Young Writers Society

Marshal Apego is searching. Crouched down, leaning on his haunches with his legs akimbo, he resembles his Stone Age ancestors on the hunt for game. His beige ottoman holds his weight without give, the leather cold and smooth under his bare feet. His hands fervently rub each other, as if he is washing his hand in air. Shaking them for a moment, Marshal scratches his unshaven cheek. Crusty bits of an indistinguishable solid flake off.
“I want to see,” Marshal cries staring out of his living room window that covers the length of the wall. He focuses on the cherry multi-paneled blinds, the fingerprinted glass, and the city below his Times Square apartment in succession. Smooth red-tinted wood, smudged transparency, and neon lights. Lumber, glass, and lost souls. Blinds, a window, and an unforgiving city. He stares at them, over and over, one after the other.
“Damnit, I want to see it all,” Marshal says. The instant he focuses on one object, the other two fade out of focus. Shifting his gaze to the next level, he finds the previous object is now indistinguishable. While he looks at the blinds he cannot see the city, and while he views the city he cannot admire the glass. He tried to focus on all three, but he cannot.
His front door is deadbolted; no one will be entering. If someone had opened the door at that moment, they would have seen a hallway of family portraits: two beautiful young girls and a stunning wife smiling with a suited gentleman. Then a long dining room table would come into view, along with a room-length window view of the city. Cards cover the dining room table: “We’re sorry for your loss”, “Feel better”, and “Our sympathies”. In the center of the table – amidst unpaid bills and withered flowers – lies a newspaper clipping: “Assassination Attempt at Banquet; Three Fatalities”. Had anyone been there to see these things, they would have continued around the table to find Marshal crouched over on his beige ottoman, staring off into oblivion, unrecognizable.
“Why didn’t I see it coming?” he mumbles into his dripping palms.
But no one came.

its a cute little thing i liked it just a little confuseing at first probably cus its so late

Ooh. Someone's a bit of a nut job. *eyes Marshal warily* He's going to snap any time.

Very nice stuff here. The only thing I found to comment was that it was so short. You give us a little taste, a little crumb, and then you snatch the entree away. Maybe that is your plan (is this a one-shot?) because that was how it seemed, but it was a little frustrating because it was so good and just seemed to be getting started. It is not as if it cut off suddenly (you did a nice job of ending it) but there was so much more I wanted to know.

Way cool. I liked this very much. Your writing was really strong and the image even stronger. And I totally relate to how frustrating it is to try to focus on two things at one time and you can only see one or the other clearly. Very nice in drawing in real life (even the smallest thing) and writing a story around it. And your use of the present tense was great: I didn't notice it until I started skimming through it a second time for my review. Normally it glares at me, but this was really well done. Congrats.

*thumbs up*

~GryphonFledgling

I actually caught only one error here.

He tried to focus on all three, but cannot.

Tried clashes since it's past tense. An innocent typo, I'm sure. Otherwise this is very good.

Heya,

Crouched down, leaning [s]down[/s] on his haunches with his legs akimbo

Unless the repetition is intentional. And akimbo, awesome word!

His hands fervently rub each other, as if he is washing his hand in air. Shaking his hands for a moment,

hands is repetitive here. Replace the last "his hands" with "them".

Someone's gone crazy. Very good! I don't have much to say about this, except that I really like. It's very short, so there's not much to critique, but you put a lot into this short piece and I get an overall good image of what's going on. I'm not confused about anything, and it's an intriguing read.

Thanks for the read! =)

it was pretty good to me other than getting confused. crusty bits on his cheek was cool part. but it would of been better if it was.. unindigestiable peices.. but its too latei have it now

Short but pretty cool. I'll admit I'm not a huge fan of the opening sentence style that goes "______ was verb'ing'. But it picked up from there.

Crouched down, leaning down on his haunches with his legs akimbo, he resembles his Stone Age ancestors on the hunt for game. His beige ottoman holds his weight without give, the leather cold and smooth under his bare feet. His hands fervently rub each other, as if he is washing his hand in air.

I'm not sure if I love the word akimbo here. But I do love the Caveman allegory and the metaphor of air hand washing. Both those set the actions of the scene very well.

Marshall seems like he has a screw (or ten) loose, the dialouge was written similarly unpredictable to match with his thought patterns I assume. I liked it stylistically, I thought it read very 'crazy'.

The scene were he tries to 'focus' is haunting, and what follows builds off of that. I actually kind of like where you ended it, the story told everything it needed to, and the ambiguous ending suits it. Nice work.

i like your style of writing in this piece. You grabbed my attention the whole way through and at the end i was rather sad it was over. I like how you have attention to detail, and telling about the pictures in the hallway to add in detail and a family. good job

I liked this-firstly because of the style. Your style is distinctive from everyone else here, and this passage is written with a unique voice. Will this be continuing? If so, I'm interested to see how this comes along. It could become an interesting and unique piece-it's already quite unlike what I normally see here. It's a very well-balanced and gripping beginning, in short.

Hey guys,
First of all, thank you for the critiques! I made a small edit at the end of the piece. If you all would let me know if you think it enhances the story or not that would be much appreciated. Oh and just for clarification, this is meant to stand alone as its own story. There are no plans for a continuation, but who knows... there might be in the future.