Karma

It all started one grey Tuesday morning, as the lovely Anise, our subject, turned the corner onto another typical New York street. Her eyes, severe and sharp, scanned the denizens with haughtiness, judging the way they live their lives. Clicking and clacking, Anise’s heels announced to the world around her that she was arriving. Through her sunglasses, round and dark, she spied a strange new man selling ice cream; she’d never seen an ice cream vendor here before.

“First vanilla cone’s on the house, Miss Baker!” Enticed the vendor.

Odd, she mused, how does he know my name?

            Mind befuddled, she accepted the free cone and clicked her way toward the book store she frequented.

            Something strange began to happen to the lovely Anise as she flipped through a fashion magazine; the faces began looking back at her. They glared at her, disgusted, and shook their heads in disappointment; a harsh opinion seemed unanimous. Hands sweating, the once lovely Anise bowed and hunched her shoulder, and awkwardly apologized to every face she passed as she ran outside. Every eye in the street followed her anxious sprint and spit at her, daring her to subject herself to more judgment. Only one face was not casting such harsh opinions, only one smiling face: the ice cream man.

“What the Devil did you do to me?!” She shouted�"which she immediately regretted, as it warranted more harsh glances.

“Nothing, I only gave you the come around.” He said pleasantly.

“And what exactly is the ‘come around?’”

“In this business, it’s what happens after the go around.” After this vague statement, with hands flying, the ice cream man began tossing napkins into the now haggard Anise’s face, skewing her line of sight.

            Crying and scared, Anise furiously swatted away the napkins, and saw that the man had vanished, along with his wares, and so did the anxiety, the judgmental gazes, and the inexplicable newfound self consciousness. In their place was a business card with one small message:

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Reviews

[Taylor]

Well, I was attracted to this because I have a story posted on the site entitled "Karma." I'm not sure it's the best title for my piece, so you've given me the impetus to come up with something new and more apropos for my story. Now back to yours -- I like it. Shows some good detail and moves along swiftly. For me, that's it's major issue -- I'd love to see what would happen if you meander and linger a bit in the bookstore, perhaps with an illustrative scene of some of her injustices being visited upon her. The ending also could benefit from a little bit of expansion. I don't mean to be heavy handed here -- it's just that I prefer honest reviews and suggestions for improvement. I enjoyed reading this and hope to see a revised version at some point. By the way, I've never yet finished a story. Every time I think I have, I re-read it and start editing again. One of these days, I'm going to either tie my hands behind my back or not read something I want to be finished. I say all of that just to communicate my stance on editing and hopefully you won't see my suggestions as something I wouldn't apply to myself.

[Lizzy]

this is great. i do think we need more back story on Anise, what did she do to deserve to turn so ugly. I enjoy the message and the way you showed it but i feel like the reader needs to know why this happened.

[Dane V. Loviel]

Yeah this was written for school with the challenge of every sentence starting with a different word, and it severely limited me. So I plan on expanding this one by quite a bit