I - Air

I can't say I have a description for this; it's a project I started two years back, and if you've been watching me long enough, you may have seen some of the previous attempts. This time, I refuse to delete what I have and start over.

Marie Katryna Wagner awoke to the sound of rain beating softly upon the western windows of her room, Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air" from Suite in D Minor lilting faintly in her right ear.  She reached to her left bedside table, suffering dull pain as the inside of her wrist briefly struck the corner, and finally found her black-rimmed glasses.  Putting them on achieved little, as her eyes were still heavy and unfocused from a restless night; for the past few weeks, the nights had always seemed just cold enough to make her attempts at sleeping futile.

She sighed, reluctantly sitting up, the radio alarm still playing.  The campus station was always an adventure to listen to at this hour, especially on Sunday; she had always enjoyed the morning selections, because thereafter, the afternoon and evening mixers came on with their mindless, repetitive techno and American rap.  Such was the taste of students these days, always trying to pick up on music and fashions from the United States...

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, tentatively trying to find her slippers with her toes.  Even these were as cold as the floor at seven in the morning, providing as little insulation as could be expected on such a chilly day.  Marie loved the winter, it was true, but the wet-and-windy trend of the first half of January hadn't been the most comforting of weather.  She would've been happier suffocating in 10 feet of snow rather than drown in ice-cold rain that fell day after day, soaking the Regen campus, which was now perpetually under 2 centimetres of ever-replenishing ice and the water that lurked below it.

Marie let her feet gradually rest upon the floor, letting her nerves gradually adjust to being out of the warmth of the bed.  She stood up, rubbing her sore wrist several times until the immediate pain faded away, and wearily took several steps to the low-set chest of roughwood drawers that came standard with every room in Goethe Hall, the third-year dormitory.  Hers was lacking, though, in that not a single picture adorned its surface, only a stand of small, crossed German and Regen Universitat flags.  The whole room, indeed, was bare - the only wall decorations were a banner from the school orchestra, a calendar, two paintings by nameless and probably equally obscure artists, a simple wooden cross, and an old wrought-iron clock that had stopped too long ago to remember.  A sole electric light hung from the dark rafters, casting shifting shadows against the roughly-plastered walls when it was lit.

Marie quickly tied her shoulder-length dark brown hair to an acceptable length, still thinking to herself.  There were perks to living here, though; all of the third-floor rooms had their own lavatories and were rather more spacious than the rooms below.  This sensation was most likely heightened by solitude, though, for Marie was the only resident of the building not to have a roommate.  Some of her classmates were somewhat envious of her position, and therefore she was the object of many practical jokes and rumors (one of which being that she had relations with the dean of the school, Wolfgang Dietzsch).  As for the pranks and practical jokes, she'd always had a knack for avoiding the worst of them - insults and awkward situations were easy to shrug off, but injuries were not - much to the dismay of her enemies.

She dressed as quickly as possible, opting to wear the warm-weather uniform with a jacket instead of the winter coat, as the rain would simply soak it anyways and make her even more miserable; and the high winter boots would make little use relative to the summer ankle-boots in the abhorrently frozen abyss that the campus had become.  She felt brief annoyance at lacking the height and frame to entirely fill the uniform, something else that often drew obnoxious comments from certain other girls at the school.  And then, as remembering something faintly from a dream, raised a hand to her neck, where she wore a silver chain with a cross that she never took off.  It was good to be faithful, both to Him and her family, she always told herself.
Dressing complete, she slung her book bag across her left shoulder; it was time for her to go, first to breakfast, then to the nine o' clock sermon at the campus church.  The door to the hallway always looked so menacing from tired eyes; every part of the dormitories here were as ancient as the others, and the extensive woodwork and wrought iron was doubtless an integral part of the "soul" of the school - hardly bright and upbeat, but Marie rather liked the sombre, Gothic styling.

She turned on her heel briefly to the wall opposite the door, quickly crossed herself facing the crucifix over the bed, and in one motion, turned back and drew the door.  The hallway's end windows were both open and a furiously cold and wet draft tore fiercely from the north to south.  Marie flattened her skirt down, and pulling her arms close to her chest, made her way against the wind to the northern end, nearest the other buildings.
It was rather like a warzone when the weather got bad here; the wind was generally "exceptional" - hardly the right word, but it certainly worked, as gusts often broke fifty knots, enough to make rain less an annoyance and more a veritable weapon.  Rather like soldiers under fire, students ran from building to building, keeping their heads down as much as possible.  Old local legends said that the cold and rain was caused by demons, witches or some combination thereof that lived in the Bohemian forests that covered the Czech-German border, just a few kilometres away. The students most often laughed them off, obviously; the tales tended to see some use, however, as initiation for new students to the school, or as pranks.  The unofficial mascot for Regen's attempt at a soccer team (the official one was a lion, stereotypically) was an eccentric "vampire" who often made haphazard and hair-brained, albeit swooping and epically comical, appearances at most school functions.

The wind briefly died down, and Marie bolted from the corner of Goethe to the nearest door of the student centre, the freezing rain icing her brown hair in a matter of seconds, almost as quickly as the wet snow and ice absorbed through her shoes and socks.  She arrived at the entrance, flattened against it in an attempt to get a reprieve from the torturous storm, breathing shallowly.  She reached behind with her left hand, and more fell than stepped through the doorway into the relative warmth of the main commons.

The room was thinly carpeted in bluish-grey, a large stone rectangle before the moderately-oversized fireplace that feebly burned, most likely unattended to for hours and hours.  A few students sat around on the vintage chairs and the slightly more contemporary maroon couches, some laptops and books open for various reasons.  The enormous lion-rampant Regen crest hung somewhat hazardously against the far wall above the doors to the Deans' offices and the front lobby, home to the more-than-slightly-mad Herr Von Schroeder, who always complained of aging so fast because students sucked the life out of him.

Marie sighed, breathing in the stuffy, old atmosphere of the room; it was like no matter how much the doors and windows were open, no transfer of air occurred, though more logically, the old books lining the wall to the left and right of the fireplace area were the source of the staleness.  It was a damned good thing that the library itself was in the church building, because otherwise the room might've spontaneously been vacuumed into the past - not that it ever seemed any different.  Regen University was very much in the past - it wasn't even in the city or Regen itself, but rather several kilometres outside, down a rarely-travelled road, and most visitors arrived by train even in these "modern" days.

The dining hall was highly untraditional, its entrance immediately across from the door she'd entered; high vaulted ceilings made of the same old Black Forest wood as the floor, modernized with electric lights in the style of the old oil ones, which had been replaced in 1963, according to "The Complete History of Regen University" - quite a disinteresting read, and ironically not very complete, and starting only in the early 1900s when the school was taken under the arms of the German government.  Attendance had fallen drastically since 1964, when Regensburg University - far more modernized and in a centre of population on the Donau and Regen rivers - was founded in the Bavarian city of the same name, an hour-and-a-half's train ride away.  What few hundred students remained were by majority in the hall either eating breakfast or finishing such; the less academic and less religious had the opportunity to get a morning meal until 10, when the theatre classes hijacked the room for practices and speeches until lunch.  For now, the lights were dimmed and traditional candles adorned the nearly-bare walls, most clinging to life in the substantial indoor breeze.

The kitchens were student-operated, although managed primarily by what little staff the school had to ensure no poisoning, deliberate or accidental, occurred.  The operation was simple - food was cooked, a group of students - usually a floor or section of a dormitory - arrived, one elected to retrieve enough for the group from the kitchen, dishes were returned by another electee.  Faculty was no exception - the science department sat in the corner farthest from the door on the right, most of them grizzled veterans always looking around for their students and troublemakers, be the two overlapping categories.  Dean Dietzch leaned casually against the panelled wall nearby, observing his faculty and trying to fit into whatever conversation they may have been talking themselves into without hope of escape.

Marie wasn't feeling terribly hungry, so she sat down alone at the nearest table, looking around to ensure no one was preparing to cause her physical or emotional pain.  She sighed, disgusted at having to do so, and stared absentmindedly at the wall, hoping to arouse some form of hunger, as she knew that if she didn't eat now, she'd be starving by the time church let out - the problem being that now she'd look stupid, getting up right after sitting down.  She casually walked over to the large table nearest the kitchen, retrieved a mug and a pitcher of hot water. Returning to her seat, she noticed a boy staring at her from the common room, but he quickly turned away back to his book.  Marie had never been a huge fan of attention from the opposite gender, as it usually involved some form of harassment, and so she never returned it.

With a shiver, she poured some of the pitcher's contents into the mug, the sensation of steam on her face comforting, ice melting and dripping from her hair.  She drew a bag of Earl Grey from a pocket on her book bag and dropped it in, amused at the strange patterns the tea made as it diffused through the water.  She sighed again, fighting off chills from the wind that could still be heard pounding against the outside walls.

Folding her arms and removing her glasses, Marie laid her head down, still not fully awake from the night before.  She didn't normally sleep very much, what with all the noise that was so common to any college well into the wee hours of the morning, combined with her inability to stop thinking the instant her head touched the pillow, and the cold...

She started to drift off, somewhat predictably; and then, suddenly, the cross around her neck plinked down onto the table, surprisingly loud to her ears as the ancient hardwood amplified the sound.  As sometimes happens when one is woken suddenly, there was a flash of something before her eyes, and she nearly jumped out of her chair.  Her hand struck the tea, some of it splashing onto the table where her head had been a moment before; the wood steamed on contact with the near-boiling water.  She tilted her head back, leaned back in her chair, breathing deeply, aware that half of the room's occupants were watching her, whispers beginning.  She didn't want to know the nature thereof.

She quickly rose, purposefully, taking the cup with her out the door.  Surely she must have slept again for some time, for - by her watch - it was nearly nine o' clock, and the bells of the church were beginning to strike.

Reviews

[xx]

You have a wonderful eye for detail and structure, and I have no doubt that you have a talent for writing. You present the scene of the story, following Marie's every step throughout the day, with vivid language and description, and it isn't difficult to visualize it all despite the fact that I, personally, have never visited such a place.

I'll be blunt, though. It feels like nothing has happened. I get bored, and very easily - if there's no action or sense of expectation to supplement the exposition of the plot, I start drifting away. And as far as I can tell, while there's a good deal of explanation of setting and scenery, nothing significant has happened. It feels as if I can tie down the events that have occurred so far into something along the lines of...

"Girl wakes up, goes out, falls asleep, wakes up. A day in the life of Marie."

You don't necessarily have to include explosions or kidnappings in this story, but there's been relatively little conflict - what potential conflicts there could have been, Marie has already dismissed, so there's no tension. If you feel that it's far too early to insert conflict in the first chapter, perhaps include something in the short summary that will make readers curious and want to read, instead of stating that you will not edit this piece any further.

Just some advice from one writer to another - and I hope you benefit! Keep writing, and don't give up! :)

-Mina