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A girl lived alone with her father, who said souls are born in the sea and return at death to merge with loved ones. One day, cancer took him. She sought a way to reclaim his soul, in time stumbled upon dark magic that allowed her this. She ripped his soul from the sea and sealed it in a vial she wore always on a chain around her neck. The closeness of his soul imparted lifelong happiness, but when she herself grew old and passed, the vial was buried with her unopened. Her father’s soul never saw the sea again.
Now open for critique.
A drabble from my irregularly updated collection of 100-word tales.
On the origin of the word 'soul', the Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say:
The Whisper by aliencharm makes a great companion piece to this tale, seeming to touch on similar themes in visual form. It's a beautiful work of art, so please click on the preview image and take a look:
For an intertextual experience:
A drabble from my irregularly updated collection of 100-word tales.
On the origin of the word 'soul', the Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say:
"A substantial entity believed to be that in each person which lives, feels, thinks and wills" [Century Dictionary], Old English sawol "spiritual and emotional part of a person, animate existence; life, living being," from Proto-Germanic *saiwalo (cognates: Old Saxon seola, Old Norse sala, Old Frisian sele, Middle Dutch siele, Dutch ziel, Old High German seula, German Seele, Gothic saiwala), of uncertain origin.Although I release many of my works under Creative Commons licenses, I have chosen not to do so with this piece. All rights reserved.
Sometimes said to mean originally "coming from or belonging to the sea," because that was supposed to be the stopping place of the soul before birth or after death [Barnhart]; if so, it would be from Proto-Germanic *saiwaz (see sea). Klein explains this as "from the lake," as a dwelling-place of souls in ancient northern Europe.
The Whisper by aliencharm makes a great companion piece to this tale, seeming to touch on similar themes in visual form. It's a beautiful work of art, so please click on the preview image and take a look:
For an intertextual experience:
Midnight Rain Miyojimidnight rain
I too was once
the sea
© 2014 - 2024 somethingzenzen
Comments5
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Overall Vision Originality Technique ImpactThe challenge with flash fiction is similar to poetry: you have a limited window to tell your story. Every word and choice, then, becomes critical in your narrative. Often, you have to relinquish the idea that you can expound on everything you want to say, and let the reader fill in the gaps.
The first half of this story is too... factual. You are trying to squeeze too much exposition into too small a space. It causes the first sentence to run-on when it should end after "alone with her father". "One day, cancer took him" made the pivotal motive of the daughter carry little emotional depth for me, and "She sought...allowed her this" doesn't add anything to the crux of your narrative; I would say it could be eliminated completely. Ultimately, the reader doesn't care -how- she stole her father's soul, only that she, to disasterous effect, did not think through the consequences.
If I were suggesting edits, it would be something like: "A girl lived alone with her father. She learned from him that souls are born in the sea and return at death to merge with loved ones; yet, when cancer stole him from her, she refused to accept his passing. In her anguish, she ripped his soul..."
The ending picks up in strength, though. The final sentence being terse and abrupt really carries a hammer-blow of finality that left me feeling the weight of the daughter's actions. I like the contrast of that with "lifelong happiness" in the sentence prior, because I think it takes on a double meaning - that her happiness really was only lifelong, because her spirit would have to suffer knowing she would never meet her father's soul again. So while you focus on the father's final suffering, the implied weight of the girl's suffering is also on our minds.
Overall, the idea behind the story is beautifully tragic. We can all relate to the girl's motives, and her desire to remain united with her father. At the same time, it reminds us that there is often more at stake than our own desires, and even with what I felt were some technical flaws at the start, the emotional impact of the story still comes through in the end.