You caught my attention with your first line and it drug me into your story. I only have two small suggestions and that is the word “Scuffle” is a verb and what, I assume it’s a she, is looking down at are the “Scuff” marks left by the scuffle. Also the word “Plangent” made me pause for several seconds before the meaning popped in. You might change that for the flow. These are my suggestions only and it is your story.
What I saw in my mind was a woman that lost a father she loved very deeply. The way you have her describe the snow made me feel the chill she referred to real. I felt cold too. Then her reference to immersing herself in memories to force thoughts of him out brought memories of me doing similar things for months after my wife of 45 years died. I had no problem relating to that.
Thank you again for this. I enjoyed reading it several times.
Stay safe and enjoy life.
Paul
🐸🙏🏼
I really liked that short tale. I can find nothing I’d offer as advice or fault, and it read very smoothly.
The reason I wanted to comment is that it’s much like how I feel about my partner. My wife of 45 years snuggled against me like that and I always appreciated it. She snored like a HUGE diesel truck, but only turned over and started again if I tried rousing her. She also squirmed and twisted in her sleep and many times I woke with her feet in my face.
I have a new partner now, have for almost six years, but she doesn’t snore or squirm so my sleep is very peaceful. She also likes to snuggle and put her arm across me or hug me which I love. It’s a warm, fuzzy blanket of comfort I can snuggle into. I was 73 and she was 68 when we met and we both feel that what we have will last for as long as we survive. We both lost partners late in life and feel sorry for those that have no one to feel that comfort with.
Very good thoughts. Like the old saw says, “It’s much better to have memories than regrets when you get older.”
Hopefully your words will prompt some to wear masks and do the social distancing, because if too many don’t we won’t have a society to worry about the social aspects any more.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🐸🙏🏼
I like the picture. Seeing a dozen or more perform at the same time is an incredible experience. The drums and chanting get my heart really pumping and my whole body fills with energy. I came to understand the power of a War Dance.
I lived in north eastern Oklahoma for years. Mostly in Muskogee, Wagoner and Tahlequah, but 10 years in Sequoiah State Park when my mother was catering manager at Western Hills Lodge. I graduated from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, the Cherokee nation capitol. For years all I had were Native American friends. White killer and Hayes were the two biggest local families and they had a blood feud going in the older members that had been going on for a hundred years. An interesting time. One brother has lived in Nowata, 50 miles north east of Tulsa, for the last 50 years.
I lived with my grandparents for a year from 10 to 11 in Summerfield, south eastern Oklahoma near Poteau and attended a 1 room school for my 5th or 6th grade.
I have been to many Pow Wow’s and sweat lodge ceremonies.
Thank you for sharing that image.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
Thank you for that poem. I was not offended, and in fact enjoyed it quite a bit, it expressed much of how I feel. I refer to “It” (I cant use any reference that would make “It” seem human) as The Orange Stain and we need a good scrubbing to get rid of it. It’s too bad there isn’t a Tide we could wash all of the republicans in to remove any transfer.
Thank you again.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
🐸🙏🏼
I can not find anything that I think needs changing. Very good. A marvelous little bit of prose about love.
You caught me with “...her hand resting on my bony shoulder...” because that’s what my partner and I do. She rolls over against me and puts her arm across my chest and all of a sudden the world is okay again. It wakes me and I whisper, “Thank you.” and sometimes she’ll murmur “You’re Welcome,” but like in your words, I’m not sure she’s awake. She says it gives her comfort and she sleeps better. My wife of 45 years and I did that for all of those years before she died. Another found the emancipated bag-of-bones I’d become and convinced me I still had something worth saving and now she does that all the time. I love it.
“Life is a lot better when your with someone who loves you.”
Thank you again.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
That was beautiful, I’m still having trouble writing through the tears. All I can think about now is holding my wife’s hand and having to be drug away by my daughter. I kept saying, “But, she’s still warm.” She was 78 and I was 73. She’d been sick for a while and refused to admit it and an infection in her chest made it very hard to breathe. After me stopping everything, I owned a store, and staying home to try living for her for over a year I was sure she wouldn’t make it, but the reality hit me like a freight train. I’m convinced she finally just gave up fighting it.
I enjoyed it. It was well written and was captured by the first sentence. I wanted to know why he was struggling and out of breath. The next sentence explained that and added the question of why he was running.
Two things I noticed that might warrant another look. One was the line, “Well, I'm not stopping now, I said under my breath.” This is speech and I think it needs quotes around “ Well, I'm not stopping now,” the other was the line, "for at least five minutes." I’ve always been told the first word needs a capitol.
The story held together well Then the guards in the waking scene was a twist I didn’t expect. His reaction and the last line were spot on. It reminded me of a film I saw using Edward Munch’s painting, The Scream. A murderer tries to escape by going into what he thought was an idyllic scene, but winds up in the scream.
Thank you again for the story
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
I enjoyed your story, it took me on a roller-coaster ride from the first paragraph where I decided I needed to know why an obvious dweller in current times would think a. Hand scribed and illustrated book written on vellum would have been hidden in an attic for centuries. I got no sense of place from the text and, being American, assumed the US. In England or Europe it would be possible.
My next thoughts were, “Wow, a redo of Wilde’s, A Picture Of Dorian Grey, then that it had been inverted and the picture stayed young while the artist aged. I had a bit of logical problem with him discovering the grey in his comb even though he obviously used a mirror. I vividly remember my first greys at 28 while combing my hair, I used a mirror too.
My thoughts at the end were they’d find a mistake in how he’d used the incantations, but your twist to the sisters caught me completely off guard. I loved that, it brought the tale to life in my mind. It brightened the story into a new thing for me, not just a retelling with a simple twist, but a whole new telling of the tale.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🐸🙏🏼
I like this piece about two friends and a coffee cake. You have a very good feeling for descriptive words. For instance, “ The emerging leaves of fall danced with such an air of grace one could imagine the swirling colors were dancers leaping through the air.” I can Feel this on a deep level, it’s beautiful. I would change the first “... danced ...” with “... floated ...” then add some wind like, “... grace in the blowing winds one ...” these are suggestions only and my in words, you should use your own for any changes.
In your first sentence the word ‘Decend’ includes the meaning ‘Down’ so it can be eliminated. I’d pull the whole phrase and make it, “It was a chilly morning October 24th and as early rays of light began to coat the inhabitants in a warm glow, the earth woke.” Again, my words as a suggestion only, use your words for any changes.
The last sentences in the paragraph were beautiful, I could see and feel what you described, but two things bothered me. You say, “... beauty only to be beheld by the earliest of risers and the stillest of animals.” I don’t understand the allusion to stillest animals and the “... to be beheld ...” should be just “beheld. Suggestions only again.
There is more I could say, but I’ll stop here and say, thank you for sharing. You have some abilities with words that are going to get you noticed.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
🌹❤️😘🐸🙏🏼
Well, I’d go with the confrontation between two groups; the Educated scientists that are saying the best method to reduce the COVID-19 infection rate is to wear masks, and the “Lesser Educated” trump followers who believe they’re all part of a conspiracy because the mask traps the bacteria you breath out and carbon dioxide.
Supposedly you re-inhale the same bacteria that you just exhaled and it makes you sick and the level of oxygen in your blood decreases because you’re concentrating the carbon dioxide. For some reason they’re incapable of rational thought about it. You just exhaled the bacteria, IT’S PART OF YOU, so how can taking it back in make you sick, and people are doing marathons wearing a mask and if you were worried about oxygen depletion in your blood the fact that none have died from doing it would alleviate the fear.
My take is it’s easier to mouth what you’ve heard than thinking for yourself. They sound like the stupidest people on planet earth.
Good fortune with your contest. I think Flat-Earthers are just another wing of the new Lesser-Educated political party that’s been created. I want nothing to do with a group who works at remaining ignorant. We’re all ignorant about somethings, I can’t think like Stephen Hawking, but I keep trying to understand more. Working at remaining ignorant is a good definition of “Stupidity.”
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
I have no criticisms for your poem, just praise. I love what you’ve written.
Physically I’ve gone from a power lifter in my 20’s to needing a walker to stand up because half my spine is fused. I stand like a crippled question mark. I’ll be 78 in a couple weeks and I can feel my mind losing a lot of what I once was.
What you depict terrifies me. All I have left is my mind and memories now and I share them with a wonderful partner, but I’m terrified that I’ll lose more and be a burden to her. I was married for 43 years to a woman that loved me until she died in 2015. I quit working and spent the last two years trying to live for her, but failed. Alzheimer’s and dementia ate her mind then her body.
What you wrote is beautiful even if it does frighten me to think about.
Thank you for sharing your words with us.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
I appreciate your thoughts and comments more than I can express. Know that they are reciprocated in full measure.
This is a wonderful place to be. I appreciate everyone here, all of the comments and ideas I read, and all of the comments I get from those who read my words. I’ve learned as much about writing here as I have in any course or MOOC I’ve taken.
Thank you again. Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
❤️🌹🐸🙏🏼
I liked your story. It has a soft comforting feel when I read it.
There are a couple things I’ll mention. First, put more white space in the text, it makes it a much easier read. Also either indent each first paragraph line or put a blank line between them, again, it makes the reading a lot easier.
Also you could really tighten up the story by Telling less and Showing more. For instance the first paragraph rewritten to “Show” could be;
“Hazel thought she could hear sand grit scraping as she opened her eyes. Squinting eyes saw a heavy, wet snow falling outside the window to the right, the kind that stuck to your boots and turned into huge, clumsy ice feet that tripped you.” It’s only 44 vs 48 words and pulls the reader into her emotions by letting them add all the other details. These are my words and only a suggestion. It is your story and you should use your words.
There are other instances too, but this is an example.
Again, I enjoyed the story. Keep writing, this is a wonderful place to be. Very safe and many who will answer questions and help.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
That’s very good, being a Scott by birth I like the Celtic traditions. I only wear kilts too, I don’t even own a pair of long-sleeved diapers.
One thing I saw you might want to look at before closing time is the repetition of “...black space...” we already know he’s in black space. For me it interrupted the flow.
Just a thought I thought I’d pass on.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
🙏🏼🐸
That touched me on a very deep level. In my mind you wrote about my mother. She’s been gone for 31 years, but I still expect her to walk around a corner and say, “Where have you been?” I lie at night sometimes staring into the black void and think about her and everything she did for me and taught me. She had very bad arthritis though and her very wrinkled hands were just knots on the ends of her arms for the last 8 or so years.
That was a wonderful little piece and being an avid stage actor for years and well over a hundred productions that pretty much happened to me when I played Bill Simpson, Gary Merrill’s part in All About Eve, my first stage play. The scene where the ingenue came on to Simpson was difficult, I adored my wife and it seemed wrong to me so it was always clunky until my wife took the young woman playing Eve aside and told her, “Just grab his face and lay one on him.” It startled me into stammering and backing away and the 30 or so people watching applauded, whistled, yelled approval and the director said, “Keep it exactly like that!” I learned how to not expect what I knew was coming from that scene.
I can’t find anything to criticize in it. It caught my mind and took me back to 1977 and doing that play. My wife, gone 5 years now after 45 together, flooded back in and I got to live there for a short time. Thank you so much for that.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s a wonderful place to hang out.
I enjoyed this a great deal. It brought tears to my eyes and made me wonder about other parts of “The Old Mans” story. Who was she? Did the children walking past remind him of his? What was significant about the necklace? I was struck by the kindness of the drug store clerk or owner too, he was a kind, gentle man. I wonder what he did with the old mans “Treasures.”
I enjoyed this little moment in a life you describe. You pulled me into her world, all of the pain she suffered living in the doldrums for two years, then the glorious moment of success. For me it all takes place in a couple seconds in her mind.
I see the after story too, the hassle with the police. While they were ineffective because he had done nothing to her, she has definitely done something to him and will have to defend her actions. I think because of the history and that he has a gun in his hand she walks away free with her head held up, looking forward now, instead of fearful over the shoulder glances.
Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s a wonderful place to hang out.
I enjoyed your story, it was quite funny. The allusions for names you used got to me. Indamiddle was good, but Getmore 6 made me laugh. A worry that had first place in my mind for over 60 years, but at 77 has dropped several notches.
The only thing I noted that ou mighat think about is your line, “...but those shiny-sparkly things...” which goes against known data. The stars do not sparkle in the vacuum of space. The sparkle is caused by our atmosphere.
Thank you for sharing your story with us. Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s a wonderful place to hang out.
I liked that a lot. I’m still laughing at their conversation. Being 77 and needing new ears (I got programmable ones) I can relate to their verbiage.
I thought the interplay was great with each in their own little worlds and refusing to accept their situation. I can relate to that too being crippled too.
Thank you for sharing your story with us. I’m still laughing at their back and forth. Very good putting that together.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s a wonderful place to hang out.
That is very well done and expresses the site. It’s a site about words and all of those words tell part of its story. Mostly it’s the people who maintain it and I tell them that at every opportunity.
This is a beautiful way to show it. It might be well for them to want to use it.
Thank you for sharing your work with us. Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s a wonderful place to hang out.
I really enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Having been in the navy from 1959 to 1963 I knew several special forces and marines that shared some stories with me. You took me on a trip back through those memories in your setup of him. I believed every word of it.
Then the introduction of his wife and daughter was handled beautifully. A very smooth transition from his very rigid and dangerous persona to the loving husband and father. The way you used her to wrap a warm blanket around him to calm the savagery he’s holding.
Your last line was very good.
Thank you again. Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s a wonderful place to hang out.
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