Note: Leave from the front line during the First World War
The child is a young girl
The journey home was just as melancholic as the journey through the train station.
The bus was overcrowded, so my mother and I had to stand throughout the duration of the route home. Now and then a man would offer my mother a place to sit, but her face seemed increasingly hardened and became transfixed on the passing pavement, which seemed to never end as we passed the lengthy rows of housing.
I was in a state of utter confusion. Why had we left the train station before my brother had appeared? My mind had resorted to replaying this scenario over and over:
My brother stood on the platform waiting for us to return. He would glance up and down. An expression that could make the most optimistic person want to fade clouded his features.
As we were nearing home, the realisation that my brother was never coming home finally hit me. I wept as though I had never before shed a tear. Each tear sounded more hopeless than the last.
Stolen glances were made in our direction as we departed from the bus. Moving in and out of the various passersby, at last we reached home. Walking up the cracked steps, I became lightheaded and a sudden rush of anxiety ached within me. That was when I realised, I am now an only child.
I enjoyed this, Francescca; I am intrigued as to why his/her mother left without collecting her son and would definitely read on to find out why. I agree with Malcolm about tightening the prose. As this excerpt is about 280 words, why not aim to bring it down to 250 words for now?
I think you could take us into the protagonist’s head a little more instead of telling us their thoughts. For example, instead of “I could not understand why we had left the train station before my brother had appeared.” you could simply write “Why had we left the train station without my brother?” This kind of sentence would also remove the repetitious “utter confusion” and “I could not understand why” in the original. You might also remove words like “I felt”. Keep it short and show us the protagonist’s giddiness: “A rush of anxiety overcame me and I clutched onto the railing” (Not the best example, but I hope it helps).
Thank you Malcolm for taking the time to read this.
I agree with you on the points you have made, and I will be making the changes.
The time period is roughly during the first world war.
Again a big thank you for reading!
Francesca,
An interesting little story, which works quite well. I think you could probably shorten one or two sentences to create more impact. In particular 'It was as we were coming to the stop before ours' seems unduly wordy. Also, I think you could lose the final sentence. The previous sentence 'I was now an only child' is much more powerful and tells us the brother is dead.
I didn't get any sense of the time period this was set in, it may be helpful to include something that hints at whether this was First world war, second world war or more recent.