Last Call by El Padre - Short, Drama - A man calls his wife as she lies dying in a hospital bed during the Covid pandemic. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Bittersweet.

Seeing out the final moments of his loved one and allowing her to be at peace.

Sentimental and nicely done as many  a true story through Covid

Good job on entering

That was touching and relevant. Aside from numerous punctuation issues, it flowed well. Not much else to say.

Parameters met - Good work, writer.

A real nitty issue – but muted pings could be anything. Make it the ping of something (e.g., the muted pings of medical equipment).

Quoted Text Let’s get you tidied up for your husband Mary, he’ll be calling back in moment

Need a comma after husband.

Okay – great topic for this challenge – and very poignant. A heartfelt tale for sure. Nice job.

Simple, straight forward and well written.

Good effort.

I don't like being the dissenting voice but there was just not enough subtlety or surprises for my liking.

Would he really say this:

FLETCHER (O.S.) (CONT’D)
.....I think this is your last
round.

I'm not sure that'd be something I'd welcome hearing on my death bed.

Sentimentality is a difficult one for me. And when the choice is that the other person doesn't speak but instead gives a sound cue. I'm often hard to please, so don't mind me.

I'm really glad you didn't go too far with the wedding-ring sound effect. One more time I feared it might enter parody/comedy land inadvertently. Ever see Hector "Tio" Salamanca in Breaking Bad with the ringing of the bell? Great for a villain.

The sequence on the end with Elizabeth, hmm... Like I said, I'm hard to please sometimes. It seemed to me it should end with Fletcher.

Nice final ending with complete silence.

I thought this hit emotionally. Well done.

It was definitely right on the line of too much, but, then wouldn't a moment like this be jam-packed emotionally?

Regarding the line that LC mentions "I think this is your last round." When my mother-in-law was in hospice, they told us that sometimes you need to give the person permission to go. I read that line as such, so for me, it worked. But, I can definitely see where some might not like it.

I definitely agree with LC's note that the script should end on Fletcher. It's his story. And his wife's, of course.

Still, good job.

An emotional story for someone like me to read to be sure. I think you did a good job bringing the human side of the story to the forefront.  If I had one thing to suggest, it would be to take Elizabeth out of this altogether. She doesn't really add anything and she almost comes off as emotionally detached, which is quite a juxtaposition based on what we've read earlier.

Still, good job and best of luck with it.

Gary

A nice touching effort.  Good job.

Meets the challenge.

Emotional and heartfelt, nice work there.

The dialogue got a little repetitive and veered towards being on-the-nose at a few moments.
One example is when the nurse said:

Quoted from Last Call - 04C ...She was at peace at the end, her last thought was obviously for you.

You did a good job of showing this, no need to say it

Nice job with the ending.
Closing with silence hits hard if you imagined a constant beeping and shuffling in the background.

Good stuff~

Hi writer,

Personally would have gone with (V.O.) over (O.S.), but not really an issue.

Quoted Text I don’t what I’ll

Know.

Pretty straight forward tale here, not really a whole lot to it.

Was a bit too sickly 'bitter'sweet for my taste, but it's the kind of thing that generally fairs well in OWC type challenges.

No issues with the writing and a very easy read.

All the best.

Writer,

can certainly appreciate the drama you provided, but what you didn't do was give us much of a story to go with it. It needs more. A reveal. Tension. Something. A story needs a reason for telling. Here we just have a dying woman and her distraught husband. The end. Give us more, please.

Steve

Very poignant, touching and meets the parameters. I've just seen this covered a lot recently on shows like Grey's Anatomy and The Good Doctor.

I thought the tapping of the ring might have been morse code and she was trying to say goodbye, that would have been a bit different.

Hello writer

I may be heartless but there is no story here. Also confused slightly about the mentions of the Grandson, where was the grandson on the call?

I like Marks idea of Morse Code - The Wife tries to say goodbye via morse code, the husband doesn't know morse code so it slips him by, he thinks she has died without her being able to say goodbye, but the grandson clocks what it was an has been writing down the message and tells his Grandfather, now the grandfather is presented with closure

Anyway, well done on getting one in.

Matt

A heartfelt story.

I don't like these but this one did it for me.

Elizabeth sounds cold. Maybe work on her some?