The Events

There, perfectly poised at the side of the road she stood. Veronica Thorn, flicking her long, brunette hair out of her face, adjusting the oversized sunglasses, and buttoning up her crystal white, tailored suit. Her shiny, red lipstick glistening in the sunlight at every movement, and from her cherry lips, she called ‘Taxi!’ waving her arm in the air. The streets were flooded with yellow New York taxis, and with the hustle of the city behind her, it drowned out her call. Again, she called, and finally a taxi appeared in front of her. Thorn gracefully entered the taxi, abruptly telling the taxi driver where to go, without looking up from her iPhone. The taxi driver was a pleasant man, short and stubby, wearing an old fashioned flat cap, he was keen to talk to Veronica, and was asking her how her day had been so far. But Veronica did not acknowledge then poor man, she sat there in silence scrolling down the newsfeed of her business Facebook page, popping her chewing gum every other second.

The taxi driver had a yellow, diamond shaped sign in the front of his cab, which read ‘DONS TAXI’ in bold, black lettering. Veronica had noticed this, and finally looked up from her iPhone screen and stated,

“Look Don, I am using your service to get to work, not to make friends okay?”

Don looked taken aback, and caught the eye contact of Veronica in his rear view mirror.

“Of course Veronica, from now on I will not utter a word”.

The taxi journey from Veronica’s apartment to work, only takes approximately fifteen minutes, no matter who is driving, and the same route to work is always taken.  Veronica was especially stressed this morning. Within the past couple of days, a number of strange things have happened to her, or tried to happen to her. Tuesday for example, which was two days ago, Veronica was eating at her favourite restaurant, and she ordered what she orders every time she visits, a ‘Root Vegetable Salad’. Although, this was not quite the salad that Veronica has ordered in the past. This salad had Cumin oil drizzled all over it. Maybe this was a mistake? But how could it be? Veronica is allergic to Cumin, and if ever she is swallows it, her throat begins to swell, to the point where she could stop breathing. The restaurant know all of Veronicas food likes, dislikes and allergies, so why would the do something like this? Maybe ‘they’ didn’t…  

Something else that Veronica was a little concerned about, was the incident in her apartment last night. When Veronica arrives home from work, she likes to snuggle on the sofa, and light a few candles to help her relax. It is common sense to blow out the candles before going to bed, and this is what Veronica does every night. However, last night, about an hour after blowing the candles out and going to bed, Veronica smelt smoke coming from her living room. She bolts up out of bed and runs to the living room, only to see a small fire near the door way. The candle had been relit, and a piece of paper was burning on the candle. Firstly, Veronica thought, she keeps all of her candles on the table, so why would it be on the floor, and nearly blocking the doorway? Was someone trying to kill her? Or this is how it seemed.

This morning, during the taxi journey, Veronica was on edge and kept replaying scenarios in her head of how these strange things could be happening. It was only a matter of time before something else went wrong, and before something else or someone else tried to kill her. Then out of nowhere, a car, at high speed crashed into the side of the taxi, flipping it over onto its roof, before slowing tilting onto its side again. Veronica and Don screamed in terror, rolling around in the taxi, banging on the seats and the side of the taxi, Veronica’s iPhone smashing adding more shatters of glass to the scene. It was over so quickly. Both of them lay there in shock. Blood dripping from both faces, cuts covered their bodies, but no bones were broken. They had a lucky escape. Veronica looked up, and saw Don stuck under one of the seats. Veronica was not trapped, so she climbed over the mess of the taxi, and struggled to free Don. The seat had completely fallen off its hinges, so it just needed flipping over. Eventually both were free from the taxi and alive. A passer-by rang the police and an ambulance, so that Veronica and Don could be properly looked after. Veronica was lost for words. She sat there in shock and silence. Why did the other car involved just drive off and leave? Who was driving? And why were all of these life threatening events keep happening to her? Each day is getting worse and worse. What could possibly happen to her tomorrow, would she even be alive this time tomorrow?

After a few hours at the hospital, Veronica was told she could go home, but she had to stay off work for the next day or two as she needed to rest. Veronica rang her sister to pick her up and drive her home, after the day she has had she wasn’t getting into another taxi for a while. As she was dropped off outside her building, Veronica walked up the stairs and along the hallway to her apartment, to find that her door was unlatched and ajar. Entering her apartment with caution and checking every room, Veronica could confirm that no one was in there. This day keeps getting stranger and stranger. Veronica was going to be living in fear, in the supposed comfort of her own home. Walking into the kitchen to have one last check, Veronica noticed a note taped to her fridge. She walked closer to read it, and she could not believe what she was reading. There, written in blue ink was a note which read ‘you have been lucky so far, but til death do us part right...’

COMMENTARY

Within my short story, I chose to base it on a mystery, without it being too overbearing and difficult to follow, as I know some mystery novels can easily go off topic and make the reader lose interest. I have a tendency to base my writing on events that I have witnessed, interesting personalities I have seen walking along the street, or my own personal experiences. The reason I chose to base my writing on these factors, I because I find it a lot easier to write using a visual source. For example, if I saw an interesting person in the middle of the town, with extravagant dress sense or hair colour, I would be intrigued by them. I would then think about what their life may be like, or what job they may have, and just from these thoughts, I link them all together and come up with a little story about them. This is how I chose my main character ‘Veronica’. I saw this beautiful woman when I was visiting London earlier this year, and she was just getting into a taxi. Although she did not shout ‘taxi!’ like she does in my story, this is what I wanted her character to be like. Also, the woman that I saw was probably a lovely woman and very polite, however I wanted to contrast this and make Veronica the opposite. I used my personal experience of being in a car crash to come up with that event, as I know what it feel like to be in that situation and the effects it has on you afterwards. I thought if I wrote about this, I could relate to it, it is something that I know about and can hopefully present effectively.

My aims changed throughout the story as I originally wanted it to be based on the car crash alone, but as I was writing I wanted to link the car crash to something, and that is when I had the idea to link it to other events to create a mystery. I found it quite difficult to describe the car crash with the little word count I was given, and I began to think that I should add more events in to make it a series of events. As I was writing, I kept receiving different ideas of how it could all link, and who could be at the end of it all, which I was not going to tell the reader. The only reason I gave the hint at the end of the story, was to create closure, to sum everything up. For example, a husband would know his wife very well and what food she was allergic to, so if he ever did want to poison her or kill her like in the story, then he would know exactly what to do.

It was very interesting writing this story, I enjoy writing for children and young adults, so I do not tend to write in a mysterious way. I wanted to challenge myself and see what I could do with all of the ideas and thoughts that I had. Therefore, I did not try to emulate certain authors or story lines because I hardly read mystery novels, I enjoy reading books like ‘Paper Towns’ (Green 2008) and ‘If you could see my now’ (Ahern 2005) which are quite different to mystery. However, I think I was very successful, and after this experience in writing a mystery, I am very likely to continue and push my writing further.

Showing my work to my peers was very effective, as they informed me on what I could add in to make it more effective. For example, they told me to end the story with a note from the person at the end of the life threatening events, so I took on board that comment and that is what I did. Originally, the taxi driver in the story was named ‘Ron’, but luckily, one of my peers informed me that ‘Veronica’ and ‘Ron’ were two main characters in a popular film called ‘Anchorman’ (2004), I was not aware of this, and decided to choose a different name for ‘Ron’.

I feel that my strengths in my writing are from the ideas that I have. As I previously said that I get my ideas from visual sources, and can imagine what the context could be like for that certain individual, I am able to come up with a lot of imaginary events that could happen in their life. With this, I am able to start planning my writing straight away. If I was not able to think about this so early on, then it would delay my writing, leaving less time for redrafting processes. I also think that my writing if very easy to follow, and the language that I use is not confusing or over bearing for the reader. I want my writing and my stories to be read easily, without the reader thinking too much about the story.

My weaknesses in my writing is that I am not familiar with writing in different genres, like horror or fantasy for example. I normally stick to what I am familiar with, which is writing for children mainly. This could be because of the style of books that I read, I do not read horror or fantasy, whereas if I did I may get a clearer understanding of the style and my inspired to write this way. This is why I decided to write a mystery story, as it is a genre that I completely new to writing. This is an example of the progress that I have made, and then way in which I am trying to develop my skills, and after this experience, I am going to carry on and see what else I am capable of.

References

Green, J. (2008) Paper Towns

Ahern, C. (2005) If you could see me now