So for this week’s blog I was struggling with a topic that I had felt passionate about for a while, and while I have a few things in the works I think that I will most likely save them for future dates, so for today I decided I wanted to sample a bit of my novel and if you don’t mind I would love feedback on my introduction on anyone willing to give it. Thanks!!! :)))
“So, what does it mean.”
Jude hated this question. “What does it mean,” as if his words would give light to the beauties within the elaborate winding halls of Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art. It was as if the reflection of the large marble pillars across the museum had reflected poorly into the eyes of these tourists and left them unable to think straight. “What does it mean?” Jude scoffed under his breath as he walked past Abir, his coworker giving a tour. Jude had never been one to have a high tolerance for people who asked arbitrary questions like that, at least when it came to art. Maybe it was because he was pretentious, or maybe it was because of those late nights where he would wake up and go to the bathroom and look at himself, looking for something. He was looking for a part of himself that he could not find, not because he lost it or he was lacking that specific attribute, it was because it was here in this museum. In the paintings, in the slick, washed, hardwood floors, in the white collared shirt, black suit, and golden name tag that he was required to wear everyday when he came into work. Every time he walked among the art he knew that he had felt more complete than he had in his entire life, and some people had the audacity to ask what it meant.
As 5pm finally struck and the nightly Janitors came in, Jude, finally grabbing his long wool overcoat and taking his black earmuffs out of his bag, began to traverse down the concrete stairs in the front of the building. 59 steps. There were 59 steps going down the museum staircase, and Jude lightly rested his polished black loafers on every single one. A routine that he had picked up a few months ago. This wasn’t the extent of the small details that he had discovered about the museum in the four years that he had worked there however. The number of benches on every floor, the steps it took to get from one exhibit to another, these details kept Jude’s mind occupied during the times that he found the museum barren and all the tasks that he had been assigned completed.
The path back home was long, not because he had to walk two blocks to the subway station and take two trains, but because he had left his copy of the Piquit Papers next to his bedside that morning so the extent of his entertainment on the ride home was now bound to whatever he could hear the people on the subway talking about. He owned a cell phone, however that was only because of his mother, who insisted if he was going to leave Chicago that he was to at least have a mode of communication with her.
“I don’t know Amy, it’s not like I don’t understand what she’s saying she’s just being too much, ya know?” The women sitting adjacent to Jude on the train that afternoon said into her cell phone,
“Exactly, it’s like she’s making me out to be the bad guy.”
Jude always found himself with a lower tolerance of people that he considered loud, while a part of it was because of an annoyance accompanied with a slight headache, another part of it seemed to be a sense of envy. Envy that there were people out there who did not feel bound to the ever strickening confines of their own anxiety.
“She just keeps doing it and to be honest Amy it’s getting on my nerves”
“Jesus,” Jude thought to himself, turning his headphones on as he connected it to his phone, classical jazz beginning to erupt into his ears.
“God that’s so much better,” Jude said to himself. A blend of brass and piano beginning to drown out the honking of horns, the screeching of the train on the tracks to a halt, the opening of the doors. If it wasn’t for the sudden movement throughout the metro car then Jude would have missed his stop completely. But as he finally found himself stepping upon the platform and the cold November air of DC entrapping the exposed skin on his face.
Oooo, Jude’s character has me interested already! I wonder what exactly makes the museum so special to him… I don’t have any quick feedback other than to look over your punctuation more intensely, but I enjoyed reading this!
That was really good. Also, I have met and know people like that woman, so I understand Jude.
Jude seems like a really interesting character and I would love to see where he goes. He kind of gives off that aloof dispassionate teenager vibe i.e Holden Caulfield
I really enjoy all of the detail in your intro. It shows peaks of Jude’s personality really well, to him counting the steps of the museum to being annoyed by the woman, which is literally relatable, the way it’s all described is cool.