February 7th, 2009 at 12:11am
This was... hauntingly beautiful. You created this tragically beautiful picture of Frankie, and of the other character.
My interpretation of this - and I don't know if it's right or not but it was the way I did interpret it, I'd love to know if it was somewhere near the mark or completely off it - was that Frank had some kind of eating disorder. And so I'll write the rest of this according to that.
You needed to be held now, that’s all you wanted at that moment, but I couldn’t wrap my arms around you, I just couldn’t do it; the thought scared me. You’d break, I was almost certain of it. Snap, right in my arms.
Skinny people - people who are all ribs and bones with just a tiny layer of skin to keep them all attached - are so vulnerable. There's just something about them, the way they're so fragile... a big hairy biker guy doesn't make you think 'vulnerable' now does it? But skinny people, really skinny people, scream vulnerable. And you conveyed that idea so perfectly in this, you really did. Which is maybe why that paragraph was my favourite, because it showed how fragile, how vulnerable Frank really was. And how his companion viewed him as fragile, like he would break if he dared touch. It said so much, it was wonderful.
And Frank's... I guess sadness at Gerard not returning the compliment again showcased how vulnerable he was. Your imagery was spot on through this whole thing - I could see Frank, I could see Gerard, I could feel everything Gerard was feeling. The way you chose your words was so perfect that I felt like I was in the story, and that's something special.
Another thing I loved was how there wasn't a happy ending. No Gerard helping Frank through everything, no... fairytale. It was tragic, but tragically beautiful. Because Gerard pulled out when Gerard needed to. Not necessarily when Frank needed to, but when he needed to, and I thought that was wonderfully realistic. No one likes getting hurt and it was inevitable that at some point Gerard was going to get hurt, so he left. It was so... right. Even though it wasn't happy and even though the problems weren't necessarily resolved, it was totally, totally right.
I really liked this. You really have a talent for imagery.
:tehe: I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense. Just know... it was beautiful.
First off, wow. Just… wow!
(Oh, thank you for the comment on 5:29! I just saw it. I‘ll get back to talking about your story now. :tehe:)
I like how you did this, listing it off, Frankie had ribs, Frankie had skin, Frankie had veins. It made it so much more effective, stating your point before going into it with more description, beautiful. Using “Frankie” made Frank seem so much more frail and innocent than just “Frank” would have done. And the past tense, makes it quite sad and foreboding until you get to the end.
The casual, conversational, blunt tone you use is brilliant. Too many, I’d say. I don’t know, I just really liked that!!
How you described his ribs, twelve on his left, twelve on his right, it wasn’t too descriptive, in fact, it was just stating, but it was still so effective and worked so well. The casual observation of it.
And the veins. That made Frank’s ’problem’ seem so much more real. How they were there to prove he was alive and not the costume of a dead thing you said. Yeah, that bit was brilliant.
The bumping, fumbling, jumping of Gerard’s fingers, showing how thin Frank is but not in a stating-the-obvious-I’ll-put-it-bluntly kinda of way. There totally is a kind of way such as that. I just made it up. :shifty
And how Gerard tells him he needs help, and it seems to break both of them. Gerard gets guilt Frank gets heartbreak it seems. But Gerard has a point, how do you compliment one that looks dead or dying or not even there?
Gerard seems almost repulsed by Frank in the end, scared of him, how he can’t hold Frank for fear of breaking the boy, how it seems he can barely look at him because he doesn’t want to see the bones protruding under his skin and what not.
Gerard’s reaction was very realistic, very human. Run, because he was scared. Flee and leave Frankie to cope for himself because Gerard couldn’t bear to watch the boy become nothing. Frank must be used to people leaving him, you can imagine how broken he must have felt when yet another person in his life leaves.
But you can tell Gerard still cares, he still feels guilty and remembers the boy he abandoned other wise he wouldn’t be thinking about him. How he often thinks about him and wonders what would happen, but appears to make no effort to find out. Just lets it drop, possibly through fear of finding what he left, or worse, or not finding Frank at all, just a name on a death certificate.
I thought this was beautiful, well written and very well described. Once again, it was a pleasure reading and a pleasure commenting.
:arms: