[Collection] Kol's Snippets

Cynical Love

Love. A joy and a terror. Why does a person submit themselves voluntarily to such pain? Is love worth the heartache and pain of rejection? No. Love is a fickle thing, full of expectations and high standards. Anyone who has loved and lost will agree, even if never aloud. Many will say that it is better to have loved and lost, then never loved at all. Those people obviously have never had their heart ripped out, torn to itty bitty pieces and stomped upon by the object of their affections. Time and time again I have loved with all my heart. And time and time again, it has been shat upon. I swore to myself that I would never love again. And yet, I find myself foolishly falling in love again.

My friends, my lifeblood, are all that keep me anchored to this life. My family, my home, has long been lost to me due to the whims of love. That is what convinced me that love is an evil thing. And yet, to live is to be evil, probably why we love in the first place. True happiness cannot be found in love and marriage, hell, it can’t even be found in the arms of a lover. Happiness is a myth, a terrible lie told to us by our forefathers, who even now, laugh at us from beyond. There is no happiness, there is no love. But there is hope, sorrow and joy. They are fleeting, but worth the effort whenever you feel them.

My life has been nothing but heartache and pain, don’t I deserve more from whatever cruel force compels the universe to hate me? Apparently not. But this woman, this devilish woman, seems determined to make me see otherwise. Perhaps I’ll indulge her, for a little while at least. What more harm could come of letting her see what she wants to see? I never knew how much I would come to regret that decision in the days to come.

Greedy Hatred

Hatred. A burning flame, a well of passion. To hate is to feel alive. There is no time where mortality is felt more than at the time when one’s hatred is at its peak. A man can thrive under hatred, live longer and harder than one without it, but it slowly eats away at their psyche like a poison infecting the mind. Hatred is known by many names; revenge, justice, retribution and lust. A man can be wronged by another, and none would deny him his revenge. A man can seek to bring a man to justice, and the world would cheer him on. A man can seek to feel lust for another, and let it blind him to others, and seek retribution from those that take it from him.

I have felt hatred, greed and even lust. All of those emotions make me feel truly alive, to continue on another day. Many women have crossed my bed, but none have stayed. Many men as well, although they have to pay. But there is one woman, who played with me as I have played with others. Many would call that divine retribution, I do not. That she-devil will pay for what she has done to me. But harm her, no. I won’t lay a hand on her, I will not need to.

She will beg me to have her, to hold her and to please me before the day is through. She will be mine; body, mind and soul. Will she come willingly? Depends on what you call willingly. She won’t come to me, not unless I bring her to that view. But to that view she will come. I will leave her with no other option. No one takes that which is mine, and lives to tell about it.

All which exists in this world, belongs to me. All that is mine, shall belong to no other. Nobody steels from Greed!

Tardiness

I sat there in the park, waiting on a bench for my date. A novel lay abandoned next to me, having grown bored of reading it. She was late, but that was no surprise, she was always late.

I pulled my phone out from my pocket and glanced at the time. She was later than usual today. Normally she’s only a little bit late, not fashionably late. But this is unusually late, so where could she be? She’s always been a little absent-minded, that’s why I believe her when she says that she loses track of time.

It makes sense, in a way. Her apartment is a fair distance away from where we always meet up, so how much she’s late correlates with how much time it would take her to get here on foot. But if she lost track of time, shouldn’t she be out of breath by running over here? Yet every time she’s late, she is perfectly composed and never out of breath, almost like she walked over here. But that makes no sense, unless she is in just that good of shape.

I’ve thought about driving over to her apartment to pick her up for each date, hell, I even suggested it when we first started going out. But she said that she would be fine, and that I don’t need to bother. I wasn’t too worried about that, if she wanted to be independent I’d let her, simple as that. So after the first couple times of her being late, I tried calling her a little while beforehand so that she remembers to leave on time.

However, she never answers her phone and is never here on time, so maybe just this once I could go pick her up. So I pick up my novel and head on out of the park to my car. Starting it up, I start heading on my way over there.

I’m attentive to her, I muse as I drive. I take care of her, get her what she wants, hell, I don’t even ask all that much of her. Just a hug when we see each other, perhaps a kiss if she feels up to it. Yet it never seems to satisfy her, so just what am I doing wrong? I give her the space she wants. I’m undemanding, flexible and willing to change for her. We see each other practically every day while at class in the local college.

Maybe she wants more from me, am I not giving enough of myself to her? I wonder what she thinks of me, she’s never outright said that she loves me, cares for me yes, but not love. Should I do something to make her reveal what she thinks of me? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, but what? Hold myself for ransom – no, that has a major possibility of going horribly wrong real quick. Accuse her of cheating on me – a possibility, but what if she actually is? I don’t think I could deal with that.

Oh! I know what I’ll do now. I’ll pretend to break up with her, that always works. Yeah, I’ll show up on her door and tell her that I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere and that I want to break up with her. If she loves me, then she would be devastated, maybe even beg me to stay with her. If she doesn’t, then most likely she’d just agree with me and we’d part ways.

But of course she cares about me, what was I thinking about? I do everything a boyfriend should do for their girl. I’m a gentleman, courteous and all that. There’s no way she doesn’t. So I’ll just let her beg me not to leave her for a bit, making it seem like she’s thawing me out, then agree to stay with her. It’s foolproof! There’s no way this could back-fire on me.

Nodding to myself, I park the car and head up the steps to her apartment door. I take a deep breath to center myself, and knock on the door.

Cleaver

Today was the day. The love of my life, my star of hope, today is the day I will propose to you. Five long years we have been together, like the moon and the stars in the sky we have always been close. Today is a day for celebration, but the world seemed to disagree.

Rain fell from the sky in heavy sheets, blinding me from seeing out the window. But I knew my way, my lover’s estate has been a long time visitation of mine and I could make my way there utterly blind. I shrugged on my raincoat and placed the ring box, containing the ring with a garnet imbedded into it, in my pocket. I looked over to the mirror by the door and made sure I was looking as best I could.

My shaggy black hair was neatly combed back into a low ponytail, a couple strands of hair loose and lying across my forehead. My dark brown eyes shone in anticipation, giving my naturally pale skin a supernatural glow to it. Finally, I was ready to leave, and leave I did.

I took off at a dead sprint for her estate, hoping to get as little rain on me as I could. I made good time, especially when the weather took a turn for the worse, lightning flashing near constantly in the background, thunder making my ears ring. I pulled a small silver key from my pocket and opened up the back door, wanting to surprise her.

I knew that at this time of day she would be taking a nap in her room, so I made my way there carefully. The house was dark, unnaturally so. The power must have gone out, I mused. As I made my way up the stairs, the storm continued to grow more and more violent. The lightning cast shadows in places there should not have been shadows, the thunder growing to epic proportions, threatening to tear down the walls in their fury.

I finally made it outside of my lover’s door, a light flickering under the door, most likely from a candle. Not wanting to wake her, I slowly and carefully pushed the door open, poking my head inside the door.

What I saw rattled me to the core. There she was, in all her natural glory. Her long platinum blonde hair fanned out on the bed. Her skin shined radiantly; sweat glistening down her lean body as she squirmed and gasped.

A loud moan broke me out of those thoughts and made me realize what was going on. On top of her, was another man. He had shoulder length red hair and was the one the moan had come from.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I refused to believe it.

I gazed into my love’s eyes and saw wanton lust in them, a heavy flush of pleasure permeating her cheeks. She was enjoying this, had wanted this. Why? Wasn’t I good enough for her? Weren’t we happy together?

No, we had been in love. There was no doubt about that. So why? I must be having a nightmare, I decided. Soon, I’ll wake up and realize this was all just a horrible dream.

So why wasn’t I waking?

I never noticed my feet taking me from the estate. I never noticed my body crying. Nothing registered to me. My world was shattered.

I fell, and just lied there on the ground, my body shaking from the repressed sobs. The rain stopped long after I passed out, it all becoming too much to bear.

Wow. These are really depressing, but they are beautifully written and offer a new outlook on the world and people around us, a powerful examination of the human psyche and the effects that love and lust can have on it. I was hooked throughout, even despite the especially dark nature of these vignettes. My favorite is "Cynical Love;" the flow and style is fantastic!

However, I am a "bit" of a Grammar Nazi, so a few repeated grammatical errors took a bit away from the impact of the writings for me. I understand, however, that writers' styles differ from each other and may contradict technicalities regarding grammar---my own writing often includes stylistic sentence fragments---so if any of my following tips go against your general writing style, feel free to disregard them!

Why does a person submit themselves voluntarily to such pain?

Only Grammar Nazis constantly use "himself or herself" when referring to singular, nonspecific nouns or pronouns, so I don't expect you to do that. However, there are other ways of correcting instances of third-person, plural pronouns referring to singular nouns. One way you could correct this sentence is:

Why does one submit oneself voluntarily to such pain?

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A novel lay abandoned next to me, having grown bored of reading it.

Okay, I obviously know what you are saying. But if you read this sentence literally, it sounds like you are saying that the novel grew bored of reading...itself...? This is an error that we grammar freaks like to call a modifier. Basically, it doesn't seem that the action (modifier) in the second clause is referring to anything logical. Here is a possible correction:

I have abandoned my novel and, having grown bored of it, placed it abandoned next to me.

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I wasn’t too worried about that, if she wanted to be independent I’d let her, simple as that.

You, good sir, have made a comma splice, which is quite possibly the most commonly made grammatical error in recent years. And I don't know why, but no matter what the context may be, comma splices annoy the crap out of me. (I should probably get that checked out.) It's a quick fix, though. If you want to fix it.

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Yeah, I’ll show up on her door and tell her...

Okay, now I am getting ridiculous; no need to point that out to me! XD Anyway, this is an error in word choice. This sentence, when taken literally, seems to imply that gravity has shifted in such a way that one could actually sit or stand on the surface of a door. You probably meant "doorstep." But this is really picky. Again, it's your writing!

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Whether or not you put my nitpicking to use, I can honestly say that the pluses already far outweigh the minuses. Good work!

Thanks for the critic!

-goes back to writing more-