MetaFic

I enjoyed this little story. At first, the scene changes were a little hard to follow . . . I wasn't sure whose PoV was being used in the 'past tense' scenes, nor was I completely sure what order they occurred in. Specifically, I was unsure whether I was seeing the lead-up to the man's death or something else (possibly the woman's subsequent death). By the end, however, I knew that I had been reading the events that led up to the main characters' first meeting. And, having determined that, I enjoyed the parallelism.

The man's character is nicely established through his few present-tense lines, the woman's perception of him in her memories and in the present tense, and by his behaviour in the final memory-scene. Not too much detail about him . . . just what was needed for the story to say what it wanted to say.

My constructive criticism would be to think about what you wanted to accomplish with the rapid scene changes. You might be able to smooth them out, using just a few more concrete clues, such that the mystery is maintained but the reader does not feel disjointed or confused prior to reaching the end. On the other hand, you may want the reader to feel that way.

Dave