Hi,
I have been working on keeping my short stories (relatively) short and here is the opening of one I recently finished in which a woman sublimates her dissatisfaction at life and general ennui by -ahem- giving birth to multiple 'adults' in a theatre who then dance away to nothing.
It's not sci-fi, it's not fantasy (whaddaya mean people don't give birth to adults?
) and the delivery section comes out of leftfield.
The question is regarding the theatre section - where the main 'action' happens; in terms of column inches it is meant to be kept minimum and interrupted with the POVs reeling mind and what has brought her to this place. It's a little under 5k and here is the first 1.3k.
Is this structure accessible? Is it acceptable to you? I fully anticipate it's not everyone's cup of tea and I should say Samuel Beckett is one of my heroes so I often find myself going in an absurdist direction with genre (as Mouse and VenusianBroon could confirm ). I don't expect much participation in this crit but I have no one else to run this by.
Not looking for a line edit (unless you fancy) more an impression and whether it is a hard read.
Thanks
pH
Mary looked across the auditorium and down at the rows of penguin-men and hummingbird-women who perched expectantly in the stalls. Each row down there was bristling with expectation at the prospect of seeing the latest piece of recommended dance theatre, and she felt that they were just as excited to be witnessing this on its premiere night as opposed to any real appreciation of the artist himself. If the press had told them to go and see this “unmissable” piece of dance in their underwear they surely would have done so. They sat in their splendid plumage; the penguins in black and white tuxedos, the hummingbirds in iridescent organza, silk and taffeta finery, most with fascinators, hair piled in elegant nests.
And she, then, a dull city pigeon in the upper circle, her broken grey umbrella sulking under the seat, her khaki woolen coat that was wearing away at the lapel folded damply across her lap, and in an uncomfortable blue-grey trouser suit that she had bought for her mother's funeral.
'I'm very sorry, madam, that's the only colour left in your size,' the assistant had said, clearly aiming for an air of kindness but looking awkward from the tightness of her brow. Mary had been putting on weight for about a year now - as soon as she began caring for Mum - and this was the first time in a year that she had been forced to buy something fitted. Her friend Josephine had been kind in her assessment of her weight gain telling her it was only her body retaining fluids, “to help flush out the toxins,” but she'd never clarified to Mary what the toxins where or why fluid retention would assist in the actual expulsion of them. In any case, Mary had happily consumed this small morsel of enablement and carried on with her diet of ready-made meals and bready snacks. When Mum had passed mercifully early from the colonic cancer that she had been suffering from in secret, the impact of her poor convenience diet had been highlighted; she had gone to the cheap market boutique Haslets to buy a suit for the funeral. Humiliated, but nineteen pounds ninety-nine lighter in her purse, she had left the store.
Mum had left what money she had to Mary as sole heir. Mary gained even more weight during the process of executing the estate, a comfort diet taking the place of the convenience one. She paid off a few utility bills and argued for levity with the local council for an unpaid council tax bill of over a year and a half. The council showed the same degree of mercy as the cancer had.
When she had boxed Mum's possessions she had tarried over the diaries which her mother wrote with almost religious devotion. Would Mum's memory be best served if she destroyed or kept them? She couldn't imagine reading them - it would seem like an invasion of privacy. As she pondered their future she turned the half-completed one for 2014 over in her hands. The back cover flapped open and an autumn of receipts helicoptered their way down to the yellowing blue Lino. Amongst them was a sealed envelope. Mary stooped to pick it up, leaving the receipts where they lay and almost dropped it again when she saw what was written on the address side.
And here she was. Her mother had left her one ticket to this performance. How she had heard of it, let alone procured a ticket so far in advance was a mystery, but she was here now. And ecstatically happy.
She looked past the empty seats to her right at an equally drab spectator; a man in a dark green tweed suit, also damp. His jowly face glowed a whitish blue as it stared down in deep concentration at his mobile phone screen. His eyebrows struggled to meet like weak magnets covered in iron filings, and what Mary took for rainwater covered his face in a sheen that combined with the jowls, giving the impression of a melting waxwork. He snapped round noticing her gaze and nodded self-consciously at his phone, making some meaningless gesture with it that made Mary want to snap yeah, it's a phone you moron.
She studied her doughy hands cradled in her lap and wondered when they had become so plump. She'd noticed her belly and breasts growing larger - and even the point when she had begun to have trouble getting her boots on past her ankles - but her hands had grown by stealth. This thought brought her attention to her backside which now felt particularly restricted by the theatre seat. Her hips strained at the trouser suit's tight polyester and fought to spill over the cushion and squeeze under the arm rest. God, you really are fat, now, not even plump!
She had comforted herself with apple pies and black pudding after Mum's death. Not together of course, but still, they made a strange combination that would have suggested pregnancy yens if that in itself were not a ridiculous suggestion; provided of course He had not decided, some two thousand years later, to create another immaculate conception.
She thought of the Biblical connotations of apples and blood.
As she sat on her sofa, wedged against the far right end with her laptop burning her thighs, she browsed for meaningful poems and passages that she could include in the service for Mum or read herself. A plate of fried slices of black pudding sat on the centre cushion of the sofa and when that was nothing but crumbs which looked like the small clumps of rotten black underlay that somehow migrated from under the carpet, she would often sigh, close the laptop and walk to the kitchen. After five minutes she would return with a glass of red wine in a huge chalice goblet Josephine had brought her from Glastonbury, and a plate from which a family sized apple pie metastasised. No cream. Just wine and pie. She grew heavy in the thighs and wide hips became broader, ankles disappearing, breasts swelling and migrating East and West as well as South. She didn't look like an egg, so much as a spinning top.
She was dizzy with excitement. Or from breathing too fast from the walk up to these upper circle seats. What had Josephine said when she'd shown her the ticket she'd found in Mum's diary? Some term for the seats, which she couldn't recall. Mary had been in the kitchen with Josephine toasting Mary's completion of the closure of the Estate. They had made it a little ritual with Josephine providing some almost transparent paper and a red pen;
'Use it to write a message, one that will allow your memories of your mother to transcend the grief you feel. Set her free, Mary and let the gods do the rest!' she had beamed, pushing the paper across the small kitchen workspace. That was it, the gods. Josephine had upset Mary when she'd looked at the ticket and snorted, 'Oh my, Mare, what a sense of humour your mum has, she got you tickets in the gods! At least you'll be near her when you watch him perform!'
Mary had screwed her face up at this, and Josephine had been careful to apologise for her callousness saying she was trying to keep things buoyant. Mary hadn't replied, but simply written the simple lines on the parchment, oddly inspired Josephine's words,
I have been working on keeping my short stories (relatively) short and here is the opening of one I recently finished in which a woman sublimates her dissatisfaction at life and general ennui by -ahem- giving birth to multiple 'adults' in a theatre who then dance away to nothing.
It's not sci-fi, it's not fantasy (whaddaya mean people don't give birth to adults?
) and the delivery section comes out of leftfield. The question is regarding the theatre section - where the main 'action' happens; in terms of column inches it is meant to be kept minimum and interrupted with the POVs reeling mind and what has brought her to this place. It's a little under 5k and here is the first 1.3k.
Is this structure accessible? Is it acceptable to you? I fully anticipate it's not everyone's cup of tea and I should say Samuel Beckett is one of my heroes so I often find myself going in an absurdist direction with genre (as Mouse and VenusianBroon could confirm
). I don't expect much participation in this crit but I have no one else to run this by.Not looking for a line edit (unless you fancy) more an impression and whether it is a hard read.
Thanks
pH
Mary looked across the auditorium and down at the rows of penguin-men and hummingbird-women who perched expectantly in the stalls. Each row down there was bristling with expectation at the prospect of seeing the latest piece of recommended dance theatre, and she felt that they were just as excited to be witnessing this on its premiere night as opposed to any real appreciation of the artist himself. If the press had told them to go and see this “unmissable” piece of dance in their underwear they surely would have done so. They sat in their splendid plumage; the penguins in black and white tuxedos, the hummingbirds in iridescent organza, silk and taffeta finery, most with fascinators, hair piled in elegant nests.
And she, then, a dull city pigeon in the upper circle, her broken grey umbrella sulking under the seat, her khaki woolen coat that was wearing away at the lapel folded damply across her lap, and in an uncomfortable blue-grey trouser suit that she had bought for her mother's funeral.
'I'm very sorry, madam, that's the only colour left in your size,' the assistant had said, clearly aiming for an air of kindness but looking awkward from the tightness of her brow. Mary had been putting on weight for about a year now - as soon as she began caring for Mum - and this was the first time in a year that she had been forced to buy something fitted. Her friend Josephine had been kind in her assessment of her weight gain telling her it was only her body retaining fluids, “to help flush out the toxins,” but she'd never clarified to Mary what the toxins where or why fluid retention would assist in the actual expulsion of them. In any case, Mary had happily consumed this small morsel of enablement and carried on with her diet of ready-made meals and bready snacks. When Mum had passed mercifully early from the colonic cancer that she had been suffering from in secret, the impact of her poor convenience diet had been highlighted; she had gone to the cheap market boutique Haslets to buy a suit for the funeral. Humiliated, but nineteen pounds ninety-nine lighter in her purse, she had left the store.
Mum had left what money she had to Mary as sole heir. Mary gained even more weight during the process of executing the estate, a comfort diet taking the place of the convenience one. She paid off a few utility bills and argued for levity with the local council for an unpaid council tax bill of over a year and a half. The council showed the same degree of mercy as the cancer had.
When she had boxed Mum's possessions she had tarried over the diaries which her mother wrote with almost religious devotion. Would Mum's memory be best served if she destroyed or kept them? She couldn't imagine reading them - it would seem like an invasion of privacy. As she pondered their future she turned the half-completed one for 2014 over in her hands. The back cover flapped open and an autumn of receipts helicoptered their way down to the yellowing blue Lino. Amongst them was a sealed envelope. Mary stooped to pick it up, leaving the receipts where they lay and almost dropped it again when she saw what was written on the address side.
Mary
And here she was. Her mother had left her one ticket to this performance. How she had heard of it, let alone procured a ticket so far in advance was a mystery, but she was here now. And ecstatically happy.
She looked past the empty seats to her right at an equally drab spectator; a man in a dark green tweed suit, also damp. His jowly face glowed a whitish blue as it stared down in deep concentration at his mobile phone screen. His eyebrows struggled to meet like weak magnets covered in iron filings, and what Mary took for rainwater covered his face in a sheen that combined with the jowls, giving the impression of a melting waxwork. He snapped round noticing her gaze and nodded self-consciously at his phone, making some meaningless gesture with it that made Mary want to snap yeah, it's a phone you moron.
She studied her doughy hands cradled in her lap and wondered when they had become so plump. She'd noticed her belly and breasts growing larger - and even the point when she had begun to have trouble getting her boots on past her ankles - but her hands had grown by stealth. This thought brought her attention to her backside which now felt particularly restricted by the theatre seat. Her hips strained at the trouser suit's tight polyester and fought to spill over the cushion and squeeze under the arm rest. God, you really are fat, now, not even plump!
She had comforted herself with apple pies and black pudding after Mum's death. Not together of course, but still, they made a strange combination that would have suggested pregnancy yens if that in itself were not a ridiculous suggestion; provided of course He had not decided, some two thousand years later, to create another immaculate conception.
She thought of the Biblical connotations of apples and blood.
As she sat on her sofa, wedged against the far right end with her laptop burning her thighs, she browsed for meaningful poems and passages that she could include in the service for Mum or read herself. A plate of fried slices of black pudding sat on the centre cushion of the sofa and when that was nothing but crumbs which looked like the small clumps of rotten black underlay that somehow migrated from under the carpet, she would often sigh, close the laptop and walk to the kitchen. After five minutes she would return with a glass of red wine in a huge chalice goblet Josephine had brought her from Glastonbury, and a plate from which a family sized apple pie metastasised. No cream. Just wine and pie. She grew heavy in the thighs and wide hips became broader, ankles disappearing, breasts swelling and migrating East and West as well as South. She didn't look like an egg, so much as a spinning top.
She was dizzy with excitement. Or from breathing too fast from the walk up to these upper circle seats. What had Josephine said when she'd shown her the ticket she'd found in Mum's diary? Some term for the seats, which she couldn't recall. Mary had been in the kitchen with Josephine toasting Mary's completion of the closure of the Estate. They had made it a little ritual with Josephine providing some almost transparent paper and a red pen;
'Use it to write a message, one that will allow your memories of your mother to transcend the grief you feel. Set her free, Mary and let the gods do the rest!' she had beamed, pushing the paper across the small kitchen workspace. That was it, the gods. Josephine had upset Mary when she'd looked at the ticket and snorted, 'Oh my, Mare, what a sense of humour your mum has, she got you tickets in the gods! At least you'll be near her when you watch him perform!'
Mary had screwed her face up at this, and Josephine had been careful to apologise for her callousness saying she was trying to keep things buoyant. Mary hadn't replied, but simply written the simple lines on the parchment, oddly inspired Josephine's words,
Mum, you were a goddess! Now there's just me, I hope I can become as you. Help me transcend the loss of the only thing I love. M.
