The Scream

[BobbyIce]

A car door slams, and the muffled sound penetrates into home. Some sporadic steps to the door, black heels clip-clopping against an asphault car-port. Keys jangling, a purse swaying and pushing up against a waist perpetually, grocery bags all gripped by the hanging plastic handles making deep red stress lines across the palms of a tired woman's hands. Fumbling for keys, a distressed exhale, and a desperate stab of key into keyhole. The door opens, sound and fury following after.
She drops the bags onto the table, rubs her temples, lets out dragons breath kept in at the dungeon all day. All the ingredients to beauty that kept the crows from dancing on her face had been used up by lunch; the wrinkles danced on her visage like drunken men dance with prostitutes they love.
Everything gets assigned to the cabinets, the refridgerator, the closet, the drawers. She sits on a stool afterwards, clicking her nails on the bar in the kitchen, tongue full of the power of death. Her muse walks in, innocent-eyed, knitting compassion with her expression.
"You wash clothes like I asked you?" along with the clicking fingers.
"Yeah, I did. How was work?"
"And dried right?"
"Yes."
"Okay, thanks. Good God it was hell today."
She pours a glass of water from the sink, gives it to the weary woman.
"I'm sorry about that, what happened?"
She drinks, she needs the moisture to speak," Just the same- same crap as every other day."
"Like what?"
"Hell I don't know Courtney, God. They copier ran out of ink and I spent so much damn time trying to fix it."
"Oh, I''m sor-"
"And noone even tried to freaking help me. God I hate it, I just don't understand it."
"Maybe you'll get promoted or something."
She laughs, "I don't know what you think my situation is Courtney. All the hell they give me they wouldn't do anything for me, or anyone else, they're selfish, thats how they are."
"Well a-"
"Have you done your school stuff for today? I hope you haven't been in this house not doing anything. I know you get lazy when I'm not around."
"Yeah I've been working on it, I-"
"But is it done?"
"It's hard but I'm getting it, I'm almost done with it."
"You had best finish it Courtney I'm not paying your way for school for nothing, you have to try in return, are you trying?"
"Yes moma, I am. I make good grades."
Her eyes had been turned away, they remained that way,"You did dishes right?"
She puts one hand in the other in discomfort,"Yes moma I got it done, I did everything."
"Don't get an attitude."
Nose points down," I'm not, I'm sorry-"
"Especially after everything today and you don't even have half of what I needed you to do done and now I can't rest. God forbid I can lay down Courtney."
"I got it done moma." Arms fold up.
"Yeah I'm sure Courtney, I'm sure." Exhales. She doesn't take in many breaths of air, "Take out the trash, come in and do your school stuff, I'm gonna change."
She grunts and plops her feet down, the heels cutting and tearing up skin on her feet.
Hesitation, but Courtney's body doesn't move out of her mother's way.
"Um, moma?"
She stops and preoccupies herself with taking off earrings, "Yes?"
Cup of silence.
"What Courtney, what?"
"I haven't been feeling too well."
"About what? What is it now?"
"I just- I'm- I don't feel, well, I guess."
An agressive look, eyes like buzz saws.
"Yeah you said you didn't feel well but what the hell are you talking about? What's wrong? Remember last time? How can I know what's wrong with you if you don't say it? Is there anything wrong with you? Do you just want to whine?"
Lips pierced shut. Introverted tingling. Lumps in the throat like Appalacian mountains.
"I'm not- happy I guess. I don't know moma I feel bad, I just feel bad."
Smacking lips and discarded concern.
"You don't know because it's nothing Courtney. You don't know what feeling bad is, try doing what I do. Could you?"
She doesn't say anything. She tries to think, but she's too far deep to come up for air. She can't be baptized if she drowns. She was drowning.
"See? It's not so bad just lounging around here and going to school on my money is it? Now can I pease go?"
"Yes, moma."
"No Courtney, if you feel bad come on, tell me whats the matter? Or are you okay now? If so I don't wanna hear this anymore."
Her head weighs a thousand pounds, but she's still able to shake it back and forth once. The last transmission sent into the cold heavens.
"Well alright then. Do what I said. You haven't even told me I love you today Courtney. Thinking a little too much about you and your 'hard' times." She laughs like they are both supposed to find what she said warm..
Courtney closed her eyes. Everything became invisible for a second. Her mother drug herself enervated down a corridor.
She screams.
A livid, disembowling shriek busting the air open.
Moma looked back at her, she was gone.

Later they talked about it. The next day they talked about work again. The next day her mother joked about the scream. The next day she got mad and scolded Courtney for forgetting something. The next day they talked about work again. The next day they conversed about work again. The next days went on and on.
Echoes of the scream ought to be passing back around to their side of the planet by now, but they were blotted out by the penetrating sound of a car door shutting, and the clip-clop of heels on asphalt into a car-port.

[hillwalker]

There's a lot about this that I liked. The neat plot circle, the intentional repetitions at the end telling so much about this dysfunctional family's situation, and some of the clever descriptions at the beginning.

But there are a couple of things that would lift this even higher.

Firstly - there are rather too many metaphors in the opening part - drunken men dancing with prostitutes was one too many. Overwriting can often detract from what you've already done - and this is a classic example. But the damage can be easily undone - just cut that tiny bit out.

Also we don't need to be told the keys were in 'a tired woman's hands' - we can figure out she's a woman from the sound her shoes make, and you've already shown how tired she is by the way she struggles from her car into the house. Overstating the situation by making such a telling statement again undermines all the good work that went before.

My only other quibble is that the dialogue goes on far too long - it's like it's never going to lead anywhere. And people rarely almost never say the name of the person they are speaking to when talking to them (check it out if you don't believe me - it's a known fact writers should bear in mind) so having the mother say 'Courtney' in almost every sentence sounds unnatural.

Other than that a great posting.

H

[BobbyIce]

Im taking all of that into mind, it actually really helps me, thank you. Although I'm not so sure people don't use name repitition of the like in reality, especially under stress, but I agree it would serve to positively modify the text to use more conventional dialogue. But again, thank you for the insight.

[cyberbob]

I liked it. You ever thought about writing it as a play? You kind've dipped into that when you wrote "exhales" instead of "she exhales/d". Added brackets and that would've been a stage direction.

I say this because I almost felt like not reading anymore because all the dragons in dungeons, crows dancing, and drunk men with prostitutes stuff seemed like self indulgent writing. Afterwards it was good, though, and I would gladly read the story if you continued it.

I may be biased, though. I love reading plays!

[AuntShecky]

Your opening reads more like a treatment for a screenplay rather than a short story. If you decide to write in the fiction genre, one of your most important tools is the artfully constructed sentence. Varying the lengths and the types of sentences also serve to speed up/slow down the pace of the narrative as well as providing effective rhythm.

So my first suggestion is that you should practice writing good, coherent sentences.

I concur with the previous commentators concerning the dialogue. Dialogue can be another tool to help "show" (rather than tell) what's going on in the story. It's better,however, to break up solid blocks of dialogue with transitional sentences. It's perfectly reasonable to use a "she said" or a "Courtney said" now and then. There are plenty of ways to establish who is speaking other than by direct address, too much of which is in your dialogue. By the way, start a new paragraph with each change of speaker.

As a matter of fact, always skip a space between paragraphs.

The fatal flaw in this story isn't so much the dialogue, but the imagery. A metaphor or a simile only works if the reader can picture it in her mind's eye or hear it in her mind's ear;the image must have something in common with real life. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of meaningless words clumped together.

Perhaps you've heard of the annual "Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest," named after the notorious author of "It was a dark and stormy night." The contest awards a prize to the writer of the (deliberately) worst opening sentence of a hypothetical work of fiction. Every year the winning entry contains egregiously excessive imagery.

Not to say that your imagery is as bad as Bulwer-Lytton's imitators, but I'm begging you to think thoroughly through any kind of image you put on the page (or computer screen.) For instance, there may be a certain way "drunken men dance with prostitutes they love," but there is no way, neither realistically nor figuratively, that that image can match up with "wrinkles danced on her visage." By the way, know when to use "like" and "as" in a simile.

Similarly, dump descriptions like this: "lumps in the throat like the Appalacian [sic] mountains." (It reminds me of the mistake folks often make about "literally"--"She was literally as big as a house.")

Speaking of which, avoid clichés "like the plague."


The rest of my comment on this piece repeats much of what I suggested to Alex77 whose posting appears elsewhere in the current short story sharing queue:

It might be a good idea to read copious amounts of contemporary fiction, both online and from some good anthologies to be found in your public library.

Also, you could try out this link, just for laughs:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=41000


Be obsessive about proofreading. Sweep it for typos and spelling errors. (Use a dictionary; don't exclusively rely on Spell-Check. For instance, the missing second "e" in "disemboweling," the "h" in "Appalachian", etc.)

Learn how to use the apostrophe appropriately, for instance, "dragon's breath," Cf.:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56601

Correct careless pronoun mistakes. Double check the grammar. Keep going over your story until you can't stand looking at it anymore.

Then do it one more time.

[APEist]

...

Damn, she's still got it.