OK this is based on something that happened to me yesterday. It desperately needs a new (better) title so all suggestions are welcome.
As a side note, my parents used to live in a small town in Bedfordshire called Flitwick. They would walk their labrador Sally on a huge field in the middle of the town. Now this field has become a Tesco. No such thing as progress I suppose.
I've now edited this to include more description inside Tesco. Many thanks to anorwegianwood.
Let me know what you all think.
Leaving work on that Spring day, you see a huge black cloud, a real overbearing beast. You walk to the car, it comes closer, this looming behemoth consuming blue sky at an alarming rate. It’s your lunch break, and you’re going to Tesco.
Driving now, you’re chased by this cloud, it overshadows all, turning light dark. In the rear-view mirror, you track its progress, always seeming to gain on you. This brooding monster is almost upon you when you get to the car park. It’s a Saturday: demand for spaces exceeds supply, the frustrated economics of parking, adding to the tension of the incoming cloud, this portent of doom.
By the time you’ve got a space, the cloud it spewing its contents on the world. A stinging sleet falls all around you. A venomous wind whips snow and rain into your window. You put your hood up, and step out.
Choosing to walk under the limited shelter of the covered walkway, sleet strafes your face. Other people are magnetised towards the building, attracted to the lights like insects. You put your head down and keep walking.
The automatic doors slide open, and finally you’re inside. Somehow, the artificial lights combine with the darkness outside, creating a gloomy atmosphere, reflecting the growing depression you feel. It gnaws at your insides.
You walk past the security guard scanning the monitors, through the metal gates, and over to the sandwiches. The selection is poor, disorganised in its refrigerated cabinet, illuminated. You grab the first one you can tolerate, and some Hula Hoops.
Trying to find a checkout with a minimal wait, you walk through the shop: Frozen goods, whole meals, all the goodness seeped out. Fresh(ish) vegetables, flown halfway across the world. Magazines in disarray. Rows of jars, almost identical in content, chemicals, carbs, probably carcinogens. Cereals containing most of your RDA. A hundred mouthfuls of sweets and chocolate. Enough alcohol to kill a rugby team. You find a checkout with only two people in front of you. You’re thinking, all this time is eating away at my lunch break.
In the queue, you wait, while bright colours roll past an ominous black window, a small red light occasionally emitted. The girl gives you a perfunctory smile, no talking, except asking for your Clubcard. You don’t have one. Points go to waste.
You’ve paid, and you’re getting out of there. The depression lifts, your frown dissolves.
Outside, there’s sun. Glinting off freshly-wet windshields, metal bodywork, catching your eye. The cloud is nowhere to be seen. A sky of blue washes over the car park. Above the hum of engines, the great mechanised cacophony of cars reversing, parking, the dimly audible noise of radio commercials, you imagine you can hear birds singing.
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Interesting idea
Written by anorwegianwood (278 comments posted) 19th March 2007 |
I have to first say that I'm not personally fond of second-person fiction. I would have preferred to read this from a first- or third-person perspective and put myself in it.
Aside from that, I think this is an interesting piece, supported by some nice description. I'd like to have had a little more description from inside Tesco. It seems unbalanced compared to the description of getting there. This would also help set apart the ending with the imagined birdsong (which I quite liked as it stands, but there's always room for improvement).
~Claire |
Written by alamo (32 comments posted) 19th March 2007 |
You are totally right about the lack of description inside Tesco, I am rewriting as I type.
Cheers |
Written by Tusk (53 comments posted) 19th March 2007 |
| Again...nice beginning and ending, not so good "filler". Good imagery though. |
Written by Bottleblondesurfer (3294 comments posted) 19th March 2007 |
| You do know you can shop on-line now in the comfort of your own home.But then that would give you nothing to write about. I think I agree with Claire that it would have been better in the first person;it's your experience, might as well own it. I particluarly liked the ending, nice contrast to the beginning |
Written by alamo (32 comments posted) 19th March 2007 |
Ok so it was my experience. But I am writing for a reader (you) therefore I adress it so it seems like it's yours, your experience; you have lived it. This is my defence of second-person fiction.
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Written by Witzl (1585 comments posted) 20th March 2007 |
I tend to like supermarkets and rain, so I found myself thinking that this was not my experience, and yet there was that 'you.' But you can see from the fact that I like supermarkets and rain that I am not in my right mind, so feel free to ignore me.
I hate to see fields turning into supermarkets and housing estates too; expressway service stations depress me endlessly. But I was glad that there was a good ending to this -- some light and birdsong to offset the angst and misery.
Personally, I write my stories in whatever person I want and in whatever tense seems to suit the piece. I don't think about it, I just do it -- for whatever reason. So try them all out and see what you like, what suits your own stories. |
Written by rui (150 comments posted) 20th March 2007 |
It's an interesting piece, well thought out. For me, a piece in the second person is a risk because I have never experienced a Tesco built over a field on which I walked my dog, so it didn't quite connect.
Perhaps for readers like me, a little more work on the imagery of the soulless grey Tesco contrasted with reminiscence of when it was a beautiful field might help me get the message a bit better. |
Written by Harrywilo (11 comments posted) 20th March 2007 |
Good stuff; i really connected with this, due to working in a tesco for nearly four years and hating everything about it. I know work at a sainsburys...and no; it is not any better. Bloody supermarkets!
But anyway, i loved the way it was written, it just made it work in a way that 1st or 3rd person wouldn't have. |
Written by Anyanka (33 comments posted) 20th March 2007 |
Your writing is very very good, but I need a bit more of a story to keep me happy. Some event, encounter or enlightenment.
I love the phrase 'enough alcohol to kill a rugby team'. Also the paradox of 'time eating away the lunch break'.
P.S. There's a giant two-storey Tesco a mile or two down the road from me, which must have been built on green fields too. I actually cannot shop there. I go into a trance and can't find a thing. However, it's always neat and the food is supposed to be good quality etc so I'm not sure how accurate your description is. I'd be inclined to focus more on the soulless, robotic feel of it. 'Our' Tesco now also has monitors in each aisle which play ads and consumer information. It is my idea of hell. |
bedfordshire behemoth
Written by Glossa (18 comments posted) 20th March 2007 |
| In a previous life I lived not far from Flitwick and I know what those behemoth clouds feel like over the Bedfordshire countryside. I too have wandered and queued in Tesco and come out to find the world changed! So, your use of the second person really spoke to me and put me right back there. |
Written by Phil (6635 comments posted) 20th March 2007 |
Unsure about the use of second person in this too. I found it difficult to connect to. The ending worked well, a nice contrast to what had gone before.
Why are supermarket sandwiches always really crap?
Phil |
Written by candyfluff85 (16 comments posted) 21st March 2007 |
| I really liked this, it was somethign different from what i normally read, and i think it worked well. I didnt find it particularly hard to grasp the second person though. |
Written by stevetroster (1549 comments posted) 21st March 2007 |
| Had I been working the checkouts that day, I would have had to have asked you "Do you comma here often." Other than the grammatical, issues, quite, enjoyable,. |
Bit confused
Written by alamo (32 comments posted) 21st March 2007 |
Steve:
Did you mean I used too many commas, or too few?
Cheers |
Written by Rose (12 comments posted) 21st March 2007 |
| I think I agree with anorwegianwood as I'm not a fan of second person narration normally. however reading through myself in 3rd person just didn't seem to fit. I really like the alliteration of the "c's" towards the end, however I feel like the beginning could be a little more concise, the description seems too heavy. All in all a descriptive piece that really puts one in the scene. |
Written by Snodlander (501 comments posted) 22nd March 2007 |
A nice short with some good imagery and use of words. I found the 2nd person combined with the present tense didn't sit that well.
I think (putting words into Steve's mouth) the comma is over-used. e.g. 'In the rear-view mirror, you track its progress' would make more sense without the comma.
Enjoyed it. |
BTW
Written by Snodlander (501 comments posted) 22nd March 2007 |
| How about Chiaroscuro as a title. Maybe a bit obscure. It's an art term for the use of light and shade. |
'A' Hole
Written by Moonglum (15 comments posted) 24th March 2007 |
People have the right to have an opinion and to express their opinion. For expressing my opinion you so eloquently referred to me as a C#NT. I wonder then what does that makes you? A quality member of the human race with the social graces of a piece of excrementum.
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