Solving for X

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Revisiting a short story I did for school, changed a lot of stuff and working on expanding it into a much larger piece. Any comments would be amazing! :D


Prologue

People leave you all the time. Actually, if there’s anything promised out of any relationship it’s that there will one day be an absence. No matter how many times your lover whispers the whimsical words of 'forever' into your ears beneath the bed sheets on that hazy Sunday afternoon – know that they are blatantly lying to you. The easiest way to live your life is to come to terms with the fact that you will eventually be completely alone. That you will eventually die. That someone will eventually skim your name in the obituary as they slurp down their morning coffee and head out to work. Never giving you a second thought.

Ch. 001

It had all happened so quickly – when variable Y, the train, and variable X, my sister’s car, had collided that night. Within seconds, the train had impacted the car, which had impacted the skin, which had impacted the bone, which had impacted the internal organs and had inevitably resulted in the destruction of any and all brain activity. They said she died instantly and painlessly, I imagined His hand in the form of metal wrapped tightly around my sister’s body. Bursting the liver, small intestines and skull leaving her now to be nothing more than a cadaver, dismembered – no longer recognizable as a human. I used to believe in God and righteous reasoning within the Universe, now I am not so sure.

Since my Sister’s death, we stopped going to our Church group, my Mother and Father adamantly believed that there was nothing to believe in anymore. We stopped thanking Jesus for our meals, eating in complete silence. I even slowly stopped praying before I feel asleep at night. I wondered if my parents did the same. Or, were they still desperately searching for God praying in their silence for closure and understanding? Because I knew I was. But, every night, I would pray a little less, and some nights I’d fall asleep so quickly I’d forget to pray altogether.

Dear God,
My parents are losing faith after what happened to my Sister. Please give them a sign. I’m worried.

The only person I knew who could make me feel like it could all stop at any moment was Dorian. I had begun sneak him into my bedroom upon the earliest hours of day. I would wrestle with Him as if He were a lover. It was not difficult to tempt Dorian. Soon enough, I felt his presence nearly everything, and soon it’s all I wanted – to experience him fully. “When are you going to give in?” He ever so gently whispered into my ear and every night, he’d say it a little bit louder, until they became echo’s inside of my head of temptation and possibility. Dorian came when he felt that he was most needed, when I was in the worst of states standing on the very edge. all I needed was myself, a box-cutter and the will before he slowly crept into my bedroom. Though the blood flowed profusely, cascading from the open wounds it was worth it to feel him near, to know I wasn't completely alone. The scars decorated my forearms in a morbid fashion. To me, they were residual trophies, constant reminders of the fact that I am alive, something I needed to know even if it killed me.

Spoiler
Dorian is a personification for death.
Hover through the foggy vapors till I see you in a dream singing animals to sleep.




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Well like an idiot i went and clicked on the spoiler button before i read the piece, but I still think there's enough for the reader to grasp who Dorian is. Unless, that is, you don't want it to be obvious that early in the story, in which case my advice would be to ease up on the imagery surrounding his "character".

What I would also suggest is sorting out the structure of this piece - I started reading it assuming it was the first chapter of a novella, but even then it seems a little fast paced, or are these the thoughts of the protagonist, regarding their sister, the character Dorian, faith and all the central themes of the narrative?

If this is just the short story you mentioned, or an expansion of it, i really think further expanding it and carrying the themes along with that metaphor involving SPOILER in a solid setting, etc. would be worthwhile.

What I like about this piece is that you have a knack for imagery and descriptive language, and that comes out in this. The association of mathematics and logic with the ambiguity of death and its inevitability/part of normal life contrasts the emotional ties in the subject matter fairly well (at least for me) and that too needs to be expanded upon if you do so.

Keep writing.
Thanks, J




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I agree with the first reviewer who said that you should sort out the formatting. I thing you could just delete the "prologue" and "chapter one" and it would be fine unless you're planning on expanding it.

That said, the imagery is really great. Disturbing though it is, I love the scene describing the sister's death. It should be gory, but the way you wrote it is actually poetic.

I also like how you treated something that I consider irrational (religion and death (no offense meant)) in a rational way. The way the family gradually turned away from the church felt formulaic, like it was a scientific process, like mitosis or meiosis, when in reality it's a very emotional thing. Even death with treated logically. That's what really makes this piece for me. On the surface, things are treated with logic, but underneath, it's still chaotic and irrational.

There were some run-on sentences, and the capitalization of certain words was strange (or intentional?), but that just needs minor editing.



Poetry comes alive to me through recitation.
— Natalie Merchant