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This is a story about a girl all around whom time has suddenly stopped, and about how she deals with that fact. I'd like to ask for feedback on it: Does my writing style work? Is the language alright? Any crude grammatical mistakes? This is the first full story I wrote since like, primary school. Here's the first two sections (1513 words): --- It was Tuesday, June 9th 2015, 15:24 and 38 seconds, and from the looks of things, it would be Tuesday, June 9th 2015, 15:24 and 38 seconds for another while yet. An Lien Pham had been on her way home from her lectures, texting with her roommate, when the clock on the bus stop display stopped counting up and all the familiar city sounds at once turned to silence. An looked up from her phone, and saw a world frozen solid. People stood in place like perfectly lifelike statues. Cars were stopped in mid-street as if halted by an invisible hand. An froze too, but not in the total way the elderly lady next to her had. No, she was planted into place by disbelief. She carefully lowered her hands, just to confirm they still worked, and blinked and shook her head a few times under the assumption that her brain was having some kind of glitch. But no, all along Willem Street An herself was the only thing still seen moving. It took her an embarrassingly long time to realise that her bus wasn’t coming any time soon. Slowly, she set off on foot. Passing by the older woman, she briefly considered reaching out and touching her, to feel whether she would be rigid as stone, but the thought sent unpleasant shivers down An’s spine. It didn’t feel right. What could even cause something like this? An’s thoughts immediately spiralled out of control. Maybe there was a supervillain out there who used his time-stopping powers to do evil, and she was the only one unaffected? Were that the case, she would have a moral obligation to stop him, of course. He would probably be somewhere within the time-frozen area, but An had no idea if it even was a clearly-delineated area. Maybe the whole universe stood still. He could be on Mars for all she knew. It was a stupid train of thought. An took a deep breath and decided to focus on walking. Her home wasn’t that far from university. In this weather, anyone would recommend going on foot, it was largely An’s laziness that made her rely on the bus. The summer sun shone down pleasantly from a near-cloudless sky, warming the grey streets below. A cooling wind had kept the air fresh where there was little shade to hide under, but it had stopped along with everything else. Though An had not prepared for a hike, she decided to take a detour through the greener part of town. Walking for half an hour over heated asphalt did not strike her as a fun time. Familiar sights became strange in their stillness. She saw a waitress stopped mid-taking-orders in her favourite café, the scene captured like one of the photographs An loved to make in her spare time. It occurred to her that she didn’t have to go home yet. After all, wasn’t this a perfect opportunity to mess around a little? She imagined taking out her pen and painting funny things onto people’s faces. Then she imagined time spontaneously running again while she was busy painting funny things onto people’s faces, and said faces twisting into very angry expressions. On reflection, she preferred not to risk that scenario. She should probably just go home after all. On the plus side, this would give her some time to catch up on her studies. No better time to be productive than when none of your usual distractions are functioning. She would just keep working until things turned back to normal. At this point, she was honestly looking forward to the distraction – the eerie silence was starting to get to her. Only her echoing footsteps sounded through the tree-lined avenue, where before leaves had rustled, birds had chirped and people had passed on bicycles. An nearly walked into a leaf that had fallen from above and was now stuck at eye level. She carefully plucked it from the air; It moved without resistance, and fell right into her hand. It felt normal, like a leaf should. But when she let go, it only fell for a second before becoming still again, like someone pausing a movie. An forced herself to look away. She needed music, or something. By some miracle (An didn’t dare to think too hard about it, yet), her phone seemed to be working normally, lack of signal aside. She put on her earbuds and played AC/DC at full volume. It cheered her up a little. Since An’s roommate Marie wasn’t home, at least she didn’t have to worry about a frozen person occupying the kitchen. Nevertheless, she found it hard to focus on books about energy markets, and kept drifting off until she finally laid down for a nap. She awoke with a start, slightly disoriented. The sun shone in through the windows; What time was it? Her phone said June 10th, 04:33, but that couldn’t be right. With a sinking feeling, she looked outside and confirmed that her phone was lying: That in reality, it was still Tuesday, June 9th 2015, 15:24 and 38 seconds precisely. An tried to go back to sleep, but gave up about an hour in. Her room suddenly felt too small, the blanket crushingly heavy. She needed to be somewhere, anywhere else. Alright, no panic, she told herself, breathing deeply. Focus. If things didn’t intend to fix themselves, perhaps she had to do something about it. She had no idea what, but for starters she ought to figure out more about what was going on. She went to freshen herself up, and realised to her dismay that the faucets weren’t working. Well, bottled water would have to do. The lack of working toilets presented a bigger logistical challenge. (An wasn’t proud of her eventual solution, but, well, when civilization isn’t there for you...) Heading out, it occurred to her that maybe she wasn’t the only person still walking. Maybe she could try looking for others, banding together? She doubted that she would just run into them, but if she played her music through the loudspeaker, maybe someone would hear. She took a habitual route into town, as if she was just going shopping, an animated figure on a static background. Others had been going about their business, or still were, she supposed, and were now locked in walking poses, eyes staring off ahead. An figured that their brains weren’t functioning either, that they weren’t seeing any of this, and as soon as the clocks started ticking again, they would just go on with their day and not find a single thing amiss. (The alternative possibility was too frightening to contemplate.) Except for the old bus station lady, from whose perspective the girl waiting next to her would just up and vanish in an instant. Maybe time stopping was a common occurrence, and no one ever noticed. But then what made An different? Trying to figure out the mechanics of the phenomenon, she immediately ran into problems. Her field was economics and not physics, but she was pretty sure that light and sound have to travel from point A to point B just like anything else does, and that time being stopped should make that just as impossible as a person walking. Yet An could see and hear just fine, and indeed walk just fine without running into any air molecules that refused to get out of the way. It didn’t make sense. She stopped briefly next to a younger girl who had also been caught texting when time stopped, and carefully slipped her phone out of her hands. Very shortly after An touched it, its clock ticked up to 15:25. This confirmed one assumption, at least: Objects she held or wore on her seemed to function as they should, as long as she was holding them. Somehow, it felt like a superpower. An slid the phone back into its owner’s hand and kept on going. It occurred to her that she could do anything she wanted, and no one would be any wiser. And she wasn’t just thinking about painting moustaches on people’s faces. She waltzed into a nice clothing store and eyed some of the lovely outfits she hadn’t been able to afford; She could just... Take them, and leave. Sliding the fabric between her fingertips, she tried to talk herself into just doing it. But alas, An was a slave to conventional morality, and could not bring herself to. She sighed and put the trousers back onto the rack. Most of the other customers were a lot more posh than she was, and annoyed her with their silent, judging presence. Well, she could play a little trick on them, at least. A brief trip to the underwear section and a bit of careful handiwork resulted in every richly-bejeweled lady and occasional impatient boyfriend in the store wearing a pair of panties on their heads. An stepped back and spread her arms, as if to present her little joke to the world. No one laughed. --- The rest is up here on Google Drive. Thank you for taking the time to read.
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Jul 28, 2016 19:06
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| # ? May 5, 2024 19:57 |
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I read it. Your words are fine, story is cliche (frozen in time with nothing much to make it interesting or unusual) love story bit is ok, I guess? I think the biggest problem is your protagonist is such an unmotivated sack of meh it's real hard to care what happens to them and there's nothing particularly interesting about where it heads. Still, competent enough, and it's a 7k story with a beginning middle and end which is no small feat. You could do worse than banging out a few stories in Thunderdome then coming back to this and seeing if there's anything you want to change. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 21:50
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