Short Story Portfolio #3 Draft #1

This is a story for school. If you can, please critique it so that I can improve!

Short Story portfolio #3

I said goodbye to my mother as I left hastily to the store on my small rusted white bike with a charming little Easter colored basket out front. It was rare that I could leave the farm for anything like shopping.  We only left for the things that weren’t sold around us by any of the local farmers and clothing. We weren’t even that poor, but born in the rural town we lived in, it was my parents and what they felt entitled to teaching us, me and my siblings, which was to live like in the days when they grew up. To grow a family, only buy the necessities -unless I marry rich- and stay true to your good southern roots was a law engrained on the inside of my eyelids. But nevertheless, I never really had interest in anything adventurous.  Yet when I discovered someone who looked beaten to death and freezing on the crushed up sidewalk that February on the way to the grocery store, something came over me and changed that.

When I saw him, I didn’t know what to do. In fact, if it weren’t for the redness of his blood on the sidewalk I would have kept going. I didn’t help him right away. I was struck still with conflicting emotions. For a moment, I selfishly thought of leaving him there.  I didn’t know whether or not he was even alive, but I wasn’t heartless. When the shock settled enough for me to gain the bravery I needed, I swooped down and started shaking the body. A thought came over me then that this was my first time I had ever seen a corpse let alone touched one, and as I analyzed the body I was instantly relieved to find that the person lying there was still faintly breathing.

He was unconscious; his skin was covered with purple and yellow bruises. Gashes ran down his shirtless back. He was either in some kind of freak accident, or brutally beaten and left to die on the side of the road. In his condition and barely clothed, I fearfully considered the latter the most likely. I shouted in the man’s face to wake him, to no avail.  It was then I noticed he had stopped breathing. I rolled him over only to find more injuries. I beat on his bloodied chest to try start his breathing again. It was all I knew how to do but somehow it worked, he began to gasp for air.

 His head raised and his eyes slowly flickered open, only for him to collapse back onto the grassy area next to the pavement. The only thing that I had fully established was that this person needed medical help and that I had no way to get him to a hospital. I slipped one of my jackets over him, as he was turning purple by the second in the frigid air. I constantly tried waking the person up, whoever he was, and was met with a mumble that I couldn’t clearly make out. Grabbing my chilled water bottle from the inside of my little basket, I unscrewed the cap and dowsed the person’s face with water, the only thing that could wake him up. He sat right up, hissing from the pain of the water in the many cuts on his skin. When he first woke up, he was confused and not even slightly amused by the fact that his face was drenched in cold water in the already icy weather. I apologized to him without considering that he might not have been able to understand me or care, and tried to conjure up a way to get him to the hospital on a little bike.

 

“S’ok…” He murmured.

I gasped in surprise at his response.

“What happened to you?”

He glanced at me sizing me up.

“Oh I s’pose I made some folks angry.”

“No kidding.” I snarked. Instantly regretting my rude comment I slapped my hand over my mouth in shame.

The stranger began laughing.

“Yeah, I guess I look like ten miles of bad road.”

“I am so sorry.” My face was flushed with embarrassment.

“Ah that’s alright, you stopped to help I guess you got a right to speak your mind.”

We fell into an uncomfortable silence, which was soon broken by the bark of a cough from my new acquaintance.

I rushed back to his side ignoring the voice of my mother telling me the perils of stranger danger ringing in my head as I lifted him up to a better angle.

“Thank you.” The man wheezed.

“You’re welcome.” I said solemnly.

He looked through me with a far off look in his eye as if he were remembering something. I shivered with the cold and his attention returned.

“You’re cold.” He said with surprise.

I sniggered “Yeah some guy took my coat.”

He started to smile and stopped himself. “You gotta take it back. I can’t let you catch your death.”

I marveled at his concern for me. “No you need it more than I do, you’re hurt!”

“You shouldn’t help me, I ain’t a good guy.” He struggled to pull away from me.

I grew a little angry at his foolishness.

“Stop it, you’ll hurt yourself!” I chastised.

He kept weakly pulling away. “No you don’t understand, I done bad things and they’re after me. You’re just a sweet kid I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Well too bad I found you and I’m staying until some help gets here.” My tone was belligerent.

He laughed at my stubbornness. “You’re pig headed just like my Dana. She’d be about your age.”

 I stared at him and felt myself pull away involuntarily.

“What’d you say your name was?” I asked coldly.

“I didn’t.” His reply was suddenly guarded.

We sat and stared at one another for what felt like ages.

He swallowed back another coughing fit and pulled his body up into a more seated position. He finally asked the question we both already knew the answer to.

“Dana?”

“Robert?”

“Yeah, it’s me sweetheart. I’m your Daddy.”

“The hell you are.” I spat out.

He sunk back, dejected.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in prison?”

“No, I was in the P-farm for being a model prisoner. But I couldn’t take it no more; I just had to see you. Your Momma refused to bring you to see me. She said that Jimmy was more of a Daddy to you than I ever was and that you gave up on me a long time ago.”

“I haven’t seen you since I was four, what do you expect? Jimmy is my Dad he raised me, not you!”

“I know baby, I know you’re right. Jimmy’s a good man. But I don’t know how much longer I have and I wanted to see you…I had to explain.”

“You can’t explain, you did some really stupid and selfish things and you were taken away from me because of them. Nothing you can say can change ten years of a father in prison.”

He began coughing again a trickle of blood slipped out of his lips.

Seeing the man who used to play with me and throw me over his shoulder and tickle my tiny feet, lying there in so much pain did nothing to ease my ingrained anger for him. But it did worry me on a more human level. He was growing weaker.

 

“Listen, I don’t want to talk about…before. I just want to get you help and send you on your way.”

He nodded in defeat. “Okay. Yeah you’re right.”

We sat once again in a tense silence his ragged breaths a rhythmic reminder of his pain.

Curiosity got the better of me and I asked, “What happened to you? And what do you mean you don’t know how long you’ll have?”

He sighed brokenly. “I finally saw sense and decided to give evidence. They told me they’d protect me and I would get out sooner. Guess this wasn’t what they had in mind, but some guards at the farm were dirty and beat the snot outta me so I dug under the fence and walked ‘til I couldn’t walk no more.”

I felt a small unwanted swell of pride for the man who had failed me so utterly. I gave him a nod of approval. It was all I could muster.

He beamed a broken grin back at me and I felt my stomach clench over long lost memories. I tamped down my emotions fiercely. I wouldn’t make it easy for him.

But I guess I wasn’t good enough at hiding that brief flicker of recognition and he latched on to it like a lifeline.

“There’s my girl…”

I refused to bend but he was oblivious to my denial of him.

The awkward silence stretched out into a more comfortable one and I found I was on the cusp of giving him a slice of forgiveness. But before the warm words for my father could escape my lips the sounds of approaching sirens slammed my mouth and heart closed.

Reviews

[once upon a time]

Very well written

[V. Smith]

mmm, a felicitous coincidence, not wholly believable but it does happen, don't know if it is strong enough to base your story on.

I liked the dialogue. . .thing is I kept thinking about cold it was and how you said the narrator was turning purple the second she took off her coat, and how she threw cold water on his face, despite all that, it didn't really show too much in the dialogue. I would think they'd be shivering and looking for shelter immediately, her dad would probably be bordering on hypothermia. I maybe would add some element to show the dialogue and rousing the injured man all happened in a matter of minutes.