Ink Monkey by Anthony Cawood - Short, Drama - The Terracotta Army stands ready to guard the Emperor in the afterlife, but one man must stay with them on the General's order, and just one unusual friend can help him say his goodbyes.  4 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Not bad.  I like it.  I did struggle to understand the beginning, the attaching of the parchment, but it came together in the end.

GENERAL XIE JUN, 30s, in full ceremonial dress, walks...

A sweet tale, very nicely told - maybe one to turn into a short prose story?  The setting threw me a little as did the ink monkey but there’s just enough information to get the gist of the ‘why’ without wading through the history.  

Would the act of taking the parchment carry more weight if the wife was alive?  - The principle I suppose.  I couldn’t quite understand the shoulder touch thing at the end - it makes sense when I looked up ink monkey and found they were supposed to have been the size of a mouse.  Maybe more of a hint in the description.

Quoted from stevemiles The setting threw me a little as did the ink monkey but there’s just enough information to get the gist of the ‘why’ without wading through the history.

I read this when it first got listed but didn’t really know how to comment. This pretty much sums it up though.

I didn’t know if this all really happened or if you made it up. The larger story I mean, obviously. I guess it doesn’t really matter either way, but without understanding the situation I found it hard to connect to anything.

I agree that it’s a good little story that’s well written.

Thanks for the reads... this was written but not used for the Writer's tournament, so could now do with some expanding... Ink Monkeys were a real thing apparently, though now lost to history... I had the wife dead to mirror the fact that he was being entombed, but you may be right about having her alive...