“I met her in a cocktail bar, but she wasn’t working as a waitress. She was getting drunk like me at the counter…” (Sheal) This excerpt is a portion of the first few sentences of the piece that caught my attention.
For this month’s good read, I’ve chosen the short fiction piece, “Before the storm” written by Alex Sheal. The story follows the actions of a man getting into what it seems as a “one-night stand” with a woman at a cocktail bar. The story is, in my opinion, very nicely written. I believe a reader will understand the eloquence in Mr. Sheal’s writing especially once the circumstances of the voice of the story is taken into consideration. The story could have very easily been made into a smut piece with poor layout and development; however, the metaphors and very slight and subtle vulgar details gives the piece a great delivery that still has good taste. I must say I love the choices of language Mr. Sheal chose for his main character; my favorite being, “When we burst out the doors, it surprised me to see the hurricane had passed; moreso that not a drop of water lay in the street full of taxi drivers. Then I remembered it was November and a storm hadn’t rampaged through this city in months, years since a proper one” (Sheal). The irony within it is simple, but I admire the connection of leaving the bar and the incoherence of the weather outside without actually stating what is going on. I also admire how the story isn’t necessarily laid out bluntly. The reader catches the gist of the encounter through context clues and strategic detailing. My favorite point of the piece would have to be the very being and the end due to the similarities, and interesting turn of events that begin and end the story.
Although I enjoyed the piece, I do believe there are a few areas that could be altered to make the piece possibly stronger. For one, in my opinion, the author has some areas with excessive wording. The situations in some areas are described repetitively, and it takes away from the unique original description. The piece in my opinion also missed the opportunity to be elongated. The work had the potential to be a much longer piece that could have went into describing emotions or even describing the lack of emotion in the action. The author could have also given more thoughts or events that followed the encounter before he jumped to the twist ending; however, I suppose adding events before the ending would take away from the dramatic effect of it; I digress.
Even with my few thoughts on how the text could possibly be improved, it is nevertheless still a very nice piece to read. I would definitely recommend it as a quick read to anyone looking for a story that is short and full of some great choices in language. If you would like to read this work, click here.
