There once was a woman who loved a man. Every day
she would watch him leave his house and go to work. She would watch from inside
of her bedroom at 7:00 am sharp. She would pick up her finely polished
binoculars and zoom in to see every detail of the man.
She loved his jet black hair. She loved his brown tanned skin. She loved his freshly pressed suits. She loved everything about him. She would toil for hours on end awaiting his arrival home just for that one minute to be able to gaze upon him.
She had wanted to tell him for years on end how strong her feelings were for him. She remembers the first time ever gazing upon him. She had just moved into the neighborhood and witnessed him sitting in the front yard alongside another woman. This caused one problem. He was a married man. A married man that loved his wife so much that he never noticed the woman. He only had eyes for his incredibly beautiful wife and this made the woman feel a deep pit of sorrow inside of her. This sorrow was only comforted by the woman's short gazing sessions as the man came and went to work. Soon this sorrow was replaced by anger, and from this anger stemmed intense envy for the man's wife.
One day, the woman plotted to kill the man's wife. As soon as he left for work, she quickly crept into the back of the house and upstairs to slay the sleeping wife.
However, the wife was already awake inside of her bedroom gazing out the window through a pair of binoculars.
As the woman slowly crept upon the wife, she caught a glimpse of the envious woman behind her in the lens of the binoculars and quickly swung around to engage her in a struggle.
First, they fell to the ground and began pulling each other's hair. The jealous woman’s rage fueled her as she quickly got up and began dragging the wife by her hair. The wife looked for anything she could grab to fend off the woman from dragging her across the floor. As she frantically looked around, her eyes landed upon a fireplace poker and she quickly grabbed it and stabbed the jealous woman in the side of the leg. The woman shrieked in pain and the wife quickly ran to the attic. The wife hid in the attic and hoped the jealous woman would not find her. But nonetheless she appeared. The jealous woman drew nearer and her eyes were fixed in a crazed look, conveying a readied look to strangle the wife. She stepped closer... and closer... until BANG! She fell through the floor of the attic and hit the ground below. Motionless. She had misstepped on a beam and fell straight through the living room ceiling to her death. The wife was safe.
She loved his jet black hair. She loved his brown tanned skin. She loved his freshly pressed suits. She loved everything about him. She would toil for hours on end awaiting his arrival home just for that one minute to be able to gaze upon him.
She had wanted to tell him for years on end how strong her feelings were for him. She remembers the first time ever gazing upon him. She had just moved into the neighborhood and witnessed him sitting in the front yard alongside another woman. This caused one problem. He was a married man. A married man that loved his wife so much that he never noticed the woman. He only had eyes for his incredibly beautiful wife and this made the woman feel a deep pit of sorrow inside of her. This sorrow was only comforted by the woman's short gazing sessions as the man came and went to work. Soon this sorrow was replaced by anger, and from this anger stemmed intense envy for the man's wife.
One day, the woman plotted to kill the man's wife. As soon as he left for work, she quickly crept into the back of the house and upstairs to slay the sleeping wife.
However, the wife was already awake inside of her bedroom gazing out the window through a pair of binoculars.
As the woman slowly crept upon the wife, she caught a glimpse of the envious woman behind her in the lens of the binoculars and quickly swung around to engage her in a struggle.
First, they fell to the ground and began pulling each other's hair. The jealous woman’s rage fueled her as she quickly got up and began dragging the wife by her hair. The wife looked for anything she could grab to fend off the woman from dragging her across the floor. As she frantically looked around, her eyes landed upon a fireplace poker and she quickly grabbed it and stabbed the jealous woman in the side of the leg. The woman shrieked in pain and the wife quickly ran to the attic. The wife hid in the attic and hoped the jealous woman would not find her. But nonetheless she appeared. The jealous woman drew nearer and her eyes were fixed in a crazed look, conveying a readied look to strangle the wife. She stepped closer... and closer... until BANG! She fell through the floor of the attic and hit the ground below. Motionless. She had misstepped on a beam and fell straight through the living room ceiling to her death. The wife was safe.
Author's Note: This story is based off of Shurpanakha's story of trying to court Rama. He is in love with the beautiful
Sita just like the man is in love with his beautiful wife. I added a little
twist at the end and depicted the beautiful wife as a crazy stalker as well.
Even though she is married, she is also a stalker and doing the same thing as the jealous woman to
another man. I got some inspiration from the storyline of a movie named "Obsessed" and that’s where most of
the fight scene and ending draw many similarities. I remember watching that movie when I was much younger and noticed that
my original story had many similarities to the plotline of the movie “Obsessed”
so I decided to make it even more similar to that movie. I did this by making the fight scene very similar and using a single woman trying to kill a man's wife because she is obsessed with the man. Although my characters are not nearly as developed and complex as the ones in the movie. I still feel
like the stories are very similar. This shows the power of short stories! The story is similar to that of the Indian epic except that the wife is both Sita and Lakshmana, because she is the wife of the man (Rama) and also the one who hurts the woman.
Bibiliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessed_(2009_film)
Bibiliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessed_(2009_film)
Wow, what a creative plot twist at the end. It was definitely unexpected. It's actually kind of a scary thought to think that the woman you're married to is a crazy stalker. I'm kind of surprised that since the wife was such a crazy stalker that she didn't find out about the psycho neighbor earlier. I believe that good writing stems from good diction and I think you did a great job with the descriptions and word choices. Great job re-making this story, keep it up.
ReplyDeleteThis story was crazy but really kept my attention! The ending had a very cool twist. It reminds me of a story that would be in a soap opera. This was a very cool re-making of the original and I really enjoyed it. You are a talented writer and extremely creative! I am looking forward to reading more of your stories in the future.
ReplyDeleteYou definitely captured the creepiness of Surpanakha by making her a stoker. From the first few sentences I was creeped out, but they showed exactly how strange Surpanakha's behavior was. It might make your story more dramatic if you separate it into paragraphs. I think separate paragraphs would also be more appealing to the eye as well. Who was the wife looking at? Now that you changed the twist in your story to a struggle, the sentence where the stocker finds the wife with binoculars is random. It might be possible to have both the plot twist and the fight scene, but if you don’t want both, I might just take that line out. Why was there a fire poker in the attic? It was interesting that the stoker was killed by accident, so there are not real heroes in this story, just a series of tragic events. I think it would be really intense if you added more detail into their fight scene, as well as when she fell. More detail would help paint a better picture for your reader. You did a wonderful job of really capturing the sin within Surpanakha's. Also, the picture you included is perfect for this story.
ReplyDeleteHi again Avi! I absolutely enjoyed reading your story, and it kept my attention the whole way. You did a great job of creating an image of a crazy woman stalking a guy, and also a picture of a crazy wife. You also had a really interesting plot twist. You are very creative and I hope to be reading you work in the future!
ReplyDeleteWell that escalated quickly haha. Hey good morning Avi, glad we’re paired up again. Your stories are always very entertaining. This one in particular had me pretty tuned in due to just how well you built up the suspense. Not only was I a little creeped out by the crazy lady across the street but the escalation and well executed telling of the fight scene really had me intrigued. I thought it was an interesting plot twist in that the wife was actually stalking another man in the neighborhood much like her attacker had been stalking her husband. Well once again I really enjoyed reading your story. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteHi Avi,
ReplyDeleteWow! That was intense to say the least.
I have the seen the movie 'Obsessed' so I totally got the plot line. I was confused at first as to what story you're trying to relate it to but it totally makes sense that it is about Surpanakha and Rama.
I definitely would not have thought of this; props for creativity. It kept my attention and was fun to read. As I was reading, I could picture the scenario in my head.
I would have put my money on the stalker in that fight, but I am glad the wife came out of that one alive.
You have a way with detail. Very good job!
I think you did a good job portraying the envy but it all felt redundant and childish in a way. The reason for this can really be summed up by a quote from Dead Poet’s Society: “So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use ‘very sad,’ use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys—to woo women—and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do”. Your story did not woo me. I was bored by the way you repeated a verb a couple of sentences in a row. This woman is obsessed, and you need to portray this to me through the intensity of her words. “She loved his jet black hair. She ADORED his brown skin. She TREASURED his freshly pressed suits. She WORSHIPPED everything about him.” Just by using different verbs, you raise the intensity of her adoration way more than by simply using the word ‘love’ three times over. This happens multiple times, and I think just changing up some of her words, be will seem much more obsessed than she is currently. The other comment I had was that you need to do a bit better separating your paragraphs (and indenting! I swear it makes ALL the difference). Just read through it and if a sentence feels different from the one before it, make it into a new paragraph, because right now it’s a block of words (incredibly similar to my comment for you) and that’s not only intimidating, but it’s obnoxiously difficult to read. Otherwise, I really did think it was good!
ReplyDeleteP.S. You need you edit your link (once you make it of course, because right now it's nothing) so that it’s not showing the URL but rather a word/title/description of the page. And turn off that captcha! It's so annoying and Laura has told everyone multiple times to turn it off. I loathe having to enter a code before I can post a comment.
Avi, I really like your story. However, I do not know if you are doing this on purpose, but there are two different fonts in this story as well. It is kind of annoying when I’m reading the story because I become focused on the font and not the story. Just a minor fix, but I think it would really help clear up your story and make it look clean. I think the story used a lot of good adjectives that were easy to follow. They made the story become more interesting and painted a good mental picture in the readers minds. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDelete