I am writing this shitty story, and I want feedback.

[valkery]

[QUOTE]Maybe I’ll just give up. Maybe it will all just go away. Like a dream, passing, as, I ,wake. My life would be simpler, that’s for sure. Is simpler better though? Who knows?

I guess it’s a matter of personal opinion. Do I want to go about my life contributing to the grind as best I can, never truly finding enlightenment, but always bettering myself through constant, repetitive diligence?
Thinking about these things doesn’t do anything for my current situation, I guess. It just makes me feel better about the decisions I made almost ten years ago when I decided to going to Stanford for medicine was
probably not a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn’t be thinking anymore...

Waxing existential isn’t always a good thing, and it’s especially bad when you’ve got a dying man on a gurney with a busted wheel being rushed into the ER at 2AM. Maybe that’s why Nurse Espanoza looks so pissed off
and is yelling at me. I can’t tell. Right now it’s happy me time. This meat sack can wait for a few more minutes while I hello, what’s this now? He’s been shot? Damn gang fights. Poor kid just couldn’t keep himself out of
it could he?

Doctor Santos snaps back to reality while Espanoza keeps screaming in Spanish, “Santos, he been shot eight times! Quick! Get me oxygen get me paddles get me get me get me...” She trails off, Santos has taken
over. He’s a machine. Every movement precise and crisp. For a free clinic surgeon, he knows his business. The bloody sack on the table starts to reassemble. Santos is ripping slugs out of his wounds, one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight. Methodically, the bullets come out, and the stitches go in. Heart rate stabilizing, the man starts to breathe easier. Twenty minutes pass and he seems to be as good as he’s going to get.

A soft Irish voice resounds from the back of the room.

“He dinna look good, ‘id he ‘octor?”

A man, dressed in dark red and black peels off the wall and swaggers forward. His cap is at a jaunty angle, his charcoal jacket and pants slightly wrinkled. The scarlet shirt and tie are immaculate.

“‘Ill he be a’right ‘octor” he asks, with an expression that could pass as a look of concern wrinkling his brow.

Santos looks at the man, taking in the shirt and suit. How the man’s beady eyes and flat nose are sunken into his face, like they had been driven in with a frying pan. He slowly rights himself and nods mechanically.

“I think he’ll be just fine, sir. I can’t say he’ll be much use to anyone for a while now, but he should be okay to leave in a few days.”

“Oh, we can’t be waitin’ a “few fuckin’ days” ‘octor” the man says cooly. “This here lad needs to be gone in an ‘our. No longer. Can he be transported?”

Santos gives the man a withering look, years of medical training about to erupt, to tell this moronic Irishman that there’s no way in hell this man can be moved. Then Santos sees the shoulder holster. The menacing
side arm contained within. He blinks, swallows hard.

“He can be transported, but only if he’s in another hospital on this side of two hours. In his condition you’ll be lucky if he survives that long.”

“‘Ank you ‘octor. I’ll just be collectin’ ‘im an’ we’ll be on our way.”

The man with the sunken eyes walks over to the gurney and looks sardonically at the man lying there. A wry smile cracks his weatherbeaten face.

“Now why’d ya hav’ to do a ‘ing loik ‘is. Yer all shot ta hell. And roight afta’I told ya ta keep yer fuckin’ ‘ead down. Tha boss man ain’t too ‘appy with yer little show back ‘ere.”

With that he grabs onto the end of the gurney and starts making his way to the front of the clinic. Outside is a large, unmarked white van, waiting in the darkening gloom as rain pours down. The back doors slam open
in unison as the Irishman appears. Two men are inside, dressed in dark jeans and black hoodies. As the Irishman approaches the rear of the van they hop down and pull out a white stretcher. Unceremoniously, they
grab the wounded man and place him on the stretcher. Into the back he goes. The hoodies jump up and close the doors behind themselves.

The Irishman turns around, pulling out an expensive looking billfold as he does so.

“‘ear y’are ‘octor. ‘anks for patchin’ ‘im up.”

He pulls out 1000 pesos and places the bills in the doctor’s waiting hand.

Santos looks on with curiosity as the Irishman spins on his heel and briskly walks to the front of the van. He yanks open the door to the driver’s compartment and pulls himself inside. Acrid exhaust hits Santos in the
face as the van is fired up, and then it is gone, turning right and disappearing into the gloom.

Nurse Espanoza walks out of Clínica de Salud and touches the doctor on the arm.

“You stay here all night and catch cold. Inside you go.”

Santos tears his eyes away from where the van had vanished and trots back into the clinic.

“That wasn’t. It couldn’t have been, no, it’s impossible” he says under his breath. “That man.....”

His muted whisper trails off as he enters the clinic, but the thought of what had just transpired would have him sitting up the rest of the night, pondering over what he saw.

In the van, there hadn’t simply been two men and a stretcher. Santos would swear that in the faint light, he had seen another shape. An older man, slightly overweight, grasping a snakehead cane between his wrinkled
hands and sitting, Santos was sure, on a pile of golden bricks.

Trub McFinnigan chuckles softly under his breath as he accelerates down the darkened streets. Peering through the pane of bulletproof glass that separates him from the back of the utility van, he sees his boss, John
Kines, pull himself off of his golden throne and shuffle over to the body of the man on the floor.

He stops sharply and he yells back up to the cab: “Hey Finnigan! Did that doctor give you any special directions on how we are supposed take care of our friend here?”

“Yeah boss. ‘E said to get ‘im to another ‘ospital wi’in an ‘our or so, elsewise we might be endin’ up with anotha’ corpse on our ‘ands.” Finnigan shouts back. “I ‘ink ‘octor Lister will ‘ave what we need though.”

Kines nods his assent and Finnigan looks back down the rain-covered streets. No more shouting occurs inside the van. They are alone on the road, save for a few midnight walkers and the occasional car heading to
destinations unknown. Kines sits down on his golden throne and the hoodies take up positions next to the man on the stretcher.

An hour later, Finnigan makes a right onto a particularly menacing one-way street. It has no sign declaring it’s name, and no streetlight breaks the fabric of darkness that hangs about the alleyway like a shroud.

The van pulls to a stop in front of a hulking building made of brick. There is a large door on the side with the words “Dr. Lister MD” stamped proudly on a plaque in the middle. It would be a more impressive sight if
the building and sign weren’t falling into disrepair.

McFinnigan gets out of the van. He opens up the back and the hoodies carrying the stretcher drop onto the street.

Kines leaves the van last. Unhurriedly, he steps down, pulling a pair of dark brown gloves onto his spidery hands. His cane is in the crook of his arm and he pulls it free. The clack of it’s polished brass tip connecting
with the ground echoes eerily off the walls of the buildings.

McFinnigan closes the doors to the van and locks them with a sharp jab at his watch. The hoodies carry the stretcher to the door. Kines follows them, the steady tap, tap, tap of his cane sending chills down their
spines. They wait at the door as Kines ascends the decaying concrete steps to rap sharply on the engraved plate with the head of his cane. No response. Two more raps and there is a muffled curse from somewhere
inside the dilapidated building.

A light springs to life followed by more cursing. The door opens to reveal a man, slight of build and thin of frame, swathed in a night robe entirely too large for his body.

His bespeckled eyes take on a look of surprise as he looks into the black pits of Kines eyes. He twitches his line of sight to the mangled body lying on the stretcher, understanding dawning on his wrinkled face.

“Welp, that’s that then. Get him in here. He ain’t doin’ nobody no good out there in the rain, now is he?” Lister says, a light Southwestern-American twang edging his voice.

The black clothed men pick up the stretcher, following the disappearing frame of Lister into his house. McFinnigan comes up behind Kines, and grabs ahold of the door.

“After you, boss”

Kines inclines his head to McFinnigan and breezes into the house, following Lister and the two men down a hallway, making a left at it’s end, and vanishing into the manse.

McFinnigan turns before he enters the house. His normally jaunty attitude sullied by the evenings goings ons. His flinty grey eyes case the street, looking for any abnormalities before he too, turns and vanishes into the
building. The door thunks shut behind him.

Once inside, he strolls down the hallway, past a few dreadful oil paintings that had no doubt been commissioned by the good doctor from some patient he felt needed more than just treatment. McFinnigan turns at the
end of the passageway to see another hall with a door halfway down it’s length open, with bright antiseptic light pouring from it. He walks up, pushes the door wider and steps inside.

The man is lying on an operating table with Lister standing over him, poking prodding probing pushing on him.

“That Santos was always good at his job.” He comments to no one in particular. “Stitched this feller up good and proper. Who’d you say he was again?”

Kines glances at McFinnigan before answering the doctor.

“Who he is does not pertain to your professional analysis, does it doctor?”

Lister shakes his head.

“I guess you’re right Kines. From what I can see here and from the readouts on that screen,” Lister gestures to a small medical screen, displaying the vital stats of the man on the table, “he should be fine. He’ll need a
blood transfusion and a few other minor things but, for this many bullet wounds, he is lucky that no internal organs got shrapnel in them. Be thankful that they were slugs and not those damn hollow point rounds. If
he’d been hit with even one of those little fuckers we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. He’d have died before you even got to Santos.”

Kines nods in mute agreement with the doctor’s analysis.

Lister continues his monologue, asking the men present if there is anything other than the obvious wounds that he should be concerned about. Is any known contaminant, such as cocaine, lsd, meth in the man’s blood
or is he relatively clean? He asks about blood type and upon getting a reply, walks briskly across the room. Lister bends, gathers a few blood packets from a refrigerator, and hooks them up to a stand. With a few
sharp movements and a twist, Lister inserts the blood tube into the man’s arm.

A few questions later and the good doctor is satisfied.

“I don’t like doing this Kines, but you know I can’t turn you out when you show up at my door. Now get out of my house and come back in a week. He should be good by then. I promise he’ll be safe.”

Kines looks at Lister, his black eyes boring into the rheumatic blue of the doctors irises.

“Doctor, if this man is anything less than one hundred percent by the time I come back, I’ll be shocked. I trust you Lister. I don’t say that lightly. Look after him. You will be compensated.”

Lister inclines his head and with that, Kines, McFinnigan and the hoodies exit the house, walk to the car and disappear inside it’s white confines.

Once inside the van, Kines sits down on his throne and lets a cold smile play across his features. The hoodies sit down impassively on either side of the van. McFinnigan starts the engine, turns on the headlights and
the group pulls out of the alley, their excursion unnoticed.

Kines pops a bottle of champagne in the rear of the van as they exit the sprawling metropolis that housed both of the doctors they had payed a visit to.

“To my grandson, may the good doctor keep him whole!” Kines intones loudly offering the bottle to the hoodies.

They both smile, visibly relaxed, now that the stress of keeping their bosses’ grandson safe has been passed on to another unfortunate soul. One after the other, they thankfully accept the bottle and take large swigs.
Then, one after the other, they choke to death on their own spittle as the insidious poisons lacing the champagne mix with their chemical makeup, eating them from the inside out.

Kines’ smile widens and he shouts up to McFinnigan.

“Looks like we’re going to have to make a stop!”

McFinnigan grins, with a grim determination and pulls the van over to the side of the road.

He leaves the cab and goes around to the back of the van. Throwing the doors open, he climbs inside and pulls the men out, discarding their already stiffening corpses in a heap on the side of the road. Strolling back
to the van, whistling a bright little tune, he grabs a can of kerosene. He walks back to the two unfortunate corpses and turns the can upside down, making sure not to let any of the combustible liquid touch his suit.

When he is sure that there is no more kerosene to be poured, the can is discarded to be replaced with a small box of matches. Taking one match delicately between two fingers, he strikes it on the side of the carton.
It flares to life, glowing bright orange in the darkness. With a casual flick it is sent flying, falling, down down down, into the bodies. The combustion is instantaneous. Black hoodies and dark jeans are vaporized in an
instant. The men themselves take only a short while longer, but the end result is not in question. They burn, long and hot.

McFinnigan stands next to the van for a minute watching the morbid spectacle, but it is one he’s seen before and he bores quickly. Unhurriedly, he gets back in the cab, turns the engine over and pulls out, heading in
the direction of Kines’ safe house. Once there, he’ll unpack the gold and store it within Kines’ massive walk-in safe.

All that is in the future though. What matters now is getting there. With all the loose ends tied up, he might as well enjoy the trip[B].[/B][/QUOTE]

[TH89]

Well, my shitty feedback is that you should start by proofreading and making sure it's all punctuated and spelled correctly. Also, this would be some work at this point, but writinginthe present tense is usually a bad idea and you probably should stick to past tense for something like this. Also go through it and take out all the adverbs.

[valkery]

[QUOTE=TH89;39126230]Well, my shitty feedback is that you should start by proofreading and making sure it's all punctuated and spelled correctly. Also, this would be some work at this point, but writinginthe present tense is usually a bad idea and you probably should stick to past tense for something like this. Also go through it and take out all the adverbs.[/QUOTE]

Thanks TH89. I'm sorry for the rude title.

As for writing in the present vs. past tense, could you elaborate on why it's such a bad idea?

[TH89]

Well, it's traditional to write fiction in the past tense, and if you write in the present tense without a really good reason it just comes off as a pointless affectation, like not using quotation marks or something. Unless you're a really brilliant writer and know exactly what you're doing, it's justgoing to end up distracting the reader from the important stuff.