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A Nice Walk at Night
Any city at night is pretty, but with Portland, it’s something special. Maybe it’s the arboreal scenery, maybe it’s that fresh northwestern air, or perhaps even the rustic feel to everything, but for whatever reason, Portland’s got a charm I can’t seem to find anywhere else.
I’m walking down Grand Ave, scouting out the bars, when I notice a young brunette woman ahead of me. Can’t be older than twenty-four, walking by herself in the middle of the night. Well, walking is a bit of a generous description of her desperate attempt to avoid stumbling in her heels. It’s more like a shaky-half stride complete with wobbly knees and cautious flaring of the arms in case of a sudden fall.
There’s nothing between us but space, maybe ten yards. Not another soul in sight. The soft patter of rain masks the ambient sounds of the city. It’s as if we’re the only two people in existence, dimly lit by the faint glowing of street lamps and traffic lights.
But she doesn’t know I’m there.
I think about her family and friends. I wonder if her father loved her. If her friends are looking for her. If she is attending college. What her future is like. What kind of potential she has. What led her to stumble out of a bar drunk late on a Thursday night with nobody around.
It’s apparent she comes from money. I’m no expert on fashion, but I can tell when a woman has sunk some serious money into her appearance. Her hair is freshly straightened and volumized to give off a bright sheen even in this damp, dark night. Her outfit looks to be designer, a sleek black top with midriff exposed and mini combo designed to accentuate the tight contours of her body.
From behind, she’s indisputably beautiful.
I’m catching up to her. There’s maybe five yards between us. She still hasn’t noticed my presence. I wonder if I should call out to her. Perhaps ask if she needs help. It would probably be less awkward than just slowly passing her by.
Doesn’t she know there’s a killer on the loose? It’s been in the news nonstop for the last three weeks now. The sheriff even came out and issued a warning telling people to stay inside after 1 AM.
Not going to stop me from hanging around at night, of course. I love the night here, and no warnings are gonna stop me from doing what I love. But you’d think a such a pretty young lady would exhibit better judgment.
What a silly girl.
Three yards.
“Hey!” I call out to her. “Are you all right?”
She pivots slowly on her heels. I can tell she’s nervous. Every woman fears a strange man approaching her while she’s alone at night.
“No, I’m fine!” she says through slurred speech, her tone sharp and defensive.
I smile disarmingly. “Are you sure? You can barely walk.”
I’m still getting closer. One yard.
Suddenly, a police siren blares as a cop car shoots down the street. The unexpected noise stops me in my tracks, and my heartbeat kicks into overdrive. I stop and turn for a moment to look out of pure instinct.
Sloppy.
By the time I look back, the girl is running. She’s abandoned her heels on the sidewalk. Must be painful to run like that. I can hear the soft scrapes of her bare feet against the wet sidewalk as she clumsily flees.
Maybe she was a bit smarter than I gave her credit for.
I could catch her if I wanted to, and for a moment I consider it. I admit, in the moment, I got a bit attached to the idea of killing her. I had imagined a funeral full of friends, family, ex-lovers, classmates and teachers held in a beautiful grove, no expense spared. Closed casket, of course.
There’s nothing quite like destroying something young and beautiful, right when it’s in the prime of its life, almost as if you’re eating a fruit when it’s reached its peak ripeness and flavor. It’s nothing short of pure sex and art.
Good drama for the media too, would have been a real feather in my cap. Young girl, white, attractive, killed in the prime of her life? The papers would eat that shit up.
I sigh. What a shame. But there’ll be others.
Like I said, Portland has its charm.
I’m walking down Grand Ave, scouting out the bars, when I notice a young brunette woman ahead of me. Can’t be older than twenty-four, walking by herself in the middle of the night. Well, walking is a bit of a generous description of her desperate attempt to avoid stumbling in her heels. It’s more like a shaky-half stride complete with wobbly knees and cautious flaring of the arms in case of a sudden fall.
There’s nothing between us but space, maybe ten yards. Not another soul in sight. The soft patter of rain masks the ambient sounds of the city. It’s as if we’re the only two people in existence, dimly lit by the faint glowing of street lamps and traffic lights.
But she doesn’t know I’m there.
I think about her family and friends. I wonder if her father loved her. If her friends are looking for her. If she is attending college. What her future is like. What kind of potential she has. What led her to stumble out of a bar drunk late on a Thursday night with nobody around.
It’s apparent she comes from money. I’m no expert on fashion, but I can tell when a woman has sunk some serious money into her appearance. Her hair is freshly straightened and volumized to give off a bright sheen even in this damp, dark night. Her outfit looks to be designer, a sleek black top with midriff exposed and mini combo designed to accentuate the tight contours of her body.
From behind, she’s indisputably beautiful.
I’m catching up to her. There’s maybe five yards between us. She still hasn’t noticed my presence. I wonder if I should call out to her. Perhaps ask if she needs help. It would probably be less awkward than just slowly passing her by.
Doesn’t she know there’s a killer on the loose? It’s been in the news nonstop for the last three weeks now. The sheriff even came out and issued a warning telling people to stay inside after 1 AM.
Not going to stop me from hanging around at night, of course. I love the night here, and no warnings are gonna stop me from doing what I love. But you’d think a such a pretty young lady would exhibit better judgment.
What a silly girl.
Three yards.
“Hey!” I call out to her. “Are you all right?”
She pivots slowly on her heels. I can tell she’s nervous. Every woman fears a strange man approaching her while she’s alone at night.
“No, I’m fine!” she says through slurred speech, her tone sharp and defensive.
I smile disarmingly. “Are you sure? You can barely walk.”
I’m still getting closer. One yard.
Suddenly, a police siren blares as a cop car shoots down the street. The unexpected noise stops me in my tracks, and my heartbeat kicks into overdrive. I stop and turn for a moment to look out of pure instinct.
Sloppy.
By the time I look back, the girl is running. She’s abandoned her heels on the sidewalk. Must be painful to run like that. I can hear the soft scrapes of her bare feet against the wet sidewalk as she clumsily flees.
Maybe she was a bit smarter than I gave her credit for.
I could catch her if I wanted to, and for a moment I consider it. I admit, in the moment, I got a bit attached to the idea of killing her. I had imagined a funeral full of friends, family, ex-lovers, classmates and teachers held in a beautiful grove, no expense spared. Closed casket, of course.
There’s nothing quite like destroying something young and beautiful, right when it’s in the prime of its life, almost as if you’re eating a fruit when it’s reached its peak ripeness and flavor. It’s nothing short of pure sex and art.
Good drama for the media too, would have been a real feather in my cap. Young girl, white, attractive, killed in the prime of her life? The papers would eat that shit up.
I sigh. What a shame. But there’ll be others.
Like I said, Portland has its charm.
Pics
WORTHLESS REVIEWS (#5 IN THE SERIES)
READ ONLY IF YOU HAVE TIME TO KILL, AND MAYBE NOT EVEN THEN
Cassius thinks this is about the actual murderer, but I’m sure it’s just about what the fic' pretends to be: John Doe walking in the street and falling prey to a murderous impulse lit up by the sudden memory of a criminal being on the lam, and wondering what how it would feel to be in his (her?) shoes. Experience that moment of power you might feel when you kill someone else, not much unlike what (I imagine) happens with your first smoke or shot, just to try out and experience what the others do.
So it’s an interesting psychological portrait, and it’s fairly well written, except the lead is totally pointless to me, and ruins the hook. First, where are we? Portland, OR or Portland, MA? Cassius keeps claiming no one gives a fuck about Portland, MA, I insist that that city has a right to exist besides being a simple placeholder for "Maine's capital city". The decor (night, rain) is pretty much caricatural. And, frankly, we don’t really care where this takes place. Don’t lose words to describe a decor if you don’t build on it afterwards. Here, the most important thing is what the guy sees and what happens inside his head. You should have begun there like: “She was, what? Nineteen, twenty? and I was following her along the gloomy street.”
READ ONLY IF YOU HAVE TIME TO KILL, AND MAYBE NOT EVEN THEN
Cassius thinks this is about the actual murderer, but I’m sure it’s just about what the fic' pretends to be: John Doe walking in the street and falling prey to a murderous impulse lit up by the sudden memory of a criminal being on the lam, and wondering what how it would feel to be in his (her?) shoes. Experience that moment of power you might feel when you kill someone else, not much unlike what (I imagine) happens with your first smoke or shot, just to try out and experience what the others do.
So it’s an interesting psychological portrait, and it’s fairly well written, except the lead is totally pointless to me, and ruins the hook. First, where are we? Portland, OR or Portland, MA? Cassius keeps claiming no one gives a fuck about Portland, MA, I insist that that city has a right to exist besides being a simple placeholder for "Maine's capital city". The decor (night, rain) is pretty much caricatural. And, frankly, we don’t really care where this takes place. Don’t lose words to describe a decor if you don’t build on it afterwards. Here, the most important thing is what the guy sees and what happens inside his head. You should have begun there like: “She was, what? Nineteen, twenty? and I was following her along the gloomy street.”
Alternate Title: American Psycho 2: Electric Boogaloo
I'm pretty sure I've read this before.
I don't mean that in like the author plagiarizing, but I know for a fucking fact a lot of us have read this exact kind of story several times before, in these WriteOff rounds alone.
It's distracting because, taken simply in a vacuum, this is a fairly well-written entry that would probably be in the upper half of my slate. We get a good impression of the narrator's mindset, what goes on in his head and so on. There is also a decent building of tension, even though it's not really tense because we've seen this before.
Okay, let me start from the beginning.
"A Nice Walk at Night" is about a serial killer on the prowl, and it takes all of five seconds to realize this is the case. Even before the narrator mentions murders happening you think, "He's a killer." Aaaaand he is! There's no actual twist beyond the narrator being this stalker/murderer of young women, which in itself is not really a twist. This is something you hear from some executive in an elevator and you ask him, "Okay, but what's the catch?" Because there has to be a catch, otherwise it would be pretty boring and none of us were born yesterday.
But there is no catch. The girl gets away, the killer is denied a victim for the time being, and that's it. I sound really jaded right now, but that's because I really wanted this entry to have more meat on its bones. It's clear that the author knows what he/she is doing from a technical standpoint (although there are these weird gaps between paragraphs, like the author pressed Enter three times by accident), and I can't really find any grammar problems here.
I just can't get over how derivative this all is. There seems to be a philosophical implication in here somewhere, like the author had read American Psycho and wanted to squeeze some of that into 750 words, but in the process basically cut out all the parts that made that book so compelling and disturbing.
On a final note, you can replace Portland with literally any other city and it wouldn't make a difference.
I'm pretty sure I've read this before.
I don't mean that in like the author plagiarizing, but I know for a fucking fact a lot of us have read this exact kind of story several times before, in these WriteOff rounds alone.
It's distracting because, taken simply in a vacuum, this is a fairly well-written entry that would probably be in the upper half of my slate. We get a good impression of the narrator's mindset, what goes on in his head and so on. There is also a decent building of tension, even though it's not really tense because we've seen this before.
Okay, let me start from the beginning.
"A Nice Walk at Night" is about a serial killer on the prowl, and it takes all of five seconds to realize this is the case. Even before the narrator mentions murders happening you think, "He's a killer." Aaaaand he is! There's no actual twist beyond the narrator being this stalker/murderer of young women, which in itself is not really a twist. This is something you hear from some executive in an elevator and you ask him, "Okay, but what's the catch?" Because there has to be a catch, otherwise it would be pretty boring and none of us were born yesterday.
But there is no catch. The girl gets away, the killer is denied a victim for the time being, and that's it. I sound really jaded right now, but that's because I really wanted this entry to have more meat on its bones. It's clear that the author knows what he/she is doing from a technical standpoint (although there are these weird gaps between paragraphs, like the author pressed Enter three times by accident), and I can't really find any grammar problems here.
I just can't get over how derivative this all is. There seems to be a philosophical implication in here somewhere, like the author had read American Psycho and wanted to squeeze some of that into 750 words, but in the process basically cut out all the parts that made that book so compelling and disturbing.
On a final note, you can replace Portland with literally any other city and it wouldn't make a difference.
I see where Monokeras is coming from, but I think the reason that theory doesn't work for me is how flippant this guy is. There's no emotional thought about what murdering this poor woman might do to him, or what kind of trouble he would get in. And most striking of all... he doesn't discuss how he would kill her. He just jumps right to the funeral, without considering a single step in the process.
That's somebody who's done it before.
We've been discussing in the discord chat about how this story would be improved if Monokeras's theory was accurate. And maybe it is! I don't know you. But either way, it might be a more interesting take on the story, because the guy who's secretly a serial killer thing feels tired, as Raisin says.
But still a well-written entry, and one I expect to be in finals. Good luck to you!
That's somebody who's done it before.
We've been discussing in the discord chat about how this story would be improved if Monokeras's theory was accurate. And maybe it is! I don't know you. But either way, it might be a more interesting take on the story, because the guy who's secretly a serial killer thing feels tired, as Raisin says.
But still a well-written entry, and one I expect to be in finals. Good luck to you!
This has a well-constructed first person perspective that really digs in and helps keep me reading. But in the end, I have to agree with >>No_Raisin that this story doesn't really seem to have a satisfying payoff. It all feels pretty by-the-numbers, and by the end of things I haven't learned anything about the main character that I did not already assume was the case after the first 1/3 or so. It is an interesting interpretation of the pic it's based on, but outside of that, I'm sorry to say that it did not really engage me as the kind of thought-provoking piece that I think it's trying to be.
Alas, late to the party as I am, I don't have much to say that other reviewers haven't already said:
This summarizes my feelings perfectly. From the second the existence of the killer was mentioned, I assumed it was the protagonist, and so the rest of the story didn't have any surprises.
This has a well-constructed first person perspective that really digs in and helps keep me reading. But in the end, I have to agree with >>No_Raisin that this story doesn't really seem to have a satisfying payoff. It all feels pretty by-the-numbers, and by the end of things I haven't learned anything about the main character that I did not already assume was the case after the first 1/3 or so.
This summarizes my feelings perfectly. From the second the existence of the killer was mentioned, I assumed it was the protagonist, and so the rest of the story didn't have any surprises.
Bottom slated for stalking. That's rude.
Much like Ships in the Night, this entry is a generally competent execution of a story that I am rather familiar with (though I am harder-pressed to think of a direct example in the same way that I can with that one).
I will say, the story doesn't really do much to explain why he decides against the murder. He outright states he could catch her if he wanted (and, I think even without him saying that, it feels obvious) and very clearly wants to, so the fact that he doesn't strikes me as strange.
Thanks for writing.
Much like Ships in the Night, this entry is a generally competent execution of a story that I am rather familiar with (though I am harder-pressed to think of a direct example in the same way that I can with that one).
I will say, the story doesn't really do much to explain why he decides against the murder. He outright states he could catch her if he wanted (and, I think even without him saying that, it feels obvious) and very clearly wants to, so the fact that he doesn't strikes me as strange.
Thanks for writing.