I

I

The sound of the deafening alarm awakens you. Your eyes fight to open. Your throat feels dry and your body urges you to stay asleep. You feel a shiver as you cover yourself over the thin blanket as you stare into the empty ceiling above you. That empty ceiling truly resonates with you. Not a single day goes by without it ending with you feeling that emptiness. The alarms feel like a signal to the beginning of a new day stuck inside a loop of meaninglessness. 

Through the haze of morning despair, your arm drags itself across to the small table next to you as you grab your cracked phone and check the time. Your room feels like a cell. All you have is this tiny bed, this desk and a small cupboard. The wooden floors are always dusty no matter how much you try to clean it. Your window is tiny and can barely let in any ventilation inside your small room. Yet when you do open it, it is too cold.

You sigh as you put down your phone and slowly begin to drag yourself out of bed. Your room is freezing, yet all you are wearing is a simple short sleeved shirt and a pair of trousers. There is not much you could do about this, however. 

You enter the bathroom as you begin to pick up the toothbrush contained within the cup on the empty basin. You pick up the toothpaste and place the substance onto the brush as you begin to brush your teeth. Whilst you are brushing your teeth, you cannot help but look at your lifeless and miserable eyes. Looking at yourself in the mirror feels almost punishing. You are rather attractive looking. You are above average height and you have fluffy white hair. The girls at your school have their eyes on you every now and then. Yet even your looks are not aiding you in your battle between the desire of just becoming a void of emptiness.

You spit out the excess toothpaste and begin to rinse your mouth with the ice cold water punching your face. You turn on the other tap and let the warmth of the water touch your skin, almost causing your eyes to shut, but you instantly yelp in pain as the water suddenly becomes scorching hot to the point you begin to feel as though the heat is going to melt off your skin. 

You exhale. You begin to wash your face with the cold water. If there is anything good about cold water, it is the power of suddenly making you feel wide awake.

Once you are finished, you dry your face with a small face towel and walk out of the bathroom. 

You can already hear the tired voice of your grandmother inquiring the whereabouts of her glasses. You begin to sigh and enter the living room. 

“Oh, where did I put those glasses!” your grandmother exclaims. 

Your eyebrows lower and knit together as you notice her moon-shaped glasses lying on her head. 

Her face lights up as she notices you, “Ah, Peter! Have you seen my glasses anywhere?” she asks. 

You take in a deep breath as you approach her and pick up the glasses from her head and hand it over to her. “It was on your head, grandma.” You say. For some reason, your voice becomes quiet, “And my name is Percy…” 

She looks up at you as she puts on her framed lenses, “What was that, darling? I didn’t get you there. Anyways, where have you been? I can’t remember the last time I saw you!” 

You close your eyes as you attempt to smile at her, “I am always here, grandma. I was here yesterday. And I was here the day before. The only reason I am not here is because I am at school, grandma. I have to go to school or else we will get fined and…We don’t have any…” You did not wish to finish off the sentence. You are already aware of your unfortunate circumstance, but you do not want to remind your grandmother of it. However, it is unlikely that she has any idea of the circumstances she is in. It seems as though she is already accustomed to living like this and it pains you to realise this, but what can you do? Through the aid of your grandmother’s pensions, it is the only way you and her are surviving at this rate. How many times a week do you skip meals so that your grandmother is having at least one meal per day? Four? Maybe five? And sometimes the only thing keeping you alive are cups of water and dry pieces of bread. Oh, if she were to realise the things you are doing so that she remains healthy would have given her a heart attack. You remember the times where she used to lose sleep because you did not eat dinner properly. But now…She can barely remember your name. The more you think about it, the more it eats away at you. 

Every day, it feels as though your mind is trapped in a cage of thorns; like chains tightening around your mind, each day pulling a little harder…And a little closer to breaking. The weight of it sits heavy on your chest like an unseen hand pressing harder almost daring you to collapse. 

Why must you live like this? What have you - or potentially an ancestor of yours - done so wrong for you to be so brutally punished in life? 

“Grandma…I must get ready for school.” You say. “I will be late. Do you still require my aid?” 

She smiles at you as she strokes your shoulder, “I’ll be fine Percy. Have fun at school and don’t get into any trouble, alright? You don’t want to make your mama sad now, do you?” 

You take in a deep gulp as your purse your lips. She does not appear to remember that she’s…You sigh as you attempt to reciprocate her smile. “Alright then, grandma. I will be getting dressed now.” You mutter as you give her a kiss on her forehead and walk back to your room. 

You open your cupboard and see your school shirt and trousers that were creased due to being washed. You could only wash your school uniform once a week at the launderette as you did not have a washing machine at home. Surprisingly enough, the students do not seem to notice that you wear the same clothes for five days but then again, you are not really someone that is very noticeable. Especially because you often tend to wear your hoodie - a favourite of yours - every day.

You change into your school uniform and walk over to your desk and pick up your old and rusty leather bag. The threads of it are falling off and it looks rather grotesque. Bags these days are expensive and you simply do not have the money to afford one so you just have to make do with this bag you have had since you were a child. 

You look into your bag and check if you have all the right equipment necessary for school. Once you are done, you head over to the main door and open it, walking outside to be immediately hit by the cool temperature of the environment. You close the door behind you and begin to walk down the stairs of your tiny flat; perhaps where all people with triple digit incomes -or less- per month live. The staircase had a reeking smell of cannabis that filled the air. But it was not a smell you were not used to. You have grown to live with this terrible stench. 

The walk to school is not any better. The clouds are grey and blinding smoke from vehicles in the road continues to fill the air. The pavements are cramped and there are men smoking their cigarettes every few metres you walk. 

But as you walk further away from where you live, you begin to walk into a more quiet road that contains terraced houses for walls. There is a lack of human activity and it seems as though many are still asleep. As you continue to walk, you notice a gate and beyond the gates are numerous tombstones and leafless trees. You can already hear the site calling out your name to come dwell with it. But you simply did not have the time to enter it right now - especially when your school is near. 

As you watch groups of familiar students walking by - chatting, laughing, stopping by corner shops -  you pull off your hood and raise your eyes and brows and purse your lips into a smile. 

You enter the gates of your school and walk into the buildings of repetitive meaningless and snoozefest. 

As you walk in, you are greeted by two students. One wears glasses and his face is covered with freckles. His appearance is sharp and neat as he always is and he has that familiar geeky smile on his face as he greets you. Meanwhile, the other student looks more laid back with his blazer over his shoulders and his sleeves are rolled up whilst his bag is hanging off his shoulder. The easiest way to recognise him is through his dreadlocks and he always likes to wear sequins on them, making his appearance rather unique from the others. He is quite extroverted and outgoing compared to both you and your geeky friend, Ashe. 

“Aye, it’s Percy!” He greets you as he offers his fist. 

“Hey Alexis, Ashe! How's you guys’ weekends been?” You ask as you give him a fist bump and then begin to walk with both of them.

“Great! I slept all weekend, bro.” Alexis says as he lets out a yawn and stretches his arms. 

“I kinda just played games and did homework. Nothing interesting, really.” Ashe replies. “What about you, Percy?” he asks. 

“Honestly, I didn’t really do anything different either, just went on my phone and scrolled through random crap, haha!” you reply as you start to laugh excitedly. 

You all sit down at a bench and begin to talk about idle things until time eventually passes by and the bell rings, indicating that it is time to go to class.

You bid your goodbyes to your friends and start to walk into the school building where you drag your legs through the stairs. Once you reach the floor where your classroom is located, you walk through the corridor which is filled with the bodies of other students brushing past you. The sound of footsteps and chatter feels all too familiar yet all the more piercing to your ears the more you hear it. You look around you, everyone’s faces appear blurry. Every time you see a group of friends, you cannot help but wonder how long it will take for it all to dismantle. How will they feel should it truly happen? Maybe someone will feel released. Maybe the latter will feel heartbroken. Maybe another will feel nothing yet question how all those years together vanished within a matter of seconds and think; what was the point of it all? That is how it feels to maintain relationships with others nowadays. You wonder how long it will take for your own friends to realise that you are just a miserable being with no real passion in life other than the hope to become simply a stream of emptiness remembered by no one. Knowing what ambitious people the two of them are, they would definitely disappear from your sight within a blink of an eye. Nobody wishes to hang out with someone so…Meaningless. Not even the most nihilistic person will want to bear the sight of seeing someone who has absolutely nothing going for them in life, for even the nihilists have the ability to find their own passion within the depths of this meaningless life, but you? You wake up every day and stare around you and wonder; why? Why do you even bother? Why must you drown in this sea of calamity known as life? When you can end your silent insanity with the slash of a knife! Of course - as much as it was a  desirable thing to do, you still have someone who needs you; your grandmother. When your mother was suffering from her internal strife every now and then, it was your grandmother who always took care of you. She ensured you would go to sleep having eaten at least one meal a day. During your sleepless nights, she would stay up late talking about the fascinating stories of her life and read poems to you made in the different centuries where some spoke about the beauty of nature and some spoke about the passion of being in love whilst others expressed the feeling of finding light within the darkness. Now, you cannot remember the last time you have even read a poem let alone hear another read it. 

You inhale deeply as you arrange your features into what you hope gives off the impression of a casual smirk as you take off your hoodie and walk into a space crowded with bodies yet somehow hollow of feeling.

You walk over to your desk which is by the window and in the middle row within the classroom. Usually, one would spend a lot of their time gazing and appreciating the nature that lies beyond the window when sat next to it - especially when one is in such a dull and tedious environment. Yet you feel nothing but despair as you glance at the atmosphere beyond the window. The skies feel forever grey, blocking the warming light of the sun, and all you can see are buildings upon buildings. That is truly nothing to appreciate. And even when it is a sunny day, it still fails to fill the hunger of your eye. It fails to feed the peace which your soul so desperately desires in this world. Within the sunlight, it fails to light up your mood and it fails to light up the others around you, because in the end, they are all a blur. Studying inside the classroom does not feel any better for you. Your abilities in academics aren’t very horrible. You understand everything that is taught quite well and manage to get those grades; sometimes even without studying. Yet, despite this, it brings you no real pleasure whether you get the highest in the class or not. You do not see yourself working in either science, technology or engineering or whatever humanity-thieving jobs there are to offer in society these days. No matter how rewarding the job may be, they will cease to bring any true happiness in life. Ironically enough- you have never really seen a person working these types of jobs being truly happy with the way they are living their lives. Despite putting so much work and effort into achieving greatness in life, they would still face conflict either with others or themselves. So at the conclusion of it all, what is the point of it? What is the point of exhausting oneself to be merry in life when in the end, one is left with nothing but regret? Is the smile they put on their faces just a facade? Are celebrations and ceremonies just a coping mechanism to temporarily relieve oneself from all the other stresses in life? Money, money! Everything is always about money! But even those with billions are drowning from corruption and arrogance and those in fame desire to hang themselves from all the stress and suffering they face in their daily lives whilst the media acts as a mask to hide it all. But even when you believe that money pays no significance in life, it is indeed because of money that you are miserable in this life. Perhaps - if you did have money, would things have been any different? Would your mother not have decided to end her internal conflict with herself? Could your father not have died from all the stress he faced in life? And would your grandmother be happy and healthy and forever have you in her mind? You think back to your friends. You know both Ashe and Alexis are good people who care about you. You have many fond memories of laughing, sharing dreams and ambitions with them. It is very interesting to hear about their passions during these times; Ashe desires to pursue a career in software engineering as he loves gaming, of course it will bring him much joy to pursue his passion even further! Meanwhile Alexis is more into music, you have heard him play the piano before and it soothes your heart each time his fingers press those keys that brings a harmony, sending you to another world sometimes. You are sure that he will be in a very good position in life in a few years time. How about you? What are your interests? What do you like? What is one thing that makes you very excited? What is one thing you do that you find yourself spending a very long time on? Hm? What is it? 

You are sitting and staring at the digital presentation before you about the bonds of ions and electrolysis. Your eyelids feel heavy and you attempt to keep your eyes wide open, yet you feel as though sleep is somehow dominating your mind without your eyes closing. But it does not get any better because as you start to take notes, your eyes become shaky and your vision is becoming blurry. You blink a few times to clear your vision but you notice how your writing is going across the lines. The desk in front of you feels like a magnet to your head and you finally decide that you will rest for just a few minutes. Remember - do not doze off. 

The sounds of the other students among you sounds like an unpleasant lullaby and it gradually begins to disappear as the darkness takes over your mind. 

Dreams are often simplistic. Though at times, it can be very vivid and even have an extraordinary semblance of reality. It feels very painful having to wake up and realise that you indeed did not live in a meadow cottage where you could do whatever your heart desired and do whatever you wanted whenever you wished to. However, at times, monstrous images are created; like the odd figure of that angel you would often see at the cemetery singing like a siren into your ear whilst pulling you into her embrace, her singing sounding beautiful yet deafening at the same time. You see nothing but your mother’s arctic blue eyes in the sky as they stare down upon you as all you can do is stare back and have your mouth covered by her soft feathers. What is more unsettling is that you cannot see her face. All you can see is the shadow of a figure with very large wings and a halo that appears to have spikes as sharp as thorns. Such sick dreams always remain long in your memory and have a powerful impression on your mind, but thank God, the first and last time you have ever had such a dream was a few years ago.

But it seems as though today (or tonight?), you find yourself standing in a place filled with light, yet you cannot see yourself nor can you see your shadow. Instead, you see another shadow, it’s so opaque that it almost looks like a silhouette of some sort. Yet this shadow or silhouette or whatever it is- it looks unpleasantly familiar. Despite your feeling of shivers down your spine, you cannot help but stand there, being defenseless as you are. After all, you are not exactly someone who is physically strong, you may as well allow its darkness to consume you. This is what you desire after all, isn’t it? 

“Feel the warmth of my garden

Feel it embrace you 

I want to become your Eden 

For you are in pain and I am too.” 

You begin to hear a familiar voice from afar. That enchanting siren-like voice. Despite so much time passing since you have last heard this sound, it still sounds as clear as day in your ears. It sounds so eerie and ominous, yet oddly comforting at the same time. Not because it sounds good - but because this is a sound that is an anomaly of everyday life…And much does it soothe your heart; relaxing you even. However, despite the voice sounding far away, what is much more peculiar is that you did not know where the voice was coming from. You are certain that this is the voice of that odd angel looking figure. Yet that figure is right behind you. So - why? Why is this voice sounding like it is being sung a few paces away from you? You attempt to turn your head but it feels as though your head is stuck together and is unable to move. The singing of this mysterious voice only becomes louder and louder yet the silhouette seems more translucent than opaque now. Though it is rather strange that your body seems to be locked in one position, there is no point in trying to move because then you would be wasting your effort and energy only for nothing of significance to happen. Yet standing here in this place filled with nothing but light feels rather anxiety inducing than being in a void with absolutely nothing at all - not even yourself. It is particularly fearful because you have no knowledge of how long you could be standing in this locked position whilst this peculiar being continues to fool your mind with its voice and its shadow, keeping you forever anticipating how long it will take for it to actually do something to you. 

“Percy…” It whispers. You are motionless. 

“Percy…” It whispers once again, but is now more louder. 

“Percy!” Its voice suddenly changes and feels a little too real. You feel something or rather - someone tapping your shoulder. You finally open your eyes and realise that you are actually sitting on your desk inside your now empty classroom. How long have you been out for? How did you doze off so quickly? 

You look up as you notice a man with a beard and a pale face looking down at you, “Make sure to bring a pillow with you next time you come to my class.” He says in a rather sarcastic tone. 

You look at him as you rub your eyes. “You have my sincerest apologies, sir. I’ve…I’ve been facing issues with my…Sleep, as of recently. I will be sure that it will not happen again.” You explain in a rather dry tone. 

“Well you’d better sleep earlier rather than scrolling through your phone before sleeping. A lot of studies have proven that the reason why people - particularly teens like yourself - have trouble falling asleep is due to the excessive use of devices, do you understand?” He replies to you as if you are the one who is failing his class, as if you are the one who has the inability to do anything with your life. As much as his tone is an annoyance to you, it is not something that you could bother caring less about. You form a smile on your face as you stand up, awkwardly enough, you are taller than him. “Haha, you are correct! I end up spending too much time, idly on my phone when I could be utilising my time more efficiently- particularly when I cannot sleep. But dear Sir, I must go to my next class as I do not desire to be late. Is that alright with you?” You ask, your tone of voice seems to be rather quick. 

The teacher gives you a perplexed expression as he nods at you. “Yes, you may leave. Make sure to catch up on all the work that you have missed on please.” He says to you as he walks back to his desk and takes a sip of his coffee. You pick up your school equipment and shove them inside your bag. You look at your notebook and notice that one of the pages within the notebook is wet. You have a slight feeling that you may have drooled in your sleep. How awkward must that be should it really be the case. But either way, you simply do not care as you also shove the notebook into the bag and quickly walk out of the classroom. 

You once again find yourself walking amongst the bodies of other students brushing past you, their chatter and laughter about idle things only becoming louder in your ears to the point that it almost feels deliberate. The only thing you desire to do as of this moment is to lie in a tiny boat, floating in the depths of the serene ocean - an ocean that leads to nothing at all. An ocean that is filled with water and water. An ocean which drowns the small river from how ginormous it is. The ocean, so beautiful yet filled with a mystery beyond human comprehension. The thought of humanity having more knowledge on space -which is beyond their reach- but have minimal knowledge of what truly lies within the ocean, a place easily accessible due to coexisting with it, is rather alarming. Yet, whatever lies within the deep, black depths of the ocean must be living in harmony and solace alone in that darkness. Many of those creatures must be living in peace; especially when they are free of harm from the hands of humans due to its poison. Meanwhile, the creatures who are in the reach of humans; the creatures who are not very harmful, or harmless are suffering, having their lives cut short to become appetisers, having their lives cut short due to rubbish that serve as their own appetisers. That is the fate of not just animals, but humans too. If one is too kind to others in this world, many will love him. But he will be used, taken advantage of until he has nothing left in his life. Meanwhile, if the latter is selfish, rude and unapproachable, no one will approach him. Everyone will hate him. But he will be left alone, with his own peace and harmony. Perhaps even outlive those who are kind and caring. But he will be lonely. He will be miserable because nobody will want to talk to him. 

As you are walking up the stairs, you suddenly notice a ragged piece of paper lying on the ground. It seems to be covered in dust due to people stepping over it. You walk past the paper, ignoring it, but by the force of wind, you suddenly notice the paper appears to have writing on it. And it isn’t just the type of writing by a student who was doing last minute homework, or students passing notes to each other; there seems to be something unique about it. You decide to kneel down and pick up the paper from the staircase and then crease it up in a ball, shoving it inside your pocket. 

What lesson have you next? You take out another piece of paper which contains your school timetable and skim through it. You let out a deep sigh as you realise you have history next. A real snoozefest of a subject. Not that it was uninteresting, but these days, the lectures of your history teacher feels like a subliminal of a cradle song to your ears. At this point - any teacher’s lectures and explaining acts all the more quicker in putting you to sleep, and you hate it. You hate looking like an incompetent fool. You hate looking like you cannot do anything with yourself. Everyone your age has something, some passion striving within them. Everyone has a personality, whether they are kind or evil. But you in contrast, is like staring into a blank painting - no matter how hard one can look, they will suffer in finding the meaning. And sometimes -if not often-, you find your blandness rather loathsome too. Whether you are alive, the world will be unchanging. Whether you are dead, the world will be unchanging. Of course- this applies to everyone as there are so many beings in this world. But each being has a significance towards one another. You, you only have your grandmother who cannot even remember your name properly. Even without you - she can be taken into a care home. And the fact that you would not be around would not affect her very much with the state she is in right now. 

As you are walking through the corridors, you cannot help but notice a distinct figure catch the corner of your eye. Black hair, long in height and that is all you see. How did that happen? Usually, you rarely notice anyone, not even your own friends because your physical body is in the grounds of the school but your mind lies elsewhere. What makes this figure any different from anyone else? In fact, she looks like someone who can easily become a particle within the crowd. So it cannot be her appearance that caught your attention. But if not her appearance, what is it then? 

Reviews

[JayG]

What you’re doing is writing a report—a chronicle of events, of the form: “This happens...then that happens...then this happens...and after that...” So your focus is on informing the reader on the progression of events.

History books do that and who buys them for a fun read? People buy fiction with the expectation that the author will, through the use of the specialized tricks and techniques the pros take for granted, make them feel that they are actively living the events in real-time, as-the-protagonist.

Think about it: They’ve been refining the skills of fiction for centuries—learning how to involve the reader and avoid the traps. We call that body of knowledge the Commercial Fiction Writing profession. And those skills are as necessary to a writer as knowledge of medicine is to a doctor.

I fully support, and encourage, your desire to write. I’ve been doing it for 40 years, and still love it. But you cannot write fiction with the report-writing skills we’re given in school. They’re great for the reports, letters, and other nonfiction writing that employers need, but useless for fiction.

The story works for you because your understanding is guided by intent, and you BEGIN reading with full context. But look at the opening as the reader must:

• The sound of the deafening alarm awakens you.

1. No, it doesn’t, because I’m not in this story. You’re using second person personal pronouns in an attempt to make the action seem more immediate, but...the only one using those pronouns is the narrator, who is talking TO the reader, which defeats the purpose of second person. The viewpoint should always be that of the one living the story, not someone talking about them secondhand. And by that I don’t mean first person, because person and viewpoint are different things.

Is there any difference were the line to read: "The sound of the deafening alarm awakens me." The same narrator tells the same reader that the same person wakes. In fact, were you to use third person, and present it as, The sound of the deafening alarm awakens Percy," the reader would know their gender in the opening sentence.

2. No alarm clock has a “deafening” alarm. They’re made to awaken, not harm or frighten you.

3. Beginning a story with the protagonist waking is pretty much a guaranteed rejection. Why? Because EVERYONE wakes. And in this case it doesn’t develop character, set the scene, or move the plot. And any line that doesn’t do one of those three things needs to be chopped because it does nothing the reader is interested in. Readers want action, and raw meat, not details. They want to be made to feel and care, which is an emotional goal, not be informed of irrelevant to the plot events in the life of a fictional character.

• Your eyes fight to open.

Why? And why does it matter? Telling the reader that someone they know nothing about is very tired, or perhaps has an illness, can only be of interest if the reader knows why, AND, it matters to the plot. This doesn’t. The object is to make the reader care about the protagonist, and feel connected to them, not read a list of the things they do


You spent 494 words telling the reader the steps that someone we know nothing about took getting out of bed and downstairs. That’s most of the first three standard manuscript pages. And at the end of it we don’t know:

1. Where we are in time or space.
2. Our age and background.
3. Our gender. (yes, the some girls smiled at this person, but...lesbians go to school too) You know what’s going on. The protagonist knows. The people in the story know. Shouldn’t the one you wrote it for know, too?

Bottom line: You have the desire and the story. You need to add the skills of fiction writing to that. You’ll find the learning interesting, and filled with, “But wait! That’s so obvious. How can I not have seen something that obvious?” And once you master those skills, the act of writing becomes a LOT more fun.

So, two suggestions:

For an overview of the traps, gotchas, and misunderstandings that catch so many hopeful writers, try a few of my articles and videos.

Grab Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict, and dive in. It’s an easy read and filled with useful information.
https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/gmc-goal-motivation-and-conflict-9781611943184.html

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain