Cureless, a (really short) one shot.

[Mistoffelees]

Hello all! I'm a newbie here, and to writing anything fictional, for that matter. (Unless you count some of my lab data, harr harr.) I fully realize I've nothing to do here in a forum of people who can legitimately put their thoughts into funny little words that somehow invoke feelings in us -other than to comment and praise others, of course! But here I am, against my better judgment, posting what I guess qualifies as a bit of a short stream of consciousness. There will be errors, awkward sentences, and flaky storytelling -but I'd love for you all to tell me those things as you see them! I'll take your criticisms to heart. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

TL;DR: Intro is over.


Here he was; one (1) Hisao Nakai, weathered from 18 years, 4 months, 8 days, 5 hours, 10 minutes and 37 seconds of gulps of coffee, scuffed shins from soccer, wrong turns and gallons of red paint for a teenager’s town. He’d only really been alive for a fraction less than that- while in the stillness of a stopped heart, one’s cells may scream and burn and feel alive in ways they never should, the ephemeral bit that makes a person a person shrinks and sputters. But that couldn’t be further from his mind even as he laid confined, white-on-white, hearing the monotonous hum of the machinery quieting his body and feeding his brain. For he was a man consumed, as all men should be at some time in their lives, by a sickness that ripped logic and sense from him and cremated their remains with passion. The disease was the pretty sort, but not in the same luxurious way a man can sink into his own despair and revel in it, fall in love with it, obsess himself with his own misery. Her arms could not match the diaphanous clouds of self-pity, flesh and blood as they were. Her hair, while light enough to reflect the sun, could not blind him, could not lay flat on his eyes and cause them to open to darkness, to convince him that the world had no bearing but what he could find inside himself. The curls that did fall on Hisao’s face allowed windows of light, which burned at first, as all light does, but also gave him the opportunity to observe, to identify what afflicted him.

“Lilly” he said.

No ailment had ever been given so beautiful a name.

[Scissorlips]

I'm sorry that no one else has commented on this yet, I tend to keep an eye on the forum and then just reply-bomb a handful of threads at a time. Anyway, I enjoyed this little piece, although it almost resembles more of a free-form poem than a story. Maybe, I'm not very good at poems. But either way, I liked it. I really think you have what it takes to do something longer, if you want. I would certainly read it if you did.

[Mistoffelees]

Haha, truth be told I was almost a little glad at first. At least I could let myself down lightly. Thank you. . . I honestly didn't really expect much in terms of positive reaction. But here I am pleasantly surprised! I've been thinking about it, but I don't know if I really have a story worth writing. If anything though, I've been thinking of doing a more appropriately lengthed one-shot. Got to be able to write a moment before you write a story though, eh? Thanks again.

[Helbereth]

My only complaint is you spelled Lilly wrong...

and this bit:

the ephemeral bit that makes a person a person shrinks and sputters.

Perhaps I'm just picking nits, but I'm not fond of repeating the same two words like that in any context of prose; though it does make sense on second glance.

Scissorlips is right, this seems to be in a more poetic form.

You might consider structuring your writing based on that observation; this might make more sense separated into lines and verses. Even the redundancy would work better that way, since repeating lines is something commonly practiced in song and poetry.

[Mistoffelees]

My only complaint is you spelled Lilly wrong...

Oops. TIL I've been reading her name wrong this whole time. Fixed that! Shouldn't happen again!

Perhaps I'm just picking nits, but I'm not fond of repeating the same two words like that in any context of prose; though it does make sense on second glance.

I definitely see what you're getting at with this. Do you think quotes around the second "a person" might work? Maybe I'm being silly, but I feel like it wouldn't have the same emphasis if I didn't reuse the set of words there.

As for the poetry bit, I think it's really interesting that that is the vibe y'all are getting. I think you're very much right that maybe a poetic formatting would make it more understandable. I don't think I can adequately do that on a whim though, but I'll work on doing that in my gold ol' word file until I feel like I've got it down pat. If I am able to write some other piece, I think I'll work on trimming down my. . . verbiage? Something like that. Work on making it more like prose and less like poetry.

Thanks so much for making time to give me a little feedback!