Miranda walked in a fog of her own thoughts. The warm spring day gifted her a clear blue sky. Even downtown Atlanta was warm and inviting, but Miranda's thoughts formed a fine mist obscuring the beauty around her. She didn't even have the excuse of a pressing personal problem to blind her to the change of the seasons. Instead, her fog was the random unfocused thoughts of an undergraduate two-thirds of the way through the semester; she thought of a rude remark, some weird march on campus, and the latest annoying pop song that was everywhere. The thoughts might not be grand, but they could be dangerous. Blinded to traffic by distraction, she could make a misstep. She was preserved through the habits of a downtown campus which trained unconscious awareness of cars, bikes, and other pedestrians.
You surprised me. I expected something much more mundane. Delighted when the pigeon left her a note, and then again when she opens it, and then is startled when it grows.
Some uneven-ness in the voice of the girl, but it's difficult to balance between the modern-day realism and the fantastic element. You do it well, and I think if you made this a full story, you'd find the balance.
I'm not sure how I feel about her mother being the Bird Lady. I very much liked the description of the Bird Lady, and how she transforms in the girl's mind from a street vagrant detached from reality to a connection to a different, and in one sense, higher reality.
I like the pigeon delivered message as the call to action, and while I suppose it is a common trope, the situation as you wrote it did not seem at all cliche'd. The same with the Bird Lady.
A fascinating premise. I would read more of a story like this.
You surprised me. I expected something much more mundane. Delighted when the pigeon left her a note, and then again when she opens it, and then is startled when it grows.
Some uneven-ness in the voice of the girl, but it's difficult to balance between the modern-day realism and the fantastic element. You do it well, and I think if you made this a full story, you'd find the balance.
I'm not sure how I feel about her mother being the Bird Lady. I very much liked the description of the Bird Lady, and how she transforms in the girl's mind from a street vagrant detached from reality to a connection to a different, and in one sense, higher reality.
I like the pigeon delivered message as the call to action, and while I suppose it is a common trope, the situation as you wrote it did not seem at all cliche'd. The same with the Bird Lady.
A fascinating premise. I would read more of a story like this.