A girl killed herself in the club I was in last night. She was there with a few friends but for some reason no one noticed when she disappeared, but that happens in clubs, I don’t think any one blames them; except maybe themselves. She went into the bathroom and locked herself in, nothing strange about that; people do that all the time.
I wonder what she thought when she sat there. On the toilet, her feet in the dirt and wet of all the other people, the dark walls that are so foul they breathe. Two girls fighting over a boy, the bump and thump and thud of the music. A discarded cigarette end next to her on floor. Lusting after the broken glass, lusting after the pain and release. Did she find it ironic that she cleaned the glass on her pants before she cut?
Only this time she went too far. I hear she lost consciousness, and lay there, life seeping out slowly, through the night. And the saddest thing of it all, no one knew until the cleaning people found her body the next day. Cold and curled in the filth.
Report a Policy Violation
the news article as well as check out the individual pieces. We understand that each day you may not be able to check out each and every one of the pieces, everyone has their own things going on. We just ask that you make an attempt to help support the growing Literature community.
Follow us on Twitter
Become a fan on Facebook
Comments
The fragility of life is not often understood until it's broken to a degree or completely destroyed beyond repair.
I learnt that the hard way
My advice to that girl would be "Carpe diem", sieze the day, make it your own
Why spend time lusting over pain when you could be lusting over life, love and enjoyment
--
"What it means to be fully human is to strive by ideas and ideals and not to measure your life by what you ever attain in terms of your desires, but those small moments of integrity, compassion, rationality, even self-sacrifice."
- Life Of David Gale
Gosh!
And, how true Aaron. Quite agree.
The compelling thing about this, I think, is that it is not a report or a description. It is thoughts on paper. It starts by being a report. A statement of fact is made and you are shocked, but want to know more.
Mel, you do it again - get the attention of your audience. This time you GRAB them by the scruff of the neck, almost against their will, but not, and drag them in to the club and you do it with one sentence. I'm in straight in. The other sentences of the first paragraph are descriptive, yes, but not a report, cold and informative. It's as if the reader is being guided through the club, not by describing the club but by talking about the people. I don't know how this works and I may have to add more later, but I can almost put faces to the friends, it's something to do with the "except themselves" line, I think. Mel, your not saying anything descriptive - she went in to the loo, she locked herself in, people do it all the time - simple statements, not really description, yet I'm in that/a club and I'm seeing this girl. ha!
In the second paragraph, I can see myself swooping in to this girls head. These are now the writer's thoughts about the thoughts of the victim. Brilliant! So now I'm in her head looking around the ugly bathroom. You're describing but not describing. You create the bathroom from the victims possible thoughts. The victim is creating the picture I see. So I am there. It's more real. I'm with her.
So now we are in this filthy place, we all know them in clubs, haha. Last paragraph is like taking a tissue and trying to clean one of these filthy surfaces that we can see, only somehow you, the reader, are the tissue. One is now so inside the story that you are becoming contaminated by it. You are becoming somehow responsible for the events. This comes from the casual and staccato nature of the description and sentence formation. There are no nice starts, every sentence kind of shudders at the beginning. Check them! Only this time - say it - it rushes from the lips. "I hear" - on this terrible occasion these words when said force the voice note upwards in a positive direction against this negative event. This sentence in particular introduces a casual nature of gossip and tittle-tattle, cheapening the girl's lost life, and the staccato nature of the structure of this sentence gives an uneasy stabbing effect as if your being prodded.
Next comes the guilt for the reader - the "saddest thing of all". Remember, I'm there, in her head and she's dead. The analogy could be that all those people were there in the club and she's dead. "The saddest thing of all..."
Finally, the discarding of the tissue now caked in filth. Rememer the reader is in this situation. I described it as being so real, with breathing walls, that the filth contaminated the reader, like a tissue being wiped along the wall. The girls body, like the tissue, is now "cold and curled" discarded in the filth.
It could be said that we have been made to be part of the guilt and disgust that the girl's friends may feel. They were there, they never noticed, and she died - some friend! They will live with this event for the rest of their lives - contaminated. And you're made to feel it. You feel the disgust and shame of her friends that it could happen under their noses in a busy night club, and the disgust and shame as a society that it could happen at all.
Brilliant Mel.
As you can tell, I "enjoyed" it. What a ride, and I'm left feeling helpless.
Sorry if this is crap, I don't think it is, but this is what I got from it.
Now can I sleep, please! hehe
--
Hmmm...
Ah! Just re-read it, Still no sleep! Ahh!
Paragraph beginning "Finally, the discarding..." I should have added at the end of the paragraph:
By discarding us, the reader, in the same manner as the girl, we are made to feel the shame of the situation.
Bed...
--
Hmmm...
recently i had an acquaintance shoot himself, apparently over a girl, it's an interesting pov watching his surviving friends cope. how similar stories often are...especially tragic ones.
Previous Page123Next Page