Edition Details:
Format: E-book
ASIN:B06ZY2RJYZ
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| Traffic by Jonathan Face |
First Sentence:
The sunburned old man in the denim overalls was what Gordon thought of as working-man fat.
Story:
Gordon and his wife Amy were going through Hot Iron Nevada when they had to stop to fill up on the gas. They had been fighting since they had started driving from the motel where they had spent the night.
They just wanted to fill up the car and move forward and continue with their bickering. They thought Cooper, the guy who was filling up their car, was a little not there and kind of weird but they tried to ignore him.
But Cooper on the other hand, had some ideas for them. And both Gordon and Amy were going to find that out very soon.
Major Characters:
Gordon and Amy – A couple who shifting from Pittsburg to LA
Tim Woodbury- Amy’s brother who was helping them move
Cooper – the guy at Hot Iron who owned the gas station
My Views:
Traffic Jam is a short story by Jonathan Face.
The premise of the story was something that has been used by a lot of other writers. I have seen it done many times. A travelling couple who is misdirected by the locals and then something very bad happens to the couple. This premise is a very old horror trope and if you are into horror the you must have seen it getting repeated in stories, tv shows or movies. But the unique thing about this story is the way in which a traffic jam is being portrayed here or the way Copper views it.
If you live in a city you know how common traffic jams are and you also know how easy people are in it. The don’t think anything could happen to them there. Apart from some small verbal spats nothing serious ever happens there. They almost let their guard down. But after reading this story i would definitely be more vigilant in one. Guys like cooper can really be there and you may have never known about it and this makes you scared. You don’t know who is the guy you are adjacent to and what he has done before or is going to do next.
The story held my interest from the start. I wanted to know what would happen to characters. I knew something bad was coming for the couple but i wanted to see how they would cope with it.
The characters in the story are interesting. They feel real. I was intrigued by Cooper. You know pretty early in the story that Cooper has lost his marbles. There are enough signs that are given by the author and that’s why i wanted to know his back story. He had been living in Hot Iron from the past 40 years. I wanted to know did something happened to him here or was he like that from the beginning. It would be fun to read a novel around life and death of Cooper. His descend into madness and entering his mad brain would be something that i would love to do.
Gordon and Amy on the other hand are your normal couple. The way Amy is portrayed makes her difficult to be liked. Gordon on the other hand looks like a decent chap.I wanted to know what happens to him in the end. We know his fate is sealed but it would be good story if he is able to travel all that distance and comes out alive and exacts vengeance. I would love to read that story too.
The only thing in the story that i think needed work was the ending and the final clash between protagonist and antagonist. I think the clash between them ended too soon and we were not able to see how far gone the antagonist was in terms of sanity. The one to one confrontation between the antagonist and protagonist would have been better to show that. I would have liked it better then as then it would have had more action in it which is kind of lacking now.
In the end i would say that I enjoyed this short read. The premise felt a little too familiar. I knew what was coming but in spite of that it never felt boring. It was more than an okay read for me.
Rating: 2.5/5
If you have read this story then do tell me what did you think of it?
I guess the story has been taken down by the author from the kindle store. But this story is present in another book by the author called Odd Tales. You can get odd tales from the following link:
Odd tales
You can get other books by the author from the following link:
Jonathan Face
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