/lit/ - Literature

[Dogs !!m4R9npk0b0E No.1704640]

Short story, not a lot of editing.

It’s a small community. Rural, and sprung out from a pine forest many years ago. There’s been little development, but the population never changes much. Babes born, age, wither, die. They leave, but they’re drawn to it. Drawn back. The children wander out, some for school, some to chase dreams, but they find their way back. They love their home. Why should they not? They spend lives mending it. The community is home, always was.

Nathan owns the only store in town. The community farms, they grow most of what they need for themselves, and not a small number grow everything they need. What was lacking, then, in this closed place was congregation. They had no place to pass the gossip. To pound out political differences. To drink.

[Dogs !!m4R9npk0b0E No.1704641]

Nathan’s started out as a grocery store. A road-side stand affair. Nathan, now an old, squat man with a warm, large face, had a wife that died young. Some said that Nathan started throwing things away, and everyone in the community must not throw anything away that has not fulfilled its use. Hard times had fallen on this place before, who knew when they’ll be back. Some said that Nathan was looking for more money, that he wasn’t satisfied with the farmer’s life. Some said that he needed to occupy his time after losing his wife. And that one isn’t so far from the truth. Nathan was lonely. He found himself in a house built by his father’s fathers, surrounded by a history of continuing the history. Nathan’s house was a home supposed to be filled by children. Generations had seen numerous sons and daughters, spreading through the community, making history. But Nathan would not remarry. No more generations to be found in his home. With a weight in his head, bending him towards the earth from which he tore his livelihood, he put the word out to friends. Soon, a wooden shack began to erupt near the center of town.

It grew, as things do. People came. Nathan’s grew. People talked. Nathan’s grew. Food was served, day and night. Nathan hired the boys around town to farm his land, and paid them with meals and beer from his shop. The young man grew older. He grew wiser. The community looked to Nathan for advice. He had found his way after the death of his wife. He had persevered. He knew the answers.

[Dogs !!m4R9npk0b0E No.1704643]

Frank. A man outside the community. Outside every community. Frank was unwanted. A boy thrown out by his parents, pushed away by the world. Stuck in a backwards tug of war, he was pushed away by everything. When the patience of this young man ran out, he was living in an alley, stealing food. He lashed out, murdered his father, and ran. Frank ran until his legs gave out. He ran until his feet had blistered. He ran until vomit streaked the front of his shirt. He ran through woods, through briars and poison ivy and oak. He ran until he reached this community. It took him time to get here. Wandering through the country, stealing and robbing from other’s live to perpetuate his own. He would reach the community as bald, middle age man. Thin and wiry from a poor life poorly lived.

A scar runs across his face, near from ear to ear, traveling the course of his mouth. Frank was in a community. Traveling through and starving, an unlit house was found and entered. Frank ate his fill of stolen food. His shoes were tattered and unlaced, they reeked of mold and sweat, as did his clothes. Frank found new clothes in a bedroom down the hall from the kitchen. In the hall were photos. Framed tastefully, each one held a different child. Some had parents behind them, holding them. Loving them. Frank felt the sting of a poor life, poorly lived. He felt it in each picture, glaring out at him, offending him. He threw his head towards the floor and continued toward his new wardrobe. A T-shirt, jacket, jeans and shoes were found. The clothes were two sizes too big, but the sneakers were right.

[Dogs !!m4R9npk0b0E No.1704645]

Frank was quiet. He lived a life of quiet, always running and hiding. But someone lay awake in the bedroom across the hall. Someone missing a husband working late. She heard the door open and smiled. The husband had returned, and early, even. She played at being asleep when she heard steps down the hall, and peeked from under the covers at the open door. Expecting a husband, she saw Frank. Her breath caught in her chest. An entire body tightened by fear and shock. She was sure he was coming for her, that he had seen her. But Frank did not. He ducked into a room filled with closets and hangers. Panicked, she drew a knife from the nightstand. Terrified, she crept from the edge of the bed and slid to the door. Quietly, she peeked around the corner at the room Frank had entered. She saw no light but heard the intruder fumbling with something. She fought to keep the gagging and hacking in her stomach as Frank’s smell reached her. The moldy stench turned her insides over and over, and all at once she was sure he would come for her. She was sure he would try to take her, to press his disgusting smell on her. She had to protect herself. She sunk back behind the corner of the door with the knife sticking out from a vice-grip fist.

Frank laced up the second shoe. He admired his new attire in the body-length mirror standing in the corner of the room. For just a moment, a crime was forgotten. He didn’t steal these clothes. In that mirror was everything Frank could have been. A troubled man stared into that mirror. A man dragging a poor life poorly lived behind him. He had no more choice of who he was than the asphalt decides where it gets laid down. A troubled man stared into that mirror, but a good man stared out of it.

[Dogs !!m4R9npk0b0E No.1704646]

Ashamed of his burglary, he turned from the mirror and headed for the door. He stepped out from the dressing room. When he reached the hallway the mirror was forgotten. The thievery was forgotten. Even the murder was forgotten. How could he remember it? His entire being exploded in amazing pain that he had never felt before. A knife had found its way into his cheek, and dragged itself across his face, slicing through gums and flesh on its course from left to right. Frank never saw the woman. He never saw her face. On it she wore not a look of fear or panic, but cold, calculated anger. She was protecting herself and her life from an intruder that she was sure wanted nothing less but to end everything she had begun. She was righteous. She was pure in all things. Frank had not seen her face. If his eyes had crossed it, he would have given up.

But Frank didn’t. A scream rushed its way from his chest to the open air as he ran down the hallway and out the front door into darkness. Frank suffered for an eternity. Infection spread through his body and wracked his mind. He stumbled through the front door of a pharmacy and collapsed. Frank awoke in a small hospital. A nurse came to him and said he was being treated with antibiotics. The wound had begun to close and the surgeon did what he could for Frank’s mouth. The next day he escaped from the hospital and continued on his way. Continued running.

[Dogs !!m4R9npk0b0E No.1704647]

Frank moved. He moved through the country. Moved through towns and cities and communities, stealing to stay alive. He moved west. Through prairie and pasture, through hills and forests. He worked his way through fields and farms. Eventually, years after the beginning of his life, Frank trudged into the community. He looked about him, noticing homes with no cable boxes. Streets without power lines. Roads without signs. He found the main street and noticed a restaurant. An entirely-wooden structure, it was wide and low. Windows stretched across the front of the place, and a screen door let Frank peak into a big room filled with benches and tables. It was lit by lamps lining the perimeter of the open space. Frank liked the feel of this town. Everything was unofficial, and Frank liked unofficial. The thief slid between the screen door and the frame. It was far past closing time, and darkness covered the area in front of the restaurant. Frank assumed he was safe.

Nathan was in the cellar of his store when he heard footsteps plod overhead. No one in the community would come here at this hour. He grabbed a broom and stepped across the dirt floor to the stairs that would lead into the kitchen. Slowly he climbed those stairs, even now, with something so strange as an intruder running around in his place, he smirked. His thoughts were good. He remembered the days running up and down these wooden stairs grabbing jars of fruit and vegetables for orders upstairs.

[Dogs !!m4R9npk0b0E No.1704648]

Nathan reached the landing at the top, and looked out into his kitchen. A cabinet door hung open, and he saw two dirty shoes behind it. The wise man cleared his throat. Frank’s disfigured face shot out from behind the worn cabinet door and glared at Nathan. Frank stood up off his haunches and slowly, deliberately, turned his body to face Nathan. Frank’s speech had been permanently affected by the knife wound, but Nathan understood his words.

“G-give me your money,” panic had stretched Frank’s breath thin. Words wheezed out of him. Frank’s threatening position was betrayed by his eyes. His tired, worn eyes. They were as dull as the dead, all the evidence anyone would ever need to attribute any crime in any community to this man.
“No.” Resolute.
“I don’t want any trouble, just give it to me and I’ll leave.”
“That’s not how it works here, son. You keep what you have and you get on.”

[Dogs !!m4R9npk0b0E No.1704649]

Frank was broken. Nathan’s firm, calm face showed Frank everything he would never be. Frank was broken. The man, disfigured. The boy, unwanted. The life, wasted. Frank was a life, wasted. The mind of this man had been losing for years. Now, it was lost. His face contorted, his lips pulled back and split at the scar of the knife wound, his eyes burned in their sockets. He ripped a knife from the block on the counter and charged Nathan.

On the old face shown not fear, not anger, not sadness. On the face shown disappointment.

Frank buried the knife to the handle in this old man. This wise man. Frank let go of the black handle now protruding from Nathan’s stomach. The old man fell to his knees, looked down at the handle, placed one finger on the black thing as if to understand it, and slumped onto his side. A wail ripped through the restaurant and out into the town. Lights blinked on throughout the community. Men rushed through screen doors towards that pitiful scream, and found Frank at the door of Nathan’s place. His right hand bloody, his face disfigured, and his eyes wild.

His eyes were all they would need.

[Dogs !!m4R9npk0b0E No.1704737]

shameful, shameful bump.

[Anonymous No.1704754]

tl;dr

[T.J.Bacchus No.1704788]

I don't like how everything is told to me, it's like I'm reading a textbook and I had to force myself to go back and read it all instead of just skimming it after the first post and a half. It reads like a bullet-point list. This might have been intentional, but not my cup of tea.

don't particularly like the way that a lot of things are very specified, but then some things are referred to that we aren't told about. Nathan's wife's death and the murder that frank committed particularly.

the story is okay but unsurprising, saw it coming.

However:

Some of the descriptions nice, not gaudy or excessive.

In general the language feels compelling, some of the sentences would be really good, if only they weren't spoon-fed to me.

Just my 2 cents.

[Virginia W00F !!GThm5VqxqDi No.1704803]

>>1704640
I read what you wrote and if you wrote some more I'd read that too.