PDA

View Full Version : Four Times Around The World, David Gilbert



thenameismg
03-29-2013, 08:02 PM
Once around the world, David Gilbert, once around the world until you’ve learned to live again. You will see and sweat, you’ll drink, laugh and kiss. Once around the world, David Gilbert, and hide your body inside a strangers’, because for a while you feel alive.

Go home, David Gilbert. The home of many years ago. You’ll see your childhood sweetheart and find that her hair is much longer, and that her world has not changed. Go see your uncles, and feel the pity looks they give you behind your back.
Go away, David Gilbert, this is not your home. Your home is the sky, the sea and the unknown land.

Twice, twice around the world David Gilbert. Cry in your bed because you miss your mother, and it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair , it isn’t fair. Drink a bit more, David Gilbert. Drink until your mind is blank and you can’t feel anything but the laughter.

Twice around the world, David Gilbert, until it finally starts to sink in. It’s happened, it’s done. Don’t go back to Spain, David Gilbert, where your old girlfriend awaits with her arms open. Don’t answer that letter, and why did you read it in the first place? You already knew the words before you read them, and you’re not ready for those words.

Three times, three times around the world, David Gilbert. Meet another woman and remember her face. Taste her body. Because you can. Because she doesn’t love you and you don’t love her, so it couldn’t hurt then.

Read a book, David Gilbert. Read a book because you can’t remember the last book you read. Make sure it’s a good one, one Connie would approve of. And don’t go to Italy either. You know she’s there, and that she’s heard the news. But you don’t want her words of wisdom right now.


Three times around the world David Gilbert. and you sail on that boat because it feels right and because you need the money. Do it for the world, David Gilbert, the world you raped and still dared to ask for more.



Four times, four times around the world, David Gilbert. You won’t be so sad when you think of that face, you’ll be angry. Go to your family again, David Gilbert, and be angry still. It feels good, to feel something other than a stranger’s flesh or the sweet liquor going down your throat.

Answer the phone David Gilbert, and listen to Connie’s comforting words. It’s alright to feel lost, she says. It’s OK to think that life does not make sense anymore.

Four times around the world, David Gilbert, and you shout at night because no one can hear you, because it feels as if there was a knife in your chest, and every breath you take hurts.

Four times around the world, David Gilbert, and you start to remember the way it used to be, when you were young and it was Christmas, and the world was simple enough for Santa Claus to be real , and traveling was a thing for grown-ups.

Four times around the world, David Gilbert, until you go back home

But you don’t have a home. Your home is where their graves are, their names written on the black marble , and the empty place where yours will be one day. You are on your own. It still hurts, David Gilbert. And maybe it’s time for you to start living again.



So what do you all think?

Hawkman
03-30-2013, 04:18 AM
Well I wouldn't define this as a short story. It has a narative of sorts but not a plot. However, I'd say it qualifies as a poem, and with a little judicious pruning to refine the rhythm, not a bad one. The trouble is there are quite a lot of David Gilberts out there, including: an American radical leftist and convicted felon, and a Snooker player. Consequently, the use of the name, though obviously meaningful to you, is not particularly elucidating to this reader. Therefore, whether one treats this as a short story or a poem, the constant repetition of the name becomes a little tiresome.

Live and be well - H

frisbie
03-31-2013, 01:29 PM
I feel repetition was essential. For an oldie it is holding a mirror to life, which is scary to think your trip was not unique. I can see that readers under fifty would be restless because mortality and the Grim Reaper are three sailings away.

Hawkman
03-31-2013, 02:17 PM
I am well into my 50s and this is not a story. The repetition is not essential but it is over-playing your hand. The name used once in the title is quite sufficient, and could easily be omitted thereafter.

AuntShecky
04-01-2013, 06:52 PM
This isn't a short story, strictly speaking, because it lacks a plot, setting, dialogue, and character development. All we know about him is that he's been around the world four times. (We do know his name, though -- that's for sure.)

There are also some awkward phrases as well as errors in grammar and punctuation. For instance, --
"inside a strangers' ": Inside a stranger's what? Is there a word missing? If meant to be possessive, the apostrophe should be between the "r "and the "s," since stranger is singular.

Hope you will try to write and post something else. If so, remember: Show, don't tell.