Mayflies (Reformated) (323 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0.33 on 13 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Ais (View user info) at 2007-01-02 06:08:52 EST
Sorry. I'm using a 17" monitor and it's ok to read on that. Again, this is a work in progress. I'd love some criticism, positive or negative, but I'm really interested in people's perceptions of the narrator: gender, aged, relationship to other characters etc. Thanks again. x
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Mayflies
I'm walking through the corridor. Have you ever really smelt a hospital? I mean behind the antiseptic. The lingering miasma, greasy notes mingling with over-boiled vegetables, the masked stench of decay, the rank smell of sickness and death, all dancing together. Just inhale. Take it all in. It's clinging to my tongue and the back of my throat, trying to choke me with its putrid flavour.
My footsteps echo in the emptiness. This wing is as quiet as the grave. Only the occasional beeping of machines interrupts its silent reverie, the occasional rasping breath of its patients.
The plaster on the walls is old, crumbling, dirty. The cracks that play across its surface form forks of lighting, exploding on the walls. The paint is that vomit shade of yellow, acrid and nausea inducing. Someone tried to cheer it up once, by hanging bright paintings. They may as well have redecorated the Tower of London in chinz. It's all the sadder for knowing they tried though.
I've reached my destination. Looking through the glass window of her room, I see her, lying there, dwarfed by the machinery that surrounds her bed. She seems more diminished every time I visit her. She's fading away slowly, not even dying. Just fading to nothingness.
She raises her head and smiles as I catch her eye. She's like a rag doll, all floppy head and weak grin. The tubes grow out of her from all angles, rooting her in place. I resist the urge to tear them all away, and let her free.
"Mornin'" she murmurs, as I regain my control and walk through the door to her sanctum.
"Mornin.'" We exchange niceties in our traditional way, and I share the gossip of our mutual friends. No one much comes to visit her these days. There's a point where it becomes rude to continue living. People are sympathetic at first, but once they're prepared for your death, eventually it just becomes unsettling that you continue to exist, hovering half-way between here and there; an insult to the truly living. You become a reminder of their fragile mortality. Old friends begrudge her the last dregs of life.
The conversation's moved on without you. We've caught up and I've started to tell her about the multi-verse theory. I like to tell her something new everyday.
"So there's alternate universes? One where I'm on a beach in Barbados, winning Miss World?" There's a universe where she's healthy and well, not lying in this stinking death bed, waiting to die, with only me for company.
"There sure is. And one where you have wings, to fly to that beach."
"So there's a universe for every possibility?"
"Yup. Every single one." There's one where you can be cured with just one little pill; where they know what's killing you, what's eating you from the inside. There's a universe where you're a princess in a tower, the way you should be. Where everyone recognises you for what you are, instead of abandoning you to face this alone.
I open the bottle of water from my bag, and change the subject.
"Did you know mayflies only live for twenty-four hours? They live for one day, and they don't eat or drink or sleep. They just live in this frenzy of fucking and laying eggs, while their bodies eat them from the inside. How cool is that?"
Taking a drink, I realise maybe this wasn't the best subject either. But I'm going to stick, not twist.
"They spend their lives dancing on the surface of the water. " I paint her pictures of a simple life. One where none of this matters, just the dance and living life.
The conversation's left you behind again. Now we're talking about stories. She tells me about the books she's reading. She was never a big reader before this, but there's not much else she can do now.
"It's weird how stories have a beginning, middle and an end. Imagine if life was like that. You grow up, have your adventure, meet the perfect man and live happily ever after. Whose life works like that? Life is all just middles."
She's right, for most people. But it seems like her life is all ends.
I haven't slept in days. All systems are running on caffeine and nicotine. Everything's a little blurred and shaking, like a movie shot on a hand held camera. I've moved into that hyper-real state; that place where the colours blur brighter and everything's moving around you in slow-motion, as if you're in the middle of an action replay from the Olympics.
If you don't sleep for ten days, you lose your mind. If you don't sleep for fifteen days you die. That's it. Cue the Pac-Men filling the screen. Flashing lights. Game over. The end. Sharks don't sleep. Kola-bears sleep twenty-three hours a day. Try counting sheep. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
I decide to tell her my final new thing. "In the end, everyone has the same hallucination, under sleep deprivation. Little green men. Little green men crawling all over your body. " Prolonged cocaine abuse produces the same hallucinations, the same glorious visuals, but I don't tell her that.
She shimmers and I see them. Just for one horrible minute. Clambering across her skim-milk skin, like graffiti on a white-washed church wall.
They're profane in their nudity; warped little cherubs on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Her body's always been a temple. Thick black hairs on wiry green bodies. All squinting eyes, dirty claw-like nails and grins like pure malice. Looking at them I taste bile in the back of my throat, and my eyes sting like sulphur fills the room.
They seem me watching them. A million teeming green bodies, crawling across her. They see me watching them and spite fills their eyes. They pretend to start fucking her. Grotesque, hip-thrusting goblins, like an evil Elvis convention. One looks up and gives me the finger, smirking as his flaccid arse pumps the air above her stomach.
I blink and we're back in the hyper-real. Still slightly insane, but at least there's no little green men here. This time the conversation's moved on with-out me.
She's talking but I'm just watching her. She has the most expressive face. Heavy dark eyebrows, that move as she talks and say more than any tone of voice. They look like they were drawn on by a child with a black crayon. Her skin is waxy yellow. It reminds me of my uncle's funeral. His skin had that smooth, unreal look, as he lay in the open casket. I was six and I couldn't understand why we were watching him sleep.
A nurse bustles in. Her skin is sallow looking, and oily, her hair a black, tangled bird's nest. The buttons of her uniform strain against the bulk of her fleshy figure, gapping with the pressure; she's all rolls and folds. She reminds me of one of those pictures of Elizabethan plague doctors, a giant crow. She announces that visiting hours have been over for half an hour, and it's high time I left.
As I slowly pack the things I've scattered across the room, she checks tubes and needles and monitors.
"Go on, get out." Her scratchy, clawing voice breaks through my thoughts, and I rush to say good bye. I don't want to leave with her in there. I'd never want to leave anyone to the tender bedside care of something like that.
I walk back through the winding corridors that brought me here, and out into the dark evening. The sun set while I was in there, and the wind has brought pregnant rainclouds with it. As I rush to the car, the heavens open and seconds later I'm soaked to the skin and shivering.
Jamming the keys in the ignition I put the car heater on, and try to warm myself. My body thinks it's never going to be warm again.
Driving home in the angry winds. Rain rushes into the windscreen of the car. It's so heavy I can barely see. The car's swerving all over the place. I can barely control it, but it seems right for this kind of day.
There's a little green man on my steering-wheel. He's watching me with that evil grin. I'm coming to the bridge. It's old, one of those narrow stone arches. I drive towards it and think of her, in my swerving, mad car.
User Reviews
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2007-01-03 20:12:15 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Show me your hole.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2007-01-03 19:50:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was great. It was well written, and slightly off center... why does it have such a low rating?
Submitted by darien_redd (user info) at 2007-01-03 01:01:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
not sure what you did here:
But I'm going to stick, not twist
and the next "the conversation's moved on..." needs some action/distraction. The first time it worked very well, and I like the pattern, but there need to be more description to the "painting pictures" line
other than that, I liked most of the rest of it. A few words here and there could be replaced with something better, but you will find those when you revisit this.
reminded me of equal parts fight club/seven/requiem for a dream and pi, at least stylistically.
my only other suggestion is to drop the vernacular in the beginning, for such a detached feel of the rest of the story, that's somewhat dissonant for the reader in their expectations for the rest of the story, as compared to the terse description by the narrator later in the story.
Otherwise, I think you express the narrator's state of mind very accurately, and think you could polish this one up and make a followup or two work fairly well.
keep at it.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-01-02 22:42:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Simplify.
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2007-01-02 17:48:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I acctually really liked this except for the little green men. thats a very personal opinion though and in no way should be taken as a form of crtisim by someone who can acctually write.
Submitted by homer42 (user info) at 2007-01-02 17:41:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
good but needs proof-reading...
for example: "Only the occasional beeping of machines interrupts its silent reverie, the occasional rasping breath of its patients. " Doesn't sound like a complete thought/sentence to me.
Submitted by richsghostdog (user info) at 2007-01-02 11:43:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Narrator = British Male. late 30s, early 40s. Good friend of the dying woman.
I liked it, kinda Stephen King-ish. Very good descriptives and analogies.
Submitted by drgoatcabin (user info) at 2007-01-02 10:28:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I've read better. But at the same time, I've posted worse.
Submitted by ripple (user info) at 2007-01-02 10:18:59 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
"I saw as a youngish 25-35 year old woman, single, neither ugly or attractive, and neither happy nor sad. To me she was the one dying"
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i also got the same general idea of your narrator. she also seemed to vacillate a lot between indignance towards death and indignance towards the sick one, though she accuses others of the same thing (as such, she is at least slightly arrogant and hypocritical). i think broaching the topic of mayflies shows immaturity and an inability to truly sympathize or provide comfort.
i also think you spent way too much time introducing the theme with the 'little green men' (which i didnt like, by the by) and then gave it far too much importance. the storys top heavy- the first half contains no action and drags, the second half contains all the action and ends after 2.4 words.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2007-01-02 07:11:29 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
What hour_man said.
Plus - you don't have to say the same thing twenty times - it doesn't add to the description, it just makes you sound like you're stuttering.
Submitted by pirate_pipi (user info) at 2007-01-02 06:30:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks for the feedback hour_man. The features you dislike are intentional. This is an experimental story, the point of which I will explain, probably tomorrow.
Interesting thoughts on the narrator. Thanks.
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2007-01-02 06:24:04 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
I would -2 this, but I rarely -2 an attempt at fiction.
There were so many things wrong with this from my perspective. One of these would be the 'the conversations moved on without you'. That should never haappen. The reader should never feel quite as distanced as that. You could have had the narrator describing something and then said 'she's continued the conversation without me, and I haven't the heart to tell her I don't know where we are' or something.
The focus of the story was the womens feelings towards her ill friend/mum/ person, but there was such a distinct lack of emotion: either hate or love. I felt like she wanted to love but I don't think it was conveyed easily enough, or at least enough for the reader to understand.
The Short story needs to get to the point. I think this meandered its way to the inevitable car journey home, with the likelehood of impending doom.
I think this could have been good, but for me the dis-jointed narrative and the pure lack of empathy left me unable to humanise the narrator (whom I saw as a youngish 25-35 year old woman, single, neither ugly or attractive, and neither happy nor sad. To me she was the one dying.)
I commend the attempt and would love to see more fiction on this site, so nice try, but try again.
Hour_man.
Submitted by Timmaaaaah (user info) at 2007-01-02 06:19:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'd say it greatly improves as it goes along, possibly cut down the pre amble and get right into the story next time. Think that little green man sits next to all of us at some point........
but hey what do i know , fo' shizzle my nizzle hunny