Rip Out The Grass! by javi2541997
The train will arrive in seven minutes. I get on the 'Philippine Islands' line and then get off at 'Nuevos Ministerios' station. That's where my home is at. I leave the office every day feeling very drained. There are hardly any pedestrians on the platform, and that gives me a feeling of calm - I don't like crowds.-
The train is approaching. There are free seats, I can sit down and start reading my novel. This is how my life has been going for the last eleven years.
There are more people in the street than in the underground. The street is stretched, and I bump myself into them accidentally. They seem to not care at all, but I do not care either, honestly. It is autumn and there are fallen leaves on the floor which resonate when I walk by. The ochre coloured sunlight rays are reflected in the windows and showcases, and my shadow guides me to my house. Eternal and silently fellow...
When I get home, I put the keys on the hall table. Many bills, tax and bank letters also rest in it. It is strange, when I see all this, I realise that I am indeed old, or at least what it means to be an adult. However, amongst the cards, there is one out of the ordinary. It does not have the symbols or seals of a town hall or a Savings Bank, it comes from an ordinary street ('La Dije'), and the address is written with a blue pen. When I reread this one I go completely blank and a feeling of emptiness invades me, stitching the past to the present.
It happened several years ago. I was still very young then, and the summers seemed to pass more slowly than they do now. Maybe it is just a blurred perception, but even the sky looked more blueish than nowadays.
I had a friend named Domingo. He lived in the C doorway of my block, and I lived on the K. Both he and I felt a little lonely because our parents worked in July and August. We entertained ourselves by playing in the park in front of our house, where there was a water fountain. The jets that emanated from it were reflected in the air, forming a dim rainbow.
I sit myself, open the letter, and it says:
Hello Jueves,
It's been a long time, right? I admit that I have had a feeling of nostalgia and I have wanted to write this letter. I got your new address from your mother. I asked her on purpose. Please, don't take this into account. I simply encountered her and asked for it, and she was so kind that gave it to me. You know how the saying goes: 'Motherhood is the greatest thing and the hardest thing.'
I wouldn't want to get you into trouble, but which one of us was the one who broke the water drain? I remember we laughed a lot when we got soaked.
We were having a good time until that guard came and scolded us aggressively. You felt threatened, and even more so when the guard came up and hit me on the nose, filling my soaked shirt with blood, throwing me to the ground and shouting: 'Rip out the grass now, you snots!'
Afterward, we returned to our houses, crestfallen and feeling a little guilty for having done something wrong.
So it was you, right? Don't worry; I will not blame you. I understand that you remained silent in front of the guard.
After reading it, I threw it in the rubbish. But after an act of conscience, I decided to pick it up and write my response.
'Why are you crying?' I asked myself when I was preparing to put my handwriting on a sheet of paper as white as the clouds in the sky.
My pen danced on the pristine paper, translating unspoken emotions into strokes, creating a silent dialogue with my heart and memories.
'If only I faced the truth more often...' Says the first sentence of my letter.
What follows now is difficult to express. Only the people who have experienced nostalgia and melancholia understand the bitterness of the past. What should I do? Whether I accept or not that I was the one who broke the water drain, the past will remain in the old days. We both have changed a lot since then.
If I had said it was me... Would our existence be different?
I put my response in an envelope and then introduced it into the first mailbox I saw on the street.
*Sigh* why do people always want to relive the past?
And then, I start to fade away into the crowd of yesterday, and the day before, and the other days, etc.
The train is approaching. There are free seats, I can sit down and start reading my novel. This is how my life has been going for the last eleven years.
There are more people in the street than in the underground. The street is stretched, and I bump myself into them accidentally. They seem to not care at all, but I do not care either, honestly. It is autumn and there are fallen leaves on the floor which resonate when I walk by. The ochre coloured sunlight rays are reflected in the windows and showcases, and my shadow guides me to my house. Eternal and silently fellow...
When I get home, I put the keys on the hall table. Many bills, tax and bank letters also rest in it. It is strange, when I see all this, I realise that I am indeed old, or at least what it means to be an adult. However, amongst the cards, there is one out of the ordinary. It does not have the symbols or seals of a town hall or a Savings Bank, it comes from an ordinary street ('La Dije'), and the address is written with a blue pen. When I reread this one I go completely blank and a feeling of emptiness invades me, stitching the past to the present.
It happened several years ago. I was still very young then, and the summers seemed to pass more slowly than they do now. Maybe it is just a blurred perception, but even the sky looked more blueish than nowadays.
I had a friend named Domingo. He lived in the C doorway of my block, and I lived on the K. Both he and I felt a little lonely because our parents worked in July and August. We entertained ourselves by playing in the park in front of our house, where there was a water fountain. The jets that emanated from it were reflected in the air, forming a dim rainbow.
I sit myself, open the letter, and it says:
Hello Jueves,
It's been a long time, right? I admit that I have had a feeling of nostalgia and I have wanted to write this letter. I got your new address from your mother. I asked her on purpose. Please, don't take this into account. I simply encountered her and asked for it, and she was so kind that gave it to me. You know how the saying goes: 'Motherhood is the greatest thing and the hardest thing.'
I wouldn't want to get you into trouble, but which one of us was the one who broke the water drain? I remember we laughed a lot when we got soaked.
We were having a good time until that guard came and scolded us aggressively. You felt threatened, and even more so when the guard came up and hit me on the nose, filling my soaked shirt with blood, throwing me to the ground and shouting: 'Rip out the grass now, you snots!'
Afterward, we returned to our houses, crestfallen and feeling a little guilty for having done something wrong.
So it was you, right? Don't worry; I will not blame you. I understand that you remained silent in front of the guard.
After reading it, I threw it in the rubbish. But after an act of conscience, I decided to pick it up and write my response.
'Why are you crying?' I asked myself when I was preparing to put my handwriting on a sheet of paper as white as the clouds in the sky.
My pen danced on the pristine paper, translating unspoken emotions into strokes, creating a silent dialogue with my heart and memories.
'If only I faced the truth more often...' Says the first sentence of my letter.
What follows now is difficult to express. Only the people who have experienced nostalgia and melancholia understand the bitterness of the past. What should I do? Whether I accept or not that I was the one who broke the water drain, the past will remain in the old days. We both have changed a lot since then.
If I had said it was me... Would our existence be different?
I put my response in an envelope and then introduced it into the first mailbox I saw on the street.
*Sigh* why do people always want to relive the past?
And then, I start to fade away into the crowd of yesterday, and the day before, and the other days, etc.
Comments (57)
Both melancholia and nostalgia are complex emotional landscapes, delving into the realms of introspection and memory.
Bygone moments and emptiness are the main points of this short story. Maybe this was written at nearly the end of the year and the author felt this way. It is elegant to show these feelings. It reminds me of Fosse, a great author I am currently reading.
Man, screw that guard.
The story's theme is nostalgia, or perhaps the denial of it. His friend is trying to reconnect by talking of the past, while the protagonist barely cares. The writing style pleases me, remiding me of a certain Japanese writer, but some sentences feel not so concrete, as if the narrator is not speaking of anything. Overall, a well done story, I would read more by the same writer.
Quoting Noble Dust
He apparently lives in a house (It's not clear, as later he refers to apartment blocks as houses.) and presumably has someone to share it with. Someone put the mail on the hall table, but doesn't come to greet him. No mention or sign of children, either. He seems, judging by the mail, to live beyond his means, but doesn't complain about this.
Quoting Noble Dust
Mixed as the metaphor may be, this is evocative: suddenly we get an emotional response. He has a strong negative reaction to a message from the past. Fear? Guilt? Regret? We can't tell.
And then the letter itself. Why has Domingo contacted him after all this time? Why is he so apologetic in the preamble and then go on to an accusation? How long has he been nursing this grudge? And what does he want?
I have a little trouble with the time-line. Quoting Noble Dust
Yet it seems they were children then or teenagers at most, and he says he's been at the same job for 11 years, so it has to be well over a decade. How could a youthful bit of vandalism which had been summarily punished, get him into trouble in the present?
Quoting Noble Dust
I didn't understand how you break a water drain or why that should result in a soaking when the fountain had not. Then I thought more about it and recalled how kids in Toronto parks used to squeeze a thumb over the spout of a drinking fountain to spritz one another. Perhaps it's the spout he broke off?
The guard behaves in the bullying way of uniformed officials in authoritarian countries the world over and metes out his own rough justice. But what has he got against the grass? That's never explained, nor how long they were kept at the useless, humiliating task. In any case, our protagonist was a timid boy, which is no surprise, given the little we know of him. He had not owned up then, and his friend never forgave him. It's difficult, but he does so now.
Quoting Noble Dust
This is a moment of self-recognition; possibly a pivotal moment in the narrator's life.
But, no, he decides to relegate the event to the past; closes the mailbox on it and returns to his accustomed anonymity,
Quoting Noble Dust
leaving the reader a little disappointed and sad - but only a little, since his character elicited no very strong response.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting Vera Mont
Why do you think Jueves is a boy? It could be a girl perfectly. While Domingo is a man because there is a gender ending in his name, 'o', Jueves (Thursday, in Spanish) can be a girl.
It reminded me of 'Wednesday Addams', but maybe the author chose Jueves to not be that obvious. At least I interpreted that there are a girl and a boy in this story and not just males.
The story evokes "regret" in me.
I assumed it because of the way the two teenagers were behaving. And from the narrator's scant awareness of other people: women are generally more wary of strangers bumping into them.
I didn't know about the name. Indeed, Thursday is gender-neutral, but I associate it more with surname than given name, which, again, boys are more likely to use than girls.
But if she's a woman, that changes the dynamics of the situation with the guard. Would she have had more to fear, or less?
The material details breaking of the drain and the quote from guard about the grass which gives this story its title is a bit confusing but perhaps peripheral to the core of the story, the bitter memory/nostalgia of a scene/event that ended a relationship and changed the course of the narrator's life, or so he/she believes.
There is no further insight into the nature of what this event really precipitated. Did the families get involved, where there financial consequences based on lies, parental restrictions put in place? Small seemingly innocuous event by adult standards, leads two friends astray. Maybe in hindsight the event takes on greater significance, as a reminder of the narrator's own continuous failings of self-determination? This is the imagined fall out of not telling the truth, succumbing to fear/passivity repeatedly...? Life ought to have been different, better, only if...
I'm assuming the guard is so enraged that he is essentially saying "You might as well rip out the grass too, snots!" This is telling of a continuity. A broken drain/spout, has ripped up other things... (?)
It interests me because it makes me think about my own past and reflect on falling out with friends, and someone I was infatuated with. All the narrator has to do is wait and they'll care less about the pain of this regret. The past might as well be fiction at this point, something for a present unhappiness to digest.
This threw me. Do you cease being a pedestrian when you enter a train now that you're no longer walking or do remain one because you walk about the train?
Jueves is lonely with not much to do, so he goes about the monotony of his day as he has the past 11 years to now be diverted by a letter from a past friend who wants only to revisit a childhood event so he can figure out to where to lay blame. Sounds like a petty friend. I felt that throwing the letter in the trash was a good instinct. When I get texts like that I ignore them, so I can relate.
I didn't really understand the breaking of the water fountain. The drain was said to be broken, so does that mean it flooded and they got soaked from lingering in the filling pool? And why must the grass be ripped out? Did they force grass into the drain? That seems like some vandalism, not just accidentally breaking it, and if vandalism, how could they not remember who did it?
And why do guards walk around the park? Is the town under seige? We just have guys in green pants on golf carts from the parks department where I live, and they lack the passion to actually bust heads in protection of the park. Maybe this is an old Soviet bloc town where beating the fuck out of a teenager at the park doesn't make the news.
And why the song and dance about mom giving the address? Is that a thing where you get pissed at mom for giving out your address? Like "Ma, how many times I gotta tell you, I treasure my anonymity!"
Aside from that, I thought it an interesting story from somewhere really different from where I live with cultural norms i can't fully identify with. I think this story might be true, so I'd be interested to know what fully happened so I could piece it together better. That this might be a portrayal of what childhood was like in an actual place is the interesting part.
My other thought was that I hope you've moved from there.
Seems expensive with phones.
Good question. My intention is not to analyze Jueves from a psychological perspective or how she would act if she were a woman.
What I am telling you is that she is actually a woman because of her name. There are other names in Spanish similar, like 'Mercedes' or 'Eyre' and all of them are female, as well as Jueves or Miércoles. Yes, these are weird names to put on a child, but I am not wrong when I think about Jueves as a girl and not as a boy.
If you allow me to have a :nerd: moment, pedestrian is someone who goes by feet, like sylvestre dwells in the jungles and terrestre on earth (birds need not apply). So someone on a moving train is not pedestrian anymore, as them moving inside the train does not count as transportation. However, if you were to have a race inside a train, between people on bikes, by foot, and by horse, then you may have pedestrians.
I believe you. Only, they're not Spanish. In the Phillipines, it is a common surname, just like Domingo - but not a popular girl's given name.
I didn't have a problem with pedestrians: though technically they become passengers once they're on the train, they are still people without private modes of transport. I did snag for a moment on leaves that fell on the floor instead of the pavement, but as with the fountain drain, I put it down to translation error.
Many native speakers of English use words incorrectly and few native speakers of English write as well as this in their own language, let alone a foreign one.
So, please, cut the author a little slack.
I love this. Especially when he says "please don't take this into account. I simply encountered her and asked for it". It's seems an alien way to express "don't blame her. I just ran into her" but all the more elegant and in keeping with the tone for that. I think here the advantage of being a non-native speaker (which I guess the author is) comes into play. The disadvantage is some awkward phrasing elsewhere but that doesn't really detract from the overall effect.
The story as a whole reminds me of these lyrics from the Smashing Pumpkins song "Tonight tonight"
"Time
Is never time at all
You can never ever leave
Without leaving a piece of you
And our lives are forever changed
We will never be the same
The more you change, the less you feel"
which I think expresses a similar feeling of nostalgia. Anyhow, something about the focus on this moment got me emotionally entangled and made me think. Maybe, I'll write more but in summary I liked this one despite a bit of patchy writing here and there.
Why aren't they Spanish?
I think the author is not referring to the country Philippines but the metro station in Madrid: Islas Filipinas (Madrid Metro) because 'Nuevos Ministerios' is a metro station too, but he or she only translated into English the first metro station.
That was not clear to me. Okay, it's a woman.
In which case, the story just a lost a rank on psychology.
Yes, and yes.
This is a melancholic story that managed to touch me emotionally, I don't think I can say that about any of the others. That is an accomplishment.
Quoting Noble Dust
This person is haunted by the past, but rejects a connection it might offer them in the present, and hides from the truth (and not just the truth of the fountain) in a comfortable, sad, insular life, choked by emotion. A small tragedy, beautifully told.
Quoting Noble Dust
This line is haunting... Love it.
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Noble Dust
Re-reading this one, I was struck by the use of color. It feels important in communicating the sense of nostalgia the author conveys. I didn't quite catch the arc of the narrative on the first read (probably reading too fast) and thought it was a bit disjointed, but it came together better on the second read, and these colors stood out. I like the simple melancholic slice of life approach.
Interesting I easily remember each of these and their contexts. Well, I did just read it yesterday, but my memory sucks, I wonder if the color helps trigger a clear visual image that is easy to consolidate in memory.
I'm just not a visual person, so I don't generally absorb these details until a second reading. I think the author enjoys the visual and tactile, which is something that can leave me cold as reader unless I spend extended time with the work. I plan on giving it another reading to see if I can glean more (true of all the stories btw).
The title is a command. Why would anyone order such a thing? It's usually a sign saying 'Keep Off The Grass' for fear of spoiling it. No ball games!
The author sets the scene and the narrator, talking in first person singular. A sense of a reflective autobiography. For 11 yrs - a regular office worker on a commute home who escapes into books.
The walk from the underground to home is crowded. The narrator doesn't seem to care about the accidental bumpings. Body and mind are in sympathy with the season; the autumn leaves lying on the ground. The soul of a poet:
Quoting Noble Dust
Lovely expression of senses. Of spirit.
Now home, the narrator has a sudden realisation of adult responsibility. The reality and stress of balancing finances. But there is an intervention. Here comes something out of the ordinary - a personal letter which has a strange and shocking effect:
Quoting Noble Dust
A most poetic way to usher in the flashback. When 'it happened'. The memory of a special time when even the sky 'looked more blueish'. Perhaps a time of innocence. Freedom to play in a park with a friend Domingo. Both enjoying the coolness of a water fountain.
Quoting Noble Dust
The narrator remembers this beautiful moment; a colourful, bright mental image. But why should the letter bring emptiness? The blanking out of a memory or experience...now awakened.
Reading the letter, from Domingo - the mood changes. To an accusation but also an apparent understanding of why the narrator had kept silent while Domingo got beaten.
Quoting Noble Dust
The memory of this had been blanked out. The friends had lost touch but this brought everything back.
Painful. But has to be addressed when conscience bites. To move on, after crying.
Quoting Noble Dust
This is a moment of truth. Arrived at through the act of writing. The author, here, draws the picture of the moment when emotions are translated into strokes. Strokes of the pen and hand, stroking and comforting. The calming, silent inner dialogue between heart and mind.
Sentences simple and clear. Beautiful.
The author talks to the reader about the difficulty of expression; deciding what is to be done. What actions or choices make a difference? For better or worse. Who knows. There is a rationalisation.
Quoting Noble Dust
The reader is not privy to the rest of the letter. We can only imagine it would be some kind of reconciliation; making up for the years Domingo has been carrying this in his mind.
Quoting Noble Dust
Reliving the past is what people do. Sometimes in an attempt to understand where relationships went wrong or to celebrate some magical moments.
The narrator is fading away, like an old photograph, from bright colour to grey or a white blankness. Not like the pristine paper but perhaps to re-write the memories. Or simply:
Quoting javi2541997
I agree. Congratulations and thank you for sharing this winter's tale. 5. :flower:
Quoting Amity
I miss autumn. I think it is the most poetic season. The sun appears different from the rest of the year. The rays of reflected sunlight are very beautiful, and I am fortunate to live in a 4th-floor apartment. It is sufficiently elevated to see the sunset and how its ochre-colored rays enter my room through the blinds.
Time for a haiku!
Quoting Noble Dust
But then the incident that drives the story happens only several years ago when he was still very young. Quoting Noble Dust The whole imagery of the boys (I think they are boys) playing gives the impression of kids who are 14 years old at most. That seems strange and through me off. This must have happened decades ago, ages ago, but not several years ago.
The second thing that detached me a bit was that it seems a lot of fuss over a small incident. It seems a bad thing they did, but not a terrible thing. Getting physically beaten for it leaves a mark, but it did not seemed to have ruined anyone, at least not a hint of that level of seriousness is given in the story. Would it not be something you would laugh about in later years, sure, talk it through, buy a beer and be done with it. Such things happen and your friend not owning up to it is annoying , but this level of gravity seems much.
I liked the description, the emotions are conveyed very well, but some things I felt were not very consistent, still a very nice story!
There is a girl and a boy in this story. Jueves is a girl. Her name is feminine. Although it can be a gender-neutral designation, it is mostly used for female names in Spanish. Do you remember 'The Addams Family'? The little girl, Wednesday Addams, had a big impact on kids in Spain in the early 2000s. Most of the girls wanted to be like her, but we translated it as 'Miércoles,' which is Wednesday in Spanish.
So, I guess, here we have a word game because the author named the character 'Jueves' instead of 'Miércoles'. :smile:
I also thought they were teenagers when the accident happened.
Perhaps Jueves is a girl... but then the story makes little sense to me. Come on, it is a boy's duty to take a punch for the girl is it? Then the girl will take care, wipe the blood, say some gentle words and he has a story to tell. Then the reproach he makes comes out of nowhere. I know it is gender stereotyping but I have been a teenager too ....
But Jueves is a girl. This is a fact. :smile:
I think the point is that most readers will have seen that play out as between boys.
Because of your continuing concern, I tried very hard not to use the male pronoun.
And perhaps that is because of our gender bias or the way we imagine the scene.
Or because of an assumption or confusion that the author/narrator is one and the same. Male.
Even if it is a fact, readers can still give their interpretations, no?
It raises interesting questions...
Yet, I wanted to help @Tobias with his interpretation because he thought there were two boys in the story, but no.
Jueves is a girl and maybe now his thoughts are different after knowing this fact.
Well, not really. I do find the scene less believable when it is between a boy and a girl. I do not think it is gender bias when you take gender roles into account. I know they are socially constructed, but that make them no less constructed. I find it odd that a man would write such a text to a woman implying some sort of reproach.
Quoting Noble Dust
Why write that at all if you would not want the other to feel it. But I feel it is out of character for a man to write it. To another guy maybe, but to a woman? No, we are socialized to take one for our girl, that is the right thing to do. (Not in an essentialist way, but in a socially constructed way). I find the story more odd now. I take it you are the write Javi, so I will take your word for it that Jueves is a girl. Maybe it even happened in reality, such things happen. I do find the scene less believable though and also somehow less interesting though I do not really know why, perhaps now I feel it is a bunch of drama for nothing.
It is very, but very interesting that when I said Jueves was a girl some readers got surprised and their opinion changed. I wouldn't say it changed for the worse, but different. For example, @Vera Mont also thought the story was about two boys, and when I told her Jueves was a girl, she felt the story lost a 'rank on psychology'
Maybe it is a similar feeling to yours, Tobias.
Anyway, I still think (in my humble opinion) that the main point of the author was to express melancholia or nostalgia. If Jueves is a girl, it is just, let's say, unintended. :sparkle:
Yes.
But then you felt the need to add:
Quoting javi2541997
Tobias needs no help. Neither does Vera. Both have given you the most honest, helpful and intelligent feedback you could hope for.
It seems you are too sensitive or anxious. You want readers to get it 'right'.
Too busy arguing the point to listen carefully to what is being said. Readers' reception and perception. About the bigger picture and not just the intended expression of nostalgia.
Go well :sparkle:
My intention was not to help them out. I really appreciate their comments and feedback, and I guess I expressed it clearly in my answers to them. I thought it was my duty (in a moral sense) to explain to them that there were a boy and a girl in the story, because they interpreted it thinking there were two boys, when it is not.
This is why I said to Tobias and Vera that Jueves is actually a girl, and their thoughts changed. I don't see it as a big issue at all, because sooner or after, they will know this, after the release of the names of the authors.
Nevertheless, I personally thought it was more moral to explain them before the polls were closed. It is the fair thing to do. Because maybe they ended up disliking the story or liking it less now that they know thhis fact.
At least that's how I see or take this activity, although if you don't like the way I see it.
No. I didn't.
I understand perfectly the reason you were trying to 'help' them. To change their views. So as to make an informed choice before casting their vote.
If they vote, it will be according to their thoughts, feeling, analysis of the story as it stands.
If it hasn't been understood as you would wish, then tough.
I don't see that morality comes into it. If it exists at all, then it lies in an attempt to influence the vote.
Quoting javi2541997
This seems to matter a great deal to you. It's an unhealthy obsession.
You are still not listening to what matters to a reader.
You want to persuade others, yet you are blind or deaf to their voices. Only your fact matters not the opinions of intelligent readers.
The focus on fact is a distraction and has lessened any enjoyment of the story.
Take care.
:cry: :lol: :roll:
You are suggesting in a public place that I am disloyal or corrupt, stating: I understand perfectly the reason you were trying to 'help' them. To change their views. So as to make an informed choice before casting their vote.
I think I haven't given you reasons to think about me in such a way...
You disappointed me. I really thought you had a better opinion of me.
Read carefully.
Quoting javi2541997
Quoting Amity
You are the one that brought morality (your moral duty) into the discussion.
Quoting javi2541997
I am suggesting no such thing. Behave yourself. Stop being a drama queen. Get over yourself.
Goodbye for now.
It was already too late. I had done both the review and the rating according to my own second-reading judgment. Assuming both participants were boys would make sense to me in light of the accusatory - rather than nostalgic - tone of the letter, the conciliatory - rather than affectionate reply. Also the behaviour of the brutal park patrol/cop or whatever that guard was, would make more sense if he's bullying two wayward boys in an authoritarian regime. If the protagonist is a woman, none of her feelings and actions sound as right to me.
So, yes, if I had thought of the protagonist as a woman to begin with, and the setting, a progressive country, I would have rated the story lower on believability.
The grass would make no sense either way.
BTW, I laughed when you state that the plot is not believable if it was taken in a progressive country! :sweat:
More details will come in the following days... you will be shocked!
Cheers Vera! :flower:
But it reads a bit too blunt and uneven to get to to those higher points. A 3 from me, for the hints of craft and heart.
Please don't beat yourself up for the fact that us native English speakers can detect a non-native speakers writing. As has been said, the fact that you even enter the contests, and write good stories, is incredible. I'm sure there's someone I don't know of, but fiction writers always write in their native tongues, no? And if their work is successful, it gets translated into other languages, which is an entirely different art in and of itself. I'll also mention that I detected less grammatical oddities in this entry than in your last. The narrative flow was improved as well. ¡Bravo! :clap:
This story is real. Yes, it happened with real characters. One of the people involved was me and one of my best friends, whose name is Diane. We have always been true friends. But as years passed by, we started to be distant from each other. She is on her path of life, and I am on mine, but we have some contact often. When we were younger, we used to spend hours playing in a park (as the story says). We shared the same passion because we were freaks: Pokemon. Nonetheless, one day in summer, I was more motivated than usual, and I decided to behave strangely. In the park there was like a lid that held some pipes or something. I managed to open it with a stick, and oddly enough, I could turn the valve.
A lot of water started to come from the water drink. It was fun. But then a f*cking janitor appeared and he scolded us saying that we were thugs, crooks. Etc. And then he shouted in Spanish: ¡Arrancad el césped, niñatos! (Rip out the grass! The title of my story.) In Spain, when an older scolds a younger, there is a lot of irony. I don't know why. He approached to us, but he went against Diane when she didn't nothing. Obviously, I acted as a honest person and I said it was me and he insulted me. We returned home anxious, wondering if our parents would notice this event or not. They never noticed.
I dramatized this real experience in these facts: I changed the name of my friend Diane to Jueves, but some folks here went crazy; instead of a janitor, I used a guard and the same folks didn't like it either. And then, because I am a very melancholic boy, I fantasized putting myself on Diane, dreaming about what it would be like if she remembered the past if I tried to send her a letter (or WhatsApp) remembering that moment of our childhood.
It is a pity that you were not motivated by the numerous readers who gave wonderful, positive comments. Perhaps if you returned to the discussion and read them again, you would feel better.
Then look at where you, as author, entered the picture on numerous occasions - always with the focus on this girl/boy issue. It detracted from the positive appreciation of the story.
Quoting javi2541997
I think this is a misrepresentation and an exaggeration. Perhaps if you would quote from the feedback.
But I think that would only lead to more aggravation. So probably best not to.
I'll leave with my last words about the story:
Quoting Amity
Take care. Be well. :sparkle:
I don't think it's all that crazy to read a story from the frame of reference in which one lives. If a policeman - never mind a park guard, let alone a mere janitor - acted that way in Canada, there'd be hell to pay. In Hungary, that was routine license for cops under the "communist" regime.
See what I mean? You can't really expect to be read by people of different cultures from the same viewpoint.
But I'm sorry I argued about it when you all but told me it was your story. There:
Quoting javi2541997
And I'm telling you that one does not become a woman because of her name.
To add mine:
Quoting hypericin
This earned it a 5 from me. It really was a strong story, definitely nothing to get discouraged about. I understand getting emotional about feedback, I do too, though I don't show it.
I agree. But whenever I read Japanese literature, I do my best to understand the authors or how precisely Japanese society works. This helps me to put myself in the author's mind. If I stuck to the fact that the Cherry-Tree ceremony doesn't exist in Spain and women never wear a kimono, I would have disliked the Japanese books.
Quoting Vera Mont
Well, I already explained to Noble Dust why I switched the name of Diane to Jueves. I thought it was fun. My point was having a girl and a boy in the same plot. Some of you (yourself included) didn't consider it believable. It is OK. I accept your views. But I would rather leave the story as it is. I don't want to change anything because this is my style.
Quoting hypericin
Thanks, dear friend! :cheer:
If only @javi2541997 would look and appreciate this. Here's an example from @Baden
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/867827 which he seemed to skip over in order to correct Vera.
For me, and others, it was instantly recognisable as @javi2541997's. Not only because of a few hiccups with English words but because of the poetic imagery, particularly of a season. And then came all the interventions.
I snipped the final congratulatory words from my positive response to the story:
Quoting Amity
Unlike @Vera Mont and @Tobias, I wasn't completely honest in that I didn't offer positive constructive feedback. But when it was pointed out, I then agreed with them.
Quoting javi2541997
Credibility is important. How a reader reacts is important. If an author can't accept criticism and learn from that, then that is a shame. It doesn't matter that it came from a real moment, it is how it was fictionally dramatised. The heavy brutality of a guard didn't ring true.
In the real world, this lovely story would have needed more help before submission to a Short Story Competition. It is incredibly difficult to properly and fully convey the feeling and meaning when a work is translated to English from any language.
That @javi2541997 does this so well is admirable. Perhaps it would be an idea to first share the story with someone trusted who cares to read with perception. There are more than a few on TPF.
I loved this:
Quoting Amity
***
I didn't mean to write so much but it's because I care, as do others, that javi doesn't see criticism as an attack or unfriendly but as an honest attempt to help. Gottta go now.
I promise I see all the feedback as constructive to my improvement in English grammar. Yet, I wanted to highlight the fact that Jueves - as a female character - was not liked by some readers, and they drove away from the main point of the story, which was both nostalgia and melancholia. I haven't ever thought that a single character can affect a reader that much, but I learned something important: Each reader can see details which I didn't thought they will be important at all.
Again, as I said to Vera, I would like to leave my story as it is. Jueves remains as a female character.
Honestly, I enjoyed writing this story in Spanish, but I couldn't find the precise words when I tweaked it. I guess it suffered from Lost in Translation, like the film. But, it is important to be yourself, even if the plot was less believable because my lovely Jueves was a girl.
No need to promise that. That that is one of your main aims has been noted. It's fantastic that some people help you with that. And that the practice brings you increasing confidence.
However, that is not the constructive criticism I am referring to. Your aim of grammatical prowess, while admirable, is not what this competition is about:
***
Quoting javi2541997
There's that word 'Yet' again. You have already highlighted this on numerous occasions. You blame others for distracting from the main story. It became the main talking point, driven by you!.Those you criticise also made observations regarding the nostalgia and melancholia. But you fail to acknowledge the positives.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting Amity
Quoting Tobias
***
Quoting Amity
If you are interested in feedback, then you might have asked why. It's not only about the gender issue.
If such a brutal incident happened in a park, there would be other people there reacting in different ways.
Mostly in shock. This was an over-reaction by an authoritative figure. The child/teenager suffered trauma. There would have been complaints. Nothing like this was mentioned:
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Tobias
Quoting javi2541997
It is your story to do with as you like. I am glad that you have learned the importance of details in a story.
It matters in interpretation. That you tried to change readers' interpretation was the problem.
Quoting javi2541997
Nobody is saying that being yourself is unimportant. Authenticity and credibility matters.
Especially if an author is trying to 'sell' a story to an editor or a reader...
Quoting Tobias
I've wasted words and time on this 'bunch of drama'. No more.
Quoting javi2541997
That's because you're a fan of that culture and familiar with that literature. As I am of English history, culture and literature. So I know where they're coming from. But I've never studied Spanish culture and have no reason to know the transit stops or landmarks or Madrid. When the work is anonymous, I can't even know whether it was written by a Dutch or Polish or Finnish contributor: all I can see is the odd small error in translation.
Quoting javi2541997
Nobody asked you to change it. You'll be rated according to the reader's response, not according to your intention.
Quoting javi2541997
Only because you say so. It weakens the story. Switching names doesn't make it convincing - especially to someone who doesn't share your adherence to the gender-specificity of names. In English, Taylor or Leslie or Ashley can be either sex.
And this:
Quoting javi2541997 weakens any story. As does:
Quoting javi2541997
It's an author's job to know understand his characters, their motivations and fears and attitudes, and how they would express these things. Like it or not, both sex and gender are part of who people are, and if you want to write about them convincingly, you must be aware of this.
But of course, it's your prerogative to ignore anything I say. There is no reason I should care enough to argue with you. I just found the story good enough to think about.
Me either.
It's you and Amity who don't stop to complain about my story and how it is written. You even blurred the rest of the positive feedback, focusing on aspects which the rest of the readers didn't seem to care about.
OK, I have to accept that my story is not convincing, and you have more knowledge on this matter because you are a professional writer, something that I am not. Nonetheless, my story was not about being convincing but to express a sense of nostalgia. Simple.
Before we leave this there, I want to remind you of two important points:
1. My intention was not to change your interpretation or mark on my story. Please do not believe the false accusation that Amity is spreading throughout me.
2. I won't bother you ever again, because I will not take part in this activity any more. I learned from the experience and I see it is not worthy to me because readers (like you and Amity) will always complain about a meaningless short story from an unknown dude who nobody cares about.
Are you bloody sure? Because you do not stop complaining about my comments. You said 'no more' and called me 'drama queen' like 157712 times... I hope this is the last one, Amity.
Dos no discuten, si uno no quiere... Traduce, mamá. :snicker:
I wasn't commenting on other people's views, only on the story, because I was interested in it and in you. But I won't do it any more.
Let me know what you think, but do not feel any pressure to read it now. Only whenever you can. Honestly, this was the last serious and quality writing thing I wrote lately.