Chapter 1

This is the first chapter in my new book at 1734 words. Hope you enjoy this!

Corrupt winds sink toward mother Earth as zephyrs are left to soar autonomously.  The paintbrush of winds colors the prominent verdant life in a grey as storm clouds arrive. Darkness approaches hastily as an identity surreptitiously runs.  The figure runs, but is no match for the prejudiced wind as a harsh battle commences. A struggle can be heard for a distance of miles, but all too soon a scream resonates. Spontaneously, the body falls as thunder roars through the night…

“Farr, Wake up!”

Oof. I rise to the bothersome, annoying little brother of mine jumping on my bed. Tobin doesn’t take this as a sign to stop and keeps frolicking.

“Stop!” I shout.

Tobin gives me a devilish smile and runs off. I slowly, but surely get up and get ready for the day. For some reason, I have that bizarre dream almost every night. I can’t recall it unless I’m in some sort of unusual daze, but it’s as if God tries to scare me in a shadow-like manner[A1] .

As I approach the bathroom mirror, my hair could’ve deceived someone that my pale face was lifting a pile of detritus. The dark strands of my hair, even when messy, the mop’s strings touch almost to my shoulders. Mother always asks why I hang my hair so low. I could never come up with a clever response to her; I just don’t answer. If she knew what I felt down inside, maybe we could converse. But as gregarious as she was to me, I had to surreptitiously move: with the shadows against the wind. Looking into my deep brown eyes, epiphany comes to me hastily. Sure I have dark brown eyes, where my family had hazel and blue. Sure they have bright brown hair while mine’s pitch black. But that’s genetics, and wasn’t the subject of realization.

In the middle of my eye, I can almost sense like a clairvoyant, but more of one of prognosis, that there‘s a scar that cut deeply in my eye. Nah, it’s my superstition again; what am I thinking?

I quickly perform my diurnal hygienic tasks as my mind fills up with emptiness, like a vacuum which sucked up my emotion. As I enter the kitchen, I pick up a few oranges. The peels start falling to the ground like leaves on an autumn day. The aroma diffuses through the air; the natural air freshener begins its task. The smell so analogous to a plethora of flowers in the endemic area catches my sense of smell rather than my sight. During my moments as a prognosticator, I am trapped in my own mind in a metacognitive way. It’s so unusual to think like this when "

“Good morning Farr " odd! (Fahrrad) “My father always thought it was funny to lengthen my name slightly to make me feel like a method of transportation. Then my mother opens her mouth:

“Good morning Farr"bun-gary-ush!”

I just sit there giving my “WTF” look. “Mother, what’s this one mean this time?” I ask sarcastically.

“Well Farr, it means I can’t pronounce German,” I give her one of my “are you for real” stares. “Okay fine,” she sighs. “It means road noise!”

Both my parents start laughing as if I had just come out of a coma for ten years " strike that, I meant laughing as if they were crying over something which they would be laughing about if it actually happened if it was actually serious, but if it actually didn’t happen when"You know what, forget it.

I quickly eat my oranges and head back to my bedroom to avoid the peculiarly awkward situation. What? I’m fat. I’m buoyant, literally. I know okay? That’s why all I ingest is fruit for breakfast. Oh! Yeah, my parents put me in awkward places all the time: like Antarctica…

Anyway, now I bury myself into my video games: Halo, Call of Duty, the usual stuff that teens nowadays play. I don’t really like it, but hey, it lets me pretend to blend into an amalgam of stereotypes. As I start the console, I’m absolutely coveting power: the ability to kill and to be victorious in the darkest hours, even when the world is against me, proliferates the “cheer-buds” in my heart. Finally the machine begins its automated tasks. As I enter a room, I scan through, justifying my ability to succeed. Ha-ha, just a bunch of noobs (weaklings). We begin the battle. I’m indestructible, invincible, and godly: for God’s sake, a Chuck Norris! Yes! I win fifty to twenty deaths in a one-on-one. Not too shabby if I say so myself. But what’s the point? I don’t even like this game, yet I enjoy crushing others like the juggernaut of their survival in fantasy. Is it true that people are elated when others are eaten like dogs, for I, myself have never found a way to find true happiness in myself? Why do"

Snap out of it! I need to stop having “Socrates” moments as my mom calls them, or “Hitler” moments as my dad jokes, which isn’t even funny at all. I begin to clean up, then realize that there’s no point: mother will do it for me after all. I sit down on my soft bed. The feathery feeling begins to take me in as if I’m on clouds, but falling into the ocean. The rate of my fall begins, as I am the inundation of the river: slowly flooding the surrounding area with my mightiness. The calmness begins to overtake me as I rest for whoever knows so long.

The vision is clear again, yet a genesis of a time that seems to be farther than the distance. But looks are deceiving; even memory is deceiving. The sun begins to rise as a brilliant display of low wavelengths of reds and yellows and oranges illuminate. The wind blows as trees begin to become visible. The water and waves begin to appear: moonlight swaying the actions of mother Gaia below. The calmness of the waters is only slightly altered by the path of wind. A soft clatter is heard. A sandy beach comes into vision as people begin to come into view. Yet after a mere second, one person remains. With a view from the back, it is difficult to make out the identity of such a fellow. What can be told is that he has jet black hair: cut short, yet gliding in the wind. He appears so graceful, even at peace when the gusts accelerate. He moves faster as gusts go his way; a nebulous cloud begins to form as so. All of a sudden, he disappears as leaves fall from the sky ever so gently. The cloud begins to fade…

I wake up in a natural fashion: so unusual and unprecedented. For once, I had a vision that was peaceful, yet so confusing. One moment God gives me the most painful flotsam in the world to think about for hours of sleep; the next moment he, I mean divine God, gives me a happy but completely irrational, illogical vision. Sigh. I’m already fourteen and I can’t even handle my emotions: the competence required to understand these stupid things is an asymptote approaching zero, yet no matter how hard I try, there’s always a cloud. Speaking of fourteen, I start high school tomorrow (I would type a dejected face here, but my English teacher tells me not to). This is the one thing I’ve been trying to avoid. I told myself all summer to do something fun so that I can just live happy thoughts for one (more) time in my life.

Ugh. C’est la wie: Carpe diem when you’re about to die of terror. Basically: “That’s life: Seize the day when you’re about to die of terror.” Well not much I can do now. It’s already six PM and mother and father will be home any moment now. I haphazardly clean up my room in our apartment, hoping that I don’t accidently act so hastily that our building causes a domino effect of collisions all around New York.

Speaking of New York, I’ve always hated the city. It’s the most shoddy, corrupt, eco-un-friendly, run-down, and slapdash (insert all other negative adjectives from all languages) place in the pit of human stupidity and the universe. Every second of the fourteen years I’ve spent here has been hell. Every minute of the fourteen years I’ve spent here has been analogous with Persephone and Hades. Every hour"don’t get me started, or in this case continuing. Whatever the case may be, I’m ecstatic that I’m not going to school in New York this year. Mother and father decided that this semester it’d be better to stay with my grandmother and grandfather in California, and go to school there. At last I can escape the confiding chains of city life: city food, city debris, city talk, city traffic, city architecture, city sounds, city smells, city roads, and even city girls (well, maybe not)!

I begin to pack my clothes and most precious belongings. I encase some pictures, some books, some shoes, and some other random things. Then the most peculiar thing pops out at me: a little bird is on my keychain. The bird (an eagle of some sort) appeared like a soaring legend: a determined bird that kept imploring its ability to fly. I held tenaciously as the bird took form in imaginative insight; a glow to my eyes sensing emotion and the need to be free. An unfelt zephyr began to passively take over as a refreshed flow of spirit started to flow between my fingers. Carefully, I took of something sticking to the back: a sticky note. “Farr, soar like a bird with audacity. Open your wings and fly Farr in imagination away from your confinements. " Mom and Dad”

Before I could cognitively analyze those words, Dad hollers for me to get my baggage ready to pack into the taxi. Bye home of mine for fourteen years: the place where every memory comes from, the surreal safe haven of my darkness, the asylum of my life. Thank you for this opportunity, but now it is time to start again. As I leave the red bricked apartment building and meander into the cab, I feel the orange peels falling like the leaves, on a sandy beach closer to me than it seemed.

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 [A1]Reached on 7/28

Author's Note

Finished Chapter 7/29. I invite all criticism, advice, etc. If you write a review, please have some insight, not just something simple like, "Great job!". It'd be helpful to know as the author what I'm doing right and what could use some improvement. Thanks!

~A.

Reviews

[Sarah E. Pearson]

I love the opening line. A few lines in, the "a grey as storm clouds arrive" puzzled me.
I definitely love the wording, and the erratic manner of thoughts of Farr is definitely something to read. Her thoughts mirror to a T how thoughts escalate and change topics so easily. The only thing I dislike is that you don't give as many details about her surroundings. Also, the being shipped away to her grandmother's seemed to pop out of nowhere. A previous mention would be helpful on that. Overall though, this is a really interesting story so far and a great write.

[musicfollowsme213000]

Great work!!! Thanks for submitting to my contest!

[Black]

it is well writting, though it come from one side to another...
keep it consistent? or make it clear that they are memories, or thoughts or anything else, that breaks the story line for a little while
but then again, you might use it later
keep on righting, i would definitly read some more

[AndyJCash]

For the most part it was well written and I did find some parts fairly humorous :P However, there were many parts where I felt, I hate to say, a bit bored. For instance, your heavy heavy description of the simple action and reaction of peeling an orange. A couple of sentences is fine, flared with a lovely simile, but most people will be aware of what an orange smells like which you spend a couple more sentences describing. I found it slowed the story down slightly unnecessarily.
There are also some times where you use brackets to add extra information which some readers may get a kick out of, but I found again it slowed the pace of the text for no real reason.
STILL, I am heavily intrigued by this piece because of the stray paragraphs which clearly have some purpose for later in the story.
I don't mean to be mean in this review and I'm sorry if it comes off that way. You wanted some honest advice and here it is :) Good luck for the rest of the story; I hope you can stick it out!

[Darkest Rose]

I loved this chapter! The detail you give is good and I like how you form the scene and make it real for the reader. The first paragraph where you talk about the dream had to be the best part for me. The downfall was that you didn't give any detail to the parents, what they where like as people and there looks. This isn't my type of book but I enjoyed it anyway. For your next chapter I would go into more detail on the people you include and your surroundings other than that it will turn into an amazing book.

[Marie Harrison]

I enjoyed this first chapter. The biggest note of criticism would be that I wish you would have spent more time talking about your trip to California. Seems to me you would have spent more time packing for a trip like that than just a few minutes. It might have been interesting to spend more time contrasing the two environments too.

But I did enjoy the chapter. You asked for criticism and I gave it. Hopefully I'll soon read more chapters of this story. Nice work on this one~

[watch_the_world]

I think that this is pretty good it was a little slow at the beginning then it picked up speed and it was a good write. I don't quite understand where some of the paragraphs fit in with the story you have seemed to create. Play a role later maybe? I will definitely keep my eye out for more from you :D