# Dislocation (Language).



## Prinkes (Jul 9, 2011)

_Title subject to change, but I'd love to hear what you think! This is the first two parts of a short story I'm working on. Thanks in advance for any feedback; apologies in advance for any formatting errors! Now, without further ado, I give you... Tobias! - Prinkes
_
             The first thing I noticed when I forced my eyes open was that the kitchen floor hadn’t been cleaned in a while. The blue and white tiles that had looked so promisingly _normal_ when we first moved in now sported several cracks and a layer of grime that I could feel seeping into my skin.

            The second thing I noticed was the excruciating pain in my right arm. Fire raged from my shoulder to my fingertips – it came over me in waves, each worse than the last. It felt like someone was cutting into my arm with a white-hot knife, cutting me down to the bone.

            After a few moments the pain lessened slightly, and I could manage to open my mouth without screaming. I was still in plenty of pain – my entire body felt bruised. I knew I was exaggerating, of course. Only about three-fourths of my body would have actual bruises.

            Groaning, I dragged myself to a sitting position. I leaned against the counter and brushed the hair out of my eyes. I was sitting across from the stainless steel refrigerator that came with the rented house, and I could see a fun-house mirror reflection of myself in it. It wasn’t the clearest picture, but I could still see some of the damage – a swollen lip, an eye only partly hidden by my shaggy brown hair just starting to go black – nothing I couldn’t hide under a hood. I could taste a little blood, but all of my teeth seemed to be accounted for. That was something.

           I looked down at my right hand, cradled in my left. It was swollen, and just felt _wrong_. I gazed at the fingers, willing them to move. This was not something I could hide under a hood. The last time it was this bad, I’d had a lot of questions to answer and a lot of lies to make up.

            I looked up at the ceiling, which had also been clean once, but now suffered the same marks of ruin as the rest of the house.

            “C’mon God,” I whispered, shutting my eyes tight. “Just one tiny finger twitch is all I need.”
            But the last person God or anyone else gave a fuck about was Tobias Rowley.

            For the first time in my sixteen years of life, second period gym could not come fast enough. If I couldn’t have a miracle, at least I’d have a plan. I wasn’t 100% sure what I would do about my shoulder, but I knew it started in the Blanc Woods gymnasium.

            When the bell rang after first period, I was out the door before it finished echoing throughout the halls. Ten minutes and one severely awkward struggle into my gym uniform later, I found myself lined up on the center line of the basketball court, my mind in over-drive to come up with something.

            Coach Wallins paced the gym floor in front of us, but I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. My entire being focused on my right arm. The pain was unbearable- every time my arm moved, it tore through me with newfound intensity.  Now it felt like there were a dozen white-hot knives in my shoulder– as if a gang of sadists had shown up to see how slowly they could filet my arm while I remained conscious. Probably not much longer, it was getting more and more difficult to stay on my feet.

            Coach Wallins was pointing and gesturing to either side of the gym, and I gathered that we were being separated into teams, but I didn’t remember him saying what we were playing. It took all my strength to shuffle off in the direction he pointed.

            I tried to focus on keeping my breathing steady, but strange things kept breaking my concentration. The ticking clock reminded me of how I was almost late this morning. That offense would’ve certainly warranted a phone call home – my heart pounded just thinking about the possibility. My sweatshirt smelled like spoiled milk and was about three sizes too big, but it was the easiest thing to maneuver into with only one hand. A yellow rubber ball caught my eye; dozens of them were being scattered around the gym floor. So we were playing dodge-ball today.

           “That’s helpful,” I muttered, studying the yellow balls.

           “Talking to yourself again, Tobias?” Deep, cruel laughter cut my thoughts short.

           I turned to see the champions of the lacrosse team, Seth Trevel and Victor Zernbog. It took a trained eye to tell one from one another – both were tall, wide, and cracked their knuckles before they drove them into your stomach. They were standing in front of me, each boasting a yellow ball and a vicious glint in their eyes.

             “Hey Tobias!” Seth called, a monstrous grin overtaking his face. “Why don’t you grab a ball and actually _participate_ in gym?” He punctuated each word with a slam of the ball, and his shirt strained with each twitch of his muscles. I wasn’t sure how the shirt-straining sports kids always knew to pick on the skinny hoodie-clad art kids, but they did. Maybe they could smell the paint on my hands – or maybe I was such an easy target that they just couldn’t help themselves.

_Don’t provoke them,_ I thought to myself. _Not yet anyway._ I pulled my hood over my head, almost over my eyes, and said nothing. My shoulder gave a nasty twitch, and I clutched at it with my left hand.

            Victor used a massive foot to slam a ball in my direction. “There ya go,” he jeered.  “Let’s see what you can do.” He cracked his knuckles one by one, and I had to fight down the urge to vomit.

            “Aww Victor, you know Tobias is a good-for-nothing,” Seth said. “Good-for-nothing, good _at_ nothing. I heard they even kicked him out of Art Club.” His laugh was loud and carried across the gym, echoing off the ceilings and walls. Other students looked towards us to see what was happening.

            “Oh yeah,” Victor said, stroking his chin, pretending to think. “Something about his dark-ass drawings scaring the _shit_ out of people, right?” His laughter mixed with Seth’s. I cringed at the words, and they laughed harder.

            Make that a skinny, hoodie-clad, _former _art kid. The “incident” had occurred just days before, and the memory still stung. The ball Victor had kicked rolled to a stop a few feet away. I tried to reach down to grab it, but pain tore though my shoulder and I let out a cry of pain.

            Seth and Victor burst into laughter again, this time joined by the other students. I shut my eyes tight, but I couldn’t block the sound of Seth imitating the squeal that had escaped my lips, much to the other student’s amusement. I felt my face grow hot, though whether it was from the rage, or the embarrassment, or the pain, I couldn’t say.

            Slowly, the pain waned. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. Slowly the gym came into focus; Coach Wallins was sorting the last of the class. Time for my plan to come into action. I winked at Seth, grinned, and flipped him the bird.

            A whistle blew, a ball was thrown, and a second later, it was all over. I heard the slap of rubber against my cheek before I felt it, but it didn’t take long to register the pain. I twisted as I fell, making sure to land on my right side. The sickening _crunch_ of bones and joint smashing together echoed in my ears. I had never heard a more beautiful sound.


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## xxaznvanxx (May 29, 2013)

I'm confused which is the first part because the top doesn't connect to the bottom. I'm like whats going on


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## Glyph (Jul 1, 2013)

Yeah, I think it's good. It is kind of confusing, like  xxaznvanxx said, but I think that is what you are going for. I think if anything, I am most intrigued, considering in the beginning, Tobias is hurt and he doesn't like it (obviously), but later on, it seems as though he wanted it on himself. I'm trying to think if the part after the line is perhaps a flashback of what happened? But, again
, see, it's a little confusing. 
Other than that, I feel as though it is a little cliché. I mean, the 'cool' jocks picking on the lame art kid who's socially awkward. And the kid trying to fend himself by backtalking the jocks (i.e. flipping him off), and getting creamed anyway. It was kind of forseen and predictable. Again, this is just the beginnings, so I can't say it's a bad storyline, alls I'm saying is that it's just a bit overdone (but this image can definitely change as you continue writing). 
I am, however, excited to hear more, just the end where you said Tobias finds beauty in that crackling of bone, is stuck in my head, and I want to know why he thinks that. 

Good luck with this!


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## Stephanie1980 (Aug 8, 2013)

Good day Prinkes, 

First off Kudos on writing a short story. Always be willing to learn and grow best advice for a writer or aspiring writer, such as myself. Here are my suggestions for your short:

The begging of your story needs to have a *set up* that is more elaborate. Remember to answer the: _who, what, where, when_, _how_, when writing a story. Write an introduction letting the reader know _who_ and _what _they are reading before jumping into the *inciting incident* which was the _pain_ the main character was feeling in his right arm. 

If this is a young adult _short _you will need to clean up the bad language. 

_“But the last person God or anyone else gave a fuck about was Tobias Rowley.”_

I personally have no issues with swear words but if you intend to post it you may want to change “_fuck” _into _“frige”_  or _“fudge”_ or _“frix”_ something along those alternate words. *hehe
 
After reading the whole story I think you have some great elements working for you. 

- A sixteen year old boy, different, outcast, nerd.
- High School politics during gym class – the strong pick on the weak. 
- The physical pain a young boy has to endure in his shoulder and right arm. 

But you have to re-write it to make those elements work. The reader has to understand why and how the main character has this pain in his right arm. Is he sick? Does he have a physical disability? You have to hint at it in your content. I did not read that thus far. Also, the elements of a short story are important.

*Plot, Character, Setting, Atmosphere, Style. *

I felt that there was no Exposition (where the story occurs). The Crisis (the conflict was there and I understood it from your story, the pain in his arm, but it needs to have more detail), The Rising Action (is seen at the gym), The Climax (I guess was when he got hit with the ball), but there was no Falling Action (the action that leads to the resolution or final outcome) and again the ending was weak, the reader needs to read a lesson learned or how the main character changed in some way. 

My guess was this story was about a young man trying to overcome physical pain along with emotional pain and the challenge of surviving the harshness of school bullies. Which is a good story idea, work on it! Again, I liked it, just needs to be edited and written some more, just my food for thought. :brilsmur:

_Cheers,_
Steph


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## A_Jones (Mar 14, 2014)

I am going to limit my comment to the first couple paragraphs.  I loved them.  I LOVE LOVE when stuff starts out this way.  It grabs at your reader and they start asking questions.  When a reader starts asking questions you are doing something right.  What happened? Why is this person on the floor?  But then you have wonderful imagery and feelings and thoughts.   I love that.  Keep it up through the whole thing.


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## bioclasm (Apr 5, 2014)

I guess it was just my bias going, but with the title "Dislocation" and the opening led me to believe he teleported, and landed wrong, injuring his arm. Which was the one thing that propelled me to read more. From that line of thought, it all made sense. But with nothing confirming my theory at the end, I'm now left extremely confused as to why his arm is hurt. I also have little reason to care about why the MC is hurt, since I haven't seen why. The bullying helps to build a bit of sympathy, but it's lost in that it does feel very cliche. Jocks picking on art kid in gym class. 

I understand that he's setting up a situation to get hurt to hide the injury, which made sense in my teleporting theory, but without any context of the injury I'm left wondering why he wants to hide it. 

If it's abuse, as I'm starting to wonder by the line "The last time it was this bad, I’d had a lot of questions to answer and a lot of lies to make up," then I would like to see it in action. There wouldn't be much of reason, at least that I can think of, to keep abuse a secret from the reader.

I would advise working on the opening to help us see more of the character and the situation leading to the injury, in order to better make us sympathize with the character and not feel as lost. I think using the gym to mask an injury is pretty clever, and I'd keep it. Though you might consider finding a different way to bully your MC without it being jocks. 

Hope that helps. I would like to see more from you, so keep it up.


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## thepancreas11 (Apr 5, 2014)

bioclasm brought up a good point...is he being abused?

When one of your critics illuminates a plot point, you might want to revisit the logistics of your story. Honestly, I just couldn't make sense of this. I have a hard time believing that 1) someone who dislocated their shoulder would ever try to hide it, and 2) that they could hide it for long enough to get to gym class, what with all the teachers, students, friends, parents, and other miscellaneous family members that they come across in any given day. Now, if physical abuse caused the injury, I can start to piece things together. That explains the dark pictures, the view on God, the fact that he's trying to hide the injury, all of which could be explained if you maybe just introduced the person that abused him or mention some kind of family-related trauma. As you can see from bioclasm above, you've left it a bit too open ended. I thought he was trying to hang himself at first, and that's how he fell. For all we know, he could be an extreme sports enthusiast. All that being said, I've dislocated my shoulder before, and I don't think there's any way the kid gets all the way to gym with that limb hanging lifeless at his side all day. If you're going for physical abuse, I'd pick something that's easier to hide. I broke my hand once and hid that for a couple of days (in a hoodie, no less). The injury needs to be something less obvious for me.

A second tiny thing: I've never had a problem with cursing. I think it has it's place in writing, maybe a little less so in a YA novel (or maybe more, I'm not sure on that given the way kids speak nowadays), but that line about the last person God would give a fuck about...? That killed all sympathy for him pretty much immediately. We all have problems, some of them way more than others, but I'm pretty sure that last person he would care about would be Hitler or Stalin or something (from a holiness point of view), and if you're going with who's getting the shaft...? People crushed by earthquakes, starved in famines, drowned in floods/tsunamis, and those that live in countries well below the poverty line with incredible infant mortality rates, rampant disease, food shortages, and very low life expectancies. If you're in a first world country with a roof over your head (as long as you're not enslaved by the roof owner), I think God at least gives one f*** about you.

With all that said, you possess a very natural tone, one that bodes well for YA because well, in places, it sounds juvenile. There's definitely an aura of middle-schoolness to this kid. He doesn't use overly complicated language, he speaks in direct sentences, he doesn't have overly elaborate thoughts, you've put him in a situation that just about every kid ever finds himself in, and you really approach the problem the way an adolescent would. Great job getting into the mind of your character. Great job writing to the situation. Outside of the premise, you show an awful lot of promise. I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of the two scenes, that they were both in his head, really, but that they were contrasting styles: one more sarcastic and angry, the other desperate and scared.

Keep posting! I know you're a bit of a veteran, but I haven't read too much of your stuff. Is there anything else you'd like me to read?


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