Pink Elephant

Short part from one of the chapters I am working on, I am more concerned with style and content.

In  my dream all I could focus on was the tombstone teeth. Everyone Grinned and laughed giddily at all the awesome things  everyone was saying. I only knew a handful of people including myself. They all looked so strange in their neon cocktail dresses sippin on pink spirits. I stood in the corner dressed in designer clothes-jeans and a white tank top. My face was naked from the beauty grease for once in my life. I felt so out of place among these goddesses. I was afraid if I said something wrong one of them might curse me out from this olympus-thus banishing me from this odd reality for forever.

My dreams were the only place where I was completely welcome. So why did I feel so alone? Naturally I was an introvert that just wanted to fit in. I really did try, but sometimes I just didn’t have it in me. This was one of those times.

               up

I look              and

                             Down

the rows of people, all so perfectly manicured and clean cut. They were terrifying. The fabricated perfection. They were frauds forged by a brainwashed society that only perpetuated more frauds. This was not real, and yet it felt so. I could not awaken from this nightmare. The artificial reproduction of hell.

In the midst of socialization by the weird ladies is our generous host, and my friend, Farrah Anna. Now I have never seen her in my life outside of the dream, but for some reason she was my friend in this speculation. She was a slender 6 foot tall pale swan, with shoulder length blonde hair and green eyes. She seemed so thin that she could disappear if turned sideways. Her fragile yet emaciated figure combined with her blanched skin reminded me of a crisp sheet of printer paper. She was talking to another imagined character in my dream- a false representation of my sister Martha. Martha wasn’t much older than Pinkie who was standing next to her. Both were in their mid teens while Farrah was probably at least 23. My sisters were far from outsiders as they wore blue and green cocktail dresses like the others. Yet, the seemed less sophisticated than the others. It was something about the way they gestured and talked.

“Alright everyone the time has come!” declared Farrah. She took a pink plastic stool from the chrome bar. She sets it in the middle of the room, and walks to a door adjacent to the bar. From behind the bar comes a golden birdcaged draped in red velvet. What a show. Inside was the most marvelous bird I had ever seen. A parakeet with rainbow feathers adorning its body with the beak of a toucan. It made the most beautiful CAW that sounded like the fingers of an angel tracing the strings of a harp.

“This here is a Paracan. A cross breed between- you guessed it - a parakeet and a pelican I MEAN TOUCAN.” She clears her throat with a *cough*, dismisses her embarrassment and proceeds with the presentation, “Bred in Brazil, this specialty bird was brought to me by late fiance who smuggles them in. I have had it for quite some time. We have discovered something magnificent though.” All eyes held at attention, she affirms, “THIS BEAST HAS THE CURE TO ETERNAL LIFE AND YOUTH!” Everyone gasps.

I burst out, “What a load of bull. There is no way that's even possible!”

“Hear me out non-believer,” she says, “we have proof. I have given the heated, vermillion elixir from this bird to three people just inches away from death. Each time they survived. An old woman from Morocco with Alzheimer's came to me and she was cured. A boy from Canada with confirmed HIV AIDS tested back negative after ingesting the sweet froth. And after the juice touched her lips, my dearest sister was cured of her Melanoma.”

I hear sounds from the crowd like “ooh” and “aww” but my friend Felix stands up in the middle of the white room and yells “That's Crazy! Gimme that!” She grabs the bird, but upon closer inspection notices that it is fatigued. “What wrong with it? This bird looks close to death itself!” “Let me explain, “ Says Farrah. “The problem is that the more we extract the blood, the more ill this animal becomes. All it takes is one drop. That is why I am selling a drop for 1,000,000 a lick.”

Now the crowd becomes restless. Apparently they are all restless because they start screaming words “I have cash!”, “I have credit!” or “can I put it on layaway?” They all talk louder over one another in order to be heard, as my begins to scream that something is wrong.

Reviews

[Justin Xavier Smith]

Interesting, although it feels a bit too heavily reliant on "telling" instead of "showing" us the main character. Sure, she says she feels out of place and that she's an introvert trying to fit in, but I never actually see that happen. So I think, maybe she just has a false belief about herself. I'd rather have a quick scene of her awkward interaction with someone than have her tell me she's awkward with these people.
Also, I think you're trying a little too hard to make your descriptions of things sound interesting, when the truth is that they're already interesting. Not every sentence has to be a flowery, "well-written" depiction of something. You can tell your story and describe the party without ornately showing me every detail.
The dialogue feels a little unrealistic, although maybe that's what you're going for, as this is (I think) a dream. So I won't hold that against you. I am interested in the idea of a bird that provides eternal life who is, itself, dying. So I'd say keep going, maybe make a few changes, and you'll have a neat story brewing here.

[Kimberlee]

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it.