A short story

[fidodido]

Here's a short story I wrote recently. My english is not so good, so you'd have to excuse me.

"Destiny" by Fidodido

  Dana is ugly, there's nothing you can do about it. At the age of 30, after being rejected by no less than 47 and a half guys, Dana decided to seek professional assistance. "You need to compromise, it wouldn't kill you to date ugly men, it's better than nothing". Dana thought about it, and agreed.

  In Mike's bar sat a man who's so ugly, that even the beer bottle refuses to come near his face, and each sip involved an inhumane effort. Dana walked in, and spotted him instantly. After a slight hesitation, she approached him, sat next to him and ordered herself a drink. He turned his head towards her, and suddenly shouted so loudly you think he saw a four headed beast threatening to swallow him whole, and ran out of the bar. Dana got used to those kinds of responses, but not from a man that ugly. She hasn't been humiliated like that since Todd 'half man' told her to go to hell in the surgery room in county hospital. Todd lost both feet when he fell off a bridge straight into a BMW cruising in the highway. He would have surely died if the top of the convertible was on, but lucky for him, it was a hot summer day. On the other hand, if it wasn't a hot day, he wouldn't pass out ten seconds before he reached the end of the ledge, in the final exams to the town's circus. Dana wiped for a few seconds, but got her senses quickly and went back to the shrink. "Don't give up just yet, I have an idea that can't miss".

  Shane didn't want a dog, or a cane. He didn't ask for any special treatment, too. "Just because I'm blind it doesn't mean that I can't get by on my own", he kept saying. Shane is alone for three months now, after his blind girlfriend went through a special treatment in England and got her eyesight back. When she saw Shane, she dumped him. Not because he didn't look good - she met a French tourist in the airport.

  Desperate Dana decided to wander around the streets until she bumps into a blind man. She's once seen a program in 'National Geographic' about the behavior of blind man, and was quite certain she would easily spot one. On a park bench sat a man with no cane, no dog and no sunglasses on, but she knew he was blind, not only due to the fact that he didn't scream when she approached him. She sat by him, and they talked for a few minutes. His name was Shane. After a few seconds of awkward pause, Shane decided to break the ice. "What do you look like?" Dana thought for a moment, and blurted "it's hard to describe, you know…" Shane suddenly lifted his hands towards her face, and felt it for a while. Then he just froze, and shouted loudly. Shane ran off like a mouse, and bumped into an oak tree. Now he was blind and cripple. Dana cried for a long time, and decided that she doesn't belong in a world so cruel.

  Dana was going to go home, where she keeps a gun ever since she was a child and all the kids in her class used to harass her. But very soon she realized that she can go to hell if she suicides. Then she remembered that there was one kid in her school, Hesus, who always threatened to kill her. She located his address, and rushed to his house. As he opened the door, she was surprised to realize that he's still the goon he was back then. "Dana??? You have exactly ten second to get lost, or I'll kill you". Dana didn't move an inch, and Hesus went into the kitchen and came back with a big butcher knife. He stabbed her in the stomach 8 times, and buried her in the backyard.

  "Next, please". Dana approached the desk clerk, and placed her palm in the scanner. The clerk looked at his computer, and decided. "Hell. Room 17-G". Dana was speechless. She demanded an explanation, and the clerk opened her file. All the squares were blue, except one which was red. The clerk told her that according to her file, she killed a little kid a few years ago. She knew she didn't do it, but she assumed Handsome Joel is responsible for that error. Joel always hated her, and she knew he has a big reputation up there. There was nothing she could do, and she made her way to room 17-G.

  The room was filthy and very smelly. Dana walked to the bathroom, and glanced at the mirror. She couldn't believe her own eyes. She was beautiful. She had a perfect face, almost divine. Dana was so happy, she danced around the room like a drunk. After she managed to relax, she sat on the couch. There was a magazine on the coffee table. She looked at the cover, and there was a photo of a woman with a twisted face, full of scars and pimples. Her nose was too big, her ears were too long. She looked like a troll. The headline under the photo read: "The race to the top of Isabel, the new beauty queen".



Please tell me what you think about the story. Have fun!

[Phemar]

Pretty good. Nice twist at the end!

[Ali]

Your english is better than any of my foreign languages! Your sentence construction is strong but you slip occasionally into the present tense when the majority of the story is in the past tense

"In Mike's bar sat a man who's so ugly, that even the beer bottle refuses to come near his face"

Could work better as:

"In Mike's bar sat a man who was so ugly, that even the beer bottle was refusing to come near his face"

The descriptive comparisons remind me of Raymond Chandler's style, but I'm afraid I don't understand who Handsome Joel is, or how he could have caused the error.

[fidodido]

I'm afraid I don't understand who Handsome Joel is, or how he could have caused the error.

Spoiler

Handsome Joel is someone from her past who hated her, and you can guess from the context that he was very religous ("good reputation up there" is a metaphore), and was able to change Dana's destiny.

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