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A Brief Time for Consideration
The last human on Earth sat alone in bleak, bare room. There was a knock on the door.
She sighed and took up her rifle, which held the last round of ammo she possessed, and stood from the tiny table with its single flickering candle. She walked slowly to the door as the floor creaked and the clock ticked. She was weak from confinement, illness, loneliness, and lack of good food and clean water, but she still had all the time there was left in the world.
She swung the heavy metal bar from the door, unlocked it, and opened it quickly, just as the last zombie on Earth was about to knock again with his thin hand, bone-bare at the knuckles. He swayed awkwardly and almost lost his tenuous balance, staggering back on ankles weakened by dry creaky tendons. He lacked a jaw, but carried a notepad. He seemed to be as weak as she felt.
She stood, rifle at her side, and waited as he scrawled out a message, holding the carpenter’s pencil as if it were a dagger.
more?
The question mark was a simple slash of desperation.
She shook her head.
He roughly tore the written page away and let it fall without crumpling it. He stabbed his words onto the next page.
then shoot me
She stared at the parody of life before her, and the yearning expression almost permanently fixed in the leathery skin around its sunken eyes.
She shook her head again.
The creature stood, staring at her. Zombies could show enormous patience. There was only one thing they had to do. It tore at the paper, then wrote again.
lonely
Her jaw sagged. She read the word over, then raised her eyes again. The yearning look had not changed. Her face hardened, lips forming a grim line.
please it must be fresh
It had scribbled a harsh violent underline below fresh. She took a firm grip on the rifle, ready to use the stock to fend him off, and swung the door shut as swiftly as she could. She heard the clatter of his bony elbows and knees against the door and it shook as she swung the heavy bar back into place with a definite clang.
She swayed, wheezing at the effort, leaning upon the rifle. As she caught her breath, there was a rustle as a piece of paper was shoved under the door.
please do it through the heart
She turned, using the rifle as a staff, and made her way to the grimy mattress on the floor.
She’d seen the bits of twitching flesh, the limbs wriggling like wounded snakes, torsos ripping themselves to bits as they wriggled over rocky ground. The ones that seemed to be suffering most were the ones that still had heads.
She curled up on her bed and placed the rifle’s muzzle into her mouth, tasting the oily metal and the sour sulfur residue of old shot. She raised her foot and felt with it along the rifle’s length until her big toe found the trigger.
She heard him knock at the door again, then start to pound on it. The door had held them all off for this long. It should be good for another ten minutes, at least.
On a whim, she waited until the second hand of the clock was vertical.
She sighed and took up her rifle, which held the last round of ammo she possessed, and stood from the tiny table with its single flickering candle. She walked slowly to the door as the floor creaked and the clock ticked. She was weak from confinement, illness, loneliness, and lack of good food and clean water, but she still had all the time there was left in the world.
She swung the heavy metal bar from the door, unlocked it, and opened it quickly, just as the last zombie on Earth was about to knock again with his thin hand, bone-bare at the knuckles. He swayed awkwardly and almost lost his tenuous balance, staggering back on ankles weakened by dry creaky tendons. He lacked a jaw, but carried a notepad. He seemed to be as weak as she felt.
She stood, rifle at her side, and waited as he scrawled out a message, holding the carpenter’s pencil as if it were a dagger.
more?
The question mark was a simple slash of desperation.
She shook her head.
He roughly tore the written page away and let it fall without crumpling it. He stabbed his words onto the next page.
then shoot me
She stared at the parody of life before her, and the yearning expression almost permanently fixed in the leathery skin around its sunken eyes.
She shook her head again.
The creature stood, staring at her. Zombies could show enormous patience. There was only one thing they had to do. It tore at the paper, then wrote again.
lonely
Her jaw sagged. She read the word over, then raised her eyes again. The yearning look had not changed. Her face hardened, lips forming a grim line.
please it must be fresh
It had scribbled a harsh violent underline below fresh. She took a firm grip on the rifle, ready to use the stock to fend him off, and swung the door shut as swiftly as she could. She heard the clatter of his bony elbows and knees against the door and it shook as she swung the heavy bar back into place with a definite clang.
She swayed, wheezing at the effort, leaning upon the rifle. As she caught her breath, there was a rustle as a piece of paper was shoved under the door.
please do it through the heart
She turned, using the rifle as a staff, and made her way to the grimy mattress on the floor.
She’d seen the bits of twitching flesh, the limbs wriggling like wounded snakes, torsos ripping themselves to bits as they wriggled over rocky ground. The ones that seemed to be suffering most were the ones that still had heads.
She curled up on her bed and placed the rifle’s muzzle into her mouth, tasting the oily metal and the sour sulfur residue of old shot. She raised her foot and felt with it along the rifle’s length until her big toe found the trigger.
She heard him knock at the door again, then start to pound on it. The door had held them all off for this long. It should be good for another ten minutes, at least.
On a whim, she waited until the second hand of the clock was vertical.
Too many "single" adjectives to start. "Last human," "A knock," "the door," "last round," "single flickering candle," "the floor," "the clock..." etc.
Then it gets good. Very interesting "truce" twist on the zombie apocalypse. Reminds me slightly of Warm Bodies. I'm not sure the ending quite makes sense to me though.
On the one hand, it seems like she's shooting her brain so she won't become a zombie and suffer. The zombie begged her to do it through the heart, so I'm not sure if that preserves the freshest brains, OR instead if he's begging her to join him in brain-having undeath (which a head-shot would prevent.)
Either way, a pretty good twist on a classic trope.
Then it gets good. Very interesting "truce" twist on the zombie apocalypse. Reminds me slightly of Warm Bodies. I'm not sure the ending quite makes sense to me though.
On the one hand, it seems like she's shooting her brain so she won't become a zombie and suffer. The zombie begged her to do it through the heart, so I'm not sure if that preserves the freshest brains, OR instead if he's begging her to join him in brain-having undeath (which a head-shot would prevent.)
Either way, a pretty good twist on a classic trope.
As >>Xepher said, it's an interesting twist on the Zombie trope.
Nitpicking time:
- I don't know what the "it must be fresh" refers to. Her flesh? The bullet?
- The heart/brain part >>Xepher raised
- The first sentence, while being a strong hook, somehow clashes with the rest of the story being in the character POV. She may know she is the last one, but we aren't sure of that.
Overall, strong story with a nice pace.
Nitpicking time:
- I don't know what the "it must be fresh" refers to. Her flesh? The bullet?
- The heart/brain part >>Xepher raised
- The first sentence, while being a strong hook, somehow clashes with the rest of the story being in the character POV. She may know she is the last one, but we aren't sure of that.
Overall, strong story with a nice pace.
The ending is weird to me? Why not mercy kill the zombie before offing herself? Why condemn him to an eternity of loneliness?
The concept is good though, and the writing is solid. I enjoyed this story.
The concept is good though, and the writing is solid. I enjoyed this story.
I like the idea. Writing was okay, but you have an issue with sentence variety, specifically in regards to the sheer number of them that begin with "She" and "Her" (amongst others less common but in a similar vein). The clock bit feels like it's just there to fit the prompt, though.
I will say the ambiguity is more of a strength than a weakness in my personal estimation. In a genre-defying short story like this, not wasting words on the details allows the reader to come up with their own conclusions, as long as the clues presented to draw said conclusions are strong enough.
I will say the ambiguity is more of a strength than a weakness in my personal estimation. In a genre-defying short story like this, not wasting words on the details allows the reader to come up with their own conclusions, as long as the clues presented to draw said conclusions are strong enough.
So, this is super jarring, but the first two sentences are basically a pretty well known piece of microfiction:
"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door..."
They are a -really- strong pair of lines, and I think using them is actually a hindrance since it is very hard to top them. You've reached peak interest right off the bat, and everything afterwards just doesn't compare as well. That said, don't take that as an indictment of the rest of the story. Just that that line pair is potentially more a disadvantage than an advantage, I think.
The idea here is neat, but I do have some problems in that the zombie's lines/motivations are a bit unclear, as is her decision to kill herself -now-.
Also the nature of the zombie apocalypse here is made a bit more complex by the fact that zombies are apparently sapient.
Still, interesting idea, but I think it needs another pass to fully realize itself.
"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door..."
They are a -really- strong pair of lines, and I think using them is actually a hindrance since it is very hard to top them. You've reached peak interest right off the bat, and everything afterwards just doesn't compare as well. That said, don't take that as an indictment of the rest of the story. Just that that line pair is potentially more a disadvantage than an advantage, I think.
The idea here is neat, but I do have some problems in that the zombie's lines/motivations are a bit unclear, as is her decision to kill herself -now-.
Also the nature of the zombie apocalypse here is made a bit more complex by the fact that zombies are apparently sapient.
Still, interesting idea, but I think it needs another pass to fully realize itself.
Yeah, I was pretty jarred by the opening, since I know pretty well the story those two lines originally belong to. Hopefully, yours takes a totally different route.
Ok. To me, she kills herself not to get rid of zombies, but to become a zombie herself and keep company to the other one waiting at the door. Maybe it was her former husband? The ones that seemed to be suffering most were the ones that still had heads. ➡ that's why she wants to fry her brains!
Overall, what the others said. Original take, good execution, this is going to land quite up in my slate.
Ok. To me, she kills herself not to get rid of zombies, but to become a zombie herself and keep company to the other one waiting at the door. Maybe it was her former husband? The ones that seemed to be suffering most were the ones that still had heads. ➡ that's why she wants to fry her brains!
Overall, what the others said. Original take, good execution, this is going to land quite up in my slate.
>>Whitbane
She only has one bullet left.
Damn good story. Bleak, but certainly original. Little in the way of wasted words, and the parts you leave out mean just as much as the parts you include.
Top of the slate, so far. Still several entries to read, though.
She only has one bullet left.
Damn good story. Bleak, but certainly original. Little in the way of wasted words, and the parts you leave out mean just as much as the parts you include.
Top of the slate, so far. Still several entries to read, though.
Not an entirely original concept (as >>AndrewRogue mentioned, "last man on Earth"), but the execution is fairly decent. I liked the idea of the zombie and human being able to communicate, as well as how bleak the world is made out to be. Personally, I would've added a few more story elements, like maybe some more environmental details or more specific description of all the heads and limbs.
Other than that, a fairly decent minific.
Other than that, a fairly decent minific.
I'm going to have to be That One Guy on this one, I'm afraid. But first: There's a lot to like. The concept here is great (subverting the zombie trope by having them as non-mindless), the character conflict is set up compellingly, and the prose is vivid (if adjective-heavy). I especially like the ongoing pen-as-dagger analogy. If I could make sense of this compellingly it would be top-tier. But when I dig into the details to try to assemble a coherent story, I keep running into contradictions.
First of all, after some struggle I think I got what the story's trying to go for:
- Human opens the door when Zombie knocks; she is shown not to be afraid of them, or at least of him. They speak peacefully when the door is open.
- Then she closes the door, and "She took a firm grip on the rifle, ready to use the stock to fend him off". On the heels of "please it must be fresh", the only reasonable implication I've got is that she is refusing whatever the zombie wants (either her corpse or her body parts), and she fears a violent response forcing the issue.
- So all of this seems to be pointing to Zombie trying to turn Human, in order to get some company.
But then I keep hitting a wall trying to interpret the must-be-fresh thing. Her response to "lonely" is to frown in denial: "Her face hardened, lips forming a grim line." Whether or not he's properly interpreting her intention to deny, his "please" line makes no sense. If he does know she's not going to follow through, he should be backtracking and trying to convince her (whereas the note seems to assume she's doing it and discusses logistics). If he's caught by surprise by her refusal, there's no need to beg — up until she shoves the door closed he would be assuming the body would be as fresh as possible because she's shooting herself in front of him.
(Or maybe Zombie's asking for something besides Human's ready-to-infect corpse. Brains? That was my original interpretation of the line — properly interpreting her rejection, he realizes she's going to kill herself instead and asks for sustenance — but that makes no sense in the context of "lonely", making that problem meaningless. What has to be fresh = presumably the corpse, but not necessarily?)
Speaking of the freshness thing, this really has its cake and eats it too on the door strength. It held off every other zombie on earth indefinitely, but it will only last 10 minutes against a single zombie that "seemed to be as weak as she felt"?
And what does "please do it through the heart" mean? Is he still being oblivious and asking her to leave her head in place so she'll rise up as an intellectual zombie and join him? Or did he give up on company and, in a sudden reversal, is asking her to kill herself in a way that preserves her brains? Again, the ambiguity here renders me unable to pin the meaning of the story down. The zombie is a very different character if he's driven by crippling loneliness than if he's willing to shrug off his loneliness for a quick snack.
That line keeps throwing me for another big reason, too. The casual assumption-of-compliance of the shoot-yourself-through-the-heart request (rather than a "please reconsider" discussion) after Human literally slammed the door in Zombie's face … that combines with the opening-door scene in the beginning and the missing context of the notes (e.g. both immediately understand the context of the single word "More?" to mean, if I'm reading correctly, "Are there other zombies left?") to imply a strong preexisting bond, friendship at least. The way Human acts in their early exchanges kinda backs this up, not to mention the subversion of the hostile-zombie trope in the first place. And yet the ending is very stock "I'm gonna die a human!" defiance and denial. It makes Human look selfish — though, granted, that's sort of balanced by Zombie looking selfish too, what with making assumptions about her actions left and right at the end. But a story about two people both doing hard-selfish Prisoner's Dilemma defections isn't terribly satisfying to me, at least without more character context (that 750 words isn't allowing you the luxury of providing) to turn this into a proper tragedy.
So, yeah. I keep spinning around in circles where the implications of all the assumptions I make turn this into an unsatisfying story, and so I try to interpret it differently and the text still fails me. Sorry, author.
I'm reminded a little of >>Xepher's comments on poetry earlier: "art should take effort to make, not to enjoy." I actually disagree hard with that formulation, but I think that there's something behind the sentiment, and my frustration at squaring this story's ideas made my objection cohere:
I think art should reward effort with enjoyment.
How accessible your text (or poem!) should be depends on your target audience; some people want to get it in a single pass, some people like stories that make you pause and dig in and then reward that with a surprise. (A simple example of this is a twist revelation which recontextualizes the entire story: You have to stop and re-file all the facts of the narrative in your brain and review them from a different angle.) But if the story does not make sense up front and also does not make sense after digging, then all you're doing is frustrating your readers. Worse, you're frustrating readers in proportion to their effort: if they tried to puzzle your story out on a good-faith assumption there was an answer and still draw a blank, you've wasted the extra time they spent in interpretation.
This is why I often try to give feedback on internal consistency, as I did here. If readers who dig into your text and try to think through its implications hit walls, you lose them; if they don't, you have fans for life. I speak from reading experience: Very little delights me more than to dig into a piece and tease out little details which make it clear that the author got there ahead of me and sewed up the loose ends. For example, I never would have guessed that the quasi-Joycean Pinkamena's Wake would win a Writeoff gold, but I'm thrilled it did, and that's the biggest thing it got right: it presented a linguistic structure that sounds meaningful right off the bat despite being an unbroken sea of unwords, and over time its portmanteaus sink into your brain and you realize that you're reading language at double density. Once you know that trick you can unlock the whole story. It rewards taking time, and invites you in by throwing some softballs to build up that reader trust relationship.
So back to here: The good news is that this is probably an easier fix than the length of this post makes it seem. A lot of times, consistency errors just come from time deadlines, or from not considering a thematic/motivation question as you skip from scene to scene to keep it consistent. It's common to be able to iron those out with just a few words once the inconsistency is there. (I try to talk through the whole process in order to help train you to question those details in your story, though! "Clarify whether Zombie is asking for a fresh turnable corpse or for fresh food" fixes a problem quickly, but doesn't tell you why it was a problem: because his motivations here potentially flip the story's entire theme on its head.) You probably do have answers for which way these choices should fall, and why, but pointing out the conclusions they lead to can help make sure you're making those choices for reasons that make your story stronger. I hope this does so.
-h
First of all, after some struggle I think I got what the story's trying to go for:
- Human opens the door when Zombie knocks; she is shown not to be afraid of them, or at least of him. They speak peacefully when the door is open.
- Then she closes the door, and "She took a firm grip on the rifle, ready to use the stock to fend him off". On the heels of "please it must be fresh", the only reasonable implication I've got is that she is refusing whatever the zombie wants (either her corpse or her body parts), and she fears a violent response forcing the issue.
- So all of this seems to be pointing to Zombie trying to turn Human, in order to get some company.
But then I keep hitting a wall trying to interpret the must-be-fresh thing. Her response to "lonely" is to frown in denial: "Her face hardened, lips forming a grim line." Whether or not he's properly interpreting her intention to deny, his "please" line makes no sense. If he does know she's not going to follow through, he should be backtracking and trying to convince her (whereas the note seems to assume she's doing it and discusses logistics). If he's caught by surprise by her refusal, there's no need to beg — up until she shoves the door closed he would be assuming the body would be as fresh as possible because she's shooting herself in front of him.
(Or maybe Zombie's asking for something besides Human's ready-to-infect corpse. Brains? That was my original interpretation of the line — properly interpreting her rejection, he realizes she's going to kill herself instead and asks for sustenance — but that makes no sense in the context of "lonely", making that problem meaningless. What has to be fresh = presumably the corpse, but not necessarily?)
Speaking of the freshness thing, this really has its cake and eats it too on the door strength. It held off every other zombie on earth indefinitely, but it will only last 10 minutes against a single zombie that "seemed to be as weak as she felt"?
And what does "please do it through the heart" mean? Is he still being oblivious and asking her to leave her head in place so she'll rise up as an intellectual zombie and join him? Or did he give up on company and, in a sudden reversal, is asking her to kill herself in a way that preserves her brains? Again, the ambiguity here renders me unable to pin the meaning of the story down. The zombie is a very different character if he's driven by crippling loneliness than if he's willing to shrug off his loneliness for a quick snack.
That line keeps throwing me for another big reason, too. The casual assumption-of-compliance of the shoot-yourself-through-the-heart request (rather than a "please reconsider" discussion) after Human literally slammed the door in Zombie's face … that combines with the opening-door scene in the beginning and the missing context of the notes (e.g. both immediately understand the context of the single word "More?" to mean, if I'm reading correctly, "Are there other zombies left?") to imply a strong preexisting bond, friendship at least. The way Human acts in their early exchanges kinda backs this up, not to mention the subversion of the hostile-zombie trope in the first place. And yet the ending is very stock "I'm gonna die a human!" defiance and denial. It makes Human look selfish — though, granted, that's sort of balanced by Zombie looking selfish too, what with making assumptions about her actions left and right at the end. But a story about two people both doing hard-selfish Prisoner's Dilemma defections isn't terribly satisfying to me, at least without more character context (that 750 words isn't allowing you the luxury of providing) to turn this into a proper tragedy.
So, yeah. I keep spinning around in circles where the implications of all the assumptions I make turn this into an unsatisfying story, and so I try to interpret it differently and the text still fails me. Sorry, author.
I'm reminded a little of >>Xepher's comments on poetry earlier: "art should take effort to make, not to enjoy." I actually disagree hard with that formulation, but I think that there's something behind the sentiment, and my frustration at squaring this story's ideas made my objection cohere:
I think art should reward effort with enjoyment.
How accessible your text (or poem!) should be depends on your target audience; some people want to get it in a single pass, some people like stories that make you pause and dig in and then reward that with a surprise. (A simple example of this is a twist revelation which recontextualizes the entire story: You have to stop and re-file all the facts of the narrative in your brain and review them from a different angle.) But if the story does not make sense up front and also does not make sense after digging, then all you're doing is frustrating your readers. Worse, you're frustrating readers in proportion to their effort: if they tried to puzzle your story out on a good-faith assumption there was an answer and still draw a blank, you've wasted the extra time they spent in interpretation.
This is why I often try to give feedback on internal consistency, as I did here. If readers who dig into your text and try to think through its implications hit walls, you lose them; if they don't, you have fans for life. I speak from reading experience: Very little delights me more than to dig into a piece and tease out little details which make it clear that the author got there ahead of me and sewed up the loose ends. For example, I never would have guessed that the quasi-Joycean Pinkamena's Wake would win a Writeoff gold, but I'm thrilled it did, and that's the biggest thing it got right: it presented a linguistic structure that sounds meaningful right off the bat despite being an unbroken sea of unwords, and over time its portmanteaus sink into your brain and you realize that you're reading language at double density. Once you know that trick you can unlock the whole story. It rewards taking time, and invites you in by throwing some softballs to build up that reader trust relationship.
So back to here: The good news is that this is probably an easier fix than the length of this post makes it seem. A lot of times, consistency errors just come from time deadlines, or from not considering a thematic/motivation question as you skip from scene to scene to keep it consistent. It's common to be able to iron those out with just a few words once the inconsistency is there. (I try to talk through the whole process in order to help train you to question those details in your story, though! "Clarify whether Zombie is asking for a fresh turnable corpse or for fresh food" fixes a problem quickly, but doesn't tell you why it was a problem: because his motivations here potentially flip the story's entire theme on its head.) You probably do have answers for which way these choices should fall, and why, but pointing out the conclusions they lead to can help make sure you're making those choices for reasons that make your story stronger. I hope this does so.
-h