Wink

Wink

     I watched his face as one eye slowly closed, the other still open, but barely. It was his way of winking. I felt myself go dizzy, and I swayed, grabbing the red chair by me to keep myself from falling on the floor, but the chair tipped under my weight, and I fell, the chair toppling on top of me. The impact of my head on the floor knocked me unconscious, and the last thing I saw for over two hours was his smiling face. The smiling face of the man who tried to kidnap me time after time, without a soul knowing about it, but me. This man had finally succeeded by winking at me. The last thought I remember thinking was, how bizarre.

     Hours later as I sat on a hard, straight back chair, my hands tied behind me after being yanked there without the slightest thought of my comfort, the same thought came to me again. How bizarre. How bizarre that by winking at me, this lady questioning me made it impossible to move. How bizarre that she was telling me I could do it to. That I was a special one, like her, and could do impossible things by winking. How bizarre that even though I was kidnapped, my hands tied behind me, in a place I’ve never seen before, she claimed she was my friend. I decided, that since I was kidnapped with my hands tied behind me, in a place I’ve never seen before, that she was most definitely not my friend. She was my enemy.

     After what seemed like 10 hours of questioning, though it was only an hour, she finally saw that I was not listening. Whenever she asked a question, I would go hmm, mmm, or humph, depending on my mood. Hmm, was for, you’re boring me to death. Mmm was for, I’m hungry, and humph was for, get me out of here!. She finally gave up, winked at me so I could actually move again, stood up, and strode briskly out of the room. I was left there, with nothing to do but think. I tried to sleep, but the chair was way to hard to do that. I thought about how to get out of this horrible place, and finally decided that the only way out was to be trusted. I would learn what they had to teach me, I would do as they say, earn their trust, and then, one day, by winking, I would leave this place, and they would never see me again. After another hour perfecting my plan, exhaustion finally got the better of me, and I fell into a fitful sleep, waking at least three times each hour.

Finally, after getting about a total of an hour of sleep in four or five hours, the lady came back, sat down, and started asking questions.

      “How did you sleep?” she asked. I replied, “Like a baby.” “Was the chair comfortable enough?” “It was better than my bed.” “Did you think about the questions I asked you yesterday?” “ In great detail.” “Oh, really?” “You bet.” We kept it going like that, she asking questions, and I gave her answers that were either silly, or believable. Never the truth. I slept horribly, the chair was horrible, I didn’t think a bit about the questions she asked, but I never told her what I was really thinking. After I answered the question “Would you like to learn how to use your special winking abilities?” and I said yes, she left me alone.

     Twenty minutes later, she came back in with my kidnapper. I stared at him, stuck my tongue out at him, and then smiled at the lady. I liked her better than him. He came and sat down in the chair that the lady formally occupied, and he stared deep into my eyes. I stared back, trying not to blink before he did. I won. “Ha,” I whispered so only he could here me. “You blinked first.” He just kept staring at me, still blinking before I did.

     Finally, he stopped staring at me, and his gaze turned to the lady. “Anna, start training. I believe she’s telling the truth, and is ready.” So I guess I was a better liar than I thought. Or maybe he was just really bad at telling truth from lies. Who knows.

      She untied my hands, but kept them in her claw like grip, and walked me to another room, this one having the same whitewashed walls as the last, with two chairs in the middle. Why they had to take me to a whole other room when it’s the same one as the one I was previously in, was beyond me. I got sat down in a chair that felt exactly the same as the last one, although my hands weren’t tied behind me. Instead they were tied in front of me.

     She started explaining to me about our special abilities. According to her, every ten years one child was born with the Winking Ability as I called it. I just happened to be that child. Yeah. I’m so excited. Not. She gave me a little more history, and then started to teach me.

     “The way to do it is picture in great detail what you want. If you want a drink, imagine the drink with every detail you can, and then wink. It’s the same with anything you want. The only thing it doesn’t do is make people come back from the dead, or create living things other than plants. Other than that, it does almost anything. Let’s start with something simple. Imagine a paper clip sitting on your hand, hold your hand out, and wink.”

     I tried, but no matter how hard I tried, when I winked, my other eye closed with it. Great, I have a special winking ability, and I’m probably the only person in the world who can’t wink. I practiced late into the night, trying to wink, and finally, around five in the morning, I finally mastered it. At six, I had it mastered. At 6:01, I was sound asleep.

      I was rudely awakened at eight, and by nine, I was back in the room identical to mine. This time, on my second try I had a paperclip, and in a couple of hours, I had a dish of my favorite food, watermelon, and a couple of cups full of root beer. We practiced the rest of the day, and for two weeks, I mastered thing after thing, though I learned the hard way that when I did too big of a thing, I was unconscious for hours. I tried to envision a hot pink slug bug just like the one I’d seen on the road a couple days before my kidnapping. I saw every detail, from a small scratch barely noticeable on the hood, to the amount of tread on the tires. I winked, and woke up three hours later with a splitting headache, and looked up. The slug bug I had envisioned, and the one in front of me, were barely alike. The car was a hideous pink, with dark green tires, and bright yellow seats. The steering wheel was on the back of the drivers seat, instead of in front of it. Two of the tires were flat, and it had a Chevy truck logo on the front instead of a Volkswagen logo. So, in a one word description, it was a disaster. A couple more weeks, and I mastered the car without passing out. I could master almost anything, except the one thing I really wanted my family.

     One night as I was sitting in my chair, thinking of my family, I came up with an idea. I envisioned my small, but cozy home, our dog sound asleep on the front porch, the stars twinkling in the sky. I was walking down our narrow sidewalk surrounded by green grass, towards the door that led home. A few cars would rumble by, but I wouldn’t notice because I was home. I saw it in every detail, from the flowers in front of the porch, to the rocks in the driveway, and then slowly, one eye closed, the other still open. I felt the cool grass under my feet, smelt the aromas of food cooking, and heard my mother's voice, as she whispered unbelievably, "She's home? My daughter's home!"

Author's Note

I wrote this for a title a week group, and it's not very good. Please tell me any mistakes you see, questions you have, whatever. This is revision two, and I tweaked the ending a bit. Tell me how you like it! Thanks!

Reviews

[TheSweet]

I love the concept, which clearly shows you have good ideas. The content and the reasoning for this story is clever - but it seems incomplete. The narrative voice by the character is used to explain straight up what is going on - but you're not showing it, if you know what I mean.

You have some delightful little parts where you add personality and depth to the character with lines such as 'I just happened to be that child. Yeah. I’m so excited. Not.' and 'The last thought I remember thinking was, how bizarre.'. I think you need to do more of this, it makes the peice more interesting when you have 3D characters.

One thing I did notice was the opening paragraph is a brilliant example of 'get the reader interested and grab their attention' with a good bit of description and you left questions like 'Who is he?' and 'what's with winking?'

As well as with my previous review on your work, I think your ideas are good and you have an ability to get it written down - what you seem to be missing is a personal writing style. So I would suggest playing and experimenting with ideas/styles and reading lots to get more ideas and hone both a style and writing prefrence. Definitely keep it up. Thanks for sharing.

[Sophster300]

More! More! More! More! Hehe, really enjoyed this..it was really interesting and you have created a strong image of the character, it's very well written and detailed...Keep up the good work! :)

[Shalini Dinesh]

I felt the flow could be enhanced more, it lacked a bit of continuity between sentences in certain places, otherwise the story was good....

[Christina May Shanaberg]

No matter what we may become or how powerful we may get, we have a special connection with a place called "home." I loved your story!

[Lori Ban Clansel]

That was fantastic and very original! I loved it! It was full of mystery and the main character has a good sense of humor.

[Hunter C. Brown]

u should continue this story, i enjoyed it greatly :P good luck and keep on writing

[LunarSong]

I think you could turn this into a novel, you really should

[rae52]

i thought it was good but, what happens next? do they catch her again? now they have taught her do they leave her? Dpo they need her for some sinister reason?

just questions i still have but overall really good

[PyroKitty24]

i thought it was wonderful! It was an interesting idea, something I would have never thought of, and you wrote it brilliantly!

[lleone]

I love the ending. What don't you like about this?