Derek_Brown

Debate
Derek Brown

“Why must you do this?” Cedric asked for what felt like the thousandth time in the last half hour. He glanced at his watch again marking the lethargic sweep of the seconds ticking by.

“Why must you try to hold me here?” Alex asked in return. “You, you and your kind, always think that yours is the only way to absolution.”

He smiled at Cedric, an almost bestial rage twisting it into something more like a sneer, and then continued.

“If you’re trying to solve a difficult problem, one that is simply beyond your means to equate, don’t you look for help once all avenues open to you have been exhausted?”

Cedric nodded.

“Well, I’m doing the same thing. I’ve used my capabilities, I’ve struggled against the darkness, and I know that I’ve reached the end of my means. Now…” he trailed off.

Cedric thought he saw an opening and steeled himself to press into the mania seated across from him.

“Now you think there is no other way, but you’re wrong Alex. There is always a way if you just think about it rationally.”

The statement had the opposite effect on Alex than was hoped. Instead of being drawn from the precipice his psyche teetered on, he was visibly driven further into his selfish superego and the bloodlust that now enveloped it.

“No,” he laughed. “That’s not it at all Cedric. Goddamn you, why do you think you can just carve me up into neat little squares and store me in that blasted catalogue of yours? All of you Headshrinks are the same; you think that everything is just an indicator. That given variable X, Y must surely come next. Well, it’s not true, sometimes we don’t fit the equation, and sometimes the only way to balance the equation is to wipe the blackboard clean.”

Alex was building up a palpable rage. Cedric believed that if he could keep Alex angry that he would still have something left to prove and wouldn’t take the last fateful step and decided to press Alex for as long as he could. If he failed here, there would be no redemption for him; Alex was his last chance to prove that his theorems of human psychology were valid.

He stood next to the solitary window in the small cluttered bedroom. The streetlights, from the sleeping city outside, cast deep shadows on Alex’s angular features. He turned and stared out at the once loving city, his arms tightly hugging his lank form. Behind his eyes, the rage Cedric had so easily ignited was vying to drive the death wish from his mind. Smaller than that, but with just as much passion, was the animal prayer that he would choose life.

Such a short time before this he had been beloved by the steel and cement jungle spanning all the way to the horizon before him. He had all that he could have hoped for and it was taken away from him because of one bad decision. It wasn’t even a major decision but, in a world where the individual doesn’t matter to anyone save the individual, such things are bound to happen.

While he watched the virtually unmoving city below, most of which slumbered in the loving enfold of digitally enhanced REM, the same old thoughts came to him. They assaulted him constantly as though thinking about them might change the truth of the matter. He could almost see the blighted day in his mind. What he considered, at the time any way, to be the love of his life was walking out on him with many hurled curses. She had brought along a girlfriend and this friend’s boyfriend to help her remove what remained of her personal effects from Alex’s house. Alex had been drinking that day. He hadn't drunk nearly as much as he had in the past but enough his sensible mind had little control. He remembered wanting to speak to Matilda for a reason that seemed rational, from behind the curtain of his alcohol buzz, and he remembered her friend barring his path. Alex had asked her to move with what he thought was a pleasant, “Excuse me.” The woman had looked over her shoulder at him, but refused to move. Alex, not to be denied, pushed her out of the way with his left hand sweeping across his body. She had been standing on a step and the shove had moved her enough that she had to shift her right foot. She’d over compensated and the foot slipped off of the step sending her almost tumbling to the floor. Like a shot, she was up screaming obscenities at Alex’s retreating back. The police were called, and it was enough to deem him detainable for domestic violence.

He had tried to argue that according to the law he couldn’t be held on this charge due to the woman in question having never been romantically tied to him in any way. His arguments fell on deaf ears and he received a criminal record, the first offense of his life. It was a misdemeanor and thus he evaded any jail time. Instead, he was assigned a counselor and commanded to enroll in a group-counseling regime for the next year. He was now more than three quarters of the way through this program and doing very well on the surface. Beneath, however, he was an utter mess. The domestic violence charge on his record meant that he couldn’t get work in his chosen technology field leaving him with the option of working either fast food or manual labor. Neither of which were an option in his mind.

This left him in a particular bind. Over the past six months, he’d been slowly eating up his savings and would be completely broke within a month, two at the best. All of the doors that were flung open for him a year ago were now firmly closed, bolted, and welded shut against him.

He knew that Cedric cared about him; perhaps Cedric was the only person in the world that cared about him at all right now. Even with all of these good intentions, he was still on the road to hell and nothing Cedric could say at this point would sway him. Alex looked down at the small box he’d been both using as a shield against Cedric’s physically advancing on him and as the ultimate answer to the world of agony, he now found himself in.

It was a small thing, such a small thing. Inside, he knew, there were literally billions of microscopic machines. They would surge through his body and dissemble him at a subatomic level within minutes. The process, he was told, would be virtually painless. The Nanites would target the pain receptors in his brain first, utterly destroying them, and then move on to autonomous functions. They were encoded to his specific genetic fingerprint and would terminate themselves like cultists after their job was complete. These were the last project he had worked on before his life was turned from the perceived paradise that it once had been. He’d had a military contract. He’d had a wife. He’d had it all.

“Hard to believe that this will finish it all Ced,” he said. “It seems such an innocuous thing.”

“Beware of small packages Alex,” Cedric replied. He knew already that help wouldn’t arrive. He got up to leave.

“Would you stay,” Alex asked without turning around. “I don’t want to die alone.”

“I couldn’t Alex, that would go against everything I believe in.”

“So, you don’t believe in humanity any longer either?”

“How do you mean?”

“You know I’m doing this because I see no way out,” he turned to face Cedric again. “You’re my oldest friend Ced. Please, I need you to stay.”

“I…I…can’t Alex. I’m sorry,” said Cedric, holding on to his voice lest it should crack. He hurriedly left before his better judgment was swayed leaving Alex to his carry his demise alone.

After Cedric had left, Alex stared at the door for a few moments hoping, with that animal self-preservation aspect of his self, that Cedric would come back and turn away the darkness. He didn’t.

Alex looked back down at that plain bent steel box with a single flush button on its surface. He took a deep breath and pushed it.

Chris Miller

This is an intelligent piece. I didn't notice any grammatical errors. Stylistic errors, in my opinion, were abundant.

I found it very hard to get into the piece. It is philosophical and this alone kept me reading until the story emerged. The language does not feel natural. It feels like you can write, but that you are trying way too hard to show me.

Pretty much any sentence would suffice as an example. I chose this one. "He looked at his watch." Not sure why he did or if this was necessary to advance the story. But you greatly overwork it. You almost drag me into the POV of the watch.

Once you got me into the story, his wife leaving, the shoving incident, the charges, his financial troubles, etc. I was hooked. It's a neat foundation for a story. Add to this his technical bacground and invention, and all sorts of cool possibilities open up. Even your very passive voice (as though everthing is a done deal) did not much quelch my interest.

But then he just offs himself with his cool toys. How cliche. Your character cops out. And so does the story. You do not put your prot up shit creek so he can off himself. Too easy, for both of you.

I would shorten the whole couch/analysis thing. Just tell the story, in a more active voice and in even more detail. Then I would find a more inspired ending.

Sorry if I sound over-critical. This was a wothwhihle read.

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the fairwriting blogs

Barcelona Review story: http://www.barcelonareview.com/64/e_cm.html

Wyndstar

I agree with Chris; this was a very intellegent story, but I think I prefer how it ends. Sure, the guy is bright and all, but he relates to me a sad sort of shallowness. It resonates when he uses something so brilliant for such a shallow purpose. It reflects a facet of humanity; we make all these scientific wonders and can't think of an enlightened way to use them. This char is so smart, but he can't figure out how to uplift himself spiritually, even with help.

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Old enough to know better, young enough to think I can still get away with it.

Derek_Brown

I know I'm an over writer. For some reason I feel like I'm the embodiment of what Douglas Adams said about American Literature, we like fat books. I'm working on minimizing my prose but keep in mind this example was written in about thirty minutes with absolutely no editing. I didn't even read it through once. I'm feeling a bit like Alex these days and this was my catharsis.

Sorry about the cop out ending, I really wanted to keep going. However, it was getting a bit long in the tooth for the typical readers in this forum and I felt I should wrap it up quickly. A few loose ends were left though, perhaps Alex isn’t the story, and Cedric is. <Shrug> Why did I only mention that this was his last chance as redemption and leave it?

Either way, I feel that you are dead on with your analysis and thanks for saying what my judgment was saying as well. It tells me that I'm not a bad critic of my own work.

I think I'm going to write another piece on the same macabre subject in a few minutes. Perhaps after I write a song, I don't know. I hope you keep reading and tell me what you think.

Thanks!
DB