Power Play

On Wednesdays I don’t have class till after lunch and therefore I get to sleep in before I catch the 222 or 363. This really applies to any sort of public transport – bus or train or whatever. Mostly I get on the bus and there’s no-one on it. You see more people getting on the bus but they’re just some strangers that happen to catch the same bus as you.
Have you ever caught public transport and looked at someone and wondered what their story is?
As we stopped at the JHH today a couple with a baby got on, along with a woman with a broken arm, split lip and black eyes.

I just wondered about the couple – I mean, were they happy together? Were they just saying together for the baby? The woman – do you assume the worst and conclude that she’s a victim of domestic abuse or did something else happen to her? Going along with the thought that she’s a victim of domestic abuse you begin to wonder how anybody can do that to another person. I just think that no matter how great your problem is that person that you’re taking it out on does not deserve it. No matter what they’ve done or not done.

You just can’t help but dwell on how the human race has survived for so long – how we even evolved that far. We call other species primitive but what does that make us? We fight for mates, we kill for territory we have a hierarchy where the most powerful male is at the top. I mean honestly, we’re not any better than the animals we see as inferior.

How’d we even get so far up the food chain?

On another note, one specifically for Jake: I read your story.
Ok I'm gonna be completely honest here and pick it apart feel free to be as offended as you like because I tend to be too nit-picky on the odd occasion. If you like after you've read this I can also delete this out of my post. Now remember that this is just my thoughts on the story, not the Bible. Just some small things I would've changed if it were my story (which it definetly isn't - I mean I never would have come with something as awesome as that):

- In the first few sentences you used the word 'sound' three times. Possibly use another word.
- "It smelt beautiful" I wouldn't use 'beautiful' its more a word associated with sight perhaps pick a word that we associate more with scent (and 'flavors' has a 'u'). - Again 'flavours' is more a taste word rather than a scent word.
- "gazed around at the world" maybe use 'environment' rather than 'world'.
- maybe "small but elegant"
- a small room with a dozen windows?
- "curtains being perfectly clean" > 'curtains and was perfectly clean'
- "It that instant" > 'In that instant'
- maybe instead of "might" use 'strength'?
- I like the "maelstrom beyond" image > definitly gives a good sense of how the environment outside the room is.
- ok now we're suddenly in a carriage again? We went from carriage to room to carriage again. May want to go back and adjust that.
- I also enjoy the "mindless brutality" imagery. Very nice.
- "Their heads had been torn from their bodies as if madman had sliced them off with a sword." > You're contradicting yourself there. Torn or sliced?
- "It wasn’t a crippling pain merely a hunger pain yet it was coming from his chest." > commas and grammar
- how can a carriage drive in waist high mud?
- "granite not able to be contaminated by the mud." > 'granite and not able to be.'
- "and therefore was good to follow." > maybe pick something more casual (I would write soemthing like that in a Chem test e.g. and so it seemed a good idea to follow it.)
- The road description is excellent.
- You repeated "sloshed"
- "She was a brunette with jade eyes and a plain face." > possibly 'A rather plain-faced brunette with eyes of jade'
- spell "color" right! *rawr*
- "His eyes" > 'The eyes staring back' (you havn't given the angel a gender so maybe stick to a non-distinct personal pronoun).
- sentences do no start with 'and', 'or' or 'because'
- "Or he could" > should that be 'all'?
- Your description of the 'monster' reminds me of how the vamps in Buffy and Angel look. Anything that has even remotely something to do with Angel gets my seal of approval.
- "middle of the ocean" > you described the angel's eyes to be like the ocean so perhaps use another body of water. I like the sound of 'lagoon'.
- I like the cliffhanger at the end of the chapter.

I think my head just asploded. (However, that could also be due to the fact that it's 2:40 AM) Overall I can see this story becoming amazing if you keep it up. I'll definitely be reading the next chapters. I'll take some time off my *cough* busy *cough* HSC schedule to read (and provide further critique - if you still want to after I tore this chapter apart). Check punctuation and some grammar but otherwise the concept is great. Just in the first chapter you left so much potential for the plot and the characters to develop a lot further.