short story one shot.

[Anonymous]

hey guys it’s me 🙂
in my introduction post thing, i mentioned a short story one shot i’m writing and @writefury suggested i should post it…so here it is.
the first chapter/part, at least.
if it’s interesting to anyone, i’ll post a link to google docs or something because it’s getting longer than i thought it would. 😛
hopefully this is where i should post it.
here goes:
~~~~~
Chapter 1

I sigh. Work is so boring. I’m a secretary for a big computer company, and pretty much all I do all day is file papers. The same old stuff, over and over again, every day the same. Black words against stark white paper. Different combinations of 26 letters and 10 numbers. Enough punctuation symbols to make your head swim. Boring.
Maybe you’re wondering why my life seems so dull. Part of it is because I’m single. Now, I don’t mean, singleness makes my life droll because I have no young man to spice it up a bit. I mean because until I find my soulmate, every single thing I see is in black and white. Black trees. A grey sky. My food is different shades of light and dark grey. Until that special man comes into my life, I’m both alone and downcast. Well, downcast most of the time. Black and grey aren’t very interesting colors, and from what my parents and engaged friends say, seeing in color is the best thing that happened to them–along with being married or engaged, of course. And apparently, when you start to see those beautiful colors, you really appreciate your soulmate more. That’s how I know what I’m seeing is black and white. My parents told me when I was old enough to like boys. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have noticed and wouldn’t have cared that I see the most boring colors that exist. But it’s not like I have a choice.
I glance over to the mirror on the wall and arrange my hair again. It’s long and what my married hairdresser calls “brown.” To me it’s a dark shade of grey. I have it down today. I’m about 5′ 7″ and people have told me that I also have what they call “green” eyes. They say it’s rare.
Well, here I sit, 25 years old, single, able to support myself with this tedious job, and filing paper after paper. I sigh again.
**********
Well, I made it to the end of the working day. Another one to be proud of, I suppose. Though there’s nothing to really be proud of about filing. It doesn’t take much thought or education. Maybe I should have gone to college…
I run to Starbucks and grab a mocha frappe before making a stop at Walmart for the week. Mondays are always my shopping days. Maybe I should switch it to Fridays, when I’m not as busy and tired. Might be worth it.
My mind wanders all around as I pick up items and put them in my cart. Corn flakes. Hot dogs. Mac and cheese. I’m not a very healthy eater. I figure, why worry? I work out, when I feel like it. And I’m not fat…right?
I wonder what it would be like to go your whole life without meeting your soulmate. Everything, black and white, bleak and boring, as long as you live. That’s probably how I’ll end up, I think to myself. I want to get married, eventually, I suppose. But it probably would only be to get rid of the colorblindness everyone is born with. Wait, I think as I chuck some toilet paper over my shoulder and into my cart. That couldn’t work. If I got married to someone I didn’t love, then neither of us would see colors. It can’t be just the marriage that changes your sight, it’s got to be the love that comes with the rings. And that wouldn’t work if I didn’t really love the guy I married. Ugh. There goes my plan.
I’m done collecting my items–now it’s time to check out. I roll my cart up to a register. There’s a guy working at it. He looks about my age. The name tag pinned on his shirt reads “Daniel.” He seems nice. He smiles at me as I begin to unload my cart onto the conveyor belt. I attempt a smile back and he begins to check out items.
“How are you today, Miss…” His eyes spontaneously move down to my shirt and then back up to my face. “…Brianna?” he finishes. I realize I must not have taken my name tag off. That’s how he knew my name.
“I’m doing good, how about you?” I ask. I don’t really care about how he is, I just say it as a matter of courtesy.
“I’m well,” he says, smiling at me again. He’s kind of too smiley for me.
Suddenly, I notice something behind him. I gasp. He must have noticed, because he turns around and looks for what I saw. “What is it?” he asks. He looks concerned. “Is everything all right, Miss Brianna?”
I tear my eyes away from what I’d been looking at. “No…no,” I reply. “Everything is fine.”
“Okay,” Daniel says, suspicion present in his voice. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah I’m fine.” I self-consciously straighten my shirt. “I’m fine,” I repeat, trying to dispel all doubt from his mind. The poor guy probably has enough to worry about. He doesn’t need to freak out about me seeing something.
Daniel goes back to scanning my stuff and I look back at the balloon that had caught my eye. I’ve seen balloons before, tied to the cash register and at birthdays and in the party isle, but I’ve never seen a balloon like this. It looks…different. The balloon is shaped like a heart. It looks regular–possibly left over from Valentine’s Day. It’s not a different shape, but somehow it’s changed. I know something’s not right. The balloon is still there, swaying a bit in the breeze from the automatic doors. I look away again just long enough to swipe my card and sign my name, and then go back to gazing at the balloon.
I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at that ridiculous thing when Daniel touches me on the shoulder. “Miss Brianna,” he says, “I know whatever you see is incredibly interesting, but you need to move on.” He motions to the people behind me.
“Okay, yeah, right,” I reply absentmindedly. I barely notice that he’s put all of the groceries into my cart for me. Still not completely there, I push my cart out of the store, turning to take one more look at the balloon. It’s still there, waving defiantly at me, taunting me to figure out what’s different about it. I walk out to my car and unload the stuff I bought, then realizing that Daniel was kind enough to load my cart. I think about thanking him, but decide against it. I hop into my Prius and drive away from Walmart, still puzzled about what was wrong about the balloon.
~~~~~
interested?
🙂

[Ingrid]

@zoe-wingfeather
Hmmm…I am very interested! Hope you don’t mind if I point out one thing that I noticed: I think the beginning is good but the reader is given a lot of information in just a few paragraphs. (And by the way, I struggle with info-dumping…like, majorly!) Other than that I really liked it!!! 🙂 Nice job, Chloe.

A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)

[Ingrid]

Now that I just looked back at the beginning of your chapter, it’s really just that paragraph that starts with I glance over to the mirror on the wall… that has a lot of info. 🙂

A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)

[Anonymous]

Very interesting! I would love to read the rest. Same thing Ingrid said, be careful about info-dumping.

[Rosey Mucklestone]

LOVE IT MY GOODNESS. 😀 So fun!
The info dumping wasn’t as huge of a problem for me, but I think most of the stuff you said could probably be interspersed as its relevant to the story.
That, and probably make a few more paragraph breaks near the beginning. Just… less intimidating than a huge chunk of text, if ya know what I mean. XP
Give us more! Please! 😉

[Greta]

Ooo, I like it @zoe-wingfeather! Like other people noted, I would watch out for info-dumping. For example, the writing in bold below, to me is a bit info-dump-ey…I struggle with the same thing, by the way. 🙂

I sigh. Work is so boring. I’m a secretary for a big computer company, and pretty much all I do all day is file papers.

The story is really intriguing, though! I’d love to read the rest. 🙂

[Anonymous]

@jadame @gretald @ingridrd @writefury
right! info dumping, fixed. hopefully. 😛
here’s the link to the google docs page:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OaQakuYD8FiA5JcK5ipZaJ81AJynp0cleSpyuyLcGOI/edit?usp=sharing

and you should be able to comment too. tell me if it works and i’ll try and fix the things that are wacky xP

thanks for your feedback though! feedback makes me happy :3

[Author]

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