Childish exuberance (1298 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.66 on 55 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Fey (View user info) at 2007-04-22 16:41:12 EDT
"D'ya wanna see something yucky?" She was grinning, eyes large and sparkling. Straining with anticipation, she danced in place, tense with keeping her arms behind her back. Oh, how she wanted to show me.
I met her gaze of childish exuberance coolly, and turned back to my screen. "No." I was part-way through Level 8, it had taken me ages, and I was damned if I was going to let her break my concentration.
She drooped at my flat refusal, eyes starting to mist over and smile dying down. She tried again, "C'mon, Tommy.. I found it down at the pond.."
I paused my game and turned to face her, saw how she started to perk up. "You know you're not supposed to be down at the pond by yourself. You're just a little kid, Cissy." I used all the weight of experience of my 13 years to inject as much disdain as possible into my voice, revelling in my newly acquired babysitter authority.
I was taken off guard as Cecilia, a child of extremes, suddenly launched herself at me, fists flailing, her "surprise" forgotten. The newly released frog, presumably disconcerted to find itself indoors, made it's way toward the open patio doors. Neither one of us noticed it leaving, as Cecilia had a deathgrip on a double handful of my hair, and was literally swinging off my head. Being the manly older brother I was, I bit back my squeals of pain and pushed her hard, so she lost her grip and fell to the floor.
My conscience stabbed me, I pushed it away. She'd started it. Cecilia picked herself up, crossed her childishly chubby arms across her chest, and glared at me. Tears and physical hurt were completely forgotten in her tide of angry words " I hate you lots, Tommy, you're the worst big brother ever, Martina's big brother plays with us, but you just play your stupid games 'cos you've got no friends!"
I stiffened, and under attack, attacked back. "Yeah, well you're the stupidest little sister I've ever heard of, and.. and.." the trump card, the insult that never fails.. "you're such a sissy mum and dad named you Cissy". She screwed her face up and screamed her frustration. I had 8 years on her, and at 5 years of age she had yet to find a way to combat the logic of my barb. She grabbed the closest thing to hand, one of mum's hundred vases from the bookshelf, and threw it at my head. I ducked, and Cecilia ran crying from the room.
I returned the hearthbrush and shovel to the cleaning cupboard, still muttering under my breath about spoilt bratty little sisters. Hopefully mum would never notice that the vase was gone.. that it lived in the den was a fairly sure sign that she didn't like it very much, but you never knew with mum. Sometimes she noticed everything, and sometimes she just zoned out on pills in the lounge when she came home from work. She'd hired me as a babysitter a few months back, I picked Cecilia up from school on my way home and took care of her until mum was home and done with cooking dinner.
I went back to my game, Tetris, because mum didn't believe in computer games that promoted violence. Fleetingly I considered finding Cecilia, but I was still peeved, and she was a pain. Mum'd be home soon, and Cecilia would come back when she heard the car.
"Hello? Tom? Cecilia?" Mum's keys hit the table in the hall with a familiar clatter. She walked through the house, her high heels clicking on the wooden floor. Before dad left us, he used to call them her powershoes, and sing a song about boots that were made for walking. There wasn't a lot of singing in our house anymore.
Mum poked her head in through the door and smiled at me. "Hey sweetheart, so this is where you are. What a surprise.." She teased mildly. I didn't turn my gaze from the game, level 8, for the second time now, and muttered "Hey mum."
She glanced around the room, and unconsciously furrowed her brow when she didn't spot her daughter. "Where's Cecilia, Tom?" I glanced up, quickly. "Um.. she's outside." Mum turned on her heel and clicked away, muttering about spoilt babysitters. I hunched my shoulders a little, against the guilt and responsibilities, and kept stacking the nice, neat, square-edged shapes on top of each other.
The scream shattered my world. Shattered everything. Before I knew it, I was outside, in the back yard, running towards the pond down by the boundary of our property. Somehow, even then, I knew. Somehow, I'd known from the first second of the first scream.
Mum was standing out in the pond, water up to her waist, the small body of her daughter in her arms.
User Reviews
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-10-03 08:11:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
You're good people, Arnie. Sleep well.
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-03 08:08:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
send me my 'mail fheg. night.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-10-03 08:06:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I wept for what you did to me. Now I will weep for what I did to you.
Go in peace, my friend.
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:57:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:45:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
<deep breath>
You are a washed up divorced never-has-been with a raging inferiority complex and a grey beard. Furthermore you are a semi-illiterate nonpunctuating grammatically fallible monkey typist with too much time and bitterness on his wart-ridden calloused old man hands. You and your fake armani, bought for 10 bucks from a small kitschy Asian knock-off store, can take your smirk and shove it up your anus, unless there's no room for it there with all of your toys in place. You cling to sports like a drowning man to a raft, because they imbue your otherwise meaningless life with a sense of vitality that you resort to alcohol to find during the off-season. You have managed to reach "upper middle age" and still have the practical coping capabilities of a retarded 4 year old, which really shouldn't be possible for someone normally gifted, which leads me to the question of your specialness. You're still waiting for your superpowers to kick in, after the electric shock therapy treatment you received for non-specific depression in your teenage years. Unfortunately, back in the darkages when you grew up, the techniques were not as refined as they could have been and you lost 40 IQ points instead. So, while I know that it is not your fault, I'm afraid I must admit to a sense of profound disgust when I see you struggling to think, type and drool at the same time. Yes, I am watching you. Right now.
------------
*blinks*
*bottom lip quivers*
:(
[really small font] stuff you. this was uncalled for...goodbye uber, I'm out, this site has some real arseholes on it.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:47:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
http://www.ubersite.com/m/86451#2543182
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:40:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn..
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:16:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
well *i* feel better
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:14:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-10-03 06:32:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Do you have the attention span of a weasel doing amphetamines, or perhaps just the memory of a goldfish with Alzheimers?
You were talking to me. You were planning to insult me. You didn't find me in the NZ online white pages. You don't know my name, so you can't find me in Sweden.
SUGGESTION RE: ALTERNATE PLAN (do I have to do everything?)
Insult me here.
Problem solved.
Get to work.
(You're being mighty passive agressive. I don't live in a trailer.)
-----------------
oh, okay. Dear Fey, no - dear Fey menz...attn fhey menz,
your mum. stick that in your endless night autumn/winter and stoke it. fheg. prostitutehead. big, gay, not normal looking fey ghey halfbreed homeless unloved smelly trite banal man-hating hitwhoring slag. You are from new zealand and I am not. I am a human being and you are a monkey. "ooo-ooo-ooo" scratching under your hairy vegan arms and swinging from a cage in your man-made eco-system - that's you. Leaning against a wall seductively in my armani suit with my come get me smile/sneer - that's me. massive, slovenly, outcast your halfcast family couldn't even find a boyfriend for and had to send you away hoping you'd meet some nightblind albino named sven or lars who'd shag you in winter when it's always dark, before realising his awful mistake and the dire consequences, as you leaned against the bedroom door jamb dangling your empty birth-control packet between thumb and forefinger - and he squinted and vomitted a whole fucking lot in his mouth, your. fucking. team. SUCKS.
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-09-29 21:14:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/110341#2539488
fey you're not even *IN* THE NEW ZEALAND WHITE PAGES HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN ABOUT THIS AND WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2007-08-21 07:39:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like this one as well.
Submitted by badglobe (user info) at 2007-07-30 17:45:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Lovely reading.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2007-05-06 04:15:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2007-05-02 18:38:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2007-05-02 18:16:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
And what did you write about the psychology of tattoos?
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2007-05-02 10:32:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
How in the world did THAT post lead you to Ubersite? I'm really curious.
And feel free to -2 me for it, I don't much like this place any more either.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-04-27 00:24:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-23 08:42:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
In order to avail myself of your collective wisdom, I'm planning to write a continuation on this where I'll try adress what was lacking in this post.
_______________
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
God, I can imagine it.
"His mother had been divorced recently due to his father having kinky monkey sex with anoher man and since then she'd dated two or three times nothing serious but sometimes she'd come home late and cry in her room and thought he didn't know..... (etc)"
"and then they all raped each other"
It just makes you feel unclean.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-26 05:59:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
No promises, forthewin.
Submitted by forthewin (user info) at 2007-04-25 22:57:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This writing is severely disturbing, don't shoot up a school.
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2007-04-25 04:24:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by The_Drake (user info) at 2007-04-24 18:12:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
First thing of yours I actually liked. Way to go.
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2007-04-24 07:35:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice writing.
Submitted by TuTs (user info) at 2007-04-24 00:40:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like stories short. The only thing that would have made this better, is the mothers reaction towards the son. That would have made this purely great.
Submitted by Ildeth (user info) at 2007-04-23 21:30:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
*sob*
nothing like guilt to fuck up a 13 year old's head - you're so cruel
Submitted by Zebra (user info) at 2007-04-23 21:07:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Well written.
I liked the first person, but it might have been interesting to shift the point of view back and forth between the two children.
Submitted by guitarjunky421 (user info) at 2007-04-23 20:43:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
mundane yet tragic shway
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2007-04-23 18:16:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-04-23 15:32:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I've only seen this five or six times around here, so I won't be negative.
---
Instead he'll be smug, condescending and laughably magnanimous.
Lucky you.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-04-23 15:32:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I've only seen this five or six times around here, so I won't be negative.
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-04-23 14:00:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked it alot. I do wish that the death was explained somehow. Was it suicide, or an accident?
_________________________
Seriously, dude? a five-year-old suicide?
Why are you allowed to have the internet?
Submitted by littledan (user info) at 2007-04-23 12:53:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked it alot. I do wish that the death was explained somehow. Was it suicide, or an accident?
Submitted by DirtyHarry (user info) at 2007-04-23 10:11:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
A single tear.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-04-23 09:55:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really enjoyed this. There are plenty of good constructice comments for improving technique below, so I won't reiterate.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-23 08:42:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
In order to avail myself of your collective wisdom, I'm planning to write a continuation on this where I'll try adress what was lacking in this post.
Thanks for the feedback.
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-04-23 08:30:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Not bad...
The only reason this isn't a 2 is because I thought it felt a little, uh, grey to me (i.e. I didn't get the feeling that the characters were alive/dynamic). Also, the ending, to me, seemed to be telegraphed right from the beginning. Whenever I write a story that seems to be falling into a rut, I try to make the end wildly different than most would expect. For instance, I might have switched the narrative style to the perspective of the dead girl's ghost at the end and gone on to describe how her existence was changed that fateful day.
Also, as I've sometimes mentioned in othr reviews, when you craft a story that's 100% negative or depressing, you risk alienating your audience. I find that a good, entertaining story has both positive and negative elements in it. As it is, the story just makes you sort of angry/sad (which is perhaps what you were intending, but tends to piss me off a little).
All in all, I liked it; I just think you've got some work to do as far as refining your writing style goes.
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2007-04-23 06:29:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
A pleasure to read.
I wish my little sister would drown! But she's 21 so there's little chance of that!
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-04-23 06:14:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Is thissss burning annnn eternallllll FLLLLLLLLAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMME!!!!!!!!!!
Submitted by yhywstudios (user info) at 2007-04-23 06:10:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2007-04-23 04:43:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is just what I needed on a monday morning at work.
Thank you.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2007-04-23 02:01:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
YAY!
This was great - except holyfuckingmoley sad.
Submitted by Herpes (user info) at 2007-04-23 01:41:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
This is the standard Ubermadness entry.
...or at least it used to be. I didn't read any of the submissions from the last one.
Submitted by particle_man58 (user info) at 2007-04-23 01:28:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That should teach the little shit to listen to her brother.
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-04-23 00:44:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I disagree with people who say it was poorly paced. Even if it was, it only would add to the feeling that it was being told by a thirteen year-old boy, ya know? But puncuation could have been improved.
I also really enjoyed the mentioning, breifly, of the mother's habit of getting pilled up.
A good peice, and one that I could relate to, being as I have a brother who died.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-04-22 23:29:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Snare (user info) at 2007-04-22 21:22:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good work, let's have some more!
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-04-22 19:52:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-04-22 18:00:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
See, I liked how you didn't overload us with background - in a very short piece like this, it's overwhelming and usually not necessary. You gave us enough to fix the setting and that's plenty.
My only criticisms are small ones - there's a couple of commas that should be periods.
The flow was a little choppy in places - instead of cramming details of setting into the middle of a sentence, try using them at the beginning so we have 'setting -> action' as opposed to 'action-> setting -> action.'
===
I agree with these bits of Circe's comments. All in all, well done.
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2007-04-22 19:00:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Pretty good
Submitted by MidnightToSix (user info) at 2007-04-22 18:05:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I thoguht toddlers fell into water and drowned. Five year olds.... hmmm, I guess. I thought most people who couldn't swim were afraid of water.
Submitted by snag (user info) at 2007-04-22 18:03:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this -
(and without sounding like I'm trying to prove that I know more than you about writing)
Your punctuation could use help. A few times you separated two complete sentences with a comma; it's proper to use semicolons. Also, points of ellipsis are 3 fold while you're only using two...if that's a style thing, nevermind.
The action was great! You describe interpersonal events well.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-04-22 18:00:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
See, I liked how you didn't overload us with background - in a very short piece like this, it's overwhelming and usually not necessary. You gave us enough to fix the setting and that's plenty.
My only criticisms are small ones - there's a couple of commas that should be periods, and "Because you've got no friends" is such an astoundingly astute remark for a five year old that it's out of place.
The flow was a little choppy in places - instead of cramming details of setting into the middle of a sentence, try using them at the beginning so we have 'setting -> action' as opposed to 'action-> setting -> action.'
DISCLAIMER - Any advice given is the opinion of 6am Before Coffee and probably unreliable.
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2007-04-22 17:42:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
i agree a bit with experima. i think there should be a little more background detail. there's that one spot about the mum now being single and stuff but then nothing else.
i thought it was kind of choppy. some parts of it flowed nicely in others but then it kind of came to a stop here and there. and for some reason the idea that a five year old would throw a vase didn't seem right. that's more like angry wife or something to me. liked the opening paragraph a lot.
sometimes the word choice seemed a little bland. like "under attack, attacked back" and a couple other things sounded a bit redundant. also the spot where it skips from throwing the vase to being done cleaning seemed odd. like the rest of it was so linear and then that missed a patch.
little anticlimactic too. i expected the drowning as soon as the line about not going down to the pond by yourself came up but i didn't expect it to show up so abruptly.
solid worth reading though.
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2007-04-22 17:26:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
The pay-off sentence needs to be completely re-done ie; out-in?, something better than: small body and something describing her look/pain/loss/etc.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-22 17:19:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Emission - Sorry!
experima - Thanks. I may have rushed things in order to actually, for once, finish something. She used the pond to hide from her less than stable world.
hotpocket - "..I was part-way through Level 8, it had taken me ages.........I didn't turn my gaze from the game, level 8, for the second time now.."
I tried to give the sense of time passing, without actually giving a concrete amount of time. I'll see what I can do about being better at it next time.
Thanks people.
Submitted by hot_pocket (user info) at 2007-04-22 17:13:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i like the perspective its written in (youre not really a 13 y.o. boy, i hope, by comparison of your camwhore) but the time between the kid turning back around and his mother coming home seems to be a bit short for the sister to drown though i guess at 5 years old it doesnt take long
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2007-04-22 17:09:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
was she just out getting another frog, or was she drowning herself for attention or something?
I'd like to see the characters and their relationships to one another developed more fully, so I could care about them and the story more as a whole.
does she die? does the brother have remorse? some stories I like left to my imagination, but so much was in this that I wanted to see a bit more details all round.
:)
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-04-22 16:51:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I just feel sad :(
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-22 16:44:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
So.. I went with none of Attempts 1-3.
Constructive criticism welcome.