May 15th, 2017 at 07:21pm
Have I ever told you, in all seriousness, how much I admire you and your writing? I read Black Flies from the very beginning last year and I couldn’t actually fathom entirely what I was reading—which okay, that lead to a very incoherent comment that I just looked back on and cringed at, oh boy. But tbh I’m going to be that person if you ever publish that’s like “I KNEW HIM FROM MIBBA WE KNEW OF EACH OTHER WE NEVER ACTUALLY TALKED BUT I KNEW HIM!!” That… did not sound as creepy in my head, but here we are. Anyway, I really wanted to wait until this was finished before I started reading it, but I had spare time on my hands today (lol I actually had responsibilities to take care but shh) so I decided “Oh I’m going to read this” and then I read the first chapter so… now you get a chapter by chapter comment that you didn’t ask for. Surprise?
THE BODY, ASUNDER
This is such a fantastic opening. In one fell swoop, it sets the tone and it hooked me. I knew I was going to be in this for the long haul because I loved it. Your prose is seriously mesmerizing, very delicate and careful but precise with a purpose. I love how personal yet detached this entire chapter is. I know that this person is dead and I know that no one knows who it is, but I felt like, for just one moment, I was The Body and that was a really cold feeling. This whole paragraph will stay with me for a long time: You find land. Your body scrapes against the shells and sand that the riptide has collected and placed here. This would be your pyre: white shells piled on dark sand. The ocean would take you back come hide tide, and make no mistake: it would rip you apart with the sort of indifference wielded only by the world’s greatest entity. The beginning and the end; the true mother of all.
SAN ANDREAS' FAULT
I just... this entire chapter flipped me upside down? It starts out kind of confusing because I don’t know who this narrator is, and I don’t know the whole story. But by the end, I have a good idea on who Andreas is and I even have a good idea of who Levi is (was?), and I feel strangely heartbroken right now? This chapter was so incredibly personal and deeply emotional that I feel heartbroken.
TOTALITY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES
Dad?? What are you doing?? I don’t know if I’m extremely paranoid and creating a scenario that’s far from the actual reality, or Levi’s dad is really just being that suspicious. I mean, we could be all like “I didn’t feel like talking to anyone else”, I guess? I just don’t like the way he reacted. But god, I love how personal you’re making every narrative because I felt uncomfortable and mildly nauseous and so incredibly sad. Everything is making me so sad because it’s so personal.
DUAL CHAMBERS OF THE HUMAN HEART
More second person narrative! I love!! Annnd consider me so far upside down, I’m not coming back up. This was such a beautiful and bittersweet, painful chapter but I also feel like it’s foreshadowing something. I said it when I commented on Black Flies, but I feel like I’m waiting for a hurricane. I know he’s dead, I know he is, but I don’t know why or how it happened and it hurts. It hurts because it feels like he wasn’t meant to be dead. It feels like even though he wasn’t happy, he was looking forward to something else that was on the horizon and he knew it. This entire chapter was full of something that I know isn’t there anymore, in the present, and I think that’s honestly what hurts the most. As he leaves, he turns around and offers one last smile, and you feel your heart turn golden in the yellow light of that morning. — I just... ruin me softly? but bars on the windows? really?? ok
GRACKLES AND HUMANS
I really love Andreas, I really really do. I mean… I look at the ocean and I see tranquility, even when it’s storming, because--not to get all new-agey and shit--but it’s the mother, yknow? of all life on earth and shit. the motherfucking mother of it all. — Same, my dude. Same. And I love how much of a mess he really is. He’s a total and complete mess, but in such a way that he’s all over the place and not quite there either. Not in the detached sense, but his heart is so torn apart and his world has been jerked out from under him that he doesn’t know where he really is or what he’s doing so he keeps going on these long tangents about birds and churches. That’s the most painful mess of them all, I think. When you’re so fucked up that you’re not doing anything and your brain isn’t totally computing anything except things that have no relation whatsoever to the reason you’re hurting. It’s almost like trying to be in denial but also acknowledging that you can’t be. He’s not crying, he’s not really talking, he’s just simply existing. And to be honest, one of my favorite parts of both his chapters so far have been the typos and the lack of punctuation. It’s personal, it’s messy and it feels like Andreas. And OKAY SERIOUSLY? LEVI’S DAD? Wtf the fuck As if it wasn’t suspicious before. :))
WORMWOOD OF GLASS
Okay, real quick though: I’m seeing the pattern of font changes. It crossed my mind the first time it switched, but I thought it was because Andreas’ chapters are more like letters, in a sense, but now I’m starting to pick up on Times for Levi, Courier for Andreas and Georgia for Salas. I love this so much?? No one gave you the right. BUT OKAY as for the chapter content, I love how you talked about Salas’ life as a cop and acknowledged both casual racism and sexism in society. It packed a punch for something that went in passing. HOLY SHIT, that masculine heteronormativity bullshit. “He was growing up to be a real man.” He settled back in the sofa again. “This ‘depression’ bullshit is a fantasy to make weak people feel better about themselves. Real men tough it out, they don’t throw a fit and kill themselves just because they can’t figure out how to solve their own damn problems. Faggot friends tried to lure him into that lifestyle but he was too strong for that, my boy.” — I can’t believe how much anger I actually felt. The fact that this is how the generation before thinks drives me up the wall. But I’m going to stay off that tangent, hah. I just wanted to acknowledge the realism and pain behind these words. I feel like this is… this is his dad actually turning a blind eye, choosing to ignore it because he doesn’t like it and that’s probably what killed Levi. I mean, I’m already well aware of the raging homophobia because lol that’s a lifestyle you can be lured into! hguneuaigba it’s cool, Levi. I, too, was lured into the gay lifestyle by ~faggot friends~ :)))
FINALLY,
Oh god, it hurts so much. It seriously hurts so much. Like my heart is in my throat. I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. I can’t believe what your writing has done to me in seven chapters already.
PROTECTION LIVES IN IRON BARS
guhh I’m starting to realize the depths of the emotional and mental abuse. The worst part is being so angry that he’s so homophobic that I can’t feel sorry that he suffered tragedy, and then I kind of feel like an asshole for it. But I feel sorry for Levi. My heart aches for Levi—mostly because I know where he is now, in Andreas’ and Salas’ chapters, and I still don’t think he ever wanted to end up there, and also because he doesn’t seem like himself. He seems like a husk of himself, with all this rattling around inside of him. So even though I really want to believe he didn’t actually do it, I feel like maybe you’re hinting towards the fact that he felt like he had no other choice.
WE’VE STILL GOT PAYPHONES
*continues* it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts. And then it hurts some more in that entire scene you wrote between Andreas and Levi, and the nostalgia hurts and that sharp pain that reminds Andreas that he’s so far from where they were in that memory and everything hurts, god. but yeah dude, yeah. we've still got payphones.
CLOSER TO CONVERGENCE
I really like Salas—if not just because she has a cat named Chewbacca. But I actually love her determination and curiosity, and I love that she’s feeling something that no one else is yet. I feel like she doesn’t want to give up on Levi because she has the same idea that I have, not because she’s some bored cop in a small town with a small crime rate. It feels like something more and I love getting a feel for Salas in all of it because I think she’s a large piece in the puzzle. And I just refuse to think Levi committed suicide right now, man.
THE SOUL, ASUNDER
That’s some good mirroring there in the chapter title, my friend. I see it and I love it. But oh my god. This entire chapter was something else entirely. I knew there was some emotional and mental abuse obviously, but the way Levi handled it is fucking me up. I’m starting to feel like I was wrong in thinking Levi didn’t actually just do something about all his misery and numbness. It feels like Levi’s running out of all of these options—one night stands and cocaine and just all of this, and now I can’t stop thinking about where this would have left him at the very end. There’s only so much you can do to postpone the evitable and I’m starting to feel like I was very wrong. And that’s going to hurt a lot.
SERÉ
Can you believe that I actually think this was the saddest Andreas chapter out of them all so far? Not the one where he actually started crying and not the one where he reminisced being with Levi, but the one where for just one damn moment, he feels okay. He even knows he’s going to crash from it and what little bit of him feels right, like himself again, isn’t going to stay because he can only distract himself for so long before it catches back up. I feel like he’s going with Jay simply because he needs that distraction. And god, I really loved the entire scene with his Abuela, and I really loved the Spanish. Albeit I could only translate like two sentences on my own since I just started learning it and based on the context of the sentence/situation, but ya know. It was really nice and very personal, and it was nice seeing a glimpse of who Andreas was before everything went to shit for him. It was bittersweet, but I loved it.
THE KEY
I really love Levi’s chapters because they’re just so… poetic. So very beautifully poetic. I love second person narrative a lot when it’s done well. And oh man, Levi and Andreas’ dynamic. Fuck me up. You’d seen him around before then, but you’d never said a word to one another until he came up to your table all sweaty and nervous despite his casual punk or maybe goth getup (combat boots; lots of black; sometimes an old gray shirt with a button-covered leather vest that no one else could pull off) and it was so incongruous that you laughed. — I actually laughed at this because at this point, I feel like I know Andreas and this is so him. Also I just realized that I haven’t said this but I REALLY LOVE THAT ANDREAS IS HISPANIC. The entire Halloween/Día de los Muertos thing was great and I really loved it because it’s so off the norm. And I really hate you right now because you’re breaking my heart. You are seriously breaking my heart into so many pieces because I hate seeing how Andreas and Levi were together, knowing how it actually ends for them.
IRISES CLOTHED IN THE NIGHT SKY
Andreas Andreas Andreas, god. You have such awful coping mechanisms, someone needs to save you from yourself. I really want him to find happiness after all of this is over, and if that’s Jay, okay but right now, I don’t feel like that’s Jay—in fact, I somewhat doubt Andreas will find it. But Jay feels like a coping mechanism and it’s going to hurt when/if Andreas realizes this because I really, really feel like Jay’s giving this to Andreas. He knows that he’s a coping mechanism and a really unhealthy one, but I think he’s giving this to Andreas because he cares. I’m seriously so overwhelmingly sad and in mourning for everyone, even Jay now—because I have my suspicions that he was talking about Andreas when he said he’s only ever liked one boy and it wouldn’t be fair to tell him right now. I really just hope Andreas doesn’t break his heart in his own sorrow, y’know? But I’m pretty sure I see it coming now.
STAY FOREVER
OKAY BUT ALSO, I see the 11 pattern in Levi’s chapters. It’s always 11-something in the beginning of his chapters, and I really love this little touch? But okay SEE, I’m coming back around to thinking that Levi didn’t want to be where he is now. I was honestly starting to doubt it after his previous chapters because it felt like you were just leading up to his downfall, like he had absolutely nothing but the bridge left, but after this whole chapter, I’m back to thinking he didn’t but then I feel like I’m setting myself up for heartbreak. It’s like… I’m totally aware that I’m actually being obliviously hopeful because a part of me is still stuck in wariness. I mean, it already hurts because these chapters where you write their dynamic and how they were with each other and how understanding Andreas was with his entire situation is tragically beautiful. And I know that without a doubt, there isn’t some happy ending at the end. It’s ruining me.
HYPERCATHARSIS
Andreas, you’re killing me. You are taking my heart and you’re ripping it apart. I’m so afraid of what he’s doing to Jay because Jay’s standing on the outside, aware that Andreas is hurt but giving him what he wants anyway and that’s going to hurt so much. And lolol I’m going to pretend that I don’t want to casually cry over Andreas saying Levi’s name nbd. Also, the way you write when Andreas isn’t sober actually leaves me feeling… weird? You write about his high and everything around him in such a way that you might as well have just given me the weed. It was the same with the cocaine scene with Levi. It’s so trippy. BUT OH MAN I THOUGHT IT WAS ANDREAS BLACK WAS TALKING ABOUT IN THAT CHAPTER, NICE but andreas, dude, you weren’t supposed to actually like fall
MORNING OF THE LAST DAY BEFORE THE FIRE
Dear god, Andreas, you are the epitome of ‘true disaster’. Though I snorted during his back-and-forth snarkiness with Salas. Nice to know that you’re fucked up and still capable of being a total smartass. But oh man, the power of Andreas’ rant. That was something. I hate how much Andreas is torn into so many pieces in so many places that he doesn’t even know the right side up anymore. I’m so glad that Salas listened to him though, even though it was all in anger and about his parents, it was something.
THE ROACHES AND I
My heart just… casually re-shatters (which is amazing at this point) every time I hit a Levi chapter now. FOR THIS EXACT REASON, MY GOD. The more this goes, the more I’m so dead-set in believing that Levi didn’t commit suicide. I love him and Andreas together so much. There’s so much warmth and love and patience and acceptance in their relationship, and I think I’m starting to get torn apart like Andreas is over this all. It’s such a strain now because I’m starting to really feel the love that was between them, which means I’m doomed to really feel the absolute shattering of Andreas and Levi’s hearts when it catches back up to the present.
THE WALLS
mmm there’s that guilt that I was both dreading and kind of hoping would catch up with him—only because I don’t want him hurting Jay in his bad coping. Plus I’m having a lot of trouble not being mad at Andreas for the same reason he’s mad at himself. Like one part of me understands that he’s hurting so fucking much and he was out of his mind so of course it led to something out of the norm in some desperate search for something and someone, but then another part of me loves Levi and Andreas so much and I’ve seen enough of their relationship to know what it had that it almost kind of felt like a betrayal? That wouldn’t bother me, except. Except--you. What do you do when the person you loved in that weird cosmic way drops off the face of the earth? Am I supposed to be a widower--no. And I think you’d agree, but god, it’s still so wrong& feels so awful in a way I''ve never felt. — But I kind of had a feeling this was going to happen, and it hurt so much to read that “the person you loved in that weird cosmic way” because god, I really think they were meant for each other. And SEE, I knew that was going to seriously hurt Jay. Just hearing Andreas say that he loved Levi hurt because all it did was solidify that floating idea that Jay was just a coping mechanism, a bad idea in a haze of drugs. Though I cringed so bad when Jay said that gay guys comment, like… tone it down with that internalized homophobia, my broski. There are other things you can throw at him in your hurt. no andreas, you put that down RIGHT NOW aiugbenslg;ak
DESIDERATA
I’m… god, I don’t even know what to say about this chapter because I was so extremely shocked and angry and sad the entire time. There was no satisfaction in Levi confronting him—absolutely none. All it did was tear everything down more and more, and now I feel hopeless. Like maybe I really am wrong in the grand scheme of things and maybe his dad really did push him way past the point of no return; like maybe Andreas and the happiness Levi found in him and with him just wasn’t enough. I have so many doubts and fears now because this entire chapter held so much cruelty and power. I know I keep saying it, but everything hurts. The pain just keeps going deeper and deeper and deeper, and I don’t actually know how to fully describe this feeling anymore. It’s so fucking hopeless.
NOLOHAZ
Okay wow, this chapter is a disaster. It’s up and down and back and forth, and it barely makes any sense at all. Andreas is a disaster. I hate that he’s doing these drugs as this escape, but all of his coping mechanisms are so awful. I want to both punch him in his beautiful face and hug him because he’s ruining himself in so many ways. Like this is no bueno, mi amigo. Please stop??
DOGWATCH
but Andreas needed a wakeup call, and Levi’s death had apparently sent him spiraling in the worst direction. — That’s what I’m saying, buddy. Someone smack the shit out of this kid (Andrew, hah), out of love and concern. I love that Salas has that reluctant care though, I really do. I love that she has that empathy and sympathy towards Andreas that she doesn’t want to leave him alone because gods know what the hell this kid would do without someone to be like “lol no, sit down” right now. Also this suspense of Andreas telling Salas what the hell he did. It’s killing me ok.
VIGILANTE
I really don’t like how proper this chapter is because I have this idea of Andreas being haphazard and uncaring now, and that vibe shows in his chapters with the messy writing, so it made me think twice. It felt like… sobering up? Not that I think it’s going to last but the feeling is there while he was tearing up the flowers—which I hate that he’s doing because I really want him to say goodbye to Levi. He needs something and tearing up flowers isn’t it. But then HAHA OKAY ANDREAS THAT’S ALSO NOT ON YOUR LIST OF BEST DECISIONS EVER MADE oh boy. I am proud of you for successfully picking the lock but THIS IS SO NOT THE TIME. You’d never talked about having any pets, but I still opened the door slowly, looking around for any sign of a dog or I don’t know an alligator or some shit. — An alligator, Andreas? Really? That’s so punk-rock. But what did you do? Fuck what did you do
AS THE BODY RENDS
Oh god oh god oh god what is this chapter other than a dark, deep vortex? I’m so torn—everything is torn. I want to think and believe that Levi didn’t do this but I can’t help this creeping feeling that’s telling me he did. It’s there and it’s been there, but it’s getting worse and I literally felt it take root during the entire monster paragraph, and when he said that Andreas would move on because he was forgettable and that’s a choice—I realize in this moment that he’s making a choice and I just… I just wish that he knew. That he knew the depth of Andreas’ feelings. I really can’t believe the amount of pain I’m actually in over this wow.
SAN ANDREAS' FIRE
mmm I see the mirroring here too. And… yep Andreas did exactly what I thought he was going to do based on the chapter title. I’m very satisfied, to be totally honest. There’s a sweet satisfaction in the revenge Andreas took, both in how he got Levi’s father arrested and how he lit the fire. Though it also breaks my heart even more because what was left of Levi, as little as it was, was in that house and Andreas knows it and feels it. It really feels like he lit everything on fire, despite the temporary satisfaction in everything else. And I… think Andreas is going to be stuck in his loneliness for a long time because of that weird cosmic connection.
PETRIFIED
I really had the overwhelming urge to moan out a dramatic ‘no’ when I realized we’re back to where we started with Levi, and it somehow turned me around that it was 11:11PM. I also have the overwhelming urge to sob because I spent so much time trying to convince myself that Levi didn’t do it, that he found what he was looking for in Andreas, and to be wrong hurts more than anything else. More than anything else that I was given. This entire chapter held more than anything else the entire story had and it seriously fucking hurts. Like I really wish I were being dramatic when I said that I want to cry, but I do. I do because Andreas is broken in a way that he’s never going to be whole again from and not even arson or the satisfaction of revenge can mend that hole that will be inside of him for the rest of his life, and Levi did it—he did it and yet I still feel like he didn’t want to because Your thoughts, too, hang suspended a hundred feet over the water, a scream of regret ripped from your lungs by the wind and carried out across the Atlantic. — regret regret regret. It hurts so much. I wanted to be wrong and I wasn’t and god. I wanted to be right. And I just wasn’t and I feel like crying so much right now. I can’t believe how heartbroken I am right now.
Okay. It’s nearly 1:30AM and I’ve been reading this all day, on and off between having to do things, and I feel like laying in my bed and staring at the ceiling and contemplating my entire life. And maybe crying a little bit because I feel so… broken. My chest hurts, like truly and actually physically hurts right now (I know there’s a term for that but I forgot what it was?? angina?), and I feel like I want to cry but I can’t because there’s too much to actually do it. I’m basically drowning in my own sorrow, nbd.
And I don’t know if this is actually done and you just haven’t marked it as such, but it feels like it is—or it’s really close to the end and I don’t know how you’ve written all of this without some kind of exhaustion. If you are tired writing this, I just wanted you to know that you took me down with you and I’m not even mad. and if this isn’t done, I hope desperately that Andreas finds his feet because I don’t know how the hell to handle all the times I know I’m going to think about him later—which I am. I really am. This is one of those stories that I know is going to stay with me probably forever. You know, like those books you read 10 years ago and you just remember really randomly here and there, and you’re like “oh”
ANYWAY even though I still feel like I haven’t said all that I wanted to say, I’ve actually hit 4.4k words now and I have now officially written more than I have in weeks just for this comment. Save mE FROM MYSELF. also I hope you actually do publish one day because you write in the way that I really hope I do/can: powerfully, beautifully and tragically poetically. And I hope I haven’t totally freaked you out oops and this is the longest comment I have ever written in my entire life wow ok I’m leaving now adiós
I...can't thank you enough for this comment. It's probably the most thorough review I've ever received. Like, seriously.
To answer some of your questions:
- The setting is loosely based off an actual island in my state, and there the whole 'bars on the windows' thing is a pretty common anti-theft measure (hell, my grandmother and all her neighbors have them)
- It's not finished, but getting close. I need to do a really thorough editing, too
Again, thank you so much.