benja
10-29-2010, 07:18 PM
I'd appreciate some feedback on this one. Incomplete, and this is a first draft. The long sentences/paragraphs are deliberate, but it may still be too much. Not so worried about characterization yet (i'll get to that), so just general thoughts. Please, you can be cruel!
The key isn't doing its job. Again. Keep it turned to the right and pull the door to you, the janitor had said. Pull hard, but not too hard, he'd tell her, each time she called him on the intercom, nerves beginning to fray and blood pumping through her heart a little faster; kicking itself out of rhythm for a moment when it occurs to her that she may be late. She is not somebody who likes to be late, so she should really just leave the ****ing door, it looks as if its closed anyway, all the apartments are locked, the janitor will be ambling around somewhere within like New York's most amiable guard dog, so why not leave and get on with getting to where she needs to be, in time and presentable, not running red-faced and dry mouthed into the office looking like she is in the first stages of a conniption.
She could leave the door, but the other tenants - there are five of them, on three floors- one will come and find the door like this. News of the outrage will spread fast through the brownstone. No question of where to place the blame; every other occupant has, at some point in time, stood with her on the step, talking her through the Door-Closing-Procedure as it had been told - verbatim - to them. Not one of them had encountered the problem themselves, they'd said, leading her to conclude that they'd been taught the Procedure for her benefit, even the cocksure fortysomething on the second floor who had waded in like a balding John Wayne with a 'well hello little lady' smirk even though they were about the same age and told her to forget the key and just pull the ****er, hard, the latch'll have no choice, and who was probably the one responsible for breaking the lock anyway. Perhaps he'd had trouble pulling it closed, too; decided to solve the problem by summoning the alpha-male within.
Anything you can do... - she turns the key back to the left and pulls it out, grips the brass handle and prepares to pull the hell out of it. She doesn't like to be late, can't remember when she has been anything less than a half hour early for anything.
The handle is thin and held in by only two screws. Most pull the door shut with the key in the lock and don't touch the handle. It isn't built for this. The twist-and-tug, yeah, but not the pull-and-slam. She imagines these as sporting events; one could be judged on the speed at which the handle peels itself away from the hardwood, or the noise levels in decibels at which it does so. Or how many graceless little somersaults one could perform as one tumbles down the ten or so steps. Points for poise and landing rear first on the wet flagstones of the street below, where muddy evidence of the attempt could be concealed by a subsequent trip back up the steps to the apartment (the kicking down of a door factored in) and the acquisition of a slightly longer coat. Points deducted for the cracking of a rib or collarbone, or a traumatic brain injury -
...I can do better, she thinks, and leans in, building momentum.
The key isn't doing its job. Again. Keep it turned to the right and pull the door to you, the janitor had said. Pull hard, but not too hard, he'd tell her, each time she called him on the intercom, nerves beginning to fray and blood pumping through her heart a little faster; kicking itself out of rhythm for a moment when it occurs to her that she may be late. She is not somebody who likes to be late, so she should really just leave the ****ing door, it looks as if its closed anyway, all the apartments are locked, the janitor will be ambling around somewhere within like New York's most amiable guard dog, so why not leave and get on with getting to where she needs to be, in time and presentable, not running red-faced and dry mouthed into the office looking like she is in the first stages of a conniption.
She could leave the door, but the other tenants - there are five of them, on three floors- one will come and find the door like this. News of the outrage will spread fast through the brownstone. No question of where to place the blame; every other occupant has, at some point in time, stood with her on the step, talking her through the Door-Closing-Procedure as it had been told - verbatim - to them. Not one of them had encountered the problem themselves, they'd said, leading her to conclude that they'd been taught the Procedure for her benefit, even the cocksure fortysomething on the second floor who had waded in like a balding John Wayne with a 'well hello little lady' smirk even though they were about the same age and told her to forget the key and just pull the ****er, hard, the latch'll have no choice, and who was probably the one responsible for breaking the lock anyway. Perhaps he'd had trouble pulling it closed, too; decided to solve the problem by summoning the alpha-male within.
Anything you can do... - she turns the key back to the left and pulls it out, grips the brass handle and prepares to pull the hell out of it. She doesn't like to be late, can't remember when she has been anything less than a half hour early for anything.
The handle is thin and held in by only two screws. Most pull the door shut with the key in the lock and don't touch the handle. It isn't built for this. The twist-and-tug, yeah, but not the pull-and-slam. She imagines these as sporting events; one could be judged on the speed at which the handle peels itself away from the hardwood, or the noise levels in decibels at which it does so. Or how many graceless little somersaults one could perform as one tumbles down the ten or so steps. Points for poise and landing rear first on the wet flagstones of the street below, where muddy evidence of the attempt could be concealed by a subsequent trip back up the steps to the apartment (the kicking down of a door factored in) and the acquisition of a slightly longer coat. Points deducted for the cracking of a rib or collarbone, or a traumatic brain injury -
...I can do better, she thinks, and leans in, building momentum.