My Assignment:
Genre: Dama
Action: Feeding a fish
Word: inter
My Entry:
Parental Discretion
Father casts. Bite, pull, reel.
The held fish flails. Father takes its eye with the hook as fresh bait. “They can’t feel pain,” he says.
In my memory, Mother held a lost squirreling and said, “They deserve kindness.” The interaction with the squirreling settled in my soul.
Is losing her as great as the fish’s lost eye? I, too, will never see clearly again. I’ve forgotten how to swim.
I cried when we released the squirreling. I cry when Father releases the fish. I cover my eye, my shame, with my hand.
Father casts.
I drop worms into the pond.
My Feedback: On to Round 2!
(the judges were numbered and anonymous )
Dear Salem Arh,
The feedback from the judges on your 1st Round submission from the 100-word Microfiction Challenge 2023 is below. We hope you find the feedback helpful, and you are proud of the story you created. Because you placed in the top 15 of your group, you have advanced to the 2nd Round kicking off at 11:59PM EDT (New York time) on Friday, June 23, 2023. Congratulations, and best of luck!
''Parental Discretion'' by Salem Arh -
WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY –
{1943} 'Parental Discretion' was a fascinating story, full of contrasts and strong emotions. The depiction of the differences between the father and the mother was very skillful - I liked the parallels of the dialogue, with "They can't feel pain" and "They deserve kindness." I loved the way you showed how these experiences impacted the child. My favorite moment had to be when the experience with the squirrelling " settled in my soul." I thought the description oft the child covering her eye - and her shame - was very powerful. This was a strong way to show her discomfort as her conscience told her that her father was wrong. This was a great piece of writing. Great job!
{1970} I like the back-and-forth between the protagonist's present and her memories of her mother and the empathy that they felt for the squirreling. It was easy to follow and I felt for the characters, even the fish. Well done, thanks!
{2222} This piece is rich in symbolic language, as the protagonist's descriptions of their Mother's and Father's respective attitudes to animals functioning as allegory for their own relationships with their parents. Is the recurring phrase 'Father casts', in conjunction with imagery of him taking out a fish's eye, a deliberate reference to Matthew 5:29? If so, this demonstrates a sophisticated handling of literary allusion.
WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK –
{1943} I was curious about the word "squirrelling". Did you mean a young squirrel? I think "squirrelling" is simply a verb, meaning to gather something and hide it away. This threw me when reading, as I couldn't quite picture what a "lost squirrelling" might be.
I thought your writing was beautiful. However, I did pause to reread "The held fish flails." I think this was a little awkward - did you need the word "held", or would we just assume that the fish flailed when it was close enough to Father for him to then take its eye out?
{1970} Pulling out the eye of the fish and hooking it as bait is very effective, yet when I got to the end of the story, I had questions about this.
Why use the eye as bait when there are worms available? One could argue that the eye is different than a worm and thus is attractive in another way, perhaps to a wider variety of fish, and so on. It really took me down a path, away from this story. What do you think? Would other readers pick up on this too? Thanks again for the tale.
{2222} Take care not to over-labor your metaphors. The lines 'The interaction ... settled in my soul' and 'I will never see clearly again. I've forgotten how to swim', feel abstract and vague compared to the concrete imagery taken from the narrator's memories.