Ha. Nice twist. You got me. Very well written, the picture the beginning painted was totally different than what the reader gets from the ending, but when I reread it, the new picture fit to it just as well. Yeah, I was actually happy he wasn't a criminal. I laughed a bit in the end. The heat of the pursuit really caught me, and then the sweet ending... yeah, great little piece, I enjoyed reading this. Good work.

Haha, thanks. Glad to see that the effort wasn't wasted!

Got me, too...
Good work.

Thanks!

I'm not easily pre-fooled (given the wrong impression) because I keep open to the end, yet this doubled use of sirens (police/ambulance) was slightly more surprising than expected.
It's nice to read this, but I wonder one thing: Why didn't he board the ambulance in the first place?

He wasn't there with his wife when they picked her up, and have you ever tried to jump onto a speeding ambulance? :P

Actually yes, but it wasn't an ambulance, it was a truck... which has a lot more room for error.

Yeah, trucks are lot more forgiving :P

Unless when it's the truck from hell with a spiked rear.

oh... now I liked that very much - it took me completely by surprise, and that is a good thing.

well done...

V.

Thanks, glad to know you enjoyed it!

I was a little suspicious because of the lack of specificity of the nature of his crime, but even then the truth caught me way off guard. Congrats!

Thanks!

Awww, that was sweet! Add me to the list of folks who were caught off guard.

Haha, will do. Thanks for reading!

I was caught off guard too and the payoff of the twist was rewarding, but I couldn't help thinking that it was odd that the reader never got much of a glimpse into Michael's motivation. I think a few more of those subtle hints like

SPOILERS
"he was going to be beat."
SPOILERS

would have helped earlier in the story, but that's more of a personal preference. Great job, overall.

Thanks!

I liked this story a lot. Your descriptions are clear, if a little plain, and the surprise at the end was as effective for me as it was everyone else, it seems. It really did make me smile; it has a very romantic ending.

I think the one thing that I might consider changing is the few instances of passive voice that make their sentences sound just a little off. I'm also tempted to agree with Aros, that the subtle hints would help give depth to Michael's motivations, but I'd also like to suggest that they can also be used to pull the reader not just into the story, but into interpreting the story in a certain way, maybe leading back and forth, to tease with the possibility of catastrophe mixed with anticipation of something exciting.

The way you began the story provides an excellent example of pretty much exactly what I'm thinking of, establishing that Michael was looking for something to happen, something that clearly involved a hospital, what with the sirens wailing around, and I feel like if you had continued with that kind of lead-on, teetering between anticipation and disaster, the story might have been all the more compelling.

I do want to reiterate that I really did like this piece. It's well done, and good for the exercise.

(Oh, and I'm also part of the Writers' Block, I just didn't manage to get my submissions picked in time for the first letter, so I'm just offering up critique this week.)

Wow, that's definitely the longest comment I've ever received on a story. Thanks a lot, I'm really glad to see people really paying attention to my stuff. I can see where you're coming from, and I'll try to keep that in mind if I ever try another "twisted" story!

Thanks again for the comment!

I love this story. I read it three times, trying to find something I could offer constructive criticism on, and I could find nothing. This is a story worthy of publication, which is the highest compliment I can offer a writer.

One suggestion for FurAffinity submissions: Please submit to .txt format so we don't have to download the document to read. As you did not use any formatting, it would not have altered your story one whit.

Thank you for sharing this piece of prose, it was an enjoyable read.

Haha, wow, thanks. I'm honored that you would think that!

As for the .txt thing, I tried pulling up a word document that I did before and then resaving it as a .txt, but when I replaced a submission, it came out funky. Do I have to cut and paste what I do in word into a notepad instead?

Yes, you have to copy/paste into a Notepad file, and here is why:

In Word, you don't just have the character " which is ASCII character 34 (22 in Hex), it uses characters 174 as open quotes and 175 as close quotes. There is a similar problem using apostrophes and accent marks.

The problem is that the .txt reader only recognizes the original 128 ASCII characters, all the others get turned in the the 'Inverted Question Mark of DOOM'. So you need to use a 'dumber' program which does use Character 34 as quotes.

However, one last step is needed:

First, you highlight an open-quotes, go up to the Edit menu, and select Replace...
The open quotes should already be in the field, if not, copy/paste it in there. Replace it with a standard ". Continue until there are no more. Repeat with close quotes, and apostrophies (and reverse-apostrophies).

Save it. Then submit.

Okay, I'll have to try this when I'm less busy to learn how to do it. Thanks for the detailed explanation!

Wow, I so did not see that coming. XD Excellent buildup, it all makes sense at the end.

Thanks, glad to see people are still reading this story and enjoying it!