Are you there, God? It's me, Breege

First draft

"Higher, Daddy! Higher!" Breege implored.

Her father grunted and shoved her roughly forward with one hand. As she flew upwards, he took a deep pull from his cigarette, his first in over a week. The smoke filled his lungs and caused a thrill to run down his entire body. But before he had a chance to blow out the beautiful white plume of smoke, she was swinging back into him again. He exhaled with a wheeze as he pushed her another time, his head spinning from the nicotine.

"Wheee!" she squealed excitedly.

Breege's younger brothers were clambering over the top of the monkey bars and she could see that Fiach, the youngest, had gone up higher than he was allowed and was about to attempt a dangerous jump that he had previously fallen from.

But all she wanted was for her Daddy to stay with her, and keep pushing her the way he used to when she was much smaller.

"This is so much fun!" she shrieked.

She began to exaggerate her movements on the swing, kicking her legs as far forward as she could and leaning her head all the way back. She knew that this caused her skirt to billow up a bit but that had never mattered before. All that mattered was clinging onto the warm feeling of her Daddy's attention.

But his next words to her were gruff.

"Relax, Breege, for God's sake," he muttered, grabbing onto the chains so as to slow the swing down. "You're making a holy show of yourself."

Next there was a loud scream from the area of the monkey bars. Her father swore as he chugged across the playground to where Fiach had fallen. He spent a minute consoling him, but his face was red with fury. Breege remained on the swing, rocking at the same speed as the little girl beside her and smiling sweetly at her.

"Come on!" Breege's father shouted angrily across at her, dragging her two brothers out by the hands. "Play time is over!"

Breege got off the swing and said goodbye to the little girl. As she did, she noticed the girl's father for the first time. He was standing behind his daughter, his hands hovering over her shoulders.

"Say goodbye to the big girl," he instructed his daughter. But his eyes were on Breege's chest, where two buds had begun to grow beneath her daisy patterned t-shirt.

femur61

Did I misinterpret the last line? The title seems to be incongruous with the piece then.

I found a number of punctutation errors in the pieces also, you I think the active voice would work better than the passive e.g instead of "was playing" write "she played."

First draft

femur61 wrote: »

Did I misinterpret the last line? The title seems to be incongruous with the piece then.

I found a number of punctutation errors in the pieces also, you I think the active voice would work better than the passive e.g instead of "was playing" write "she played."

Thanks for the feedback. I'll be sure to keep an eye on my punctuation. Not sure I detect the passive voice anywhere though. Above is an example of something else - the past continuous vs the perfect tense, I think.

First draft

Some mornings you just never want to get up. Not because you don't want to face the day, or because the world is a bad place, but just because nothing could feel better than that very moment in your bed.

Breege had been dreaming of her Mum, of riding in the basket on the front of her bike as they free-wheeled down the hill. Her Mum was so happy and free, singing and laughing, her fair hair floating behind her on the breeze, and ringing the bicycle bell to warn everyone of their approach.

"Here come the girls!" she called as they came to a gentle stop by the harbour and she folded Breege into a hug. Her mother's embrace made her feel so warm and safe, she never wanted the moment to end.

But her mother kept ringing the bicycle bell, and next thing, they were somehow in the water. The bell went on ringing.

"Come on!" growled an unfriendly voice, and she woke to see her Dad standing over her in her room. His face was more than usually red and his eyes were so swollen, it looked like he had been in a fight. She used to think it was because he would cry during the night, when he was by himself, but one evening she had heard her aunt fighting with him and telling him that he looked like what he was - a man who drank a bottle of whiskey every night. She could see it in his puffy, yellow eyes, she told him.

"Okay, I'm coming," she said sleepily, but she rolled over onto her side.

"Now!" he shouted, and she felt him tug at her duvet. Something told her that she had to stop him at all costs, though she couldn't have said why just yet.

"I'm up!" she screamed, raw panic in her voice, as she clutched the duvet with all her strength. She realised that her bed was wet. "I'm up! Let go!"

But he was too angry to relent, and he savagely yanked the covers away from her. Then he froze, staring at her bed as if riveted to it.

Breege followed his gaze and saw the blood, on her nightdress, and on the sheets. She screamed and held a pillow over herself so he wouldn't see. But he kept staring at her.

Eventually he started to speak, in a halting, stammering voice.

"Did your mother explain this to you before she...?" he began.

"Yes, I know about it," she mumbled, unable to look at him. Her face burned from shame.

"Well, I'll leave you to, em..." her father said. But he made no attempt to move. He just continued to stand there, staring at her with this odd look on his face.

"Or, if you need any... help... I could...?"

She looked up at him, and saw an expression on his face she had never seen before. For a moment, their eyes met and something terrible passed between them. Her face froze in horror.

Her father broke contact and ran from the room into the bathroom.

"May God forgive me!" he whispered to himself.

Das Kitty

Hi First Draft. I think you do a good job of getting the visuals across. I have no trouble picturing any of the scenes, which makes it easy to read.

You also built a nice amount of tension in. Drip-feeding little bits about the Mum and the Dad.

I have a few questions, mostly around motivation.

The man in the playground is eyeing Breege. And then later there's something unspoken between Breege and her father. I'm assuming it's similar to the thoughts of the playground man. It seems like there's maybe one perv too many in a short space. Is the story about Breege and her father or her and men in general?

There's a lot of what Breege does and thinks, but not much about how she feels. How does the playground fella make her feel about herself? How does getting her period make her feel? And the thought of her Dad drinking all night, what feelings are stoked here? Her physical and emotional reactions should be more prominent when we're following her closely in a 3rd person point of view. We need to feel as she feels.

Most of the two segments are in Breege's point of view, but at the start we hop into the Dad's head as he smokes the cigarette.

While I think I got what the Dad was doing at the end, it did feel a little too obscure. I think it was the context. While getting her period marks her as a woman, I don't think this would flick the switch in his brain, mainly due to all the blood being right there. Maybe I misinterpreted the scene completely.


But that's all nitpicking, and overall it's a really interesting story. Do you think it will be a short story or a novel? Do you have much of it written yet?

First draft

Hi, thanks for the feedback. You could be right that I am being too oblique. Her father was meant to be offering to help her put in a tampon or whatever, pretending that this was innocent, but then betraying that his intentions were inappropriate. Like the man in the playground, he is now seeing her as a sexual being instead of a little girl.

Not sure what this will develop into, if anything. Breege is meant to be a girl who is going through changes she is not emotionally ready for. Her world is not as safe as it used to be, for a variety of reasons, and she is trying to cling to the way things were when she was just a little girl.

I suppose I see her oscillating between this and the opposite extreme - trying to fake a level of emotional maturity that she doesn't posses, making bad choices, etc - before achieving a kind of equilibrium.