Short Story Thread? Post an OC story max 200 words, and critique

[Anonymous No.4858208]

[Anonymous No.4858211]

one time I smoked some pot and for a moment I was content with my existence

[Anonymous No.4858308]

>>4858211
As informative as it is succinct. Exploring the realization that we can never truly be content in our lives without external stimuli. Then coming to terms with the fact that it's temporal.
The sentence structure of Hemingway with the risqué subject matter of Thompson. Eisenhower once said, "America has no shortage of undiscovered genius." He was talking about you anon. Failure on the part of publishers to discover a talent like yours is the reason America hasn't won a literary Nobel in 22 years. I am very much anticipating your next submission.

[Anonymous No.4858622]

I'm watching the white ribbons of smoke spiral from my cigarette off into the night air when the woman standing behind me starts to cry. It's just us two at the bus stop so there's no way for me to pretend I do not hear her. I try to resume focus on the twisting velvet cigarette smoke that had just been so pleasing, but her deep, heaving sobs carried across the deserted intersection and bounce back to me, amplified. It was not the type of cry someone has when informed of a tragedy. It was not the type of cry a normal person has. I don't think normal people are capable of crying like that. Like the sobs would shake apart her ribcage.

And then she stops. Just like that. Blissful silence. A car roars by. The buses must be running late tonight.

Then she walks straight past me over to the curb. Dangerously close to the curb. She is standing there, leaning forward, motionless. Frozen, tilted forward. Another car roars by, swerves and honks, then disappears back into the dark. Her scarf flutters in its wake. I think; she is going to step forward. She is going to try and force herself to step forward the next time a car roars by. I decide to think of something to say, but I cannot. Another car screams by and I think she is going to step forward. But she does not. Then the bus comes, looking for all its glory like a shimmering crystal palace floating towards us out of the night. She gets on and pays with exact change. She sits in the very back of the empty bus. I sit towards the front. The bus lurches down the road. I try to look at the passing darkness, but I can see only my tired reflection.

[Anonymous No.4858627]

>>4858308
heh, I'm flattered.. you seem to get the bulk of my post without me explaining it

either I'm dull or you're perceptive, quality shit regardless.

[Anonymous No.4858718]

>>4858622
One of the best pieces I've seen on /lit/.
I kind of feel bad thst I don't have any constructive criticism, but I can't find anything at all wrong with it.

10/10 would read more.

[Anonymous No.4858720]

>>4858627
he was being facetious

[Anonymous No.4858722]

>>4858720
I'm sure, sincerity on /.lit/ is like finding a respectable heterosexual womain in a gay bar.

[Anonymous No.4858819]

At the treeline stood a circle of tall willow brush. They stood alone, growing out of the yellow grass. They were walls and inside them felt like a quiet place.The boy marked it as his starting point and pushed into the old growth forest. He walked along the inclined ground until he came to a clearing. Bones in varying forms of decay lay everywhere. Some bleached white, others still discernable and fleshed. A great predator had made this his place; had dragged his kills and finds here for a lifetime. The clearing followed the hill down to a glass lake waterline. The boy checked the shoreside mud for tracks, checked among the bones for signs of the creature. There were none. No scat, no fur, no grass matted down for bedding, nor prints to mark its comings and goings. The boy left the clearing, contented that the world still held a secret. Glad that he would always have a mystery to carry with him.

[Anonymous No.4859008]

They took him from his fields and forests. he wanted to chop thistle heads off with a stick in battle. He wanted to go back and find those places in the forest where maybe nobody had ever been. Where the trees formed a canopy and that secret spot was darkened. They took him and put him in that room in the desert. Alarms on the windows, alarms outside his room. He looked at the desert outside and saw its scalloped texture. In his eyes was all the breadth of creation and none of the lonely places. Broken only by Indian sage and blank faced stone mesas. Once there had been water here. And in that water living things. You could still find them sometimes; the memory of them dimpled in rocks. When the waters dried they took the best things with them.
You could not hum here and imagine the trees heard you. You could not wonder what hid inside a glen or what was just beyond the next wood. You could not seek shelter from the sun under a pine bough and hide there. In the desert everything is laid bare and the land is honest. So he learned to hide in hisself. For want of a quiet green place he learned to go inward. The desert taught him how to hide openly and never be seen. Something was lost though; something that could not be put right again. Someday they would open the doors and he would walk out and return to his woods and thistled fields. And they would not be what they once were to him. He no longer needed them and they seemed now like a place one only occasionally visits.

[Anonymous No.4859023]

>>4858819
I think this story would be better told directly through the lens of the boy. Eliminate the 3rd party narrator to enhance the sense of mystery the boy feels. Overall, I like the message.

I enjoyed the phrase "glass lake waterline" but thought the majority of your nature imagery was lacking that certain vividness that makes or break nature descriptions

[Anonymous No.4859069]

>>4859023
Thanks a lot. I appreciate the feedback. I'll try a different perspective and add some detail to the setting. That's good advice.

[Anonymous No.4859128]

It was a long night, and I remember feeling every shot emanate through my windpipe as I drained it. But now that I'm leaving the cab I'm only conscious of how it stews in my pit. I can only feel the rum and its heat is all I feel. The blazes of a fireplace are so much more tantalizing when the smoke escapes the chimney, but when there is no chimney - when the smoke fills the cabin - the reality of the flame becomes obvious, but there's no stopping the fact that it has burned.

[Anonymous No.4859257]

>>4859008
The concept of this is good and the last three sentences made me feel very nostalgic. But overall the story just reads like its trying too hard.
> In his eyes was all the breadth of creation and none of the lonely places
> the memory of them dimpled in rocks
> and the land is honest
>Something was lost though; something that could not be put right again
These are all poetic conceits that, to me, broke the fourth wall instead of deepening my immersion. A poetic description should state something simple and true. All these descriptions just sound contrived, like you're trying to sound like a prestigious author.

I think if all the descriptions spoke more truly that would deepen the sense of tragedy that your piece conveys, because I think your actual subject matter is brilliant.

>>4859069
You're welcome. If you feel like it, post your revised version in this thread. I would like to read it.

[Anonymous No.4860034]

bumping this for potential

[Anonymous No.4860097]

I wrote this for a girl who talks too much and is extremely irrational

Think of Logic. It walks through a dark forest, slow but sure, but slow in a way like those people on side-walks are who can’t imagine that other people might like to walk faster, and they idle in the middle, arms outstretched, for balance, or something, I don’t know, but whatever they’re doing they’re in the fucking way, and some of us have places to be. Lucy appears. She has all the places to be. She is so fast ahead of Logic it’s like there was no Logic there at all. But Logic is there, bloody and bruised now on the side-walk it’s been paving through some forest it doesn't even know how it got itself in, angry at the girl but also totally flummoxed by how hot she is, and Logic watches her waist down in particular as she runs wildly into and through the trees.
Soon she is not even in the dark forest any more but, somehow, an alternate reality of it. And then she is in both, hardly even aware of it, just running wildly through, and both realities are so confused by their subversion, and also by their inter-special attraction to the girl who is not even a spatial-plane thing or whatever like they are, that they just collapse toward her, and soon there is only the girl, who will always be there, offering more comfort to existential despair than any stupid logic could ever hope to. Thanks, Lucyl.

[Anonymous No.4860116]

The glass door of the bank slid open and a tall man stepped inside. He wore a dark coat, tailored for his thin body and of the same colour as his hair, working with it to frame his perfect white skin like a sculptured moon beyond the mouth of a cave.‘Who do I let know about a change of address?’
‘Um, well—’ the female clerk looked him up and down. ‘You can do it online. Can I show you how?’
‘No.’ He smiled. ‘I’m sure I can figure it out for my self. Thank you and goodbye.’ He stepped out again. The door slid shut. His right dark boot, of rich-brown leather, left the pane last, in the deft kick of a boot that knows where it will land, leaving dust in its wake, sunlit and adrift. She stumbled toward it.
‘Miranda,’ a voice, small and sick of it, said from behind her. ‘Do the filing—’
Miranda fell through the glass and her head, bloody, skull glinting in the sunlight, landed in the dust that had beckoned her. She came and died instantly.

[Anonymous No.4860487]

Heres my bullshit /lit/

I know I fucked up slighty, but stupidly I didnt save this as anything other than an image and it would be a pain in the ass to fix.

[Anonymous No.4860500]

So the matrix were the good guys?
not like I've made anything dude. Also, that twist at the end is neat, I like it.

[Anonymous No.4860524]

>>4860487
So the matrix were the good guys?
not like I've made anything dude. Also, that twist at the end is neat, I like it.

[Anonymous No.4860872]

Totally on-the-spot. No prior thought. Enjoy, rate, critique.

Margaret tended the aborted fetus of her garden, trying still to raise something from the sapped dirt. She had done so every day for many years, starting when she had bought the house with Rob; stretching past the miscarriage; through the birth of their son, raising and releasing him; past Rob’s death and burial. Her hands had shriveled and gone spotted so slowly that she seemed to be watching a photograph of herself fade and her image grow dim. The garden was only a few feet wide and the soil a few inches deep, and she sometimes forgot to water the few plants she did grow, but getting on her knees there and planting seeds and digging trenches and pulling weeds, working herself to a sweat despite her wretched back, was better than spending the day staring at Rob’s gravestone. It sat in the corner of the fenced-in yard, shaded by a thin maple he had spent many hours cussing and beating at, trying to keep its outstretched branches in line. In the afternoons, Margaret would often eat her meal and consider that tree, which had grown wild and tangled in the years following Rob’s death. Then she would think of Rob and how alive and invincible he had seemed up until the very day his body quit.

[Anonymous No.4860880]

Al, John, and Jim sat on their clouds observing the United States during a recent vacation from the afterlife.

"It sure got big," John said.

"What a ghastly century the last was," Al said.

"They are still arguing about us. That is not nothing," Jim said.

"Women on the court. Can you imagine?" Al asked.

"And a black man. And a Puerto Rican!" Jim said.

"Such vast work, the blaze of progress. Our little project certainly exceeds my expectations," John said. Jim and Al always found him to be the wonk of the trio.

"Shall we return to the delights behind the curtain then?" Al asked, satisfied that there was nothing to be done here.

"I suppose so," John said.

"One moment," Jim said.

"What is it?" Al asked.

John half-way faded out already.

"Just..."

Jim was listening in on a nine-way deliberation over the meaning of "effects."

"Oh, never mind. They're going to fuck it up either way. Let's get going then."

And just like that, they were gone.

[Anonymous No.4861025]

>>4860880
I like the idea here. Your paragraph structure could be toned up and expanded a bit, but it's a cool concept. Do you plan to work on it any more? And do those three names refer to anyone in particular?

[Anonymous No.4861036]

>>4861025
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison authored the Federalist Papers, which materially contributed to the final text of the US constitution. The above lark was written in the style of Mark Strand, early 90's Poet Laureate of the United States. I was dreaming of the Great Forgetter's Club. Just a /lit/ exercise while my data is compiling.

[Anonymous No.4861043]

>>4861025
>>4861036
Sorry. It is called "Always" :
Always so late in the day
In their rumpled clothes, sitting
Around a table lit by a single bulb,
The great forgetters were hard at work.
They tilted their heads to one side, closing their eyes.
Then a house disappeared, and a man in his yard
With all his flowers in a row.
The great forgetters wrinkled their brows.
Then Florida went and San Francisco
Where tugs and barges leave
Small gleaming scars across the Bay.
One of the great forgetters struck a match.
Gone were the harps of beaded lights
That vault the rivers of New York.
Another filled his glass
And that was it for crowds at evening
Under sulfur-yellow streetlamps coming on.
And afterward Bulgaria was gone, and then Japan.
“Where will it stop?” one of them said.
“Such difficult work, pursuing the fate
Of everything known,” said another.
“Down to the last stone,” said a third,
“And only the zero of perfection
Left for the imagination.” And gone
Were North and South America,
And gone as well the moon.
Another yawned, another gazed at the window:
No grass, no trees…
The blaze of promise everywhere.

[Anonymous No.4861045]

>>4861036
Good on ya. I'd encourage you to work on it, if you think you can lengthen it out into a full story.

>>4860872
Pretty good. The "aborted fetus" thing is a little on-the-nose though.

[Anonymous No.4861159]

Boden, wielding a machete, went outside in the early hours of a sunny morning with a smile on his face. He entered a gloomy barn, looked at the blustering chickens inside, and picked one. ''You'll do just fine...''

Boden tried to position the chicken on a tree stump, but the chicken wouldn't acquiesce. ''Well, come on now, why are you protesting? If you would just stop fighting, this would be over quick.''

Nancy yelled from inside the house through an open window, ''Chicken giving you trouble?''

''Must be the other chickens have been telling him all kinds of lies. Bet it's a regular house of propaganda in that fucking barn.''

Boden swung his machete and cut the chicken's head off. The chicken escaped and started running around, headless, the hole spraying blood. ''Damn it,'' Boden said. ''If only he wouldn't've resisted, I could've killed him proper.''

Boden could see the chicken recede on the grassy horizon, running as far as it could. Then it stopped and fell over.

[Anonymous No.4861207]

>>4858208

"Excuse me but, you do realize your entire life plan consists of nothing more than being a tiger?"

[Anonymous No.4861551]

>>4858208
Bomping.

[Anonymous No.4863305]

This is more than 200, sorry all. Ignore if you want. I thought I may as well post because the thread is pretty dead.

‘Excuse me? Do you know that your life consists entirely of being a dog? And that situation will never change?’
Ralph looked at me with his tongue rolling from the side of his mouth.
‘You know, if I never opened this door again you’d never go outside? Ralph?’
His tail wags at the mention of his name, beating against the floor in a steady rhythm.
‘You don’t have opposable thumbs, see. That’s why I can open this door. I am the lord-master of walkies!’
The beat frenzies, launching dust from the carpet into the air.
‘I am the superior animal, you know.’
Ralph let out a whimper of excitement, the trickle before the damn breaks.
‘Okay let’s go.’ I opened the door.
Like a bolt of gold lightning, Ralph zig-zagged to the front gate.
‘Ah, the age old conundrum, eh Ralphie? Good old opposable thumbs. Very handy…’ I trailed off as I look beyond the gate. ‘Ah, well. Looks like it’ll be another day on the boat.’
We stepped from my front yard down onto the little wooden skiff. Ralph immediately assumed a figure-head position at the prow. I picked up a rod and launched ourselves from the bank. We glided out over the water, the wind running its fingers through my hair.
‘Heya, Philip,’ I said.
‘Nice day, isn’t it?’
‘Sure is.’
We drifted past each other. Ralph barked.
‘What is it boy?’
He pawed at the water.
‘A fish, is it? We’ve seen plenty of those.’
He kept prodding at the water, so I carefully clambered over to have a look. Some sort of object was floating past. I reach in to pull it out, letting my fingers curl through the water until we got close enough for me to grab it.
‘Looks like an old suit-case. Good find, good boy,’ I said warmly. Ralph vibrated vigorously from the attention. ‘Let’s see what’s in it, shall we?’
I pulled on the latch, which was stiff with age.
‘Come on,’ I muttered.
It cracked open suddenly, one of the metal hinges snapping free.
‘Guess I won’t be using this, then.’
I looked inside. It was dry, fortunately. One of these suitcases must’ve gone for hundreds back in the day. Papers were carefully folded inside.
‘What’s this? Some sort of pamphlet?’
I struggled to make out it’s letters. It had words I hadn’t seen in my thirty years of life on this blue world, but I got a general meaning.
‘Ice caps mel… melting. Stop globil? Global? Warming be fore it’s too late?’
Ralph looked at me expectantly.

[Anonymous No.4863315]

>>4863305
‘This, well, this must be one of those old pieces of propaganda about climate change, Ralphie. They used to go on about this stuff, how it would ‘end the world’. Good thing we didn’t go along with them.’
Ralph looked satisfied with my explanation.
‘Simple animal, aren’t you? Yes you are, just a simple little boy,’ I rubbed his chins just where he liked it. The air filled with the warm scent of dog mingled with cold salt. ‘Look at us! Didn’t hurt a bit, did it?’

[Anonymous No.4863723]

bump

[Anonymous No.4863921]

Oh god. What should I do?
My finger hovers, wavering slightly. I pull it back. No. I can't do it. It's too much. I hate indecisiveness. I consider myself a highly impulsive person. Hell, the scarlet hue of my bank balance is a testament to that. But some decisions are deserving of signficant thought.
I take the time to wipe away the sweat from my brow with that hand of judgement, provarrocating. I consider tossing a coin, let fortune bear the weight. This is too much for a mere mortal. My hand subconciously finds the cross at my neck. I try to find inspiration in his immortalised teachings. What would Jesus do?
A rush of blood. I feel giddy. To hell with it.
I press enter. 'Status updated'.

[Anonymous No.4863952]

>>4863305
I really like this one. I had no idea what was going on until the end. I was picturing an English canal vibe, but holy dooly, you sure got me. The relationship with the dog was well built, and it was perfect that the story revolved around that. 10/10 would read again.

Soz I didn't have anything constructive. Many beers in, reading short stories.

[Anonymous No.4863978]

Sticking to an idea for me is like sticking to a stepped on piece of gum; the gum just ends up hitchhiking a ride on the bottom of my sole. But there was one idea I had about a month ago that hasn't let me go.
I was on my way to meet my parents for dinner after work when I passed a man in pigtails and a shirt that went up to the trough of his pectoral muscles, if you could call them muscles, and saw him rummaging through a trash can. I don't know if it was his eccentricity or reviling behavior, but from there on out, I wanted to become an explorer. GPS having rendered geological navigators useless, the stars were to be my sea to circulate within. The final frontier beckoned to me, and so I harkened its calls with temerity and determination, with the love of fate.

[Anonymous No.4864765]

>>4863305
>>4863315

Oh wow, very nice.

Applause and such.

Good use of imagery, the dog on the prow and wind in the hair. Described well, nicely done.

Zinger ending, yes.

You. Yes, you. Keep at your writing.

[Anonymous No.4864785]

>>4864765
>>4863952
Aw thanks guys
You make me feel all warm and fuzzy

[Anonymous No.4864791]

>>4863305
>>4863952
I didn't get it

[Anonymous No.4864805]

>>4864791
I believe the water is the ocean in the MC's front yard, that it is there because it has risen far enough to drown sufficient portions of humanity's former coastal cities for the suitcase to be a common artifact, and that as one born after all this has happened, it seems as remote to MC as the first world war to us.

[Anonymous No.4864814]

>>4864805
That's it? From that other comment it seemed there was something else, but ok then. Nicely written anyway.

[Anonymous No.4864818]

>>4864814
the dog is al gore reincarnated and the whole story is an allegory for communism

[Anonymous No.4865229]

>>4863315
I've added a little bit so that it has more of a meaning, so I can use it for my creative writing
This is for you >>4864814 bud

Ralph yelped.
‘You agree, don’t you Ralphie? It couldn’t have been all that bad.’
I steered us back toward home with our prize. We neared Lucy, who was yanking on a pole plunged deep into the water to no avail.
‘A bit stuck in the mud, are you?’
‘Hi Ted. Won’t take a second.’ The pole ripped free with a loud squelch, rocking her boat wildly. She patted her hair down. ‘Getting colder, isn’t it?’
I looked up into the sky. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to see, but it’s what people do when you talk about the weather.
‘The doctor says it’s something to do with that climate change. Whole range of factors, all coming together.’
‘That old thing? That was years ago. Horrible business, but it all worked itself out, didn't it?’
‘I was just saying the same to Ralph here! The doc said that we’d go through the whole business again unless we do something about it.’
‘He did, did he?’ she mused. ‘Ah well. What’ll happen will happen. All I’m saying is that it worked out alright last time.’
‘Sure did. See you, Lucy.’
‘Be seeing you, Ted.’

[Anonymous No.4865499]

>>4865229
Why thanks there buddy ;3

[Anonymous No.4865521]

>>4865499
What do you think? I'm worried it changes the overall tone. Doesn't seem as neat.

I do like that it's more of a blatant allegory for stuff like our attitude to past historical tragedies/bad events, though.

[Anonymous No.4867390]

>>4865521
I liked the other version better, it was slightly more subtle about the whole global warming thing.