NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Offer up your page (or query) for Nathan's critique on the blog.
jcgower
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by jcgower » February 5th, 2022, 10:49 am

Title: Kingdom of Sand and Bones
Genre: YA Fantasy

The heavy scent of smoke and bitter twang of ale fill the tavern, the mumblings of the patrons occasionally punctuated by an angry accusation of cheating at dice. My brown wool cloak is pulled low, hiding the golden waves that inspired my father to call me his little lion. At the thought of him, my fingers tighten around my cup of now-warm ale as my lips pull into a frown.
“You need to focus, Maafi,” murmurs Lelia next to me. The ghost of my sister, her twelve year old frame frozen at the moment she died, looks decidedly out of place among the sailors and gamblers and thieves. As the largest of the six isles, Adriata’s ports are where the scummiest of scum find harbor as they wait for storms to pass or for new jobs that will take them elsewhere. It also means that this is where we get the most news from my old home, if I can put up with the odor.
My lips twitch. “I am focused,” I whisper angrily. A solid body stumbles into my back, mumbling a slurred apology before shuffling to a crowded table where a game of dice has just begun. The movement splashes my full ale onto the table, but I’m standing and edging my way out of the room. When I reach the door, I dare a quick glance back the way I came, but no one seems to have followed.

angieb
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by angieb » February 6th, 2022, 9:41 pm

Title: Immortal Wounds
Genre: Fantasy Fiction

Those who live in New England recognize the early whispers of winter. Daytime diminishes, leaving the sky more dark than light and the leaves, in their thick curtains of burgundy, amber and burnt orange, seemingly drop from their branches overnight, carpet the earth, and die. Light rainfall succumbs to snow, its brilliant pallor blinding as it layers upon the frozen ground while cold air invades donning the necessity of coats, hats, and gloves for every human who steps foot outdoors. The winter season shows no mercy to anyone who takes up residence in its space. And like the dull sky that materializes overhead, an aura of gloom soon spreads like wildfire, casting a melancholy spell over the young and old alike. But for Isobel, who was rarely bothered by cold temperatures, falling snow, and brisk winds, a sense of joy would reign this season. The birth of her daughter.
The child was due in January, the coldest month of winter, but Isobel knew she would arrive in December. December 21, to be exact—the Winter Solstice. A birthdate the girl, who had been named Charlotte, would share with her mother, grandmother, and all her female ancestors. Well, at least all who had been born with a gift.
It was during one of those frigid northern gusts, the kind that howls past covered ears and sends repeated shivers down one’s spine, that the shrill sound of a scream carried to the water’s edge and stopped Isobel mid step. She turned away from the dim ray of twilight that illuminated the horizon. It was barely six a.m.

MaryDuquette
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by MaryDuquette » February 10th, 2022, 4:41 pm

Adult Lit Fic
70,000 words

Chapter One
July 15, 1967
Dear Violet,

This is what I remember:

1. The gray field.
2. The wind.
3. The rain.
4. The river.
5. Nothing at all.

Here’s the thing. The clincher. I may or may not remember any of it. Maybe it’s just a dream I had, a hazy wish, fingers crossed in the middle of the night, whispering words on a shooting star. A longing to be exceptional. Maybe I just pretend I remember. Okay, I was only a baby. It’s a long shot.

So, what I imagine happened is this: The wind pelted the earth with rain and marble-sized hail. It skittered across my face like a caress. The rain - first a sprinkle, then a torrent, then a drizzling spit, adhered to my skin in a glaze, the soak of it in my pores creating a union, breathing into me and making me the essence of it so that any kind of aggression would have been almost cannibalistic.

Of course, I was too young to contemplate such a thing, too soft to retain it. But the grass held me, and the wind rocked me, and I was saved. Not in any religiousy kind of way. God wasn’t involved in this one, at all. If there is a God in all this. You could say I was reclaimed. Somebody standing over me, saw the whole thing. Or hearing my cries, wandered over. Or maybe it was a group of them, rescuers in their shells, protective suits and helmets floating around on their bodies like hermit crabs - moving sideways to get a look at this little wet bulb of a baby, this aberration. Picked me up and carried me to wherever home was. I don’t know where home was. You see, I don’t remember

I didn’t want to leave, though. That much I’m sure of. I was taken with the earthy flora and the fallen light and the green sky and the tornado that lifted me and set me so gently down. A silent symphony. It was buried in me, by that time. Already sucked inside, a creature inhabiting a creature, part of my breath and my blood. I wanted to ride that tornado, again and again. To be forever linked to it and up in the air and spinning around. They =say I was lucky to be alive. Lucky, although I don’t know if luck had anything to do with it. Lucky that it lifted me up and transported me for miles. They say I was carried over the Mississippi River and into that field, where it lay me as tender as a mother laying down her baby in a crib. Like that. Of course, I have to reiterate that I don’t remember.'

It’s with me, still, somewhere. Whipping like a cascade, like one of those things at the fair. What are they called, Violet? The Funnel Rocket. You get in one of those and you feel like you’re being shot all the way to the moon. For a quarter you can spread your pseudo-wings and fly like the most complicated bird in the world, or at least go a few feet in the air while being stuffed into this electronic device that turns and twists as you rise. They had it at the Spring Harvest Fair last year - the one in North Comstock. I sat in that thing and closed my eyes and imagined I was in the tornado. When it was over, I acted dumb, like I didn’t know my ass from my elbow, and clamped down in the seat. They couldn’t get me out of it, no matter what they did. They didn’t dare touch me. They probably thought I was contagious, like they’d catch whatever I had. The dreaded-non-speaking-weirdo disease. I sat without moving and I heard them talking.

“Get her the hell out of there.”

“She’s dumb. I don’t even think she understands what we’re saying.”

“Don’t call her that. Christ, she’s just a kid.”

“I’m not calling her anything. She can’t talk. She’s that O’Shea girl – the one what lives past the Eldridge place, down across Bainbridge. She’s honestly dumb. As in, the dictionary definition.”

I heard them pause. They were looking at me, I’m sure of it. One thing you can always count on is people treating you a little softer once they believe you’re a half-wit with nothing but seventy-five cents and a licorice whip in your pocket.

They stood around like seagulls on the beach waiting for someone to leave behind their potato chip bag, wondering if they should move me. I pressed my eyes closed tighter, so the lights from the arcades flickered behind my eyelids and disappeared. I could sense them there - they didn’t know what to do with me and it drove them crazy.

“Leave her on,” I heard one of them say. “Let her have one more ride.”

The moon’s shifted, just now, and something’s different about the air. The storm is getting nearer, as certain as the sound of Louise-the-goat braying like a small, tufted madwoman, running in circles in the yard until someone strokes her wiry back and says, “there, there.” I can feel it coming from the ocean, in my marrow, cataclysmic, egging me on to jump out and join it. My fingers tingle and I wiggle them like I’m playing some unseen piano. I’m sure there’ll be hail the size of small chipmunks and Bridger will put down her paintbrushes and scream at Joey in her British accent to go the hell outside and get her she’ll die out there why does she have to do this every single time she’s going to drive me insane one of these days I’ll be in the nuthouse I swear. And Joey will plod out in his hat and his big boots and look for me in the tall grass, but I’ll be behind the barn, reaching my arms up as far as I can, wanting to be spirited away like before, so I can fly - really soar, as if I have no reason to be stuck on earth. I’ll wait on the edge of the wind for the storm to transport me, lie down on the grass with whipping dirt flying in my eyes and hair, until Joey comes and lifts me up in his arms, his careful eyes troubled, and so kind that I am almost sorry for being the child of the tornado – sorry that he is compelled to find me and carry me back inside again.

dream521
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by dream521 » February 10th, 2022, 4:43 pm

Title: The Red Sneaker
Genre: Paranormal thriller

I need to get this said first thing: When I was five, I killed my mother. Not with my hands or a gun or anything like that, but with my thoughts, or whatever the heck was going on inside my head that awful night. Months later, when I was able to even think about it without screaming—but before I had begun talking again—I decided that what happened was some sort of magic, bad magic, and I had better make sure I never did anything like that again.
So I sort of pulled in my welcome mat. I stifled the tendency kids normally have to poke their noses into the world and see what’s what. It was easy to do, given that my mother’s death had pretty much turned my father into a recluse. He went to school every day (he was a high school civics teacher—still is), bought groceries for us, clothes and school stuff for me, answered the phone if it rang, but beyond that his longest journey each day was from his easy chair to his bed. And I was happy to be left alone in my room, reading books I borrowed from the school library and the Collier’s Encyclopedia my father bought one time from a door-to-door salesman when I was eight.
If you remember the story of Sleeping Beauty, it’s as if what I did to my mother was a finger prick that poisoned my life by draining the color and excitement out

jtgarrison97
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by jtgarrison97 » February 10th, 2022, 5:37 pm

Untitled
Genre: YA speculative

It was the fall of a few years ago (I was eleven and a half) when it started—all the running away, the time-skipping, the giant, the spirit lady, the fog, the enchanted woods—but I’ll get to that in a moment. My name’s Frederick by the way. I know. It’s a pretty big name for a pretty small kid, but I try my best to make up the difference with a bit of gusto toward my parents and anyone who calls me Fred or Freddy. I live in one of those little cookie-cutter towns in the Midwest, just off the slopes of the Rockies—you know the type: it’s just a marker on most people’s journeys between more important places; there’s a highway on the east side of town; the tallest building is the chain hotel; there’s a line of tall-façade buildings from the wild west days that merges unceremoniously with a strip mall; then, there’s the endless stagnant pool of suburbia and the hordes of people going about routines.
Anyway, I’d just had a rather subpar summer full of days I spent regretting the waste of my free time on boredom and regret. I blame it on the other kids. There aren’t a lot in my neighborhood, and the ones at the school—even my friends—spend most of their waking hours staring at a screen, and I just get bored with that. The thing is though, I haven’t a clue what else to do.

Quarterwit
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by Quarterwit » February 12th, 2022, 1:51 am

Title: MAN DOWN!
Genre: Thriller

“Man down! Man down!”

Ducking even lower, hiding his head in his shoulders, glad to be alive, the Chief Inspector looked across at his companion, “We can’t let this carry on. Is there nothing we can do, Sergeant? He's already hit six policemen. Six highly trained policemen. Some of them armed. I still can't pinpoint exactly where they’re being shot from".
The grey haired, hard looking sergeant was ex-army and knew a thing or two about being shot at. He took off his dark blue, peaked cap and banged it on his thigh to remove some imaginary dust. Slowly scratching his head, he raised himself up to try to get a better view of what was happening, quickly ducking back down again, body tensed against any bullets that may be coming in his direction.
He shook his head. He had no gun so there was nothing he could do anyway.
He shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do, Sir.” “We’re pinned down here ‘till someone can sort out a diversion and we can move to a better position.”
Replacing his cap, he sucked in a deep breath. He looked up in preparation for giving his opinion on the person or persons shooting at them. He wouldn’t normally offer advice to a superior officer but he knew this one had virtually no front line experience. He wanted to help.

JGSilverman1106
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by JGSilverman1106 » February 19th, 2022, 9:37 pm

Title: The Grafter
Genre: Portal Fantasy

My mom was kidnapped on my thirteenth birthday, and it should have been me.

Thirteen. In Jewish families, thirteen is a special year. Boys become ‘men’ and girls are proclaimed ‘women’ after participating in a ceremony known as a Bar (for boys) or Bat (for girls) Mitzvah.

I should have studied for months, memorizing Hebrew prayers so I could lead a two-hour service in front of a congregation and be awarded my tallit. All that was well and good, but I was in it for the party afterwards where I expected to spend the afternoon gossiping about boys in our Hebrew school class, playing games with my friends, and dancing badly to a DJ.
None of that happened for me, though.

I had finished preparing for school and, wanting to look cute for my birthday, I picked my favorite outfit: high-waisted jeans, black leather jacket with silver buckles, and Converse sneakers. My hair did its usual fight over how frizzy it wanted to be, as if I’d stuck my finger in an electrical outlet, but I tamed the shrew within fifteen minutes with my straightener.

My room was a wreck. Carpet was buried beneath stacks of books, my guitar pedal board, and gear. While most girls’ bedrooms might be painted pink, with lavender drapes paired with bubble gum comforters, I had a black bedspread and a black accent wall. Black went with everything.

Mom shouted from downstairs. “Libby, get down here now!” My bedroom window rattled after several large bumps and thuds came from below. I had no clue what mom planned, but it sounded big. Maybe it was a drum set. Three years ago on the morning of my birthday, she surprised me with a guitar, so I had been riding a buzz, gliding on air, anticipating what was in store for this year. How could she top a Fender Stratocaster except with a drum set?
Last edited by JGSilverman1106 on February 19th, 2022, 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

HopeRidesWest
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by HopeRidesWest » February 19th, 2022, 9:48 pm

Title: The Thresher: Old Souls
Genre: Urban Fantasy

First 250 words:

I hate witches.

To be clear, I’m not talking about the ladies you remember from old reruns of Scooby-doo. You know the ones, all gussied up in black robes and pointed hats. The kind with big, green noses that chase Shaggy and the gang during a knock-off Monkees song. Those witches are fine. I’d kill for one of those.

Matter of fact, I have.

No, I hate the real kind of witch. The kind that seems harmless enough, maybe even nice. She’s somebody’s aunt. She gives great advice, and drops by every now and then with a loaf of fresh baked bread or a pie. She’s quirky, maybe she raises bees or rescues owls or foxes or something. Maybe she even runs a stall in the farmers market on Saturdays, selling locally sourced honey. Just a few dollars per jar? That’s too good to be true.

Because it is. Mrs. Bledsoe or Baffert or whatever-the-fuck-her-name-is ain’t selling honey. She’s selling curses. Just a splash of blood and a drop of virgin’s piss, and suddenly the whole town is under her control. Suddenly she’s mayor. Suddenly she’s rich.

Suddenly kids start dying.

It’s always the kids first. Don’t ask me why. But whenever kids start disappearing you can bet your ass there’s magic involved. That’s what brought me to Cairo, Kentucky. I’d seen the disappearances on television, and I’ve dealt with enough weird shit in my years to recognize weird shit when I see it. Half a dozen high-school girls missing,
Last edited by HopeRidesWest on February 19th, 2022, 9:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

NBSmith
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by NBSmith » February 20th, 2022, 8:32 am

A Faery, A Mop and A Mole
Middle Grade Fantasy
(Page 1)

Eckel glanced up and down the empty streets. No one had seen him sneak into Goblin Town but if he waited any longer the streets would fill up and someone would eventually spot him and start asking questions. Nerves on edge, he stared at the battered door of the Goblin Town Inn. The choices before him ran through his head. Open the door or leave. Break the rules or follow them. Stay safe or step into the unknown. Eckel took a deep breath. What could possibly go wrong, he reasoned. After all, I am a prince.

He pushed the heavy door open just enough to slip in unseen while sounds of squabbling creatures, grunts, roars, screams and ear piercing laughter blew passed him. The door slammed shut behind him with a heavy thud. Blinking furiously, his eyes finally adjusted to the faint light from flickering candles on tables and wall brackets that bounced off the loud creatures clustered around tables in the crowded inn. Moving slowly, his back sliding against the wall, Eckel avoided the tables and the chance bumping into anyone or anything in the packed room.

The room smelled awful. He stepped on something squishy and a vile odor wafted up. Eckel paused to scrape the stuff off on the wall while fighting the rising bile in his throat and the fading courage in his chest. Too late to go back, he thought and continued moving as silent as a shadow until he reached the back of the inn where an ugly ogre stood in front of a dirty curtain of rags. With one hand holding up a large candle spewing smoke, the ogre looked at him with beady red eyes.

“Whadda ya want, ya filthy faery?” croaked the ogre.

Eckel hadn’t planned on meeting an ogre and with no ready answer, began to stammer something when a deep voice cut through the curtain.

“You’re late. I thought your kind was taught manners."

SonjaMcG
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by SonjaMcG » February 28th, 2022, 9:00 pm

The Warren House Ghost
YA (I think or older MG)


Lizzy held the blade against her left hand. It glistened with the speckled rays of the morning sun coming through the window. Tired. She was so tired. Tired of not sleeping and never being good enough. She wasn’t like them. She couldn’t do anything the way a proper Warren would. As she stared at the knife, she realized that she couldn’t even kill herself properly. She wondered how a Warren would do that.
Startled by an unexpected shout from her sister Maria, Lizzy dropped the knife. She reached out to catch it but the blade sliced her palm. “Darnit!”
Lizzy pulled her bleeding hand to her chest. “What are you doing home?”
“What the…” Maria ran to the sink, grabbed a paper towel and rushed back to Lizzy. She applied pressure to Lizzy’s hand then brushed Lizzy’s red hair out of her face. “What the hell do you think you’re trying to do? Kill yourself?”
The cut hurt, especially with Maria holding it so tightly. Lizzy gasped but it came out rather like a giggle.
“This isn’t funny. You could have killed yourself.”
“I couldn’t do it.”
“That’s not what it looked like to me.”
Lizzy groaned the misunderstood groan of all youth, raised her eyes and sweetly said, “You saved me.”
“Jesus, Lizzy, I can’t watch over you anymore.”
Maria, still applying pressure, helped Lizzy get up. Lizzy staggered, a bit woozy from lack of sleep, or perhaps it was from the blood. It was so bright, so red.

learn
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by learn » March 26th, 2022, 9:17 pm

Sonia headed to The Club in the dark, her red scarf tightened against the cold March wind. She assumed that no one would be there to bother her after curfew.
The room was barely lit. She liked playing piano in the dark and she didn’t have sheet music to read anyway.
After about an hour of playing parts of the Second Liszt Concerto and humming the orchestra, she lowered the piano cover. She would have played longer, but after standing a full day in the kitchen and working at the school, her ankle had been bothering her, and now it was hurting quite badly. She took the felt boot off. It had rubbed against the bandage she was wearing, and it oozed.
As she put the boot back on, she felt a presence in the room. Peering through the darkness, she saw a man seated a few feet away from her with the chair’s back rest in front of him. He smiled at her as if he'd been there for some time.
She was glad that the dim light kept him from seeing her blush. Who was he? And why was he here to intrude on her time? She limped towards the chair where she had left her coat. From there, she could see him better, and now, she remembered, it was the handsome man she had seen at the school the day she visited her students after the kitchen accident. She remembered thinking that she wanted to see his eyes.

jsmith95
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by jsmith95 » March 28th, 2022, 8:12 am

Title: The Accidental Empress
Genre: Science Fiction

“Time is not a flow. It is a maelstrom, exploding outward at the speed of light from every possible point, enabling every conceivable variation of history. These variations occur in timelines, each as `real' as our world.

The Australian Aborigines sensed their existence, calling them `songlines' — as though the gods were singing worlds into being in an infinite and eternal choir…”
  — Lecture 3 to Special Program Eight, Temple of Knowledge, Alessandra Evans.

As she came home from school on a crisp Fall afternoon, seventeen-year-old Kristín Ormsdóttir didn’t feel the universe shift and spawn ten thousand new timelines.
At the front door, her mother, Viktoria, sobbed and hugged her.
“What is it, mom? What are you doing home?”
“They're waiting for you, honey.”
“Who's waiting for me?”
“Just go…”
On her indoor crutches, Kristín hobbled into the living room to see her father, Ormur, and a man with a ruddy face and a bushy red mustache whom she recognized as the mayor, Per Holmsson.
Her older brother, Víkingur, leaned against their upright piano.

larsvonawesome
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by larsvonawesome » April 1st, 2022, 2:41 pm

Title: The Cultist
Genre: Speculative Thriller

Nature gave no comfort. The dogs were barking and the searchers could not hear their own thoughts. The rising sun gave the field of switchgrass and thistle a bloodied tint and the coolness of the morning froze their breath in the air. Somnambulant in his movements, the detective made his way towards the mass of people and the father with grief stained on his face stood silently next to him.

“Thanks all for coming out here.” He cleared his throat, speaking a little louder. “Thanks for coming out. Make sure you’re signed in. Sammy could have wandered out here and gotten lost or hurt. Check in every nook out there, there’s a lot of places he may have gotten himself wedged into. And let me know if you see anything, find anything. Don’t go chasing anything by yourself...” Detective Sergeant Irving Christie had a way of mumbling and trailing off, but those standing there didn’t wait to hear more.

Sammy Highhouse, four years old, had been missing for 24 hours. His father Sam Sr. and his mother Julie had woken the morning before and thought he was still asleep in his bed. They made love and told no one about this when questioned later (oh, of that shame that Julie felt in her blood). When they found his room empty and the back door open, Julie called the police and Sam his friend on the force. The father was hopeful they would find the boy.

billparker23
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by billparker23 » June 17th, 2022, 4:45 pm

Chapter 1

The bold face, 144 point headline atop the January 9, 2019 issue of the Appleton Gazette, Appleton’s weekly newspaper, read, “APPLETON TO ARM SCHOOLS”. The article, written by the Appleton Gazette’s chief reporter, Sam Steuart, covered the front page above the crease and continued on to fill all of page five. The article reported, “In the first week of January, immediately following Christmas vacation, the Appleton School Board announced a vote of 9-0, adopting a resolution allowing teachers, administrators and staff to carry a concealed weapon in all Appleton’s schools. The school board conditioned its approval on requiring each person who would carry a concealed weapon on school property taking and passing a rigorous training program and obtaining a concealed weapons permit.”

“A special commendation goes to Jack Carson and Annie Kenndey. Jack Carson, an Appleton High School history teacher, initiated the proposal and advocated to arm teachers, administrators and staff in all Appleton schools. Likewise, Annie Kennedy, also an Appleton High School history teacher, passionately argued against the proposal. Both teachers should be applauded for their highly informative and very helpful presentations.”

“Jack Carson, a forceful proponent of arming teachers, administrators and staff in Appleton schools, is an impressive man, both physically and mentally. Jack grew up in Appleton and married his childhood sweetheart, a girl also from Appleton. Jack and his wife, Jan, have three kids, two sons and a daughter. Jack is an Iraq War veteran of three tours where he was twice wounded and was honored with two purple hearts,”

“Jack Carson opened his presentation by citing the many recent and horrific school shootings. ‘On December 14, 2012, 26 children were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Another 2 were wounded. On Jun 7, 2013, six people were killed and four wounded by a gunman with an AR-15 assault rifle in the Santa Monica College shooting. And now these shootings are getting much more frequent and more kids are being shot and killed. Just earlier this year, on February 14, 17 students and teachers were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Another 17 were wounded, many very seriously. And later this year, on May 18, 10 students and teachers were killed at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. 13 others were wounded. All these shootings I have mentioned followed the April 1999 mass killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. And many of you may not be aware of this, but even here in Oregon, we have had at least five school shootings over the years. We have a national epidemic of school shootings and we need to do something about it.’”

“Jack Carson continued, ’According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control advocacy group, which obviously is not on our side of this issue, 15 states now allow teachers

rddyer55
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Re: NEW - Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog

Post by rddyer55 » July 29th, 2022, 1:03 pm

July 1975

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Ted, my best friend and roommate, was on the kitchen floored pinned under the massive weight of our biggest resident, Henry.

“What the hell is going on here?” I yelled from the door. My reflexes kicked in, and before Henry could react, I pulled him off. I locked Henry’s arms behind his back while he struggled against me. Even though Henry outweighed me by a good 30 pounds, adrenaline put me in control. The fact that I was 18 and a college jock also gave me an edge. Ted grabbed a chair, climbed to his feet and, after he straightened himself out, said, “Let him go, Mike”

That was against every instinct I had. Ted couldn’t have weighed half as much as Henry. While he was two years older than me, he was a shrimp by comparison. I shot Ted a warning look, but he stared back at me with control in his eyes. After hesitating for a moment, I said, “You better not breathe unless I say so.”

I loosened my grip and Henry stood between us. Surprisingly, despite his own anger, he made no move but just glared at us. Ted was breathing rapidly from the excitement. I think he knew he won a gamble. This was the first time Henry resorted to a physical attack to try and get his way so there was no way to know what might have happened.

Ted acted like this was normal. “I think you realize what you’ve done. It’s going to be a long time before you ever leave this house again. Now go to your room.” My eyebrows shot up when Henry went upstairs without another word. His head hung like a child who had been punished.

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