Short Story / The Mural
I wake up in a room, at first everything is dark. As my eyes embrace my surroundings I begin to make out the shapes of the few things in the room. This room was not the same room that I went to bed in. The room is quiet small, only about 10’ by 10’, roughly have the size of my room; but this room is different, it is very tall, stretching at least 2 stories. As I rub my eyes and begin trying to make sense of what has happened, I notice that there is no door; there is a bed, my bed actually. The bed is the only thing that looks familiar to me, the blankets are the same, the comforter is black with an assortment of colors stretching and twisting around on it as if some amateur graffiti artist tried to impress someone but obviously failed miserably, but it is comfortable so I don’t ever pay a attention to it. But the problem is, I am now because it is one of the few things that are failure in this weird room.
As I get up, shuffle the covers off and begin searching for a light of some source, my hands brush some type of paper on the wall. The room is dark enough that I can’t make out much instead of shapes and things up close. There is no doorknob, no light switch. But this one wall seems to have some sort of assortment of paper tacked onto the wall. I grab one, almost ripping the paper from the tack. As I bring it into the small light that is barely giving any light of any worth, I notice that it is a picture. I remember this picture; it was from a play I was in as a kid. I remember this picture because my mother took it. I was on a small stage with many other kids; all of us were six or seven years old. All dressed up, some as cowboys, some as Indians, I was so proud of myself. I was the chief Indian. I remember trying to keep that big assortment of feathers on my head. Never could keep it on right. The picture shows me with one eye almost covered from the feathered headband. I have one tooth missing and I am smiling toward the flash I thought was my mother.
I smile as I remember the play, none of us kids knew our lines and none of us or our parents cared. My mom just loved to see her son up there. I almost forget where I was for a second; I put the picture back in its place. The room starts to brighten but still not near enough. I grab another photo, it was my graduation picture. It shows the superintendent handing me my diploma, I am in a black cap and gown, clean shaven but a cut under my left chin. I never could shave without at least one cut back then. I chuckle softly. I grab another handful of pictures; I think to myself, how did all these get here? How did I get here? I set down the photos and again search the room for an exit. I search all the walls, moving the photos to the side, some falling to the floor. I notice but barely pay attention to the fact that there are more photos behind those that fell. I find nothing on the walls, any door or window, not even an outlet or switch.
I begin to search the floor, maybe a hatch or something, anything. The thought off entrapment puts me into an almost frantic mode. Searching faster and faster, not paying attention to what moves or where I have looked already. I do this for sometime. The floor is cold and hard, concrete. Definitely not the same room I fell asleep in. I sleep bare foot and the floor is cold. I sit on the bed, scared. I am hyperventilating, my head is spinning. I have no idea where I am, why I am here. My hands grab my head; I am trying to make some sense out of all of this. I call out, “HELLO, what is going on!” My hands fall to my side, grabbing at the bed sheets and my left hand brushes against the photos I threw down in the middle of my frantic haze.
I begin to exam the photos again, me and my dad with my first deer, me and my little sister on my shoulders running around with a goofy look on my face, the next one is my fifth or sixth birthday, blowing out the candles and all messy from dinner, ha, I will be even messier after the cake. Then next photo shows me in a tux, I toss it aside, the next is, wait, I remember that moment. I half smile and half tear up. It was my junior prom, I was going with my really good friend Samantha, I had a big crush on her, she knew it but we agreed to go as friends. I laugh to myself, she always said some girl would be lucky to have me, but she never thought it was her. Before I knew it I had a single tear running down my cheek. I whip it off and toss the picture. I go back to the wall, the light has grown to the point that I can make out the pictures without taking them off.
I take time to ponder on a few pictures; most of them obsolete childhood pictures. I as a small child playing in the bright colored leaves in a big pile or I with my bow and arrow made out of string and sticks. One was taken by my mother thinking it was cute, it showed me in the corner pouting because I was being punished. I was just like the Denis comic with him in the corner in a rocking chair, he always had an excuse, ha, I only cried and said I was sorry until my mom let me go back outside and play. Sooner or later I would always find myself back there, usually sooner rather than later.
As I went back and forth, looking at pictures of my life, I would find much fun and cherished memories. But there were a few that we was too scared to remember. One was a newspaper article, it showed my photo and an article about a trespassing incident which I was caught and I remember the cops taking me home and my mom chewing my hide and after that, my dad was waiting with his belt. I don’t know which one hurt more, the belt on a bare bottom or the fact that dad said those crushing words, “We are very disappointed in you son, you should know better!” That kept me out of trouble a lot. Kids asking if I wanted a puff or if I wanted to skip class. Nope, not me, I didn’t want to hear those painful words anymore than I had to.
As the room brightened, you could seem me sitting near the picture covered wall, in an Indian style sit, with dozens of photos around me. I paid no attention to time, of course how could I? There was no clock, I had no watch on, and I could not find any way to get out. I had mostly forgotten completely about the fact that I could not get out. It was as if these photos were the story of my life. They were in no order that I could tell, definitely not chronological. Out of exhaustion I fell onto my back, I begin to rub my eyes; I rest my eyes for a few seconds. When I reopen them, I am looking up into the light that has gradually brightened. Now I can tell that the room is actually not twenty feet but thirty feet or so. I also notice that the pictures cover the whole wall, from top to bottom. I see almost a pattern forming. Not in an order or anything but rather almost a mural. The problem is I am too close to see the whole thing in full view.
I jump to my feet quickly, almost falling straight back down from slipping on the pictures left on the floor. The bed is in the middle of the room against the opposite wall than the picture covered wall. As I try and make some sense out of this collection of photographs strewn together I begin to make out a face. I understand now, these pictures are a mural, take many smaller faces to make a bigger one. This mural also shows the top of the shoulders and the neck but you really don’t recognize them to much. As I stare at the wall over a prolonged period of time I make out the eyes, brown, what a coincidence, so are mine, oh well. The nose is long and thin, ears are almost bloated a little but not too much to see, well, the left ear. You cannot see the right because the head is tilted to show the left side of the face and a little bit of the right. I notice a scare just below the chin line. I realize that that is the same place where I have a scare. I had gotten it when I was a child. I was always playing in the woods, jumping around, finding sticks to use as my weapons as I fought off Indians or the redcoats or even the Nazis. One day I was running around and I had tripped and fell, a stick had caught my chin and left a nice little scratch, just big enough to get sticks, 11 to be exact. I still have the scare.
My God, I realize now, this is my mural, my picture. It is made from pictures of my life. I begin to pick up pictures around my feet. The one thing that they all have in common is that they are all stories of my life. I go up to the wall, find the scratch, one of the photos that make out the scratch is when I had gotten the stitches. You wouldn’t know unless you were there, all you see is the doctor bending over me and my mom holding my head. My dad took the picture. I remember him saying that it was a battle scar; I didn’t find it as funny as he did.
The picture does not seem right. It is incomplete, I begin to take the pictures and put them back where I took them off. Moving as quickly as possible I put them back where I had taken them. I took me a while, putting one in and then stepping back to make sure it matches the rest, most of the time it did not. As I put the last one up I step back, I feel a sense or relaxed yet anxiousness running through me, and to see how this believed mural of me looks after all the missing pictures are put back in their proper place.
As I step back I begin to notice that this picture of me seems sad, not in pain but almost as if someone betrayed me. I also notice one single tear running down my cheek. The eyes are not watery but this one tear is almost to the end of my nose on my right cheek. I walk up to the wall; find the set of pictures that make up this tear. I look closely. It is the only pictures not of me; one is of this beautiful girl, probably seventeen or eighteen years old. She is sitting in a library writing something. Wow she is beautiful. Another is the same girl, this time she is smiling into the camera; she is wearing a bright blue dress. It looks like it is at a dance. “Samantha?” I say out loud, many nights I had stayed up dreaming of her. It was prom; I had taken her as a friend, now I remember. I saw another picture somewhere that was me before I picked her up, all tall and proud in my black tux. After high school I remember us going separate ways. I still had feelings for her, she never did, but she was a good friend.
Now I realize that this mural is not a mural of pictures, it is a mural or memories, my memories. Some better left unremembered, but most are good to go over again and again. I take the picture of Samantha and me at the prom, put it to my heart, and step back into bed. I have no idea where I am, why I was there, and if when I wake up I will be back in my normal room or still in this picture laden place. What I do know is this, a lesson had been learned. A story has been told. Fate is nothing, destiny is futile. We are who we choose to be, we are who we are today by the actions that we had done yesterday. When someone looks at us, they see who we are, what we have done, and where we have been.
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Touching… You get a person thinking about their life.
Might I suggest that you read and read again. This way you may catch your typos and also do some editing at the same time on some of your sentences.
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Pretty good. It kind of reminds me of the “Saw” movies, though. Even though it is not gory at all. The whole first 11 paragraphs I kept thinking that…
Then, it becomes something else entirely once you bring up the girl Samantha. I like the concepts at work, but I think those two ideas are not brought together well enough.
There are some pretty big grammar and spelling issues (like scare instead of scar etc). Generally, I don’t really read for that kinda thing because I am more interested in talking about the actual story, but in this case it was a bit distracting.
I like the idea a lot. I realize from your intro that you want to leave the end mysterious, but from the perspective of someone (me, duh) who has that inclination, could it be that you actually just don’t Know what happens? I mean, what Could happen?
The problem with a mystery such as this, is that we don’t have enough pieces to get lost in the solution. But I think you COULD with more plot twists.
Instead of simply reading off moments of childhood, you need to put some plot twists in this baby.
Hint at something dark and ominous that happened w/the girl. Not just tears- ‘a dark stain marked the dirty tee-shirt laying on the floor of her car’ Not that, but ya know, a teaser.
Lastly, Why should I care about Samantha? You haven’t let me know anything about her except that she was a platonic date at the junior prom- gimme some juice, baby…
Best luck!
It’s not bad; I like the whole aspect of him seeing a mural of memories. But I feel it could use a little more work in the beginning. I don’t really get feeling of apprehension or tension until the 3rd paragraph, and even then it wasn’t as strong as it could be. Try using some more action verbs and descriptions. Something like:
I spun faster and faster as my hands rushed over the wall, frantically searching for a way out. The room, the pictures, all blurred into a mass of indistinguishable shapes as my eyes welled up with tears of frustration and fright. My heart beat wildly and blah blah blah you get the idea.
Another creepy thing you could do would be to have a single light bulb dangle from the ceiling and the bulb is off. After the character blindly and frantically paws at the walls in pitch blackness he could step back to rest and the chain would hit him in the face. If you describe it right, you could startle the reader. Then he pulls the chain and he’s left staring at a wall of pictures. It could look like in those movies where the detective enters the killers room only to find the walls covered in pictures of his victims.
That would be cool. It would make the character frantic and frightened again.
And as for the ending, I feel that the story is more powerful without this “What I do know is this, a lesson had been learned. A story has been told. Fate is nothing, destiny is futile. We are who we choose to be, we are who we are today by the actions that we had done yesterday. When someone looks at us, they see who we are, what we have done, and where we have been.” I think it’s a better hanger to say he doesn’t know where he’ll end up next.
Make the reader wonder what the hell is going on, then just as he’s getting his bearings, introduce something a lot crazier and make him wonder again what’s going on. Then end the story. Leave em all guessing.
Let me begin my saying that I enjoyed reading this piece. I first noticed that you are 19 years old, and I more or less went into the reading of this piece with that in mind.
I feel that your main character, perhpas you, is going through an awakening of sorts, hence the room, the bed, the general sense of confusion and fear that comes with awakenings. Reflecting on the past, through pictures and memories, to garner wisdom and strength to then push forward toward a new era in ones life is crucial, and always necessary.
I thought your piece was well, written, well-paced, and lucid. My only criticism would be to tighten up the screws a bit more, by fine-tuning some of the language and keeping an eye on spelling errors. Otherwise, well done. At 19, you’ve got a good start on things. Keep writing.
first, little long to be published in a magazine, trust me on that one. second, as the writer, you can never count on the reader to anything than read it, let alone use their own imagination, that’s your job as the writer. and no worries dear narrator, the point of the story is no ending, life has no ending, blah blah. the piece doubles back on itself frequently for no apparent reason, it’s convoluted with no real pertinent ‘description’(not information). what it lacks in depth it smothers it paragraphs of pointlessness, only the last and the first are worth while. re-write and try again, its a good idea, just limps its way along..and use your grammar check, several instances of words used that sound like the right one but are wrong
This is very good and imaginative for a first story. You tell a very good sequence of how he wakes up in this room and then his life in pictures. The idea of the mosaic of pictures representing his life is very cool. My only problem is the ending. Where is this guy? In a dream? I was thinking that he was going to find himself in an insane asylum and that he had murdered Samantha and just now remembered. Maybe a little cliche and I’ve been writing a lot of horror lately. You wrote the whole story, I am guessing, so to get to the message at the end and lesson learned.
What I do know is this, a lesson had been learned. A story has been told. Fate is nothing, destiny is futile. We are who we choose to be, we are who we are today by the actions that we had done yesterday. When someone looks at us, they see who we are, what we have done, and where we have been.
This lesson is kind of obvious to me. I wouldn’t just come out and tell the reader this moral lesson at the end. I would make it an observation about the mural of pictures, portraits that are shadows of our past that when put together make a complete picture of who we are just like the mural. Something like that. Give this story a pay off for the reader. It is still good for a first story and I see a market for this in a lit magazine.
Good story, despite the little spelling mistakes ( no e in scar, Dennis the Menace, Not Denis, etc.).
To me, though, your ending lesson doesn’t really come through in the story. The idea of being trapped in a room with a memory mural on the wall doesn’t really give the impression that “Fate is nothing, destiny is futile.”
Why did this young man need to learn this lesson? What is the point of having him trapped in this room? What about this young man made someone do this to him? (Not to mention, who would have the time to make this mural?)
The first paragraph of this story bothers me a little because you hardly use any pronouns. Every time your mention “the room” you always use that phrase. It’s an interesting writing decision, but is possibly too repetitive.
Overall, though, I really like this story. The idea of this memory mural is neat, like pointillism with photographs. The memories are random enough to give an overall view of this young man’s life.
I am left wanting to hear more, but I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. What I mean is, the story is titled “The Mural”, yet the story is more focused on the room than the mural. If the point is the mural, then perhaps leaving your main character with an uncertain future isn’t advised.
This was really good. I liked how you had the light gradually get brighter as he realized more and more where he was. It’s an awesome story line and really creative for your first short story.
However, I did notice several grammatical and spelling errors, and places where the sentence structure could have been moved around to make it flow better.
You could take, ”...me and my dad with my first deer, me and my little sister on my shoulders running around with a goofy look on my face, the next one is my fifth or sixth birthday, blowing out the candles and all messy from dinner, ha, I will be even messier after the cake.”
You could change it around, to be something more like, “I begin to examine the photos again. I find one with me and my dad and my first deer; another of my little sister on my shoulders and me running around with a goofy look on my face; the next is me at my fifth or sixth birthday, my shirt messy from dinner, and blowing out the candles on my cake,” etc. Good sentence structure is critical for the story to flow well for your readers.
Other than that and a few grammatical/spelling errors, great story! :)
The story itself is OK, but there are some problems with the writing. When a person speaks, it should be a new paragraph.
Some of the word usage is off too, half not have and so forth.
Some of the sentences are very confusing, for example “But the problem is, I am now because it is one of the few things that are failure in this weird room.”
Huh? It took me a second, I had to reread the paragraph to understand what you meant. You should clean that up a bit, as well as some of the other lines.
I think it is a great idea you’ve got though and would be delighted to read it again if you cleaned up some of the sentences.
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