COLLECTOR

Gorman has a unique collection. Would you like to see?

Sitting in his chair, watching t.v., Gorman smoked the last cigarette in his pack. He watched the woman on screen laugh as a man undressed. Gorman found this bit on t.v. boring, so put out his cigarette and kicked over 19 inch cube. When it hit the floor, the backend fell out and splintered in four different peices. The t.v. sizzleed and then went mute.

                 Gorman stood from his chair and found himself looking out his window.

                  Outside he watched the rain splatter the pavement on the dark streets below. He watched a young woman rush across to the apartment building across from his. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, she would be next.

                       Gorman was a collector.

                     And inside his closet was his next addition. A beautiful pair of blue eyes. Just like a wolfs, very deep blue, almost gray. She was from across the hallway, in 6a. At first he thought he was being  too sloppy. Surely someone has missed this young woman. But it's been two days. No one, not even the apartment mgr has been around to ask about her. Gorman often thought maybe these people have no one, no family. But of course, that was a way to ease his conscience, since his love of collecting overshadowed his love for anyone else.

                    Gorman looked at the two jars of eyeballs he had collected over five years. It was time to add one more. He'd taken the jigsaw knife from the kitchen table and moved toward the closet.

                            In an instant, the lights went out. Pure darkness.

                      Gorman struggled to find his way, knocking the two jars to the flor. Glass shattered and spread about as the eyeballs rolled underneath his feet. Gorman lost footing and fell face-first in the shards of glass.

                           The lights came back on. Gorman was on the floor rolling in the liquid that kept the eyeballs fresh and the eyeballs covered the area he lay in.

                            He touched his face, feeling several shards had penetrated the retinas of his eyes. Leaving Gorman forever in darkness.

Reviews

[TOF_Matt]

Fun short with a great twist at the end. It kind of reminds me of that old twilight zone episode where all the guy wants to do is read, then the world ends but he's broken his glasses.

I'm not sure how polished you're expecting this to be, or if this is just something that popped into your head that you wanted to get on paper (well, virtual paper). There are quite a lot of grammatical errors. I think you need to strengthen your voice a bit too; you have the opportunity to make this even creepier. Maybe instead of in the closet, have the woman tied to a chair out in the open or something, so that you can describe the fear in her eyes. Don't just say "he's adding her eyes to his collection," but give a vivid description of those eyes he's adding. Maybe describes some of the things they might have seen (the implication being he'd been stalking this woman, otherwise how else would he know?), how full of hope they might've been at one point, only now they are fearful. I think, since the eyes are really the central part of this short story, you really need to humanize them, so the reader feels utterly horrified that they might be cut out. Then the twist at the end will be all that much sweeter.

I think I just scared myself a little bit.

Anyway, a good first draft, with loads of potential going forward.