No One Will See You - 491 words

freshpencils

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REWRITE @ mssge #7 No One Will See You - 491 words

PLEASE NOTE: A rewritten version of this story is further down in the thread - message #7.



This is a story I've had in my head for a long time. I'm going to submit it in this month's ReadingWriters flash fiction contest. All comments welcome. The paragraphs didn't indent here, and I lost the double space between each one so I'll try to fix this.​



No One Will See You​


Pammy was tired after the long car ride. The heat and humidity of late afternoon in the south made her feel hot and cranky. She wandered away from her mother to the big desk with lots of keys in wooden slots. A man in a red vest with a name tag that said “Biff” came around from behind the desk and gave her a butterscotch candy. She sat in an armchair near the window, clutched her butterscotch and watched Biff talk on the telephone. Her mother’s high heels clickety-clicked on the tile floor.

“You come when I call you Miss Pamela June. What if I had an ice cream cone for you? You wouldn’t want it to melt would you?”

“Do we have ice cream, Mama?”

“No, of course we don’t have ice cream. What have you got there?”

“It’s mine. The man gave it to me. It’s candy, see?”

“Ugh, it’s all sticky. What if it’s poison? Give it.” Her mother thrust out a hand, palm up. “Right now.”

“Mama, can I put on my pink dress? This one is all wrinkly and ruined.”

“That one’s fine. No one will see you.”

Her mother said the elevator would be like a carnival ride but Pammy held onto the hem of her dress anyway. A man squeezed through the doors just before they slid shut. He wore a straw hat and a red paper flower in a tiny silver vase attached to his suit jacket. His shoes were wingtips like her father’s but sort of floppy and soft with scuffed toes.

“Well, well, young ladies. How are we this fine afternoon? I am Doctor Mascher, at your service.”

She didn’t like doctors and she’d never met one who smelled like her daddy when he drank beer and watched Saturday baseball on the television. “What kind of doctor are you?”

He bent down. Bristly hairs grew out of his nose and ears. “Why, I’m a limb and crotch doctor, little lady.”

When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, he followed her and her mother.

“Come on, Pammy, don’t dawdle.” Her mother’s voice was too loud. “Oh, doctor, please excuse us, we’re going to our room to freshen up. We’re meeting my husband later.”

#####

The room had two beds and a bathroom with little soap bars in paper wrappers on the sink. Pammy bounced on the bed closest to the window. “Is daddy coming?”

“For heaven’s sake, you know he’s not. He has business meetings this weekend. That’s why we drove two hours; a trip for the girls, just us girls, for two whole days. But if we see that doctor again, say we’re meeting your dad later.”

“What is a limb and crotch doctor, Mama?”

“That doctor is a vulgar man.”

“Why? Because of his flower?”

“Pamela, sometimes you act like you don’t have the brains God gave a goose.”

“I liked the flower, Mama.”
 
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Bayou Bill

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For starters, bless you for reformatting your story.

[RANT] I'm getting too old, cranky and hard of seeing to try and decipher text with no breaks. My rationalization being if the writer won't go to the trouble of indicating paragraph breaks, why should I go to the time and trouble of critiquing their story? [/RANT]

IMHO, your dialogue is very good. That contributed to the middle of the story working, at least for me.

My problem is with the beginning and the end. I'm old-fashioned, so consider the source, but to me your story didn't have an ending, it just stopped. Why it did so at the second mention of the "doctor's" flower escaped me. It might be self-evident to more imaginative folks, of course.

The opening paragraph didn't "hook" me, at least in part because it "tells" instead of "shows" how the girl feels.

Again, all that is just my subjective thoughts. Others may, and probably well, come to very different conclusions. Still, I hope some of my stuff somehow helps in some way, he says, "soming" up his concluding remarks. And good luck with ReadingWriters.

Bayou Bill :cool:.
 
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freshpencils

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Bill - Thanks so much for the crit. I was getting pretty depressed that no one thought enough about this little story to comment!

OK. The mother is a loon, right? She treats her daughter like an idiot and is raising her in this bizarro world of manipulation and fantasy. (No one will see you?????!!! What, is she going to give her daughter an invisible pill?) And Pammy has become somewhat of an idiot, unable to decipher just about anything she encounters in life unless she confirms it with the loon. And the loon usually insists things are the opposite of Pammy feels they should be.

So, the daughter doesn't know which end is up. She's probably old enough to know "limb and crotch" isn't quite right, but can't even decide on her own.

There's one innocent, untainted thing about this creepy doctor: a tiny flower in a beautiful little lapel vase. She tries that out on her mom. Gets told, essentially, that the flower is somehow wrong, but is bold enough, in the end, to state: I liked the flower.

So we know there's hope for Pammy, in spite of her clearly insane mother.

Does that help? If not, how can I make the above explanation clearer to the reader?

Thanksthanksthanksthanksthanks
 

Bayou Bill

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Fresh,

IMHO, you're asking 500 words to tote way too big a load. My suggestion would be to expand it into a conventional length short story (Proust would probably turn it into a multi-volume novel). That way you can explore and highlight the threads you mentioned.

Bayou Bill :cool:
 

eric11210

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I have to say that I agreed with Bill. It felt like the story stopped and I was totally unclear on what the point was. I did like the opening though. I felt it was quite good. I just didn't understand the part with the dialogue.

Maybe we could have the doctor actually do something that isn't quite right, to demonstrate that? I mean, the words sound intriguing, but maybe he's saying it that way because it's a little girl who wouldn't understand more sophisticated language.Or, more likely he's some kind of child molester and that's why he uses those terms, but either way, it felt totally isolated for me.

Or the mother could do something? From her words, she sounds like an overprotective nit, not a total nutcase.

"No one will see you," I read not as being literal, but as "no one is going to be paying any attention to you, so it doesn't matter," and the poison on the candy thing might be a bit out there, but it's standard advice from parents, "don't take candy from strangers." Like I said, I got her being a harried woman who is overprotective, but I didn't get her being a loon.

I also didn't get the reference regarding the flower at all.

One thing I really liked a lot though was that I felt the descriptions were very nice and I could totally picture the people in question. I just didn't see the story. . .I think it may need to be longer in order to make your point known.

Eric
 

freshpencils

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Thanks Eric & Bill - Now I see that too much of the story is still in my head! I do want to stick with it, though, so will work on expanding it.

Thanks both of you so much!
 

freshpencils

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REWRITE!! (WOMEN CRITTERS NEEDED!!)

Here is the story (formerly titled "No One Will See You") revised and retitled. It's for a flash fiction contest.

No offense to my two guy critters, but I'm interested in what women think about the story. And all critters welcome, of course - I'll take as many as I can get!

The Trip

The last leg of the drive into the heat and humidity of the south had caught up with Pammy. Feeling hot and cranky, she wandered away from her mother and the big desk with lots of keys in wooden slots.

“Here you go, little miss.” A boy in a red vest who had no chin but wore a tag that said “Biff” gave her a butterscotch candy.

Leaving her mouth open, she moved the hard candy from one side of her mouth to the other, rattling it fast across her teeth, but the four old men playing bridge at a rickety card table ignored her.

Staccato TAP-tap, TAP-tap sounds echoed off the tile floor. This time the card players looked up but Pammy didn’t. Her mother’s high heels were distinct.

“You come when I call, Pamela June. What if I had an ice cream cone for you?”

“Do we have ice cream, Mama?”

“No, of course we don’t have ice cream. What have you got there?”
“It’s mine. The man gave it to me.”

“Ugh. What if it’s poison? Spit.”

Pammy took aim and dropped the butterscotch in her mother’s waiting palm, making sure plenty of spit came out with the candy.

The elevator was not like the merry-go-round at the carnival as her mother had promised. The ride up to the fourth floor was worse than the car ride across the bridge with the swirling river so far below. A fat man squeezed through the doors just before they slid shut. Pammy eyed his straw hat and lumpy red nose. A purple flower in a tiny silver vase was pinned to his lapel.

“Well, well, young ladies. How are we this fine afternoon? I am Doctor Mascher, at your service.”

She’d never met a doctor who smelled like her daddy when he drank beer and watched Saturday baseball on the television. “What kind of doctor are you?”

He bent down. Bristly hairs grew out of his ears. “Why, I’m a limb and crotch doctor, little girl.”

Just then the elevator stopped. Her mother pulled her out as soon as the doors opened. “Come on, Pammy, don’t dawdle.” Her voice was too loud. “Oh, doctor, please excuse us, we’re going to our room to freshen up. We’re meeting my husband later.”

#####

The room had two beds with a night table between and their own telephone; little soap bars in paper wrappers decorated the sink. Pammy bounced on the bed closest to the window. “Is daddy coming?”

“For heaven’s sake, you know he’s not. He has business meetings this weekend. That’s why we drove two hours; a trip for the girls, just us girls, for two whole days. But if we see that man again, tell him we’re meeting your dad later.”

“What’s a limb and crotch doctor, Mama?”

“That doctor is a vulgar man.”

“Why?”

“Pamela, sometimes you act like you don’t have the brains God gave a goose.”

“I don't care. I liked his flower.”
 
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Bayou Bill

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Fresh:

IMHO, this is mo' better. One thing I failed to mention about the original version still applies to this revised edition. While I can handle this being in the south, in the summer, I'm not sure whether this is contemporary or set in an earlier period, say the 1950's.

If it weren't for the guy in the red vest being named "Biff" I'd place my money on the '50's.

Oh, one change I'd suggest in this version is to go back to calling "Biff" a man, not a boy. In the American south, "boy" can be a loaded term. If I may be so bold as to suggest: you might have her find the butterscotch on the floor or maybe take one from a tray on the desk while her mother's not looking and eliminate all the worry about Biff.

Bayou Bill :cool:
 

freshpencils

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Ooh - you're right. "Boy" is not good!

The car trip was hot and sticky, which means the car can't have air conditioning. That's why I thought the 50s is a good time period - I think air conditioning in cars was an expensive option in that time period. "Biff" is supposed to be a clue that it is the 50s! Also, nowadays, the mother would probably raise holy hell after the doctor introduced himself. But in the 50s, women wouldn't have done anything. They wouldn't have wanted to cause a scene.

Thanks a bunch for reading this again. I think it's almost ready.
 

jvc

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I'm not a woman critter, but I thought I would comment anyways :) . The suggestions may or may not be useful, so use or not. I thought your descriptions were very good, as was the dialogue, I just though it needed a few more directions as they seem to jump from one place to another in parts.


The last leg of the drive into the heat and humidity of the south had caught up with Pammy. Feeling hot and cranky, she wandered away from her mother and the big desk with lots of keys in wooden slots.


Feeling hot and cranky, she left her mother at the big desk with lots of keys in wooden slots and wandered across the foyer. She paused in front a man wearing a red vest with no chin watching four old men playing bridge on a rickety card table.

“Here you go, little miss.” A boy in a red vest who had no chin but wore a tag that said “Biff” gave her a butterscotch candy.


“Here you go, little miss,” the man with no chin said, offering her a butterscotch candy.

Pammy glanced at the name tag on his vest and smiled. “Thank-you, Biff.”

“You’re welcome, little miss.”

Leaving her mouth open, she moved the hard candy from one side of her mouth to the other, rattling it fast across her teeth, but the four old men playing bridge at a rickety card table ignored her.


Pammy popped the hard candy into her mouth and with her tongue, moved it from one side of her mouth to the other. The rattling of the sweet across her teeth didn’t seem to distract the old men from their bridge game.

Staccato TAP-tap, TAP-tap sounds echoed off the tile floor. This time the card players looked up but Pammy didn’t. Her mother’s high heels were distinct.


Staccato TAP-tap, TAP-tap sounds echoed off the tile floor. The card players looked up. Pammy didn’t need too; her mother’s high heels were distinct.

“You come when I call, Pamela June. What if I had an ice cream cone for you?”

“Do we have ice cream, Mama?”

“No, of course we don’t have ice cream.
” Her Mama pointed at the candy pushing her cheek out to the side. “What have you got there?”

“It’s mine. The man gave it to
me.

“Ugh. What if it’s poison?
” Her Mama held out her hand. “Spit.”

Pammy took aim and dropped the butterscotch in her mother’s waiting palm, making sure plenty of spit came out with the candy.


I kinda think something needs to go in here, so as to get them to the lift. It could be something like:-

“Why can’t you just behave yourself?” her Mama asked, dragging Pammy to the lifts.
(Or something better.) I think if you are trying to get across the mother is a loon, this may reinforce it slightly. As in, kid is behaving, but mother is overreacting.

The elevator was not like the merry-go-round at the carnival as her mother had promised. The ride up to the fourth floor was worse than the car ride across the bridge with the swirling river so far below. A fat man squeezed through the doors just before they slid shut. Pammy eyed his straw hat and lumpy red nose. A purple flower in a tiny silver vase was pinned to his lapel.


This paragraph confused me slightly, as you had Pammy describing the lift journey and then the doctor guy getting into the lift. You may want to switch those sentences around.

“Well, well, young ladies. How are we this fine afternoon? I am Doctor Mascher, at your service.”
In here, somewhere, you could add something, like, The guy smiled first at Pammy and then her Mama. Or something like that. All your dialogue seem very isolated.

She’d never met a The doctor who smelled like her daddy when he drank beer and watched Saturday baseball on the television. “What kind of doctor are you?”

He bent down. Bristly hairs grew out of his ears. “Why, I’m a limb and crotch doctor, little girl.”

Just then the elevator stopped.
The doors opened and hHer mother grabbed Pammy’s arm and pulled her out as soon as the doors opened. “Come on, Pammy, don’t dawdle.” Her voice was too loud. “Oh, doctor, please excuse us, we’re going to our room to freshen up. We’re meeting my husband later.”

#####

The room had two beds with a night table between and their own telephone; little soap bars in paper wrappers decorated the sink. Pammy bounced on the bed closest to the window. “Is daddy coming?”

“For heaven’s sake, you know he’s not. He has business meetings this weekend. That’s why we drove two hours; a trip for the girls, just us girls, for two whole days. But if we see that man again, tell him we’re meeting your dad later.”

“What’s a limb and crotch doctor, Mama?”

“That doctor is a vulgar man.”

“Why?”

“Pamela, sometimes you act like you don’t have the brains God gave a goose.”

“I don't care. I liked his flower.”



I agree with the others about the ending, it seems very sudden.
 

freshpencils

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Thanks, JVC. Doesn't matter if you're a woman or not (sure would like women critters on this one though!). Thanks for the comments. I obviously do have my work cut out for me here!