thank you for all the specific remarks!
i will definitely be taking all this into consideration :)
lu.
Short Story / Pathetique
Jane had already calculated her escape route: the freight elevator at the back of the building down to the second floor, an immediate right to the NO ENTRY door that is never actually locked, down a short ramp and then out the back alley delivery door. All this just to evade a landlord.
The graffitied door clicks behind her and she allows herself to breathe; she is home-free. Tip-toeing around the discards of last night’s alley residents, she makes it to the sidewalk and joins the rest of the working city to their various places of employment. Pasty women in dark power suits and pink men with razor burn and polished shoes march around her in an organized chaos, like they’ve been doing this for years. She waits for the little white man to tell her to cross the street to 34th and looks up to see that once again, someone has cleverly stolen the street sign. No miracles have taken place on this street, they’ve got the wrong city. “Miss Jane! Miss Jane, wait!” she hears from behind her. Mr. Hiro, the landlord, is now caught up with her, bent over for air.
“Mr. Hiro, I’m going to be late for work, the light is about to change and I am going to walk across this street when it does.”
“Yes, yes, well write me rent check right here and I leave you alone.”
“I’ve already explained to you, I have given you my rent check. You need to ask my brother, your tenant, where his rent check is.”
“Miss Jane, I only receive half of rent for apartment for four months; if I don’t get rent, that mean I kick you out.”
Only a Japanese man can make an eviction notice sound like an honorable request, Jane thinks. “That’s the light, Mr. Hiro,” Jane begins to walk with the rest of the crowd, leaving her landlord on the sidewalk behind her. She shouts back to him, “I’m not his keeper, you know, my brother’s the one you want!”
That is the first official eviction notice I’ve ever had, Jane notes to herself. She is not particularly worried about her own self being evicted— she had expected such and rented a one-bedroom two streets west of her office— but she knows Jeremy has made no other plans and she knows he hasn’t sold a piece in over fourteen months.
A woman walking not so far ahead shuffles her feet in a way that takes Jane back twenty-four years: her mother had a habit of dragging her feet lazily along the carpet, causing a static shock between her and anything she touched. The day she left, Jeremy was taking his nap on the cot in the only bedroom of the dilapidated apartment and Jane was eating a peanut butter sandwich her mother had uncharacteristically made for her. Carrying a barely half full1980s-teal duffle bag, her mother bent over to give Jane a kiss on the forehead, making Jane’s bangs raise to meet her lips. She did not say goodbye, just simply walked out the door and never came back. At age four, Jane didn’t think to question; her mother often went on random day trips, leaving the children to their own devices until their father came home from whichever job he worked this week. The next ten years for the young pair was spent in and out of foster homes, their father randomly taking them back when it was convenient for him. Wanting desperately to be the opposite of any adult figure she had in her life, Jane became obsessed with responsibility. Every homework assignment, every promised phone call, every play practice, every shift working minimum wage as a tele-fundraiser, Jane never missed one. Jeremy would be the first responsibility she has ever abandoned.
Jane looks up as she walks through the lobby of her office building and follows herself in the gold mirrored ceiling to the elevators. She takes a deep breath through her nostrils, ah, the first challenge of the day: she stops the air from escaping her lungs and stuffs into the oversized elevator with employees from every rung of the corporate ladder. The lack of oxygen causes her thoughts to race, wondering where all her fellow passengers have been after leaving the office yesterday: paranoid trips to 55th for a sticky fix, seedy motels with whatever they picked up on 76th, wandering home, piss-drunk, puking while hugging unknown trash cans in back alleyways, whacking off to college drop-outs made up like middle-school students, and how many do you think didn’t even bother to wash their hands? The elevator dings and the doors open to floor 36; Jane waits until she hits the hall to release her breath.
Finally, my office. It isn’t much, but Jane can close the door for isolation and sanity. If truth be told, she only shot for the HR supervisor position to have her own office; she could care less if she climbed any higher in the company. When she first started calling, she convinced herself it was for a good cause. She would weave through a maze of grey upholstered cubicles to her desk, in a shared cubicle in the far corner of the caller area, always fifteen minutes before her shift. She used her extra time to straighten up her desk and her cubicle-mate’s. Very quickly she grew weary of the constant conversation, the mix of the tele-fundraisers compromising with potential donors, the supervisors using their “motivational language” to meet their quotas for the day, the people her phone dialed who poured out their sob-story as to why they couldn’t give this time. She just wanted to have the ability to close the door when the office gossip-queen came around to get Jane’s take on the latest scandal, or lock it before people came around, snooping through her drawers or mussing logically organized stacks of her papers looking for where she keeps her snacks. In shutting her office door, she silences the mass of grimy, money-grubbing tele-fundraisers. Every minute of every shift, they beg elderly women or down-on-their-luck single mothers for “whatever you can give – even if it’s only a hundred and fifty dollars” toward whatever non-profit agency they are representing. The bulk of the money may be going to these agencies , but really, the fundraisers are only at this office for their week-end bonuses for bringing in the funds. She picks up the phone and dials 999 for Dr. Nolan’s speed-dial.
“He did it, Dr. Nolan. Mr. Hiro officially told me he is considering eviction” Whenever speaking to Dr. Nolan, Jane’s voice has an unfamiliar tinge of vulnerability.
“When are you going to call me by my first name, Jane? Well, you know what that notice means, right? You already set your boundary with Jeremy and listed your consequence. He crossed the boundary, so yesterday was your last night staying there, and you’ll take your name off the lease, right?” Dr. Nolan always turns his instructions into questions.
“Yes. I mean, that’s the only solution, Dr. Nolan.” She stresses Dr. Nolan, knowing that referring to him as anything but could hint towards an actual relationship.
“Jeremy is a twenty-six year old man; he should be able to pay for his own rent, shouldn’t he? And when his short-lived popularity in the local art scene wore out, he should have been able to find some alternate means of income, don’t you think? It is his responsibility to at least make this effort, right?”
“You’re absolutely right, I know it. He should know he needs to find a place, he should know he needs to find a job, he should know living on the street is what lies ahead. He should know a lot of things, but he’s made it clear that he doesn’t and has no desire to. If I can make the decision to never be the dead-beats that our parents were, that every other adult we came in contact with was, why can’t he? It’s my fault for taking him with me when I moved out. I just figured that I would’ve been mature enough to handle it when I was fourteen, so he’d be fine. Big mistake there. But I was only sixteen and I handled it just fine, what difference can two years make?” she feels an over-the-phone session coming on. Jane sighs, “the void between us just grows every day.”
“Jane, you two were essentially born on your own, I can assure you that it wasn’t putting your lives into your own responsible and capable hands that led Jeremy to where he is. But your continued effort has gone on for too long to be considered helping. You’re enabling him to continue in his rut, isn’t that what you’re doing?”
Jane catches Dr. Nolan’s Vice-a-holics Anonymous terminology, “yes, we’ve been over that, I swear you haven’t got to keep telling me,”
“Apparently I do. Jane, my nine o’clock is here. Will you be showing up after work?” During Jane’s second session, she found herself bent over Dr. Nolan’s desk, his right hand gripping the back of her neck, his left hand clutching at her hip. She accidentally swiped a bundle of hardback texts to the floor in an attempt to grip the side of the desk; he scolded her for being so careless. She knocked over his ink well, on purpose this time; he smeared her chest in the quickly spreading puddle, disciplining her for her clumsiness. Since then, she rarely makes the walk from her office to the apartment without stopping by his office.
“Not tonight, I’ve got a few more things to grab from the apartment before I make my final exit.”
“Very well then, good luck.” The dial tone in Jane’s office irks her; it’s more whiny than the one on her home line.
Jane counts each painful minute of her day at the office. While reviewing applications, she has a tradition of playing her Tchaikovsky CD. She listens to Symphony No. 6 in B Minor again and again and again until she is finished. The title of the piece is Pathetique and while the sounds are intensely powerful, the name always gives Jane a good chuckle. After sifting through endless applications, she finally comes to the point of the afternoon where her interviews arrive. There are only two today: Millicent Brown and Horace Kingston. Who has names like these? Jane thinks as she watches the minute hand turn, signifying that good ol’ Millie Brown is now late. Sashaying through Jane’s office door, Millicent ends up exactly four minutes and thirty-two seconds late and dressed for yard work. The interview reveals Millicent’s heavy smoking habit and inability to put together even semi-intelligent conversation. Desperate for it to be over, Jane excuses Millicent, telling her that she will call for another interview at some point. Jane’s second interview, Horace, walks in just as Jane’s color-coded stamps decide that Millicent will not be considered for hiring. Horace introduces himself in his radio quality voice, and extends his dirt-lined finger nails toward her for a hand shake. She pretends not to see and asks him to have a seat. Unfortunately, when the business is making phone calls, looks and presentability aren’t a factor. Throughout the interview, Horace is redundant and long-winded, classic signs of a salesman. Jane’s stamp signifies a hire this time and she assigns him to call for the Blind Americans Association, which has its desks located far from Jane’s office.
Jane, ever-grateful the interviews are over, begins her walk home. This is the best sort of day: when she finishes her interviews early, she gets to go home early. That means the elevators are clear, the sidewalk’s less cluttered, the sun even seems to sit in a more comfortable position in the sky. Jane walks through the front door of her former apartment building with confidence this time, ready to face Mr. Hiro. To her dismay, she can’t find the odd hobbit of a man anywhere around. She sees the elevator and remembers what she is here to do. Her heart sinks as the elevator door opens and she steps inside.
Jane’s arm drops heavily from the familiar brushed nickel number six and her body twitches as she begins her ascent. The fluorescent light held captive above Jane’s head flickers in fear at each jerk as she finds herself humming droll elevator music to break the unnerving silence of the cold, rising closet. The elevator comes to a stomach-lurching halt and the expanding view of the hallway shows Jane her destination.
“Of course Mr. Hiro still hasn’t fixed our light yet,” Jane fights to stuff the words back into her mouth, praying the walls had not heard her say ‘our’. This is not Jane’s apartment anymore; this is not her broken hallway lamp.
Despite the lack of light, Jane notices her brother’s latest “redecorating”: the door had been painted burgundy and generic white stenciled numbers read “684” above the peephole. Jeremy was always “redecorating,” as he called it; he couldn’t stand constants. She knocks three times, once on each number. “Let yourself in, will you?” Jeremy’s voice suggests, muffled. Clutching the dented brass doorknob, Jane is met with the odors of Gesso and canvas, still-damp plaster, and acrylic paints; Jeremy must be in his studio. Jane takes a look around; it seems Jeremy had decided to continue the burgundy from the door into the kitchen. The smells certainly don’t match the walls, Jane thinks, considering the kitchen’s resemblance to a slaughterhouse.
Following the scent of the artist-at-work, Jane makes her usual quick left, but is abruptly ceased by her unshaven paint-covered brother, fervently working on a new, vindictive canvas in the living room. “Hey Jane,” her brother’s eyes flash silver and he reveals his tell-tale smirk. Inhaling sharply, Jane attempts a reply, but fails to overcome her disgust, “Jeremy… Christ, what a mess. It looks like a twelve-foot box covered in the entrails of animals.”
“Yeah, isn’t it fantastic?!” Jeremy sounds crazed. “I got impatient and painted the next coat too soon and it just sort of clumped and pooled, so I painted another layer, and then another, and in between more layers I added where my paintbrush saw fit. Then, finally, this happened,” Jeremy threw his arms out and spun around, showing off his creation.
Needing a minute, Jane meanders to the center of the room, but finds little solace on the worn sofas. Instead, she is in the midst of this gore-storm – a murder scene where the killer covered everything in plastic but carelessly forgot the walls before beginning his massacre. Forcing herself to look away from the mess he has turned her home into, she notices the corner of a metal object underneath the couch. Curious, she taps at it with the heel of her shoe and soon realizes she is sitting over a pistol. With Jeremy’s head turned to his canvas again, she seizes the opportunity and grabbles it into her purse.
“Look, Jer. Mr. Hiro stopped me today on my way to the office,” Jane begins to explain.
“Oh, yeah, I know, he came up here probably right after he talked to you. You believe he actually told me he would kick me out if I didn’t pay all the rent I owe him? And get this, he wants current rent a month in advance now. What kind of incentive is that for me to even begin to start paying him off, knowing I’ll never catch up? Don’t worry, I’ll show him,” Jeremy’s says, his brush now irately assaulting the canvas.
“What do you mean you’ll show him?”
“You’re here for the rest of your stuff, aren’t you? I had to move everything out of the way to paint, so I threw it all in that box for you over there,” Jeremy points to a box marked “Janey-Poo” in the far corner of the room.
“So… you’re going to be okay with this then?” Jane finds herself growing offended at Jeremy’s openness to her leaving. Rising from the couch, she walks over to the corner to slide the box along with her foot. The sound of the dust and grime rubbing between the box and the floor gives her goosebumps as she moves it closer to Jeremy.
“Of course, big sis. I am a twenty-something now, I don’t need to live with my sister.”
“Alright, well, I’ll be on my way then. Do you want to come over to my new place tonight for dinner? I’ll make you my Chicken Marsala, you know it’s your favorite,” she hopes her desire for Jeremy to need her isn’t coming across too strongly.
“No, I told you, I’ve got to show Mr. Hiro. I, my dear woman, am hosting the greatest house destruction party this city’s ever seen. Don’t worry, I told him you want your name off the lease. Surprisingly, he seemed pretty okay with it. He kept saying something about you paying, I don’t know, I can’t understand him ninety percent of the time. I’d be surprised if he understood any of what I said, either. And it’s not like I’ve got a penny to my name. He can sue me all he wants, it’ll be a waste. I’m going to charge five dollars at the door, and it’s bring-your-own-implement-of-destruction, but if you’d like to join I wouldn’t charge you, and I’m sure I’ve got plenty of extra-destructive tools lying around.”
“No thanks,” Jane interrupts, “definitely not something I’d like to be a part of. But maybe you should consider using the profits for a down payment on a place. Or a black-market identity. You know, one or the other.”
“Great idea. Hey, I’ll call you soon, okay?” Jeremy calls to her, expecting an answer, as she walks through the kitchen to the door, her box slung under her arm.
“Make sure of it. Good luck tonight,” Jane pauses with the door open, making sure to take one last good look at her baby brother.
Jane races out of the building, clutching her personal belongings under her arm, toward her newest apartment. Somewhere along the way, she stops and shouts, “What the FUCK is he thinking?!?” Some tourists turn to investigate, but Jane does not dawdle long enough to let them.
At her new apartment building, Jane can hear her pumps echo their click-clack as she rushes to the elevator. She wants a place to be alone so badly that she considers pulling the emergency lever on the elevator, but stops herself noticing there are only two more floors to go.
After fumbling for her keys, Jane slams the heavy door behind her. The sound reverberates in the small hallway of her apartment, smacking her in the back of the head. The cardboard box spills out of her arm, causing her Tchaikovsky CD case to fly out, splitting against the wall. She finds herself still on her feet, but clutching her knees in the fetal position.
Jane reaches up her jeans to unzip her black boots, still in her infantile stance. She rises and slides out of her satin-lined leather coat, tossing it across the sofa. Her purse, heavier than usual, she sets carefully next to her coat. Curious again, she reaches into her purse and takes the pistol out. “A .22, how typical. And it’s loaded. I just don’t get it, what was he thinking?” she says to herself, gently placing the pistol back in her purse between her billfold and make-up bag.
Flipping on the television, she immediately questions her decision. There’s never anything on T.V. CNN tells her a fire at a tire repair store is blanketing the capitol in thick black smoke. She ponders the thoughts of the uninformed tourists: “I did hear D.C. was a pretty horrid city,” or “It’s terrorists!” Jane realizes the television is only making her numb. Maybe that was it, maybe she just watched too much T.V.
Jane mashes her finger against the loud red button and the fake-tanned reporter’s newscast is so tragically interrupted. Perhaps her kitchen will hold her solutions, perhaps in her cabinets, hidden behind the perfect stacks of clean white dishes, she would find the answer, the one that would set her brother straight. Jane opens every one of her cabinets in one grandiose dance. She peered into each cubby, each crevice, but the cabinets only housed her neat white dish towers and her rows of smudgeless cobalt glass. Rubbing her temples, Jane imagines herself repairing the cogs of her brain back to normal working order. Thoughts progress and Jane is struck with a potential fix: the medicine cabinet.
Her medicine cabinet does hold a solution: the sleeping pills Dr. Nolan prescribed her. He told her to only take one, but it’s still early evening and she does not want to wake until morning. She swishes her tongue in her mouth, generating a little extra saliva, pops two pills in her mouth and swallows. Finding her way to her bed, it does not take long for the pills to take effect.
*
Jane wakes feeling no better than she did when she was coaxed unnaturally to sleep. The clock shows 11:07; she forgot to set her alarm. Skipping her shower, she throws on a skirt and a sweater, no time to bother with hosiery. A quick swig of mouthwash and a run of her fingers through her hair and she is on her way, walking the two short blocks to the office. Two blocks, she soon finds, is not a short enough distance to avoid worrying about Jeremy. Her mind loops around itself, imagining different scenarios as to how the so-called house destruction party turned out.
She manages to snake her way into her office without being noticed. This is the first time she has ever been late; she doesn’t expect too much of a hooplah. Shutting the door immediately behind her, she reaches for her phone to dial Dr. Nolan, but the voicemail light on her phone stops her. Probably someone throwing a fit that I didn’t give them the shitty job that they didn’t even fucking want in the first place, she thinks to herself, but checks it anyway.
“Miss Jane, I need you here right now! Your brother took name off lease yesterday, I tell him okay because you always pay. I got here today, no furniture here, there no windows, there no door, stove ripped out of wall, holes everywhere, terrible mess! You think I stupid foreigner, but I know American legal system! I call my lawyer, you hear from him soon!”
Before Jane can hit the delete button on her phone, there is a knock at her door. Great, here comes the lecture, she thinks as she opens the door for her direct supervisor.
“You’re late,” he begins, stating the obvious.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ve never been late before. It’ll never happen again,” Jane spits off the excuses she hears from her own employees on a daily basis.
“We’re quite sure it won’t happen again. I can understand being a few minutes late, maybe even a half an hour; I could even understand being as late as you were today, maybe if you had called when you were supposed to be here and there had been some sort of emergency. But you know very well that unexcused tardiness is absolutely not acceptable. You yourself have fired employees for less, Jane.”
“Yes, but those employees had prior bad acts or other mounting reasons for their dismissal. You can’t possibly be serious, you can’t mean you’re firing me over this. How can you?” Jane questions in protest.
“Just like this, Jane. Effective immediately. You can either gather your things now or come back for them at five when the others are gone, if you like. I’ll even wait up for you to pick up your keys. Everyone knows you aren’t happy here. You hold yourself up in here like it’s some sort of sanctuary. Well, there’s work to be done here and I’ve got plenty of other capable and willing hands to place it in. Think of it as an opportunity to do something you enjoy instead,” he says. Jane notices his pathetic attempt at optimism.
“Yeah, thanks so very much for the opportunity,” says as she grabs her purse. She bumps shoulders with him on the way out the door, muttering douche bag under her breath.
Jane ignores the pain shooting up her legs as she tries to run uphill in heels to Dr. Nolan’s office. The elevator takes forever and Jane is past the point of being frantic as she arrives on Dr. Nolan’s floor. She charges through the waiting area and ignores the new leggy receptionist’s attempts to stop her from barging in to his office.
Dr. Nolan looks surprised to see Jane.
“They fired me! Late ONE DAY, and they fired me. AND! And on top of that, Jeremy trashed the place right after taking his name off the lease, and the landlord says he’s suing me! It’s his own fucking fault, maybe if he understood a little bit of English then this all could’ve…”
Dr. Nolan interrupts her, “Jane, see, this is why we need to talk. If you want to be able to maintain a doctor-patient relationship with me, we have to end everything else, don’t you agree? I can be your doctor, but I can’t be your doctor and your lover, right? I value you as a patient, and I’d like you to continue seeing me, I just don’t think we should continue seeing each other, isn’t that the best solution?”
“No, that is not the best solution. What are you thinking? Psychiatrists are a dime a dozen, I’ll just find another one. I mean, if I’ve got to chose between the two.”
“I wasn’t giving you the option to choose. I can be your doctor and only your doctor, now. And you know, I consider myself to be a damned good psychiatrist. So you should feel privileged.”
“Feel privileged? Good psychiatrists don’t sleep with their patients,” Jane scoffs.
“You’re right, good psychiatrists sleep with their receptionists, much less of a conflict of interests,” and the truth is revealed.
Jane doesn’t even take the time to respond. Everything is falling down around her. All the precious little walls she has built up, all the responsibilities, all the standards, all the work, all of it is for nothing, and all of it is now nothing. In the alley between Dr. Nolan’s and the neighboring building, she watches it all crumble. She fingers at the .22 in her purse, the one she took from Jeremy so he wouldn’t do anything stupid. The curved polished metal of the barrel reflects to her a distorted image of herself and she believes in its accuracy. A permanent solution, there aren’t any responsibilities at the end of this. Nothing to gain, nothing to achieve, and nothing to lose. And what a fuck you. Jane turns her hand around and pulls the trigger.
*
Waking up in a hospital gown, Jane feels disappointed. Jeremy is sitting next to her, clean-shaven and in trendy new-looking clothes, flirting with the nurse who is adjusting some numbers on a machine.
“Sis! You’re awake!” Jeremy shouts.
Jane attempts to respond, but can’t seem to manage.
The nurse giggles, “Jer-bear, you know she can’t say nothin’. The doctor said she’s lucky to be alive, but she can’t talk and she can’t move her legs. What are you going to do next, try and take her for a walk?”
“Alright, Jenni, I get it,” Jer-bear turns and puts his face inches from Jane’s, “I just want you to know, Janey, that everything’s gonna be alright. At that party I had, some old friends from the art scene dropped by. They liked my recent work so much, they said it screamed “starving artist”. I’ve got a contract this time, Janey. Five years of work, gallery show after gallery show, and all the money’s upfront. Don’t you worry, girl, I’m gonna take care of you just like you took care of me. It’ll be a bit different, you know, this house’ll be all my own, but you won’t have to worry about a thing,” Jeremy continues on, but Jane’s thoughts are racing.
I know exactly how it’ll be, I know how he keeps house, he’s probably already had Jenni here bent over my bed while I’m hooked up to all this bullshit. Yeah, I know how it’ll be. He’ll lose interest in my care, I’ll be shoved to one corner, all because I can’t even get a fucking suicide right. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that happen. I’ve fought all my life not to be a degenerate. I’ve fought all my life not to be helpless, not to be a lazy disorganized piece of white trash. I’ll show them, I’ll show them who can finish something she started. I’ll show them the error of their ways.
With that, Jane squeezed her eyes shut and made an attempt to swallow. Her esophagus had turned to whetstone from the lack of saliva and she winced. C’mon, Jane, suck it up. You can do this. Jane wriggled her tongue free from stagnancy. The tip of her tongue followed the back of her two front teeth up to the roof of her mouth. She could feel her tongue fold over on itself, and she began to slowly suck, the veiny, slick side of her tongue slithering its way against the roof of her mouth. This is it, here I go, now or never. With a big gulp, it’s almost over. Jane tries not to make any noise, she doesn’t want to cause any alarm. Her lungs recirculate the last bit of oxygen left and each cell of her body screams and starves. Machines start blaring to the right of Jane’s hospital bed as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B Minor crescendos in her head. Everything is dark.
“Ah-ah-ah! No-no, Janey-poo. We can’t have this again,” Jeremy sticks his foul hands in her mouth and presses Jane’s tongue flat in its natural position. Nurses rush in from behind him, making quite a fuss. “Don’t worry, Jane, I’ve hired a personal nurse for you when we get to my home. This won’t happen again. You’re going to be around for a long time; we’ll make sure of that.”
You need to log in to urbis or create an urbis account to review this writing.
Reviews
Sort Reviews by Newest | Oldest | Highest Quality | Lowest Quality | Newest Comments |
nubadunk reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
Good story overall! I liked the read only can suggest you indent between paragraphs and do a little editing! You are definately on your way and if you fix the little things it won’t take away from the story! Great author!
- add/view comments (1)
commaphiliac reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
There are a lot of strengths here, particularly the clarity of scenes, the smooth movement of time and plot progression, and the attention to important details.
Both Jane and her brother are interesting characters, but they could benefit from further development. At present, they war with the the sometimes freight train momentum of the story for space, and so I would suggest slowing down and allowing readers to really get to know these characters better- give them more dimension.
It’s said that if a gun is introduced in a story, it must fire- but we don’t actually see the gun go off in this story- instead we move around it and get what we can through the aftermath, and that’s not satisfying. Show us just what happens- take us through the scene when Jane fires the gun.
On a small scale, watch out for tense shifts, as there are several throughout, and work on maintaining control on point-of-view… how close do you want readers to be to Jane’s p.o.v.? At this point, it’s very close to her, but the occasional switches to “I” are jarring- I’d suggest italics for those.
drbailey reviewed Version 1 -
Read 82% of the Item
Hey Lu,
This piece had a lot of interesting components. A lot of stuff was working well and some could be tightened and improved.
-
I loved the almost hero’s journey element to the story—which a lot of writers swear by. If you’ve never read about the hero’s journey you should google it and read up on the different elements of it. It might help you with all your stories, not just this one.
-
Sometimes it feels like you go from Jane actually speaking to me and then back into narrative form. I know these are mostly thoughts, but sometimes it doesnt feel right. I think you should either make all of the thoughts like Jane is telling them to me, or keep them all narrative. One example is the “finally, my office.” sentence.
-
A lot of good detailed references in the story—this is always good for me. Symphony 6. Chicken Marsala.
–
I think your work would be more effective if it was quicker—which means smaller sentences. Example: “Following the scent of the artist-at-work, Jane makes her usual quick left, but is abruptly ceased by her unshaven paint-covered brother, fervently working on a new, vindictive canvas in the living room.” You could turn this into two or three smaller, quicker sentences and then the abruptness in the sentence would be more felt by the reader.
-
”WHAT the FUCK is he thinking??” is a hilarious action in the scene. This acts almost as the climax of your story. I think it was be funny if Jane had a lot more of these—is she that type of person? Also, I like Dr. Nolan, but does she have any odd ticks about her?
-
After the climax, we really start to see more comedy. The brother has taken everything out of the apartment—everything. It’s so absurd and funny. I think that from the moment Jane says “what the fuck is he thinking?” the story explodes and goes from there.
-
A few tense changes that pop out. such as the last sentence of the first paragraph on page 3 (if you can even see the pages.. its the one about responsibility being abandoned). This is mechanical and boring.
-
im going to stop writing here right now, because its going to cost you about 232425 points. But lets talk in the comments here. Ask me something specific and I’ll respond if you like. Also, still looking at writers block—will return.
D.R.
TnD reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
-this[,] just
-graffitied => Not a word. Consider changing to ‘doorway covered in graffiti’ something along that line.
-“to their various” => Might want to change to ‘on their way to various…’ The way you have it worded, it’s saying that she joined society who was already at their places of employment. Not really clear there.
-“her own self” => As opposed to her other self? Go ahead and take out ‘own.’
-Watch how often you’re using ‘she.’ You’ve introduced the character’s name, “Ms. Jane” or just Jane. Go ahead and work that in there. You’ve got a couple of sentences where you use ‘she’ a few times in a row and it’s distracting to the reader.
- If[,] truth => Actually, there’s no need for the ‘if’ there. With the ‘if,’ it seems as though you’re going to pose a question. Whereas at the end, it’s a statement.
-Very quickly[,] she
-“boundary, so yesterday” => Complete thought with ‘boundary.’ ‘So’ should be the start of a new sentence to keep continuing with the pace you have.
-Check the capitalization starting on page 5 (starts with the words, “a twenty-six…”
-I like the way that you hinted about the doctor and Jane’s relationship, then dropped it like a bombshell. Very well done.
-Jane’s stamps have a mind of their own? I’d suggest changing that to something like, “the color-coded stamps show anyone who’s looking at the folder…’ or perhaps something shorter. Just kind of pulled me away from the story.
-Excellent description inside of the elevator. But, you took all the time to describe that, while the rest of the story (so far) seems like it was in a rush to get to this point. Did you mean to do it that way?
-Grabbles?
-“douche bag” should be in single quotes.
-All right. I think that you’d be better off ending it without the last part. Either when she has the gun in her hand, turns it around and shoots herself or when she’s trying to swallow her tongue. But, that’s just me. I think if you leave it open-ended like that, it gives the reader the impression that she finally escaped from the hell that you’d been hinting at since the beginning. Overall, it’s an interesting story and the plot ‘twists’ are strategically placed throughout. The pseudo-optimism from the boss was a nice touch, as was the landlord trying to sue her.
Thanks for sharing.
SwordMistress reviewed Version 1 -
Read 100% of the Item
This was a well written, engaging story.
Jane had already calculated her escape route: I think “planned” would work better.
“Jane thinks.” This isn’t necessary. We already know this is from Jane’s perspective.
“sold a piece” be more specific. What does he sell? Paintings, Sculptures, articles?
“half full1980s-teal” half-full 1980’s teal
“The lack of oxygen causes …bother to wash their hands?” This sentence is too long and hard to read.
Seems a little farfetched that a psychiatrist would sleep with his patient and then offer to only be her doctor. He would lose all objectivity. It would be more likely that he would refer her to someone else. There’s just to much conflict of interest.
“During Jane’s second” new paragraph
“She finds herself still on her feet, but clutching her knees in the fetal position.
Jane reaches up her jeans to unzip her black boots, still in her infantile stance.” I had a hard time picturing this. It gave me pause and I had to reread it. Maybe it throws me because I think of the fetal position as someone laying on their side.
I have mixed feelings about the endings. It seems like Jeremy wins and he should be the loser, yet if Jane succeeds in killing herself that doesn’t seem much like she wins either.
Showing 1 - 5 of 5
Review item
Add to favesCreator
Relevant Links
Item Stats
GENERAL
5 Reviews 10 Comments
Version 1
Latest Activity: about 1 year ago
REVIEW QUEUE
Appeared in Queue: 105 Times
Skipped: 2 Times
Ratings & Rankings
