Untitled First Draft

After 3 years of inconsistent effort, the first draft is finally complete; desperately seeking critique!

Erin placed her shovel down, salaciously stood up, and beheld, with a curled satisfied smile, another sunflower planted in line among her earthly trophy shelf. She looked at each sunburst as if she were sentimentally connected, and touched the petals of the newest memorial one-by-one as if a story was being told - open to close - right before her eyes. After a few vindictive moments of self-praise, Erin turned and walked with her head held high into her lonely grey home on the very outskirts of town. She preferred it that way, being alone and away from the masses, for she had no faith in finding companionship and had never married. When she did go into the center of town, it was a rare occasion layered in cynical skepticism and discontent as men everywhere still turned their heads as she passed by, just like in her youth. And just like in her youth, these men still only wanted her body. This, she detested; however, that is not to say that Erin did not have company from time to time, but it was always someone who had already had her body, afraid of the risk involved with new faces and new nightmares. 

Once inside, she put her gardening tools back in their rightful places and headed towards the guest room to tidy up from her last visitor. She cleaned fairly quickly, as she had grown accustomed to having guests that left messy reminders of their shorter than expected stays. As Erin floated around the room, she occasionally grabbed an old notebook off one of the many piles that covered the dressers and would become momentarily entranced by a writing from her past before she continued her housekeeping. The piles of notebooks cluttered the room with their worn covers and overturned pages from years of obsessive rereading and reliving. After she completed cleaning the guest room, save the mountains of handwritten memories, she reached for a faded black spiral notebook with yellowed pages. Erin just held this time capsule, gazing down at it with eyes glazed in sorrow and burning with tears. She apprehensively began to release the flashbacks as her hand guided the pages to turn, but quickly shut the haunted passages and slammed the notebook of faded black back on top of its pile with one swift, devious, overzealous motion. 

Just as the echo of the haunted reflections softened and silenced within the walls of the desolate house, Erin heard a car make it’s way over the gravel driveway. Her full lips parted into a perfect smile, but her eyes flashed of a different emotion. She shrewdly glanced herself over in the mirror and prepared herself for another irresistible and insidious performance to bring her one step closer to complete closure. The familiar sounds of the slam of the car door, the crunch of gravel beneath shoes, and the steady knock on the front door were enough to place Erin in a world of no turning back.

She opened to door and welcomed her guest, Alexander Burman, with an enchanting embrace, slowly rubbing his back and pressing her body into his. They exchanged warm greetings and Erin expressed how pleased she was that he accepted her invitation even though they hadn’t seen each other in years.. Alex was a former high school sweetheart, now dating back 15 years, and their three year on-and-off relationship was anything but a smooth journey. Their untimely end came after the tower of yelling matches, sloppy apologies, and late nights in the backseat collapsed under its own weight. Despite their turbulent past, the host showed no visible signs of discontent or animosity toward her ex-lover. Alex, too, let go of all past hostility and looked forward to an evening of home cooking, catching up, and reminiscing. They casually spoke of where life had presently taken them, how they got there, and beyond as they sat facing each other on the couch.

As the conversation gained momentum, the present inherently vanished as the past was reconstructed right before their eyes from the memories that escaped their lips. Each of Erin’s movements associated with the recreation of their history became more and more tantalizing as she delicately slid closer to him. Her poisonously hypnotizing voice placed Alex in a momentary trance, for he started to feel the same rush he had 15 years prior, but was quickly interrupted by flashes of his beloved wife and beautiful children. He unexpectedly jumped up, afraid of the images of Erin’s bare teenage body in the backseat of his old Chevy Blazer. This reaction did not surprise Erin, though, because she knew the effects of her intentional temptations. She laughed, got up, and went into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. 

When she returned with a tray of coffee and lemon squares, Alex appeared to have relaxed. As they sipped out of old china and nibbled on the desserts, their conversation unknowingly slid back towards the skeletons hung within their mutual closet. The aged Alex eventually asked if Erin still wrote like a madwoman. He laughed as he swore he always thought her writing would go places, open people’s eyes, and makes waves in the world; for in all his memories, his early lover was always scribbling one thing or another in any plethora of beat up notebooks. However, to this, Erin only solemnly stated that she had given up that dream years ago. She nodded towards the guest room, where Alex caught a glimpse of the mounds of disorganized folders, notebooks, and papers. It was explained that she couldn’t ever get herself to put the recorded memories in the attic, afraid she,too, would box up and forget her history. 

Alex kept prompting her to go deeper inside her head, to reveal the secrets of her  upsetting halt in writing. She answered evenly, trying to keep her smooth voice from cracking, and explained her way through a pot of coffee. As his interest grew, so did her heartbeat; matching the intensity the subject produced. Erin knew the moments that made her mouth water were merely around the corner, but she held back; reserved, careful not to show eager baneful teeth. Pen and paper were Erin’s only true companions, as they never judged her uncensored thoughts and opinions. But they became a cesspool for darkness to grow and resentment to stay alive. As time went on, she wrote less and less, but reread more and more, becoming fully absorbed in any angst she had ever once felt - until she finally broke. In her eyes, her breaking point came in the form of an epiphany, a solid solution capable of dissolving the web of restrictions she wove around her lethargic life. 

Erin explained all of this to Alex, but one question still remained: how did she break out of her past? She told her guest that she would tell him when he was ready, but she first wanted to show him something in the guest room. Confused, but intrigued, Alex followed her, and when she handed him a black spiral notebook with yellowed pages, he earnestly accepted. Erin’s eyes fiercely locked and held his while she pronounced the notebook she placed in his hands contained living memories of their past. Of their three years. Of their affection. Of their anger. Alex was then slowly and sublimely guided to sit upon the end of the guest bed. She motioned for him flip through and refresh his memory on what they had once shared. For pages, each word he read whipped viciously through him; for these were not eloquent love poems, but savage accounts of purposefully forgotten occasions. While her guest was completely entrenched in recorded thoughts from long ago, Erin kept herself busy rearranging piles and fixing her hair in the mirror trying to conceal the growing anticipation. As she flitted around the room, her hand came upon an antique vase beautifully arranged with sunflowers. She gracefully placed herself behind Alex, and startled by feeling her presence, he looked up with eyes of sheer astonishment. He needed to know why she had felt like this, why she never talked to him about how she felt, and he tried to apologize for the sudden guilt that had appeared within him.

Erin did not answer his questions, nor did she accept his apology, instead she pleasantly informed him that he was ready to learn how she coped. Before Alex could even raise a familiar eyebrow, he fell to the floor with his eyes rolled back into a puddle of blood, glass, and golden petals.

Alex groggily awoke to a paralyzing headache, and when he reached to touch where the vase made contact, he couldn’t. His right wrist was bound to the upper right bedpost, and so were each of his limbs to the according posts. Through disoriented eyes, he could just make out the image of Erin standing in the doorway. He believed he saw a finger pressed up against her lips, motioning for him to be quiet, and obliged more so out of fear than out of respectful compliance. With her hands neatly clasped behind her back, Erin slithered to the bedside and paused a moment to digest the horror so visible in her guest’s bloodshot eyes. When her hands began to swiftly tie a silk rope in his mouth, her full lips parted to produce the explanation Alex was painfully waiting to hear.  

Erin’s tongue sharpened as her therapy began. She started off at a viciously slow pace, dragging out her victim’s pain by allowing each coarse syllable to linger and sink. She expanded upon some of the memories from the black spiral notebook and interlaced the harsh lecture with brutal examinations of their current position. The more fire that spit out of Erin’s mouth, the more she spiraled into a fury of manic flashbacks; combined with her rapid words, she blurred into one single, vengeful tornado. She was fully embraced and enveloped within the arms of power surrounding her revenge. The more rage and excitement she conjured, the more her heart hammered against her chest. The next thing to do was what really brought a twisted piece of mind. Erin knew a euphoric sense of self-reliance was upon her, so she tried not to rush. To act without savoring the moment was not an option, so she steadied her speech as she executed her final words. As the last few venomous remarks cut through the air, Erin crawled on top of her guest, settled on his hips, leaned forward, and held his face in her hands. She stayed this way until her mind perfectly painted this more satisfying picture to remember Alexander Burman by. Delirious, he felt the gentle shift of her weight and heard the opening of a drawer; next thing he knew, Erin’s cheek pressed into his as she embraced his shaking torso. She murmured a few sweet nothings into Alex’s ear, gently kissed his lips, and raised her face just enough to meet her ex-lover’s flooded gaze. Her vile lips formed a perfect smile, her eyes glimmered, and in one elegant and unforeseen motion, her hand guided a delicate knife across his throat. The moment of release she was waiting for.

In the morning sun of the following day, Erin hummed pleasantly to herself as she finished in the garden. She rose into the playful wind with a crooked smile and allowed the beauty of her newest sunflower to settle and satisfy her mind. 

Author's Note

The very first, very rough draft. I'd really like some brutally honest and insightful critiques, as I am eager to understand my weaknesses as a writer and create a worthwhile piece.

Reviews

[x]

Well... I'm kind of on adjective overload. 'Standing up salaciously' is actually a nice idea, but it's an unusual way to say it, so attention should actually be drawn to the fact that it's unusual. i.e. letting the reader understand that 'you know that it's weird, but bear with you.'

I don't feel like the character is consistent, I understand that she's supposed to appear completely normal to the outside world. Your explanation in the beginning did provide you something to build on, "memorial" was maybe even too strong a clue, but I don't find her quasi-nostalgia believable.

It might be better to focus more on the idea of "therapy" and the fact that she knows there's something wrong with her than the people she kills; writers love serial killers, anything that you can do to add a twist on the standard storyline is good.

Just a stylistic note: I think her admiring the field of sunflowers could be an improvement, it's just more subtle

[Allieburger]

Thank you, Zaphodora for that insightful review. It's the first short story I've ever written and I was afraid of not getting some of my concepts. It's hard to look at your own work to see what's missing because I know the whole story in my head so I don't know what is lacking. I am really keen on your idea of making her "therapy" more apparent. You helped a lot thank you!!!