The Human Touch: Chapter One
By Sooz006
- 1083 reads
The Human Touch
Katherine Black
Chapter One
‘For Christ sake, the dog’s giving birth on my bed. Don’t just stand there, bloody do something.’
Carla screamed at the top of her voice, even though her son, Kyle, was standing beside her. The dog, lying on the filthy bed, watched her mistress pointing at her as she screamed. Jess flattened her ears against her head. Her eyes were soft, pools of misery and she was terrified, from the pain she was suffering, and with being shouted at. She looked at her mistress and trembled. A beating would follow. Carla was yelling at her to, ‘Get down.’ The dog tried to obey, but she couldn’t move. As she tried to get up, Carla pulled a face as Jess’s sides contracted and her labour neared the birthing stage.
Kyle ran to the stairs.
‘Where the fuck do you think you’re going?’
‘To boil a kettle.’
‘Does this look like the time to be sitting down to a cup of fucking tea?
‘I’m going to get some towels and boiling water, that’s what you do when someone’s having a baby.’
‘This isn’t someone, is it? You stupid moron, it’s the fucking dog. When I said do something, I meant get it off my fucking bed.’
Kyle sulked but lifted Jess. She cried in terror and pain, and as he pulled her, supported only under her forelegs into thin air, a puppy, hanging from her back end dropped onto the floor. It landed with a thump. Kyle screamed and dropped Jess. She lay where she fell, without moving. Her eyes lifted to Carla to see if she was going to be kicked and she whimpered. She’d landed on a pile of filthy washing on the floor beside the bed. It was comfortable and when the foot didn’t land in her side, she exhaled.
Carla bent and in rare a moment of tenderness, she picked up the puppy, still encased in its embryonic sack and put it in front of its mum.
‘Is that your baby? Aren’t you a clever girl?’
She patted the dog on the head and Jess licked her palm, once, before Carla moved away. She turned her nose at the pink, wet patch on the bed, it was a spreading mixture of diluted blood and amniotic fluid. Lifting the quilt, she shook it, making Jess jump and she turned it over so that the stain was on the underside of the quilt.
‘Get that light bulb out of its fitting so that your dad doesn’t notice the stain when he comes in. I haven’t got time to be washing bedding today.’
Kyle did as he was told, and watched the dog giving birth.
‘Well, get out then. She doesn’t need a fucking audience.’
Carla pushed her fifteen-year-old son in the back and grumbled all the way downstairs.
‘Like we need any more fucking animals in the fucking house. And where is the money going to come from to feed the little bastards? That’s what I want to know.’
Jess felt her insides contract. She held her breath and pushed hard, and as the contraction ebbed away and a second puppy was delivered, she bent her head and licked at the sack containing the dead first born.
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A shocking opening.
A shocking opening.
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‘For Christ sake, the dog’s
‘For Christ sake, the dog’s giving birth on my bed. Don’t just stand there, bloody do something.’
A dog giving birth on a bed is a good opening, but to leave the voice unattributed, hanging, as the opening sentence is equivalent of opening a story with a dream sequence.
The use of the words ‘Christ sake’ and ‘bloody’ set the tone. They suggest a certain class, working class. But since Carla uses the term, ‘fuck’ and ‘fucking’ in dialogue in the following paragraphs, Christ sake’ and ‘bloody’ set a different register and suggest more of a middle-class character.
Carla screamed at the top of her voice, even though her son, Kyle, was standing beside her.
Carla screamed at the top of her voice. (cliché). Let’s look at triangulation. Carla stands beside her bed. Her son has been brought to his mum’s room to teach him a lesson. In the next sentence you are telling the story from the dog’s point of view. Whose story is it?
The dog, lying on the filthy bed, watched her mistress pointing at her as she screamed. Jess flattened her ears against her head. Her eyes were soft, pools of misery and she was terrified, from the pain she was suffering, and with being shouted at.
The dog’s ears flattened.
Her eyes were soft
Pools of misery. This is attribution. If the dog is telling the story, this is clichéd, but it also lies outside of the dog’s story. Someone else is making that judgement. Who?
We have also moved from facts (flat ears, soft eyes) to the metaphysical (pools of misery).
This is compounded by an emotion, terror.
And another attribution, outside the dog’s story, she was suffering.
And she was being shouted at.
All of these emotions, physical developments and attributions happen in one sentence. Keeping like with like is a good idea, but do you think it works here?
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