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I polished the stone on the inside of my sleeve. It was plain, and flat. I slung it at the river – plink plink plink. Perfectly executed, just like my father had taught me years before.
"You want to skim it across the water, son," he had told me.
"Like skim milk?"
My father just laughed, ruffling my hair. "No, like skimming on the surface. It'll glide if you do it right."
He loved to skip stones on the river. Ironic that now his representation was glossy marble.
Clouds loomed ahead. I just picked up another stone.
"You want to skim it across the water, son," he had told me.
"Like skim milk?"
My father just laughed, ruffling my hair. "No, like skimming on the surface. It'll glide if you do it right."
He loved to skip stones on the river. Ironic that now his representation was glossy marble.
Clouds loomed ahead. I just picked up another stone.
Literature
FFM 2018, July 28 - Dybbuk
I'm writing this as a warning to everyone: if a relative or a loved one, especially one you haven't been close with for a long time or who lives far away suddenly contacts you and wants to talk about Dybbukism, do not talk to them!! Do not meet them, do not return their calls or messages. Block them everywhere, and forget they ever existed. Even if it's your own sister.
Consider my story a warning example. Everything I write here is true.
My sister, let's call her Ann (not her real name) and me were never close growing up: she was ten years older than me, and by the time I started school she had already moved away from home. But we kept in
Literature
Intimes Tagebuch - 35 -
Intimes Tagebuch (35)
Da schreibt mir also völlig ungefragt dieser Typ, und was soll ich jetzt damit machen? Ihn blocken, logisch, aber sonst?
……
Was soll ich jetzt damit anfangen? Was will mir der Knabe damit sagen? Dass im Grunde mit seinem nicht mehr so stillschweigenden Einverständnis nun alles okay ist? Dass er, obwohl er ein Höhlenmensch ist, sich nun bemüht, offener zu werden? Und wie nett von ihm, dass er nichts unterbinden will. Sicher will er aber nur weiter mitlesen, was seine Freundin schreibt und was ich so schreibe - natürlich nicht, um sich daran aufzugeilen! Aber er muss informiert sei
Literature
FFM 30 - Shapeshifter
First, it was a magic carpet, and then an invisibility cloak. Other times it was a blindfold, cape, tablecloth, blanket, leash, waterfall, or river. Sometimes (secretly) it was a whip; powerful, vicious.
At a glance, it was a simple blue scarf and that's what Lola liked about it. Its potential was limitless, just like hers.
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Thank you for presenting this to #CRLiterature's critique chat. And for reworking it once already, based upon my comments there.
This tightened-up version works much better; you've already eliminated a lot of the redundancy of the original draft. This is one reason I enjoy writing to an artificial constraint, such as '100 words exactly'.
So what's left to be done? One suggestion would be to further distinguish the past from the present; and one way to do this is to use the past perfect tense (the word 'had') rather than the simple past tense. Example: ("I'd polished the stone...")
Of course, if you do so, you'll need to do so throughout, which could affect the word count and force another rewrite; so it's your call.
I like the new ending as well; as I said in chat, it implies a continuation that wasn't there before: to remember is well and good, but life goes on. My only quibble is with the word 'just': again, I find it redundant. Perhaps something like I went searching for another stone. instead?
My last nit to pick is with the placement of the word 'now' in the next-to-last paragraph. I personally think it works better following the word 'representation': Ironic that his representation now was glossy marble. By moving it to a place that's unusual (while still grammatically correct) you add just enough emphasis to drive home the point that the narrator's father has passed on, and everything up to that point was all a memory.
Whether or not you choose to work on this some more, it's a good story with an uplifting message. Thank you once again for sharing it.