Thank you. I appreciate your telling me how you feel with out saying its crap just cause you don’t like it.
Yes there will be more but not likely any additions to the end. I’m going to add in the memory she has of her father, and a few other things to make the encounter more realistic.
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Short Story / soul seeing
I stood there and looked at him. All I could do was look. How can a face be so familiar and so foreign all at once? How so loved and hated all in the space of a moment. I stared into hallow eyes that moments before only belonged to a man who obviously didn’t know where he was. And now they belonged to him, my father. My mind raced back to the only memory I had of him. At least the only one I was sure was him. I had only one visual to confirm him by. He had been cut out of all my baby pictures, which I received from an obscure biological uncle on my 12th Christmas. Only my 8th christmas as an O’riley, but 12th in all.
“you are Mary O’riely, right?” He jerked me from that lone painful memory. It was only the second sentance he had spoken to me. Maybe i could pretend i didn’t know him, just treat him like any other fan.
“It’s me, Jim Blaine, your Dad.” To late
“I recognized you from your rap sheet.” I said it harsher than i thought i would. Still i wasn’t sure i wanted to be nice to him. Damn! i thought i had forgiven the man.
“You’ve seen that have you?” He winced and looked down at his shoes. If you saw him on the street you might assume he was a veteran. He supported himself on a cane on his left side and his face carried any number of scars. You might see him and take him for a heroic soul. But if you read his rap sheet, like me, you’d know he deserved every scar.
“Yeah, i’ve seen it. When does crazy kick in on our side of the family?” I winced this time, that one even hurt me. ”I’m sorry.” I said barely above a whisper, “its just…what am i supposed to say?”
“Mary.” My head jerked around and i remembered where i was. An office full of people, some on my staff some just working for our cause, were staring at me and the older male version of me. It was Mark who had pulled me back to the office and it took me a moment to spot him. He was standing at the door to my office fingers on the handle. I crossed the room and brushed past him, stopping just briefly to wave the old cripple in with me.
I sat at my desk then stood again, i walked to my bookshelf to lean against it then paced back to the wall with the couch. I caught myself just before sitting down and walked back to the bookshelf.
“Mary” I turned to him reeling.
“What? What are you doing here? How did you find me? What do you want?” He stood facing me for a long moment. His eyes looked sad, the way mine do when i’m disappointed but only for a second, then they looked empty again.
“I just um, I wanted to tell you, that i, um… I am so proud of you, look at what a success you are.
“yeah look at that. You came here to tell me that your proud of me?” I started to connect the dots before he figured out a way to ask it.
“Yeah i mean were family right, your my kid, i can be proud of you. You’d be proud of me too, i been sober for six months. Just a little down on my luck right now but things are looking up.” He stopped then waiting for me to respond. I stared into those hallow eyes. I wished hard that i could see something, anything in them. Even desperation might give a ray of hope, but i saw nothing. It was then that i dropped all my fears and my anger, and i pitied him. I didn’t speak. I let him keep talking. ”And well you being a success and all, maybe you could help your old man out a little?” I ignored his blatant request.
“Grace is married, she has a daughter now. Joshua joined the marine core, hes leaving for Afghanistan in just a couple of weeks.
“I have a grand-daughter?” He blinked for the first time in several minutes.
“No my Dad has a grand-daughter, you have nothing.” I wasn’t rude when i said it. just honest, just true. He glanced down again.
“Well i don’t need much,” he stammered, “i just need to um, just enough to uh…. You say Josh hes uh, in the army? I bet he’s really big.”
“He is, even bigger since enlisting.” His eyes began to fill in then, little by little they filled with a hurt and sadness that i actually found comforting. We stood there quiet for several minutes. Then his eyes began darting around the room, looking everywhere but at me.
“Look i don’t care, I don’t want this, I just want some money so i can get some… so i can eat tonight.” He wouldn’t look at me and dispite what he said, his eyes still hurt. I didn’t respond so he just kept stammering. ”I spent half my life not caring about you or your brother and sister and i spent the rest of it trying to forget it all, I shouldn’t have come, I just thought, I don’t know, I just wanted something, and now i don’t know what, i just, I outta go.” He turned for the door, and with all the courage in me I set a hand on his shoulder. I walked around to face him. It was just one tear, his glazed and brimming eyes let only one tear go. But in that tear i saw the world of hurt he’d held back for so many years.
“I forgive you.” His eyes looked heavy and not so much hallow now as desperate. Yeah desperate. Funny how desperate looks a lot like hope to a person who has walked the desperate road. I wasn’t always a success, and it was when i was desperate that things finally began to look up.
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NunieWeb reviewed Version 1 -
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Brittkat reviewed Version 1 -
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March 30, 2007
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Alexis1 reviewed Version 1 -
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lynsey reviewed Version 1 -
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KPP reviewed Version 1 -
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This would be a great start or introduction to a story. It needs fixing up a bit, like you stated with the punctuation. One spelling mistake I must mention is the use of hallow instead of hollow in the description of the father’s eyes. The last sentence would be a great lead-in to the next “chapter”.
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Lunsford reviewed Version 1 -
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EagleEye80 reviewed Version 1 -
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Really good idea here, only thing i saw that needed work was some spelling and various punctuation. So keep up your good work and keep me posted when you have any other posts you have going up.
serenitylace reviewed Version 1 -
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This has a good concept. the last sentence is necessary as it helps to tie it all together. I really enjoyed this and would love to read more. are you going for a full length story or just a short one?
rom reviewed Version 1 -
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To be totally honest, I could not really get into this piece, mostly because of the structuring and the spelling.
Even though it is paragraphed, it still looks like a long, run on sentence. I suggest spacing the conversation to make it easier to tell who exactly is talking.
Other than that, the concept, while not my type of story, I think would be appealing to your target audience.
While I’m no grammar and spelling facist, you really should at least run this through spell checker first.
PS: I think the last sentence is completely needed for this piece. It gives it some sense of at least completion.
Will there be any more to this story?
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