I wrote a quick story after being inspired by the Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality.
It’s one of my shorter pieces, but I would love any criticism anyone has!
For a short quick piece, it’s nice.
I feel I should remind you that that “Lifeless” is an absolute and it felt very odd to see a lifeless body inhaling. Nothing an adjective or two couldn’t fix. “Seemingly” is one I’d recommend.
Along the same lines, “It was a kiss of unrequited love that everyone expected them to show not only to themselves, but the socially evolving world around them. The barriers of sadness, shame and humiliation began crashing into the ground, swept away to sea, never again enshroud the transcendent joy of unity.” “Unrequited” means the opposite of what you seem to be intending to say. If you change nothing else, you have to change that one word.
The shaving establishes that their would be a razors about, but a Panda shaving is a little odd to think about. Just in general, I’d recommend “shaping” or trimming" with his “grooming razor,” but that’s just me.
We discover Joe’s a Panda early. We don’t know Javier’s a Panther until about halfway thru the story. In this story, the species difference doesn’t seem to be a plot point, but still, it’s just about the only descriptions we have. I’d like to suggest the maybe being a Panda gives him some cultural difference (real or imagined) that Javier might ascribe this heightened sense of the appearance of propriety that keeps them in “hiding.” Also, along the Chinese model a Panda suggests, family approval is a big thing.
Also, this is something I’d recommend to anyone… if you have two major characters in a story, their names should be different. To my ears, Javier’s a more exotic name… which is perfect for a Panther, but (also to me) a Panda is actually a more exotic animal. You could change Javier to Xavier and it’d have the same “bright” meaning, just more French. Pretty much sounds almost the same to me.
You could also call him Ksawery, if you wanted to make him Polish. (sounds like Cows-very to my ears).
Again, a good story, very slice of life. I would have loved to see the sister meet the Panther after Joe’s revelation and see what the limits to her acceptance might be. Because I think that her acceptance is a path to the family’s acceptance. But, of course, in real life we don’t get to see all the vectors.
Thanks for the excellent feedback. I’ll make a couple of revisions right now and re-upload it.
EDIT: I’m thinking of writing a follow-up. Not sure if it’s needed at the moment.