Gods Don't Belong Here

He stood there staring at the stage, heartbeat racing, his veins pulsing, legs shaking and sweat dripping slowly down the spine of his back. His eyes were bloodshot and dark, nothing unexpected since he hadn't been to sleep all night. He watched the smartly dressed man on stage stand there, mic in hand, soaking up the laughter and applause of the crowd, confident in his abilities and hisself, a rock.

"And now Ladies and Gentlemen put your hands together!" said the smartly dressed man, "For the man of the night! The main attraction! The headliner! He has been travelling across the coast and this is his last night on stage! Give it up for Mr Henry Sharp!"

Henry took a last gulp of air, stepped onto the stage and was a changed man. He ran onto the stage with a spring in his step and smoothly took the mic out of the smartly dressed announcers hand, soaking in each and every applause and whistle from the massive crowd. He spent the next half n hour in control of them, making them laugh, making them sigh, making them scream and shout with praise and laughter. He was the puppet master, they were the puppets and his superb delivery and comedic genious were the strings on which he pulled and tugged. These moments for him were liking being on some sort of fantastic drug, he was somebody else, he wasn't Henry Sharp who came from one of the poorest most deprived areas of Wales where he was beaten up daily by everybody. No! He wasn't Henry Sharp, who worked part time in a superstore where teenagers would constantly hurl abuse at him as he stacked shelves and scanned products, all for minimum wage. No! He was Henry Sharp. Henry Fucking Sharp! The man! The master of comedy. And on stage he wasn't just a man. He was a god! He compared these euphoric moments of performing on stage to taking drugs. This was his speed, his dope. He was high as he delivered the punch line and tripping on the wave of appraisal the crowd gave him, injected into him. He was the sky.

But then the spotlight would die. The people would leave the arena and he would be left alone backstage. Nothing but a bottle of Jack by the side of him. He would feel sick as he walked back. His head would drum. His legs would shake and he would struggle for breath as reality rushed back into place. His life, his real life, would fall slowly back into its rightful position. The weight of the world would return to his shoulders. Henry Sharp the god would be gone and Henry Sharp the man would be back. Henry Sharp the man who struggled with alcoholism for two years. Henry Sharp the man who sought counseling after the mysterious dissapereance of his ex-wife would return. And these post performance moments were the worst, they would last longer than the crazed, eccentric, ecstatic rush of being on stage. Going from mortal to god to mortal in the space of fourty minutes can do mad things to a man. It can destroy a man.
Henry took the bottle of Jack Daniels and let it sink down his throat. He would get drunk and sing to himself at times like these.

"Darling, Darling, Stand...by me!" He would sing into the empty arena. Bottle of Jack in his left hand and cocked pistol in his right. And he would sing into the emptiness, sing until the sound of the bullet pierced through the melody and silenced the the singer forever.

Hello, rlw.

Interesting piece. I found myself interested by largely unmoved by the character, as we don't know him for very long before his life ends. We find out some things about him, sure, but that doesn't help us understand who he is, really. You touch on the tragedy in his life, but we don't really feel his pain beyond our ability to see that his is an alcoholic. Expand on these parts to make it better, in general.

...confident in his abilities and hisself, a rock.

Intentional "hisself?" I'd prefer himself, personally. Also, is the intent to imply that he is a rock? If so, then I would add a semi-colon after "hisself." Like so: "...in his abilities and himself; a rock."

...smartly dressed announcers hand.

Announcer's. There are actually quite a few small errors. Missed punctuation or letters, the wrong form of a word, etc. Nothing you won't catch on a nice, slow, thorough read through.

On tense, and the subtle nuances of wording.

Henry took the bottle of Jack Daniels and let it sink down his throat

Wording makes it sound as if he is swallowing the bottle, rather than the contents. Consider revising.

You've got two separate tenses in in this piece. You've got a past tense, and you've got what appears to be a future tense. I suggest either dropping the future in favor of the past, or leaving the future intact but adding a "Hours after the show ended..." style line after the future block and before Henry sits down for his bottle of Jack.

On a random gunshot in the night.
Interesting ending. I'm not a fan, to be honest. I mean, why this night? Why this show? If he's been suffering for two years, why would this particular show be the one to push him over the edge? I think you need something more to really make it an impactful and meaningful ending.

I'd also like to see you tie the ending in with the title; reference the fact that the mortal is dead, and the god with him. Something that brings it all together would be nice, especially since you use the god metaphor earlier in the piece. You actually choose to end with a singer/song reference, which I found odd given that the man is a comedian. Simply because someone sings does not make him a singer.

You've a good concept here. Make it better.

--D

Thanks for the review dude, I'll make some changes.

Yes I agree that there wasn't a very clear understanding of why he chose that particular night to kill himself. Earlier on in the story I did get the announcer to mention that this would be his final night on tour. What I failed to mention and get over was the direct link between Henry's alocohlism and his comedy career (Which had also lasted two years, with the tour being his retirement). I wanted to explore how an everyday man reacts to that god like powerful feeling and then is brought back down. On revising this i'll explain how he only started drinking heavily after his "comedowns" from performing. He has nothing in his life but peforming and feeling that energy and rush; Henry Sharp The God, and he uses the alcohol to maintain himself in reality; Henry Sharp the mortal. With nothing left to live for after his retirement he commits suicide.

Anyway went a bit off track. I like to think about my work in-depth aha. Cheers boss!

Evening. Dropping by to review.

Upon reading your first sentence, I believe I've found what I've been looking for - the elusive hook. Unfortunately, this hook lacks context. Still, a hook is a hook, and I suppose I'll take what I can get.

As I read on, I realize my excitement was for naught. Henry Sharp, my good man, has the potential to be interesting, but that isn't worth a penny. Everyone has the potential to be interesting, after all. What matters is who actually harnesses their potential to be interesting and lives to become someone magnificent.

But you don't seem concerned with that in this piece, do you? This was an exercise in prose, if I'm not mistaken. A little experiment, if you will. Not a bad result, if I do say so myself, but it's important to note your grammar's bad, if not terrible. You have a solid number of run-ons, a fair amount of fragments, and you repeat some phrases so often I can't distinguish this piece from those inane songs on the radio that repeat themselves time and time again.

Your tense shifted as well towards the end of the piece, and though the change is subtle, it's still quite noticeable.

The end is perhaps the most disappointing section of this piece. I expected so much more. I was hoping for a twist, but no. You let it down with something so expected I didn't have to finish reading to realize what it was. You could do better than that. There's much to improve in this piece, but seeing as you've focused on the prose, you might want to work on your grammar.

If you do revise this, mind if you send me a private message? I'd like to see a different version, hopefully one with more substance to it. This is a bit pointless, really. The conflict is too weak to qualify as a story (if there even is conflict), and we see only a glimpse of the character when the story hints to more. So far, Henry is a cardboard cut-out, and I can see the dotted lines your scissors followed. Allow him some originality, will you?

That said, this story is salvageable. Don't give up on it.