The Gift (273 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0.5 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by fluffy_love (View user info) at 2007-09-13 01:43:46 EDT
They met on a Friday. He approached her, started a conversation, bought her drinks, and they went back to her place. It seemed easy, and it was. They were both adults, and they knew what they wanted.
Later, as he was getting dressed to leave, they made plans to meet on the next Friday. As he was buttoning his shirt he met her gaze for the first time since they had left the bar and said "you know, you have stunningly beautiful eyes."
She froze. This was not in the script. The compliments were supposed to stop in the bar. By now they were supposed to have moved on to compliments and apologies or confessions and promises, depending on how the sex had gone. To fracture their mutual shield of ritualistic bullshit was the emotional equivalent of poking pinholes in the condom: neither one knew what they were being exposed to. It was an unspoken rule of one night stands.
He seemed a little embarrassed, and their mumbled goodbyes were awkward.
She went back to the bar the following Friday. She came a half hour early because she was nervous and wanted to have a drink before they met. She needn't have bothered. When the place closed and she stood up to leave, she caught her eyes in the mirror behind the bar and paused, then walked home.
He didn't come the next Friday, or the one after that, or the one after that. Friday after Friday she dressed up, put on a little makeup (always mascara), and went and sat at the part of the bar that she could see her reflection from. Every now and then someone would try to start a conversation with her, and she would tell them she was waiting for someone.
He didn't come back to the bar for five months.
A group of men came into the place like a party on legs. They were loud, happy, already drunk, and still dressed for the office. They took over a table in the back of the room, and she forgot them.
Then she saw him.
Sitting at the table he was just another stranger celebrating some stupid shit with the guys from work. But he wasn't just another stranger. He was her stranger.
She sat for an hour and watched him drink with the office monkeys before he broke away from the group to use the bathroom. She caught him on his way back. She greeted him, and he looked surprised but returned it. There was no recognition in his eyes. She took it in stride and played it out like they had never met.
After just a half hour of talking and drinks he went and told his friends at the loud table that he was heading out, and they went back to her place. He didn't recognize it.
She had thought about his return to her bedroom often, and had wanted to make love to him, but he was drunk. He rutted like a pig, without rhythm or coordination, came in her, and flopped off of her onto his back, awake but with his eyes closed against the spinning room. She asked him if he liked her eyes. He said "yeah, sure" then snored.
She lay next to him on her bed, her fingers laced under her breasts. His come leaked out of her. Her lips pressed together, a tear detached from her open, wet eyeball and rolled down her temple.
She got out of bed and found his wallet in his pants. She folded it open and started looking through his pictures, but stopped when she saw a photograph of him with his wife and child. She didn't want to see that.
She Took out his driver's license and copied his address. She returned his wallet, got into bed, and cuddled up against him.
When she woke up he was gone.
That afternoon she went to the address. It wasn't as nice as she'd hoped.
She slowly walked up to the door and stood directly in front of it. She bowed her head and covered her eyes with her fingertips.
She took a breath for courage.
She pressed in.
She pushed her long elegant nails into the pink meat that filled the cavity behind her eyes. She squirmed in and behind until she found her optic nerves. When she had each on pinched between her fingers jerked her head back and pulled her eyes out.
Silently, she felt down the door until she found the mail slot. She dropped the wet little orbs through.
She turned around and found the sound of traffic. She walked into it.
User Reviews
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2007-09-14 16:49:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
She pushed her long elegant nails into the pink meat that filled the cavity behind her eyes. She squirmed in and behind until she found her optic nerves. When she had each on pinched between her fingers jerked her head back and pulled her eyes out.
Silently, she felt down the door until she found the mail slot. She dropped the wet little orbs through.
She turned around and found the sound of traffic. She walked into it.
My ex made me want to do this to meself EVERYDAY.
"Cuntamental" is what we call it.
Submitted by fluffy_love (user info) at 2007-09-14 06:43:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks again for the invaluable feedback. I'm going to rewrite it soon (with your pointers firmly in the back of my mind) and may or may not repost it depending on how well it turns out. I guess I'll just treat this as a rough draft.
P.S.
I don't want to sound like I'm kissing your ass but even your reviews are a pleasure to read.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-09-13 19:08:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by ICO (user info) at 2007-09-13 17:03:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well, let me first detract from this +2 the fact that I am slightly drunk.
Further, I realise the post was an in-one-sitting kind of thing, and some grammar and spelling is incorrect, I díd like the ending. It's unbelievable, sure, but it made me laugh.
Submitted by Zampano (user info) at 2007-09-13 11:09:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm a big proponent of anonymous characters, but, as was king of pointed out, this thing was absolutely choked with pronouns.
I am of the opinion, like kaos, that it could be salvagable, or at least a stepping stone to a future, better piece.
But what do I know? My stories are shit.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-09-13 10:59:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I think this is totally salvageable.
There were some great lines in this. Hell, the one I pointed out would actually be quite brilliant if reworked properly.
Formatting was the biggest issue, I think - It stopped most people from even reading it. I use 1.5 spacing with a full space between paragraphs. Editing would be next. The grammar wasn't a problem, and you just need to run it through spellcheck. Make sure you break up paragraphs into more concise thoughts.
Now for substance. I think it was the transistion from a skewed romantic tale to gorefest that was hard to swallow. While the end was shocking, it was also unbelievable. With a tale like this, you need to drop subtle hints about the character's underlying instability, her descent into madness. You did that somewhat with her going back to the same bar every single Friday for 5 months, but beef up that obsession a bit. Perhaps tour around her head a little bit during these 5 months. Also, perhaps draw out the ending a bit - I found it too blunt, too immediate.
I think this story was one of the foremost cases of a tale with "soul," with essence, just not presented at its best...
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2007-09-13 10:40:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
WTF?
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-09-13 10:36:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I actually didn't mind this aside from the horrific format. the ending, while unbelievable is entertaining. With much refinement this would almost remind me of one of ghola's messed up tales.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-09-13 03:44:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
How about involving some talking animals next time, say two cats.
Submitted by fluffy_love (user info) at 2007-09-13 03:21:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-09-13 01:53:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
1- Bad formatting. Needed broke into many more paragraphs.
2 - Bad editing. (example) "The compliments were supposed to stop in the bar. By now they were supposed to have moved on to compliments and apologies or confessions and promises, depending on how the sex had gone."
3 - Bad ending. Completely unbelievable...
thanks for the feedback. im a big fan of your posts, and the fact that you even read my little story means a lot to me. the reason it reads like it does is because i was trying to think up an idea and type it out in one quick bang. i didn't even read over it. i do that to give it a sloppy unrefined feel that can work well for splatterpunk, (see my only other post on uber- it came out a lot better) but i guess it imploded on me this time. same with the ending: i tried to just force it without thinking about it; sometimes it works, this time it didn't.
about the formating- when i typed it up the paragraphs were mostly one or two lines long. the longest one was i think the third one in, the one that starts "She froze...", but when i pasted it into the submit box i lost all my indentations. it was a technical thing.
but yeah, once again i really respect your opinion and appreciate your feedback. if you think it's salvageable i'd love to give it a rewrite and get your opinion on a final draft.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2007-09-13 02:24:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Do you think you could have used the word 'She' a few more times?
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-09-13 01:53:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
1- Bad formatting. Needed broke into many more paragraphs.
2 - Bad editing. (example) "The compliments were supposed to stop in the bar. By now they were supposed to have moved on to compliments and apologies or confessions and promises, depending on how the sex had gone."
3 - Bad ending. Completely unbelievable...