Yasmin Khan

As the heavy rains poured down outside, she sat solemnly in her apartment. Thinking, of what could have been. Of course there wasn’t much point  to that now, her fate had been almost sealed for her. But that little part inside her, it still held on, to the life that she had once been so close to having. The life that she had dreamed of, ever since she was a little girl. The life, she now knew she could never have.

She did this often. Just sit alone and think. It had become almost a habit of hers. Who could blame her? With all the free time she had. Sometimes she would stand up with swift determination, she would decide that it was enough; she deserved a better life too and she would do something about it. But that determination left as swiftly as it came.  So then she would fall back down onto her plush sofa, and once again stare outside the window and once again wonder about what would have been.

Love was a strange and powerful thing. She realized that now. But at times she would find herself wondering whether it was actually love that bound her. Or whether it was just that she had been living this life for so long, she didn’t know how to do anything else. Yes, that was it. Because the love, she was sure, had left a long time ago. That being said, she did feel a certain sense of awe towards her captor. He had this strange power over her. She was not afraid of him, no, but more mesmerized.

He was a brilliant man no doubt; immensely talented and equally arrogant. He had this hold over her that she couldn’t shake off. All the time knowing how irreplaceable she was to him. And she resented him for that. To know that she could leave him and he wouldn’t even blink was frustrating. Especially since she was so enthralled by him. No, she didn’t love him; she hated him even. But she just couldn’t bear the thought of being without him.

She had moved to London from Pakistan when she was five years old. Her father had wanted a better life for his wife and three children. But, in the seventeen years from then to now, her brother had died due to illness, her mother and sister succumbed to injuries after being hit by a car and her father being unable to bear the lose of his wife, had hung himself.

But she had been determined through all of this. She had stayed strong, adamant to make a life for herself, a happy life. And now here she was, gazing at the rain and pondering upon the path not taken. She chuckled when she realized how dramatic it all was. She was only twenty-two, she had her whole life ahead of her and yet somehow it felt like this was it. Like she would never be more than she was now. 

Suddenly she thought back to that day in Pakistan, when her father had come in and announced that they would be moving to England. She remembered it clearly, the dusty little hut they lived in, the humidity in the air, the sour smell, it was like she was there right now. Her older siblings had been helping their mother with chores and she was playing with ‘toys’, that where actually just rocks and pieces of wood.  

Her father had rushed in, he was big sheepish man and so rushing was uncharacteristic to him. The compactness of the hut meant that he immediately had everyone’s attention. He rushed over to his wife and grabbed her by the shoulders “It is done” he beamed “Brother Altaf just called, he said everything is arranged for. We leave in 3 days”.

She had never seen her mother light up like that. Her mother was a sickly and frail woman with a permanent sense of sorrow to her. But right then in that moment, there was a new life in her. She embraced the two older kids closest to her and announced, “We are going to England!” Then she noticed her 5 year old looking at her. She ran up to her and scooped her up “Did you hear that Yasmin?” she asked as she kissed the child “We are going to England”

The sound of thunder from outside made Yasmin snap back to the present. She wondered what her mother would think of her now. She knew she would be upset. Angry even. In her culture, even talking to a man that wasn’t your husband or related to you was frowned upon. Let alone sleeping with another woman’s husband. A non-muslim at that.

Somehow, the thought that her life now would disappoint her mother, made Yasmin smile. She had always had a rebellious streak in her. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to live her life the way she pleased? Who were other people to judge her? She remembered having these arguments with her parents while growing up. They were always so orthodox, unable to open their minds to new things. So unexciting.

That was probably why she was never really attached to them. They were too different from her as were her siblings. None of them really understood her, her thirst for more, her want for a something else. Perhaps that’s why when they all died off, she was sad but relieved. She had nothing tying her down now; no ones expectations weighing her down. No more drama, no more heated arguments followed by her father refusing to look at her and her mother weeping loudly. She was finally free.

Only she wasn’t. Not for long at least. But she didn’t know that back then. She was eighteen and the world was her oyster. She would travel, party and earn lots of money maybe meet new people. She could do whatever she pleased. 

When her father, the last reason she felt held back, died, Yasmin was just getting done with her sixth form. She wanted to be a lawyer and had applied to some great universities. Everything was finally going to work out. So she decided to spend her summer relaxing, taking some time to herself. Her life was going to get very busy soon.

Only she had no idea what the future really had in store for her. So she explored the city, went to museums, tried different cuisines. She had a comfortable sum of money and she decided to spend it on herself. The once restricted and over populated one bedroom apartment she had lived in now became a spacious sanctuary. For the first time ever, she was alone, she had space and she loved every bit of it.

 She would wake up in the morning, having no idea what the day would bring. Sometimes she’d go out and just randomly walk around for ages. Soaking in the city, the air, and the people. Other days she’d lie in bed, the warm summer sun kissing her caramel skin gently. Her thick brown hair almost enveloping her. Everything was just perfect.

When she thought back to it now, Yasmin felt an inevitable pang of regret. She had had everything that she had wanted. Her life was about to pan out better than she could have ever hoped. Yet somehow she managed to lose it all. Somehow, she managed to sabotage herself. And now, there was nothing she could do to fix it. She didn’t know how. She couldn’t just go back to how it was because she had come to far along this path of pain and turmoil. It had become who she was. The pain she constantly felt inside of her, was all she knew. And a part of her worried that even if she did manage to get away from the pain; in doing so she would lose herself.

Her mother would tell her often tell her a story when she was young. It was about a beautiful princess, Noor, who was the most beautiful young girl in all the land. But Noor had a terrible fate. She had a cruel stepmother who would lock her up and subject her to torture. Ever since she was a little girl, the torture and the pain was all she knew. But she was brave at heart and did all she could to fight the stepmother. She was determined not to let the evil triumph over the good inside her. So every night she prayed to Allah and begged him to deliver her from this trial. Then one day, as if he were an answer to her payer, a young prince was travelling by. He heard the story of the beautiful sad princess and was determined to rescue her. And so he did. He took the princess away to his kingdom and showered her with love. At first she was overwhelmed with joy. Suddenly she knew a life that she didn’t think existed. Here she was in a beautiful palace with a loving husband and everything that she could possibly wish for. But soon the shine of the new life began to wear off. The princess found herself feeling an emptiness and sadness that all the love and jewels couldn’t take away.  She became pale and sick and would often drift away in her own thoughts. The prince didn’t know what was causing this and he did everything he could to try and make his wife happy again. But in the end it was all of no use. The princess became increasingly weak and sad and one day died. It was because she no longer had anything to believe in, anything to fight for or pray for. Her life had lost its purpose when the prince rescued her and she was never able to find another. So she grew sad and empty and finally died for she had nothing to live for. The pain and torture was everything she knew, it was her life, fighting it was who she had become. Take that away and all she was a pretty but empty shell.

Yasmin had never understood the point of that story. Her mother had told her that it was to understand the importance of a purpose in life. Today, Yasmin was still unsure she really understood. But one thing she knew was that she herself wasn’t much unlike the princess. The pain she felt when she woke up every morning was who she had become. Without it, she didn’t know what would remain. Would she too, become an empty shell? She was too scared to find out.

Author's Note

opinions please

Reviews

[Storyworker]

So as far as writing technique goes your story has an interesting style. It seems like a style that relates to the folk tale mentioned at the end of the story. There is a lot of telling going on without much description, and this is a very similar style to a folk tale. Still, I wouldn’t say that this style has not been mastered completely in this story for a few key reasons.

The first is the fault of the reader. Readers have rather short attention spans at times, and they don’t respond well to stories that lack variety. In your work, the point of view, or narrator, talks about the main character for a very long time, mostly talking about the characters personality, and also mentioning some past experiences of the character. But the story still consists of a person sitting on a couch and not doing much else while she is described. This will make a reader lose interest, as it is not a style that is attention-getting. In order to correct this, more action is needed. Now I’m not talking about the kind of action involving cars, explosions, or cool stunts. I’m talking about the kind of action that makes a reader feel like the story is progressing. This could be as simple as a person walking across a room. It creates the illusion that something is happening for the reader. As it stands, not much happens in the story for the reader to be excited about.

Next up we have the writing. Your story starts out in a way that is rather stereotypical for writing that I find on this site. Here is your opening that I would like to discuss:

“As the heavy rains poured down outside, she sat solemnly in her apartment. Thinking, of what could have been. Of course there wasn’t much point to that now, her fate had been almost sealed for her.”

This is something I see a lot in different pieces of writing. It is done far too often and comes from a person transferring the way they talk in real life into their writing. I’m talking about the “of course” which starts out your third sentence. This sentence conveys an opinion. Opinions are not often given by third person narrators. If you add a sentence like this, you are giving the narration a personality, which isn’t the best thing to do unless the narration is from an actual character. You are portraying the opinions of the character, and this is something that many writers do that, in my opinion, I would try to avoid.

Now, I would like to take a look at your first couple of paragraphs, which, sadly, seem to go on forever to a reader. Most of the information here seems unnecessary. In fact, there is a lot of unnecessary information presented throughout the reading. Why do I say that it’s unnecessary? Well, because the way that it’s presented causes the reader to forget it almost immediately after reading. Once again, a reader is waiting for something interesting in the story to come along, and unless that information is paired with something interesting, the reader is not going to effectively remember it. Make sure that you are making your information necessary, and easily remembered.

Your story as it stands is a long list of information that could use some action. Many writers tend to do this, and I do as well at times. It’s a very easy habit to fall into when you need to get a lot of information out there all at once. Just make sure that you are spreading out that information throughout your story, and filtering it to make sure everything is necessary. This is the main issue that I seem to be having with the story as is, and if it is corrected you’ll be on your way.

Reading my review over I seem a little harsher than I usually am. This isn’t the tone that I want to set for you, but the review seems to come out that way. Sorry about that. My reviews can oftentimes give off an upsetting tone, especially when the writer takes pride in their work. I understand that, so don’t take offense to my review since much of it seems negative. I am only trying to help. Take what you want to use out of my review, and discard any suggestions that you think are wrong for you.

-Storyworker

[Nirego]

I think it's certainly a good start - I can't see any problems from an imagery, characterisation, plot or attention grabbing point of view. I don't usually read chapters, because I tend to find them too long to be bothered due to them being too short to really get into, but I was definitely drawn into this one!

It's a sad situation, but one I think that a lot of people find themselves in at some stage, regardless of background - it's not uncommon to question your life, its purpose, and past decisions.

My suggestion would be to read it through again and just make some minor refinements - the beginning seems over-punctuated to me, there are some small spelling errors/typos throughout, and also I think you could improve it greatly by limiting the word and phrase repetition by finding alternatives.