The Uninvited Guest

[DCEnderW]

A work in progress... any suggestions? I'm new.


Clarence lay awake, tired and restless. Acting on the latter, he got up and paced around his apartment. Clarence glanced at the clock. 2:20. He discovered he was doing his chores for tomorrow. Oh well, he thought, at least I don’t have to do it tomorrow. Inevitably, although he had been trying not to, he turned his mind to the dream he had awoken from only ten minutes before.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“I’ll be right there...”
The door burst open, a shower of splinters shooting like needles through the open floor plan of the apartment. A dark presence slipped through. Clarence didn’t know what the mysterious shadow was, but primal terror flooded him. Fight or flight? Flight! Clarence dashed around the thing and out of his apartment. It turned and swallowed him into darkness.
Clarence shook himself. “Ugh. Just a dream. Just a dream.”
Later, Clarence rose from his bed. He hadn’t slept. It was still dark outside. Clarence glanced at the clock. 5:55.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Clarence went cold. The knock he had heard sounded familiar. Too familiar. He suddenly knew the next thing he was going to say. “I’ll be right there...”

The door burst open, the shower of splinters shooting like needles through the open floor plan of the apartment. The dark presence slipped through like evil satin. Clarence felt the all too familiar terror wash through him. His dream, his fear, was coming to life.

“NO!” Clarence screamed. He ran, with the truest type of fear penetrating his soul.

The fight or flight instinct wasn’t present. There was no other Clarence than Clarence in motion. He had to get away. Panicking, he realized that his body was unable to run any further. The dark presence swallowed him.

Clarence awoke in a cold sweat. His clock read 2:10.

[hillwalker]

I really like the idea behind this - the margins between waking and dreaming, and the nightmare becoming reality as it repeats itself...

My only quibble would be the rather boring start. Does Clarence really need to do tomorrow's chores? and do we need to know how he feels about that? It seemed to derail the story even before it left the station.
If he's restless you need to feed on that - have him pour a drink and smoke a cigarette, flick through yesterday's newspaper or just stare at the blank tv screen. Anything except chores for goodness sake.

I'm not sure what the phrase 'open floor plan' of the apartment is supposed to mean - did the splinters shoot through the floor of the apartment (which was open plan)? or through the plan of the apartment? I'm assuming the former - in which case the fact that it's open plan is totally irrelevant and should be left out.

I also began to tire rather quickly of Clarence - his name crops up in almost every sentence (and it's such a dreadful name for a character to be lumbered with unless the story is meant to be humorous).
Try to vary your sentence structure - replacing the name with 'he' here and there.

H

[AuntShecky]

I have some general suggestions which seem to apply to your posting. You can find them in an earlier thread, "You Know I'll Stop Reading When." (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=657830#post657830)

(I read all of your story today, though.)

I have one other comment relative to the opening of your story, which, I am sorry to say, is not overwhelmingly original. Ever since Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" far too many short stories begin exactly the same way:

I can remember an article in a writer’s magazine in which an editor said that every time she received an unsolicited manuscript which begins with the protagonist waking up in the morning, she didn't read another word and shipped it right back to its author in the S.A.S.E. he so dutifully enclosed.

I posted that statement earlier this year in what had been intended as a helpful hint yet morphed into an inexplicably controversial (!) thread, called "How to Jumpstart Your Short Stories." (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60051)

I hope you'll continue to post your work on the LitNet. Thanks for the opportunity to read this one.