faithslasthope

Alright, well, this is my first short story. I've started some before, but never managed to finish them. Luckily, I was able to write this in one sitting, so I didn't lose interest in it. I'd love some feedback on it. Tell me what's good, tell me what's bad. I'm open to suggestions.

Walking on Bricks

You know those red bricks with the bumps on top? The ones with the triangular indentation on one side and a triangular piece of brick at the other end so you can put them together and set them around the edge of your yard? Yeah, the cheap ones. I walk along those everyday on my way home from the bus stop. I have my reasons.

Most people stopped doing that when they were about 12 years old. They grew up to talk with their friends and laugh and hit and walk right past them without even noticing. The thing is that I don’t have friends to walk home with. I mean, sure, I have my friends, but none of them live out here. I live on the very edge of the school’s zoning boundaries, in the very poor side of town, in the very back of a mobile home park. No body lives back here. And if ever they had then they got to move away and forget it. Lucky them.

Or lucky me. I haven‘t decided yet. I get my ten minutes everyday to be by myself and walk on bricks before I have to enter my “broken home” with my broken ideas of love, hate, and social identification. In these ten minutes I get to open my mind without worrying about crying in front of my family or friends. I get to be normal, which I never feel like I am when I’m around others.

When I walk on bricks I go back to when I was happy. Back to when it was okay to be happy. I remember when I still lived in my hometown and me and my best friend would walk along them, our arms flapping about as we laughed and tried to keep our balance, falling off just to get back on. Back when I had a best friend. Now I’m just left with a bunch of half-friends who could potentially be best friends but who will never dare to risk their social standing, however miniscule it is.

I feel like I’m stuck in the middle sometimes. I’m too preppy to be friends with the punkers/skaters/anyone who’s not a prep, and too punker/skater/anyone who’s not a prep to be friends with the preppy kids. So I just walk on bricks and go back to when the thickness of my eyeliner didn’t decide my own social standing. To when the fact that my hair wasn’t dyed kept me from hanging out with the people I wanted. To when my hair, clothes, and makeup didn’t choose my friends for me.

I’m one of those girls who’s too big to be skinny, but too small to be “fat”. I play on my school‘s volleyball and softball teams, I am one of the fastest girls in my P.E. class, and I‘m more athletic then half of my friends, and yet I’m still the girl who gets talked about because of my size by the girls who walk their miles every week. I don’t even know what they say about me anymore, I stopped listening a while ago.

When I walk on bricks I think back to when I didn’t have to hide my room. It didn’t matter that my walls were white instead of black, red, or hot pink. It didn’t matter that my closet and dresser weren’t full of black clothes and chains and sweaters with thick stripes. I didn’t use to have to leave my favorite CDs (AKA: James Blunt, Anna Nalick, Michelle Branch, etc.) at home just so I could look “hard”, and I didn‘t have to hide their cases in the back of my CD case holder so that no one would notice them while they looked over my collection of 30 Seconds to Mars, My Chemical Romance, and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. I miss when it was okay to listen to James Blunt, Anna Nalick, and Michelle Branch rather than 30 Seconds to Mars, My Chemical Romance, and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. I miss when it was okay to listen to 30 Seconds to Mars, My Chemical Romance, and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus rather than Slipknot and Cradle of Filth. And in the amount of time that it’s taken me to write this, those probably aren’t okay to listen to either.

It was easy when we were children, wasn’t it? I mean, I don’t think it’s ever been easy, but it was definitely easier. There weren’t stereotypes or cliques, there wasn’t Hot Topic or Hollister (at least in our world), and there wasn’t a difference between the mall and Walmart. Stores were stores. It was better when your best friend wasn’t someone you had the same interests with, but the person you sat next to in second grade and who developed interests with you.

I walk on bricks because I hate being confused. Nothing’s confusing about walking on bricks. Hold your arms out, keep your chin tucked into your chest and move one foot in front of the other. It’s all routine, and life isn’t. I love that fact.

I wish life was routine. I wish I woke up and the same thing happened every day, but it was all good stuff. That way I’d simply be content rather than at either extreme of the spectrum. I’m not bipolar, I’m just usually so happy when I actually get to be happy that I get happier then I should, and then when it’s gone it’s a harder impact then if I had simply been a normal amount of happy.

But, of course, the bricks end eventually, and when they do I look up and see my home getting closer. That’s when my mind comes to my family. A brother who’s religious beliefs are almost the exact opposite of mine, another brother who is part of the preppy people who I can‘t even touch (whether it’s because they’re above or below me I haven’t figured out), a mother who takes Xanax because of me, and a father who lives in a motel down the road. The downfall of my childhood was that I didn’t have one around my family. I had to try too hard to be right, to not sound stupid, and to ignore the fact that my parents relationship was like a clash of water and fire, both trying to get control over the struggle. A ten year old should not be telling their parents to “just divorce and get it over with.” If only they’d taken my advice, we might have avoided these last 5 or so years of hell.

My family has actually managed to make me scared to have a family of my own. What if my family becomes as chaotic as us? What if I make the mistake of marrying a man who is going to try and destroy everything I’ve ever made of myself? Would that be so bad as long as he was a good father to our children just like my dad is? But I’m not even sure if I should worrying about the man I’m going to marry as much as I’m going to be worrying about myself. Bad mothering seems to run in my family. My great grandmother was a horrible mother, my grandmother drove my mother crazy, and now my mother’s doing it to me. What if I do it to my daughter (and I specifically use daughter because the men don’t seem to be as effected by it)? What if I’m such a horrible mother that I drive my daughter over the edge while at the same time doing it to myself? It makes me scared to reproduce, honestly.

Every time I get close to my home I look back at the corner of the street where the bricks ended. Why did they end? Why don’t I just walk up and down them forever, and never leave the set of mind where I can think and feel freely without anyone knowing? Because, I mean, no one can ever know. I can’t tell people what I feel. I can‘t tell them that I’m afraid to live because I’m almost completely positive that living is the number one cause of death in the world. So instead I just live the best I can and smile and laugh with my friends, no matter how insane it makes me. I can be insane inside while still being normal outside, can’t I? And everyday as I open my backdoor and walk into my home, I tell myself I can.

__________________
He was a wise man who invented god.
-Plato

Travmire

While I read your story, the first thing I noticed was that I can't stand any of the bands mentioned in it. The second thing I noticed was that the girl says she's a happy person, but the whole story is bleak.

"I’m just usually so happy when I actually get to be happy that I get happier then I should, and then when it’s gone it’s a harder impact then if I had simply been a normal amount of happy."

Consider showing how the girl is happy, then becomes happier, and then less happy to the point where she's sad. I'd recommend something with her birthday. You could use this as a transition to her family life. Maybe her parents decided to get a divorce on that day or something like that. On a side note, you should use "than" instead of the first and third "then" in the section I quoted. Then is used to describe a squence, "I did this, then I did that." Than is used in comparisions. "She knows more than he does."

Stories would make this a stronger piece. Read through this again and as you read, stop and ask yourself if there are things you describe that could be told through a story instead. Give us a real glimpse into this girl's life in a few places. Let us see what she sees.

faithslasthope

Yeah, I'm horrible at the than/then thing. I never remember to change it. And I'm not sure if you read the, for lack of better name, Happy section correctly. It's talking about how she usually isn't happy, but when she is then she gets excited about it and even more happy over the fact that she simply is happy. If that makes sense, I think I might have been a bit redundant there.

__________________
He was a wise man who invented god.
-Plato