Prolouge

The beginning of a series of nine fantastical, well woven short stories revolving around the extinction of the south asian red raven.

It’s strange the things you remember from childhood. When you've grown up, you seem only capable of being able to recall the trivial things of being young that are completely irrelevant to your adult life, rather than the important things.

I look down at my lap where there is an unpolished wooden box the size of a tissue box. I’m sitting in my car in a law firm parking lot, fingering the brass key that supposedly slotted into the rusted hole at the front.

I was nine when my parents died, and my grandmother (who I had never met before that time) was the one who cooked me coco and tucked me in at night, although it was minimal number of them. For exactly nine nights, she was my mother when she didn’t have to be. Then she left, supposedly satisfied that I had settled with my foster family. It’s been thirty years, and I haven’t seen her since. And now I never will. Instead I have this box which she gave me in her Will. I didn’t know what I expected when I got a call explaining my grandmother had passed away and there was something she left for me, but it wasn’t this.

From what information I’ve gathered about her, she was a delinquent from the beginning, skipping school, breaking hearts and managing to disappear for months on end without telling anyone where she was. Often I’ve been told, even when she was under age, she could be found after no words of her where abouts overseas in remote, dusty foreign cities. What she was doing there was never clear. It was only when she met my grandfather (apparently a fisherman that had an accident at sea that left a huge scar across his chest from throat to hip) and fell pregnant that she was forced to settle down. All this is information I’ve only found after her death. I know she spoke more to me, about mum and dad and others things which now seem terribly important about my dwindling family history, yet I can no longer recall.

The one single thing I remembered about my grandmother was her bedtime stories. All set it a tiny, provincial town in India. She claimed that it was so small and so isolated from the world that no one bothered to give it a name, or put it on the map, and that’s why I couldn’t see it in the atlas. I’ve never been to India, so I guess I wouldn’t know. What I do know, with pin point accuracy, was that there were exactly nine of them, one for every night of my life that I knew her.

It’s strange the things you remember from childhood.

Author's Note

There is not much information here for people to crit, I think, as it is only the prolouge. Originaly I wanted this to be snappy, sharp, direct and very short, as the stories following are very elaborate, descriptive and poetic (not particularity long though) - but I find I cannot cut any more words or make anything shorter or more direct without loosing some of the information you, the reader, will need to know by the time you get into the nine stories. So I guess my main question is whether or not it's got you hooked or not, even if it seems a bit laborious and slow? If you have any suggestions about how to make it read a little more directly I'm all ears. Does it get boring at any point? Is the sentence structure too complex or long at some points? Any general comments are appreciated, and follows of the book that this is to be part of would be lovely too - many more good things to come.

Also grammar and spelling problems: If you spot them, please tell me.
Thank you.

Reviews

[NoblePariah]

I like this so far, though there are a few suggestions that I would make: (though they are of coarse opinions) Firstly, at the end of the first paragraph, you could take out "rather than the important things, as that's sort of what was said right before it. Second, you switch between past and present tense a bit, (which may be on purpose) but sometimes that can distract or confuse the reader. Finally, I would maybe add some opinions that the speaker has towards things, i.e. does she hate here grandma, miss her, or just plain not care? That way depth and relationships can be established nearly instantly. Though as I said, from the short plot so far I can see it going somewhere, in future chapters. Well done.

[A.R. Elvira]

Thanks so much for the review (: . You're right about the tense, I'm glad you pointed that out. And I will remove that sentence at the end in the beginning. I guess I avoid highlighting how the character feels about his grandmother because that's not what the book is about, this is just a lead in to the real stuff that isn't actually about this character at all. But you make a good point, so I'll think about how I can improve this.

Thanks again for taking the time.

[SweetNutmeg]

For me, it is best the way it is now... I think we can guess how devastating that must have been, and her not commenting upon it tells us something about her. I am not sure about "supposedly" though... that implies someone has made a claim. "Presumably"?

I did not find it boring. It's hard to introduce characters. You don't want to choke descriptions or stories down your reader's throat, but you do want to give them certain information. You've found a nice balance. I have a sense of your character and identify with her.

I did not find it laborious or slow. She is talking about rather sad, wistful things... loss, regrets, retrospection. Snappy would have been jarring.

I am hooked. I will certainly read on.