Jiieden

OOC: Playing with a new style here, I'm sure the inexperience shows...

I open my eyes, and the girl is gone.

I wasn’t expecting more, she never lied about love to me.

So I brush my teeth and roll into the street, and there’s a million people and none of them are her. Tell myself I don’t care, because I don’t care. But my stomach’s feeling jumpy, and the lone soggy bagel in it isn’t helping much. I jog down Market, and hit the mist.

Its weird here in the mornings, I just can’t see anything. The buildings shoot up out of the ground and into the white, and I can’t see how high they go. It would worry me, but I’ve seen them on clear days and I know just how far they loom. Look, it’s simple – I’m a little claustrophobic in the mist. So I know, it’s a pity I’ve come to this city, I guess.

Crap, there she is.

Sitting by a café, sipping a cappuccino – or maybe a latte, I’ve never really known the difference. What can this mean? Fate isn’t something I believe in. I don’t believe in much.

Should I – well, of course.

“Hi,” I say, laying a hand on her shoulder.

She brushes the hand away, like swatting away a troublesome fly.

“Hi,” she says awkwardly.

Why am I doing this?

“Listen,” I start. Then I stop, and the noise just dies away.

She’s got a ring on her finger. A simple band of gold. But it isn’t simple now.

She never told me that, and now that little band of gold is constricting my throat. I try to speak, but I can’t. I didn’t know.

I shouldn’t care, right? I mean, it’s her business. But that little ring…

It means a lot to me.

“You’re…”

She follows my gaze. “Yeah.”

Get out of here. Or stay? What am I doing here-

“You should have told me,” I say. Damn it, my tongue is faster than my mind.

She shrugs. “Why?”

What can I say to that. So I pull up a chair, cross my arms across my chest and just look at her. I’m trying for a sort of ‘you know you’ve done wrong’ look, but I don’t think its working.

She looks back with complete disdain. “You really care about that?”

“I guess so.”

“So I’m married. So I have a kid. So what?” She sips her drink. “Doesn’t have anything to do with you. In fact, I don’t have anything to do with you. You should leave.”

And I stare at her. She has these huge hoop earrings, the kind that will end up giving her stretched elephant ears. In the meantime, they’re kind of sexy.

I don’t know what to do.

She stretches like a cat, then pushes the empty cup towards me.

“Well, so long,” she says.

She gets up and leaves, and I watch her vanish into the mist.

And somewhere along the way, I realize I’ve lost my heart, lost my head. I walk back home, hands in my pockets, but everything seems gray. But what it means, I don’t know.

mandax

Let me start out by saying that I really like this style. It's different from the other stuff I've read lately, so it was refreshing.

Here are the phrases I loved:

Here are the things that I think need fixing:

I think you should put the "I" in the beginning of the sentence. If you leave it out, it kind of messes with the flow.

Needs a question mark instead of a period.

I think just saying "cross my arms" would suffice.

I enjoyed this piece. Keep up the good work.

Sigg

This was pretty good. The style created a very natural sounding voice that made the whole thing more believable and ultimately more interesting to read.

I don't like the ending though, it kind of feels like you didn't know how to end it so you threw that in there. Otherwise, good job.

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Changeling

Taught, punchy, visual, thoughtful. Good job.

I'm going to stop quoting now because i liked the whole thing. I like the style, minimalist and compact, all the writing is either relevant, visual, or thoughtful, it's a rich piece for the length. I didn't think the ending mattered since you were focusing so much on style. So I'll simply say your style works, now you can think about plot and story and use it to its full potential. Keep writing.

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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are gazing at the stars. (Wilde)