yeah, i was bored today, so i decided to write a little short story. Its nothing special or anything, but I decided I might as well post it on here, otherwise it'll just lie unread on my pc.

Catherine leaned out of her window, gazing unto the streets below. As far as her eyes could see she saw light and life – the effervescent glow of civilisation. Her hands ran up and down her raven hair as she glanced down at the picture of a boy, no, young man. Henry, her Henry. She looked into his deep green eyes and felt that light-headed feeling she wished she could always feel. Scientists and Professors seemed to be trying to do their best to ruin it, but as far as she was concerned, the feeling was more than a cluster of hormones inside her. The way she felt made everything that much better: simple things suddenly took on greater meaning. The rough texture of the pavement beneath her, and the sound of her caressing it, all seemed relevant. She was desperately in love with life, and desperately in love with him.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw two men bouncing along the street, their voices disrupting the strange stillness of the street. The larger man was wearing a grey hoodie, the smaller wearing just a shirt. Suddenly, the larger man grasped the other, and pushed him up against the wall. She saw the look of raw aggression, raw hatred plastered across his face. He then took one of his hands, held the other mans skill. He almost seemed to caress it in the silence. Then, in one brief tableau, he forced the skull against the all, again and again, ceaselessly slamming it against the wall. The man’s eyes grew deader with each act, a pool of blood splattering against the wall.
Her mouth opened to scream, but only silence came out. Her trembling body hid beneath the window, before she clambered into bed, cushioning her ears with her pillow. Yet through it all, she could still hear the muffled smack of bone on concrete. She closed her eyes, but yet the sound remained. Then, from the deepest recesses of her mind, she heard more sounds – not sounds drowning out the carnage below, but adding to it in perfect synchronism. She heard the perfect notes, even saw her fingers play them on piano. D, A, G, F sharp, B, G, F sharp, E, D. The notes repeated, again and again, punctuated by the rhythmic pounding beneath.

When Catherine awoke, she felt the warm glow of the sun, and felt the clear air after a rainstorm. She sat up, and tentatively returned to her perch. She looked out of her window, and sure enough, the pavement was a splattered with blood as the night before. She wiped her eyes, and realised that she must’ve been crying. She looked at the window, and saw the remnants of a rain storm slowly trickling down.
She then caught her reflection in the mirror. She looked at the dishevelled girl inside, and didn’t recognise her. The reflection seemed to belong to a different person.

She ran downstairs, where she saw her mother being interviewed by several policemen. Her mother seemed calm. Her mother seemed the same as always: polite and dignified to her guests. She had the headstrong single-minded of a single mother and an ex-feminist.

“Honey, listen, something happened last night. A man was murdered outside. Last night. The police want to talk to you, ok?”

Catherine didn’t know why, but upon hearing these words, her body seemed to feign some sort of surprise, as if it didn’t know what happened the last night. She caught her mothers eye, smiled, then looked at the policemen in front of her. He looked about forty. His face looked kind, but then again, what did that mean?
“Ok”.

“Did you hear anything last night?”
“No” the quickness of this answer surprised her.
“You didn’t hear anything at all?” he asked, somewhat surprised himself.
“No, I slept like a baby”. She smiled again, the same smile that she had flashed her mother earlier. She was surprised by how cheery she was.

The interrogation went on for a while. It was unlike any interrogation she had seen on TV. On TV interrogations didn’t involve smiling policemen, cups of tea and chocolate biscuits at regular intervals. The policemen seemed disappointed when they left. It was quite obvious that they had wasted their time. Neither of the two had given any helpful information about the previous night. The two bid the men farewell, wearing the same smiles they had all morning. Once the cars drove off, her mother shut the door, and Catherine suddenly felt very tired. It wasn’t the tiredness she felt when in need of sleep; it just seemed that she was running on empty. Whatever had been fuelling her had disappeared. She returned to her bedroom, and again addressed herself in the mirror. Why did she lie? Why didn’t she tell the police what had happened? She didn’t know why she had done the terrible thing that she had just done, she only knew that she had done it. Her reflection in the mirror looked as tired as she felt. Why didn’t the police notice the make-up that she had failed to remove from last night, smudged from her own tears. She glanced out of the window unto the grey landscape before her. The 20th century buildings squashed into the tiny Victorian city, the unkempt cheap décor augmented by smatterings of bird shit. In the distance she could hear a couple shouting, and two dogs fighting. Once again she returned to the mirror, the visage looking as spent as before. She decided she looked old, the same way others did. Not the way retired old ladies looked, still with the odd, mischievous twinkle in their eyes. No. She looked the way those in upper-middle age did, the spirits deadened by thirty odd years of commuting. She looked in the mirror, and she didn’t see the girl that she saw before, but the woman, forced to grow up. As she looked at herself, she felt her lip quiver, and her eyes about to well up. She couldn’t bear to see herself cry. She closed her eyes, her fist flew into the mirror, shattering the tiny pieces that fell, almost in slow motion – trickling to the ground like the rain of the night before.

Then came a knock at the door. She wrapped her bleeding hand in the nearest thing she could find, the towel on her bed, and she answered the door. Behind it wasn’t her mother, but a boy. A young man. She scanned the tall figure up and down. Henry wiped the sweat off of his brow and just looked at her. She looked straight back at the figure outside her room wearing the same grey hoodie that she had bought him for his birthday, and the same grey hoodie she had seen him wearing last night.

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Not bad. I think it deals with the public passivity while facing horrifying events and the effects of karma. Or something.

One thing could make the story better: cut the whole opening paragraph out, the one where you tell how wonderful Catherine's life is. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the story. In a short story, it's always better to cut to the chase; very little, if any, exposition is required in the beginning. You'll want to catch the reader's attention immediately, right?

You could try out the following: in the very opening sentence, have Catherine looking on the street, watching a man get killed. That'll set the story going immediately. Furthermore, your story has a certain Kafka-esque undertone; this whole "cut to the chase in the first sentence" was mastered by Kafka in "The Trial" and "The Metamorphosis", so cutting the first paragraph out would certainly put you among distinguished company...

If you still want to tell how wonderful Catherine's life has been up to this point, you can do it later, with slight hints.