thinstep

This is a second-or-so draft. Rip it apart if you see absolutely anything you don't like. And certainly don't feel like you have to say anything good about it. I can take it. I am tough.

959 words cause i'm cool like that

Listen:
By August Chesser
Listen:
Cerulean Blue is a very lightfast pigment, which means it does not fade in the sun very much. It’s chemical name is Cobalt(II)-Stannate. Cerulean Blue is also the color of a pickup truck parked on Broadway. Cerulean Blue contrasts well with pavement, and it is that contrast that attracts Victor Short’s eye. Mr. Short is currently between the fortieth and thirty-ninth floors. Mr. Short will be inside the truck in roughly three and four-fifths of a second, which is considerably faster than if he had taken the elevator, and has something to do with his acceleration due to gravity. The truck appears to Mr. Short as a hole in the earth, ready to swallow him up, with nothing but cerulean blue sky on the other side. In situations similar to Mr. Short’s across the country there have always been lots of people milling about on the ground taking pictures and calling the police or friends. This time, there aren’t any people around. Nobody has yet noticed the peculiar way in which Mr. Short is tumbling through the air. Nobody is waiting for a wind gust to carry Mr. Short into the hipster coffee bistro down the street. And absolutely nobody is thinking that if they were to kill themselves they would have most assuredly been dressed better.
Listen:
Most jumpers hang around on the top floor for a long time. There’s something about a little fresh air and breeze that turns everyone into philosophers, just ask anyone you know that hikes. On buildings, people like to blab on in mixed metaphors about how they’ve lifted themselves above the city; above their humdrum lives that got them there in the first place. Mr. Short has an impulse to say something poetic about the foreshortened face of the building or the pointillist nightmare of traffic far below him, but he resists. Soliloquizing to pigeons is not Mr. Short’s style. Right now, the sun is setting, and the pollution of the city catches aflame with brilliant oranges and purples that Mr. Short knows don’t even have names. Right now, exhaust fumes and the stink of human desperation have wafted to the fortieth floor terrace. Right now, all the world is demanding that you appreciate even the ugly bits of life. Right now, Mr. Short is unfazed by such sensory tricks, but not because his depression is particularly deep. No, Mr. Short walks to the edge and leaps without contemplation because he is an impatient man and he has done this exactly thirty-eight times before.
Listen:
Mr. Short has just completed his masterpiece. Critics will call his massive painting the embodiment of the Age of Disappointment. Victor Short’s enormous, staring, acrylic eyes oppress you with the weight of all the dreams you haven’t yet tried to fulfill, the dreams you forgot about, the dreams you put on hold. You are under attack for choosing the job you chose, the wife you choose, the kids you had. The Cerulean blue sky behind Mr. Short’s head is clearer and bluer than you have ever seen. The tour guide will tell you that the girl on his arm is Anastasia. The tour guide won’t have to tell you that she is prettier than any girl you have ever seen. If you step back, the figures mock you for your weakness. If you look closer, the colors explode in your face. You are now responsible for all the things that you don’t like about the world. You now realize you can do fuck-all about it. Mr. Short, the real Mr. Short, emerges from his studio, wild-eyed and looking like he has hog-tied a rainbow. He stumbles toward you without blinking. He says I’m finished. Then Mr. Short leaves to take a walk, still covered in paint. He says the stares from strangers are his reward for completing a painting. You don’t see him for a long time. The tour guide will tell you that when Mr. Short doesn’t return, Anastasia Short, instructed never to enter the studio, does so. She hasn’t been right since.
Listen:
Mr. Short is wrestling an armful of canvas up the stairwell to his studio. Mrs. Short cannot decide whether he looks more like a Himalayan Sherpa or subcontractor installing carpet. Mr. Short doesn’t talk while he’s painting. If he did, he’d say that your idle musings are more insightful than you might think. If he did, he’d say that he’s getting closer. He’d say that living as any of the thirty-eight different things he has lived as isn’t perfect, but painting is just that much better. He’d say that he’s almost finished. If he did talk, he’d say he’s going back to college.
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Victor Short is selling you his very first painting, and he is ecstatic. He is asking you for your contact information, in case he needs the piece for a show. You tell him to call you before that, for coffee.
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Mr. Short wakes up in a room he hasn’t been to in years. The stink of roommates and old pizza wafts into his nostrils for the thirty-eighth time. Victor Short cannot remember what happened yesterday, but that doesn’t matter. Victor Short knows he has the next thirteen and a half years to do something with his life that he has always wanted to do. Victor Short wants something different, and art is his answer. Victor Short lays awake, feeling very much like a freshly cleaned chalkboard. Victor Short waits for a morning phone call he has had thirty-eight times before, but the phone never rings. Then everything goes white, black, cerulean blue. Words and morphine drip into Mr. Short’s being. Contusion and Numb. Coma and Relief. Hemorrhage and Nothingness.
Drip Drip.
Listen.

aprilrain

Hi thinstep,
Your avatar scares me a little, but your writing is VERY thought-provoking. Not an easy read by any means, but it is well worth a second or third read to absorb its content.

Your use of colors and imagery is beautiful. (I loved the line "looking like he has hog-tied a rainbow") The cerulean blue color is the common thread throughout this piece, but I wonder if it warrants so much introduction? The story might grab readers better if the reference to Mr. Short's jump is stated even closer to the beginning.

Subtlety is your method here, and I enjoyed that. But I believe I may be a bit dense in that I didn't quite catch everything, even with multiple readings. He has lived 38 times before and after he accomplishes something he has always wanted to do, he then "ends it" and starts again with another agenda, correct? So, the ending means....what exactly? That his suicide attempt was unsuccessful and now he is in a coma rather than starting a new life? That he has actually been in a coma all this time, and he is just imagining each of these lives? This part is unclear to me, but I don't mind pondering the various possibilities.

The other part that was unclear was
I am in the present tense when Mr. Short leaves, but you refer to something that will happen (his wife entering studio). She hasn't been right since. Why? Like I said, perhaps I am just being dense.

Your phrasing and observations are wonderful. I liked the segment that spoke about jumpers that turn to philosophy at this time. And the 2nd/3rd person viewpoint, though a bit unusual for me, worked well here.

thinstep

thank you very much for the input!

my intention was to suggest that his attempt was unsuccessful this time, but i wasn't sure how to do that clearly without beating you over the head with it

the two tour guide sentences have given me a lot of trouble. some of the confusion about time was intentional, but not to that extreme i guess.

as far as the introduction goes, i guess it was just to show that the narrator / mr. short / whatever had a weirdly disproportionate amount of knowledge in both science and art. i wonder if adding obscure law terms somewhere would help to make that point more? The problem i had was continuing that thread beyond the first paragraph, which i'm not particularly fond of anyway

i think some of the obtusiveness has to do with stuff left over from a previous rewrite that was far less subtle and was not explained in this version.

thinstep

oh! part of the tour guide bit problem is that the 'you' is anastasia, and the tour guide is actually showing the painting to her, but she doesn't connect to her image in it, and that's indicative of her not-rightness, which would've been caused by her husbands attempted suicide

but that's not clear at all

the avatar is a man named gary spivey, who is a psychic or something. i saw him on daytime tv once and he scared the hell out of me, too

mjk

i very much enjoy this style, drew me right in. i had to read it twice in order to fully understand what the hell was going on, and even now, i'm still a little unsure. i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but perhaps a few things could stand to be fleshed out more.

that said, i just loved your imagery in this. your use of simile is inspired. the bluntness of the sentences works well for you. i love the part about people getting philosophical on building ledges.

it sounds like you're looking for a thorough critique of this, something i'm not able to offer you at the moment, but if you'd like, i can come back to this and rip it apart for grammar and perhaps highlight some of the more confusing parts. i would love to see you perfect this, as your style is refreshing and provocative. the world needs more writers like you. keep writing and keep posting!

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"Words have no power to impress the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality." -Edgar Allan Poe
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Creative Scribblings - a collection of odds and ends