A story test from an aspiring writer.

I am an english student who has just finished Advanced Level english and am hopefully dependant on grades going to college to earn a BA in english and creative writing. BTW feel free to post links to the avenue q song what do you do with a BA on englsh.

The first 100 words of this piece I used as my interview piece for the course and they liked it so .

Here we go, its designed to sit in the Chris Ryan style of book. If that needs explaining please ask.

Six a.m. The woman staring into the mirror groaned as she calmly and quickly applied the last of her make up.

Late, she ran down the stairs of her apartment block, a rickety run down reminder of the concrete obsession of the nineteen nineties. She walked on to the worn dull grey carpeting of the lobby and passing the lifts with their dented tarnished aluminium doors and empty frames punctuated with jagged shards of glass, coloured by years of neglect. No longer working they have become a haven for addicts and the floor is littered with the paraphernalia of substance abuse.

She ventured up and out into the crisp morning air, each step echoing with the crunch of broken glass underfoot. The street was cold and dark and poorly lit by the flicker of a weak orange streetlight. The ice made her walk to the café much slower than usual but she still arrived in enough time to read the “new and exiting” piece of graffiti sprayed in noxious greasy thick black spray paint across the ageing metal security shutters.

“Go home leeve R country White SCUM!!”

She shook her head as she rolled up the shutters. “Racist fools! All the same, whatever planet, state, city or town. Different races, cultures and colours. but underneath it all always the same small minded arguments and nimbyism. I’m a member of the white underclass but for God’s sake at least I can spell leave.”

She unlocked the door and entered the cold dark room. Striding through the maze of tables, she made her way to the locked iron box. The sight of the awkward rusty padlock causing her to curse, she felt behind the tips jar until her fingers closed upon the tarnished brass key. The lock guarded the fuse box for the building, doubling up as the café strongbox. Because of its solid steel lining.

She opened the box lid and began the laborious task of checking and activating each ancient fuse. As the first ten clicked into place, she felt rather than heard the charges of electrical power crackle trough the fuggy damp air.

She reached the thirteenth fuse and saw that this shattered glasswork was the latest of the old parts to die. Taking a thread of shimmering golden spider web wire, she deftly loopied the piece held in her fingertips across the two contacts as a temporary fix. There was the electronic equivalent of an embarrassed cough before the generator gathered enough power to run the lighting systems.

Ten o’clock. The bell chimed over the door, giving an early warning of the breakfast crowd, a real mixed bag of characters. The expected dockworkers haunting a sidestreet café sheltering from the rain sharing space with cardsharps, smugglers, fences and all the other denizens of the criminal underclass. Drinking and exchanging friendly banter with the few executives working the dockland management shift, stuck in grimy offices set in the city slums. Even a few flashes of gang colours appear now and then but never in force, too scared of possible repercussions.

The bitter tang of coffee scenting the café and the oozing trickle of red wine, the hiss of boiling oil echoing from the kitchen created the casual homely atmosphere incongruous with clientele and location. A friendly rabble eating joking, the rustle of pages turning noises, aromas and vivid colours all together clamour for attention in a cacophony of sensory stimulation.

Yet one man, wealthy by the look of him, sat aloof, drinking a Bushmill’s on the rocks and studying a small scarlet leather bound notebook. As the man flicked through the book the sole waitress in the place hovered nervously at the raised bar, polishing the glassware.

DONG DONG DONG.

“For whom does the bell toil?” murmured the man morosely as he shut his book and downed the last of the noxious drain cleaner masquerading as whisky from the brittle plastic glass. As he left, folding his paper, a small brown jiffy bag landed on the table. Even amidst the hubbub of the café the sound of the impact seemed to the waitress to be the only audible sound in the world.

Trying not to appear too eager, with a studied nonchalance she walked to the alcove in which the lone man’s table sat tucked away from the crowd’s prying eyes. She swiftly pocketed the envelope with shaking hands before announcing to the bleary eyed, sleep-deprived zombie at the bar that she was going on her break.

Safely sitting on her grimy age-stained porcelain throne with the rusty aluminium bolt drawn securely across the battered Perspex door, she impatiently tore at the envelope which had her name in Cyrillic across the back “Rosabela”. In her haste she tore the corner of a peach slip of paper taken from a reporter’s notepad.

She saw a pile of seven envelopes containing letters, all on peach paper, tied with a vivid violet ribbon. Hurriedly she read the earth stained letters and sighed with relief as the postmark on the final letter was two days before this red-letter day.

She hugged the letters to her breast and exclaimed ecstatically He’s alive!”

When she left as her shift finished, the customer remarked that it was like being served by a different person when Rosabela came back from her morning break. She seemed enthusiastic and was in a positively infectiously cheerful mood.

She hurried home and scrambled up the stairs to her flat, oblivious to the crunch of glass shards and scarlet stained syringes underfoot.

She raided her wardrobe and unscrewed the false panel in the back of the cheap imitation pine construction. She lifted out a six foot by three foot package wrapped in tissue paper.

Unwrapping the objects inside the box she found herself lost in reminiscences of her past “glory days”, the uniform of her ragtag army, Black jacket, and urban camouflage combats and the belt with her little friends of ammunition grenades and climbing apparel attached. Finally she rummaged around until she found the black silk bag containing a polymer nine millimetre semi-automatic handgun on the 1911 platform. The slick click of the magazine sliding into place brought her back into the present with a cocked and loaded pistol in her hand.. She then checked that the three magazines were primed and ready for use.


======================================

first page of the four I have a the moment.

que?

a bump snd curiosity about atlas statement?

bump from nurenburg.

Leanwolf I am reposting the corrected version and could you point out the bit you mean?

Husker Thanks and I am polishing more at the moment and Steaker do you have a favourite brand of 1911?

Six a.m. The woman staring into the mirror groaned as she calmly and quickly applied the last of her make up.

Late, she ran down the stairs of her apartment block, a rickety run down reminder of the concrete obsession of the nineteen nineties. She walked on to the worn dull grey carpeting of the lobby and passing the lifts with their dented tarnished aluminium doors and empty frames punctuated with jagged shards of glass, coloured by years of neglect. No longer working they have become a haven for addicts and the floor is littered with the paraphernalia of substance abuse.

She ventured up and out into the crisp morning air, each step echoing with the crunch of broken glass underfoot. The street was cold and dark and poorly lit by the flicker of a weak orange streetlight. The ice made her walk to the café much slower than usual but she still arrived in enough time to read the “new and exiting” piece of graffiti sprayed in noxious greasy thick black spray paint across the ageing metal security shutters.

“Go home leeve R country White SCUM!!”

She shook her head as she rolled up the shutters. “Racist fools! All the same, whatever planet, state, city or town. Different races, cultures and colours. But underneath it all always the same, small minded arguments and nimbyism. I’m a member of the white underclass but for God’s sake at least I can spell leave.”

She unlocked the door and entered the cold dark room. Striding through the maze of tables, she made her way to the locked iron box. The sight of the awkward rusty padlock causing her to curse, she felt behind the tips jar until her fingers closed upon the tarnished brass key. The lock guarded the fuse box for the building, doubling up as the café strongbox, because of its solid steel lining.

She opened the box lid and began the laborious task of checking and activating each ancient fuse. As the first ten clicked into place, she felt rather than heard the charges of electrical power crackle trough the fuggy damp air.

She reached the thirteenth fuse and saw that this shattered glasswork was the latest of the old parts to die. Taking a thread of shimmering golden spider web wire, she deftly looped the piece held in her fingertips across the two contacts as a temporary fix. There was the electronic equivalent of an embarrassed cough before the generator gathered enough power to run the lighting systems.

Ten o’clock. The bell chimed over the door, giving an early warning of the breakfast crowd, a real mixed bag of characters. The expected dockworkers haunting a side street café sheltering from the rain sharing space with cardsharps, smugglers, fences and all the other denizens of the criminal underclass. Drinking and exchanging friendly banter with the few executives working the dockland management shift, stuck in grimy offices set in the city slums. Even a few flashes of gang colours appear now and then but never in force too scared of possible repercussions.

The bitter tang of coffee scenting the café and the oozing trickle of red wine, the hiss of boiling oil echoing from the kitchen created the casual homely atmosphere incongruous with clientele and location. A friendly rabble eating joking, the rustle of pages turning noises, aromas and vivid colours all together clamour for attention in a cacophony of sensory stimulation.

Yet one man, wealthy by the look of him, sat aloof, drinking a Bushmill’s on the rocks and studying a small scarlet leather bound notebook. As the man flicked through the book the sole waitress in the place hovered nervously at the raised bar, polishing the glassware.

DONG DONG DONG.

“For whom does the bell toll?” murmured the man morosely as he shut his book and downed the last of the noxious drain cleaner masquerading as whisky from the brittle plastic glass. As he left, folding his paper, a small brown jiffy bag landed on the table. Even amidst the hubbub of the café the sound of the impact seemed to the waitress to be the only audible sound in the world.

Trying not to appear too eager, with a studied nonchalance she walked to the alcove in which the lone man’s table sat tucked away from the crowd’s prying eyes. She swiftly pocketed the envelope with shaking hands before announcing to the bleary eyed, sleep-deprived zombie at the bar that she was going on her break.

Safely sitting on her grimy age-stained porcelain throne with the rusty aluminium bolt drawn securely across the battered Perspex door, she impatiently tore at the envelope which had her name in Cyrillic across the back “Rosabela”. In her haste she tore the corner of a peach slip of paper taken from a reporter’s notepad.

She saw a pile of seven envelopes containing letters, all on peach paper, tied with a vivid violet ribbon. Hurriedly she read the earth stained letters and sighed with relief as the postmark on the final letter was two days before this red-letter day.

She hugged the letters to her breast and exclaimed ecstatically He’s alive!”

When she left as her shift finished, the customer remarked that it was like being served by a different person when Rosabela came back from her morning break. She seemed enthusiastic and was in a positively infectiously cheerful mood.

She hurried home and scrambled up the stairs to her flat, oblivious to the crunch of glass shards and scarlet stained syringes underfoot.

She raided her wardrobe and unscrewed the false panel in the back of the cheap imitation pine construction. She lifted out a six foot by three foot package wrapped in tissue paper.

Unwrapping the objects inside the box she found herself lost in reminiscences of her past “glory days”, the uniform of her ragtag army, Black jacket, and urban camouflage combats and belt with her little friends of ammunition grenades and climbing apparel attached.

Finally she rummaged around until she found the black silk bag containing a polymer nine millimetre semi-automatic handgun on the 1911 platform. The slick click of the magazine sliding into place brought her back into the present with a cocked and loaded pistol in her hand. She then checked that the three magazines were primed and ready for use.

cant get to edit posts sorry, if interested in more then if you leave a response I can happily rejig my second half that I am working on now.