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City Smells
Flash Fiction Competition EditRed
Deborah Gaffney
I love walking through the city in the early morn. The smell of the city is crisp and clean. The sunrise is magnificent. It is as if the sun is giving me another day to live, love and enjoy.
Then, I smell my favorite corner bakery. The buttery croissants are freshly waiting, still warm. I drift in smiling, the delicious fragrance is leading me, my mouth watering in anticipation. 'Good Morning, Helene!' I speak to the bakery mistress. She is the creator of all the wonderful smells in this corner shop. I secretly call her the Sugar Mistress. She smiles a greeting and pushes a lovingly wrapped package towards me. I pay and head out towards my favorite buttery croissant accompanying fragrance.
On the next corner is a Jamaican Coffee Hut. The aroma is heavenly, so enticing hot and strong. My cup is waiting, time is of the essence. I walk to the park across the street. There are the wonderful morning Jasmine bushes straining to reach the sun. There I breathe in the Jasmine, partake of my buttery croissant and warm myself with my Jamaican coffee.
I am ready to take on the world. My senses are heightened to the smells of the city. My mind is clear. I take a sprig of Jasmine with me, to remind me of my morning sojourn and to calm me should I forget during the rest of the day. One should never forget those peaceful times found in the small things we enjoy, like city smells.
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| Wow! Spencer really picked this apart! I tend to think of the negative when I think of "city smells" since I left the city and moved to the country because of the way the city smelled. I guess if you block out all the smog and the noise...it could be positive like this. |
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| I had only read your poem before this. I had completely forgotten about the contest with home matters being a little crazy of late. I really enjoyed this read and look forward to reading more of your work. I have to agree with mynamelez, the positive works well here. When the contest started, I was thinking of city cabs blowing smog, trashcans odors assaulting my nostrils and so forth, pretty negative lol. I like your way much better. You bypassed the entire negative every city has and went for what we could all be grateful for. My hat is off to you Madame. |
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I enjoyed this story because it seeks to convey the delight you feel, or would like to feel, on your morning walk. And I have to say, it reminded me of many Spring mornings in many cities, which was very nice on this gray day when we Mainers are digging out from yesterday's snow.
However, I had some technical problems with the story:
1)It is as if the sun is giving me another day to live, love and enjoy. - my problem here was that I thought you were trying to tell us that your MC might not have that long to live. In first paras, we the reader are asking ourselves who? what? where? when? why? and this sentence started to lead me (and ity may just be me) down a false path.
2)Buttery croissants are freshly waiting. I'm not trying to be a smart aleck here, but I've never heard of anyone waiting "freshly." patiently, impatiently, happily, furiously, yes (especially since these are all emotions), but freshly? What if you changed the sentence to "The buttery croissants were fresh and waiting." Also, you use buttery croissants twice in the same paragraph, and three times in piece consisting of less than 300 words.
3) lovingly wrapped package. I'm not sure what this is meant to convey. First, how does your MC know it was lovingly wrapped? Was she there to see it wrapped? Second, "lovingly" really doesn't tell me anything about what the package looks like. If you told me it was a "Fresh, white box bound by thin, red and white twine tied in a jaunty bow," that would let me know that someone had spent a lot of time and effort to wrap the package, and then I could infer that it was lovingly done.
4)The aroma is heavenly, so enticing hot and strong. Replace the comma after heavently with a dash and separate enticing, hot, and strong with commas.
5)My cup is waiting, time is of the essence - I didn't quite get this. Why are these two clauses in the same sentence? Why is time of the essence? You don't really give us an explanation for that anywhere in the story. And if time really is of the essence, if she really does have to get somewhere, then how can she walk into the park to have her coffee?
Hope these comments are of some use. Thanks for a very pleasurable read. |
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| You paint such a sweet, pleasant picture of the city. I agree that it is very refreshing. Nice job. I also like the idea of taking the sprig of Jasmine with her. It's such a thoughful, easy gesture that gives the story an even more lifelike feel. |
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| This is good--you didn't try to pack too many smells in! LOL... I also enjoyed the positive note. Well done. |
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