I wrote this a long time ago and suddenly remembered it and here it is:


Habit Formation

The first person I saw come out of the room was a child. He looked a bit confused, and I suppose that kind of thing should be expected. He was too young to understand what was going on beyond any general sense. A woman I didn’t recognize entered the room as the boy left it.

I stared at the wall in front of me while waiting for my turn. There was a painting of some kind in front of me, which was entertaining for a few seconds. I wondered why people decorate their houses with such things. After a few days they just become irritating to look at and serve no real purpose. At least furniture serves some sort of purpose. If the most beautiful chair in the world tips over every time it�fs sat in, it�'ll be thrown away. Yes, a chair�'s true worth is in it's functionality! And I slapped my hands down on the handles of my chair and laughed a little, absurdly pleased for some reason. A pleasure that earned me some scornful looks from some of the people around me, so I put my head down and feigned embarrassment.

At about that time the woman exited the room, wiping her eyes as she walked away. My uncle John was next, and he greeted the woman as she passed him. I took a good glance at her as she passed by and noticed that she had quite a few wrinkles around her eyes. She was pretty young too, late twenties early thirties, so I figured that that meant that she cried a lot. She was probably a crier. Yes, she was crying, therefore she was a crier, therefore she had crybaby wrinkles on her face. I felt like laughing again while thinking that, but I was mindful and kept quiet. After that, I began to wonder who she was. Most everyone else here was a relative of mine, but I had never seen her before.

That line of thought sent my eyes darting around the room for any other strangers. Two of my aunts were chatting silently in the corner of the room. One of them was apparently color blind, judging by her outfit. A quick glance in the other direction and I found a cousin of mine sitting alone who appeared to be about as comfortable as I was. It was a shame that we weren�'t closer, or I would have gone over and started a conversation with him. A few more glances around revealed no strangers.

I noticed that my uncle John had come out of the room and was beckoning for me. Apparently it was my turn. As I approached the door, I looked at him and noticed the wrinkles in his forehead. The result of constantly furrowing his brow, and I decided that that meant he was a thinker since I liked him. Stupid people probably furrow their brow a lot when they're confused you see, so technically it can go either way.

Entering the room, I smiled and thought about the old man I was about to see. His worn eye sockets formed rings around his eyes, which ran down into his cheeks just a little, and there were thin creases that ran from from the inner ends of his eyebrows, upward, halfway through his forehead before being intersected. Signs of a once formidable presence, peeking through as the general marks of aging move in to overwhelm them.

I hate kids like the one in your story.

Also: what?


His worn eye sockets formed rings around his eyes, which ran down into his cheeks just a little, and there were thin creases that ran from from the inner ends of his eyebrows, upward, halfway through his forward before being intersected.

What what?

I probably meant forehead.


probably.

It's quite short so there isn't a lot to comment on, and as such this will be a short post.

It's very well written, with Odin already pointing out the only major flaw, although I don't think that the forehead mistake was all that was wrong, the entire description was a little confusing and I had to read it twice to fully understand it. The story is also interesting, in that you don't have any idea of who the old man in the room is but the narrator thinks highly of him and the whole scenario is interesting due to its lack of explanation.

Admittedly I'm not the harshest critic in the world, but I enjoyed it despite it being so short, and that's about it.

It was short. I understood the story until you decided to finish it with the description of an old man, which I could not understand.