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Zeniyama
03-27-2010, 11:06 PM
This is just a strange little (very) short story that I wrote while I was bored today...
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A young man in a nice, clean suit was walking down the street. A disheveled old man in rags was walking up the same street. When their paths converged, the old man stopped the young man, taking a hold of his arm and saying:

“Watch out! Up ahead! Danger from the sky!”

The young man freed himself from the old man’s grasp, and continued hurriedly walking in his original direction, mumbling:

“Damned crazy old bum!”

He walked on, upset by the disruption by the old man, beneath a building that was under construction. Two workers were fighting each other on one of the suspended beams, haphazardly knocking items off onto the street in the midst of their excited row. The young man was too blinded by his annoyance and embarrassment to realize that they had knocked down a heavy mallet, and that it was coming down directly on top of him.

“Crazy old coot!” he mumbled.

The mallet struck his head, and he died.

TheBearJew
03-28-2010, 03:52 AM
More a fable than a short story. All it's missing is a nice little descriptive sentence at the end and you've got a modern day Aesop.

lallison
03-29-2010, 01:03 AM
Interesting and with plenty of potential. It's nice the way it is, but you could develop it into something more. How did the old man know a mallet would fall on the young man's head? You could also put him through a course of suffering and hardships as opposed to dieing without ever knowing what hit him.

Why don't you give it a title?

Monamy
03-29-2010, 03:28 PM
Personally, I like how the story is titled Untitled (if it was your intention to name it like that or simply state that it's without a title, well... lol, I just like it)

I didn't really get much from it, forgive me if this comment sounds like it would pull you down, but I'm just trying to be honest. Instead of the man who died, maybe you could develop the story - after the man dies - by bringing something related to the old man who tried to warn him. The story screams supernatural, mysterious and fiction. The possibilities for this story's development are endless, you could build over this piece a lot. Leaving the reader to guess what actually happened is good, but don't leave him/her without a clue whatsoever on what could be the reason behind the story's events.

Was an interesting read, although short. Keep it up =3

+Pros:
Mysterious
Simple

-Cons:
Too short
Too open, an open story doesn't always mean bad, but it lacks clues and/or reason.