[1.Cometh the Bird of Death]

Short story is about a man frightened and alone in the late 1800s of London constantly being followed by a Raven.

As i cautiously make my way down these ol'e cobblestone streets, brick buildings towering over me so immensely. A crepuscular night impending ever so sinisterly, with an obscured fog looming over The Tower Bridge, seeming so eerie, ghastly and Depressing.
The chilly rain pitter pattering eerie sounds, causing the hairs to raise upon my nerves. Always there to remind me, something is watching, waiting in the dark corners, oh what could it be.
With a flutter of wings, and a squawk an caw, I see this black bird of death. A three-eyed Raven's shadowy visitiary swallows ahold of me like a lovers embrace.
Doesn't matter how fast I walk, or if I run, never able to outpace, outrace, forced into this deathly dance I must face.
Fear stricken by the shadow creeping ever so closer, with tendril fingers trying to draw me in. My heart pounds like a drum, body clams up with sweat, my breath ever faster I run, I run and I run.
There's always this black bird there patiently watching, waiting for its turn. Surreptitiously hitting the back alleyways, hoping praying, pleading I can just get away.
With steam pipes spewing from the working buildings, adding to the extra fog and skewering my vision.
As shadows flicker here and there, heart sinks with the dreaded fear that my time is nigh, that my time is near.
My last breath will undoubtedly be here, my eyes frantically darting to and fro.
Not knowing where to hide or where to go, for the shadow of the spurned will always be with near. I hear the clickety clack of the carriages that passed, exasperated neighs of the horse that's beheaded on their way.
I spin, I turned, I looked all around, where I was I do not know, so how could I ever be found.
Enervated, desperate and exhausted my limbs feeling lethargic, my vision going double as I slumped into a useless heap, boxes, trash rats scattered all around me. Heartbeat quickens I feel the furtive tightness of a foreverness of NeverMore. I tried to raise an arm, I even tried to speak, a squawk an caw I hear at my feet.
Dismay conforming in, I feebly peek, to the unnerving site before me.
A three-eyed Raven blacker than night, so atrociously twisted, contorted and turned inside and out, until there was a black cloak and a sickle by it's side. The grimm Epiphany sinking in, demoralizing the fight, gut wrenching trepidation inside, to realize that now is my time. For death so viciously took me, in it's horrid, repulsive snare. With no home or place, neither here nor there.













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Reviews

[Davidgeo]

This is more like the start of some epic style poetry than a story, to me.

Like Paradise Lost or Dantes books, maybe like some Beowulf legendarium. Modify that structure to your ends. Thomas Merton's "the way of chuang tzu" is also an excellent collection of the kind of writing I think you are predisposed to.

Don't listen to Jay. He's just an average writer who took things too seriously, now he's scorned, cynical and pretending to be a "writing coach". It's sad. He really just wants people to say "good job! Way to go! You really are the best". (things fathers usually say to their kids growing up) The lesson learned from Jay is - Be nice to your children... if you ignore your kids, they grow up to be Jay G

[JayG]

• I cautiously make my way down these cobblestone streets,

Umm..."these" cobblestone streets? What cobblestone streets? The reader has no clue of where we are in time and space. And lots of cities still have cobblestone streets. So, where and when we are is of more importance than road construction

• brick buildings towering over me like trees

Brick buildings have no branches or canopy. They have no bark, no roots, no trunks, and, are hollow inside. Watch your metaphores.

• Night time impending ever so sinisterly,

The problem is, you have an image in your mind's-eye. You know the situation and why it's seen as sinister. The reader? Not a clue, unless-you-provide-context. Fail that and the story in your mind never makes it to the page.

You're trying to set a mood, but as presented, each line points to images, events, and knowledge that's in your mind, waiting to be called up. But pity the reader. For them, each line points to images, events, and knowledge that's in *YOUR* mind, waiting to be called up. And without you there to clarify...

You have the right idea, certainly. But one ability we must cultivate is to view our work as a reader, who has only what the words suggest to them, based on their life-experience, not your intent.

Remember, too, that the reader cannot know the emphasis and emotion that you expect them to place into the voice of the one speaking. So where you hear your own performance as you read, the reader gets a text-to-speech voice.

As an example, if you have the computer read it to you, you'll be adding periods before your linefeeds.

And as a point worth mentioning, if you're going to drop in rhymes you need to do it consistently, and in the way the reader expects to see it. You might want to jump over to Amazon and read the excerpt from Stephen Fry's, The Ode Less Traveled. What he has to say about the flow of language is brilliant, and his words on rhyming will change your perception of metrical poetry, and how it's presented, dramatically.

So...I've not made you happy, I know. but the points I mentioned are the kind of thing that aren't apparent to the author, who "hears" exactly what they intend the reader to hear, and so, sees no problem. And since we'll not address the problem we don't see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

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

[Davidgeo]

Buy a dog Jay

[JayG]

I already have one. He's following me around from thread to thread, humiliating himself by and whining for attention.

Knowing that you're out there thinking about me so often helps me sleep better.

[Davidgeo]

You are projecting. Most of the interaction you get is from trolls making fun of your lack of self awareness. You are an lolcow. Keep it up tiger!!

[JayG]

Naa...you're the one barking, desperately trying to make me pay attention to you.

Scarlett: You have my apologies, This fool is so starved for attention that he ignores protocol and good sense. He invades the threads of sincere decent writers to whine about me. Were this a moderated website, he'd be kicked off.

He is well named, though, given that he most certainly is a birdbrain.

[Davidgeo]

Whatever you need to tell yourself. Enjoy living in a state of delusion.