If there was ever anything important in his life, it was his shoelaces. There was, in fact, nothing more important to him at this time. He bent down to tie his shoelaces, admiring their clean, unsoiled white cloth. The texture of the machine woven strands made tiny rectangular bumps along the flat string, giving them depth and a smoothed-over look. He was not happy with his current situation, but he was happy that, for one last time in his short life, he would kneel down and perform the ritual taught by the endless generations of parents, and in that pay homage to his parents and what they'd taught him.
Right over left, under and through.
One shoe tied.
If he had known what was about to happen he would have done more for them. He would have come in on those summer nights the first time she called him instead of seeing how long he could stay out before she came to get him. He might have listened better to him about the hard day of work, or the price of gasoline. Now, a pair of tied shoes was all they would have to show for six years of love and devotion.
Right over left, under and through.
Second shoe done.
He hadn't learned how to whistle yet, or to ride a bike. He hadn't taken swimming lessons, and despite a whole summer of trying he hadn't learned how to bridge a deck of cards. His parents had tried to teach him things, tried to spark his interest, but all it seemed he was interested in was watching trees. It started when he was four; he would escape on hot summer days from the shelter of an air conditioned house to sit in the sweltering heat, perched lazily on the low hanging limbs of trees. At age six now, he could climb anything he set his mind to, however trees were still his favorite. His parents had taught him how to tie and tuck his shoelaces so that the woolen strings wouldn't catch or snag on bark or branches, it was the one thing he had avidly learned from his parents, and it was something they were quite proud of.
Tucking in the strings to his shoes, out in the forest with nobody else around, he knew he had met his match.
Comments
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Inappropriate use of the word "pre-emtped." Need to hyphenate machine-woven. Spell six, don't use the numeral. SEMICOLON however COMMA.
I like it. It's interesting. But it needs more. The ambiguity of the situation makes it difficult to determine the theme. These two short pieces remind me in style somewhat of Ernest Hemingway's early short stories. I know actual plot and dialogue is often less fun to write and less stylized than descriptive paragraphs, but if you would bite the bullet and put a plot to these scenes I think you could come away with some very nice short stories.
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The themes
My themes haven't really surfaced in these chunks, they're actually part of the same story, I just posted them at different times. Its got a lot of direction, but like I said, i lost a bunch of it.
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