Hi. I’ve never done this before. Jumping the gun, I’ll assume it’s nice to meet you all.
Having written the first two… snippets - this seems like a story that will take quite some time to write, and may take a while to get anywhere. I’m just not sure yet. Any and all feedback is appreciated.
The room was small and cramped, with a faint smell that neither of the people there were about to mention. The walls were plain and bare, and across from each other sat a man and a woman, perched on identically uncomfortable metal chairs. The stillness in the room was broken suddenly by a wavering voice, one that had been preparing for this moment for a long, long time.
"Well, it's very odd, you see - ah, how do I explain…? I guess I realized it, well, pretty early on, ah, how my daughter was different. And I know that sounds cliché but that's how it was." The woman paused to fill her lungs, almost defensively.
"Um… When she was just a baby, odd things began to happen. To me. To, ah - other people around her. But she… She didn't seem to care, you see. Look, I know that sounds crazy. I know. How can you expect an infant to care about what's happening around her? To understand it? Well, I could see it in her eyes, you understand. She knew what was happening, she just didn't care how much she hurt other people. She didn't care how much it scared me to watch what was happening to my friends, and how much it hurt when it, ah, happened to me, ah… before…" The words seemed to be struggling to keep an ocean of tears from storming.
"I.. I'm sorry.. I can't.." She was struggling to pull a wrap of Kleenexes from her purse, and got up halfway to the door. The man whispered softly that it was alright. That she needn't tell the whole story now, and offered her a coffee and a bed in the visitor's quarters.
"A bed would be nice," she smiled, turning back, "But I'm afraid I'll pass on the coffee." Her smile wavered for a moment and she flushed, whispering embarrassedly,
"I wouldn't want to ruin the mattress."