[Winter Contest Entry 2014]“The pieces I lost for my puzzle"

[size=11]*knock knock*[/h]
“Who’s at the door?”
“Hello, my name is Hubert. I live next door. I just saw that your family was just moved here, so I thought I would come and say hi.”
“Oh? What a thoughtful lad. Come here, Vi, don’t just stand there, meet our new neighbour.”
“…Hello…”
“Nice to meet you. Why don’t you go with me to a tour around the village?”
[size=11]*Nod*[/h]
“Excuse my daughter, she’s a bit shy around strangers.”

“I’m Hubert, but you can call me Hub. What’s your name?”
“…Vianna…”
“We’re going to be friends now, Vianna. But you don’t talk much, do you? I don’t mind though.
You see that church over there? That’s also the school.
Do they have big churches where you used to live?
Hey, I’ll come and take you to school tomorrow, how does that sound?

“Bumping into me, are you trying to pick a fight, chump?”
“…Who is he? Why is he angry at Hubert?”
“I suppose you wouldn’t know, would you. He’s Daniel Hallingrad. He’s the leader of the playground. He always picks on Hubert.”
“That’s terrible.”

“What are you doing out here?”
“Oh, Vianna. How did you know I was here?”
“I…I didn’t mean to spy on you, but I happened to see you leaving your house at this hour. I was worried, so I followed you here.”
“Thank you. This is my favorite spot in the village. It’s not too far away, so it’s not dangerous. Here, come sit down.”
“Did you get yourself into a fight this afternoon with that big kid? Did you get hurt?”
“He started it! But it was an unreasonable quarrel, wasn’t it? Don’t worry about it, though. I only got a scratch.
Hey, you came from the city, right? Why did your family move here?”
“My father heard words of a coming war, and he thought it would be safer in the countryside.”
“A war? I don’t know anything about that, but lying here in the grass and staring up into these thousands of stars makes me have no worries.
I drew this the other night. What do you think?”
“What a beautiful drawing.”
“Isn’t it? I†˜ll become a painter once I grow up.”



“We are at war with Germany. We are at war with Germany.”



“Renley, where are you going?”
“The Hasganda’s manor. I’m returning their clothes.”
“Helping out your mother, then? How is your family coping up?”
“We have been making do ever since my dad was conscripted. Besides from sewing clothes, my mum works extra on the laundry service, and I just help her out whenever I can.”
“It won’t be too long till we get conscripted ourselves, will it? Huh, nobody asked for this war.”
“The Führer did.
The other day I received a letter from my dad from the battlefield. He said the French had surrendered. He also said he missed us. Maybe the war will end soon.”
“Yeah, we all hope so.”



“How was today, Jon?”
“You know exactly how they are – I just feel more and more terrible. Eleven death notices came in today alone. Eleven!”
“You know it’s not your fault that they die. It’s the Germans’.”
“I do know. But how can I help feeling like the bearer of bad news that nobody wants to hear knocking at their doors? Have you ever seen a wife who has just heard that her husband had died? Or a father who can never see his son again? I’m like death itself!
There hasn’t been any good news at all these past few months. Once, I wish they would just send a message that read “It’s over”.”



“I guess this is our goodbyes.”
“…Take care of yourselves.”
“Stay safe, Hubert.”
“I will, mother.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Goodall, Vianna. I’m going with him. We’ll look out for each other!”
“Yes, I’ll leave Hubert in your care, Daniel.”
“Our train is coming. We won’t be seeing you two for a long time, but we’ll come back.
Don’t be sad, Vi. My feelings can’t be settled if I leave seeing you crying. It’s going to be just like a trip, you see, I’ll even bring back a present.”
“…Promise me that you will come back.”
“Yes, I promise.”



[size=11]*cough, cough*[/h]
“Professor Gatewell, another failed attempt. It’s just impossible!”
“Nonsense, Sam. We’re so close to finish it. Nothing’s impossible.”
“It’s like you have gone mad, professor! Why are you so obsessed with building this thing? Don’t you see it’s insane to try to defy Einstein’s theory?”
“What of it? The theory we are talking about, it was made when Einstein didn’t agree with Newton’s laws! It’s not impossible, it’s just unexplored!”
“You’re not listening to yourselves, professor. You could have continued working for the army, yet you opted out of it and went here to research your so-called science. It’s a dead-end!”
“Scientists are not soldiers, Sam! We work for humanity’s advancement, but instead they use our creations to kill! How could you possibly ask me to go back to that place? It’s because of the war that Amy died!”
“…”
“…
Have you ever gone to Paris, Sam? Amy and I went there once. It was truly beautiful. The streets, the Seine, all the flowers… It was called the “City of Romance”. Yes, it once was…
People say that artists are the most romantic of men, Sam. But I think otherwise. I think, it is scientists that are truly romantic. They dream of the impossible, out of sight or grasp of mankind, and then they venture into that unknown. One day, we will even go to the moon!”
“Do you think so, professor?”
“I know so. That’s the reason I believe we can finish this. Maybe we can even undo this war, and it will be my redemption…”



“Dear Marie, Claude and Jude,
How are you three doing at home? Do you behave yourselves, Claude, Jude? Don’t make your mother worry. Are you well, Marie? Please don’t overwork yourself. It must have been hard for you without me, is it? But don’t worry, I’ll be sent home after tomorrow’s raid ends. The commander thought I’m too old for this.
It has been two months since I left and joined the rebellion, hasn’t it? I don’t know if you’ve forgiven me, but I regret my decision every day. It tortures me, not able to see your smiles. But please know, there’s you in everything I do.
I miss you three and the feelings only grows every day. I can’t wait to finally see you again. Please take care of yourselves.


“Juan Lazanbeux, who died in yesterday’s battle, has left you this. We thank him for his services.”



“We ride the wind today towards our enemy. Let this sake be the proofs of our loyalty and our brotherhood. May the spirits be with us.”

“Don’t waste your lives lightly. Turn back if you can’t locate the targets.”

“Get on your planes, pilots. This is your finest hours. We fly for the empire. Your deeds will be remembered for eternity. You have brought honor to yourselves and your families.”

“30 degree more to your left, Lieutenant. Aim for the ship’s hangar!”

“Their turrets are down, Lieutenant. This is your chance!”

“For the Emperor! Hissastu!”



“What an unsightly way to die, huh? I…I don’t want to get stains on this. I made her this. Please give it to her, for me.”
“No, Hubert. You hang onto it right now. We are going to make through this, you hear me? Don’t you give up on me. We will make it, you hear? We will come back, to our home. You promised! Don’t you dare go back on your words!”
“A promise, huh… “
“Hubert!
Hubert!”



“Today, April 29th, Germany has surrendered.”

“Adolf Hitler committed suicide.”

“Today, May 7th, the German total and unconditional surrender Instrument was signed.”

“Today, August 15th, Japan has surrendered to the Allies.”

“Today, September 2nd, the documents were signed. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally.”

“The war has finally ended.”



“Today, we welcome back the soldiers who fought bravely for our home.”
“Papa! Papa! You’ve come home.”
“Yes, I have, Allenka. I’m finally home.”
“Ivan…”
“Don’t cry anymore, Silska. I’m home, aren’t I? I’m never going again.”
“I miss you so much, Ivan.”
“Me too…”



“~the moon shines bright tonight. Somewhere, over the mountain, I’m waiting for you. My love will remain~”
“I didn’t know you can sing, Hoang.”
“I sang it to a girl back at the village. She swooned over me for my song.”
“Really? You’ve got to teach me to sing like that!”
“Yeah, one day. But we need to kick the French out of our country first. Then you may finally get a girl!”
“Speaking of them, is it dangerous for the four of us to light a fire and sing like this?”
“Don’t fret over it. They won’t search this deep in the woods.”
“Yeah, don’t be so uptight, Phuong. We are soldiers, not walking artilleries.”



“He told me to make sure to come back and give you this brooch.”
“So he did, didn’t he…”
“He made it with the wood he found wherever we camped. I know I’ve failed to keep my promise. I feel like a traitor. I, I was right there, but I couldn’t help him. Blame me for his death.”
“Please, Daniel. I know you are the one that taking it harder than I am...”



“…the ground was burning. Pillars of smoke impaled the sky. The gunpowder, it was instilled in the atmosphere. Stick out your tongue and you could almost taste the bitterness. The guns, the artilleries, the screams of the parting… They echoed through the air, they shook our feet. The ground was soaked, not just because of mud and rainwater… I could hardly make out whatever in front of me. The trumpets’ sound of morale was fainting. My mind was just fogged by fragmented thoughts, and it wasn’t our fading commands that kept me going. I’m sure the whole platoon only had one objective by then: shoot through the enemy’s defense and survives.”
“Wow, grandpa. Wars are so scary.”
“It wasn’t just scary all the time, Hans. We would always find ways to brighten up ourselves. I remember sitting around the campfire and each one would tell his stories of the life he had left behind when he volunteered. We would also sing and drink afterwards. We were treated to delicacies whenever we arrived at a new quarter village. Sometimes, I even forgot there was a war raging on, it felt just like a group of close friends getting together on a trip.”
“That sounds so delightful.”
“Sometimes it surely was, Jenny. I remember one day, before a battle, the commander asked us: “How do you feel as the nation’s soldiers?” I told him, I wasn’t proud of the fact that we were winning the war. I took pride that I was defending our country and protecting the ones I cared about, both on the battlefield and back home.”
“Were you afraid of the war?”
“I think the ones who were most afraid were not us. It’s the ones that were left behind. Our physical pain would not compare to the agony they had to face, not knowing we were still alive or not. The day I first came back home, I heard not only sounds of joy, but also pained screams…”
“Why did you join if you didn’t want to fight, grandpa?”
“War is the game of kings and emperors. Everything is taken away from everyone, things that we love. Mere soldiers like me, we fought to hold onto them.
It’s rather late now. You two should go to bed. I will tell more stories tomorrow, okay?”
“Goodnight, grandpa.”
“Goodnight, grandpa.”
“Goodnight.”



Word count: 2000 words including the title and the symbols I used to separate parts in the writing.

Author’s Notes: Just me ranting, a wall of text.

I'd say the moral of the story is what war does to people. Not original by any means, but people never get tired of writing about it, and it seems people never get tired of reading about it.

It's always interesting and fun to see people experiment with stories. I haven't tried it myself, but I can't imagine telling a full, coherent story with only dialogue is the easiest thing to do, and I think you did an admirable job here. However, there are some parts where I think the story suffers.



Like these lines here. This is clearly for the purpose of exposition, and it doesn't come across as natural to me.

I think it would have been better if it started and ended with the story of Hubert and Vianna. It makes for a nice effect when stories start an end in the same location.



I kinda get a similar feeling from the two, mostly because of the multiple view points.

Hmmm I tended to get lost a bit while reading it, probably because of it switching between different people but I liked that as well since it was showing the perspective of multiple people involved in the war.
I had to look back over it but once I understood who was doing what it kept my attention.

"I'm like death itself" had to be one of my of favorites lines (at the end of a sentence of course).
I could imagine the moment the people would open the door, perhaps the expression on the man's face, the feeling of despair that would follow.
Just something about that one scene with Jon really touched on the casualties of war at home.

Anyway I enjoyed reading it.

i feel this story to be incomplete, as if your little thing is a vignette
to a bigger picture; i'd like to see more instances, more perspectives, more backgrounds of these people via what you already have going

i suggest revising as there are errors, weak sentences, and other minor issues.

but overall, i'm really impressed to see utilization of dialogue and specific decisions with words to create and convey context and overall meaning to the reader

i really liked how you painted the picture using different perspectives; it's refreshing to see dialogue being used to create meaning or insight to the bigger picture, though i am slightly skeptical with believing the realities of the small stuff, such as the grandpa telling his grandchildren about how war is a king's game and we are its pawns blah blah. my grandpa would never speak so lightly about war.


PS: this is a pre-assessment as it might change by tomorrow. i'm tired as fk right now, but i read your story and the way you organized it was refreshingly good.

Thank you all for taking the time to read my entry. I'll make sure to read everyone else's when the time allows.

d(^_^)(^_^)d:


I do agree that some lines can feel awkward to be spoken in real circumstances, but I tried my best to make it feel natural as possible. Maybe you have some alternative lines?



Nah. I decided to go with the way I ended it because I feel war is not just one story. That's also the reason why I opted to make this one with a lot of different characters and stories, instead of one, although having the Hubert story in different parts is also intended.


Nejik:


Thank you, I'll definitely go check out your entry and leave my comment too (when I have the time, that is).


y00han:


I tried my best to make it as comprehensive as possible and I would have added more stories had the word limit allowed me, although I'll say would not change what I already have here. I think everybody is a victim of war, so I did not add any background by choice. Speaking of that, at one point in the development of the story I wanted to include a instance that explore the mind of a war leader, probably Hitler, to show that no one started a war on a whim. But in the end, I did not. I don't quite remember the reason though, I guess it was because I feared it could be historically incorrect.



I'm the worst at finding my own mistakes in a writing, so yeah...



I originally wanted to make the grandpa, a war veteran, to talk about it with other adults, that would have made a more serious air about this conversation. I think I rewrote the conversation to make a situation of a war veteran telling stories to somebody that were born when there is no more war. I guess I didn't make a good job here.





I don't know if readers will see it, but I actually arranged the whole thing chronologically. The time frame of each story moves with the historically actual events of the World War II. I present a British person first, then talk about how Germany defeated France shortly after the war broke out, and then the USA joined in etc. Stuffs like that, I tried to hide it, but maybe a little too good, haha. If you want, I'll give you the context of each event in the story, since they're really tidbits of a much bigger war.

Anyway, thanks for your kind remarks (somewhat), I'll make time to read your entry too.

no i understood your chronological organization, which is why i appreciated it-- i was originally going to say yesterday with a less complimenting tone that i wasn't sure if it was your writing or your research that did the job for me, and to be wary of plagiarism, but i give credit where credits due, and it really was refreshing to read something that was well pre-meditated.

im going to read it again one more time right now



i read it again and i'm actually surprised i saw what you were trying to do with the organization due to all the clutter and errors-- still good job nonetheless

Rather than have someone ask if it's okay for the four of them to be singing and lighting a fire, I'd have one of them admonish the others for making so much noise, and then perhaps have another retort that they're fine, and there's no way they'll be spotted/heard. But that's just me.

Yeah, with just more than half a month, I can only research about them so much. That's why I said above that I didn't include an instance where we can read about a war leader, because I was afraid it won't be historically correct. I'm also wary of plagiarism, that's why I include all the inspiration sources there in my notes. I was extra careful making sure I wasn't copying any of the lines in the movie or any plot details. You should definitely check out some of them, especially the anime movie 'Giovanni's Island'.



I wishes I had proofread the writing more before I submitted it.



Yeah, that's actually a good idea. Why didn't I think of that? I'll be sure to keep in mind that I should make more natural conversations.

I enjoyed the story and I think it was quite interresting. However, my only complaint is that you mix too many scenarios for such a small amount of time. I know this is an issue of space, but I think this story would be better if it could be expanded to a novel. This would let you explore all the side stories in much greater detail and it would not make you wonder why it actually was there. War is something that has always intrigued people and with a twist of romance you have a bestseller (Seriously, since fantasy and crime novels are flooding the market now, a good old-fashioned romantic war story might be something readers would appreciate. I am not saying drop everything you have in your hands and start writing a book, but at least consider writing one if you got time to spare.).

They are not quite 'side' stories, you see. As I have already said above, war is not anyone's story, so I decided to make this with as many as stories of random people everywhere during a war. For the reason why there seems to be a central story, well, it's not really a reason, but I just feel like the writing needed one, hence it was there. In reality, I would have added more scenarios if the word limit allow me.
EDIT: I remember I wanted to have a three-part story like I did because I wanted to show that the story flow in a chronological order than just random pieces of stories here and there.

I think this story of mine only fit to be a s short story. As for your suggestion, writing a novel would require a lot of research into it, since war novel is based on actual events. I would very much love to write one though, if I have ever got the time.

Like stated above, your style of writing with only dialogues kept me entertained throughout the whole work, combined with the often change of scene, your work had me by its reins wondering what would happen to Vianna and Hubert. Although I knew it from my gut that Hubert's fate was sealed, the story was written beautifully that I can't help but hope for the opposite. The bit about the Lazanbeux family gave me a surprise, and I wonder if the professor was working on a tank or a plane? (I am not that much familiar about the WW2). Overall a very good read, not much errors to be noted, as expected of a finalist of the poll. Good luck with the Final Poll!

Thank you for your compliment. I'm still a bit surprised that I made it into the final round, since this is my fourth time entering this annual contest, and I haven't ever gotten into the final round. I think I had a good idea of what I want to write this time around, but I still think the execution could definitely use more work.

About the scientist bit, if you feel like you need to know about it, then check the spoiler below:

Certainly an interesting part here.

Also more about that scientist part:

This story has a wonderful sense of poignancy to it. I definitely appreciated the sheer amount of feeling you were able to get across.

-az

I knew it! He does not like war, and as you said the "undo" part of his dialogue points to that direction. I was so absorbed with the realism of the whole work that I was at denial whether it was a time machine or something else. Great job in removing the obvious, it makes the reader think and wonder after reading through the whole story, maybe even enough to re-read through it again.

Thank you for reading my story. You could have made a great addition to the contest if you were to decide to join the forum sooner. Also you wouldn't disappoint checking out some other entries.



Thanks. I spent a great deal of time try to make the dialogues flow well together and still make sense, since I don't use any narration. But as you can see, it has been pointed out above that there is still parts where they seem unnatural.

the all dialogue thing makes me feel like im reading too much text.

it's nice since i can get the gist of understanding. yeah it told things about the war but i didn't really feel much about it. aside from recounting events, there's nothing that felt stand out or more important than rest. or maybe it's there but it just didn't get to me.

if i want something to describe about the war, maybe i'll try to read slaughterhouse five instead.

not sure what's the message i get rather than simply recounting the world war in another take. nice work on the storytelling though, but i kind of expected it to have more impact.

what i really want to see is the sensation of someone actually suffering through the war, and how horrible it is from up close. that's the thing slaughterhouse five has, and that's why it's one of my favorites. not saying that this is bad though, i just read something with similar themes that matches my preference better.

it's still a good work nonetheless. good luck for the event.

I wanted to try something new with this entry, so it may or may not suit everyone's taste, I understand.



I did intend to write this telling various stories about various lives in different places. So I guess it's natural to feel nothing is more special than the others.



I didn't write this to describe about the war itself, but only to describe people's lives and their feelings in a war. Hopefully I achieved that.



I do think I could have improved it in various parts, using the above comments.



You know, our generations were born when wars are over (of course I don't really know your age, but I'll guess you're not 70 or something like that), so one way or another, we will have more difficulties writing about the war than someone who experienced it firsthand like the author of Slaughterhouse Five. I would like to be able to make more research, but with the time limit, I could only have done so much. I think I will made a better job if I revisit this theme in the future though.



Thank you.

well one thing i might add is, if you can just focus on a certain fellow who had suffered through the war in a way that can gain some empathy of others, it might somehow work out.

i kinda thought it's because it was jumping over and over to various people and places (and the word limit etc.) that the original impact was somehow divided out. but yeah, anything can work out depending the way you want it to be.

as for me i'm not necessarily an old man or had an actual experience with wars and stuff, but yeah. i got your point. still, with some readings, contemplation and stuff, you can try picturing yourself being in the actual experience. while it may not be always accurate, it can serve to add the depth the way you want to.

of course, the same way i keep telling myself. i'd be okay with the kind of direction you want to take your writings for.

maybe it's not quite related, so i'll put it in the spoiler.