On my doorstep [RE-UPLOAD]

A young 20-year-old heart-broken woman isolates herself in her "little-urban-box". Not until she doesn't feel very well... *This story is based on a deep depression of my life.

On my doorstep

“My Little Urban Box” " Sachi Ruaya

My heart is hollow, filled with heavy, dark matter "weighing my muscles. A lost future...well, it’s his loss anyway. It ain’t my fault that he likes strawberry blondes and hourglass figures with large melons! I let my pitch-black hair flow against my pillow and let the breeze from the open window softly batter my face, just like how the dark matter of my heart flows against gravity to later leak out of my eyes as saltwater crystals "battering my cheeks. Screeches and cries of children pestering their mothers and the vibration of trams passing by have long been muted from my ears. The air of my “box” lingers with mixed-cuisine and burnt cigar butts which also waver by the urban rap music that played whenever a party continued.

The hazy blue light of noon morphed into the warm, streaked evening which reflected off the colours of this “little urban box” I live in. Even if my naïve broken heart crackles within my chest and the windows of my soul leaks its saltwater ocean, I act as if I am happy "well, as a distraction at least. ‘There,’ I ring out the final chord as I deactivate my phone. It is complete. I refuse to present myself to anyone on this globe…not when my soft stomach-rolls hang out of my pants when I sit. Not when my chins stack, one-by-one, like a pile of pancakes! Not until I am beautiful enough. 

I press my feet onto the frigid white tiles of the kitchen, “Well, what do we have in here?” I ajar the refrigerator door. Just like any other single twenty-year-old, I hold long gazes at the fridge, hoping something magically appears. But as I was doing so, my fingertips have already found its way to my belly, pinching the blubber below my button. Groaning at my pot belly (not to mention my face), I make my way back to my room "I never liked sport nor any physical activity. Yes, I’m lazy…lazy enough to skip meals. 

Three whole weeks of consuming only my favourite strawberry-flavoured white tea hoping to lose some weight, writing songs, re-reading novels and watching Netflix, my cheeks have become sullen as the bones pointed higher. Also, my rolls no longer hung out of my denim jeans. But I feel exhausted. Like those year 12 exchange students from South Korea, who had the least of sleep. Even if this was the case, whenever I wanted to fuel myself, my appetite slips through my fingertips. Nevertheless, it is expected that I will pay a plethora of gas bills since I constantly felt as if I was stranded on a glacial land. My bare soles imprint the grey carpet then the frigid kitchen tiles, “D****t!” The air now whiffs of freshly manned iron and my nose is gushing with blood as my sight vividly wavers "world tilting from side-to-side. 

Frantically grasping for air, I stumble my way to the door. The exit of this box! Even if I just lay in front of my front door, I know someone would pass by and help! Click! Large explosions of panic filled my body. The door is jammed! I knew, as my breathing got unstable, that there was no other way out. I already locked all the windows and doors and threw the key "threw the key? Where?

I slumped my back on the hardwood door, retracing the last three weeks I spent in this little urban box…the fridge! Despite the unimaginable pain in my abdomen, I stumble back to the kitchen spilling blood on the grey carpet, feet pressing on the rigid tiles, I ajar the metallic door. Grab the key "which is flanked by the eggs- then stumble (like how my father used to come home drunk) back pass the dark, enclosing hallway.

Clack! Slowly…slowly…despacito…the door screams in agony as it creeps open. A familiar scent of cologne lingers to the tip of my nose, “Kohei?” His frozen, pale eyes eyeball mine. His body slouched on the gelid pavement, bloody and face monstrously mutilated. The flesh on his cheek is wrenched outwards which exposed the jawbone and teeth. He lay there, deathly still, a bluish-bruised colour stretches throughout his body. Chuckling, my own body collapse next to his. And there he was, just as I requested. 

On. My. Doorstep. 

Author's Note

Watch out for my tenses, overly long sentences etc

Reviews

[JayG]

• My heart is hollow, filled with heavy, dark matter "weighing my muscles.

Someone unknown, in an unknown location and situation, is talking about someone not introduced, for unknown reasons.

What about the poor reader? As they read the words they don't know who they are, where they are, or what's going on. So while it makes perfect sense to you, who does know, to that reader, the words, having no context, hold no meaning.

Making it worse, while you can hear the emotion in your voice as you read, the reader hears only what you'll hear if you have your computer read it to you, aloud. And how exciting can that be?

While you might say that if they read on all will become clear, readers won't. They want to feel as if they're living the story, not learning about it.

Fiction on the page cannot be a transcription of someone telling the story aloud, because storytelling is a performance-art and our medium reproduces neither sound nor vision.

And none of the skills writing we learned in our schooldays is applicable to fiction on the page, because we learn only nonfiction skills, fact-based, author-centric, and designed to inform.

But fiction is meant to entertain. It's emotion-based and character-centric. Think about how much time your teachers spent on how to handle dialog, how and when to use tags, and the structure of a scene. Did they tell you why a scene usually ends in disaster for the protagonist, and why it must? How about the scene-goal? Did they explain how it works and why it's necessary? Did they cover the three questions a reader wants answered quickly on entering a scene?

Of course they didn't, because their goal was providing a set of useful general skills a productive adult will use on the job and in life. They didn't cover the professions of engineering, mathematics, sales, or writing fiction. And therein lies the problem, because not only didn't they cover the needed skills, they gave us the impression that they gave us all we need to write whatever needs writing.

If only.

As a result, you're earnestly trying to place the necessary emotion into the words through vivid wording and interesting ways of expressing things. But since no matter hard we try to solve the wrong problem it won't work, you're working under a FIXABLE handicap.

And that's what matters. It's not a matter of talent or potential, it's as the great Mark Twain observed: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And that, "Just ain't so," is what you need to address.

I won't minimize it, it's not going to be easy. Nothing worthwhile is. And you'll be learning an entirely different approach to presenting fiction. Making it worse, your current writing skills, honed to the point where they feel intuitive, will work to undo any change, simply because, "that's not right."

But if you truly are meant to be a writer the learning will be fun, like going backstage at the theater. And you'll spend a lot of time saying, "Why didn't I see that for myself?"

And the result, when you get it under control will please both you and your reader.

My personal suggestion is to begin with either:

Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It's not an easy book, because it is a university level book, and goes into great detail, sometimes becoming a bit dry. And it is an older book, one that talks about your typewriter, and assumes that successful writers are male. But it is the best.

Jack Bickham's, Scene and Structure. Professor Bickham taught with Swain, so their views are much the same. And as a newer book it's more often found in the local library system.

Debra Dixon's, "GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. (a hardcover version on her site is a lot less than on Amazon). It's a warm easy read, though it does go into a lot less detail than do the others, Still, it's a good first book, and worth reading.

But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Sachi Ruaya]

I agree with the, "Making it worse, while you can hear the emotion in your voice as you read, the reader hears only what you'll hear if you have your computer read it to you, aloud. And how exciting can that be?" I'm currently working on it.
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"It ain’t my fault that he likes strawberry blondes and hourglass figures with large melons!" suggest that she is heartbroken.The fact that she is heart broken holds the context for the word choice.

"Screeches and cries of children pestering their mothers and the vibration of trams passing by have long been muted from my ears. The air of my “box” lingers with mixed-cuisine and burnt cigar butts which also waver by the urban rap music that played whenever a party continued." This sentence say that she is living in the city.

As for the "My heart is hollow, filled with heavy, dark matter "weighing my muscles." When the reader reads the words, they don't known anything. That's the whole point. They will later on learn about the heartbreak.
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I apologise. I'm quite new to fiction writing. I still don't get this context thing. As stated above, isn't that enough context to answer your questions?

But anyway, your review is much appreciated and I will do much effort to foresee it.

[JayG]

• "It ain’t my fault that he likes strawberry blondes and hourglass figures with large melons!" suggest that she is heartbroken.

Only to you. The reader, at that point, doesn't know the character's gender, age, location, or situation. Yes, you have that intent for the line, but intent doesn't make it to the page. And you are not there to explain and answer questions when the work is read.

• This sentence say that she is living in the city.

You used forty eight words to say it. And the character is not a "she" other then in your mind. Look through the piece and find where the reader learns the character's gender. I tried and couldn't.

You talk about things happening but never give the reader a hint of why. And since we don't know anything useful about the whys of the situation, or the character's history, the reader has no reason to WANT to know more.

• I'm quite new to fiction writing. I still don't get this context thing. As stated above, isn't that enough context to answer your questions?

You have lots of company, because in our schooldays they not only teach us only nonfiction writing skills, they never tell us there IS any other way to write, so we don't seek it out.

Fiction is very unlike the writing we learned. We were taught to explain, clearly and concisely. But the goal of reading fiction is to be entertained, and facts don't usually entertain.So an entirely different approach is needed.

But everyone starts out facing the same problem, and it is curable. Dig around in the local library's fiction writing section. You might also want to read a few of the articles I have posted on my writing blog to get a feel for the magnitude of the problem. They were written with the newer writer in mind.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Sachi Ruaya]

Ok. Thanks! I finally understand what you meant :)

[Darren Formosa]

Some very good descriptions I must say. At last. I also like your free spirited style and openness. Well done.

[Indigomoon]

i like this is this going to be a book one day? i would put this in the thriller maybe a psychological book about the state of mind. I like it either way.

[Sachi Ruaya]

Thank you. I am looking forward to extend this! I am considering to make it into a longer story, but I am not sure if I am going to write a book. I would like to collect more experience into writing longer stories then gradually extend my writings to a book standard.

[Indigomoon]

i understand i did alot of poetry before going to books im working on one thats not finished but you can read the first two chapters on my page and when you do i want to read it.

[Sachi Ruaya]

I am actually in the process of doing a collaboration project, starting with my friends. We might put this short story as the prompt for a book!

[Mirror]

This write almost feels like a thriller. Killing one self. The last part where she saw Kohei, is cool. And I liked the way you describe her laziness compared to depressive moods. good write.

[Sachi Ruaya]

Thank you. I'm glad you liked it.