Ruby Aurora Clemence - This Is My Story...

Please tell me what you think about it. I really need your opinion. I was thinking about writing a whole book like this (but explaining more and better).

Dear reader,

my name is Ruby Aurora Clemence - born on 10/27/1992 and this is my story. 
Or at least a part of it. It’s the story of how I ended up in a psychiatry certified insane.

First of all what I’m going to tell you might seem unrealistic and crazy but it really did happen. The doctors gave me various meds and tried to make me think or like they said ‘accept the fact’ that this would just be a figment caused by stress and to many drugs. I know it’s not! And if you’re like me. If you can be like me you will know that everything I’m telling you is real.

This whole scenario started in July 2015. 07/12/2015 - to be precise. That day I went to Nathans house party and of course this doesn’t help me getting you to believe me but you should know who Nathan is…was.

He died in this night.

Nathan was one of the best friends I’ve ever had. He was loyal, honest and always caring but nonetheless an addict. I’m not sure what he was consuming. I don’t even know what I consumed. Considering my experiences with drugs I can only tell that it wasn’t ecstasy or acid and when everything happened I wasn’t even tripping anymore.

Okay, back to the story. 
I went to Nathans and there were tons of people but nobody I know - except for Nathan of course. So I took a beer and sat down on this empty couch while everyone else were standing and talking to each other. This is nothing special. This always happened when I visited Nathan. And as usual I got a little upset until Nathan had time for me - just me. He gave me a pill and I took it without asking him what it was. And again: This is completely usual. This was our thing - He hands me a pill, I swallow it and we talk for hours. He was really into this whole drug stuff and I’m not. Furthermore I really trusted him. He would never give me something that would really harm me. So after a few minutes this unknown drug kicked in and we talked, giggled and yes by this point in time I hallucinated. I can’t even tell how long we’ve sat there but it must have been a really long time and when I stopped feeling the pill and our conversation ended I felt this really strong urge to go outside. So I did without saying anything to Nathan. Anyway, he was distracted by this huge rail right in front of him and I assume he thought that I would go to the toilet. I didn’t. I went outside and there I’ve been in the darkness on an empty street, barefoot. I’ve followed my instincts and walked - enjoying the cold hard street on my naked feet. And suddenly out of nowhere she was right behind me! It’s like I still hear her saying 'I’ve waited for you, Ruby’. I turned around and I know I should have been frightened or anything - But I was not. I was just curious. At first she just smiled at me and I couldn’t say anything or look away. She seemed like everything to me. She was sun, sand, sky, grass and sea. But most of all she was a familiar mystery. Without introducing herself she explained to me that I have, like so many other people on earth, a talent I was not aware of. I had no idea what she was talking about and to be honest I really thought that I’m in one of those silly prank videos. But I was not. This girl seemed to read my mind. In the same moment I was about to think she’s lying she proved to me that she was not. Without a warning she made it rain. I couldn’t see any cloud but it rained. It rained just in this tiny little area we were standing in. She stopped the rain and told me that this has nothing to do with magic like in some fantasy books. It is just another form of science. A craft that requires mental and emotional strength. Something basically everyone could learn but learning it is so painful that only a few are willing to accept the pain. She did not tell me much about this science that she called eternitinism but she handed me a round amulet with a pentagonal ruby in its centre and five little red rhinestones on the edge of the round surface. The rhinestones had all the same distance to each other. According to her every person can be seen as a star constellation with a centre. The stars are the different ways someone behaves. In my case the highest rhinestone or in this metaphor the highest star reflects my introverted shy behaviour while the lowest star reflects my extroverted loud behaviour that only my best friends get to see. She told me that I shouldn’t get confused because I am not my behaviour. I am the centre. I am the ruby. I am Ruby. Even though the red rhinestones look very similar I should remember that I am the centre.

When she was done explaining all this to me and didn’t said anything any more I asked her 'Why me?’. She told me that she could feel me better then anything because our centres might collide somehow. And then we both were silent. Wondering what all this means. Minutes passed and we were just looking at each other. I could feel this connection. I could feel her and this made me so nervous that I started giggling. She must have known what I thought. She must have known what I felt. She sat down on the pavement and I seated myself right next to her. She turned her head and looked me in the eyes. It almost felt like she looked inside of me. Silently I wished that the rain would come back and so she let it rain again. I really don’t know what was going on with me but I kissed her. I’ve never thought about kissing a girl before. In this moment I couldn’t help but kiss her and she kissed me back. After a while we stopped kissing and were just cuddling on the pavement. Just us in the darkness.

I fell asleepand when I opened my eyes again I was in the hospital and they told me that they’ve found me right next to Nathans dead body. They said we would have lied next to each other in the middle of the street right in front of his house. They also told me that they needed to pump my stomach to make sure I survive. At first I was about to believe them. I really would have bought their lies if the memory wouldn’t have been so intense. Also I still have the amulet. I tried to explain  eternitinism to them but they’ve said that I’m sick and my brain is damaged. This is how I got here. The good thing is I’ve got time in here. Time to learn eternitinism. I still can’t let it rain but I can change the wind. I figured out that any form of matter belongs to everyone. As I asked myself over and over again 'Who is Ruby?’. I came to the conclusion that I am everything. Therefore I needed to feel everything and I felt it. All the good things, all the bad things and even all the petty things. I can’t even describe the pain. It took several weeks to handle it to a certain degree where I am able to focus on being something while still being everything. To focus on being something while you’re everything alleviates the pain.

I guess this is everything I can tell you so far. I hope you believe me and maybe you can be strong enough to learn it by yourself.

Love, Ruby

P.S.: My doctor keeps asking me why I’m not sad because of Nathans dead. How can I? I feel eternity and it’s smooth and I know he’s part of it.

Author's Note

I know that there are several mistakes but what do you think about the whole idea?

Reviews

[Evil Duncan]

Intriguing story. I agree with SleeplessVolcano that this feels like a much longer story, I think the opening paragraphs do a good job of hooking the reader in and getting us wanting to know what has happened, but I feel you should really take your time a lot more in revealing what happened at and after the party.

I liked the idea of using a letter, I think epistolary novels (or whatever they're called) are really interesting and it's an especially useful device when you have an unreliable narrator such as yours. I would say it is worth considering who the narrator is writing to, as I think this makes it more 'real'. Is it a friend or a family member who is worried about them? Or maybe they aren't explicitly writing to anyone at all and this is a diary novel? Maybe they're keeping a journal on the advice of their psychiatrist?

The other thing which occurred to me, which might be interesting to think about is that you could write a second view of the story, in the form of some case notes from a psychiatrist. This could be quite dry and factual and might provide an interesting counterpoint to the deliberately confused narrator.

[Amanda Hakes]

"I feel eternity and it's smooth and I know he's part of it." That. Is. Beautiful. I think I got goosebumps when I read that line.
Over all I like the concept so far, you do a good job of hooking your read, and as someone else already said, making the reader question what is real and what isn't in a very intriguing way. I would keep reading, if it were a novel, to find out what the drug was, and what its doing to others who are taking it.
The only thing I would suggest is that your first few lines are a little cliche'. Consider what conflicts your MC is going through maybe because of the asylum, or because they can sense eternity, and experiment with making your first few lines talk about that.

[Untalented Creation]

Thank you so much. This really helps me (:

[Kaliope]

I like this story and the idea behind it very much. It's a bit much narration for my taste, so my advice would be to adhere to the old rule 'show, don't tell' to add more tension. Just an idea off the top of my head - not saying that's how you should do it, it's really the first idea that came to my mind: Ruby could tell this story to her doctor, thus we'd have dialog and a great opportunity for further characterization. As said, just one possibility out of hundreds.

Furthermore: please don't worry about English being your second language, it's fine as far as I can tell (not a native speaker myself) and even if we make the occasional mistake - we're all here to learn and get better, right? Also: Tolle Arbeit, nur weiter so! ;-)

Cheers,

Kali

[Untalented Creation]

Danke! :D
& ehrlich gesagt deine Idee gefällt mir richtig richtig gut! Ich würde jetzt doch anfangen ein ganzes Buch dazu zu schreiben und da lässt sich das sicher super einbauen. (:

[Kaliope]

Freut mich wenn ich helfen konnte :-D Wenn du magst, kannst du mich gerne als Freund hinzufügen, dann kannst du mir reading requests schicken. Ich lese normalerweise alles was requested wird, und reviewe auch gerne stories (poems allerdings eher selten, von denen bekomme ich einfach zu viele und weiß auch nicht so wirklich wie ich die fair beurteilen soll ;-))

[SleeplessVolcano]

Very interesting.

For a short story, you had very little dialogue.....those long paragraphs of explanation belongs more in a novel, where description is more important. Including actual dialogue with Ruby could be more appropriate.

You did a great job of making the reader confused between reality and imagination......I do think that you could have ended the story with a more dramatic punch line.....like some weird last final twist......do you know what I mean?

Alternatively, turn it into a longer story. I liked the descriptions, but they would fit better in a novel....and your story is substantial enough to be turned into a novel.....

[Untalented Creation]

This is great. Thank you so much. I actually started writing it as a novel (but in german) and feared that it might be to crazy for others to read so I wrote a letter just to see what ppl actually think about this sort of confusion.

[SleeplessVolcano]

You make too much of English being not your first langauge. It is not my first language either - practice makes perfect! People in general have a measure of confusion......so confusing stories have their place! :)

[nrshrews]

Its interesting. The voice is a little rambly but it sounds good for this characters persona