress of the morning air. My eyes flickered to the clouds, only now finding the courage to form amidst the great expanse of pale blue-grey which covered the world. I knew the slight wet which coated the knee patch of my corduroy trousers, amplifying the cold. I knew my foot's coldness against the cheeks of my buttocks, crouched as I was upon on leg’s doubled form; I knew the chill embrace of the window's right extremity on my shoulder, and of my sockless foot, dangling down into the relative warmth inside the sky. I inhaled. I considered the window blinds, which had been dangling above my head for the entire night. I loathed them, in so much as I loathed anything. Their grey, speckled shafts precariously held by misbalanced string ropes, disgustingly perched above me, rattling to disturb the stillness. Somehow, I couldn’t summon the will to remove them. I inhaled once more rather quicker than was my wont. Thoughts of the window blinds always provoked a strong reaction in me. Considering that my smoke was almost finished, I thought on my desire to smoke further. Unconsciously finding myself casting a glance above me to the blinds, I searched my pockets for my tobacco and papers. Not in my left pocket. Not in my right pocket. I inhaled. There was a possibility, I supposed, that I had left them behind me, on the bed, or the floor. I sighed, and turned myself round, shifting my posture for the first time in an eternity of sitting, and scanned the room. Not on the bed. Not on the floor. I wouldn’t have put it somewhere else. I looked anyway. Then came a minute flutter, which recalled to me the pigeons I had watched moving through the air. A letter lay on the doormat, obscuring its contemptuous message. The letters ‘W’ and ‘e’ were clearly visible, then came the block of the envelope, and after that half of the letter ‘c’ and the final ‘o’, ‘m’ and ‘e’. I opened the letter. It was a recitation of a poem by Byron, ‘Bright be the Place of Thy Soul’. I recalled I had introduced her to the poem some years ago. Taking my scarf from the floor next to the door, I took hold of the knob and busied myself with wondering whether the off license would yet be open.

In the sky, the clouds were gathering momentum. The spotlight of the sun woke them from night, and they felt eyes upon them. They spoke softly with each other, drifting in the wind. They talked the same talk they had spoken on each dawn of every day, and spoke it in words formed from eddies of white. They exchanged greetings like passengers on a long road, glancing out their window panes and waving to each other as they moved steadily along on engines of wind. The great mind that was all of them combined debated slowly on the coming day. I stopped for a moment to give them a mental wave, and steadied my gaze forward. The clouds reached their verdict. High above the tiled roofs, in a body of thick grey white, liquid emerged from the vapour. Bidding goodbye to its mothers, it allowed gravity to take it. And as before, and as it will be again, it gathered speed, embraced a torrent of force, and accumulated gifts of water all around. A pinhead became a droplet, rejoicing. Knowing its fate, but knowing nothing of it, it felt the sun, and the air, and all that surrounded it. I didn’t see the first raindrop fall, nor the second, nor the third; I did not see the clouds turn like the cogs of some great machinery. I thought of the grey of the pavement, and the tarmac of the roads. I observed tiny holes in the road like blemishes of a long endured disease. And then, when it had started to rain in earnest, I sent my eyes upward, and felt drop upon tiny drop disperse upon my forehead. Irritated at the prospect of my scarf becoming damp, I hastened my pace. Knowing the futility of this, feeling the cascade of water become a heavenly waterfall, I slowed down again. What good is running from the weather? Why bother being dry? What good is dryness to my consciousness? A smile twitched the sides of my mouth as the downpour started to permeate my coat. It was a good coat, fashioned in black and travelling down to my knees, with buttons of black and a firm resistance to the wind. It was no good in rain though. I at once hated and loved the rain. It always inspired that irritation, and then that pointlessness, and now this rejoicing. Let the rain come! Let it drench me, and let the wind rap upon me in endless gusts. The door of my mind is open to you, Earth, will you not drench me, will you not blast me empty of all that I am? It could not, and I had to restrain myself from pushing my arms out from my sides to embrace it. So cold and emotionless, yet so glorious and momentous. “I’m singing in the rain,” I said, “Just singin in the rain, what a glorious feeling…” I trailed off, and then murmured quietly to myself “I’m happy again.” Irritated by the words, I was utterly annoyed by the unwanted presence of someone else on the street. An old woman was walking with her raincoat snugly around here, with an umbrella and hat to match, looking firmly at the ground in front of her. I smiled as she passed, and instantly hated myself for it. Why smile? I consoled myself in the rain, which seemed to be reaching its climax. This didn’t last long. It appeared to have already spent itself too early in the day. Sighing inwardly, I walked into the off license.

“Baccy and skins.” I said. “Drum.” I replied to his questioning look. “Rizlas, blue. Normal size.” Feeling I’d let the conversation get out of hand, I hastened to clarify myself. “25 grams. Thank you. Here is your money.” He started smiling at me, as was obviously his habit after serving a customer, but evidently realizing he didn’t like me, quickly stopped and attempted to assume the cold glance which he observed on my face. I habitually wore what I thought of as passive, but knew to be emotionless expression in my infrequent public relations. As is the case with happy people attempting to appear contrary to their mood, the look was ill placed on his face. I picked up my things, realized I’d forgot to buy any matches, and went to the door. For some reason I waved to him on my way out. Irritated again, I walked out into the wet but no longer glorious street.

The blue outside was unrelenting. The pale light of the morning, which had so caressed my mind, had given way to a painful blue. The scene was all ajar with my thoughts. Pigeons, once so grey and beautiful, sparkled now like fools gold in the tapestry of the sky. Light caught the imperfections of the world with a stark malice. The sun gleamed mockingly. I cursed it in my mind: “Burn on.” I accidentally said out loud. I inhaled. I wonder why I said that. Why did I say that? The landlord came to ask for the rent. I pulled out a draw, took seventy pounds from within, and gave it to him. He nodded, and I closed the door. I hated him. He quietly came every week, with barely a word, and I handed him money, and he left me again. He thought he knew something. Thought I liked my solitude. I inhaled. Thought I didn’t want to be disturbed. Thought I didn’t like talking. Thought I was enigmatic, mysterious. I exhaled. I hated him. The pleasant damp of the morning was gone. The windowsill was properly wet now. It soaked the lower parts of my trousers as I sat in my usual posture. I put out my smoke. “Bright be the place of my soul,” I mused. My cat ventured out of from under my bed. I thought for a moment, and decided at length to give it a stroke. I did so, and it went back under the bed. I glanced at the day outside, repulsive as it was. I couldn’t find the will to sit back on the ledge, nor to lie upon the bed. Habit was the only thing that ever made do anything these days. It wasn’t my habit to stroke the cat, and I was foiled. My habit was to feed it occasionally, when it seemed proper, and to rarely notice it. I stood there for a while. It might have been five minutes, or an hour. A shadow of complete pointlessness reared out from the wall, covering my feet, my face, my arms, hands and everything around me in a dullness that, obscuring as it did the finer details, came to illuminate all the ridiculousness, all the uselessness of everything. At length, I gave up thought and collapsed on my bed. I instantly felt annoyed at it. Burn, I thought. Fine. Fine. Fucking fine.

I pulled out my second draw. I had three. I took out my bag, and sat back down on my bed. Slipping into that state of performing a ritual practiced a thousand times, I joined two papers, and placed them on a hardback poetry volume. It was meditative to do something, and I was glad I had taken action. It was either this or start thinking. I plucked the faded green buds from the bag, and crumbled them with my fingers into the centre of the papers. I rolled it, licked it and tapped it. Driven again by habit and instinct, I resumed my habitual position at the window. I lit up, and inhaled with particular care. Feeling the strange sensation of my throat, then the warming of my lungs, I permitted myself a few seconds to close my eyes. The world was blanked out by the darkness of my eyelids. How simple it is, to turn off vision. I exhaled, and found myself inhaling again without opening my eyes. I cautiously leant back, till my back touched the right hand side of the window, and my body came to be at rest. Through my eyelids, the day was largely obscured, though I saw glimpses and shades of dark. Even blackness has tones. As is the way, my higher thought processes slowly ground to a halt. I was consumed over time by the reality and unreality that cannabis brings. No pills, I thought. I couldn’t take euphoria. This I feel: this numbing I know. At some time, I opened my eyes, and the day was not so terrible to me. The blue seemed observed through a haze, which pleasantly blunted its painful gleam. I went back to my bed, and picked up my bag. Sitting down once more with my book, I rolled. Once the ritual was complete, I located a lighter, a disgusting plastic affair, and lit up. I opened the book of poetry, and turned to “Bright be the place of thy soul.”

There was a rapping at the door. An insistent knock knock knock. I squeezed then opened sleep sealed eyelids, and restrained the impulse to rub my eyes. The ceiling above me was like a map of the universe at a scale so magnificent in size that all the landmarks were lost in a sea of white desert. Here a patch of stained yellow white, our galaxy, here a grimy smudge, the Earth. I wasn’t sure if this was the first time I’d heard the door. It was unlikely. I wondered on the act of getting up: I will need to move my legs, and prepare my feet, to relinquish the sticky warmth of the sheets and touch cold ground. I will need to utilize my back muscles in conjunction with a gentle rocking motion in order to assume a right-angled sitting posture. I believe I am fully dressed, so the cold of the air shouldn’t be too difficult to bear. Sighing out loud, I touched my feet to the floor, and watched them move slowly across the carpet. Apparently I had removed my socks at some point, as the carpet felt acute to my brain. I spent a few moments gazing at the rough wood of the door, and the vehement ‘Welcome’ message of my doormat, then, like a blind man crossing a road, I opened the door.

A fat women walked by. Her garment made her look worse. Her bald husband pitifully attached himself to her, round himself, but barely half her size. A man in black with a leather jacket, smoking a cigarette, was walking next to them. He had death in his eyes. I inhaled. A girl with beautiful hazel hair was walking down the pavement opposite. She stopped, seemed to decide something and turned round. She went into a shop, where I could see her pick up a jumper or something. She didn’t really want it, I immediately saw, and she put it back after a while. A different girl wearing a similar garment walked out. A grotesque metallic silver car blocked my line of vision. Inside sat three old women, eyes blank, expressions bare. A man on a bike passed them by, smiling contemptuously. A woman walked directly in front of me, eyes firmly glued directly downwards. As she walked away, I saw her hands clenched inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt, pulling the tattered, damp material taught around her coiled fingers. Some people walked by with a child in a pram. The boy, blonde hair glistening, smiled, and I smiled back. He seemed to nod to me as he passed. I inhaled, and grimaced. A pigeon landed nearby, cooing barely audibly. I liked this pigeon. I understood it better than the faces I watched flow by. The bench was unwelcomingly cold. It resentfully accommodated my weight, all the time giving me silent pushes. “Leave!” It said. “Why stay here?” My head dropped slightly, and I put down my unread book. The wind attacked my hands. People were everywhere. On the other side of the road, they looked better. Faces dimmed by distance, they seemed happy. Here on my side, I picked out imperfection unceasingly. Imperfection was everything; the whole scene was a collage of it. Inhale. Exhale. This is reality. Inhale. Exhale. This is reality.

I went to the park. The trees stood like stalagmites, formed from the slow sediment of time. The grass was absolutely still, despite the chill wind. There was no movement. Few people could be found. In quiet corners sat gentlemen with black holes as eyes, emptied completely by the drain of loneliness. Frost iced the world. There was no time here, no movement, no sound but for the shifting disturbance of dead leaves. I couldn’t get the words of some song out of my mind. The lines churned backwards and forwards, left to right, up and down in endless circles that came back and back again. Thoughts stopped. I slumped. I fetched things from my pockets, and forced my hands into the motion of placing tobacco in paper. My hands started to tremble. The song started again, and the first words came through me again and again like physical pain. My hands trembled. I fought myself, fought to stop my hands closing, fought for control. Reality was overwhelming. I was overcome. I trembled, and could not think. A hundred heard melody spun my mind. Could not go back to the room. Cannot sit. Cannot eat. Never sleep. Never dream.

I inhaled. Suicide is too cowardly, I reflected, opening the window. I exhaled. I sat for a second in my habitual place, and inhaled. I flipped a leg outside the window, dangling off the ledge. Too cowardly, I thought, and flipped the other over. I inhaled. I steadied myself, and looked into my room. Nothing to do, I thought. Nothing to do. I inhaled. I thought on my desire to smoke more. Tenderly, I took out my tobacco and papers and placed them on the ledge behind me. Smiling, I turned out again to the world. No, no suicide, I thought, preparing to loose my grip. In the street some distance below no one walked. There was emptiness, and I studied intently the place where my body would land. Too cowardly for whom? No fucking reality. I inhaled, and wished a silent goodbye.

Knock knock, went the door. Knock knock knock. There was some shouting. Some screaming. “For God sake open the door,” could be heard above the banging. Knock knock knock. Knock knock knock. “Please, let me in. Please. Let me in. Please let me in.” Knock knock knock.
“What’s all this shouting?”
“I…”
“He’s a quiet fellow. Leave him be.”
“But…”
“Leave him be.”

Knock knock knock. Quieter now. Knock knock. “Please. Let me in. Please.” Quieter still. Scrape. Knock. Silence. An infinite moment touched the doorway. It extended out like the black of space, paved with stars. Sobs reverberated, moving at angles, twisting and fading tortuously. Time convulsed as a being in haste, stopped suddenly by a rack of pain. In the sky, the clouds opened into swirls and eddies which voiced strange, new, alien words. Moments gathered atop each other in a mountain that consumed but one of their sum. Tears sprang as capsules of mourning. Outside, the sky spilled tears of its own, beating with the strength of millions. Time toppled. The doorknob turned. The wood gave a stretched creak. The air, untrapped, gave a sudden jolt of awakening, and the world heaved a sigh. A man stood inside the doorway, slightly taller than average, his corduroy trousers stained, his jumper worn and faded. His eyes spoke like solar flares, in jolting unutterables. In the hallway, a woman’s tears halted abruptly, and her gaze flamed. Falling moments cascaded, shattering into a thousand breaths in the space of one. Two bodies embraced. Life split, and reformed. It spun, shattered, fled into an infinity and was reforged. Kisses fell in torrents with the rain. And in inexorable embrace, flood banks fell. Brick crashed upon brick, split again and again ceaselessly. It was as if all flowers bloomed in a second, and forests sprang in moments. Echoes of passion set blaze to tinder a lifetime drying, and sparks lit the air in a brazen fury. Words flickered like the Northern Lights, dancing in myriad shades of colour and form, fired by the fireworks that flew amidst them. And as they fell upon the bed, the rain paid homage.

[an:b2a738c031]Notes: Smoking slang: 'Baccy': tobbaco; 'Drum': a brand of tobacco; 'Rizlas' or 'skins': rolling papers. You can read Bryon's 'Bright Be The Place of Thy Soul' here.[/an:b2a738c031]

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daniela

I love your opening lines. You always create vivid images that draw the readers in and this story is full of them. The paragraphs may be a little too long for the average reader, but I am hesitant to suggest that you break them up because there is a nice flow to them that may be lost by catering to the masses. As for any grammatical errors, you are writing in the first person and should be allowed some freedom with the rules (especially when it comes to punctuation) to make your viewpoint character's thoughts come across the way you intended. It just like with poetry; it is up to the writer to let us know how his or her story needs to be read and I think you have done that well.

Thank you for sharing, Pawn. It is great to see "The Pale World" come along so nicely. I remember the other versions that you posted back in early March and the story just keeps getting better. This is definitely a good bit of writing and you are quite right to be proud of it.

--DM--

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Pawn

Aye, we're on something like the fifth proper revision now. Every time I go through it I cut out a bit more of the verbage and pretentiousness. If you feel the grammar's tolerable then that's good enough for me; you're right that the way this is written accomodates some creative use of 'the rules'.. I was only concerned that there might be some glaring errors (It's always difficult proof reading ones own work). The comment about sharing was particularly apt: this was one of the most emotionally draining things I've ever written. I don't think there's more of myself in anything else I've made. As always, my limitless thanks for your time.

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zaoshang

Great style. Your story sounds healthy. I couldn't find another adjective . I mean, it breathes healthily; it was written by someone who obviously knows how to write and enjoys doing it.

Yet, as you know, it's difficult to read this kind of prose from the screen (I wish I had a printer...) I think you could split your text into shorter passages. For example:

-you could insert a line-break before “The landlord...”

This story can hardly fit into any category or genre. It's rather experimental (I assume it was your intention), and as such, it doesn't have to fit into predefined types.

That's the general tone of your text: no time, no movement. All the “events” seem interchangeable (at least in the first part, until you mention suicide). The temporal arrow has no meaning. The story has no real plot, for a plot requires a chain of events to be necessarily linked in a specific order. I'd define your story as a picture of an a-temporal solitude. For this reason, it may be closer to poetry than narrative (a sort of long prose poem perhaps). I won't tell you that only few people will enjoy this welcome-to-my-self type of story, because you certainly know it and don't mind it. In the end, I realized there was plot in the story, but was kept at the minimum. Which is not bad. That non-temporal, out-of-reality solitude was a form of deep crisis. There was no strong chain of events because “reality” didn't make sense and didn't hold together for the talking guy. In short, there was a conflict, which came at a resolution in the end. I think you did that brilliantly.

By the way, I love this:

I was a smoker for about ten years. I quit, but I still believe smoking is one of the highest pleasures life can give. And I remember that feeling: I've only smoked half of my cigarette, but I already think of the next one

English grammar isn't my strongest point, so I apologize if the comments below are out of place (they refer to minor stuff anyway).

-decent or descent?

-“eyes” is the subject, not “the clouds”; so it sounds like “My eyes are finding the courage to form...”

Possessives:

-”recitation” means reading or repeating a text aloud, so it can't refer to a written quote (unless, of course, it was a stylistic device made on purpose).

-unnecessary “to”

Well done. Believe it or not, that was the kind of story I expected from you...

Pawn

Hiya zaoshang; please do accept my gratitude forthwith. You're very right about the 'a-temporal' nature of this work: my original intention was to write a story in which nothing happens. In the end I was forced to embrace the artificial literary device commonly known as 'the ending', out of courtesy to the reader. Indeed, the piece is not everyone's cup of tea. My intention in removing the plot element was to focus the reader's attention on the language itself: I am far more a poet than a novelist, so for me this seemed the right way to approach a short story. Life is not always a rolling sequence of intertwining events such as might interest and entertain a reader, but a meandering thing of blurred boundaries and shades of grey.

Whilst the work is peculiarly segmented, I would feel odd in changing it. Each paragraph is a snapshot, and could, as you said, be reordered in almost any formation to retain a similar effect. In this case, I am inclined to allow the way it was naturally written to gain presidence over an editor's concerns.

Finally, thanks for spotlighting those bits of rough grammar for me. As you said, on-screen editing is particularly difficult (especially in the case of ones own work). Many thanks for your thoughts and your time.

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LiberalDem

Wow! I want to be like you when I grow up. This is exactly the style of writing I admire and aspire to.

Just, wow! How did you learn to write like this? I'm asking this seriously because someone like me would say: The light was cold and grey. I've always wanted to be able to insert this kind of imagery into my writing but have absolutely no idea where to pull it from.

I could go on and on quoting passages, but I'd just be saying the same thing. It's amazing. You rock.

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Eiji Tunsinagi

This is really, REALLY good. I agree with everyone else. It's very much so written like poetry, and thus loses some plot content, but that, you said, was intended. Definitely good.

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NoWorries

So this is how a poets short story would look. Pretty impressive for the beginning I read. I appologize for not reading the whole, but I was on my way to bed when I saw your post and though, "Pawn, a short story? This I gotta see!"

What I particularly like about the beginning, is that it feels the exact opposite of forced or rushed. It feels like there is something massive behind it, leaning on it, it wants out, but you're slowly metering it and that gives the story a great suspense without telling us the slightest of what is going to happen.

I know that everyone compares everyting to "The Catcher in the Rye," but whilst reading this, I continually thought, 'This is what Holden would have been thinking if he wasn't so damned naïve.' I really like the honesty in the thoughts, especially the malice towards the blinds, I've never known anyone who disliked blinds.

After reading about half of it, the only real gripe I have is the letter on the doormat. This passage alone is very hard to read and I had to read it five or more times to fully understand what was going on.

I liked the contemptuous message, that's great, and then there is a bit of suspense until we find out it's a common welcome mat, but for some reason when I first read it, I couldn't get it into my head that that was what it was. Now that I read it, it reads fine, so obviously that's not helping you, but I'll see if I can't find my train of thought when I read the rest when time permits.

NoWorries

Alright, finished it. Your symbolism is quite stirring and I can't point out much to change. I went and reread what I said about the welcome mat, and I have no ability to recreate my initial confusion. I just recall having a very hard time with it, but now it reads fine, perhaps someone could comment on this if they had the same issue.

That energy I said I felt at the beginning but didn't know what it was all came flooding out at the end, it was great, I hadn't felt that way from a story in a long time. Like Zaoshang said, the plot isn't initially evident, but that constant pushing of energy makes you know that something big is going to happen and to keep reading.

I especially like the ending, as I can see the definite place that our character is no longer narrating, and because you removed his opinions, you're free to use different descriptions to describe the outbursts of emotion.

While I'm not entirely sure what happened, I am also not entirely sure I want to know. I like how ambiguous it is, it could be either way, the girl and landlord could be hugging because of the horribleness of the scene, or the girl and narrator could be embracing like someone would hold their child after he almost fell into a great abyss. My best opinion of the matter is that the girl, so briefly mentioned with the poem, rushed back when she realized the impact she was about to have on the world as a whole.

Overall, a great bit of work, and I'm sorry I can't offer much more advice, it's practically perfect in my opinion.

Pawn

My infinite thanks for your words of kindness. Recieving such positive feedback is truly wonderful.

How do I write like that? I think it comes from writing a lot of poetry. As in poetry, I believe that a short story should have not a single word wasted. To this end, this piece has been trimmed of pretentious garbage and overly verbose descriptions 'till I geniunely feel that I couldn't bare to lose another sentence of it. To write a piece with no plot, I knew I had to compensate the lack of mental interest with something: I tried to make the words themselves the interesting part, being as descriptive as I could, trying to draw the reader in to the character as far as possible.

I can't thank you enough for your positivity, NoWorries: it means a lot. I'm particularly glad you enjoyed the ending, which is some really rather peculiar writing.

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die_daily

I'm going to risk the wrath of your fans, Pawn, and offer my initial impressions. I don't have time right now to read the entire thing, so I'll focus on the first paragraph--which is really more like a chapter, or feels that way--and what I didn't like about it. I'll read the rest later.

I read somewhere in this thread that your writing style is influenced by poetry and the fact that in poetry, all words are important and should not be wasted. That is, essentially, what I don't like about this so far. It is intensely descriptive and most of the longer sentences seem to compete against each other, like they're all trying to be artistic masterpieces or something. I just think that prose differs from poetry in that you're allowed to say vague, silly stuff sometimes. It lightens things, makes it fun to read. Kinda like in music, prose is supposed to have its peaks and valleys. Sometimes you have to wade through the shit to get to the real good stuff, and it's because you have to wade through shit that the good stuff appears to be great stuff. Otherwise, you have this constant onslaught that gets tiresome. For me, at least.

Don't get me wrong, I'm talking about the language more than anything. Every noun doesn't need a modifyer, and some details just aren't important enough to give a play-by-play. Consider the second paragraph. For the life of me, I can't understand what is so important about clouds that a romantization in excess of five sentences is necessary. And for Christsakes, get to the point already:

... so it rained. This is overwritten stuff.

The first paragraph (or the first half of it, I guess) is very slow and rather dry because of the descriptiveness. The fact that it's in first person is also problematic for me, I guess because I don't anticipate that level of detail from what is supposedly a personal, immediate vantage point. It's like third person omniscient in disguise. My attention wandered occasionally, and I was hoping for some character insight, like maybe you would illustrate the world a bit with some details about whatever is relevant, and then go to something more personal and perhaps wander into some reminiscient thought the character has about that particular detail. Instead you've got this laundry list, basically, comprised of "The light was cold" and "the lawns wet" and "the ticking of clocks" and the cracked windowsill, etc.

The diction is spotty as well. I rolled my eyes at "morning tears". And I'm just being honest here. "Early dawn" is redundant. That entire second line was hard to digest mainly because it was modifyer hell. Between the cold, grey light and the humble shadows and all that, there's just too much going on. Overall, the language does not give me an impression of the person to which "I" refers to. He/she is cardboard at this point. And you might say it's because I've only read a small portion, but, I dunno, I think it woud be better if there was a more personal feel to all the details. Otherwise, why bother with first person?

So my main criticism is that although it is written in first person perspective, it does not feel like it because of the sheer number of details in the first paragraph alone. The pace is a crawl and it just doesn't have my attention at this point, though I will give this another go later on if you'd like.

In the mean time, use some slang. Don't be afraid to use 'worthless' words. It makes reading fun for the stupid ones.

Pawn

It is merely a choice of style. This writing is not meant to be easy going, nor enjoyable in the obvious sense. It is interesting however to hear your view point, and for that I am thankful. Unfortunately, I see little I can do to satisfy you. I was deeply aware while editing this that many might think it 'overwritten', and did my best to make my sentences understandable, if not easy.

"The diction is spotty as well. I rolled my eyes at "morning tears". And I'm just being honest here. "Early dawn" is redundant."

I was aware of such things while writing them: if you don't like it, then it's a matter of preference thing.

"So my main criticism is that although it is written in first person perspective, it does not feel like it because of the sheer number of details in the first paragraph alone."

Personally, I find that argument unconvincing. The work needed to envelop you, not with casual description but with as much depth as I could write in. Again, preference, preference...

My thanks for your comments. It's reassuring to get some negative feedback.

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