Redemption song.

[MANICHAEAN]

REDEMPTION SONG.

PART 1:

Jamaican women are possessed of a beauty that is both specific in its perception and difficult to analyze in its components; a result no doubt of the fact that they invariably combine the best physical attributes of the many races from whose blood lines they descend. Thus, it is not uncommon to see a woman on this Caribbean island with the bodily strength and muscle tone of a Negress in her prime, the long, shining dark hair of an Indian lady, the delicate high cheek bones and eyes of a Chinese maiden & complexions of European origins, as complex and exotic as the rum punch for which the island is renown.

Seven such pleasure-loving women were to be found that day indulging their sensual natures at the Discovery Bay Beach Club on the north coast. They chatted gaily around a table lit by a warm sun on the main patio, surrounded by palm trees and bright flowers and foliage luxuriant from the climate upon which it is nurtured. They smiled and threw their heads, and struck their poses and were possessed with the confidence and love of life with which women of beauty possess. Clad in a mixture of bright light dresses or stylish thongs, their eyes, all told of passions, intense, but of various styles. They differed little in their attitudes or their ideas; but their expressions, glances, or mannerisms served both as unrestrained emphasis and a licentious commentary to their words.

"When will you be really, really rich?" asked one of the women of the young man at the centre of the group, with an expression of glee in her voice. Like the others, she had been drinking for quite some time.

"And when is your father going to die?" said another, laughing and throwing a cushion at Jimmie Morgan.

"Oh, don't speak of it" cried the young man. "There is only one immortal father in the world, and unfortunately he is mine!"

The seven women in this company, the friends of Jimmie Morgan, gave an exclamation of surprise and horror, and in fact, after the words were spoken Jimmie hesitated, as his mind still retained an unusual degree of lucidity. Despite the heat of the sun that reflected off the azure of the sea, the indulgement of the emotions in this company, the glint of the ice cubes in drinks upon a white table cloth and the perceptible smell of the alcohol in his pores; perhaps there still lurked in the depths of his heart a little of that respect for things human and divine which struggles until the revel has drowned it.

Then came a pause in their midst, and as if on cue there came down into this group from the Club House an unlikely figure, almost as if God had manifested himself. He seemed to command recognition now in the person of an old, stooped white-haired, black skinned domestic with unsteady gait and drawn brows. His entry seemed to blight the very flowers, and the glow of the hushed faces as he cast a pall over this scene by saying, in a hollow voice, the solemn words: "Mr Jimmie, your father is dying!"

Jimmie Morgan, made a gesture to his guests, which might be translated as; "Excuse me, this does not happen every day."

Does not the death of a parent often overtake the young in the fullness of their lives? Death is as unexpected in her caprices as a woman in her fancies, but more faithful Death has never duped any one.

When Jimmie Morgan had returned to the compound high above the settlement, in the hills overlooking the Caribbean he had entered a wing remote from the main house and was now walking down a long corridor, which today seemed to him both unnaturally cool and dark. He compelled himself to assume a mask, for, in thinking of his role of dutiful son, he had cast off his merriment as casually as he had thrown down his napkin. The silent servant conducted the young man to his father’s bedroom.


Buster Morgan, the father of Jimmie, was an old man of ninety, who had devoted the greater part of his life to business. Having founded the Red Stripe brewery in Jamaica he had acquired great wealth and yet had reached that stage of experience and reflection whereby he used to say "I value a tooth more than a million." As a father he loved to hear Jimmie relate his youthful adventures, and would say, banteringly, as he lavished money upon him: "Only amuse and enjoy yourself, son!" Never did an old man find such pleasure in watching a young man; for paternal love had robbed age of its terrors in the delight of contemplating his son’s immersion in life’s material pleasures.

At the age of sixty, Buster Morgan had become enamored with an island woman of peace and beauty. Jimmie Morgan was the sole fruit of this late love. For fifteen years now, he had mourned the loss of his dear Sandra. His many servants and his son attributed the strange habits he had contracted to this grief. Buster lodged himself in the most isolated part of his luxurious residence and he rarely went out. Even Jimmie could not intrude into his father's apartment without first obtaining permission.

While the young man gave tremendous parties in the main house and the place re-echoed his laughter, Buster seemed to suffice alone and sustained on an alternate daily diet of curried goat stew or small portions of ackee and salt fish. He never complained of the noise. During his illness, if the noise of cars entering the compound or the barking of dogs interrupted his sleep, he only said: "Ah, Jimmie has come home." Never before was so untroublesome and indulgent a father to be found; consequently young Jimmie, had all the faults of a spoiled child. His attitude toward Buster was like that of a capricious woman toward an elderly lover, passing off an impertinence with a smile, and submitting to be loved. In calling up the picture of his youth, Jimmie recognized that it would be difficult to find an instance in which his father's goodness had failed him. He felt a newborn remorse as he traversed the passage, and he very nearly forgave his father for having lived so long and thereby limiting full control of the inheritance he so hungered for. Soon the young man passed into the rooms of his father's apartment where the fans turned smoothly on the high ceiling. He stood in front of the sick bed.

The scene formed so striking a contrast to the one which Jimmie Morgan had just left that he could not help from shuddering. He felt a tightening inside when, a sudden flash of light, caused by a breeze from outside the loose blinds, illuminated his father's face. The features were distorted with the skin clinging tightly to the bones. He was drawn with pain, the mouth, gaping and toothless, gave breath to sighs. In spite of these signs of dissolution, an incredible expression of power shone in the face. The eyes, hallowed by disease, retained a singular steadiness. A superior spirit was fighting there with death. It seemed as if Buster sought to kill with his dying look some enemy seated at the foot of his bed. This gaze, fixed and cold, was made the more appalling by the immobility of the head. All seemed dead, except the eyes. There was something mechanical in the sounds which came from the mouth. Jimmie felt a certain shame at having come to the deathbed of his father with the smell of loose women on his clothes and the smell of rum on his breath.

"You were enjoying yourself!" cried the old man, on seeing his son. I do not begrudge you your pleasures, son."

These words, full of tenderness, pained Jimmie, who could not forgive his father for such goodness.

"I’m so sorry for you Dad to see you like this!" he cried.

"Poor Jimmie," answered the dying man, "I have always been so gentle towards you that you could not wish for my death"

"Oh Dad!" cried Jimmie, "if only it were possible to preserve your life by giving you a part of mine!"

But in his mind, the reality was that one can always say such things. It was like sweet reassuring lies to a mistress.

It was the Last Supper. “Is it I Lord?”

"I knew that I could count on you, son," said the dying man. "But don’t grieve for me. You shall be satisfied, but I shall live."

"He is delirious," thought Jimmie to himself.

The old tycoon gathered all his strength to raise himself up into a sitting posture, for he was stirred by one of those suspicions which are only born at the bedside of the dying. "Listen, son," he continued in a voice weakened by this last effort. "I have no more desire to die than you have to give up your lady loves and all the rest of life’s pleasures.”

"I can well believe it," thought his son, kneeling beside the pillow and kissing one of Buster’s cadaverous hands.

"But Dad," he said, "We must in the end submit to the God’s will"

"God! I am also God!" growled the old man.

"Dad, you don’t know what you are saying" cried the young man, seeing the menacing expression which was overspreading his father's features. "Be careful what you say.”

The dying man smiled.

"I am about to be born again."

"His delirium is at its height," thought Jimmie to himself.

Buster was no longer able to speak, but he could still hear and see. He turned his head toward Jimmie with a violent wrench. His neck remained twisted like that of a marble statue doomed by the sculptor's whim to look forever sideways, his staring eyes assumed a hideous fixity. He was dead, dead in the act of losing his only, his last illusion. In seeking a shelter in his son's heart he had found a tomb more hollow than those which men dig for their dead. His hair, too, had risen with horror and his tense gaze seemed still to speak.

It was a father rising in wrath from his sepulchre to demand vengeance of God.

[zoolane]

Interesting twist at end, father obvious loved hes son to much and only realized when he come to deathbed. Most interest bit for me is when old man dies and enter son body truly recognize what hes created.

[MANICHAEAN]

Thanks z. Comments always appreciated.
M.

[MANICHAEAN]

PART 2:

"He’s gone at last.” Jimmie said to himself. But he was still visibly shaken by the perception of reality expressed with such finality in his father’s final look.

The silence was profound. Jimmie thought he saw his father move, and he trembled. Frightened by the tense expression of the accusing eyes, he closed them, just as he would have pushed down a window-blind. He stood motionless, lost in a world of thought & numbness existed within him.

Later his friends from the Beach Club arrived. The women, whose voices had previously been lighthearted threw themselves on their knees in his father’s bedroom and began to pray. Jimmie could not but reflect on how this previous joy, laughter, beauty was now doing homage to Death. But in this Caribbean island, religion and revelry were on such good terms that religion was a sort of debauch and debauch religion.

Later on that week, Jimmie, swayed by a thousand thoughts, wavered towards many different resolutions. After having ascertained the amount of the wealth amassed by his father he became avaricious and finally stepped out from his fathers goodness and position, becoming his own man completely.

Forever the master in the illusions of life he threw himself in; despising the world, but seizing the world. His happiness could never be of that conventional type which is satisfied by a cold beer and a comfortable but boring life style. He grasped. He might easily, have walked with his feet on the earth and his head among the clouds, but preferred to drink the unforgiving cup of sensuality to the last dregs. Like Death itself, wherever he passed, he devoured all without scruple, demanding passionate love and easily won pleasure. Loving only woman in women, his soul found its natural trend in irony. When these paramours screamed in an ecstasy of bliss, Jimmie still remained detached and mechanical. But he said "I" whilst his conquests in their ignorance said "we." There was banter in his simplicity and laughter in his tears, for he could weep as well as any woman.

For bankers the world revolves around articles of monetary exchange, for most young men it is a woman; for some women it is a man; for Jimmie the universe was himself. He allowed himself to be carried only where he wished to go. The more he saw the more skeptical he became. Probing human nature he guessed that courage was rashness; prudence, cowardice; generosity, shrewd calculation; justice, a crime; and he perceived that the persons who were really honest, delicate, just, generous, prudent and courageous received no consideration at the hands of their fellow man. And so, he showed no mark of respect for things of a spiritual nature. He understood the mechanism of human society, and never offended too much against the current prejudices; but he bent the social laws to his will.


When Jimmie Morgan reached the age of sixty he went to live up in the Blue Mountains east of Kingston. There, in his old age, and like his father before him, he married a young and charming country girl. But he was intentionally neither a good father nor a good husband. He had observed that we are never so tenderly loved as by the women to whom we scarcely give a thought.

The days of decrepitude arrived. With this age of pain came cries of helplessness, cries made the more piteous by the remembrance of his impetuous youth and his ripe maturity. This man was compelled to close his eyes at night upon an uncertainty. This man of detached cunning developed an obstinate cough and he saw his teeth leave him, as, at the end of an evening, the fairest, best dressed women depart one by one, leaving the dance floor deserted and empty. His bold hands trembled, his limbs tottered, and then one night death turned its hooked and icy fingers around his throat.

When the day of his demise came, it was on a summer evening and the Jamaican sky was still gloriously clear and the orange trees outside perfumed the air. Nature seemed to give pledges of his resurrection. An emotionally neglected, yet obedient son regarded him with love and respect. Marcus looked at his father who in his turn was too well versed in human expression not to know that he could die peacefully in perfect faith in such a look, as his father had died in despair at his own expression.

Then he died gently in the arms of his son, whose tears fell upon his sallow face.

[hillwalker]

An interesting set.

I'll admit I sometimes forego reading the work of someone so accomplished and who doesn't really need me to throw in my three-pennyworth.

Also, I find your well-researched writing quite dense and demanding (for the likes of me with my short attention span) - especially when it is set in a particular geographical or historical setting where I have to put in some effort of my own to get up to speed. That's my failure, not yours.

I never have the patience to transport myself into a specific past no matter how skilled the writer unless it's the likes of Dickens or Hardy where the groundwork is familiar.

But I enjoyed these 2 pieces - just thought you should know.

H

[MANICHAEAN]

Never hold back H.

Its always good to get your response & many times it balances me up a lot.
Nothing worse than writing a piece & it just sinks into an abyss.

You help a lot of writers on Lit Net with your patience and comments and its always appreciated.

Now dip into the new thread in a different more light hearted vein on creative writing!

Regards
M.

[sweety]

Hi MANICHAEAN
I enjoy reading your story’s but never felt confident enough to critique them. keep posting and I will keep reading them thank you.

[MANICHAEAN]

sweety
It's enough that you read them.
Take care & best wishes.
M.

[Rores28]

Things that I thought could be changed I've put in red, things that I really liked in green. I can't say that I expected to see this quality of writing on these boards, how long have you been doing it?




REDEMPTION SONG.

PART 1:

Jamaican women are possessed of a beauty that is both specific in its perception and difficult to analyze in its components; a result no doubt of the fact that they invariably combine the best physical attributes of the many races from whose blood lines they descend. Thus, it is not uncommon to see a woman on this Caribbean island with the bodily strength and muscle tone of a Negress in her prime, the long, shining dark hair of an Indian lady, the delicate high cheek bones and eyes of a Chinese maiden & complexions of European origins, as complex and exotic as the rum punch for which the island is renown.

Seven such pleasure-loving women were to be found that day indulging their sensual natures at the Discovery Bay Beach Club on the north coast. They chatted gaily around a table lit by a warm sun on the main patio, surrounded by palm trees and bright flowers and foliage luxuriant from the climate upon which it is nurtured. They smiled and threw their heads, and struck their poses and were possessed with the confidence and love of life with which women of beauty possess. Clad in a mixture of bright light dresses or stylish thongs, their eyes, all told of passions, intense, but of various styles. They differed little in their attitudes or their ideas; but their expressions, glances, or mannerisms served both as unrestrained emphasis and a licentious commentary to their words.

"When will you be really, really rich?" asked one of the women of the young man at the centre of the group, with an expression of glee in her voice. Like the others, she had been drinking for quite some time.

"And when is your father going to die?" said another, laughing and throwing a cushion at him.

"Oh, don't speak of it" cried the young man. "There is only one immortal father in the world, and unfortunately he is mine!"

The seven women in this company, the friends of Jimmie Morgan, gave an exclamation of surprise and horror, and in fact, after the words were spoken Jimmie hesitated, as his mind still retained an unusual degree of lucidity. Despite the heat of the sun that reflected off the azure of the sea, the indulgement of the emotions in this company, the glint of the ice cubes in drinks upon a white table cloth and the perceptible smell of the alcohol in his pores; perhaps there still lurked in the depths of his heart a little of that respect for things human and divine which struggles until the revel has drowned it.

Then came a pause in their midst, and as if on cue there came down into this group from the Club House an unlikely figure, almost as if God had manifested himself. He seemed to command recognition now in the person of an old, stooped white-haired, black skinned domestic with unsteady gait and drawn brows. His entry seemed to blight the very flowers, and the glow of the hushed faces as with these words he cast a pall over the scene

"Mr Jimmie, your father is dying!"

Jimmie Morgan, made a gesture to his guests, which might be translated as; "Excuse me, this does not happen every day."

Does not the death of a parent often overtake the young in the fullness of their lives? Death is as unexpected in her caprices as a woman in her fancies, but more faithful Death has never duped any one.

When Jimmie Morgan had returned to the compound high above the settlement, in the hills overlooking the Caribbean he had entered a wing remote from the main house and was now walking down a long corridor, which today seemed to him both unnaturally cool and dark. He compelled himself to assume a mask, for, in thinking of his role of dutiful son, he had cast off his merriment as casually as he had thrown down his napkin. The silent servant conducted the young man to his father’s bedroom.


Buster Morgan, the father of Jimmie, was an old man of ninety, who had devoted the greater part of his life to business. Having founded the Red Stripe brewery in Jamaica he had acquired great wealth and yet had reached that stage of experience and reflection whereby he used to say "I value a tooth more than a million." As a father he loved to hear Jimmie relate his youthful adventures, and would say, banteringly, as he lavished money upon him: "Only amuse and enjoy yourself, son!" Never did an old man find such pleasure in watching a young man; for paternal love had robbed age of its terrors in the delight of contemplating his son’s immersion in life’s material pleasures.

At the age of sixty, Buster Morgan had become enamored with an island woman of peace and beauty. Jimmie Morgan was the sole fruit of this late love. For fifteen years now, he had mourned the loss of his dear Sandra. His many servants and his son attributed the strange habits he had contracted to this grief. Buster lodged himself in the most isolated part of his luxurious residence and he rarely went out. Even Jimmie could not intrude into his father's apartment without first obtaining permission.

While the young man gave tremendous parties in the main house and the place re-echoed his laughter, Buster seemed to suffice alone and sustained on an alternate daily diet of curried goat stew or small portions of ackee and salt fish. He never complained of the noise. During his illness, if the noise of cars entering the compound or the barking of dogs interrupted his sleep, he only said: "Ah, Jimmie has come home." Never before was so untroublesome and indulgent a father to be found; consequently young Jimmie, had all the faults of a spoiled child. His attitude toward Buster was like that of a capricious woman toward an elderly lover, passing off an impertinence with a smile, and submitting to be loved. In calling up the picture of his youth, Jimmie recognized that it would be difficult to find an instance in which his father's goodness had failed him. He felt a newborn remorse as he traversed the passage, and he very nearly forgave his father for having lived so long. and thereby limiting full control of the inheritance he so hungered for...I think letting this sentence end here gives it more impact. The reader knows why he doesn't want him to live long.. Soon the young man passed into the rooms of his father's apartment where the fans turned smoothly on the high ceiling. He stood in front of the sick bed.

The scene formed so striking a contrast to the one which Jimmie Morgan had just left that he could not help from shuddering. He felt a tightening inside when, a sudden flash of light, caused by a breeze from outside the loose blinds, illuminated his father's face. The features were distorted with the skin clinging tightly to the bones. He was drawn with pain, the mouth, gaping and toothless, gave breath to sighs. In spite of these signs of dissolution, an incredible expression of power shone in the face. The eyes, hallowed by disease, retained a singular steadiness. A superior spirit was fighting there with death. It seemed as if Buster sought to kill with his dying look some enemy seated at the foot of his bed. This gaze, fixed and cold, was made the more appalling by the immobility of the head. All seemed dead, except the eyes. There was something mechanical in the sounds which came from the mouth. Jimmie felt a certain shame at having come to the deathbed of his father with the smell of loose women on his clothes and rum on his breath. and the smell of... I thought this repetition seemed unnecessary

"You were enjoying yourself!" cried the old man, on seeing his son. I do not begrudge you your pleasures, son."

These words, full of tenderness, pained Jimmie, who could not forgive his father for such goodness.

"I’m so sorry for you Dad to see you like this!" he cried.

"Poor Jimmie," answered the dying man, "I have always been so gentle towards you that you could not wish for my death"

"Oh Dad!" cried Jimmie, "if only it were possible to preserve your life by giving you a part of mine!"

But in his mind, the reality was that one can always say such things. It was like sweet reassuring lies to a mistress.

It was the Last Supper. “Is it I Lord?”

"I knew that I could count on you, son," said the dying man. "But don’t grieve for me. You shall be satisfied, but I shall live."

"He is delirious," thought Jimmie to himself.

The old tycoon gathered all his strength to raise himself up into a sitting posture, for he was stirred by one of those suspicions which are only born at the bedside of the dying. "Listen, son," he continued in a voice weakened by this last effort. "I have no more desire to die than you have to give up your lady loves and all the rest of life’s pleasures.”

"I can well believe it," thought his son, kneeling beside the pillow and kissing one of Buster’s cadaverous hands.

"But Dad," he said, "We must in the end submit to the God’s will"

"God! I am also God!" growled the old man.

"Dad, you don’t know what you are saying" cried the young man, seeing the menacing expression which was overspreading his father's features. "Be careful what you say.”

The dying man smiled.

"I am about to be born again."

"His delirium is at its height," thought Jimmie to himself.

Buster was no longer able to speak, but he could still hear and see. He turned his head toward Jimmie with a violent wrench. His neck remained twisted like that of a marble statue doomed by the sculptor's whim to look forever sideways, his staring eyes assumed a hideous fixity. He was dead, dead in the act of losing his only, his last illusion. In seeking a shelter in his son's heart he had found a tomb more hollow than those which men dig for their dead. His hair, too, had risen with horror and his tense gaze seemed still to speak.

It was a father rising in wrath from his sepulchre to demand vengeance of God.

[Rores28]

Excellent story. I actually feel strange critiquing it as I have to bow to your superior skill. Any reason in particular this was set in Jamaica?


PART 2:

"He’s gone at last.” Jimmie said to himself. But he was still visibly shaken by the perception of reality expressed with such finality in his father’s final look.

The silence was profound. Jimmie thought he saw his father move, and he trembled. Frightened by the tense expression of the accusing eyes, he closed them, just as he would have pushed down a window-blind. He stood motionless, lost in a world of thought & numbness existed within him.

Later his friends from the Beach Club arrived. The women, whose voices had previously been lighthearted threw themselves on their knees in his father’s bedroom and began to pray. Jimmie could not but reflect on how this previous joy, laughter, beauty was now doing homage to Death. But in this Caribbean island, religion and revelry were on such good terms that religion was a sort of debauch and debauch religion.

Later on that week, Jimmie, swayed by a thousand thoughts, wavered towards many different resolutions. After having ascertained the amount of the wealth amassed by his father he became avaricious and finally stepped out from his fathers goodness and position, becoming his own man completely.

Forever the master in the illusions of life he threw himself in; despising the world, but seizing the world. His happiness could never be of that conventional type which is satisfied by a cold beer and a comfortable but boring life style..I think this may need to be another concrete object... a cold beer and a weathered recliner.. maybe?. He grasped. He might easily, have walked with his feet on the earth and his head among the clouds, but preferred to drink the unforgiving cup of sensuality to the last dregs. Like Death itself, wherever he passed, he devoured all without scruple, demanding passionate love and easily won pleasure. Loving only woman in women, his soul found its natural trend in irony. When these paramours screamed in an ecstasy of bliss, Jimmie still remained detached and mechanical. But he said "I" whilst his conquests in their ignorance said "we." There was banter in his simplicity and laughter in his tears, for he could weep as well as any woman.

For bankers the world revolves around articles of monetary exchange, for most young men it is a woman; for some women it is a man; for Jimmie the universe was himself. He allowed himself to be carried only where he wished to go. The more he saw the more skeptical he became. Probing human nature he guessed that courage was rashness; prudence, cowardice; generosity, shrewd calculation; justice, a crime; and he perceived that the persons who were really honest, delicate, just, generous, prudent and courageous received no consideration at the hands of their fellow man. And so, he showed no mark of respect for things of a spiritual nature.I think you should consider avoiding the word "spiritual" here maybe an unworldly, or less terrestrial or something. I feel like the word "spiritual" is too wed to conceptions of new age sentimentality so that it lifts the veil of fiction. I was totally absorbed and the word spiritual immediately took me out of it and made me start asking questions about you rather than the characters He understood the mechanism of human society, and never offended too much against the current prejudices; but he bent the social laws to his will.


When Jimmie Morgan reached the age of sixty he went to live up in the Blue Mountains east of Kingston. There, in his old age, and like his father before him, he married a young and charming country girl. But he was intentionally neither a good father nor a good husband. He had observed that we are never so tenderly loved as by the women to whom we scarcely give a thought.

The days of decrepitude arrived. With this age of pain came cries of helplessness, cries made the more piteous by the remembrance of his impetuous youth and his ripe maturity. This man was compelled to close his eyes at night upon an uncertainty. This man of detached cunning developed an obstinate cough and he saw his teeth leave him, as, at the end of an evening, the fairest, best dressed women depart one by one, leaving the dance floor deserted and empty. His bold hands trembled, his limbs tottered, and then one night death turned its hooked and icy fingers around his throat.

When the day of his demise came, it was on a summer evening and the Jamaican sky was still gloriously clear and the orange trees outside perfumed the air. Nature seemed to give pledges of his resurrection. An emotionally neglected, yet obedient son regarded him with love and respect. Marcus looked at his father who in his turn was too well versed in human expression not to know that he could die peacefully in perfect faith in such a look, as his father had died in despair at his own expression.

Then he died gently in the arms of his son, whose tears fell upon his sallow face.

[MANICHAEAN]

Dear Rores
Thank you for your kind comments. This is exactly the kind of critique that I welcome & your taking the time to do it in detail is much appreciated. All the “red bits” are fair, constructive and I’ve taken them on board. In answer to your other questions:

1. I’ve been writing now for just over a year on and off in my spare time. But it’s been, what seems like a life time of reading, as I’ve always loved books & the evolvement & flexibility of the English language.

2. I built a house once on the north coast of Jamaica & that became for six years my returning home base from overseas work. Thus I had the opportunity to immerse myself more in that country’s culture, (both good & bad), more so than the average tourist locked up in a beach resort & afraid to venture out. I’ve always tried to use in my writing first hand knowledge of locations, just as one does when reflecting upon personal emotions & experiences.

3. The “spiritual” issue I’m wary of discussing, but I’m always drawn to use it in my stories whenever I see a relevant parallel with specific aspects of humanity.

Best regards
M.

[everyadventure]

An insightful piece of work, Mr. Manichaean! This has been my favorite piece of yours yet, for a couple of reasons. First, it's a story of relationships, connections, humanity, which is the type of story I'm drawn to. Secondly, although debauchery is in this young man's nature, you don't rely on intimate scenes to carry the story. (Although, I should say that those scenes in your other pieces are pretty tastefully done, as far as whoredom can be portrayed tastefully!)

There were several "wow" sentences that really stood out:


perhaps there still lurked in the depths of his heart a little of that respect for things human and divine You captured that moment (I think we've all been there) where we suddenly realize we just stepped over the line, usually in an attempt to impress others...


His attitude toward Buster was like that of a capricious woman toward an elderly lover, passing off an impertinence with a smile, and submitting to be loved. An unexpected but entirely apt comparison. I can just envision the simpering facade...


These words, full of tenderness, pained Jimmie, who could not forgive his father for such goodness. A similar thought has been lurking around my head for some time now... how maddening it can be when someone will readily forgive you for ANYTHING. The unearned respect, the lack of boundaries, knowing that there will never be an ultimatum. (Don't be surprised if you see something along these lines pop up in a thread of mine soon...) Of course, you summed it up much more neatly than I could have.


religion and revelry were on such good terms Ah! So well said. Brings to mind a Dia de los Muertos parade, with the wailing and crying and cheering all at once.


He had observed that we are never so tenderly loved as by the women to whom we scarcely give a thought. Sadly, this rings true...

The only part I disliked was:


he saw his teeth leave him, as, at the end of an evening, the fairest, best dressed women depart one by one

...I just had a hard time imagining teeth as well dressed women :)

A pleasure as always. Thanks for the vacation!

[MANICHAEAN]

Do you wake up early morning & a oh so sweet combination of words come into the brain. And you lay back and a story germinates. And you go to work, but you have to get that essential sentence down before you lose it. And it is the cornerstone upon which all the rest of the tale evolves? Then when its down and written, its creation?

Is it me talking now late in the evening, or the Jack Daniels?

[everyadventure]

No, Manichaean, my moments come at night, before I fall asleep... they keep me awake, in fact, and I wonder that my husband can snore away while these words march obstinately across the page of my mind. And I can't rest at one essential sentence: I must have the whole thing written out, word for word, and correctly punctuated, before I can rest. Precisely why I like to post a piece first thing in the morning, as it has haunted my dreams...

[MANICHAEAN]

Ha ha. We are opposites in that respect regards creative time frames.

I'm reading "Women in Love" at the moment and I cannot get past two pages a day, as it is so perceptive. One of my dilemmas is that I can never really discern whether it is the female of the species that is more emotive or the male, (suitably repressed).

Hence perhaps how you can relate to the female characters in my writing, but are unsure of their male counterparts.

Always let me know where I'm going wrong on the "weaker" sex, as I am comfortable with most of the male hopes, fears and aspirations.

Best regards as always always.
M.

[everyadventure]

No no, I don't believe I said I could "relate" to the women in your writing... I cannot, in fact. I think I said that you pay more attention to detail in describing the women in your writing, and I have a hard time visualizing the men.

In fact, although you aptly capture a woman's appearance and attitude, I have yet to see much insight into their character, what makes them tick. They're typically beautiful, strong, self-composed... but beyond that, who are they? How did they get to where they are, what do they feel, in what ways are they vulnerable?

If you have the time (and inclination) I would be fascinated to read a piece from you that focuses on a woman in this way... definitely curious about what you'd come up with!

[MANICHAEAN]

I'd never realised your point on my invariably portraying strong women before, and it is so obvious now that I accept it. Thank you so much in pointing it out.
M.

[everyadventure]

Hey, I'm certainly not opposed to strong women! I'd just like to see them whole, a more complete portrait.