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Sunny Side Up
Cathy cracked an egg on the side of the pan. The pan hissed and popped as she gently dripped the egg into the pan to avoid breaking the yolk. The egg white collected into a single, perfectly circular disc with a lump of yellow sunshine on top.
She smiled. Perhaps she was getting this cooking thing down. She cracked another egg and dropped it into the pan. Small pleasures like this allowed her some reprieve from the stress of being a mother and having a job. Things had been stressful recently, but getting up early on her day off to make eggs would all be worth it when she got to see Jacob’s smile. Eggs, sunny side up, just how he liked it. Maybe she’d get a “#1 Mom” from him mug to match Steven’s “#1 Dad.”
“They only had a #1 Dad mug at the school shop, sorry Mom!” Jacob had said.
Cathy laughed, but not too loudly to avoid waking Jacob. She remembered the faux-spat she had with her husband afterwards.
“He likes you the best, Steven! See he even got you a mug to prove it!” she had pouted dramatically.
“No dear, he loves you the most, he just got the mug to make me feel better about being second place.” Steven had a good sense a humor about these sorts of things.
“Nuh-uh, you get to spend all the time in the world with him since you stay at home!”
“Yeah, but he’s tired of me, he wants to spend time with the #1 Parent. They don’t sell those mugs at school.”
Cathy giggled and eyed the clock’s digital readout on the stovetop: 7:15AM. Jacob usually got up in ten minutes to get ready for school. The eggs were turning out nicely, but perhaps she got up a bit too early. She lowered the heat just enough to keep the eggs warm while she waited for Jacob and turned out the lights. The element of surprise had to be perfect. Cathy couldn’t help but be giddy for her first breakfast. Steven usually did the cooking, since she had to be at work.
Footsteps came from upstairs. Cathy looked at the clock again: 7:27AM. A little late, but kids could afford to be a little late. Not like at work. She huffed. Cathy transferred the eggs from the pan to a plate, a nice ceramic plate with a racecar on it. Jacob’s special plate. She heard the screeching of a chair being dragged from the table in the room next door.
“Surprise!” Cathy cheered, throwing open the door the family room, only to see her husband sitting in Jacob’s spot idly contemplating his #1 Dad mug, eyes streaked with tears. Cathy’s hand suddenly felt weak and useless, her hand slowly loosening its grip on the plate. The plate tumbled to the floor, shattering into a thousand tiny shards mixed with bleeding egg yolk.
“...you too huh?” he choked out between sobs. He ran his finger along the 1 of the mug.
Cathy felt ill. The room spun in circles around, frozen memories thawing. The sounds of tires screeching filled her ears, followed a sickly thud. Then the screams came: a chorus of children’s wails all at once, drowning out her thoughts.
She slumped to the floor, next to the congealed mess of egg yolk and plate shards. The racecar detailing had cracked in three large pieces. She took them and tried to force the plate back together, but the pieces wouldn’t stick.
His special plate. Tears came quick and heavy.
Steven put a hand over her, trying to comfort her. Upstairs, child’s alarm clock faintly chimed a jaunty tune before fading out. He looked up for a moment, almost wistfully, then embraced her.
“I made the eggs, just like how he liked, Steven.” Cathy whispered, gripping Steven as tight as she could. “Sunny side up.”
The child’s alarm clock upstairs played its final tune.
She smiled. Perhaps she was getting this cooking thing down. She cracked another egg and dropped it into the pan. Small pleasures like this allowed her some reprieve from the stress of being a mother and having a job. Things had been stressful recently, but getting up early on her day off to make eggs would all be worth it when she got to see Jacob’s smile. Eggs, sunny side up, just how he liked it. Maybe she’d get a “#1 Mom” from him mug to match Steven’s “#1 Dad.”
“They only had a #1 Dad mug at the school shop, sorry Mom!” Jacob had said.
Cathy laughed, but not too loudly to avoid waking Jacob. She remembered the faux-spat she had with her husband afterwards.
“He likes you the best, Steven! See he even got you a mug to prove it!” she had pouted dramatically.
“No dear, he loves you the most, he just got the mug to make me feel better about being second place.” Steven had a good sense a humor about these sorts of things.
“Nuh-uh, you get to spend all the time in the world with him since you stay at home!”
“Yeah, but he’s tired of me, he wants to spend time with the #1 Parent. They don’t sell those mugs at school.”
Cathy giggled and eyed the clock’s digital readout on the stovetop: 7:15AM. Jacob usually got up in ten minutes to get ready for school. The eggs were turning out nicely, but perhaps she got up a bit too early. She lowered the heat just enough to keep the eggs warm while she waited for Jacob and turned out the lights. The element of surprise had to be perfect. Cathy couldn’t help but be giddy for her first breakfast. Steven usually did the cooking, since she had to be at work.
Footsteps came from upstairs. Cathy looked at the clock again: 7:27AM. A little late, but kids could afford to be a little late. Not like at work. She huffed. Cathy transferred the eggs from the pan to a plate, a nice ceramic plate with a racecar on it. Jacob’s special plate. She heard the screeching of a chair being dragged from the table in the room next door.
“Surprise!” Cathy cheered, throwing open the door the family room, only to see her husband sitting in Jacob’s spot idly contemplating his #1 Dad mug, eyes streaked with tears. Cathy’s hand suddenly felt weak and useless, her hand slowly loosening its grip on the plate. The plate tumbled to the floor, shattering into a thousand tiny shards mixed with bleeding egg yolk.
“...you too huh?” he choked out between sobs. He ran his finger along the 1 of the mug.
Cathy felt ill. The room spun in circles around, frozen memories thawing. The sounds of tires screeching filled her ears, followed a sickly thud. Then the screams came: a chorus of children’s wails all at once, drowning out her thoughts.
She slumped to the floor, next to the congealed mess of egg yolk and plate shards. The racecar detailing had cracked in three large pieces. She took them and tried to force the plate back together, but the pieces wouldn’t stick.
His special plate. Tears came quick and heavy.
Steven put a hand over her, trying to comfort her. Upstairs, child’s alarm clock faintly chimed a jaunty tune before fading out. He looked up for a moment, almost wistfully, then embraced her.
“I made the eggs, just like how he liked, Steven.” Cathy whispered, gripping Steven as tight as she could. “Sunny side up.”
The child’s alarm clock upstairs played its final tune.
A chorus of screams suggests multiple children dying, which is clearly not what the story is about; that ambiguity muddies the picture you're trying to send.
I cannot imagine a dissociative fugue coming and going this quickly. It just doesn't happen like this. You can't forget your child is dead for the entire duration of the woman's actions unless there are other forces at work psychologically, like medication. You need to invoke something like that in order for the story to be realistic, I feel.
You might be tugging on the reader's Lyra a bit too explicitly at the end, and the last line especially is over the top.
I wasn't certain if you were trying to connect the racecar with the way the child died—I think that should be clearer one way or the other.
I cannot imagine a dissociative fugue coming and going this quickly. It just doesn't happen like this. You can't forget your child is dead for the entire duration of the woman's actions unless there are other forces at work psychologically, like medication. You need to invoke something like that in order for the story to be realistic, I feel.
You might be tugging on the reader's Lyra a bit too explicitly at the end, and the last line especially is over the top.
I wasn't certain if you were trying to connect the racecar with the way the child died—I think that should be clearer one way or the other.
A few rough edges, like "Cathy’s hand suddenly felt weak and useless, her hand slowly loosening its grip" or "Jacob usually got up in ten minutes."
The revelation is certainly unexpected, and Cathy's everyday pondering about her son in the beginnign sets the reader up for an emotional impact, so from a technical standpoint this is well-done. Only thing that could be improved in that respect is foreshadowing that something is wrong.
However, where the story falls apart for me is believability. I agree with Trick_Question here. I'm not a psychologist, but I'm fairly sure that this is not how denial or traumata works.
The revelation is certainly unexpected, and Cathy's everyday pondering about her son in the beginnign sets the reader up for an emotional impact, so from a technical standpoint this is well-done. Only thing that could be improved in that respect is foreshadowing that something is wrong.
However, where the story falls apart for me is believability. I agree with Trick_Question here. I'm not a psychologist, but I'm fairly sure that this is not how denial or traumata works.
This... is definitely reaching far.
However, the weight of emotion it tries to conjure can't quite be supported by the framework you've arranged under it. Things swing a bit too far, a bit too fast. Instead of just giving mood whiplash, however, I'd say this straight-out broke my suspension of disbelief. This woman spends her time reminiscing, but can't even remember this tragic event? I don't think it really works like that.
Still, this was an excellent effort, and some solid craftsmanship in many ways. You may have over-extended yourself, but I appreciate that more than the reverse.
However, the weight of emotion it tries to conjure can't quite be supported by the framework you've arranged under it. Things swing a bit too far, a bit too fast. Instead of just giving mood whiplash, however, I'd say this straight-out broke my suspension of disbelief. This woman spends her time reminiscing, but can't even remember this tragic event? I don't think it really works like that.
Still, this was an excellent effort, and some solid craftsmanship in many ways. You may have over-extended yourself, but I appreciate that more than the reverse.
And this story is very similar to "Six Candles," though not done as well.
For me, this story's only real problem is that it's entirely unbelievable. Like the other commenters have said, it seems ridiculous to think that a mother would spend probably 15 minutes preparing breakfast for her child—plus the time she spent getting ready before that, probably—without remembering that the child had died. You don't just forget that sort of thing. If preparing breakfast for her son had been part of her morning ritual for years, then I might understand if she got up to do it again without realizing, but even then I think she'd realize her mistake fairly quickly. But you explicitly say that this was the first time she had made breakfast for him, so that idea is out.
Like I said, there aren't any other major problems that I noticed, but unfortunately, that one problem is so basic and fundamental that it ruins the entire story for me.
For me, this story's only real problem is that it's entirely unbelievable. Like the other commenters have said, it seems ridiculous to think that a mother would spend probably 15 minutes preparing breakfast for her child—plus the time she spent getting ready before that, probably—without remembering that the child had died. You don't just forget that sort of thing. If preparing breakfast for her son had been part of her morning ritual for years, then I might understand if she got up to do it again without realizing, but even then I think she'd realize her mistake fairly quickly. But you explicitly say that this was the first time she had made breakfast for him, so that idea is out.
Like I said, there aren't any other major problems that I noticed, but unfortunately, that one problem is so basic and fundamental that it ruins the entire story for me.
Well, time to get off my ass and discuss this story with all the kind people that happened to review it. Still got one story in the running, so go find that
I think, if I may be inclined to disagree with you folks, is that what is threatening suspension of disbelief in this particular scenario is not the realism of the situation, but rather in which it is conveyed. I discussed this briefly with Not_A_Hat in the Write-Off chat: basically, the lack of a set up, foreshadowing, or even implication for Cathy being off forces the reader completely out of the story when the reveal comes. The narrative abruptly forces the reader to drastically reconsider Cathy's mental state to be drastically outside of the norm when there is no implication earlier in the piece of that being the case, nor any subtlety conveying a more "uneasy" atmosphere to the reader. It's the same sort of reaction you'd likely get if I told you the first half of the story was entirely a dream and Cathy woke up to her kid still being dead: you'd hit me with rocks and tell me I'm a hack (which I am), because that's a cop out, and the story didn't build to that idea. Same principle, at least to me, here: the first half doesn't build to the second half, and that's what's throwing you out of the story.
>>The_Letter_J
This is right on the money, and I think illustrates the overall problem with the piece. A lot of the writing I did in the first half was for maximum "wham" on the second halve, and I overlooked such opportunities as this in favor of strangling the reader by the heartstrings.
>>Leo
>>Trick_Question
>>Not_A_Hat
>>The_Letter_J
On the other hand, I really quite object to the idea that the situation itself being "unbelievable" or "unrealistic" because certainly people can and do act in the way Cathy does in response to extreme trauma such as the loss of a child. Flaunts his Psychology Degree Dissociative amnesia certainly is a real condition that affects episodic memory (retrograde amnesia) typically close to the time of trauma. Obviously, this sort of response is not normative, and my failure to communicate that idea effectively cost me my reader's immersion, but nonetheless, I feel the need to ask least defend the framework of the story on that merit, if only to illustrate that people can and do respond to trauma like this.
Minor notes:
>>Trick_Question
Well, unless you are using an outdated nomenclature for the condition, this is clearly not a dissociative fugue, and I feel somewhat perplexed you would describe it as such. Cathy is clearly aware of who she is and where she is; she has her identity intact. She lacks the features of a fugue state except for the loss of some episodic memory, but that is more easily defined in other conditions.
The intention was describe a play-time scenario outside with kids that gone wrong. The screams come from his friends around him, not the boy himself. This confusion probably could be rectified by placing some sort of "giggle of children" in the prior sentence, but I wasn't sure how to do that without distracting from the more painful side of that memory.
This is an option I considered, but ultimately chose to exclude due to word-count, and also, I find it a bit ethically dubious and a bit extreme to imply that things she'd likely be taking like Xanax that can cause such short term memory loss would cause her to forget her child died, and might unintentionally seem like I'm advocating not taking your medication.
Nope! Sorry, it was just a plate. I should have made it a different image to avoid confusion.
>>Not_A_Hat
coughs. Yeah, once again, this sort of thing can happen, but I'm certainly not doing my reader any favors by using this framework, am I? Whoops. I believe I oversold my inner monologue a bit too much because I wasn't exactly sure how to prep the reader for the twist.
>>Not_A_Hat
>>Leo
>>The_Letter_J
Aww. Thanks guys.
>>The_Letter_J
Yeah pretty much. I'm fairly certain I said the same thing to you in the chat when it was brought up.
I think, if I may be inclined to disagree with you folks, is that what is threatening suspension of disbelief in this particular scenario is not the realism of the situation, but rather in which it is conveyed. I discussed this briefly with Not_A_Hat in the Write-Off chat: basically, the lack of a set up, foreshadowing, or even implication for Cathy being off forces the reader completely out of the story when the reveal comes. The narrative abruptly forces the reader to drastically reconsider Cathy's mental state to be drastically outside of the norm when there is no implication earlier in the piece of that being the case, nor any subtlety conveying a more "uneasy" atmosphere to the reader. It's the same sort of reaction you'd likely get if I told you the first half of the story was entirely a dream and Cathy woke up to her kid still being dead: you'd hit me with rocks and tell me I'm a hack (which I am), because that's a cop out, and the story didn't build to that idea. Same principle, at least to me, here: the first half doesn't build to the second half, and that's what's throwing you out of the story.
>>The_Letter_J
But you explicitly say that this was the first time she had made breakfast for him, so that idea is out.
This is right on the money, and I think illustrates the overall problem with the piece. A lot of the writing I did in the first half was for maximum "wham" on the second halve, and I overlooked such opportunities as this in favor of strangling the reader by the heartstrings.
>>Leo
>>Trick_Question
>>Not_A_Hat
>>The_Letter_J
On the other hand, I really quite object to the idea that the situation itself being "unbelievable" or "unrealistic" because certainly people can and do act in the way Cathy does in response to extreme trauma such as the loss of a child. Flaunts his Psychology Degree Dissociative amnesia certainly is a real condition that affects episodic memory (retrograde amnesia) typically close to the time of trauma. Obviously, this sort of response is not normative, and my failure to communicate that idea effectively cost me my reader's immersion, but nonetheless, I feel the need to ask least defend the framework of the story on that merit, if only to illustrate that people can and do respond to trauma like this.
Minor notes:
>>Trick_Question
I cannot imagine a dissociative fugue coming and going this quickly.
Well, unless you are using an outdated nomenclature for the condition, this is clearly not a dissociative fugue, and I feel somewhat perplexed you would describe it as such. Cathy is clearly aware of who she is and where she is; she has her identity intact. She lacks the features of a fugue state except for the loss of some episodic memory, but that is more easily defined in other conditions.
A chorus of screams suggests multiple children dying, which is clearly not what the story is about; that ambiguity muddies the picture you're trying to send.
The intention was describe a play-time scenario outside with kids that gone wrong. The screams come from his friends around him, not the boy himself. This confusion probably could be rectified by placing some sort of "giggle of children" in the prior sentence, but I wasn't sure how to do that without distracting from the more painful side of that memory.
other forces at work psychologically, like medication
This is an option I considered, but ultimately chose to exclude due to word-count, and also, I find it a bit ethically dubious and a bit extreme to imply that things she'd likely be taking like Xanax that can cause such short term memory loss would cause her to forget her child died, and might unintentionally seem like I'm advocating not taking your medication.
I wasn't certain if you were trying to connect the racecar with the way the child died—I think that should be clearer one way or the other.
Nope! Sorry, it was just a plate. I should have made it a different image to avoid confusion.
>>Not_A_Hat
This woman spends her time reminiscing, but can't even remember this tragic event?
coughs. Yeah, once again, this sort of thing can happen, but I'm certainly not doing my reader any favors by using this framework, am I? Whoops. I believe I oversold my inner monologue a bit too much because I wasn't exactly sure how to prep the reader for the twist.
>>Not_A_Hat
>>Leo
>>The_Letter_J
Still, this was an excellent effort, and some solid craftsmanship in many ways.
The revelation is certainly unexpected, and Cathy's everyday pondering about her son in the beginnign sets the reader up for an emotional impact, so from a technical standpoint this is well-done.
Like I said, there aren't any other major problems that I noticed
Aww. Thanks guys.
>>The_Letter_J
And this story is very similar to "Six Candles," though not done as well.
Yeah pretty much. I'm fairly certain I said the same thing to you in the chat when it was brought up.
>>Cassius
I replied here (below link), but it didn't show up in the story's forum. Here's the link for completeness.
>>Trick_Question
I replied here (below link), but it didn't show up in the story's forum. Here's the link for completeness.
>>Trick_Question