Thanks for the tips.
Any specific grammar things?
Short Story / Who are you?
“Who are you? What do you want?” the man screamed in my face.
Simple questions, but ones that are not so easy to answer. As is the custom with such things, I guess I should start at the beginning. And the beginning of this tale starts with extraordinary violence.
I hadn’t ever wanted for much. Just a nice job, working to help people, a nice house in the country, filled with the sounds of happy children and lastly a wife to love with all my heart. And I guess two out of three isn’t bad without any help, but we’d needed help with the children.
It seems I wasn’t as much of a man as I could have been, but the doctors had assured me that low sperm counts were becoming increasingly common. It was pollution, or modern living, or sunspots, or something. I couldn’t recall, but all that mattered was that with a few pills and some planning, Jane, my wife, and I would finally get pregnant. And even if the pills didn’t work, there were other things that could be tried, so I shouldn’t loose heart.
Well, it had taken a bit more than a few pills, and the wonders of modern medicine had had a bit of a hard time of it, all things considered, but we had got there in the end. I would finally be a father. The miracle had happened, and thank God for his kindness, even if man had to give him a helping hand.
And then it happened. The moment that changed my life, and ended those of my beautiful wife and un-born son.
Terrorism. It’s one of those things you read about in the paper, or watch on the news. All those lives ended in such terrible violence, it’s not really possible to comprehend, to grab hold of. It’s something that happens to other people. We feel terrible for the relatives of the people that were killed, naturally, we also wonder what drove the terrorists to do it, but it’s not something we really feel.
Unless we’re there. Unless we were the ones who nipped over to the 24-hour convenience store for a pint of milk. Unless it was our wife and child who were caught in the flying glass and debris from the car bomb. Unless we held them in our arms while their life drained away before the ambulance could possibly save them.
That’s the only way we could really feel it.
It was the way I felt it, though I think it killed the part of me that really felt. In its place was left a hole.
For a long time nothing filled that hole. No matter how much alcohol I tried to pour into it, or fights I got into, or friends I hurt, nothing filled that hole. Until that day. The second day that changed my life.
It’s funny (in an ironic sense, if not a comedic one), I’ve never really believed in fate. The idea that my destiny is pre-determined, that no matter what I do or what happens to me, it has all been pre-ordained; struck as me as essentially defeatist. If I am not in control of my own destiny, then what happens to choice?
But now I believe their is a form of fate, that their are events that shape your life that are pre-ordained, that are meant to happen. I believe that these are presented to us as tests, as choices, as opportunities. What we do about them is up to us. I decided to kill him. To kill them all.
I should perhaps explain what happened on that second day. I got a cup of coffee. It seemed like the best thing to do at the time. I’d just been put on indefinite sabbatical from work, the psychiatrist had refused to see me again after I’d punched him in the face, the bank had sent me a final final demand for late mortgage payments, the phone had just been cut off, and I’d drunk the last bottle of vodka I had in the house the night before. So I went for a coffee. Because the pubs didn’t open till 11.
And there he was. The man that had killed my wife and son. Drinking coffee.
I recognised him instantly. Of course, the police had not been able to find him, hell they hadn’t actually believed me when I told them I’d seen him walking away from the car that had exploded. They told me they’d found the corpse of the suicide bomber (or what was left of him) and that they’d look into it, but they’d pretty much established he was working alone.
I knew it was bullshit, of course. How can one man working alone acquire enough military grade C4 to blow a hole in the side of Victoria station you could fit an ocean liner through? How can one man working alone find out all the details of MI6s secret plans for the transport of the Israeli Prime Minister to London’s Harley Street? How can one man working alone know exactly when to push the button on the other side of the wall, just at the right instance to kill that Prime Minister?
No, this man had been there, he had been involved, and I had seen him talking to the man in the car as I ran to get the pint of milk. And now here he was, sat in Starbucks drinking coffee.
I took a chance.
“Hello,” I said. He barely looked up from his A-Z, “lost are we? Where is it you’re trying to get to?”
He looked around and said, in broken English, “I go London Eye.”
I grinned. I could tell what he’d really been looking at, and it wasn’t the London Eye. “Ah yes,” I said, “the big Ferris Wheel. I went on that the other week, with my darling wife. You’d like her. She’s pregnant, and loving every minute of it.”
He turned back to his A to Z. It was all I could do not to put my hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him. “Anyway,” I continued. “To get to the London Eye from here you want to…” and I gave him the directions.
It was definitely him. Arab, about 5’10”, dark, short cropped hair, small scar just above his right eye. He was laying the accent on thick, I could tell, and he wasn’t too happy to be involved in this conversation.
“Well, I must be going, nice to have met you, my good man.” I stuck out my hand. He looked at it suspiciously. “Yes, thankings very much,” he said, taking my hand and forcing a smile. “I go touristy.”
I left the coffee house, walked round the corner and threw up. There wasn’t much to threw up of course, as I hadn’t eaten in days, but my stomach had a damn good go.
What should I do? Call the police? They wouldn’t do anything. Should I go back and confront him? What would that have achieved? Someone would probably call the police on me. I was having what Alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity.
I stank, I was gaunt, my clothes were tatty – I almost looked like a street-bum. A bum. It would be the perfect disguise – nobody sees bums, I mean they see them, but their mind rubs them out, bums don’t exist, they’re something to be forgotten. I could follow him, and he’d probably never recognise, or even see me.
So that’s what I did. I followed him.
And I kept following. I followed him for months. The only difficult part of it was holding back the anger, the desire for vengeance.
Whilst I was often never close enough to actually hear any of his conversations, I do know he met with an awful lot of people for very short periods of time. Often bags, small parcels and documents were exchanged, sometimes for what looked like bundles of cash. These meeting were always held in very public places, such as the London eye, during the day. The only real pattern was that they were all short, and he seemed to be very familiar with the people he met with – not always in a friendly way, but he certainly knew them all very well.
After a while, I realised what was going on. Some of the people must be fellow terrorists, others were people he was paying, or blackmailing into giving him information. They must be planning an attack of some sort.
I needed to decide what I was going to do. By this time I had quite a dossier cataloguing this man’s activities, though I had never managed to acquire anything resembling actual evidence. I would need to break into his house, to find something that proved once and for all who he was and what it was he did. I could at least take this to the media, even if the authorities didn’t believe me. They loved this sort of thing.
“And that pretty much brings us up to date, my terrorist friend.” I said, pointing the gun at his face again. “I wasn’t expecting you to return so early from that club you visit on Thursdays, but what the hell, I got the drop on you, and I’ve found out all I need to know. I’m not sure which of these passports gives your real name…”
“Mahmood, it’s Mahmood”
“Well then, Mahmood, to answer your question, I’m the man who’s wife and unborn son you killed, and I want to kill you, in revenge. At least I think I do, maybe I’ll kill your wife and daughter instead.” His eyes widened. “Yes, that’s right I found the photos, and their documents… Carol is quite the looker. Maybe I’ll shoot her in the face. I think I might kill the child first, though, so that you can both watch her die. I think I’d like that. What’s her name?”
“Beatrice… it’s Beatrice… please … please don’t kill them… y-you don’t understand… I, I can explain everything.” He stammered. The cut above his left eye was bleeding quite badly, forcing it closed, but tears were streaming from his right.
“Well now, a story is it? That might help pass the time till they get back, so please go ahead.” I grinned. It was the first time I’d smiled in months, but it wasn’t a sane smile. Something had snapped. Here he was, the man responsible for killing my family, and I was going to kill him.
At least, I think I was. I was hesitating, undecided. Once I’d started following him it had never been my intention to kill him, or indeed anyone, but with him here, bound to a chair and at my mercy, I wasn’t entirely sure. Something deep down, something primal was screaming for revenge. It was screaming for blood, and part of me wanted to let it have its revenge. To just have done with it and kill this man.
So, what did I want?
“I… I’m an under-cover reporter. I’ve been investigating corruption in the Secret Service… MI5. There’s a man in MI5 taking money for information. He… he thinks I’m an arms dealer.”
“Please, you must believe me, please there’s a reporters card in my drawer upstairs, please look. Please.”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Then you must believe me.”
“I also saw 4 passports and 3 sets of ID in that drawer. You want me to believe the reporter is the real one? Jesus, you could have at least put a bit more effort into this story. You’re supposed to be a reporter!”
I pushed the muzzle of the gun up against his forehead. I was becoming angry. Extremely angry. A red mist had descended across my vision, and I could feel my breath shortening as the adrenalin surged through by blood. “So why the gun, huh? What does a reporter need with a loaded gun in his house? Answer me!”
“It… it’s for protection. In case they ever found me out. It… it’s for my wife… to protect our daughter. Please…”
“Bullshit.” I released the safety and took up the pressure on the trigger.
And then I heard it. It sounded like a leaky tap and I panicked. I thought there was someone in the house, and I ran to the kitchen. There was no one there.
I returned to the man. There was a large puddle on the floor, and he was sobbing like a baby. He’d pissed himself. What was going on? Who was he?
-—--
The next morning there was a knock at my door. It took me a long time to answer, but the people were clearly willing to wait. I’d got back that night and taken the longest shower of my life. I’d shaved for the first time in weeks, and then slept like I was in a comma.
“Mr Hanners?” The man was a veritable mountain in a suit.
“Er, yes?”
“May we come in?” The other man was much more slight, and wore glasses.
“Who are you?”
They raised their warrant cards and IDs. “We’re from MI5. I’m Detective Simmons, and this is Detective Rhemus. May we come in – I don’t think you want to do this on the doorstep.”
I stepped back and allowed them in. I followed them into the living room. Or what was left of it anyway. There were two tatty chairs and a coffee table with 3 legs. I’d sold everything to keep my obsession going.
“I’m afraid I’m, er, moving and I’ve sold all my furniture. Can I get you a tea?” I wandered into the kitchen and put on the kettle. The milk in the fridge was so old the smell nearly knocked me out as I opened the door.
So much for tea.
I wandered back into living room. It looked like they’d tried to tidy up a bit, and put the chairs round the coffee table, which they’d propped up with a lamp. Rhemus was fiddling with the lamp. “Electricity’s off,” I said. “Look, what’s this all about?”
Detective Simmons took out a photograph from a folder he was carrying. “Do you know this man?” He handed me the photo.
I nearly swallowed my tongue.
“Th-that’s him!” I looked at Simmons, incredulously. “Th-that’s the man that killed my wife!”
It was the man from last night too. I suddenly felt very nervous. My body started to gear up to run upstairs. I still had the gun upstairs – but would I use it on the police? Maybe I could just threaten them and escape? And then I noticed it.
The scar.
It ran along his left cheek.
And my memory flooded back. This was the man. Not the man from last night. The man in the photo was the man I had seen that day. Who had the other man been? But they looked so similar. They could have been twins. What had I done?
“What… ?” was all I could manage.
“What about the scar?” Said Rhemus. “Is that what you’re wondering? You’ve caused us an awful lot of trouble, Mr Rhemus. The man you attacked last night was in fact one of our agents.”
“No.”
“Yes. He’s a remarkable match isn’t he? Apart from the scar, of course, and we can recreate that with make-up.”
“He said…”
“He said he was a reporter, yes?” Said Simmons, taking the photo back. “Well, that was only partly true. The reality is that whilst he is definitely an undercover reporter, due to his uncanny resemblance to one Ishtar Ramoon – that’s Ishtar Ramoon the international terrorist, by the way – he’s also our agent.”
I was in a state of shock.
Rhemus moved behind Simmons. “You did see Ramoon at Victoria that day.” He said. “He was ultimately responsible for the bomb, but the thing is he was also caught in the blast. Ishtar Ramoon died that day, just like your wife. But no one knew, and so Mr Mahmood took his place. Think of it as him getting the ultimate exclusive.”
Rhemus continued to circle around.
“So, we have a bit of a situation. We couldn’t exactly tell you the man you saw had died, or even that he was involved – not if we wanted to use Mahmood to infiltrate the terrorist network. But you appear to have worked it out yourself. Or at least you stumbled across the lie.”
Rhemus was behind me now.
“So, we need to clean up.” concluded Detective Simmons.
The human brain has no nerve endings, apparently. So it doesn’t actually feel any pain. I guess that’s some mercy. I mean, I certainly didn’t feel the bullet as it tore through the back of my head and ended my life.
Moments that change the course of your life. If that man had not pissed himself I would have killed him. He would not have been able to tell them who had attacked him, and these men would never have been sent to kill me.
Moments of destiny.
-—--
“Messy job, Mr S.”
“A messy job, indeed, Mr R. Do you have the gun?”
“Oh yes, it’s right here. Shall we Mr S?”
“Of course. After you, Mr R. Are you digging the hole this time, or shall I?”
“How about, we take it in turns?”
“Most generous of you, Mr R. Especially after you had to do the wet-work.”
“Tell you what, Mr S, you can by me lunch by way of a thank you.”
“Of course. I would be honoured.”
“Well, at least we still have Mahmood.”
“Yes, couple of weeks in conditioning and I’m sure he’ll be right as rain.”
“I told you he should have been kept under surveillance.”
“Well, all’s well that ends well, as they say.”
“Indeed.”
“Indeed.”
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angelique_07 reviewed Version 1 -
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“I hadn’t ever wanted for much.” really awkward sentence.
Bit confused about the beginning- you say the story starts with extraordinary violence but then go on to talk about wanting a nice normal life.
The third paragraph doesn’t really let me know who this guy is, those are things most, if not all of us want.
The grammar needs much work, so I can see why you didn’t want us to point out all the errors. You do far too much telling and not enough showing for the reader to really engage in the story. But this is just one person’s opinion, of course.
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Little_Cricket reviewed Version 1 -
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My goodness. This is a very, very good short story. Truly excellant.
The structure is good, the concept is awesome, and the story, of course, is very real and flows nicely. Just a few things that I might suggest?
Instead of refearing to this as a “tale” in the very beginning I would substitute “story” because the word ‘tale’ has such a woodsy fairy tale concept to it and distracts from the content.
“And I guess two out of three isn’t bad without any help, but we’d needed help with the children.” At first I thought there were character chidlren, as in already born and plural. Perhaps something more like ‘And I guess two out of three isnt bad without help. It was the laughing children part we needed help with.” Not ver batum but it makes more sense shrug
Other than little grammer things the story itself was enjoyable and sad – my favorite kind of story. This one didnt have a happy ending and I loved it – the conversation between the two men that killed him was interesting. I think maybe if they called each other by the full names “Mr. Simmons” it has a more eerie feel to it, Matrix style.
Great read! Thanks for posting!
berlinmoon reviewed Version 1 -
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Your voice seems to be really inconsistent through out it. In the beginning it seemed pretty consistent, but at the same time it seems like you’re rushing into a lot of the story, as well as not really developing a lot of the characters in it that well. It’s not a bad start but it might be a good idea to give it another look over probably add more to the story, especially in the beginning. Try not to make it sound so much like, I eat my breakfast everyday, like any normal American. Hopefully this would give you a pretty good idea about what you might do to improve the story.
Michael_X reviewed Version 1 -
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I think you can go some place with this story but you’ll need to tighten up the structure – think about changing the POV from 1st person to third (it might work better since you kill the narrator but continue the story after his death). Opening with the man we learn is Mahmood gets your attention but you lose a little of the power of that opening because the beginning feels a little too loose/happy. Your line: “But now I believe there is a form of fate, that there are events that shape your life that are pre-ordained, that are meant to happen.” is great and you should work that into the beginning – it sets the tone for the story and everything flows from there. You bring in the narrator’s angst and hurt well and that creates believability in his actions.
wickedphantomchic85 reviewed Version 1 -
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Brilliant! First of all, great intro! I was drawn in to the story from very beginning. YOu did an excellent job of using the technique of starting in the middle of a story, and then providing the backstory as the plot progressed. I’m impressed.
I just had a few minor suggestions:
1. At the end of the fourth paragraph, it should be “lose” not “loose.”
2. In the paragraph that begins “Unless we’re there. Unless we were the ones who nipped over to the 24-hour convenience store…”, this is just a personal preference, but I think it would be stronger if you said “unless we are there. Unless we were the ones…” I think it emphasized your point more, but like I said, that’s just a personal preference.
3. In this excerpt (“But now I believe their is a form of fate, that their are events that shape”) both cases of “their” should be “there.”
4. “sat in Starbucks drinking coffee” It should be sitting. (I know you want more focus on content instead of grammar, but these little things I can’t help but point out)
Anyway, your story is amazing. You styled and structured it in a way that keeps the reader constantly wondering what is going to happen next. I mean, I figured the protagonist was probably going to get killed some way or other, but all the twists and turns along the way kept me guessing. Excellent job!!
your_sweet_666 reviewed Version 1 -
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I like this. It flows very well and I was actually very intigued by it. I like how you developed your character and how you dont use a whole lot of nig discriptive words because that gets boring after awhile, so all i have left to say is good job and keep it up!
Dauna reviewed Version 1 -
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I felt you character’s emotional range in this piece. From his fear of not being a father to the joy when he was, to his overwhelming sadness that lead to his madness.
The story flowed well, however I think it could have ended after the main characters death and not have Mr S & Mr R.
Over all I like it there are some technical issues but you know that.
Keep writing.
lynsey reviewed Version 1 -
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I really liked this piece but I was a bit confused as to where it was going the first time I read it through as you deviated to talking about the narrator’s low sperm count so near to the beginning. I think you should add a bit of sensory description after the first line – I know you do this later on when you talk about the man’s scar – but I think this should be mentioned earlier as it feels a bit flippant to say nothing about the way the man appears. I think this would also help to add more emphasis to the hostage situation.
Also, I think after the line ’ It’s one of those things you read about…’ you could perhaps add in a flashback from a headline/s the narrator has read and how he felt about it at the time.
I like the way you use repetition, it’s very effective. It sounds almost desperate.
Try to stay away from cliches, talking about a hole being left after someone has died has been used a lot in speech.
I liked the line about punching the psychiatrist in the face – dare I say it was darkly funny – and I think you need this kind of humour to lighten the piece up.
Similarly I like the line about Starbucks but I think it would sound even more ironic if you actually said something like: ‘there he was sat in Starbucks drinking an Expresso Macchiato’.
Again, when the narrator sees Mahmood with the A-Z you could put some kind of visual or aural detail which describes something that is going on in the background.
What did Mahmood’s wife and children look like? HOw did the narrator feel when he was looking at them? Did they stir up any feelings about his own wife and child?
I dont think you need ‘and ended my life’.
I’m not sure about the ending. It feels very ‘Reservoir Dogs’ or ‘Pulp Fiction’-is and it is funny but I didn’t know which agent was speaking or whose view point this was from.
Anyway, good work, let me know if you do a rewrite.
Dustin85 reviewed Version 1 -
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That started out excellently, but I felt like it trailed off at the end. I think that by the time the main character had Mahmood in the chair, the reader at least has a suspicion it is the wrong guy. So, I think you should play that up a little more. There is great potential for suspense there.
Also, I felt like the narrator met his end too swiftly. In fact i think the entire story wrapped up too quickly. It could be a tad longer I think.
One last little gripe… the exchange between the men at the end, while humorous, does not fit the story’s subject matter. Its just my opinion but it didn’t really work for me.
I loved the theme here. I loved your voice. You are a talented writer and with a little polish this story could be quite publishable.
Cameron reviewed Version 1 -
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I like the general idea of this story, but it seems a bit classic in a lot of ways. While I don’t have any problems with the basic revenge story, it’s been done a lot, and this one doesn’t bring anything new to the table.
Honestly I think it has to do mostly with the main character. He seems like the traditional broken-hearted victim, honestly it might be more interesting if he hadn’t fallen so far. If there’s a conflict between him seeking revenge and him leading a normal life.
That all said, there isn’t anything wrong with the basics of the story. The characterizations are believable, the dialogue is solid and the plot though a bit cliche is solid as a plot.
Anyways any comments or questions please feel free to ask.
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