STORY STARTER
Submitted by A
The nausea crept up her throat from the pit of her stomach; the realisation that yesterday was real.
Use this sentence as the opening or closing line of a story or poem.
I’m Sorry Ms. Jackson
The nausea crept up her throat from the pit of her stomach; the realization that yesterday was real.
It was hard to describe her pain. It was hard to write about it.
Her pain was more than a dictionary could contain. It was more than the 26 letters of our alphabet could describe.
It was the pain of a mother with a dead daughter.
Her pain was beyond language.
She didn’t even cry.
She didn’t cry as she headed over to his house.
She drove over, passing a few red lights but she didn’t care. She didn’t care what the traffic lights said, it didn’t matter if they said she couldn’t go. She would go.
She knew it was the pain and the anger taking control of her body. And she didn’t care.
Her fists pounded into the wooden door, it hurt. She didn’t care.
He opened it. And she slapped him.
“YOU KILLED MY DAUGHTER. YOU MURDERER!”
She grabbed his shirt and she punched him.
He let it happen. He wanted it to happen.
Slap me harder, he thought. Hit me, hurt me, I must repent, he thought.
“YOU- YOU KILLED HER!”
His parents rushed out of the house, separating the crazed woman from their son.
“HEY,” hollered Mr. Kingsley, grabbing her wrists.
The boy’s mother hurried over to her son, almost screaming when she saw his bruised face.
He said nothing.
“YOUR SON MURDERED MY DAUGHTER,” she cried, she screamed, she shouted, she whispered. She was in so much pain.
“MY SON DID NO SUCH THING!” Mr. Kingsley shouted, holding her wrists tighter.
“Y-you murderer,” the anger left her voice. All that was left was pain.
“You took my baby from me. She was the only thing I had. You killed her.”
Mr. Kingsley hesitated. His son, Will, was crying.
He shook his mother off and he approached the woman.
He fell to his knees, the grass dirtying his jeans.
“I am so sorry,” emotion over took his voice. He felt like he was suffocating.
“Sorry isn’t going to bring her back.”
Yes, he knew that already.
Mr. Kingsley let the woman go. This time turning to his son. “William, explain to me what happened right now.”
Mr. Kingsley, I’m sorry to say, your son murdered a girl. Your son bullied her. He made her hate herself. He made her throw up her dinner. He made her draw on her wrists. Your son (metaphorically) gave her the gun and she pulled the trigger.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Jackson,” he cried.
Sorry won’t take it back, Will. Sorry won’t fix things.
Helen Jackson isn’t coming back.
This was really good. The emotions and the language were fantastically done, very powerful. Especially that part about the red lights, it really helped me to understand the emotions of the woman. At the end though, it seemed that the third-person voice became an actual narrator that was talking to the reader. It felt a little unnatural. Maybe it was just me? Overall great job!! 👏
Thank you so much! I’m glad you liked it. And yes I tried to make it seem like the 3rd person was talking to the reader and I’m glad it worked!
Oh my gosh!! This is so powerful. I loved the part about “her pain was more than a dictionary could contain”. It really speaks to me as a write, and the story drew me in quickly and didn’t let me go.
I do agree with Tom about the ages being confusing. I thought that he had physically killed her and that she was a small girl while he was older.
But I loved it so much!! “She didn’t care” over and over again was amazing! You could feel her pain.
Yes I wanted that to be on purpose. He didn’t physically kill her but it was his bullying towards the girl that drove her to do what she did. The mother thought he killed her, and so did the boy.
And yes I should’ve clarified the ages beforehand 😅
Thank you for the feedback!
It’s really cool that you did that!! I think the only thing would be the ages yeah. Amazing job!!
Very sad piece here, Romi. I enjoyed some of the reflections in the beginning “it was more than the 26 letters of our alphabet could describe” for example!
Perhaps you could experiment with the action scene a little more. Rather than “she grabbed his shirt and she punched him” is there another way you could have put it? Perhaps something like: “she tried to hurt him in any way she could. She punched, she kicked, she tore at his clothes, but no pain she could inflict came close to what she was feeling inside.” I’m sure you can do even better than that.
I got a bit confused about the ages of the characters. Originally I thought Will was the protagonist’s ex-partner and had killed his daughter. It was only towards the end that I realised it was his school friend he’d been bullying and she eventually killed herself.
Rather than write metaphorically in brackets, is there another way you could have shared the gun metaphor without the need to clarify it?
Overall I thought this was well written :) good job!
