Woke up late this morning. Felt strange, thought about considering going to the doctor. I would never actually do it, of course; I would hate to see anyone fix me. I am unfixable. But I might have considered it, had I not realized what it was I felt. My back wasn’t killing me. Had grown unfamiliar to the feeling. I felt so young. And being thirty years old, why shouldn’t I? 1
I realized there and then, that maybe holding on to my pain for so long was just a pathetic attempt to attract attention. My own attention that is, there hadn’t been any other people around for a good while. Don’t blame myself though. Hell, the pain was practically all I had left. 2
Walked into the kitchen with my back straight. I even think I might have been whistling on the way. Whistling! And waking up on a bright spring morning, why shouldn’t I? It’s weird that it is spring today, since it was fall yesterday. But I didn’t question God’s ways this morning. I don’t believe in Him anyway, so why should I? I probably slept through the winter. I do feel like someone who slept through a winter. A damned long winter. 3
I didn’t feel like breakfast this morning, but I sat down at the breakfast table anyway, just to ponder a little. Today being my day off, why shouldn’t I? Most days I was simply unemployed, but today I was free from work. Hell knows I needed it. 4
So now I sit here watching a garden that is mine through a window that is mine in a world about which I am no longer obliged to give a damn. All that makes it all look so much more alive. 5
And I can hear her footsteps, now. No one has footsteps as light as hers. Only I can hear them. They’re mine. 6
She enters the room exactly at the same moment as the sun rises over the hill outside. Her smile is a riddle, begging to be satisfied with a solution. And only I can solve it. It’s mine. 7
Her hair and her nightgown dance in the breeze. It’s funny how phenomena such as indoor breezes are impossible to find, until you stop searching. 8
She enters the room exactly at the same moment as the sun rises over the hill outside. And for a moment I am not sure which is the sun and which is her. There doesn’t have to be a difference anymore. They’re both mine. 9
She sits down on the window sill. She has one leg on my kitchen floor and the other one hanging out on the other side. She doesn’t block the view. She looks at me. 10
“I… love you.” She whispers. She means it this time. 11
“Why?” I ask, smiling calmly, looking at her. 12
She is quiet, not because she hesitates, but because she knows I want her to be. Then she answers: “Because I’m yours.” 13
“I love you too.” I say, looking out the window again. “I always did. But I used to hate you too. Now I don’t.” 14
She smiles. “And why do you love me?” she says, because I want her too. 15
“Because you’re my favorite kind of person.” 16
“What’s your favorite kind of person, then?” 17
“A dead person.” 18
And she is. I visit her tombstone every day. Not because I care about the thing, that I think she will ever receive the flowers I steal from random houses on the way to the graveyard, but because I have a lot of spare time on my hands. 19
Her name is on the stone – Laura. I used to consider it the ugliest of ugly names. But her death changed that. Now it’s the prettiest ugly name of all. There’s a surname too, one that I still think is ugly, one that shouldn’t be there. My name. It should say simply: Laura. No, it should say: My Laura. And it does now. Because she is mine now. Finally. 20
I won’t go there today, though. It is my day off, after all. 21
“I could be alive. That stuff doesn’t matter anymore.” she says. She, too, is looking at the view. 22
“Well, I don’t want you to be alive. You were a bitch when you were alive.” 23
She knows that it was really I who sent us both to hell, but she also knows that truth doesn’t matter anymore. That why she just smiles, and turns to look into my eyes. I remember now, why it’s all so beautiful today. This is the world in the eyes of a man who loves himself. Yesterday I loved myself less than ever before. That's how I could break free from my stasis.24
“Why is it you refuse to change, unless it's for the worse?”25
Laura said that once, just after she gave up on me. I don't know, Laura. I don't know what I was doing all those years. But last night I was so furious with myself I found the energy I needed. And I changed. It was easy, I'm sorry I didn't do it when you were still alive. Maybe you would still be with me if I had. You would have liked me so much better this way, eventually. So will I. After all, now I am my favourite kind of person.
Author notes
The "When We were People" Project:
1. The Good Morning
2. Things Jack Will Never Know
3. The Sour Aftertaste of Coffee with Jay
4. True Deceiver
5. Romancing the Stoned
Very, very sorry about the offensive language. I just couldn't bring myself to changing it, it would take the edge away.
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Is the ending too predictable? Is the new ending better than the last one (Check previous version)?
Comments
1 - 14 of 14
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yeah........
This is a very interesting story. I'm assuming the main character kills both his lover and himself. It's bursting with originality and is very well-written.
I like the flow, but I like the eerie tone most of all. It's strange how the two couldn't come together in the realm of the world, but come together in the realm of the dead.
It's also strange how the main character is more content with himself as a dead person.
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Thank you!
I haven't decided how Laura died yet(as you can see in the AN this is part of a series) it never actually struck me that he himself may have killed her. I'll think about it.
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Thumbs Up
I will agree with Irish that the new ending is better than the last. Definitely not too predictable. I would delete the "now" at the end to make it sound better, but that may be a personal preference.
While I do agree with you that this a limited piece and that it should not have a second part to it or anything like that, I do think that maybe a little more background on Laura would help. Maybe about their relationship or why he thought she was a bitch and she's dead now.
Cool piece man. If you're not going to keep fine-tuning this one, then keep up the good work on future pieces.
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Thanks, man!
Thank you so much for commenting. Deleted the "now" in accordance to your suggestion. I'll take adding more on Laura into careful consideration. Thanks again.
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I liked the profound atmosphere you developed in this piece from the start and sustained through to the enlightening end. I did enjoy the analogy of the sun rising in both the physical and metaphysical sense. It had a touch of angst [felt like he had sleep through winter - the 'death'], but this was overridden by the discoveries that your character made as he begun his transistion into his new facet of reality.
Well written. Welcome to the New Members Group and thank you for posting.
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This was a pretty good write. It had a creepy storyline with a nice twist half-way through. But it feels like it needs something more. Maybe a back story on Laura would be good. Or how she died. Overall this piece was good. Thank you for entering
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Thanks for the read.
The big twist (and the reason I thought this would qualify as a twist story) is the one at the end, not the one halfway through, hope you noticed. His wife being dead was pretty predictable, I think.
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You should really write more of this. I think that it's good so far, but kind of seems to me that it needs some more chapters. In other words, it seems incomplete. I believe you have a good story going on here, and your grammar isn't so bad, either... but you should add more and try to make it a little more deep, if you can.
Keep up the good work and don't stop writing. If you truly like to write, you won't stop, anyway. I'll read more of your stuff soon.
Welcome to storywrite. -
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Are you sure? I mean it ends with the guy turning out to be dead. That's not really a cliffhanger, at least not in this case.
Though it's all up to the reader, I imagine that this is the last, dying fantasy of a man who poisoned himself. I don't write of the supernatural. He is not a ghost or anything (in my own interpretation), this is only a hallucination. I do not want to tell you what I think happens after the story ends, I want that to be open for the reader to decide, but I can reveal that my version would make a very short and uninteresting story.
But lots of big thanks to you, you really got my mind going there.
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This is a very contemplative piece. You have an interesting way with language, and a unique voice - I don't think all of the sentence fragments you used would have worked if you hadn't used a first person narrator the way you did, but as is it works very nicely. Gives the man real character.
The revelations come slowly but with a sure brilliance, like the rising sun in the story. Your last twist at the end is great; I do think your last sentence can be tightened up to pack more of a punch though. It might mean splitting it into two pithy sentences instead, but the way it is sounds so ponderous it's almost easy to not realize the meaning behind them, and it just doesn't quite have the same shock factor, if you know what I mean. Anyways, I loved the discussion of possessing, and all of the things he notices. I think this is a great piece, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Best of luck to you on all of your writing, and welcome to Storywrite! 
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Thanks! That was my first comment ever on this site, so writing this reply is something of a magical moment for me.
You say a lot of nice things there, it's all very inspirational. However, even though I agree that there's no real shock factor in the ending, I'm not quite sure I understand what type of revisions it is you suggest. Am I to split the last sentance in two and still make it shorter? Seems like a pretty hard thing to do. Could you please explain further? Maybe add an example?
Once again, Thank you. -
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Sorry - I didn't really explain that all to well, did I? *laughs* Let me try again.
One of the things about shock twist endings is that the reader should feel them in something of a visceral way. You want to surprise them with it - both with the revelation and with the way it's presented.
My comment about your last sentence is that it's long and convoluted, and the windy-ness of the language muffles the shock of the twist: "That’s why I made sure that when I woke up this morning I would be my favorite kind of person."
In my earlier comment, I was trying to make two points: first, that shorter sentences are often better at packing a punch; and second, that a sentence weighed down with too much language can be too sluggish to pack that same punch. In other words, it might be useful to break your last sentence into a couple of shorter sentences. For example:
Yesterday I loved myself less than ever before. That’s why I acted like I did. That’s why I made sure that today would be good. That's why I can love myself this morning. Now, I'm my favorite kind of person.
Of course, that is completely off the cuff, and I'm sure that if you take the time to craft it yourself you can come up with something better.
The whole point is matching your language to the content - and I have to say, once you've made it far enough in your writing skills to be worrying about matching language to content, you are already a fairly advanced writer. (As an aside, I wrote an article on matching language to story content, if you find you're interested in learning more - it can be found on my author's page).
I hope this clears things up a bit - please let me know if it's still a bit muddled. Best of luck to you in all you do!
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Thanks again, I can really tell I'm going to enjoy my time with this site.
I read your article - brilliant work, I'll head over there and rate it soon. But I found it hard to apply what I learned to this particular story. The problem is that I want to surprise the reader, but still keep the slow-paced sunrise atmosphere. After reading you're article I became afraid that short sentances would just make the ending too punchy, and not at all as bittersweet as I would like it to be.
Still, I changed the ending. I tried to fortify the element of surprise using a rollercoaster effect, taking the reader's hopes for the poor guy slowly upwads and then rapidly downhill, if you see what I mean. Let me know what you think!
This ending is by no means final, I hope to use more of the things I learned from your article as soon as I come up with something, especially what you wrote about choosing words that sound right in the context.
I'm very grateful for your support and advice. -
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I like the new ending - I think it strengthens the piece quite a lot. It wasn't bad before, but I think that now it's great.
Once again, welcome to the site! Hope you have a good time around here!
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