very short

[WolfLarsen]

A Terrorist Bombing
a short story by Wolf Larsen

It is a humble home in Afghanistan. The husband and wife and their three children (ages 13, 11, & 9) are all sitting down to eat. The youngest son is yelling and laughing loudly about something.
"Can we have a moment of quiet please?" asks the father.
As they all sit before their food the father thanks God for the food that they're about to eat. Then he faces his wife with a smile and thanks her too.
The husband and wife look at each other with tenderness.

The older son blurts out, "Enough of all your mushy lovey-dovey stuff! I'm hungry!"
The daughter says laughingly, "You're always hungry! Do you have a tapeworm?"
The older son just shakes his head and begins eating and everybody begins eating while the younger son tells everybody about what he did at school today.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them in the sky above their home a CIA drone is moving into position.

"One of my teachers Mr. D---- is so boring," says the youngest son. "But Mrs. L----‘s classes are not boring at all."
As Junior talks the cargo doors of the CIA drone open up and release a bomb. As the bomb falls through the air Junior continues talking:
"Mrs. L---- smiles a lot too. I wish my other teachers were more like her. Sometimes - "
And that was the last word that Junior said. There was a big crash, a scream, and then an explosion. The entire family was blown away into bits.

Copyright 2011 by Wolf Larsen. Advance permission is given to anyone wishing to do so to publish the above story without alterations as long as credit is given to the author, and the intent of such publication is not hostile.

[Steven Hunley]

One of the problems with this story is that it lacks authenticity. In fact, if we subtract the opening statement, that it occurs in Afghanistan, it could be anywhere. There's no hints beyond that where it occurs.
It could be any generic family. The boy has, in fact, even a woman teacher, which is hard to imagine in Afghanistan.

Along with that is the lack of tension. You might menton the drone circling earlier and place those sentences among the dinner descriptions in strategic places, i.e. the young boy, while talking about school makes circling patterns in his mashed potatoes (or rice) searching for peas, while the drone circles over head circling for terrorists, something like that.

Make it original and compelling, not like a news article on CNN. Try that approach, and make us love the characters,then we'll care when they bite the dust.

[cafolini]

The story is far more unlikely than likely. It could only happen very exceptionally and by mistake. It is not compelling because it lacks history, except as an exception. And as technology improves, it will be even less compelling. It's obvious propaganda.

[hillwalker]

It's obvious propaganda.

An attempt at propaganda, but unfortunately the writer has no comprehension of or inherent sympathy for family life in countries like Afghanistan. At worst it's disrespectful of the cultural differences and similarities between the two countries in order to take a cheap shot at the American Military Complex. It's as off target at the topic he writes about.

H

[Jack of Hearts]

Leave the man alone, he's revolutionizing literature.

Looking at pop culture in the US at least, literature needs a serious intellectual downgrade if it's going to be read by anybody anymore. In fact, let's just use pictures.








J

[cyberbob]

I was gonna chastize the above posters for evaluating your story based on its political message and not on its actual merits, but then I read it and, yeah, it's a piece of ****.

[Bewlay Brother]

The way you write dialogue is downright childish.

You apparently have less of a clue about Afghanistan culture than I do about how to use a tampon.

[Darcy88]

The story is far more unlikely than likely. It could only happen very exceptionally and by mistake. It is not compelling because it lacks history, except as an exception. And as technology improves, it will be even less compelling. It's obvious propaganda.

If you want compelling go check out some photos or film clips of bodies that have actually been blown to bits by predator drone attacks. I saw one showing a small boy, couldn't have been older than 7 or 8, missing an arm, crying, blood everywhere.

This story is agnozingly bad though. It reads like it hasn't been edited, not in the slightest bit revised. Its an insult to the readers on this forum. The core idea from which this abomination sprung could have been developed into a riveting and tragic piece. Instead we get this.

There is nothing wrong with rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and so on and so on and so on. The masters did it. To quote Hemingway - "I write 90 pages of **** for every page of masterpiece. I try to leave the **** in the trash can." Only laziness or misplaced confidence could lead to a piece like this being revealed to the light of day. Trash cans were invented for a reason, literature sharing forums for entirely another.

And its too political. Like your piece on the war profiteer you come entirely from one side, one view-point. In that piece you completely dehumanized the man, rendered him an over-simplified one-dimensional cartoon figure that I have trouble believing to truly anywhere exist. Don't let your politics overwhelm your art and drown out the complexity and ambiguity of reality.