I will be updating the post as I work on it. As of yet it is extremely raw. It is quite ambitious; comments, critiques, criticisms all welcome. My Last Christmas: Blue and White Lights Why I Am Dead The world was anesthesia. It had a calm, relaxed numb to it. Blank, even though it was not empty. Lethargy. Through me, everything was in this state. The road zooming back under my fender, the white covered Earth of the hills to my right, the glistening specks falling down. I clicked on my left turn signal, checked my mirrors, switched over. The world was a machine. Cold steel cogs. The other drivers scattered about the road are just different parts, with their own functions. Us parts run independent of each other, but eventually we all link up; together we form the complex network; the automated systems that are the world. Blank, cold. Down to the cyborg-like crackle of the monotonous talk radio host. I don't know why it caught my attention; but it did. It was all fine when I was driving down this familiar route, without abstracting thought; but then, I became aware. I guess it made me feel drowsy (physically, that is.) So, I reached over to the button on my radio.. You never know what kind of havoc a simple motion could have. Not until you have made the motion, that is. One cog slips, and a whole network of gears is destroyed. One arm slips, and you have a twenty car pileup; multiple dead. This, was just a press of a button, and surely, it's results weren't nearly as devastating, but nonetheless, it was just a button press. I switch on the radio. 94.5 and they do Christmas music all December. The eerily mellow sound trickled from the speakers, and spread as mist throughout the car. We hang the lights, have snowball fights And sing our favorite tunes All of these are memories I make each year with you It danced inside my ear canal, tickled me with it's freezing saunter. Then, it numbed my brain. We decorate the douglas together And watch "It's A Wonderful Life" I look forward to every December Because you're always here by my side I felt the frozen burn of the tundra winds; winds that hissed with the wisping sound of liquid nitrogen bursts. Artic fire inside my brain. It wouldn't be Christmas without you The season would just come and go The holiday cheer would all disappear I struggled to drag the car onto the side... Along with the sleigh bells and snow Santa and eight little reindeer Might as well pass on through We pull up to the rim and put on the brakes -- 'Cause baby it wouldn't be Christmas Without you I can't handle it, the emotion overcomes me and overflows from out my tear ducts. I can feel the very essence of me pouring out of my body. My power, my soul, draining out of me, leaving a horrible void. I roll my head back and I groan and I sob. Saline soaks my cheeks, and I clench my hair in frustration. I submit. Elaine, Elaine, why'd you have to leave me? Wh-why did you leave me? I n-need you. Please, Elaine hear mee.. I moaned a few I wipe my cheeks and eyes with my hands. The saline slime just spreads onto the back of my hands. Wipe it off against my shirt and grip the wheel. Stomp my foot and as the tire peels I cut the wheels to the left. Need a full on U-turn across into the third lane, relying on luck more than skill – no; destiny. Swinging past two on the left that took each other out sending scrap metal airborne. Oh shit, I think I got it. Sending the oncoming from my unofficial merging lane swerving to avoid smacking me in our rear quarter. He does get a nice little tail swipe. I swerve it off it and casually head to the bar down the way from my apartment. The bar is homely. It just has a comfortable feel to it; it looks absolutely filthy. If 'looking' is what you refer to it as in such a dim setting. It used to be that all the smoke would cause a haze, but with the public smoking bans, I know now that the place just has gloomy air. I sat with the boys. Charlie; unemployed, Harry; retired, Fred; on call. Today was a snow day for me. They were talking about it when I sat down. Harry was oddly quite, signaling the others to stop, but Charlie was drunk and Fred was oblivious. They each said their hellos and then Charlie and Fred continued on. “Sometimessh people that try hanging themsselvesh sscrew up and the rope breakss.” “Well, then how would you do it?” I chimed in. “You fellas seem to be on a lovely subject. Joe, I.C. Light, on my tab.” Joe popped open a bottle and filled me up a glass. “We're talkin' about how we'd off ourselves, how'd you do it?” “I haven't ever really thought about it.” “Yeah, but yhou woul'n't hang yoursself whould you?” “Probably not--” “I'd jump.” “Why not shoot yourself?” “What'ss wrhong with jumphin'?!” “Seems like it'd be a lot scarier than pullin' a trigger. You might change your mind.” “Ssoh 'ow woul yhou do it?” “I just told you...” “Noh! How whould you do iht!” “Does it really matter? Just aim for your brain.” “I don't know about that.,” I put my hand up to my mouth, “Couldn't you miss?” “Yheah!” Joe came over and entered the conversation. “I had an uncle try to blow his head off with a shotgun. Just ended up blasting off parts of his face and getting a few BBs stuck in him. If you're going to do it, you don't want to end up mutilated or paralyzed, you go right for the temple.” If you read this, guys, it's not your fault. I would have come to this conclusion eventually. I just can't take the wait anymore. White Christmas just came on the radio. Elaine loved Christmas so much. Her last Christmas was a white one indeed. White sheets, white tiled floor, white ceiling, white walls. Even the little fiber optic tree I bought for her room was white, at least it was on a gray stand. I hated that room. So sanitized and blank. Made me sad, it was too much like heaven's waiting room. The thought that she spent her favorite day of the year in that lifeless room saddens me. Only her sister and her parents visited that day; everyone else kept their Christmas' to themselves. We had lots of decorations from our home, and her parents brought decorations from when she was little, and it made her happy. Those damn white walls always showed through though. We had some eggnog, and watched Christmas specials on TV. Her favorite was Santa Claus is Coming to Town, she loved the Winter Wizard, we watched that last. Before I left, I pulled out the mistletoe and we kissed and she smiled. That was her last Christmas. I guess it will be mine too. So here I am, plucking my last words into this laptop. It's plugged into it's charger so it will be on when it's discovered. I have a glass of whiskey, and the bottle's on the stand near the recliner, sitting there with the radio. The gun is loaded and ready, sitting on the desk near my left hand. I graded a few tests earlier, might as well finish that for the substitute. Then, I think I'll answer my e-mails. After that, I will pick up the gun and take it over to the nice comfy chair, where I will sit and drink and listen to the Christmas station. Then, when I am content with my blood-alcohol level, I will press the snub-nose to my temple, and close my eyes.
You write well and it's good to have a cast of characters with different ages and backgrounds... also, it helps that you've set your tale about suicide at the most depressing time of year (if not entirely less than obvious). But I can already see a lot of tired themes creeping into this story... a broken heart, loneliness, drinking, etc... and what's worse you don't even let your character commit all kinds of humiliating and degrading acts to himself or others before offing him. For this reason, he comes off less sympathetic/tragic than he could be. He chats with a few guys at a bar and his girlfriend died, so his life is horrible? Well, I suppose he's at least got as much character depth as Mel Gibson in the first two Lethal Weapon movies. Maybe you're going in a different direction with this? I hope so. But you really need more of a hook in the opening. Just being depressed isn't enough. Maybe you could put the last paragraph at the beginning??? No, better yet, open it up with an image of unthinkable drunken human degradation, just to let everyone know that this guy is hardcore.
What is modern writing but tired themes? The loneliness and the broken heart are to be main themes of the work overall. My aim is to try to capture the beauty of despair; I feel far too many people treat it as an enemy rather than an emotion or state. I am going a bit of a different direction with this than the passage itself may imply. The humiliation and degradation is something I am considering, as I think this passage could be a bit beefier. When I imagined the story, I pictured a paragraph or two about where he was heading, how he completely blew those people off, and such. For some reason, when I was writing it, that didn't come out. I definitely need to find a place to add that in. Thanks for reading and the suggestions,
I can think of a few winners who convinced themselves they were losers and checked themselves out. American writers Ernest Hemingway, Richard Brautigan, and Hunter Thompson all killed themselves with firearms. Canadian environmentalist Tooker Gomberg jumped off a high bridge. I can see suicide as being acceptable only when it's a euthanasia situation, like nutritional expert Nathan Pritikin choosing the easiest way when faced with terminal cancer. (He cut an artery at the elbow -- quick and not terribly painful. Good work, Nathan.) Given all the positive things that life has to offer, I can think of things I'd rather read about than suicide.
Not to forget our very own RangerDanger The overall work isn't about suicide at all, and is to be quite positive in it's own odd way. Personally, I'm not for suicide; but I'm not necessarily against it either.
Parts of your story made me want to cry! You definitely have your own distinct style, and you told it well from the first person point of view.
How about a second chapter. Say your protagonist changes his mind about blowing his brains out, sells his gun, chucks his teaching job, drives deep into Baja California, meets another Elaine, and learns how to surf?
Hey Duck, well done, dude, that chapter's really good. I like the overall tone of it and your style. Mostly very fluid. But I agree with Heywood, you need a bit more of a hook in the beginning. I'm not a great writer so not trying to say I'm the shit, but some ideas of mine include: maybe try a different title (is this it, or the working title?) that doesn't give away too much. Work the description of the car smash more, if you're trying to illustrate the beauty of despair this passage might be a good parallel to emotional despair, like the beauty of physical destruction. What's the significance of Xmas, I mean apart from providing a link in with the hospitalised girlfriend? At the moment you're using Xmas and its imagery as a prop, this could be more of a metaphor, perhaps integrate the Xmas imagery/carols etc with the landscape, the protagonist's mental state, themes of despair, longing, beauty and illusion. But, yeah, I enjoyed it. Take this advice or not, like I said I'm no expert, but keep up the good work!
^ Yeah, well, as it's going to be a novel, the Christmas is going to be interlaced within it throughout. You do bring a good point up though, I could maybe use more of it in this opening chapter. In the full scheme of things, I don't know if it will, fit here, I'll definitely have to think it over. And I am planning to work on a new first paragraph or so, I just have yet to decide quite how to do it. If you meant the Chapter title, I think you certainly have a good point. It does give out a strong sense of certainty that may take from the sense of wanting to see where the story is heading. I'm going to think of a few more possible titles for it and post them for feedback. Thank you for reading and for your suggestions =)
Duck. Overall, I like it. I especially love the language and imagery until the song starts on the radio. Very well thought out and dinstictive. I also like the cast of the characters at the bar. People I can identify with. One thing that I would change is the part between the end of the song and arriving at the bar. The tone here seems very sentimental and the language does not fit well with what came before the song. Especially the paragraph...'I can't handle it....I submit.' While the first part of the chapter is very original, this seems like I could have read it in 1000 other books. I'm not saying that you don't need to describe his frustration, but maybe you could change how you describe it. Perhaps continuing with the same 'mechanical' type of metaphors. Anyway, I think that it is well written and grabbed my interest right from the beginning. I would be interested in reading any re-writes and any further chapters. Good stuff.
I plan to have a rewrite or second chapter soon. I think a rewrite is in order, so I can start out right. I think maybe there is a degree of sentimentality that could be taken out - but I need to tread carefully, because I want to keep an emotional display of it. I may need to flesh it out more first. Build up to it more. But the beginning numbness is supposed to sorta be the calm before the storm. Do you think taking out some of the emotional detail, making the crying scene more vague and having more about (memories of) his wife during the breakdown would be a good way to display the emotion better?
Personally, the crying and stuff is normal. It's bound to happen to a person in that situation. Maybe you could describe it differently though. A few more metaphors. You could still keep the outburst of emotion, just word it a little differently. You wrote that one cog slips and then the gears go awry. Why not continue with this imagery for the tears. His internal engine erupts, oily tears spurts from ruptured tear ducts. A slimy mess, unable to stop as her cutting memory had snipped emotional brake cables. Something like that. I just liked the mechanical imagery in the beginning and it seemed to just suddenly stop. I think there would be a little more continuity if you held that theme until he actually got to the bar. I dunno. These are just a few ideas. They are only my opinions. Take what you want from them and disregard the rest.
Yeah, I was thinking about maybe keeping the mechanical style up a bit, but make it organic instead. I want to isolate the character from the world, but I like the mechanical style a lot too =P I think I need to read more about the biology of crying.
The parenthetical statement here breaks the mood that you have established, which you seem to want to maintain. I would suggest you rewrite the sentence without the parenthetical statement so the mood is maintained.
later Seeing as it seems the radio is already on, perhaps you mean: I switch the radio. or I switched the radio. or That one button push and then, 94.5 doing Christmas music all December. I don’t know but it seems turning a radio on that is already on is hard to do. That's as far as I got, hope it's helpful.
Thanks, it is, I am currently editing this chapter (repost should be soon) so this was perfect timing =)
