The
Cloud Appreciation Society meets every Monday and Thursday at 1:28 p.m., unless
it’s too sunny. We meet on the hill behind the ice cream shop that still serves
Classic Bubblegum. You may bring your dog or fish, but cats and lizards are not
allowed. New members are always welcome, but if you don’t believe in fate,
don’t come. You must be able to make two paper airplanes in under 95 seconds.
They don’t have to be able to fly. Contradictory statements are allowed to be
said, but don’t expect The Society to truly understand you.
The woman that ran The Cloud
Appreciation Society, or TCAS for short, always smelled like hot glue. None of
us knew what she did for a living and none of us asked. We didn’t care about
jobs or relationships outside of TCAS. We weren’t there to bring outside life
in The Society, we were just there to be.
TCAS fizzles out in the winter,
when it gets too cold to lie on the ground, and when it is too cloudy to really
appreciate them all individually. But we all could tell when it started again.
So we’d leave our jobs, our homes, or classes, and we’d all convene on that
hill, some of us holding Classic Bubblegum ice cream, others not. We’d all lie
down on the grass and then start again.
I feel like you should make this into one flash fiction piece. It flows nicely. However, with the second paragraph, you should either change it to present tense, OR you could leave it in past tense and but it in italics and leave the first and last paragraphs (both in present tense) in regular formatting. Then it would feel like the second paragraph was a memory or something, which would be really awesome.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kathy on the past-present pretense, and I think that putting the second paragraph into italics could be really cool. A memory sort-of idea would flow nicely.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do love this beginning. I love the description and the ice cream store that still sells the Classic Bubblegum flavor, the woman who smells like hot glue and how the people are just there to be there, and the whole idea of a 'Cloud Appreciation Society' is amazing.
I really don't have any criticisms to make besides I need more. It's a wonderful work, and I love it so far. Please continue. :>