Round 2 - Bench (Sensar vs Matteo)

[Kaez]

[Sensar]

All Around Are Colours

Where had the time gone? He wondered at the dripping window in front of him. The rivulets of water caught the last streaks of sunset, speckling the glass with dim orange light. He was certain he had just woken up, yet here he was, the night dawning.

His phone was somewhere off to his right, a dark slab. Or maybe, it was to his left? He had thrown it off onto his bed a few minutes back. He fumbled around in the crumbled bedding. No, not to his right this time. It had burrowed its way under the comforter over by his left foot. He picked up the phone and held it above his face, gazing intently. His bottom lip curled in and found his teeth; they bit down hard. His grip tightened.

He stood, leaving the phone lying on his bed. He slipped on his shoes, grabbed his keys, and left, out into the cold air and water. Almost immediately his body began protesting with shivers. His shirt dampened, pressing against his skin in a large patch on his back, his shoulder, the top of his chest. He could feel the wet seep into his socks and his shoes. He hated the feeling, but he kept walking.

The deep rain of the day had lessened into a steady drizzle, but the boulevard he walked was still ridding itself off of the heavier fall. Thick droplets shook themselves from the branches above and splattered on the cold concrete below. He found it very hard to think to himself, what with the sky giving him a light flick on the head every few steps. But he kept walking, down empty streets. Trees loomed ahead. He walked, and looked, and listened.

The wet stones of the path were full of pools and leaves and light. All around him was the patter of arrhythmic rain; rain on stone, on wood, on leaves, on metal, on glass. The tall lamps glowed soft amber, illuminating sheets of the autumn leaves swaying above. The trees luxuriated in that light, the bark lovingly caressed with shadows. As he walked, these sights began to smear more and more as droplets took up residence on his glasses. He didn’t wipe them off. He kept walking.

There, ahead, on a bench, was a dark smudge. A girl. Her hair was lank with moisture and covered her down-turned face. Her clothing was littered with damp. Her hands clutched a small purse on her lap.

He couldn’t help and gaze at her as he drew nearer. She was tense, shivering slightly as droplets from the leaves above caught the back of her neck and shoulders. Everything about her drew inward—shoulders, feet, knees, hands, eyes, elbows. He kept walking.

No, he didn’t. He stopped just short of it.

“You don’t have an umbrella either?”

She stirred and looked up through her hair. Cloudy blue eyes glinted in the orange light of the lamps. She ran her fingers up to her hair, dark with rain, pulling it back out of her face. Her fingers weren’t polished.

“No. Stupid, huh?” she said with a tense smile. Nothing about her had changed, really. They were both engaging their guards.

“Yeah,” he said with an exhaled half-laugh. Her eyes were mesmerizing, so he glanced away into the trees. Everything in him was screaming to leave. What was there to say? “Well, at least, I’m pretty stupid.”

She gave him another tight smile. He looked off further down the boulevard, lined with smeared red and amber and blue and black. His fingers realized that they existed, so he tucked them away in his damp denim pockets. He looked back to her. Something about her had softened just a little bit. Her hands weren’t grasping the purse as tightly.

He smiled at her, as best he could. “Do you come here often?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Sometimes, I come here when it rains. I like to walk without an umbrella whenever it rains. It’s is always beautiful when it does.” She looked down again, and a strand of hair fell back in front of her face.

“Well, I don’t do this very often either. Never done it before in fact. There was something in the air tonight, I guess,” he said. He reached a hand under to run fingers through his own hair. His fingers caught some built up moisture and flicked several droplets off into the night air.

They were silent for a moment, and the sound of the rain came back into focus. Somewhere, some frogs had begun to croak. The sun was gone now.

“You’re wearing heels,” he said. She looked at him, then down at her feet, then back at him, then down at her feet. “I guess I am,” she said.

“Aren’t they hard to walk in?” he asked. “These sneakers are barely okay. I feel like I’m going to slip on this rubber. Aren’t they hard to walk in?”

One of her hands went to her knee and began rubbing. “I guess.”

He gingerly sat next to her, though not so close, leaning onto his knees. He stared at the path in front of them, winding lazily through the wooded park. It winked lampposts back at him. He could feel the wet and cold seeping into him. He shivered.

“I don’t get colds,” she said. “I don’t think I could do this otherwise.”

“You don’t get colds?” he asked, turning to look up at her. “How do you just not get colds? I’m probably going to get a cold now, aren’t I. I didn’t think of that.”

She was smiling at him. “I just don’t get colds. I’ve gotten a cold maybe, like, two or three times? I don’t know why. I guess my immune system knows what it’s doing.”

He took off his glasses and looked morosely at the dewy lenses and his wet shirt. “Well, I’ll hope for some of your luck tonight.”

Again, they were silent. The distance between them grew the longer they were still.

He sat back against the wooden slats of the bench. His fingers knotted themselves neatly on his lap. She was looking out at the trees lined up before them. He looked out as well, turning his gaze forward and upward. Beyond the dimly lit trunks was a fog of dark blue and black. The shapes of other trees wavered dimly. Beyond, in the streaks of the horizon, the purple-orange ever-glow of civilization hovered in the clouds.

“Lyn,” he said. “I’m sorry.” His teeth began burrowing into his lip. “You make me so happy. Yet, I’ve felt so hopeless these past months. What could I say or do? I couldn’t trust myself to take a chance. I wanted desperately too reach out to you, but I, just, I couldn’t bear the weight of it. The un-knowableness of it. That I’ve wasted so much time, what could be more stupid?”

She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was full. “I’m not any better, Dan. You know that. What else am I always talking about? I don’t believe I’m worth it either. But I’m really happy to be here right now.”

He smiled through the rain and turned to look at her. She was looking at him, smiling. Their bodies were tensed with themselves, but their faces were as free as they had been all night. “I’m happy to hear that,” he managed.

Their eyes were locked for the longest time.

And the world blurred around them.

[James]

Sensar
I don’t think I’m going to have a huge amount to say for what is a short, and pretty successful, story.

First of all, the writing is so much more alive and descriptive. The opening paragraph has more description than the entirety of your first round story. You also did a better job at showing us the description, instead of setting it down in stone. You played with senses that sometimes get forgotten about (touch and hearing), such as with the arrhythmic patter of rain on stone or glass. I really loved that. I think you could have embraced delving into the sensory experience a little more. You told us about the wet seeping into his socks and running down his back; I think that can be hammered home in far more evocative writing.

What you did an excellent job of, I thought, was conveying the painting. You didn’t just describe the scene in the middle of the story. You really infused your writing with the style of painting and then brought it all together with the very final line. Excellent work.

Areas to improve on? A couple of things stood out for me.

The dialogue felt sort of wooden. And I suspect that was entirely intentional; these were two people struggling to communicate with each other. But, it was sort of rough? I felt it swerved from complete oddities like the conversation about not getting colds which came from nowhere, to at the end, when essentially they were expositing the plot. Just something to keep an eye on.

Also, on the subject of plot, for a story that didn’t have any (which isn’t a bad thing!), it got awfully confusing. Sometimes it read like these two were complete strangers; sometimes that they knew each other. Intentional? I don’t know but I didn’t feel like it worked.

So yeah, a nicely written story, but with things that can be tidied up. Regardless, you get the point, and you’re now on the board.