All Comments on 'The Mark'

That's 750 words very well used. Caught, convicted, punished, all in one short story.

Ironic?

"halcyon coiffed" - Halcyon: "denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful."

A neat story told in the minimum of words, well done.

I didn't want to use golden so I looked for synonyms. I should have paid closer attention to which use of golden it was for. Oops.

Instead of trying to be 'clever' with synonyms, how about getting the editing right, forth word in and there is already an error!

The old mafia gag. Not very realistic. Kill everything in the way. Ugh.

1 star

The homeless man was David? He goes about in disguise to commit petty crimes? And he just happened to pull the wallet of his wife's lover? Odds? He then changes from rags to nice clothes and picks up his wife in a Mercedes? Oh, and we find out he is associated with the mob? So he pays for his lavish lifestyle as a pickpocket?

I understand you are enamoured with words but a little parsimony goes a long way to making the text readable. Use your thesaurus sparingly.

Sorry but this was a 2* effort.

I left an e off of a word. Cry me a fucking river. Don't like it, don't read my shit.

That was real retrbution. She lost everything she cares about, her lifestyle and her lover.

The suffering, of course. But only for as long as it took her to die. Letting her live, not an option.

The word for today is...

If you're going to try to use an ornate vocabulary, you really ought to understand the meanings of the terms you use.

"Noisome gap between concrete obelisks?" Noisome means offensive, harmful or dangerous. "Halcyon coiffed?" Happy hair? Calm hair? Golden hair? Your words get in the way of your story.

Noisome gap. Ever smelled most alleys between buildings in a big city? It's typically fucking repugnant unless it is ice cold outside. Yes, I screwed up on the hair, leave your one star and move on.

I get that some people won't like the story. Rate me, move on, skip my stories in the future. Posting shit telling me how much you suffered while apparently being forced to read my amateur work, all the while not having the cajones to actually log in to your real user name, is pretty god-damned asinine.

Lost me. Too clever and tripped.

Dripping with malice. Mercifully short, that's its only virtue.

One pathy moribund writer thinking too much about his language skills that he ends up fucking the poor language into the gutter!! Yes thank u for the suggestion to skip ur meandering verbal diarrhoea!!!

Why don’t ya record ur self speak and just spend hours listening to yourself instead of blocking the ether???

And by the way atleast we anons are honest that we are anonymous ..care to bet that the guys commenting with names are using their real names? Is MORDBRAND a real name btw?? Is it not an Anonymous pseudonym???

I thought it was pretty good. Got the point across di’int it?

It was a verbose exercise.

MFH

350 occasionally misused adjectives.

3 stars.

No questions, that one covered everything.

All questions answered. She fucked up and he let her live. Her lover didn’t make it.

this was a dud too short

My, I bet this is the longest little short story you ever wrote.

You probably spent a lot of time flipping through the dictionary, selecting and dusting off all those "purty" words.

A bit too much time, I think.

Ecchhh. Sheesh. LP

that was bad, boring, pointless, mundane, dull, straining. why are all your stories so bad?

5 stars. Don't be disappointed by Anonymous comments. This was a good short story.

Confusing. How would he know that the "homeless"? man was going to be at that particular place at that particular time and lift his wallet? Or what the guy would do with the photo? Sorry, my brain can't cope.

But a good leadup to the BTB moment.

WTF? does anyone understand this?

short and sweet

Meh. No one to like here and nothing to see. No need to ponder, just move along.

YES, well played Mord, well played!

wait, what?

[02.11.22]

Excellent BTB, a short sharp shot!

111/10!!!!!

Wow, that was expensive English!

This story lacked information.

Even as a flash story.

The problem, as I see it, was that the plot was just too big

to fit into a flash story.

I loved what the story had.

Just missed what what it didn't have.

4 out of 5 from me.

Is that it or are you going to finish it sometime?

Godzilla had a heart attack trying to read this story.

Huh?

What more do you need. The lover is dead, and the cheating wife is destitute. Don’t mess with the Outfit.

huh! what?

So many unanswered questions, the homeless guy, the red and white hand, the Ukrainian, and yet you had to give us the exact model of the SUV? I feel you are trying too hard to write above everyone's intelligence. It's weird.

“ I feel you are trying too hard to write above everyone's intelligence.”

I see from the comments the author succeeded in that. ROFLMAO…

I got lost trying to follow along with the story

🙈🙉💨😶😵😵‍💫

The author knows some big words. Unfortunately he/she has no idea how to use them fluidly.

Who, what, but most importantly... WHY bother?

What?? There was no story here. To much missing.

My fantasy on what this 750 word story couldn’t tell us

David was always part of the mob family. He learned as a young boy how to be a good pickpocket. As a now rich, mob involved married man, he found out his wife, who he loved, was cheating on him. He knew who the man was having seen him, but knew nothing about him personally. So in order to find out his identity, he became a “homeless man” and reverted to his teenage pickpocketing skill to find out. Having succeeded in swiping the man’s wallet, he took the man’s identification, which is what he actually wanted, and he “collected” the man’s cash and credit cards as a bonus. Looking further in the wallet, he finds the shocking picture of his wife in a very “graphic” threesome, which sends him into a cursing and swearing angry rant.

As a very jealous guy, his anger and need for revenge, knows no bounds. His previous, now destroyed, love for his wife persuades him not to deal with her in the way he does with her lover. Leaving her destitute, with her beautiful mansion in rubble, and no longer living in the luxury she has been accustomed to, is enough revenge for him. Her lover “doesn’t do so well” submitting to the mob’s idea of justice.

In my view, this is an excellent story jammed into 750 words. This gets a 5 star rating from me.

Merlin

Far too short to be a really good tale,but still earned 4 stars for how it ended..JzK