Sometimes in order for change for one group, another group must change to be like the old group. Overall, one group comes to power, and another will (eventually) be oppressed. Its basically a call for people to realize the human race is a group of individuals in ONE group, and we need to focus on not being an exclusive human race.
Short Story / A Bold New Beginning (Analysis)
Caramel, caffeine, chocolate, and espresso aromas mix with the faint rotting wood smell of the coffee shop. The professors sitting across from me laugh at boring jokes I’ve heard from every other professor before. Students sit typing on their laptops oblivious to the world around them. A fly skitters across my marble table top stopping briefly next to my blue berry soda in the old-time glass bottle. Jumbled together voices create a quiet gentle hum with certain distinguishable words like “deconstructionist” and “thought.” Today, I wait. Wait for nothing more than a bold new beginning.
The type of beginning where a burly well tanned man with a dirty sweaty face from the outside walks into the cool air conditioned coffee shop. A coffee shop for the consumers who think Starbucks is too trendy, unaccepting, and exclusive. Bearded professors and large-worded students turn to greet the new stranger with rude snooty non-approving looks. The professor sitting across from me sips his coffee and mutters to his colleague about how this coffee shop is not a bar but a place for intellectual conversation about Darwin and Freud. The stranger’s face is surprisingly calm, like he is used to being treated like nothing more important than a vagrant, as he orders a glass of ice cold water and warm milk with a hint of cinnamon.
Stares become less intense the longer the stranger is at the coffee shop, people loose interest, and return to their boring normal routine lives. I don’t. I keep staring at the newcomer taking small sips of my berry soda while the cool carbonation dances on my tongue. The stranger, daring and unafraid of new challenges, walks to my white marble table. He runs a hand through his dark long hair as if trying to make himself more presentable before meeting me. I guess, even scary tough guys are a little bit vain. In a low scratchy voice with the type of accent that embodies every other accent in the world, he sits across from me, and begins to babble on about the series of events that led him here.
He pulls out a dirty map from his tight denim pocket. The edges of the map are frayed and dingy looking as if this map has been every where. As this anonymous stranger spreads the map open he looks at it as if it is his salvation from becoming one of the boring normal consumers at the non-trendy coffee shop. He confessed to me, earlier, that he had been everywhere and felt as if he belonged nowhere like an eternal outsider in a world of cigarette advertisement people.
This strange man and I are alike in that we feel different from every other person in the world. We are both individuals in a world of faceless masses that try to define worthiness to a person by what type of faceless mass they identify most with. He asks me, while staring at his map, if I would like to join him and his friends on a journey that will make me an insider.
I sip my soda and decline his invitation. We live in a world of individuals who feel like they belong nowhere, in essence, we are worker ants flocking to new groups where we eventually will feel like we don’t belong. As suddenly as the conversation began it is over, the anonymous stranger walks to another student in the coffee shop, and begins to babble on about the series of events that led him here.
I watch the squeaky coffee shop door watching for a stranger—another “individual”—who doesn’t fit in. Waiting for their presence to interrupt, rile up the members of the coffee shop, and change nothing. Waiting, as I stated earlier, for only a bold new beginning.
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billboa reviewed Version 1 -
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I quick but smoth read for the most part. Is there more to the tale? I enjoyed your choice of wards, you are very desciptive and kept me reading. My main suggestion is to polish it a bit. I came across a few typos and missing commas, (i.E. people loose interest) Outside of that, your work reads quite well. Keep up the good work
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elf_asura reviewed Version 1 -
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MoJoe reviewed Version 1 -
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FrakKevin reviewed Version 1 -
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Well you’re a good writer. You did a great job of creating the atmosphere of the coffee shop and giving me enough info to picture the whole scene in my head. I kind of get what this is all about, but dont clearly uderstand the ending though. If you can, could you explain that to me in the comment. Other than the ending this was nice to read just because of your discriptions you gave.
metaphoricalsimile reviewed Version 1 -
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This sentence needs more punctuation: ”...where a burly, well-tanned man with a dirty, sweaty face walks into the air-conditioned coffee shop.” I also removed “from the outside” and “cool” because they were redundant. I think the sentence would read better that way.
There seem to be several other places where you fail to separate adjectives that modify the same noun with commas. You also tend to use too many adjectives in your descriptions, sometimes redundantly. ”...their boring, normal, routine lives.” is an example. Those three adjectives are almost synonyms, and you fail to separate them with commas.
“Trendy” and “exclusive” are contradictory.
”...loose interest” should be “lose interest.”
Rather than stating that the stranger is “daring and unafraid of new challenges” why not show that through his actions and let the reader decide. Character building should be done through showing how the character interacts with the world, rather than through the author telling the reader about the character.
I think the piece would be strengthened if you actually wrote the conversations, rather than simply stating that they had a conversation.
thefarmerswife reviewed Version 1 -
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This is still quite a raw piece and in need of some work.
The job of an opening paragraph, indeed an opening chapter, should be to grab the readers attention, to immediatly get them involved in the story and have them turning the page, falling deeper into the story. I can’t tell you the number of books that I have put back on the bookshop shelf after reading through the first couple of paragraphs, and I am not alone in this. If it doesn’t engage me straight away I have no problems with moving on to the next, and sadly, this opening paragraph doesn’t do anything for me. Sure it sets the scene, but I’d much rather here about the stranger with a bit of scene setting entwined into the story. I’d much rather hear about the noise of the flies being drowned out by disaproving mummers as he walks in, unaffected by the reaction he is causing or something like.
Once I got passed the first couple of paragraphs my interest started to pick up. who is this man and what is going to happen? On first read through it seems as if the two already know each other although she(?) refers to him as the stranger. He walks straight over to her, sits down and starts babbling about his trip – I thought this odd but then you mention him having told her something earlier and I thought, Ah, they met before and liked the way you told us rather than fully explaining that they already knew each other. However, as the story goes on it becomes apparent that they didn’t already know each other and left me feeling rather confused.
The ending even more so. I think whatever point it is you are trying to make, what ever profound reason this person is sitting waiting, has compleltly gone over my head.
The exchange between the stranger and person waiting falls a little flat, and could do with some dialogue to lift it up a little, make it more realistic. As the stranger is apperantly inconsequencial to the story it wouldn’t have to be the full dialogue but a few sentences here and there would give it a human touch and bring your main character to life a little more.
I hope these observations and suggestions help.
kadiya reviewed Version 1 -
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I love this type of story where the new beginning is offered yet ignored, not recognised. Its a catchy ending. A parable type story.
The only confusing part to this story is the second paragraph. On one hand you are musing about meeting someone offering a new beginning and yet, continuing on down the page, I assume that the guy is really there as you go on to talk about him babbling on about how he got there. (two paragraphs later). A little clarification here could be handy.
Otherwise, a good story. Thanks.
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