Let's all write short-stories!

[Notoroge]

Okie-Dokie. Site is back up.

[MyPistolsIn3D]

It is a crisp clear morning, high atop the Rocky Mountains. A fresh layer of light snow has fallen, covering the hills like a great white blanket. The sun can be seen rising in the east, giving distant clouds a soft glow. There is a slight, hardly noticeable breeze that creates a small rustling of the pine trees. A crunching of boots on snow is heard as a boy emerges from behind the tree line, carrying a snowboard. He has a slow determined walk, one of a man on a mission. He arrives at the crest of the hill, puts down his board and breathes in the fresh morning air. He exhales and heavy condensation lingers in the air for a moment. The boy removes his gloves and bends down to put his feet into his bindings. As he is doing so, two more people emerge from behind the trees, both also carrying snowboards. As they get closer, it can be seen that one is a boy and one is a girl. They proceed to walk over and sit down on either side of the first boy.
"Beautiful morning", the girl comments.
"Sure is", the second boy replies. "Perfect for the first day of the season", he adds.
"Man it's hot though", the first boy says.
"Dude you're crazy, I'm freezing my ass off sitting here", the second boy says.
"Yeah, c'mon let's go", the girl pleads.
She gets up and starts down the hill, the second boy follows. The first boy hesitates, unzips his coat a little and then follows the other two down the hill. He carves slowly down the hill, waves of snow spraying out from behind his board. He continues down the slope, picking up speed, going faster and faster. He comes around a bend and hits a huge patch of ice. His board shoots out from under him and he lands on his face in the snow. For a moment he doesn't move, then suddenly and quickly he jumps up and spits sand out of his mouth. He looks around himself quickly and notices he's not on a ski hill at all. He is standing on a beach beside an overturned lawn chair, the boy and girl from his dream running away, laughing loudly. A slow grin appears on his face; he laughs and gives chase.

[Delos]

"...the first day of the season", -> "...the first day of the season,"

Note the placement of the comma. Now, if you had a full stop or some other terminal punctuation mark then keep in mind that you'll still be in the same sentence after the closed quotation marks, no matter what the word processor's grammer checker tells you.

Short and sweet. Good stuff.

[[Gandalf]]

You know that many a English teacher doesn't know this (similar to brackets too), but I just follow whatever I am expected to do. Currently my teachers use what you said, but it varies a lot.

[Delos]

I hear ya'. I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to punctuation myself. It's probably got to do with my early education...British system, so you can imagine the emphasis placed upon it all.
Couple that with my love for using archaic and generally confusing clause structures, and you've got a right word juggler on your hands.

Expect another contribution from me to this thread in a few days. Hopefully at least, it's too freakin' hot during the day to write...honestly.

[Tony]

Been meaning to write something.. anything.. but had to wait until exams finished.

I don't usually write.

Tony Targonski wrote:

Up, down, up again. Like a hyperactive kid on a swing, the sun simply does not want to stay down. Annoying... but the rays of light, ultraviolet light, and cancer-causing hydrogen ions that were spat out in a solar flare, can't penetrate through steel and concrete of this bunker two stories into the ground. The computer lab is safe.

Time begins to slow down, as days spend awake blur together. One doesn't usually notice this until someone asks about the day of the week. Surprised. Confused. Puzzled look, and a blank stare at the watch. 8:15, no more clues. "Thursday?" That guess must have been way off, as the person ceases interaction and simply walks away. I should also stretch for a bit.

A can of coke and a bag of M&Ms. No wonder I don't sleep. Caffeine jolts though the arteries, reanimating the body. Just what doctor ordered; or advised against... Can't remember now. Return to the familiar terminal.

Nobody else in the room now. Humming noise of the cooling fans and AC prompt a wishful desire for quieter and cooler G5 hardware. Realisation that arts majors will fill the lab, if computers would actually become userfrieldly recalls the idea. Artsies are worse than Engineers trying to hack their way around PC troubles. Sigh. "Oh well..." Log on.

A stream of electrons rush though the cable wire, ping, and return with an instant message "welcome back :)". Somebody actually missed my presence. Browser loads news, forums, and all of the bookmarked comics in separate tabs. The headphones make contact with an audio output port, and a stream of music makes the rest of the world drift away.

[Delos]

Well, it's going to be awhile before I finish the next one, so I'll post this one instead.
A few warnings: it's a little long, about 1300 words. Well, that's not terribly long, but it will take more than a few minutes to read.
: it has painfully archaic punctuation and clause structure, so be prepared to reread a few sentences if you don't quite get them the first time...sorry, but the overall mood of this needed those unexpected dashes and ellipses everywhere.
: the content does contain some rather, um, 'mature' themes, so Amailer you probably should stay away
: it's in pdf, so hopefully I'll be able to attach it!

[brenn]

Hehe, drabbles...

we should have a compsci 100 challenge XD

Delos, was the sudden change of tense from present to past, and back again to present in the first and second last paragraphs deliberate? 'Cause, I <3 it.

The mis-use of couple of apostrophes here and there, but otherwise I enjoyed reading your piece I especially like the references to water--the symbol for emotion.

ErmI'llstopherebecauseIdon'tthinkyouwerelookingforareview.

[Delos]

No, no, go on. Reviews are great - though there's no guaruntee I'll read them - they make others want to read it as well .
As for the apostrophes, I highly doubt there are any misuses. I've probably reviewed this piece more times than I've done for some of my final papers, so anything you see that doesn't look right probably just falls under that 'archaic punctuation' category. Nonetheless, PM the points you found odd and I'll try to explain my reasoning...
As for the tense change, yes it was completely intentional, and I'm sure you can figure out why.

Now what is all this about a 'compsci 100 challenge'? What might that be?


Edit a few days later:
What would you know, I found a spelling error. Ha!
Still not a punctuation error, so I stand by what I said

[Notoroge]

Thank you.

I don't know why I'm sending this to you. I don't know if you even care, but there's a few things that I need to get off my chest so that I can breathe easily and sleep calmly at night. I don't know if you ever noticed me glancing over at you from the corner of my eye every now-and-then in class. I don't know if you ever noticed me becoming shy and flustered when you were around me. I really can't tell if you knew that the reason why I was always quiet around you wasn't because I didn't like talking to you, but instead because I couldn't think of what to say.

I don't know if you'll ever like me, let alone love me. But I do know that you make me feel. You don't just make me feel well, nor bad, nor excited. You make me feel. Gr. 9 was the most depressing year of my life. Things were tormenting my young mind that I would rather never share. I didn't know how dead, or how much of a sad little boy I was until I met you.

I became accustomed to seeing you daily, I grew to love your presence, and to cherish your existence, because it gave life meaning. Like someone who was colour-blind and suddenly experienced a rainbow, you gave warmth to my cold, dead heart. Any day that I was feeling horrible, you made me smile.

I don't know if we're meant for each-other. I don't know if you're what I need. I don't know if you will even remember who I am three years from now. But I do know that you made me a better person, and for that I'll always be grateful.

I could never make you love me, nor would I ask for something like that of you. I just needed to tell you how I felt before my own sorrow consumed me. Everyday until now I died a little, knowing that you never knew how I felt. Everyday 'till now, I lived in constant heartache, knowing that you probably had the wrong impression of my feelings. So today I had to let you know. I had to let you see how much of an impact you've made on me.

I don't know if I'll ever have you in my arms like I pictured in my dreams. But I do know that thanks to you I'm a better person. Thanks to you, my life is meaningful. Thanks to you, I'm eating healthily. Thanks to you, I'm studying diligently. Thanks to you, I have a job. Thanks to you I learned to love.

Thanks to you, I can die in peace.

I don't know if you'll ever read this, or what you think of me. But I needed you to know what I think of you. This has to be one of the cheesiest things I've written in my life, but I don't care. It's the only way that I could bring my point across. There is no simple way of describing the way one feels about someone they love. I'm sending you this message without even thinking of its contents, or the consequences of this action. Because if I don't send it, nothing will ever change. And I cannot permit myself to let you escape me without at least knowing how you made me feel.

- Jorge.