[Summer Contest Entry 2012] The Capriciousness of Youth

The night is endless, and tonight—it smells of willow, myrtle, and coming rain. I spend these summer evenings dancing under trees until I tire myself to sleep. The winds in the fields emit a subtle calm, balanced with the warmth and humidity of the season. The sound of the trees rustling in the wind and the steady booming of rain clouds far away is akin to music. There is nothing in this world that can bring me to such nostalgia as evenings like these. They take me back to my days of innocence, filled with laughter, curiosity, and also naivety. This tall cliff against the ocean is a picturesque image of my childhood. It seems like it has been an eternity since I’ve been in this blissful ignorance. Then I wake, torn from perfection.

The booming of thunder takes me away from my paradise and my bloodshot eyes open. I cannot hear the music of nature, nor feel the cool wind against my face. I realize I am in my car and the windows jail me from the outside elements. However, the humidity has not escaped me and I raise my hand to wipe the sweat from my forehead. I breathe hard and feel a gurgling in my stomach as if the personified devil is lifting out of my gut. I open the door in time as the remnants of last night spill onto grass. I feel weak. A glass item falls out under me as I fall out and land on my back, neglecting the splatter of bile below me. I figure as it rolls against the outside of my leg that it is a broken bottle of what is responsible for my current condition. I grab it for comfort before my vision fades. I pray I will return to my beloved fields.

She was a lifeless, bloody, mess. She was still beautiful, which made me clench my fists in anger. I held the broken bottle in my hand, the glass stained from her blood. My arm was tired from repeatedly beating her with the weapon. She was nothing more than a corpse now, her soul gone to await judgment for her crime. She deserved it, but I couldn’t leave her lying there. I dragged her out into the garage and opened the trunk, slowly placing her inside. It was cruel that she still smelled as sweet as roses, but the metallic scent of her blood reminded me more of cloves. With a scowl, I shut the trunk—and her from my life.

The coming rain smells of iron, without a doubt polluted from the nearby city’s factories. The crack of a distant thunder wakes me as my mind is overcome with fear. I raise the broken bottle to my eyes and it is stained the color of maroon. I stand up slowly as my head begins to pound. I slowly stumble to the back of my car and lift the trunk to reveal the pale body of my victim. My stomach sinks as I lay my hand against her face, cold as the bottle—colder. The feeling of poison in my bowels returns and my head becomes light. I shut the trunk and vomit a second time onto the grass. I choke and wheeze in pain more from my heart than my stomach. Breathing deeply, I collapse to the ground on my side and attempt to remember the previous night’s events.

The bar was refreshingly cold from being heavily air conditioned. A man, my childhood friend, demanded we meet there to talk and said it was important, which only proved to make me hesitant to go. The tone he used hinted that it was not positive news. I begrudgingly walked further in and found him at a small two-person table in a corner of the hole-in-the-wall establishment. He saw me and silently motioned to sit with his hand, as his mouth was busy taking a drag from a cigarette. I complied slowly, unsure what to expect. He didn’t say anything for a little while, which was strange because words seemed to come to him so easily. “I’m sorry. I apologize that I have to be the one to show you this information, or rather that this even happened at all.” He spoke deeply as he trashed the cigarette in the ash tray and accessed his cell phone. He placed it on the center of the table, implying I was to look at what it displayed. I looked to him, not wanting to look, afraid of what I might have learned. He returned my gaze and darted his eyes to his phone, ensuring me the necessity of my cooperation. I did so slowly and against my better judgment. What I saw caused my heart to stop as I looked upon images of my wife. Her naked body was in the arms of another man, significantly older than I. She was joined with him the way she should have only been with me. I dropped the phone on the table, my mouth agape. My friend turned his head away from me. He pitied me, unable to look at the result of this unholy revelation.

“Jerry, what the fuck is this? Tell me what in God’s holy name this is!” He crossed his arms and it took him a second to speak at all, albeit quietly.

“For a while, I saw your wife in the city where I work. I wanted to say hello and see how things were with her after you two got married. She left before I got her attention and I saw her enter an alley, then a dodgy building. I became curious and followed her in only to find her talking with some man and…Well…I waited and took these pictures, then ran. I’m sorry.” My vision began to spiral as memories fractured of him leaving while I stayed at the bar, willingly drowning my sorrows the way society had taught me how. I remember: my rage, stealing liquor from the bar, running as fast as I could, tripping, falling, and the dirt in my face.

The cool dirt on my face feels comforting in this heat. I have truly descended into Hell and only the earth I lay against keeps me sane. However, I needed to rise, broken bottle in hand. I limp to the driver door, only to feel the pain of liquor and loss battering my skull. My sobering heart could not withstand the truth. I raised the bottle, smashing the driver window on my car door open like I wanted to smash the demonic frame of my friend’s cell. The bottle crumbles in my bleeding hand. The pain from what probably was a deep gash was present, but incomparable to that which tortured my mind. I slump down and lay my back against my car, then begin to sob.

She sobbed deeply. She told me she had no choice. She told me he threatened her with the power he had, that he would torture and kill me. That he would burn our house and sell her body to his colleagues when I was gone. Not if she complied. I didn’t listen to that lying whore, that tainted slut. Her contagious tears flowed through me as she fell to her knees and I ended her misery with the empty bottle that mirrored my heart.

My hands run through my hair and I snort up the mucus that begins to build up. I enter my car slowly and lay against the seat. Thunder roars as I turn on the car and look through my rear-view mirror, her hidden body in my sight. Incoming droplets patter against my coat through the broken window. I shift gear and accelerate off the cliff. My car, my dead wife, and I fall. It feels an eternity as we topple down. Yet, all I can think of is the beautiful ocean and the smell of the rain. We crash and the last living sight I behold is the deluge of water, sealing my liquid coffin.

Everything is bright. I am alone and nowhere with nothing. I appear as a child. I longed for seclusion, to retreat away. I am successful, yet it is unsatisfactory. Soon I am no longer alone. This glowing silhouette of a woman rejoins me and cradles my young head. This is the innocence that I sought, to return to ignorance and never suffer. I longed for this beauty, this naivety, this tranquility. The woman shrinks to my size, my age. She takes me by the hand and we leave. The light at our feet becomes blades of grass, and soil. The grass becomes endless and flows in a wind that I can feel all around me. There are trees and a cliff against an ocean’s tide. We run, and we dance under the trees. We dance until we tire and fall asleep—under the willow and the myrtle—after the rain.

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As I end this piece, I'd like to say a few things I feel I'm obligated to.

Disclaimer:
This is somewhat an experimental first-person work. This is not about me and I am not a sad person at all, I'm very content usually and currently so I'd like to dissuade any concern for my sake. I merely told this in a perspective that swept me into a role so I can tell it as if I was in that role. Also, themes in this are not appropriate conclusions for real life situations and should be for no one. Get help if you start thinking like my main character. Sorry if these things are obvious to some, I'm putting this here in case it is not to others.

Additionally, although I love criticism on grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other mechanics (because I honestly can't find any in my works so I love being corrected to improve in that area specifically) I will discourage them until the contest is over because of rule number 7:

However, you are welcome to criticize my experimentation, storytelling, perspective, storyline, characters, literary speech, or just about anything else story-related because that is where I feel I am less strong and I will also not be editing this story on account of those comments, only taking them into consideration for future works, as rare as they come.

Thanks.

1,500/1,500 words including title according to Microsoft Word 2007.

Jerry's cameo used with permission.

I apologize, but we're going to be including the title in the word counting.

Fixed.

Oh what black voodoo! In my piece Xenon's the devil and in his I'm the catalyst of the dark events that transpire.

Nonetheless I did indeed like it, especially the use of the cyclical beginning/end. Moreso in how it was used than its presence.

I'm also very happy to see that your writing style didn't change as the piece went on. It kept the succinct word choice and the words themselves maintained the dark mood that the plot set up. Eyebrows were indeed raised. This is definitely among my favorites of the contest.

Ah, thank you for your kind words. Your approval means a lot to me. Additionally, I know you have been trying to hold yourself back because of a history of genuine reviews gone wrong, but I encourage you to truly speak your mind if you do have a critique hiding away. I can take it, especially knowing you approve as a whole.

oh, this is a very nice composition! i can imagine every detail with ease. the use of smell sure creates the atmosphere a lot. kind of a sad ending though, but it's very good writing.

Thank you for the compliments, I'm happy to hear you could easily relate with the sensations I attempted to describe. I hope the ending proved to be just as impacting despite it not being the happiest.

Xenon… my mentor (I suppose). I will never forget the day you recommend one of my works, and that particular event has been my inspiration in writing. Whenever I’ll do a work, I’ll think: “Will Xenon like this?” And to witness a work of yours made me really excited.

I’ll try to be as diplomatic as I can be in making my comments.

First, I love how you made the story dark and secretive. The beginning is intriguing, supplementing us with a mysterious atmosphere. Also, the effective wording from the first part caught my entire attention, which is more than enough to fuel my willingness to continue reading.

The story is fictional, as you have stated, but the story is not like the rest (which are anime-like). There’s a touch of realism, as I can picture the story acted by real, living persons and not portrayed by anime characters. (Oh, I forgot to say that I love First Person Narratives!)

I haven’t got that much objections (as expected) though, other than I just felt there’s something lacking (just a tiny bit) - and I don’t know what is it? I mean, persons don’t always think on whole, complex sentences all the time, do they? The writing was so good and so deep that I felt that it lacked the unnecessary things that sometimes we had in mind. Like profanities, or useless words. (Well, maybe it’s just me.)

A person that will kill his wife (and himself eventually) can only be insane right? Or is he desperate? I don’t know, but in the end, I’m kind of searching for some exclamation points, and screams, and more dialogues.

It was just a bit too articulate for my low level comprehension. Haha~ (Gosh, I feel really ashamed right now for saying those things. I’m sorry Xenon!)

But still, I loved it! I really do!

Ha, I'll try to address everything I want to in order. Firstly, I'm quite humbled and honestly surprised to see you view me as a mentor figure. I simply am myself and I hope that is sufficient. I suppose I have seen you grow a lot since you've joined and began RPing, Chronus, and only for the better.

I'm happy to hear my hooking paragraph is effective enough for your interest. I did write it with real people in mind, and surprisingly enough, I pictured the main character as one of my friends where I live, which I wasn't sure was a good or bad thing at the time.

On the negative side, I'm happy to receive your criticisms and will reflect on the impressions you've told me you were given. I could address some specifics, but I don't want to defend my decisions. This is because I feel your impression is simply what it is and if I have to explain reasoning behind my motives without being asked, then I've done a poor job as a writer. It is as they say, if you have to explain the joke, it kills it.

Don't worry too much if you feel like it went over your head, I really tried to make it philosophically and psychologically deep.

Okay man this is a good work but probably you agreed with me that even though this piece is indeed well-written there are some things to point out~

First things first there's a pretty vague description about the timeline going on the scenes. Especially when the main protagonist flashes back and moves back to reality, it doesn't really feel really strong enough...the indication of him reminiscing towards the previous thing before the event as it's obstructed by a huge wall of text...

Like this one



I have to re-read it twice to see the notion that precede the changing of the scenes since I'm quite thrown out by the huge blocks of texts. While your writing structure is indeed excellent, your paragraphing seem a bit of need of variety since it's only condensed on few huge blocks of texts that the readers doesn't really have any given clue about how to stop in order to feel the words. It's just my preference but when you had some sentences filled with strong emotions you might want to separate it in a single sentence followed by short paragraphs instead. It made the readers could take their time on feeling as they cope up with the understanding of the situation.

Okay if I got this correct that her wife do NTR him and he went berserk on his wife. But let me get this straight first



Well it kind of confusing how you placed the description a bit too high...isn't it should be put lower?



There, the previous version gives me an ambiguous feel that...why did it turn out to be a shout when the action's described with a whisper? And who exactly is Jerry indeed, is he a bartender in addition of the main characters close friend. His background was pretty vague to say the least and I can't really say for sure what kind of person he is.

Let me go back to the timeline.

1. The day before he and the Protag met with Jerry to heard about the NTR incident involving his wife

2. The next day(I'm not certain about it since the incident where he killed his own wife seems to happen at the same day lol based on my observation) And it's really fucking damn coincidental how he suddenly found his wife on a car(with the exact guidance towards the location of course). Well it's not even explained how exactly did he find her...even makes less sense he's able to find her by running out of chaos while feeling heavily drunk~

3. Why did the protagonist hated his wife so much to the point she's wanna kill her just because she cheated? Is he under the heavy influence of alcohol at the moment he killed his wife, or is it from the day before too?

Many other people could just call her and threaten for a divorce, I don't know really if he's sober or not by the time Jerry told him about his wife.

Yes I began to think it's because of his depression in his real life but I felt that it wasn't being described apparent enough : is it because of his shitty job? Shitty environment about how society treats them like trash? I don't know...without a sound description on how he seem so depressed, that he began taking it all on his wife, I can't even justify his actions at all with common sense, other than he's just a intensely depressed madman under the strong influence of alcohol.

4. Okay so after he killed his wife...did he passed out directly after that? It does seem that way but again it's not apparently described. Then he woke up and remember the past memories about what happened after that, gets so suddenly depressed he went to kill himself, carrying along the corpse of his dead wife by running the car over towards a cliff...the end.

Nevertheless, there's a reason behind each and every action in this story, but overall I seem to detest his actions as someone who tries to run away from reality. But if you try to put yourself in the shoes of the protagonist, that is if the same events happened to other people that lead towards the motive of performing such actions...some might even do the same as he did. It's probably a common occurrence happening everywhere but still nice to be adapted countless times into a story~

The timeline is rather straightforward I think. Notice the changes in past to present tenses in the early paragraphs. From what I see the progression was:

1. Focal character meets Jerry, hears news, drowns sorrows.

2.FC goes home to confront wife. Kills her. The garage is mentioned. That is why I draw the conclusion that she was indeed at home and not randomly found.

3.FC puts wife's body into the car and drives to cliffside. However, the drive to the cliff is indeed never mentioned.

4.This is the present tense point. He passes out in his car and later wakes up, rolls out of the car, etc.

5. The drop. The lost perfection of both his happy relationship and the youth he is ruminating on seem to be it for him. He decides the best way to cope is to not exist.

I feel the paragraph lengths were fine and served their purpose, either denoting a change in scene or a change in time-frame. I think what may have thrown you off is that each cut between past and present is marked by a familiar feeling, which sparks the transition. For example, he touches her cold face and after collapsing recalls how cold the bar was. On his way home from the bar he trips and falls face-first in dirt, and is still in the dirt (albeit not the same patch) for the cut back to the present. When he leans against the car and is crying it cuts to the confrontation where she is crying. It is these markers and the tense shifts than actually really made the piece for me in the first place. The usage of sense to tether the memories together and tell the story was great.

The post-quote description is fine. It's describing Jerry's actions before speaking rather than the way in which the focal character was speaking.

Whoa thanks a lot for pointing it out, I'll try to re-read it again with the guidance you mentioned. It's probably because I don't read it carefully enough that I came out with such conclusion =D

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EDIT : Yarr, I still can't really understand it and some parts are still not clear. I guess it's probably a bit too much for me lol =)

i know what you mean about the lack of unnecessary emotions into the character, but there are people who thinks like that. you know the feeling when you broke something and consciously know that screaming and profanities doesn't do anything but immediate actions do? i am getting this feeling from the character. and at the same time, the feeling that the immediate actions fixes nothing or worsens the situation that you are forced to find an immediate solution to that new problem? until the point of no return? it's like an "i can't help but sigh" sort of thing for me. but regarding the level of madness in the character's mind, i find it adequate enough. i would say something close to a calm anger twisted rationality of despair.

Thank you for the honest criticism, high. I could tell you were somewhat confused with your read-through the first time (and second, apparently) and I am glad Jerry stepped in for me because I was unsure about the general feel I was giving out with it. If it's any consolation, this piece was made to confuse you, almost into the category of mystery. I felt when writing that I wanted the reader to have just as much confusion about the situation as the main character did. I was hoping this would lead to a more interactive read where you have to tilt your head a bit to see what's going on and less of a friendly read-along story. However, I really tried to help you through that confusion with subtle things you may have missed because I just wasn't making them clear enough.

If it helps at all and you honor me with even more attention than you've given it already, I will tell you that just about every word is important. I read everything word-for-word and in turn, write word-for-word as well. This kind of story will not surprisingly be confusing if skimmed. Unless you did read word-for-word, then I apologize for my assumption.

And to address the blocks of text comment, if Fakku would indent properly, then I would remove the spaces between paragraphs so it looked more like an actual novel. It doesn't so I must settle for that space as a separator. Be happy for that because I'm sure that probably would have been even more of a frustrating read for you. Additionally, I've read novels where paragraphs can be pages in length, mainly Tom Clancy.



Thank you for the comment, however I want to get some clarification from you and Chronus. You both say the character has a lack of unnecessary emotions. Do you mean that you expected him to be more irrational or simply more spontaneous? Naturally, if I am putting a nail in a wall and hit my hand with the hammer, I will certainly cuss out of reaction, so is that the kind of emotion you are referring to because it is irrational?

Yeah I felt like a detective trying to solve a mystery hahaha, but lol I'm never good with solving riddles hahaha. Though great job for making that mysterious atmosphere going on, okay feel free to either hint me or leave the thrill to myself =D

Nah you don't have to change anything, at the second thought I felt the structure was fine the way it is. For your info I kinda skimmed it through and focused more on a specific part so that explains as you put it before~

i think that's what chronus is looking for. i like the way it is, actually. i was just explaining to chronus that there are people who are not as spontaneous and irrational with their speech, especially if it involves a rush of adrenaline. the main character's irrationality is depicted quite differently from the norm. it's like the time i sliced off a portion of my thumb, and what i immediately do after seeing all the blood spurting out and splattering the wall, is find the portion that is sliced off, tried to put it back, disappointed and at the same time satisfied with the result, try to fix it further, end up miserably.

and all that happened without saying something like "$H!T MY THUMB!!! HELP!"

and more like, "where's that part? is it even possible to stitch it? should i use glue? must stop the bleeding, don't want my thumb to look shorter"

now, my thumb has a rather awkward sensation due to the misplaced nerve endings.

the way i'm seeing it is that chronus is expecting an irrationality that goes upward, while it seems to be going sideways, which is good.

Ah, very interesting. Thank you for the anecdote and explanation.

Oh, and to clarify the matters with bluesorrow, you’re not seeing my point, I’m sorry. What I would like to say is that it’s a bit stiff for my taste. Xenon’s writing was very articulate for my level. I’m kind of searching for more of the Protagonist’s emotions, because I think the story was more of “what I have done” than “what I have felt”.

I can picture the events, yes, I can almost see myself doing the same thing (lols). But I don’t know what the character is feeling, other than he is sorry for killing his wife. (Like when he found out about his wife’s “infidelity”, the feeling of confusion overpowered the feeling of surprise.)

It - it really feels bad to say something negative to a piece I know I can never write (yet). So, I hope that clears the matter.

(Still, if there'd be a poll, I'll be betting on this)

I see what you're insinuating now. Thank you for clarifying, I'll have to take this into account in the future by looking into more graphic depictions of emotion. Much appreciated, Chronus, and thank you again for your kind words.

i understand now, thank you. although, how the main character described the events of what-i-have-done, it kind of gives off subtle feelings of regret and denial. an fearful expectant of solitude's absolution striving for a favorable illusion, delaying the ugly truth that only fuels the drive for irrational actions where only the ultimate end can deliver freedom and bliss. maybe it's just me.

one of the most impacting factor in this story is whether or not the wife is telling the truth is never told and how the main character deal with it, sadly, for the worse. but this is where it all ends since whether or not the wife is lying or not, whatever he does will always leave him miserable.