Eternal Company

[Requiem]

I'm experimenting with my writing. I wrote this in a short time and limited myself to less than 300 words. I will appreciate any feedback as I want to see if I have accomplished to get my character and story through with such few words.

Also English is not my native language so bear with me.

Thank you.
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What if it’s all a lie? What if our perceptions have nothing to do with the reality? Of course, the term “reality” means totally different concepts to everyone within their own perception so how can we even think that the “reality” is beyond our perception. How can we name something that we can’t perceive? Maybe the important question is, does it really matter. Does it really matter that the suffering I went through was all a lie. Does it matter the happiness I once felt was just an illusion. I can still feel her, real or not. I can still see her, vague or clear, sometimes even, smell her, on somebody else. That means she is real. That means she is as real as anything can get. If she is not, If one more person, one more soul, tells me that she is not, and claims that I’m insane -I’ve had enough- It means that I’m right. It means that everything we perceive, everything we beleive can be a lie. It means the pain her eyes burying on my pupils everytime I saw them, the lonelyness I felt with her company, the regret my hands, my tongue felt have to be an illusion too.

Does it really matter now? Do I look like I care if this pain is real or not. It killed me, maybe for thousand times. My mind is weary, yet what it beleives is real. I wanted her gone, years ago, it brought her back. Now I’m gonna be with her, forever.

[hillwalker]

I would hesitate to call this a 'story' - it's the internal dialogue of a writer questioning perception in general and his reaction to an unspecified female person.

We are able to share some of the writer's insecurities (his painful sense of doubt) but it comes across a little too self-absorbed to make for very interesting reading. Without knowing more about the narrator, or the history between him and the subject of his obsession, it is quite difficult for the reader to engage with him or his situation.

Your writing is high calibre - and the final short paragraph is smart enough to be read more than once without being dismissed as meaningless rhetoric.

But we need a little more flesh on the bones of the characters to transform this from a theoretical scenario to one involving real, breathing human beings with their own set of emotions and aspirations.

An admirable attempt all the same.

H

[Requiem]

First of all, thank you for your criticism.

You are right to hesitate calling this a story. With a short inner monologue, I tried to give hints that can be formed as a background by readers. Nothing is obvious, nothing meant to be. The narrator could be many things. Because of that it became self-absorbed.

After reading it a few times more, it occured to me that it stands more like an introduction to a comprehensive story to follow than a story on its own.

Again, thank you for your comment.

[hillwalker]

You are very welcome.

As an introduction to a longer piece, yes it would work.

But as the start to a short story there is probably still too much internalised exposition and circular argument to grab the reader's attention.

Good luck if you intend expanding this.

H

[sweety]

Worked into a short story I think it would work. Keep it coming.