Opening to a short story

[spencer_broughton]

This is just the opening to a longish short story, PM me if you fancy reading the rest. I'd appreciate some comments. Thanks.


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Sat like the family dog under a dinner table by the cash point next to a swish student bar is not how I had pictured by 29th birthday. There is nothing but cardboard cushioning my backside, and half a red rug stained by years of misuse protecting me from the chilly Northern city breeze. The sky is black and only visible behind the stacks of shops and flats when I tilt my head up. Street lights shine yellow polka dots onto the pavement and mix with the intrusive headlights of cars and taxis dodging intoxicated kamikaze pedestrians making their way over the trenches to the bar across the road. The city is noisy, as it always is on a Saturday night; beer drinking competitions, fancy-dress, colour and sound. All except for the shadow where I sit; missed by street light and headlight alike.

I’m in a box, a tinted glass box. It’s 2 by 4 and locked so I can’t get out. I can see out, I can see everything as I press my nose to the glass as eager as a 10 year old boy outside the comic book shop. People can only see me if they come close and squint. They can only hear me if they concentrate. They need to concentrate to let it enter their consciousness. Which is a problem because it is only people outside who can let me out; they have the key but they don’t know it and they can’t see or hear me.

11 O’clock and the drunken droogs line up in quintessential English queues to access their necessary drinking funds before leaving for further debauchery in the seedy nightclubs around town. Boozy lads are always first in line, efficiency is key to maintaining their high alcohol levels. As they approach I look up to them, and mutter my line with as much hope as I can muster, and then lean against the back of the glass box closing my sensitive ears to the expletives and winsome advice I have become all too accustomed to.

“Get y’sen a proper job ya fookin’ smelly bastard.” Shouts the most drunken and loud of the crew. This is followed, predictably, by manic laughter from the fellow drunken yobs.

Finally they wander off, staggering slightly in crooked lines, and I exhale with relief. A little up the street, by a bus stop, a couple were arguing. I couldn’t make out what it was about, but the girl was waving her arms in angry animation while the guy stared through her disinterested.

Their argument was cut short by the inevitable arrival of their carriage home. I was still unused to the gigantic buses driven by manic drivers tainted by the pressure to keep to strict timetables. Growing up in the countryside made me more used to the whooshing of trees and bushes by my ear rather than the imperceptibly close wing mirror of a speeding 10 ton vehicle. It was unnerving, and reminded me of my longing for home and not this darkened box where I had resided for the last 6 months.

Moving to the city with a new wife and job had been a utopia I destroyed through excess. The city brings to light the things tucked away into the darkness in rural retreats, but now it’s me tucked away in the darkness watching the city shine on bright. Maybe I was always destined to be in the darkness.

[thoke]

This is quite good. Although, the last paragraph seems like pointless reiteration to me. And the first sentence seems... urm... wrong, somehow.

Personally, I would prefer something as simple as, "I am sat like the family dog under a dinner table by the cash point next to a swish student bar, celebrating my 29th birthday" instead of "Sat like the family dog under a dinner table by the cash point next to a swish student bar is not how I had pictured by 29th birthday" The sentence you've written sounds sort of glib. But that's just me. I understand this story is quite old and you probably don't want to edit it now.

Anyway, other than those tiny details, I think I liked most of it. It paints a vivid picture of a city at night. And stuff. I'd be interested to see how it develops.

[spencer_broughton]

Yeh the first line is rubbish, I changed it a while ago I think.

It's also about West Street, I thought you might be interested as I remember you mentioning the City Hall in one of your posts.

Thanks.

[thoke]

Oh right, cool. Sheffield is where I begin... it must be where you end. Ho ho ho.

[thefallofRome]

i agree with the comments that thoke said, and in addition, i think that if you worked a bit more on how to articulate the emotions that you were trying to convey with the second paragraph, it would be absolutely smashing.
other than that, good read-- thanks :]