The Lawnmower - My first short story

penelopecarax

Hey, this is my first post on these boards, here is the story I am currently working on. Criticism welcome. Penelope xx

The Lawn Mower

This was becoming somewhat of a ritual. Her hair had to be perfect. Untouched but perfect. He had so loved to stroke her hair. To run his young, small fingers through it. Said it felt like silk; looked like silk. She could almost feel his fingertips now, whispering to her skin as he placed the strands in order.

In the reflection of the looking glass, she brushed her own fingers across her shirt, feeling the material run beneath the slow deliberate strokes of her hand. Her shirt was one of many she had on the rail in her dressing room, ready for this moment. Before their last morning together she had owned only one, and he had taken it from the hanger, offering it to her; eyes wide open in pleasure as she accepted it. It was his favourite, and even as she had laughed at the idea of wearing the thing for the afternoon chores, he had insisted, fondling the mustard frills that were sewn into the front panels. As he pushed the little bronze flowers through the button holes, his high, light breaths had fallen quickly upon her neck. Today of course, her hair stayed untouched. No, the silk was enough.

So it was silk she had worn on the day of his departure, so it would be silk now. Pushing herself up from the stool with her hands on her thighs, she took the bottle from the top of the dressing table. In an attempt to fill the burgundy hole that had once clutched another to another tiny pulse, beating in time with her own, she poured herself another glass. A liquid heart or at least: something to make her grow warm and strong again.

In trying to forget the past, she would often forget the present too – arms and legs and heart lost in a limbo between tense memory and the limpness of now. At times, she would lose grip upon glass that held reality at arms length, and it would slip from her hand, crashing to the floor. Plummeting with it, the uneasy performances of which her life was made up. Everything had to be planned then executed. A water-tight, fail proof plan so as not to leave room for the dark, wet thoughts that could come trickling through gaps of time she hadn’t filled. When that happened, she returned to her amber liquid hearts, filling herself up until she couldn’t feel anything left to be empty or full.

If she only had rules to live by and rituals to follow, then everything could be alright. It was the little things that kept her together. Like that, she could make it through the day without having to think; not really think.

But eventually this moment would come, and she would be forced to face the dewed tarpaulin in the garden, under which slept her strongest memory. On a good day, it would only take a glass or two to pluck up the courage to do it. On a bad day, the entire bottle. It was funny the effect that it had on her, this metallic contraption. It was at once her burden and her solace. She might stare at it for an hour or more, trying to face down her fears, knowing that her cycle of days and nights, measured out in carefully prepared doses was approaching its climax.

With a sharp intake of breath, finally, she would pull back the sheet to reveal the lawnmower. A quick tug at the ignition was followed by the billowing rumble of the motor as it urged itself back into life. This was the only space left in her life when she could allow the memories to come flooding back, only to be drowned out by the safe and steady mechanic growl.

She could almost will herself back to the beginning of everything, or rather, the end. On that day, like every other, she had been surrounded by the symphony of their idyllic existence: the birdsong; a plane overhead; the twittering radio in the neighbour’s yard; the happy splashes of her second heart on the other side of the house.

The roar of the lawnmower had quickly bleached out all of the other noises in the garden; leaving her deaf to that deadening unsound. But eventually, that odd silence had reached her, even through the deep hum of the motor. She had paused, cutting the engine; the blades ceasing to rotate. The patchwork of sounds returned to the garden, but a thread was missing. Life had pulled away from her in that moment with the awareness of an irreversible, immutable truth: The splashing had stopped.

heinrichaussler

I think this is very, very good Penelope. I liked it a lot. You have a definite skill here. You have a very beguiling way of driving the plot simply by describing things. I find that's one of the mistakes people make, when they first start writing, they want to describe everything, and forget there's a story to be told. But you haven't forgotten that.

It's not imperfect (nothing is though, right?), but i think the way for you to improve is <cliché alert> to just write, write, write. You are certainly not going to be banging your head of a brick wall, because you do have skill, and gradually you'll learn to see what is wheat and what is chaff. One other tiny criticism is the semi-colon: you've pretty much used it all wrong. It's a great punctuation point, i love it, and use it a lot, but it's basically a soft full-stop. And generally, it can be used in place of an "and" or a "but". For instance:

"He got a kick in the face, and he wasn't happy about it."

can be written as:

"He got a kick in the face; he wasn't happy about it."

depending on style, you can punctuate it harder:

"He got a kick in the face. He wasn't happy about it."

but what you can't do is:

"He got a kick in the face, he wasn't happy about it."

The comma is inappropriate here.

The other use of a semi-colon is similar to that of a comma (and I reckon this is where many get mixed up) but it's used to divide, in the way a comma would, but where a comma would make things too messy.

For instance:

"She bought a Jacket, a hat, and a scarf." Which is fine.

But, it might get confusing in this case:

"She bought a jacket, which she loved, a hat, which was green, and a scarf, which itched her."
See, the comma is trying to do TWO jobs here, which doesn't work.

So we have a handy little semi-c:

"She bought a jacket, which she loved; a hat, which was green; and* a scarf, which ithced her.

*Now you may have noticed the semi-colon preceding the word "and", which in it's strictest sense is incorrect, but I think it is necessary in many cases. Punctuation isn't etiquette (despite my probably dogmatic, unsolicited lesson above ), it's just a really good tool that a writer can take advantage of, in the absence of the tones and inflection that speech provides.

Anyway, sorry if I hi-jacked your thread a little. As I said, your piece is very impressive (PM me if you want to talk more about writing - that goes for everybody here). I just felt it was a good chance to point out the uses of the wonderful, subtle little semi-colon.

bakkiesbotha

penelopecarax wrote: »

Hey, this is my first post on these boards, here is the story I am currently working on. Criticism welcome. Penelope xx

The Lawn Mower

This was becoming somewhat of a ritual. Her hair had to be perfect. Untouched but perfect. He had so loved to stroke her hair. To run his young, small fingers through it. Said it felt like silk; looked like silk. She could almost feel his fingertips now, whispering to her skin as he placed the strands in order.

In the reflection of the looking glass, she brushed her own fingers across her shirt, feeling the material run beneath the slow deliberate strokes of her hand. Her shirt was one of many she had on the rail in her dressing room, ready for this moment. Before their last morning together she had owned only one, and he had taken it from the hanger, offering it to her; eyes wide open in pleasure as she accepted it. It was his favourite, and even as she had laughed at the idea of wearing the thing for the afternoon chores, he had insisted, fondling the mustard frills that were sewn into the front panels. As he pushed the little bronze flowers through the button holes, his high, light breaths had fallen quickly upon her neck. Today of course, her hair stayed untouched. No, the silk was enough.

So it was silk she had worn on the day of his departure, so it would be silk now. Pushing herself up from the stool with her hands on her thighs, she took the bottle from the top of the dressing table. In an attempt to fill the burgundy hole that had once clutched another to another tiny pulse, beating in time with her own, she poured herself another glass. A liquid heart or at least: something to make her grow warm and strong again.

In trying to forget the past, she would often forget the present too – arms and legs and heart lost in a limbo between tense memory and the limpness of now. At times, she would lose grip upon glass that held reality at arms length, and it would slip from her hand, crashing to the floor. Plummeting with it, the uneasy performances of which her life was made up. Everything had to be planned then executed. A water-tight, fail proof plan so as not to leave room for the dark, wet thoughts that could come trickling through gaps of time she hadn’t filled. When that happened, she returned to her amber liquid hearts, filling herself up until she couldn’t feel anything left to be empty or full.

If she only had rules to live by and rituals to follow, then everything could be alright. It was the little things that kept her together. Like that, she could make it through the day without having to think; not really think.

But eventually this moment would come, and she would be forced to face the dewed tarpaulin in the garden, under which slept her strongest memory. On a good day, it would only take a glass or two to pluck up the courage to do it. On a bad day, the entire bottle. It was funny the effect that it had on her, this metallic contraption. It was at once her burden and her solace. She might stare at it for an hour or more, trying to face down her fears, knowing that her cycle of days and nights, measured out in carefully prepared doses was approaching its climax.

With a sharp intake of breath, finally, she would pull back the sheet to reveal the lawnmower. A quick tug at the ignition was followed by the billowing rumble of the motor as it urged itself back into life. This was the only space left in her life when she could allow the memories to come flooding back, only to be drowned out by the safe and steady mechanic growl.

She could almost will herself back to the beginning of everything, or rather, the end. On that day, like every other, she had been surrounded by the symphony of their idyllic existence: the birdsong; a plane overhead; the twittering radio in the neighbour’s yard; the happy splashes of her second heart on the other side of the house.

The roar of the lawnmower had quickly bleached out all of the other noises in the garden; leaving her deaf to that deadening unsound. But eventually, that odd silence had reached her, even through the deep hum of the motor. She had paused, cutting the engine; the blades ceasing to rotate. The patchwork of sounds returned to the garden, but a thread was missing. Life had pulled away from her in that moment with the awareness of an irreversible, immutable truth: The splashing had stopped.

I liked it a lot. You created the atmosphere very well, and your imagery was very evocative. I had to read it a few times to figure out what had happened, but the good thing is that I wanted to. Bravo.

davyjose

This is quite a wonderful pice of writing Penelope. I'm very impressed by it.

penelopecarax

Thankyou everybody I might even stick another one up.

reality

The final punch was sharp and bitter. Really enjoyed this, well done!

pickarooney

I've read it a couple of times but still can't make sense of the ending. What did she run over?

penelopecarax

S[FONT=&quot]orry... [/FONT][FONT=&quot]obscurity is [/FONT][FONT=&quot]one [/FONT][FONT=&quot]of my maj[/FONT][FONT=&quot]or flaws... she didn't run [/FONT][FONT=&quot]over anything. Her little b[/FONT][FONT=&quot]oy dr[/FONT][FONT=&quot]owned in the swimming p[/FONT][FONT=&quot]o[/FONT][FONT=&quot]ol. That's why the splashing had st[/FONT][FONT=&quot]opped.[/FONT]

alfa beta

stylish, measured, controlled and wonderfully evocative - keep writing, and I'll keep reading.

Love your other post too.

AB