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AlfredtheGreat
01-28-2011, 07:20 PM
I
Existentialism and the Pacific
Overcast. The water of the Pacific was the same gray as the sky. I had been driving for a few hours and got about a hundred miles north of San Francisco. No radio, just my thoughts. No passengers, I was by myself. I had always wanted to go to a deserted beach. Just like this one. I stopped, and pulled my truck over to the side of the road. I took a deep breath. My hair had gotten so long that it hung over my eyes like the curtain to a stage. I had been wearing the same jeans for three days now. My black shoes were muddied and cut up. My red flannel shirt was stained and wrinkled. I had a couple weeks growth of facial hair on my chin.
Opening the car door, I moved my legs toward the side and hung them over the side of the truck. I smoked one of the last few cigarettes I had. Flicked it on the ground and got out of the truck. Gently I closed the door. I walked out on to this beach enamored by the emotion that it evoked in me. I felt as though this was the only thing that I ever had to do in my life. It was about fifty feet from my truck to the beach.
I took a seat on the sand, picked up a rock and flung it out into the sea. Splash, waves broke on the beach. It was a calm day. The waves were in perfect rhythm. I counted the intervals between each wave. Splash, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, splash, always on time. I decide to lie down and look up at the sky. A group of seagulls passed by overhead, quickly I tried to count how many there were. It came out to about seven or eight, but they flew too fast for me to count them all. Anyways, I looked up and closed my eyes. The sounds of the waves crashing lulled me to sleep. I took on last deep breath and then passed into sleep.

II
The Itemization of My Truck
My truck was stocked with a few possessions. In the back was and old rope I used to tie down my furniture and boxes when I moved out of my old house. Inside there were wrappers from the food I had consumed on the trip to the beach. A bag of fast-food that was full of oil stains and still had the smell of a breakfast burrito lining the paper. A couple bags of chips were crumpled and strewn across the floor of the of the passenger side. On my mirror hung a small picture I had taken a few years before my trip. Behind the seats was a cooler with some drinks. Four cokes and three beers were leftover. In between the seats there was a crumpled up speeding ticket that I had to pay soon, one hundred and forty six dollars I had been fined. My backpack was behind the driver’s seat in it was a Biology textbook, some gym clothes, a pair of jeans, underwear, a white t-shirt, my iPod and about sixty dollars in cash. I also had three books resting on the passenger’s seat. I liked to pullover every once in a while maybe in a park or other beautiful setting a read. I had with me Les Miserables by Hugo, Great Expectations by Dickens and a copy of Hamlet for class.

everyadventure
01-28-2011, 08:02 PM
I like this character, this sloppy college boy with an eye for beauty.

I felt the piece was a little heavy on facts, and didn't delve deeply enough into emotion. He was "enamored by the emotion that it evoked in me..." Describe this emotion, give it a voice.

Part II reads like a checklist, which of course is the point. However, a few carefully selected adjectives would go a long way and lend weight to these items.

I'm interested to see what this character does next, I just might be developing a crush on him... :)

Jack of Hearts
01-28-2011, 08:21 PM
It captures that little something rather aptly. The itemization was this reader's favorite but he felt it deserved more restraint- it seemed out of form to mentiin these tangible actions like going to a park to read or having a copy of Hamlet qualified with the unnecessary 'for class.'

That aside, swap your Hugo and your Dickens for Joyce and Nabokov and you will have just described this reader's own vehicle with a considerable degree of skill.



J

AlfredtheGreat
01-28-2011, 09:26 PM
Thanks guys, I'll keep Goin with this story and post some more later on.

Delta40
01-28-2011, 09:33 PM
I think given the detail you provide so well, there must be something to keep the readers interest otherwise it will become entrenched and come to a halt. I expect you have a wonderful plot at hand....

AlfredtheGreat
01-28-2011, 10:28 PM
Oh, I do.

hillwalker
01-29-2011, 07:47 AM
I also felt the inventory of the truck's contents told us more about the character than the first part.
It just needs a little more fleshing out to bring him to life - even the suggestion that his quest has a purpose would keep one reading rather than the rather matter-of-fact description of a drive to the seashore.

A little tightening also needed - 2 x 'the side's in the first sentence of para. 2 rather glaring.

H