It was a late monsoon evening in the Deccan. A cool breeze blew outside, carrying on it the smell of rain not far away. The evening light had just begun to fade, and the world was golden-grey when I entered a bougie coffee shop in the heart of the city. The road was alive with traffic, and Butterfly by Smile was ringing in my ears. The blast of the AC, unnecessary in my opinion but not unwelcome, shook me out of my thoughts and I returned my earpods to their case.
I was the first member of our party to arrive, and so I grabbed our usual table and sat in my usual spot. As I waited for my friends and my fiancee to appear, I ordered a slice of cake, and decompressed after a long day.
I noted that the table opposite me were ostensibly having a work meeting, but their laptops were switched off and they were talking about cricket. At the table to my right, a tired looking young man was periodically glancing up, forlorn, at the door to see if his date had walked in. Perhaps he'd been stood up? That's what it felt like, at least. Then, I turned my attention to the world outside. Rickshaws, the buzzing bumblebees found on every street in every Indian metropolis, were puttering along at greater speeds than perhaps should have been allowed. Sedans and hatchbacks were driving more calmly, with maddened scooters and bikes weaving through their ranks.
It is a miracle, I said to myself, nothing less than a miracle that Indian traffic doesn't claim more lives than it does.
So lost in my thoughts was I, that I barely noticed being checkmated in the game of chess I was playing on chess.com. Annoyed, I turned my phone off. Then, came the swishing of the door. My fiancee had entered, and we launched into conversation. Not long after, our friends - we all went to the same school long ago - walked in.
Time, then, flowed like water.
The group of colleagues paid and left, having achieved nothing. The forlorn man's date arrived at some point, and I noted their conversation was muted (but they stayed until after we had left, so perhaps there was hope for young love). The staff were apologising for delays to another table, the traffic outside still rang out its chorus of horns and engine revs, headlights flitting about in the window like torchbugs in a jam-jar. The dying evening light had finally disappeared, replaced by the pea-soup blackness of a smoggy early night. The AC had made the room really quite cold, and my fiancee refused my offered jacket. Our fries, coffees, and food came and were finished with a good deal of enjoyment. The food's quality had slipped over the past year, I said to myself, but the coffee had gotten better at least. In the midst of this all, our little group was talking about the job market in the West.
Here, I suppose, it's important to note that for a certain class of Indian, there is no hope placed in anything as there is in finding a white collar job in the West. My fiancee had been lucky, extremely lucky, to land a job that paid her extremely well in EUR before she even graduated. I had been less fortunate, though not for lack of trying.
The year prior, my fiancee noted, I had spent in looking for a job. Finally, after a great depression, I found a freelance job. It wasn't enough to pay the bills, and so I returned to India, head hung, mourning the money spent on a wasted promise. Those are not days that I should like to relive, not even now, not even for the purpose of recollection or to commit them to record.
I have been happier since, she said, and she spoke the truth. I had since been given a position in the family business (advertising, you see - the greatest capitalist art-form), and am very good at what I do. To this information, my friends reacted immediately. To my surprise, they reacted with cavalcades of pity.
"Yes, he seems so much better!" he said.
"Honestly, he's really powering on!" she said. "It's like... he's finally free! He looks so much happier!" she continued.
They meant well, I'm sure. But these comments, these observations, were directed not to me but to my fiancee. As though I were not present. As though I were a sick child, whose health has just begun to show signs of improving. Wasn't I so very brave?
"And honestly..." she said again, with a great deal of love and kindness. "I can really see the difference."
"Yeah!" he agreed. "He looks better, walks better, dresses better... I mean... last year, he was just... dragging himself along. I'm really so glad he's back! The rat race isn't worth it at all!" said my friend, once again, to my fiancee.
They're not wrong, per se. But I had no idea they pitied me. Did my family pity me, too? Is that why I am here, "building the business"? What about my fiancee? Was I a failure in her eyes - unable to wash my own back? Dark thoughts overcame me, and I receded into myself.
My companions did not notice, or if they did, they said nothing.
What a detestable thing I was last year. A creature to be pitied... a fate worse than any misery I could have immersed myself in!
Then the conversation shifted, and, hours later, we broke for the night.
A passing, fleeting evening. But I shall remember that pity, and the creature that begot it shall forever haunt me. The thoughts come to me still. In the dead of night, in the grey dawn, as I eat lunch alone, as I shave and I shower. I am better now, I tell myself. Certainly, that is true. But... I had failed. I have failed. I am better now... because others took pity on me.
I have failed.
****
Just a very quick story, written in exactly 7 minutes. Kinda based on a conversation I had recently. I don't much write literary fiction, but I hope this one was good! My main questions:
Aside from that... how was it in general?
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142,322 Literary Works • 677,257 Reviews
Hi Dom! Thought I would scamper in and save your lovely little piece from continued idleness in the Green Room
I love flash fiction because it encourages concision and the writer has to be fairly intentional with what they're putting on to paper. It's also for those reasons that I think it appeals to me as a poet, so let's get into it! I also want to say that I think it's awesome that you've included some questions at the end for the reviewer to directly address, as this tells me you're looking for feedback on specifics so I'll try my best to keep those three points in mind over the course of the review.
First off, I want to echo what the previous reviewer mentioned, which is your strong handle on setting the stage. I could really see where I was, like I could almost place myself directly next to your character. (On a personal note, I've always been really interested in visiting India and it just made me want to visit even more!) India is such a vibrant place and from what I've heard the cities are busy, loud, smelly (both good and bad), and generally downright colourful. While what you have is already good, I would love to see more incorporating the five senses, particularly smell. What does the street smell like? Whiffs of food from the street vendors? The stench of gasoline from a rickshaw? I don't know - you would probably know better than me - but I hope you can understand the point I'm trying to get across.
I can feel for the character. The experience of your character felt simultaneously individual while also generalizable to a demographic of real life people. Good job on writing something that is representative of many peoples' feelings in real life. However, my biggest issue was the voice. It felt quite formal which had a strange effect of making me feel like I was being kept at an arms-length from the character. In other words, imagine me at one end, the character on another, and you (the writer) standing in between with your arms outstretched. That is how I feel - like I can't get close enough. I can see what the character is feeling, but I'm not allowed to get closer. I think both word choice and syntax contributed to this oddly formal voice, so maybe the piece would benefit from some light revision just to warm it up a little, if that makes sense. (Additional note: because the setting is physically small and intimate - a cafe - it feels ironic that the voice maintains a formal quality.)
Overall, I do believe you have done a good job with this flash piece, and you seem aware about how to balance it well considering the brevity. I look forward to seeing more of your writing and love to see you staying active on the site!
All the best,
Lavvie
Hi Dom! Not sure how I missed that you posted some flash fiction, but I am excited to review it!
I think the feelings presented in this piece are very strong, and I imagine this is something that is close to home. I love the grounding, sensory details, and the ending is powerful and emotional. I think for something written very quickly, it was very good! If you wanted to develop on it further and expand it a little into something more fleshed out, it could certainly be a great short piece that explores the feeling of not being what your culture expected of you. I think some more work on the fiancée character and the friends would improve it greatly, since at the moment they feel a little more like plot devices to tease the feeling of failure out of the protagonist, whereas if the fiancée had some feelings herself, some personality, if you showed how and why she is so happy compared to him, it would help round out the piece! But another great work; you're on fire recently!
Observations whilst reading:
Lovely opening, though 'carrying on it' sounds a little strange; maybe 'carrying with it' and I don't think the 'not far away' is needed since i kind of inferred that!
I love the imagery, but beginning to fade & golden grey are kind of doing the same work here. Maybe combine it to: The evening light was fading to gold and grey when I stepped into a bougie coffee shop in the heart of the city. or something of the like!
Oh wow what a throw back with that song! I loved that as a kid
I don't think 'usual' is needed twice, one can be removed and the same information comes across!
maybe im just hungry but i want to know what kind of cake!
I love this paragraph. It really shows the world the character is inhabiting, but also what he notices. I like that he notices that the work meeting has their laptops off, it's a small detail but it shows he was specifically looking at them rather than just a glance.
I get that before this he says that time flowed like water, and this is all happening quickly, but i can't help but feel even a few lines of dialogue where we hear what they are saying would work better here, inbetween the description?
This seems more like you letting the reader know this information. If this is truly important to the story, then it should gleam through the writing rather than being told. It kind of took me out of the scene. We know he is in india since he mentions the traffic (unrelated note: i met a girl from india the other day who was lost so i said i'd walk her to the uni, but we're quite far in a bit of town where there's no pavement under a bridge which is quite dangerous as its a bend and cars might not see you on the road, i said this to her and warned her to be careful and she just steps into the middle of the road whilst talking on her phone and was so nearly hit and seemed so unbothered and said, 'you should see the roads where i am from XD) but yeah i think if you had this info come across in the speech rather than told, it would hit harder.
I think it would be better to have her say this, and we can get a sense of her character by how she says it.
oo who is he? i'm not sure who this is. Just a guy in the group? They're not named so even if you said, my friend, or one of my friends said, something like that, it'd be a bit clearer
I love this, it's really sad and hard to hear. Poor guy
oof yeah this is heavy. A very heavy ending. I think these kinds of feelings could be better woven throughout the piece, but it does a good job here too. I don't think working in the family business is a failure, but i see in other cultures they want you to start your own. I wonder if more comparison about his fiancee and her job could work, like maybe she is talking about her job and the congratulate her and talk about oh how GREAT it is not to be in india working, and then look at him and pity him?
Hello hello! Ty for the rev, rev. As usual, largely spot on. I plan to send this to some lit-mags so it's very helpful.
Other than that, the only place I'd "defend myself" is this:
That para I wrote is based of the writings of people like Sabahattin Ali - where the (usually un-named) character delivers period specific and region specific information in asides. Since a lot of this style of fiction is based on the experience of the writer, it seems incorrect to edit the dialogue to reflect information readers should know about the world. You get what I'm saying? Like you're not wrong that it would read better if delivered organically, but this memoir-style writing doesn't really have the leeway to allow that.
Aside from that - I completely agree on most things! The only thing I'd say is that "The evening light had just begun to fade, and the world was golden-grey when I entered a bougie coffee shop in the heart of the city." is definitely a stylistic choice; ik the first and second phrases accomplish the same things but eh