Greetings,

Sorry, I don't have a full critique for you.

There were some odd verb choices and poor parallelism that I commented on in the doc. I found the spacing distracting. Your pacing was good, and the narrative was tight. Your use of poetic prose never felt overdone or bombastic.

The last sentence, "She has become armour", confused me. I'm guessing she has shielded herself emotionally, but it took a moment to parse. Maybe because I read too much fantasy, but I thought she had actually turned herself into walking set of armour for a second.

I'm not a fan of the continuous tense you employed. It made the MC feel distant, in a story that already felt like a disconnected POV.  Maybe that was what you were going for, and I could see it working for some people in such a short story, but I didn't enjoy it.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy the story, I'm a sucker for well-written, poetic prose, and your story was filled with it.

Nice Work!

This is pretty nice. My only issue was these three time jumps being done so rapidly:

<Already a small film of dust covers her.

<Mark used to whisper under the duvet, “She’s our mother. Do you hate your own mother?”

<There was already a crowd standing at the Happiness bus stop in the morning. And after the workday, they were still there.

I might be nitpicking. But maybe start that last sentence with "That day", or something to make it clear that it is a continuation of the flashback.

This is what I felt most too. It was a delight to read but didn't sate me.

I think it's very well written. Beyond that, it's difficult to comment. Is this a complete work? A small essay? Or an intro to a novel? Or a chapter taken from a bigger work? Assuming it's a stand-alone piece, I found it engaging and it made me want to know more about the characters and world. But I never got the pay-off. So I felt teased, a little. I see something that could promise more, but I don't know if a bigger work exists, or if I have to fill in a lot with my imagination. I come away intrigued.

Wow! This is great. It doesn't belong in destructive readers. It belongs in CONstructive readers (if there were one)

It's cutting edgy, it's vivid and it hints of things to come and people and things to explore. Keep it up.

OVERALL IMPRESSION:

I want to like the story as it seems like an allegory about happiness, which is something I aspire to as well. However, the story is too confusing to understand because there are constant changes of point of view and setting. Other critiques have highlighted the line-level details so I will focus on the top-level.

SETTING:

You frequently change the setting without any transitions, which make the story hard to follow. You begin with Mark in his apartment, then the story follows him on his commute to work. Then you jump back to the bus stop (presumably after Mark is done with work?) and Sarah appears. 

Then Sarah turns off the radio (are they still at the bus stop where the massacre is happening?) with Mark. Then Sarah is sitting across from Ms Webb (is Mark still there? and is this the same place?)

In short, where the different parts of the story takes place is confusing because it shifts so much. If you must structure it this way, have transitions "At the bus s

This is engaging, though turbulent for me.
The formatting throws me off somewhat, but the prose is tight and keeps me fixed, eager to know what comes next. 
I enjoyed the ending and although you don't pay off what happens to Sarah in the end I don't think you need to. My interpretation is that Sarah is going to resist, and be killed. She is attemping to live a normal life while surrounded by war. She knows that death is possible, perhaps even likely, and she has no armour. 
"She has become armour", to me is paying off her resistance with finality. 

I enjoy your prose overall, though this is not perfectly suited to my taste. Your imagery is good but the pace and use of metaphor and symbolism really drive the narrative for me, building it to be quite large, despite it's short length.

Hi everyone,

STORY

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgb1RVSQwG5z8S3E4bVCiYDs8mqvbuoh3D4BD6z0chA/edit


CRITIQUE

https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/szfqir/658_seeing_is_believing/hyw8vor/

Thanks in advance!

[500] Massacre at Happiness