The Wiz

Hello, this is the first chapter of a little story I wrote :) If people actually show interest in it (what would be totally awesome^^), I will also upload the following chapters. English is not my mother tongue, so if something sounds weird and just not right -I'm afraid it was not born out of artistic freedom, but rather simple nescience. So feel free to tell me all your thoughts - I'm eagerly awaiting them :D

Like a breath of fresh air

He heard blah. He saw blah. And he felt blah. It ended with the final, finishing blah:
“…and don’t even THINK about showing up again, unless you’ve got it all worked out!”
After shouting that and pounding her fist on the table, she whirled around and banged the door behind her. Mr. Abel Cole sat on his chair, shrunken and with his tormented I-just-got-told-off-face. He could hear how the sound of Mrs. Evans’s angrily clicking high heels died down. He sighed. If he were to describe his life it would be a simple “going all the way down” and the timing of his boss was as brilliant as ever. After sighing a second time he picked himself up and fetched his coat and his hat. He went by some colleagues and subordinates and shared some half-hearted greetings. Right after he left the building he casted a glance at his workplace and even managed a tiny smile. It was the headquarter of “Balmy Entertainment”, the TV station that used to broadcast all of his favourite cartoons when he was a kid. He shook off his nostalgia, made the first step and slowly walked towards the park. While putting one foot in front of the other, he stared blankly aground and rethought his conversation with Mrs. Evans. It was like she had voiced all his diffuse thoughts and anxieties inside his mind and transformed them into accusations and reasons for him to get fired. Terrific. He pouted and felt terribly offended, but he could see her reasoning. She was right. Right now his life was nothing. Nothing, but standing up, working, lying down and standing up. And he didn’t even do real work. The days blended into each other, every day seemed like the last and like the next and he had lost sight of everything that had once been important to him, the things that made his days distinctive and special. They were all gone and everything was the same.
So Mrs. Evans had sent him on something she called an “unlimited holiday”, until he was able to work again. In fact he was fired until he managed to cure his helplessness and his disorientation in life and time, so that he would be a valuable employee again. Life was unfair. But, man, she was right! He really was not able to work. He had been stuck with paperwork for over five years now and he couldn’t even get that right. The numbers and letters blurred in front of his eyes and his right hand, holding the pencil, felt like it weight tons. Lifting his hand had become his everyday struggle and he hardly managed. Sometimes he just sat at his desk, motionlessly, and felt his eyes becoming weary, tired and old, while everybody around him eagerly scribbled on their papers. Didn’t they know that their work was futile? After this paper there would be a new one. And a new one. And…
Without realizing it he had reached the park. It was actually a nice and warm afternoon in spring. The time of the year when the flowers started growing and romantic feelings awakened, but Abel Cole did not see any of it. He looked around, scarcely moving his sleepy head. The colours around him looked dull and fake. As if he had stumbled into the “Shows for Children”-Section, where everything was love, peace and harmony and everyone seemed to own a storage for boundless joy. Gross.
That was the moment he saw the person who would turn his life upside down. It was Okay.
Suddenly everything seemed to be Okay.
“...like that, then you will get... a... pigeon!”, the young boy shouted and pulled a pigeon out of his shirt. The group of children who had flocked around him enthusiastically clapped their hands and laughed. “Again!”, they demanded, “Again! Again!”
Mr. Cole cautiously approached the unbelievably slaphappy group of kids and watched the little black boy shake his head and say “Nah, sorry. But I never perform a trick twice- that’s against the rules”
The children seemed horribly disappointed, when he suddenly went towards a girl and said “Oh, Amanda, isn’t that...? There on your face...” The girl was startled and started fidgeting around. He smirked, reached out to her, stopped for a moment, looked back at his audience, grinned and pulled a huge flower out of her ear. Everybody was impressed and they clapped again, while the boy bowed in front of the girl and offered her the peony that she gladly took, while being as red as the flower in her hand. The black boy turned around and suggested “Hey, how about the one with cube? That one’s really good! But you have to watch REAL close, alright?” They simultaneously nodded and Mr. Cole could see the excitement in their faces.
“Alrighty-o!”, he shouted energetically and, while turning to a bag at his feet to get a few things, he mentioned “Right. For this I will need somebody from the audience!” The children immediately started rushing forwards, but Mr. Cole had already stepped in front of him.
“Please take me”, he said, surprising himself.
The boy looked up at him and was obviously taken aback, but then he laughed and said “Well, we can’t say no if he wants it so badly, can we?” The others joined his laughter and shouted “Sure, let him do it!” “Yay, this is gonna be fun!” “Yeah!” “Show us, ol’ man!”
The boy clapped his hands, looked up at Mr. Cole again, smiled and said “Okay, Mister. Will you tell us your name or do you want to remain anonymous, so that your colleagues won’t ever get wind of this?” The children laughed.
He smiled before he knew it “I’m Abel Cole”
“Mr. Cole, then. Please choose a number between 0 and 10 and tell me”
“Err...0” That figured.
“Okay, 0 it is...”, he pulled out a sugar cube and a pencil and wrote a zero on the former. Holding it in his left hand he told the audience “Everybody heard it? He said 0, right?”The children nodded.
“Good”, he picked a cup of water up from the floor and let the cube fall in, before he took Mr. Cole’s right with his left hand and pulled it over the cup. Still holding it, he promised “And what you’re gonna see now is nothing other than magic...”
Directly staring at Mr. Cole’s hand over the cup with the water and the cube with the 0 in it, he raised his right hand and shouted “RUN LIKE THE WIND!”
It was silent for a few seconds. What about it?, Mr. Cole wondered. The black boy confidently looked right into his eyes and said “Please look at your hand now” Silently and cautiously Mr. Cole turned his hand around. He gasped.
On the inside of his hand was now... the number 0.
He couldn’t believe it.
What he couldn’t believe wasn’t all that much that this little boy had just pulled a magic trick on him that he didn’t see through. What he couldn’t believe was that he was happy again.

Interesting start! The description of his depressing drags a little as long melodrama tends to, but overall I'd like to see where you were going with this. Not bad at all.

Hi there!
I read your first chapter. Good points, bad points.
Good points - Your two opening lines are brilliant. One of the best hooks I've read in a while. The language is slightly tilted, and there's real edge to it. In fact the strongest thing about this piece is your writing ability. Your sentences are charged and full of emotion. You have a definite and original way of saying things. That's exceptional. Great news for you. I'm not sure why you bothered to state that English is your second language, because your English here is better than most people who's it is their first language.
Bad points - Story telling. I had to re-read, and re-read, and re-read again to get the picture that the man started this story at work. You make mention of his boss and colleges, but it's not enough. A setting should be clear at all times. The setting was clear in the park, but not at the beginning.
Point of interest - your story needs more conflict. Yes, your protagonist is upset, not enjoying his job ... but that is hardly enough to make an interesting story. What's even worse is that by the end of the chapter he's happy again. Why bother reading chapter two?!
As a short story, this might work with a few minor touch ups. As a first chapter you need to give a clearer impression of where this story is going, what the readers are to expect, and why they should continue reading.
Hope these comments are helpful! ;)

I personally didn't need to be told Mr. Cole was in work so there's no need to add unnecessary detail.

As for the story itself - yes, a good opening sentence that makes the reader sit up and wonder why. (Not so keen on 'final, finishing blah' - no need for both).

But I have to admit I quickly became bored with your main character. He's a Mr. Nobody with nothing to attract the reader's curiosity.

He shook off his nostalgia, made the first step and slowly walked towards the park. While putting one foot in front of the other, he stared blankly around and rethought his conversation with Mrs. Evans.

The underlined parts don't drive the story forward. Rather they drag it down like lead boots.

And the paragraph : She was right. Right now his life was nothing. Nothing, but standing up, working, lying down and standing up...... everything was the same.
is guaranteed to bore the socks off any reader.


We need you to give us some insight into his state of mind not a tiresome list of rather banal observations. I know nothing more about Mr. Cole than when I began reading this. You have to show us what's going on inside his head. Allow us to see his life through his eyes - his torment, his frustrations and his ennui - in a way we can relate to.

And the sudden change in the plot - where he seems to have an epiphany. It seemed terribly unlikely. What made him change his attitude to life so dramatically? You're the writer - it's your job to convince us this would really happen.

Well-written, but I'd need more to keep me interested than what you have here so far.

Good luck.

H