Shelby Stidham

This story is, like my first two stories are, untitled. It’s about a young lifeguard who begins to lose his mind a bit and becomes obsessed with the ocean. He starts seeing and hearing things in the water and at the end of the story.. drowns. Spoiler alert, I know, but I’d never post the whole thing on here anyway so what’s it really matter? The below blurb is from nearly the end, when Luke (the main character) rushes in the water. In his mind, he isn’t losing it and everyone else around him are the people who need help. From the outside, however, Luke does bizarre things, he just can’t see himself doing it.

Realizing that it was nearly two in the morning, Luke let out one loud, sharp scream for help before running full force toward the water. The beach seemed to stretch endlessly before him; it felt like minutes before he touched the water with his feet. Once he did, the little hand seemed much further away—the fifty feet he had estimated on shore seemed completely short, as the hand seemed to be more like a hundred feet out. Attributing these poor estimations to being flustered, Luke swam as hard and fast as possible toward the hand. He imagined reaching the small hand, grabbing onto it and pulling a little girl up from the ocean, with big blue eyes and short blonde hair. “I can’t swim!” she’d say, crying out loudly in his ear as he swam back to shore with her swung over his shoulder. He would set her down in the sand and warm her up, using his lifeguarding skills to make sure she wasn’t suffering from hypothermia, and then he’d ask her what her name was. He would learn her name was Gretchen, that she followed her toy out into the water a little too far and the struggled in a panic to get back. She would tell him that her daddy left the door open and that’s why she got out so early in the morning, that she lived nearby and wanted to go home. He would take her home—soaked to the core in his linen and silk attire—and be rewarded by the wasp-looking family that lived there. “A hero” the papers would call him, and a huge raise he would get from the cove management.  Instead, the faster he swam the harder the water crashed against his chest. The calm water from a few seconds ago was now completely gone—sharp waves pressed furiously against him as he struggled to keep his eye on the small hand, which now was bobbing out of his sight.

The story is set in Monterey, an absolutely beautiful place that Matt and I like to go to where my uncle lives. Growing up, every year my parents took my sister and I to the beach in Monterey. It’s a lovely place. Carmel, it’s neighbor, is also really nice. Clint Eastwood lives there. Or sometimes lives there. Or is the mayor there. I don’t know… something like that.

Today I am beginning to write my forth short story, which I said I would start yesterday but had no actual desire to do when it came to it. I don’t know what the name of the story will be… I always have trouble titling them. I usually wait until afterwards to title them but even so they still don’t seem quite right. While I am in the process of writing this one, I will start to post bits and pieces of the other stories. Based off of the portion posted, I am opening the floor to comments, questions, suggestions, etc. I am always trying to make my work better so if anyone can help with that I am very grateful.

My writing style is not poetic and my stories are less horrific than Stephen King, yet he remains one of my biggest inspirations. The portion that I am putting in this post is from my first short story (or, the first one that I’ve completed for the collection) tentatively titled “The Manuscript” but I see that changing somewhat quickly. The below portion has a lot of sex in it, but this is the only part of the story like that. I don’t really write about sex, in fact the next story has nothing about sex in it. But this story is about a professor, an affair with a student, and it’s outcome (her death). Not original, I know, but this is my least original/least favorite short story so that is precisely why I need comments & criticisms. Here:

Three months ago he had been working on the thesis for his book when he received an instant message from an anonymous student. The student, who remained nameless so she could avoid taking responsibility for all the things she would say to him over the course of the next three months, told him that he was all she thought about and that every single night she imagined what it would be like to have his hands—his “strong and dominant” hands, as she called them—all over her body. At first he thought it was a joke, but as the messages kept coming on an almost daily basis, he realized how very serious this student was. The more explicit the messages became, the more addicted he became to being on the computer in privacy. She had once told him that she had found one of his essays from an old college journal, photocopied it a hundred times, then went home and pressed the pages to her naked body so she could feel his words, “really feel them.” It was at this point he began to wonder if she was obsessed with him—then he pictured a young girl rolling naked in his essay, her breasts peeking out from the pages, her hair tangled in his words, her lips wetting the pages and making them translucent. The possibility of obsession faded into obscurity as he began to become infatuated with her. He felt crazy—not even knowing who she was—but found himself spending most class periods working on his book just so he wouldn’t have to come into contact with any students, because he couldn’t stop himself from seeing each female naked, rolling in his essay, her legs open, her finger pointing, motioning him to come to her. On the nights he didn’t stay late in his office so he could talk to her, he would come home and talk to her in his home office, telling his wife he needed “peace and quiet” if he was ever going to make any progress on his book. He hated himself for becoming this man but he found the whole experience irresistible and she made him feel something he hadn’t felt in years. The only time he pictured actually meeting her in person was when he touched himself in the shower while replaying their conversations in his head—but even then it wasn’t real because she remained nameless, faceless. And anyway, he feared the truth was nearly two hundred pounds of acne-covered nervousness as opposed to the vanilla-skinned beauty he had fantasized about.

He is about to find out that the girl who asked him to proof read her manuscript (which is all about him–he will discover after reading it) is the student he’s been having an online affair with. He realizes what he is doing is wrong and in the end of the story he accidentally kills her and her ironic intentions/feelings are exposed… but it is sadly too late. Lemme know if the story sounds any good!