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Sat 22 Feb, 2003 03:11 pm
An icy gust of wind pushed her back as she got off the bus at her usual stop and walked the next hundred yards or so to the first corner. She turned right, but paused briefly after a few steps. Her subconscious told her that something was different, out of place, but her conscious mind hadn't yet caught up. It took her a moment to realize that the street lights were out. She couldn't see the two blocks that led to her street. She searched the windows of the homes around her hoping to see light, but there was none. She told herself it was too early, that the rush hour was just beginning. Just because she could take off from work an hour early didn't mean the entire neighborhood had that luxury. She gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the blackness. Panic threatened to enter her mind, but she kept calm. She remembered an article she'd read months ago about women in dangerous situations. She heeded the author's sage advice now. Rather than try to shrug off her fear, she embraced it. In her mind, she repeated the words from the magazine: "Fear is good; it heightens the senses. Fear keeps us cautious."
She looked toward the sky as her bright green eyes became more accustomed to the dimness of the night. "Thank God." Came the whisper from her lips. The winter storm moving in had brought with it thick clouds that reflected the city lights well enough for her to make her way home. She chose to remain on the sidewalk in spite of her mishap this morning. On the way to the bus stop, she'd slipped and almost fallen several times before she had given up the sidewalk for the street. She knew she couldn't walk in the street now because her wool coat was black; it would be too difficult for the driver of anoncoming vehicle to see her. Just as she'd cursed them that morning, she cursed her neighbors now for being too lazy to shovel in front of their houses. Fortunately that afternoon had been unseasonably warm and she found much of the ice and snow had melted away while she was at work. Still, she was alert and on her guard.
She looked at this blackout as an opportunity to curl up on the sofa with a good book, about ten candles burning, and a cup of chai tea. With any luck, the power would be out all night. Tomorrow was her day off so she could immerse herself in her solitude for hours if she wanted to. She hoped this blackout extended as far as her house. If she remembered correctly from the last time the lights went out, the three family apartment
house in which she lived was the last building on the line. Her neighbors next door might have power, but she wouldn't. What if she did? She grinned to herself as she thought, "Nothing's stopping me from pretending I don't." Her book and two cats awaited her.
Fingers of anxiety tickled her brain as she pressed on. The furnace had an electric start. Even though she had gas heat, if she didn't have electricity, she'd be in the cold in a few hours. The 1920's pseudo-Victorian which she'd thought so charming when she'd moved in seven years ago suddenly looked like a coffin to her. There was virtually no insulation in the walls; the windows were original and hopelessly drafty. On a windy night like this, the curtains in the living room moved with each gust. The water heater was electric too. That meant no hot water except what might be in the reserve tank right now. And how long ago had the power gone down anyway? Would that water be cold by now? On a warm day, the basement never got above 50 degrees; how cold was it now? The weatherman on channel five had predicted a wind chill of minus 40, and he was right. Tears caused by the bitter cold escaped from her eyes as she moved forward into a wind that pierced her layers of clothing like hundreds of tiny arrows. It whipped her long auburn hair wildly about her face. She squinted to keep the waves of hair from getting into her eyes.
She shivered as she forced herself to focus on the positive. Sure, no power meant no microwave, but she could use the stove to boil water for her tea. Although it had an electric start, she could light the gas burner with the emergency matches she always kept on hand. Her childhood fear of the dark came flooding back just for an instant. She dreaded walking into a cold apartment and groping at walls and furniture to find her way. Where had she left the nearest candles and matches? There was always a scented votive on the bookshelf right inside the front hallway. And yes, she remembered noticing the lighter she always used sitting right next to it this morning as she grabbed her keys and ran out the door. Again, relief.
Her eyes darted about as she thought she saw movement in the shadows. "It was nothing," she told herself, "just the flicker of a candle inside that house or that cat that always roams the neighborhood." Still, she prepared to be on the defensive as she passed the spot that had caught her attention. Why was she so on edge? Yes, she lived in a potentially dangerous neighborhood, but she was quick enough and strong enough to defend herself in almost any situation. She had walked these streets in confidence for several years. It had to be the stress of the day. She was allowing her job get to her again. Her nerves were shot. She knew she had to let go of the day's events and just relax.
She concentrated on the moment when she would walk through her front door and the rest of the world would vanish as it did every night. She tried to visualize what she'd do in an effort to get her mind off of her job. First, she'd light that candle in the entry hall, then a few more throughout the living room. The house would be silent, no hum from the refrigerator, or the furnace, or the water heater. Again she shook off that fear of spending the night with no heat. Yes, absolute silence, how long had it been since she was able to sit in such tranquility? There would be no hum from the computer. . .Sh*t! She was supposed to email her friend in Brookline. She had promised him the recipe for her grandmother's oatmeal raisin cookies.
"Well, I suppose I could always use the telephone. Now there's a novel idea. And perhaps I should stop talking to myself out loud." She chuckled as her own sarcasm made her feel more at ease. She focused again on her arrival at home. She would put on those black velvet pajamas she had bought herself for no particular reason, just because they looked so good. They were full pants and a camisole with a matching ankle-length robe, warm and cozy for lounging around the house, but a bit sexy. Yeah, she just bought them because of the way they made her feel. They hugged her curves as if they were made just for her. So what if nobody had seen her wear them? She normally took new relationships slowly and wasn't yet at that stage with the new boyfriend. Of course, he'd commented more than once that her curvaceous figure was what got his attention in the first place. Perhaps he'd get to see those jammies sooner rather than later.
She wondered if Main Street had power. Maybe she'd make a call to her favorite Chinese restaurant. They had the best scallion pancakes outside of Chinatown and they delivered. But first, she'd have to call Massachusetts Electric, or whatever they were calling themselves these days, and report the outage. She wasn't going to assume that someone was already working on the problem.
She turned right onto her street and started up the hill. There was no light coming from the first three sets of windows, but her neighbors next door had that 300 watt bulb over their driveway burning. That blasted light shined directly into her bedroom; it usually drove her nuts. Now, however, she couldn't be more happy to see what she had nicknamed "the beacon." At least she'd be able to see in her bedroom tonight.
All of her apprehensions from the walk home were gone the moment her feet hit the first of three steps to her front porch. She fumbled for her keys as she opened the door to the common entry hall.
He took her from behind and felt her life drift away before she could even struggle.
TerryDoolittle,
Your story captured my interest 'every line of the way'. So Real to us women who are walking an unlit path in the night!!
Whee, am I glad none of mine ever ended this way!!
Bravo! Good writing!!
Thanks, Jackie. I'm glad you liked it.
Ack!
I think I see the point -- that there is no place you can really be safe, that an acquaintance (was it the new boyfriend or not?) is more dangerous than a stranger on the street.
Or were you just playing with structure, leading towards something and then abruptly veering off at the last minute for maximum shock value?
Very interested in what you were thinking/ what's behind this story.
Scary.
I like your objective in this piece. The title may give too broad a clue, but it does not detract from the telling. I like the fact you were able to stick with the subject and not let the focus wander. You have a knack for storytelling.
Soz--Maybe tomorrow I'll have some time to sit down and tell the story behind the story.
Edgar--I've rewritten this piece at least fifty times and never even considered the fact that the title's giveaway of the ending might detract from the reading. Thank you for your input. This is a part of a larger piece though, so I'm not sure what I'll do about it.
I do appreciate any constructive criticism as the person who once acted as my editor has decided that we should live separate lives. (Was that politically correct enough?)
Constructive-criticism-wise, one thing that was a bit jarring to me were the descriptions of the narrator. They feel a bit forced. The narrator is necessarily omniscient, given the ending, but the story's strength is how firmly it is rooted in the perspective of the protagonist. I love the details; the water temperature in the basement, etc. That's totally believable as what she is thinking. Is she thinking, "my bright green eyes are becoming accustomed to the night?" Nah.
You can get those details in other ways, if you really want them -- her hair could get caught in something, another little annoyance/ frisson of danger, and the thing could indicate the length of hair, for example. But I think the story is actually stronger from the perspective of an everywoman. If you want to get something specific across -- youth, beauty -- I can think of other ways to do that. (A specific kind of job, where she met her boyfriend, etc.)
I also like the way the first sentence foreshadows the ending, and think it would be interesting if it were made stronger, more graphic. "As she stepped out of the bus, pulling her scarf around her face against the cold, a muscular gust of wind nearly toppled her." (I tried to work in something about "before she could get her bearings" to mirror the ending -- something about going from one environment to another, and not being ready for what she encounters in that environment.)
Anyway, I think it's really interesting and look forward to the backstory.
The story behind the story:
Well, it pretty much happened the same way I wrote it (with a bit of creative license taken). I got off the bus one night to find my neighborhood had no power. In between the thoughts running through the victim's head in the story there was another thought running through mine: "Absorb EVERY detail because I've got to write this down." I was all set to grab my notebook and pen when I got off the phone with Mass Electric, but my roommate got home and suggested we go out to dinner in the hope that the power would come back on while we were gone. I think it was the following day that I actually sat down at the keyboard to write. I sat there for hours, but nothing. Finally I closed all the shades, turned off all the lights, lit about twenty candles, and went back to the computer. I had a first draft inside of an hour.
TerryDoo! She was a little too familiar for comfort - made me feel a little sick. But, that makes it a great read.
TerryDoolittle: It's a fine story.
My suggestions: Yes, get rid of the green eyes and auburn hair unless you make them relevant to the plot. Two lines that went "clunk" with me: "Panic threatened to enter her mind." and
"Fingers of anxiety tickled her brain."
I would like to see a re-write that was 50 words shorter and then another that was 50 words more spare. Am I totally on the wrong track with the other posters? -rjb-
I agree, rjb.
Thanks for the story-behind-the-story, TerryDoo. What about keeping it more factual? Are you married to the ending? I found the "real" parts much more compelling than the add-ons. (Water temp, oatmeal cookie recipe, etc.) Did you have a point you were going for, or was the ending just to give the whole thing more punch?
For my independent study in college, I wrote both finished pieces and a journal about the finished pieces to my professor. (A wonderful, wonderful guy.) There was a piece I was working on about a friend of mine who is severely handicapped, in a wheelchair, already lived several years past her life expectancy at 21, etc. I liked her a lot, but she would talk so often about her pain and misery that it was tough to hang out with her, and then I'd think well, she's in pain and misery! What'd you expect? So I tried to write an allegorical story about it, and then wrote ABOUT the allegorical story. My professor told me that my writing about it was infinitely more interesting than the allegorical story itself. That really freed me up to tell truth through a creative prism, rather than trying to fancy things up.
Anyway, my two cents. The ending certainly is forceful.
I did say that this piece was just a small part of a much larger work. The ending is crucial. The physical description of the victim is necessary to the story as a whole, so I've got to find a more fluid way to work it in, and I think you've helped me figure that out.
little k--Your comment leads me to believe that you looked at this more as a reader than a writer, so I ask you: Did you find the language flowed easily enough? I haven't looked at this piece in quite a while and in rereading it to post here, it seemed almost disjointed to me.
Soz--I had a professor who insisted on seeing our FIRST drafts so he could see how we progressed as we wroked toward a finished product. Back then I didn't have a computer, so I started every piece with pen and paper. (I still do most of the time.) He once asked me what language I was using. He'd never had a student who attacked an essay or short story as a puzzle whose pieces got put together through the writing process. This piece is one of the few that came out in full sentences right from the start.
Hey rjb, nice to meet you.
It flowed... I'd have to reread it to give much more criticism. I'm not much of a critic.
TerryDolittle and realjohnboy-
Sure, the information of green eyes and auburn hair ADD to the story, making us (readers) more familiar with the 'subject', but --could be incorporated into the paragraph describing her sexy nightwear-- in which she longs to be enswathed- safe inside her home.
Insofar as "panic" threatening her thinking, and "anxiety" weighing upon her heavily....these lines are not bad. I felt the powerful emotion you were after Terry....I really did.
I liked the anxiety line.
Ok, I reread. I had two points to make. The first time I read the story I got hung up on the begining of the 3rd paragraph. I thought she was home already. What you wrote looks proper, so, maybe I was just being a lazy reader. The sescription "1920s pseudo-victorian" was the part of the narrative that felt a little too imformative to me.
little k--A quick opinion can mean as much as a more in depth one, so thank you for that.
Another quick backstory if I may:
My former "editor" would get my work about ten pages at a time, via email. He'd give whatever I sent him a quick read and return his first reaction right away. Later, he'd look at the same piece with a more critical eye (thank you Sozobe, rjb, and edgar) and return a very honest, sometimes harsh, but always constructive, criticism of the work. This helped me in two ways because I got to see the "everyman" reaction as well as the more in depth perspective of a person who takes a work of fiction at more than face value. He helped me become a better writer. He also forced me to develop a thick skin.
I'm glad I posted this because it's finally motivated me to dust off the old notes. Thanks guys.
OOOOOPS! I forgot Jackie! Thank you Jackie.
Cool, thanks for the additional info, TerryDoo. Kinda hard to critique without context/ knowing what you're going for, beyond the technical stuff.
Good start, though!
Terry, I predicted the ending of this piece, and that would be the only fault in an otherwise gripping short story. Frankly, I would also examine the choice of adjectives for the girl's physical features. Should you become Jimmie Doolittle, you might just soar to new heights balancing a pencil on its lead and keeping it there.
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