The Teaser

The concept draft of The Void.

                “Sam hunny, wake up!” a woman’s voice called from far below a second story bedroom.

              Samuel Wicker woke up to dust sparkling through the light streaming through his venetian blinds. The tiny slits between the hard white plastic of the blinds sparkled and illuminated the room brilliantly, or at least, as brilliantly as the sun could shine on a droll Monday morning. Samuel yawned and sat up in bed. It was still early. He slid his feet out from underneath the covers and placed them onto the cold hardwood floor of his bedroom. He gasped at the cold and lifted his feet up again, curling his knees into an Indian-style seated position atop his bed. He stared lazily down at the floor as he ran his tired hand over his disheveled head of dirty blonde hair. He looked down at his pajama top and noticed that one of the eight buttonholes was unoccupied by a button. When he reached a hand to fasten it he noticed that where the cream colored button once was, there was nothing but pulled thread in its place. “Great, I must have lost the button in my sleep” the boy said in a voice heavy with fatigue. He smoothed out his covers with his hands in order to find the button, but it was not there. The bright blue comforter did not hold the boy’s button. He checked under the bed and under his pillows before grumbling and slipping his feet into a pair of slippers. The boy shuffled downstairs in his red silk pajamas, the third button missing and thus, left undone. 

When Sam reached the bottom stair his mother appeared from behind a white door and looked at him disapprovingly. “You’re still in your pajamas? The bus will be here in twenty minutes!” his mother warned before her eyes scanned the missing button. “And you are missing a button? Oh Sam hunny what am I going to do with you? I am going to have to mend yet another shirt of yours. I assume you haven’t found the button either?” his mother asked as she stared at him with one eyebrow raised. She was curious to hear his response.

 

“No, mother,” Sam mumbled as he walked past her into the kitchen. He sat down to his slightly burnt toast and started to butter it generously. He set his butter knife down on the edge of his plate and picked up the warm toast. As he ate his breakfast his mother entered and sat across from him, staring through a vase of azaleas in the center of the table. Occasionally she would impatiently drum her fingers on the table, urging him to eat faster as she drank from a white porcelain coffee mug with her unoccupied hand. 

 

Sam ate his toast as quickly as he could, chasing it down with the glass of milk set beside his plate. He drank from the cup in large gulps in order to get the taste of burnt toast off of his tongue. He left the table with a milk mustache and a slight stomach ache from having eaten so quickly. He rushed out of the kitchen and returned upstairs. He set out a shirt that had blue and white horizontal stripes and he quickly removed the buttons of his pajama shirt. He shed it and left it on his bed as he pulled the long-sleeved shirt over his head. His hair became even messier with the static of the shirt. He pulled off his pajama bottoms and finished dressing, now donning a pair of white socks, khaki pants, and the blue and white shirt. He walked into the bathroom and reached for his orange toothbrush. He squirted toothpaste onto it, ran it under water then began to brush his teeth as he stared at his reflection. He spat into the basin and rinsed out the bristles of his toothbrush when he was satisfied with his teeth. Then he found a comb and did the best that he could to tame the beast that was his hair.

 

When Sam returned to the first floor of the house he heard the loud honking of the bus’s horn. He threw on his blue sneakers, flung his backpack over his shoulder and rushed toward the door. His mother was waiting with his lunch in a brown paper bag. She knelt down, kissed his cheek and then Sam was outside and climbing onto the bus as the overweight driver glowered at him with a sour expression on his face. “Go on! Find your seat!” the bus driver yelled impatiently as Sam shuffled past him and looked at all of the children occupying the rows of bus seats. Sam took a seat next to his friend Lewis and sighed. “Another Monday” Sam said unhappily.

 

“Yep,” Lewis replied as he looked out the window at the sunlight beaming down on the small town. The bus headed out of the small town of Frondberg and headed toward the much larger city of Savanna. Lewis returned his gaze back to the inside of the dirty school bus. His brown eyes looked just as tired as Sam’s. He yawned quietly and slumped down low into the bus seat. His worn black sneakers suction cupped to the sticky floor. “Why does school have to start so early?” he asked as he folded his bare arms across his chest. 

Reviews

[Brian W. Hastings]

Very well written and descriptive. It does not rush and it does not linger. You have a great prose style.

[Kurai]

Nice teaser, and a good start. The sentence fluency was good, except at the beginning. It could've been a bit more exciting, as a teaser, but overall it wasn't bad.

[Global Norskie]

There is a wonderful natural flow to your words. Nicely formulated descriptions. Well done!

Having said that, I was hoping to have the beginning - the teaser - be a little more suspenseful and revealing (rather than just an average Monday morning with a button missing).

Overall, a good start :)

[Dysis]

You have such a talent sweetie. I am even more amazed by your talent with short stories. If I could write a book, I would want it to be as well written and descriptive to the mind as yours already is.