Duck Pond

Second scene; adding your guys advice to my other scenes as well, but critique whatever you see keeps arising.

He traveled through the tunnel, to the light flickering at the far end of it; he was certain this was the end, and all the stories of heaven starting with a leading light through a tunnel were all true.

 

“The sun was still the sun”, he thought to himself surpassing the threshold of the mysterious black hole, the sun shimmering sparks that filtered through the gaps between the branches and leaves setting the tree on fire but not consuming it by burning ash and flames.

 

A syncretistic casting of just enough beams of light reflected off the directionally correct ripples of water, making the vision of the glare off the pond, eye cringing, his eyes fluttered wide open.

 

A thought raced through his head, that he was “stranded over a sea of irksome daydreams, and ship wrecked amongst an oblivious abyss of milieu and the famous last words of failure prodigious to every other thought, At least I tried.”

 

 Bottlenecked by shame and deaf to the voice of reason, he forged a little house of twigs out of the foliage that was scattered about around him, on the bench beside him to get his mind off these erratic inadequacies.

 

All at once, startled by a voice “My son?” she said with gentle succor. He looked up and she was facing the pond, with her back to him, her arms wrapped one over the other, hugging her body. The shards of sun bouncing off the crystal clear surface made her appearance blinding, while she stood in blinding circle of the sun and tree of fire.

 

He squinted, seeking relief behind fluttering eyelashes and pawing at the sky, but eerie shackles strapped him in his seat with a strange comfortability of immobility settling over him from his restraints.

 

“I’m lost Mom.” He replied with puerile facial demeanor.

 

“You have knotted the thread that ties your thoughts together, and now your rite of passage, is life or death” her voice breaking apart with subtle anguish “Just listen to the earth and follow your heart and you’ll find your way back.” she said timorous with a slant back glance over her shoulder, a tear captured by the sun’s flames, sparkled down her cheek.

 

With a poignant head his eyes fell to the floor. Her words ringing in his ears while time stood still, freezing the breeze, stalling the paddling of ducks, and ambulating legs, and ripples of water, and the fury of the sun’s flames. The ideal still life, enough time stood still for him to paint the clearest of clarities.

 

“I’m tired,” he said tenuously shifting his gaze up to where she stood, looking for her understanding, empathy, and pity. His hopeless eyes fluid with the motion of his head, and as quick as she appeared with the glinting sunlight, she was now nowhere to be seen, a crucial event of empty dwelling in a acrid farewell of lonesomeness filled his motionless body with thick plaques of tar.

 

His hands floated up to the sides of his face, pushing and pulling the temples and hair back, as his hands fell behind his ears, fingers came to clasp one another behind his head. He let the weight of gravity drop his head back into his hands, and tilt his gaze to the sky. He found refuge staring up at the frothy white voids scattered about the rainbow blotched skies, taking in no thoughts, no concerns, perfectly careless, letting his eyelids get the best of him he sunk into his seat.

Author's Note

critique, critique, critique Luv ya guys for your help. I really want to make this an emotional scene, especially the dialogue between the mother and son. Advice needed much =) Help me make you get misty at that scene....

Reviews

[T. Adams]

Beautifully written, although I did not feel emotional about the scenario. The dialogue lacked the compassion of a mother to me. Anyone could have delivered that message, most mothers would have attempted to express their love. Maybe I'm missing the mark here, but that was just my take.

[Brooklyn]

Yeah I still feel like their's something missing from here dialogue, and to set that tone, i'm still trying to figure out the most appropriate way to show that she loves him and all she wants to do is reach out to him but theirs some great equator between them.

[T. Adams]

If it were me, I'd watch movies about loss. I'd watch a mothers torture and try to capture that feeling. I'd watch the love of an adoring child and figure out what it is to you that describes their expressions. I hope this was some help.

[Mr. Box]

Your writing style is very beautiful, and I really love your choices of words and your structure of sentences. However I have a little suggestion (ps: I'm an inexperienced writer): you can make the mother to express her feeling and emotions more when she talks to her son, it will make the reader feel more connected to her. Thanks for sharing.

[Skai Rain]

This is wonderfully written and the words you used painted a great picture. Thank you for sharing!

[Brooklyn]

Thanx Brit ;P

[The StoryTeller]

OH. MY. GOSH. Wow. That was beautiful, the dialogue between mother and son. I think it could use more emotion, and description of those emotions he was feeling. I just (before I read your scene one) read your "Lost" and I love how that ties into this. I thought it was just a poem, and didn't realized it was a way for you to get advice for the story too, as to what to have the mother say so this story would have more depth. That kind of nark my earlier comment in "Lost" as that won't (idk, maybe it would) really fit here. Otherwise though, this was beautifully written, and you still pulled me in to want to read more. I now see that instead of possibly being dead, as in scene one, this child is teetering (or so I presume) on the balance between death and life, and must make a choice. He is in possibly one foot in the afterlife, one foot out, or in purgatory. (I could be totally insane and off course here.) He can choose to either die and be with his mother and lose his chance at life, or he could live. This seriously draws me in, my only critique thus far would be to put more emotion in the story, you don't have to say the emotion, but you can allure to it. Rather than saying, "I feel sadness" from the viewpoint of the child in his mind, you can say, "I feel empty." I'm sure you can do better than that, but it's a start. Also, you can add depth to the emotion by explaining why he feels that way, perhaps with a flashback to a time with his mother, or by using description like, "I feel like I'm drowning in a lake and there is no way out." Also, I feel the mother should talk with the child, because unlike the voices, she knows and loves him, and therefore she shouldn't be as cryptic. I do see how you're trying to keep the atmosphere of how only he can choose his path and others must not interfere. I think however, there should be some truly emotional inspiring words between the two. If you need inspiration for that, look at the comments on your writing "Lost". I also agree with some of the other comments on here. Aside from that, great job.

[Brooklyn]

your a smart cookie, but i'm not going to reveal anything too soon ;) Great feed back and character intuition.

[The StoryTeller]

Lol, well, I'll stay tuned, so post soon! And thank you, you're a great writer, that's the only reason I could give great feedback and see a lot about your character. Keep it up!

[Mr_M]

I love your writing style, every detail described in your work is captured with brilliant description. It felt like I was watching a movie in my mind. I think you can pull on the heart strings a little more, I didn't feel like they were as close as they could be. Though I saw her as a guide or a projection so maybe this would be the case. Maybe in this stunning purgatory the people you love are a reflection. Regardless I found it a stunning story.

[Brooklyn]

Haha that's funny you say heart strings lol..... Yeah I need to capture both the closeness and guide vibe to have the emotional impact i want, I think I got some good pointers on here, thank you.

[Coyote Poetry]

A well written story. I had to read again to understand the complete conversation and situation.
“I’m tired,” he said tenuously shifting his gaze up to where she stood, looking for her understanding, empathy, and pity. "
I felt a loneliness and sadness in the words. You left me with wanting to know more. Thank you for sharing the excellent story.
Coyote

[Andrew Dane Parker]

First of all, this was very beautiful and very vivid in detail. I could see the whole scene like a movie in my head which is what I like to have when reading. The only "tip", I guess I could give you is this: when a character thinks a thought to himself, in his mind, you don't put equations around it. At least I don't do that and I've seen it done that way in any other writing. I'm not saying you should change your writing style or anything, I just think quotation marks are used for dialogue spoken out loud. But anyway I would also love your opinion on my work, if you wouldn't mind. And this is a great story, so keep up the good work!

[Brooklyn]

spanks, yeah I thought about that a great deal, it could be heads or tails. Will do.

[Andrew Dane Parker]

Your welcome!

[Matthew James Ginn]

Love the scene. You wanted an emotional scene you desire, has been accomplished. The descriptive vocabulary sometimes makes it seem like an essay rather then a scene. Dont force words. Doing a superb job so far!

[Brooklyn]

Spanky your, I might be forcing words, kinda like for a GRE prep thing

[Matthew James Ginn]

ohhhh
gotcha

[SheDragon16]

Good very good makes me feel almost like there's some memory behind the duck pond i can almost see him and his mother setting by the duck pond when he was a boy. :)

[Brooklyn]

Yaaaaa I'm glad to hear it, that's exactly what i'm going for.