Sue strolls down the laneway. Clouds vibrate with thunder, trees dance and the wind howls. It isn’t raining but Sue quickens her pace.
A roof peeps over the fence. Then the farmyard appears. Cows stand at ease, their udders agitating. Now rain falls in sheets. The view dwindles and Sue runs to the milking shed. The cows haven’t moved.
Sue pulls on her apron, pushes up her sleeves and grabs the stool. The pail bangs on the floor and echoes through the rafters. The noise echoes the thunder. She pushes and pulls and milk oozes out and splashes into the pail. Steam rises and each cow shuffles a hoof and sighs.
An hour passes and Sue has milked most of the cows. Her back hurts. She stands, stretches and touches her toes. Still the rain continues but the thunder creeps away, the cows doze.
Reinvigorated, Sue finishes her chores and changes back into her wet weather gear. She heads back up the laneway. Rain drips down her back as it bounces off the avenue of trees and the leaves along the grass verge glisten like polish. Rivers of water follow her footsteps.
So where is Sue? She could be in England in springtime or Australia in the wet. Or America in autumn but the leaves are still green. France is like England, so who knows. She could be anywhere. Ambling along an English lane or strolling an Australian Outback track. Wherever or whichever, the cows always all face the same way in the rain.
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3 comments:
Sue, first I couldn't detect any backstory in your story so I can't comment on that. (But I'm confused as to whether you were doing that for this story)
What was communicated was a woman on a mission, having to get the cows milked in spite of the imminent storm. It's hard work and leaves her quite exhausted, yet invigorated as she finishes her chores and leaves.
What I loved about the story was the visual and auditory effects you created. I can see her in action as she tackles the milking, see the pails of milk accumulating, see her on her stool milking each cow, feel her aching body with her as she finishes. I was present to the raging storm all around as she milked the cows. And I loved the short, punchy sentences.
What could be improved? Perhaps something around continuity. I was a bit confused as to where the cows are. Are they in the field, by the shed, in the shed? Considering they haven't moved, they must be in the shed or how could she be milking them? You put in the sentence about the cows not moving so it must be significant. Something around tightening all of that up.
Also, if the cows aren't out in the field, then the concluding sentence doesn't work.
(I'm not sure if what I'm addressing is continuity but that's what I'm calling it)
Sue, this SO captured for me what milking the cows was like. You must have experienced it strongly sometime in your childhood. You communicated a vignette of life on the farm, the elements outside versus the calm and serenity of life in the barn.
I loved the milking passages. The sentence, "Steam rises and each cow shuffles a hoof and sighs" was completely evocative. I appreciated how you captured the incident without almost no adjectives or adverbs.
Improvement? - I would eliminate the second word, "strolls", and give it a verb with more alarm, thus setting the mood immediately. Also, I didn't find the last paragraph added anything. I'd rather have stayed with Sue and the passage of the storm.
One of my favourite things you've written!
Kerry says:
This story draws an evocative picture of the task of milking the cows in a thunderstorm. I could feel the moisture of the steamy breathing of the cows and the rain pouring down outside the shed. Perhaps the wet weather here in Sydney as I read it helped the atmosphere as well.
You have painted a colourful scene, Sue, without using adjectives or adverbs. Your imaginative use of nouns and verbs conjures up so many sights and sounds- 'thunder creeps away', 'milk oozes', 'udders agitating (woohoo!)', clouds vibrate' and so on.
I agree with Heather about losing the last paragraph.
I also suggest that some of the sentences could be separated into smaller bits. The ideas don't seem to me to be sufficiently related to require them to be in a single sentence. For example. 'Clouds vibrate with thunder. Trees dance as the wind howls.' And 'The rain continues but the thunder creeps away. The cows doze.'
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