“Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.” – Charles Dickens
My nostrils are dancing happily because of this sweet smell: the smell of a hot cup of coffee blend with cinnamon. I really love to taste the bitterness from that cup so I look around to find the source. The smell is coming from a house in the left corner of the street at where i stand now, which looks so familiar to me. The house is a two story house painted grey with a black fence and someone has left the front door ajar – probably the reason why I could smell the coffee.
The strangely familiar feeling inside me pushes me toward the house. Now I am standing so close with the house and realize its front yard is full of blooming jasmines and black roses, the gate also left ajar and I can see the path lead to the front door. My feet keep taking steps drawing my body closer to knock on the slightly open door- leaving my mind wondering what makes me doing something that so not me. My confused face is reflected in a man’s face that answers my knock. My rational mind tells me to apologize and to leave the house immediately but something in my heart makes me stand still and stare to the man’s brown eyes. Yes, I just stare to a strange man’s eyes and adore what I see. I must have eaten something wrong this lunch because I am acting so weird now.
“Can I help you?” ask the man nicely after he recovered from his confusion.
“Hm.. I don’t know, I smell your coffee from over there and my subconscious brought me here.. When I recovered, my hand already knocked on your door and here I am, standing in front of you, staring at your beautiful eyes and mumbling nonsense.” My own ears is amazed by my answer. I must have lost my mind because I never talk like that to a man before, moreover to a strange man I know nothing about.
“What a straight answer, I don’t know how to respond to that one. I guess my coffee is the one responsible for your awkwardness and it makes me feel that I owe you one cup. Come here then… if you want to, of course.” The man smiles, showing his bright white teeth. Oh My GOD, I am noticing his teeth now, what else will happen to me after this? The coffee needs to be very strong to wake me from this trance state.
I sit on the single sofa beside the front window while the man vanished to the back side of the house, probably to brew me one cup of his coffee or maybe he is calling 911 to inform them that his house is invaded by a strange woman. My eyes are scanning the living room. The whole wall is painted white but one side of the wall- the one directly in front of me -mostly covered by black and white photographs in black frames: the exact way I want to decorate my own house. The familiar feelings creep back inside me. I turn my eyes to another side of the wall because I feel my tears are coming. On my left side, I see the front door – the one that left ajar – and one big window beside each side of the door, are all in the black and white monochrome colors. Minimalist style with much space left empty and a giant vase stands alone in my right side.
Almost five minutes until the man is coming back to living room bringing my coffee. The same sweet smell filled the air and my heart feels warm. He offers me the coffee but my hand is shaking heavily that I couldn’t take the cup. Suddenly, not only my hand but all of my body is shaking, as if it is shaken by an invisible person and I feel my eyes are full of tears now.
“Honey, are you okay?” I hear a voice asking me softly but it’s a different voice from the man before and I also feel a hand caressing my cheeks as if trying to calm me down. I open my eyes to see my brother face full of concern and his eyes is softening when meeting my eyes.
“Yes, I guess I am okay now. I’ve just had a dream, a nice one actually”, I told him as calm as I can, trying to assure him that I am okay even if I’m not really okay right now. I know now why the house looks familiar to me, because that was my burnt house and the man with a cup of coffee was the love of my life.
“Of him?” My brother ask tenderly.
“and our warm home. I am home again..”
It is an edited version.
The DarkJasmine 
“My nostrils are dancing happily because of this sweet smell. It is a smell of a hot cup of coffee blend with cinnamon.”
Look at the way I changed it: “My nostrils are dancing happily because of this sweet smell: the smell of a hot cup of coffee blend with cinnamon”. Can you see the difference? By putting the colon instead of a dot here, you create a sort of harmony between the two sentences, and that’s something people appreciate.
Also try to reduce the length of your paragraph, when a paragraph is too long (and especially when it’s on a screen), people tend to get lost at some point.
One final advice would be to increase the font size. In my opinion, my eyes got tired after a while because the font was too small. By increasing the font size a little bit, it will be more appealing and nicer to read.
But other than that, I loved your blog post!
Keep up with the great work!
LikeLike
Thanks for the feedback, I see clearly what you mean now, I’ll keep practising rephrasing my sentence. As for the font, I’ll work it asap. 🙂
LikeLike
I liked this.I did agree about the font – but that has nothing to do with your writing. “I walk toward the house because the familiar feeling that is growing stronger inside me pushes me to.” To me this sentence structure is a little awkward – I recognize it because I do it, too. It’s difficult to make some sentences flow properly. That’s a tough one. How about “The strangely familiar feeling inside me pushes me toward the house.” I wonder if you even need the verb “walk”. Hmmm. What do you think?
LikeLike
That sounds perfect! I really need to write more… thank you very much… 🙂
LikeLike