Can I just… talk for a moment… about how much I love how, if you know them well, words don’t have synonyms?
English, for example, is a fantastic disaster. It has so many words for things that are basically the same, and I find there’s few joys in writing like finding the right word for a sentence. Hunting down that peculiar word with particular meaning that fits in seamlessly in a structure, so the story flows on by without any bumps or leaks.
Like how a shout is typically about volume, while a yell carries an angry edge and a holler carries a mocking one. A scream has shrillness, a roar has ferocity, and a screech has outrage.
This is not to say that a yell cannot be happy or a holler cannot be complimentary, or that they cannot share these traits, but they are different words with different connotations. I love choosing the right one for a sentence, not only for its meanings but for how it sounds when read aloud. (Do I want sounds that slide together, peaceful and seamless, or something that jolts the reader with its contrast? Snap!)
I love how many words for human habitats there are. I love how cottage sounds quaint and cabin sounds rustic. I love steadiness of house, the elegance of residence, the stateliness of manor, and tired stubbornness of shack. I love how a dwelling is different to a den.
And I love how none of them can really touch the possessive warmness of all the connotations of home.
Words are great.
I did not expect to cry by the end of this, but I did.
Which proves the point, no?
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.” – Mark Twain (and one of my favorites, since I happen to agree with everything the OP said!)
^that is an incredible quote I’m upset I’ve never heard it before
tfw ur trying to write plot but ur brain only provides you with out-of-sequence snippets built on vague ideas and an endless number of potential outcomes that develop and branch out unnaturally over an unspecified timespan
“we didn’t know any better,” the crewman says, and swallows, presenting the chest to the captain. “what do we do now?”
“kill it,” the captain says, but the ice is melting in his eyes.
“we can’t,” the first mate says desperately, praying she won’t have to fight her captain on this. “we can’t. we – i won’t. we won’t.”
“i know.”
x
“daddy,” she says, floating in a tub of seawater in the hold, “daddy, la-la, la-la-la.”
her voice rings like bells. her accent is strange; her mouth isn’t made for human words. it mesmerises even the hardiest amongst them and she wasn’t even trying. the crew has taken to diving for shellfish near the shorelines for her; she loves them, splitting the shells apart with strength seen in no human toddler, slurping down the slimy molluscs inside and laughing, all plump brown cheeks and needle-sharp teeth. she sometimes splashes them for fun with her smooth, rubbery brown tail. even when they get soaked they laugh. they love her.
“daddy,” she calls again, and he can hear the worry in her voice. the storm rocking the ship is harsh and uncaring, and if they go down, she would be the only survivor.
“don’t worry,” he says, and goes over, sitting next to the tub. the first mate, leaning against the wall, pretends not to notice as he quietly begins to sing.
x
“father,” she says, one day, as she leans on the edge of the dock and the captain sits next to her, “why am I here?”
“your mother abandoned you,” he says, as he always has. “we found you adrift, and couldn’t bear to leave you there.”
she picks at the salt-soaked boards, uncertain. her hair is pulled back in a fluffy black puff, the white linen holding it slipping almost over one of her dark eyes. one of her first tattoos, a many-limbed kraken, curls over her right shoulder and down her arm, delicate tendrils wrapped around her calloused fingertips. “alright,” she says.
x
“why am I really here?” she asks the first mate, watching the sun set over the water in streaks of liquid metal that pooled in the troughs of the waves and glittered on the seafoam.
“we didn’t know any better,” the first mate says, staring into the water. “we didn’t know- we didn’t know anything. we didn’t understand why she fought so viciously to guard her treasure. we could not know she protected something a thousand times more precious than the purest gold.”
she wants to be furious, but she can’t. she already knew the answer, from reading the guilt in her father’s eyes and the empty space in her own history. and she can’t hate her family.
“it’s alright,” she says. “i do have a family, anyways. i don’t think i would have liked my other life near as much.”
x
her kraken grows, spreading its tendrils over her torso and arms. she grows too, too large to come on board the ship without being hauled up in a boat from the water. she sings when the storms come and swims before the ship to guide it to safety. she fights off more than one beast of the seas, and gathers a set of scars across her back that she bears with pride. “i don’t mind,” she says, when the captain fusses over her, “now i match all of you.”
the first time their ship is threatened, really threatened, is by another fleet. a friend turned enemy of the first mate. “we shouldn’t fight him,” she says, peering through the spyglass.
“why not?” the mermaid asks.
“he’ll win,” the first mate says.
the mermaid tips her head sideways. Her eyes, dark as the deep waters, gleam in the noon light. “are you sure?” she asks.
x
the enemy fleet surrenders after the flagship is sunk in the night, the anchor ripped off the ship and the planks torn off the hull. the surviving crew, wild-eyed and delirious, whimper and say a sea serpent came from the water and attacked them, say it was longer than the boat and crushed it in its coils. the first mate hears this and has to hide her laughter. the captain apologizes to his daughter for doubting her.
“don’t worry,” she says, with a bright laugh, “it was fun.”
x
the second time, they are pushed by a storm into a royal fleet. they can’t possibly fight them, and they don’t have the time to escape.
“let me up,” the mermaid urges, surfacing starboard and shouting to the crew. “bring me up, quickly, quickly.”
they lower the boat and she piles her sinous form into it, and uses her claws to help the crew pull her up. once on the deck she flops out of the boat and makes her way over to the bow. the crew tries to help but she’s so heavy they can barely lift parts of her.
she crawls up out in front of the rail and wraps her long webbed tail around the prow. the figurehead has served them well so far but they need more right now. she wraps herself around the figurehead and raises her body up into the wind takes a breath of the stinging salt air and sings.
the storm carries her voice on its front to the royal navy. they are enchanted, so stunned by her song that they drop the rigging ropes and let the tillers drift. the pirates sail through the center of the fleet, trailing the storm behind them, and by the time the fleet has managed to regain its senses they are buried in wind and rain and the pirates are gone.
x
she declines guns. instead she carries a harpoon and its launcher, and uses them to board enemy ships, hauling her massive form out of the water to coil on the deck and dispatch enemies with ruthless efficiency. her family is feared across all the sea.
x
“you know we are dying,” the captain says, looking down at her.
she floats next to the ship, so massive she could hold it in her arms. her eyes are wise.
“i know,” she says, “i can feel it coming.”
the first mate stands next to the captain. she never had a lover or a child, and neither did he, but to the mermaid they are her parents. she will always love her daughter. the tattoos are graven in dark swirls across the mermaid’s deep brown skin and the flesh of her tail, even spiraling onto the spiked webbing on her spine and face. her hair is still tied back, this time with a sail that could not be patched one last time.
“we love you,” the first mate says simply, looking down. her own tightly coiled black hair falls in to her face; she shakes the locs out of the way and smiles through her tears. the captain pretends he isnt crying either.
“i love you too,” the mermaid says, and reached up to pull the ship down just a bit, just to hold them one last time.
“guard the ship,” the captain says. “you always have but you know they’re lost without you.”
“without you,” the mermaid corrects, with a shrug that makes waves. “what will we do?”
“i don’t know,” the captain says. “but you’ll help them, won’t you?”
“of course i will,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “i will always protect my family.”
x
the captain and the first mate are gone. the ship has a new captain, young and fearless – of the things she can afford to disregard. she fears and loves the ocean, as all captains do. she does not fear the royal fleet. and she does not fear the mermaid.
“you know, i heard stories about you when i was a little girl,” she says, trailing her fingers in the water next to the dock.
the mermaid stares at her with one eye the size of a dinner table. “is that so?” she hums, smirking with teeth sharper than the swords of the entire navy.
“they said you could sink an entire fleet and that you had skin tougher than dragon scales,” the new captain says, grinning right back at the monster who could eat her without a moment’s hesitation. “i always thought they were telling tall tales.”
“and now?”
“they were right,” the new captain says. “how did they ever befriend you?”
the mermaid smiles, fully this time, her dark eyes gleaming under the white linen sail. “they didn’t know any better.”
She protects her family.
Holy shit.
Yes.
Ohh my god, oh my god, oH my god, oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my vod ohbfy god holy SHIT Ohy my god
Full offense but your writing style is for you and nobody else. Use the words you want to use; play with language, experiment, use said, use adverbs, use “unrealistic” writing patterns, slap words you don’t even know are words on the page. Language is a sandbox and you, as the author, are at liberty to shape it however you wish. Build castles. Build a hovel. Build a mountain on a mountain or make a tiny cottage on a hill. Whatever it is you want to do. Write.
My name is
Courtney, and I was born at 5:15 AM on October 26th, 1988. When I was born my parents didn’t ask the doctor
if I was a boy or a girl, or if I was healthy.
Instead they asked, “what’s the number?”
The room
braced for the doctor’s answer. My parents
held each other close, both openly crying as they prayed for good news. “Her
number is…” started the doctor, flipping my right wrist over and reading the
black numbers that spread across it. “152310232048.”
My parents
cried in relief.
I would live
a good life.
I had a
good number.
You see,
in my world, everyone is born with a 12-digit number on their right wrist. What does the number mean exactly? Well—the number gives us the day we die. We don’t know how we will die, but we will—at
that exact time. Think of it like the expiration
date you see on a jug of milk. After the
expiration date, you throw away the milk, right? Well, that is what the marks on our wrists
mean. We obviously don’t get thrown away
in the trash, but we cease to exist after that date. And just like that jug of milk buried in some
landfill, we too will be buried in the ground.
My number
is 152310232048.
Which
means that at 3:23 PM on October 23rd, 2048—I will die.
I will
live to be 59 years old.
I have a
good number. It isn’t the best
number. My brother is going to live to
be 88. My parents, couldn’t believe it when the doctor read his number out
loud. He will live 29 years longer than
me. He will see so much more than me, experience
so much more than me. He might even live
to see his great-great grandchildren—I’ll be lucky to see my
grandchildren.
I sometimes
get jealous when I see his number.
But this
is my life.
I can’t
change my number.
It is permanent.
Medicine,
money, and miracles do not change your number.
You can certainly die earlier then your number, but to die before your
number is rare. People just tend to be
more careful. After all, when you are
constantly walking around with a literal reminder of your time left on earth on
your wrist, you tend appreciate the life you have a little more.
I have a
good number.
I’m
reminded of this when I see other people’s number.
The first
time this happened was when I was 5 years old.
On my
first day of school, I was in kindergarten and I’ve never really interacted
with any other kids besides my older cousins.
I was nervous, so when recess was called, I decided to go to the
swings. Anyone who liked swings as much
as me—well, they were cool in my book.
On my way
to an open swing a wild boy with a dinosaur shirt, and brown eyes full of mischief,
performed a back flip off the swings and nearly knocked me over in his crash
landing. He jumped up, dusted off his
pants and smiled at me and said, “My names Devon, and I am going to live to be
57.”
It was
such a typical kid way of introducing themselves. Adults tended to be more secretive of their
numbers. Wearing watches, or long-sleeved
shirts to cover up their numbers, but five year olds—we didn’t understand the
concept of subtlety.
Clearly.
Another
body quickly landed next to him, this one thankfully on their feet. It was a red-haired girl, with two perfectly
braided pig tails. “My names Fiona, and
I’m going to live to be 62.”
Another
body landed next to her. He stumbled a
bit on his landing, and his glasses fell down the bridge of his nose as he
found his balance. “Hi, I’m Oscar,” he
smiled, shaking his long brown hair out of his eyes as he pushed his glasses up
his nose. “I’m going to live to be 17.”
Mind you—we
were in kindergarten. We were literally
learning our ABC’s, learning how to tie our shoes, and zip up our coats, but
the concept of numbers—that we didn’t
need to learn. Our parents made sure we
knew what our number was, and what their number was, and what grandma’s number
was—numbers were literally ingrained into our minds, much like the literal
numbers that adorned our wrists.
Which
meant even at 5 years old, I knew that Oscar—well Oscar, had a bad number.
It must
have showed on my face because the boy—a boy who I didn’t even know, hugged
me. And as he squeezed me, he said, “It’s
okay,” before pulling back and smiling. “My
dad’s say that seventeen is plenty of time.
They said it is isn’t about how high your number is—but it’s about what
you do with the number you get.”
Looking
back now, as an adult thinking about having my own child—I’d probably say the
same thing to my child if they were born with a bad number. What else can you do? You can’t change your child’s number. You can’t give your child more time, no
matter how much you wish you could take the numbers off your wrist and place
them on your child’s—you just can’t.
Your job as a parent is to protect your children, but you can’t protect
them from the inevitable, so instead, you give them something else.
Oscar’s dads
gave him hope.
His dads
were great people. I grew close to them
as we progressed through school because obviously, Oscar, Fiona and Devon and
me—we became best friends after the day on the swings. We called our group “The Swingers,” much to
the embarrassment of our parents. We
didn’t understand why they didn’t like our group nickname when we were young,
but we finally understood when we were 15—and thanks to the internet, we
learned exactly what “swingers” were.
But even after learning the sexual nature of our group nickname, we
still kept it, because honestly, what teenagers didn’t like tormenting their
parents?
“Courtney
where are you going? It’s late!”
“Dad said
I can go to Oscar’s house!”
“And what will
you be doing at Oscar’s house?”
“God mom—we
are just having a swinger party, can I go now?”
The look
of embarrassment on my parent’s face was always perfect—especially in public.
Speaking
of Oscar’s house. His house became the “hang
out” spot for us four. Mostly because
his dads had an awesome basement, and his dad Jerry was professional Chef,
which meant we ate good there. But back
to Oscar’s dads—they were awesome. They adopted
Oscar when he was just an infant. His
mother gave him up when she saw his number. It was an epidemic in our world. Foster homes were full of children with bad
numbers.
But Oscar’s
dads, they didn’t see his number. They just
saw Oscar. This happy, intelligent,
beautiful blue-eyed child who just so happened to be destined to die young. They didn’t see his number—instead they just saw
Oscar.
Devon, Fiona,
and I—we only saw Oscar too.
Most of
the kids in our class didn’t really attempt to get to know Oscar, because
honestly, what was the point? He wouldn’t
be around for long. So, it was the four
of us—for as long as we had the four of us.
We
laughed.
We cried.
We fought.
We
experienced our first kisses.
We loved.
We had our
hearts broken.
We got
drunk once—never again.
We got
high—more than once.
We just lived.
“The
Swingers” lived every day to the fullest—until the day came when four was about
to become three. Oscar’s day would land
just a few weeks before our Senior graduation.
We always knew his number, but it never seemed real until it came so
close to the actual date on our calendar.
Oscar took
accelerated courses so that he could graduate before—his number came up. The school planned a graduation ceremony just
for him the day before his number. His dad’s and his extended family fills the stands, the rest of his class sit in the chairs,
the very same chairs they will soon fill in a couple of weeks when the class of
2007 would all walk together. The principal
called out Oscar’s name, and he stepped up to the microphone.
Oscar was
the schools valedictorian. He stayed late
after school, he studied well into the night, he worked hard—so hard, that his
dedication to his studies really got in the way of “swinger” time. One day, after another late night of not
seeing Oscar because he was studying for a Chemistry test, I yelled at him. “It
is just a Chemistry test Oscar! If you get a B, it won’t be the end of the
world!”
Oscar
barely blinked an eye at my outburst, instead, much like that day in front of
the swings—he pulled me into a hug. “Look, this is the only time I have to be
great,” he said. “I don’t get anything
after this. So, if this is all I get—I’m
going to be the best.”
And he
did.
He became
the best.
A 4.0
grade point average
An SAT
score of 1560.
And he never
filled out a single college application.
Oscar
cleared his throat in front of the microphone, garnering everyone’s
attention. “Thank you for everyone who
came today. It means a lot, to me. Very
much like my life, I’m going to keep this speech short.”
Gasps
echoed through the gym and Oscar smiled.
“That was
not meant to be a joke. Please don’t
think that I am making light of the fact that tomorrow is my number. Instead, I say that I will keep this speech short—because
I think the world tends to greatly underestimate the power of something short.”
“My mother
gave me up for adoption when I was only 1 minute old. As soon as the doctor read my number, she
signed over custody of me to the state.
I always wondered, how can I be judged of my quality of life, before I’ve
even taken my first shit.”
Laughter echoed
from the students, gasps echoed from the parents, and grumbles of disapproval
echoed from the teacher’s and administration.
But Oscar just smiled, as he looked back at the principal. “Feel free to give me a detention this weekend
for cussing,” he joked, earning another chuckle from the students.
“She was
wrong—by the way,” continued Oscar, his gaze going back out to the gym. “Anyone who ever stared at my number, and
looked at me with sadness—you were wrong.
I have lived—not as long as our parents and not as long as you all will
live—but make no mistake, I have lived. My
life may have been short, but it doesn’t mean it has been any less significant
as someone who lived well into their 80’s.”
Taking in a breath, he gave his parents and then the swingers a shaky smile. “Every
second of every single day for the past seventeen years—have been lived to the
fullest because simply, I didn’t have the time to waste. Every moment of my life has counted, cherished
and loved—can you say the same thing about yours?”
Oscar died
on 2:13 PM on March 16th, 2007.
Like his
number said, he lived to be 17.
He had a
bad number
But he
didn’t let his number define him.
Instead he
lived every day, until his number was called.
This story was adapted and turned into a 50 page short story, and is now available for purchase through Amazon!
willowfoot 