hi there! sorry it has taken so long for someone to give this a look.
first off, i love the concept. i think it's a really great idea. the idea that the sense of wonder that's innate to the human experience, this idea of curiosity, somehow was catastrophically extinguished, is a phenomenal core for storytelling, and i would love to see that expanded on and fleshed out. this small personal narrative about that day therefore has the potential to be really touching. for me the issue is that there isn't enough meat on the bones. leaving aside the spag issues, which are pretty easily corrected with a line-by-line later in the process, the piece doesn't develop enough, give enough detail, tell enough of a story, or deliver enough on vibes impact, and it probably needs to do at least a couple of those things to feel complete, to me.
some things you could try approaching:
- more story of the speaker's life. we get sprinklings of details, but they feel like they are hanging in a void. it might be a situation where "everyone remembers where they were when 9/11 happened" or what have you, but i want more details to build up to this so the emotional weight of the reality hits harder when the wonder disappears. it feels like it happens too fast.
- more context of what exactly the death of wonder means for the world. this might be outside the scope of a piece like this, which is fine if so. if not you might give us a little bit more about what happened to everyone and everything else and how everything is different now.
- more vibes-oriented writing. i think you could lean into the speech of the narrator being differently-affected by being very old and fundamentally altered by this event. make the narrator's speech more off-putting. weirder and stranger.
these are just some ideas to throw at you. again, really excellent core, and the stuff you have i think is largely really solid. excited to see where this goes
