Frag·ment
noun
a small piece or a part, especially when broken from something whole
Literary fragments may comprise:
• works inadvertently left unfinished or never completed by their authors
• surviving extracts of larger works subsequently lost as wholes
• works deliberately constructed as fragmentary pieces
____________________________________________________
Crystal green eyes looking right into my soul with an expression so full of emotions, yet so cold.
An image burned deep into my memories. I saw her in front of me as I mindlessly stared out of the train window. Trees, trees, more trees … Some distant voices, the vibration of the train … Her. This wasn’t right. I wasn’t supposed to be here. Every last cell of my body wanted to return, to go back to her but it was too late. With 120 mph, I was racing away from her and every tree that passed was another proof for the growing distance. Could I take the next train back? No, by the time I would have arrived, she wouldn’t have been there anymore. It was over.
Crystal green eyes, so lively, yet so dead.
That would be the last time I’d seen them. Knowing that made it so much worse. That should’ve probably been the moment I asked myself if that was what was supposed to happen if it was our destiny to part ways. But I knew that wasn’t true. All these years, I waited for her and now I'm supposed to just let her go? The one person that finally brought sense into my life and made me fall in love with the world around me? If only I could've seen her one more time, talked to her and told her what I felt, what I had always felt. Deep down, I knew exactly that it could've, no it should've ended so differently.
Crystal green eyes. Closing. Turning away. Never looking back.
Words can't describe the pain I felt that day while sitting in that train. The weather was way too good for the situation I found myself in. If my life would've been a film, it would've probably rained, snowed or thundered but the sky was clear except of some small clouds here and there, the sun was shining - it was actually macabre considering the darkness I felt surrounded by. As if nature would make fun of me. I felt betrayed by what I had just started to appreciate. A thousand knifes were stabbing into my heart while my hands were bound and all I could do was watch and submit to the demon that put me into this situation in the first place. One more day and I could've proved her wrong. I could've changed her mind, I could've helped her, held her hand and went through hell with her. She was worth every second of sorrow and suffering. If not her, who else?
Crystal green eyes. Gone. Forever.
And all I needed was one more day with her.
This is a very well-written creative writing piece! I loved how you incorporated the theme of fragments in different ways -- with the definition at the beginning, with sentence fragments and the fragmented narration style. Is this the first part to a longer story, by any chance?
Yoooo. What?!? I'm blown away my dude!! That was HELLA impressive. Your English is so good. A lot of what I had to say about your piece was either artistic recommendation (ie a matter of taste), or basically C2 level stuff. Your feel for complex grammar is really remarkable. Great job buddy! Looking forward to more posts from you!! I quite enjoyed reading this . You should be super proud of it!
@Abby Thank you so much for both the compliment and the corrections! I didn't even notice that I incorporated fragments :D Actually, the reason I called it Fragments is that I wanted to capture a little moment, a fragment of a big story that doesn't exist. The idea of writing fragments was popular in the Age of Romanticism (my favorite period!). Ok admittedly, it's not quite the same thing as what I wrote but there's a similar idea behind it. I want to write more fragments but they won't at all be connected with each other. In school, we're taught to interpret art the way the artist wanted it (when really there's no way to know). When I write, I don't think about it a lot. I have no idea what the backstory of this could be or how it could continue but everyone is encouraged to make up their own story and interpret it however they want to. I hate the idea of robbing people from their own understandings of a piece. We all have our own unique experiences and so we all interpret things differently and that's what makes art so special in my eyes. Also, it's a great way to write without having to come up with a complete story :D I've been having the itch to write for years and I've had many ideas for single scenes but I rarely wrote them down because I didn't know how to write a story around them. Now, I realized that I actually really like the idea of scenes standing by themselves.
Ahh you really made my day Matthew!! Not only with the compliment but also with your corrections and recommendations! Thank you so much for taking the time to write such detailed feedback, I really appreciate it :)) I’ve always loved reading and writing but I haven’t read a lot of English literature yet and I’m new to writing in English too. I’d love to get better so that helps a lot! Also, I’ll take the Cambridge Advanced English exam in May and I’m already super stressed about it (especially since it’s quite expensive so I really don’t want to mess up lol) but you gave me some hope :D This is only my third day on here but I’m already in love with the community! I’ll go reread your corrections now and try to internalize as much as possible :))
Haha no worries! It's fun for me!! Also, you did the same for me a couple days ago! So, glad I could return the favour! :P Well based on your style here, and the overall tone, I would 100% recommend that you buy The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. He's definitely not a romantic. But that collection is chock- full of fragments and little episodes. I absolutely adore his terse style. I think you would really like it too. What's more, it would probably be perfect for your level. I think it'd be just out of reach of being too comfortable when reading it, but not so far out of reach that you wouldn't enjoy the experience. And since they're short stories, they are really manageable lengths. Also, I think you'll do fine on the test! Just write here as much as you can! I'll be sure to look through you're posts when I have time. I'm in Kurzarbeit for at least the next month still, so I'm just sitting around on my computer most of the time lol. If you ever want to practice speaking, I'm down for that as well (as long as you help me with my German too haha! ;D)!
I'll definitely check out that book, thanks for the recommendation!! I have online school for another month so I'll have a lot of time to read and write, too :D We better leave out the speaking part though, I'm hella insecure about my accent..