Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona, William Shakespeare
The walls of the room looked as if someone had taken a vat of bleach and scrubbed them clean with the hem of the Pope's robe. As white as a woman's thighs. Purged of any dirt, any sin, it seemed. To Richard, the room resonated the same way a page in a new engineering manual did when he was reading it outside, with the sun whitewashing words in angelic glory – black words that trouped across paper like colonies of ants, all in a row. The walls were harsh. They stared down at him with holy indignation.
He stared back.
The voices behind him crooned. They whispered in church pew voices. Mourning voices.
Richard Lee had sinned after all.
He had partaken of a bitter cup.
And now he couldn't move his wrists or his ankles. His body was spread out – unraveled on the table like a penitent sinner, with his limbs stretched into Vitruvian Man positions and bolted down. He was naked. He felt like a beetle pinned on paper by a taxidermist. Richard felt exposed and helpless and he was pretty sure he could feel God's eyes performing surgery on his soul, picking out all of his sins like tumors and examining them, clicking his tongue, shaking his head.
Like a lion would shake his head.
But I can't help it, Richard wanted to scream. I can't change!
We are here to overcome our sinful appetites. Our base and carnal hungers.
A part of him realized he deserved what was coming. Another part was searching for the music in the room, sinning again and again and again. Listening to how the quiet voices hummed twitchy little choruses – flies darting around dead corpses – how his breathing kept time, how the walls seemed to exhale bass sighs. His fingers twitched. They conducted.
Such beauty.
Beauty in the way all things, living or not, twisted the air – manipulated sounds – into performing for them. Into giving birth to vibrating dreams and desires and thoughts. The music. The music was color. Prismatic splashes spattered across mildew spotted black-and-white photographs. Pictures of wilted looking citizens or empty hallways or skeletal tree groves.
I will die a sinner.
Three men approached the table, each dressed in blistering white, their faces stained with cold disapproval. They were wearing latex gloves and the largest man – his eyes as hollow as eggshells and as black as ink spills – was carrying a hose.
His name was Samuel.
He was smiling.
“I can't understand you, Richard,” he said. “Your condition doesn't make sense to me. You know it's wrong. You've always known it's wrong. And yet, for some reason, you keep doing it. Like a kid sneaking dirty pictures. You just can't get enough of it, can you?”
Richard remained silent.
His belly heaved like a dress in the wind and he squirmed at the cuffs rooting him to the table. He knew it was senseless to struggle, but something – instincts, evolution, whatever – tugged at his arms and his legs and controlled his muscles like puppet strings, tightened around his lungs like nooses. Samuel was laughing softly now. But the men at his side had empty faces. Faces that belonged staring up at the lid of a coffin. Carefully sculpted, carefully massaged into expressions of obedient submission.
Their movements were even mechanical.
It was as if Samuel and the Hierarchy had taken a scalpel and severed their souls from their chests like a doctor clipping a newborn from its umbilical cord.
Samuel was circling the table and running his gloved finger along Richard's thigh, chest, neck, face. The latex made mouse squeaks.
“Why are you broken, Richard? We've done everything possible to keep you in good working order. You've been taught by the Hierarchy's finest, you pray and commune every day, you work hard and diligently. On the outside, you look like a perfect citizen. Your skin looks just fine to me.”
Samuel's hand rested on Richard's forehead. His touch made Richard's intestines squirm like worms in the beak of a bird. But he kept silent. He wouldn't reward this bastard with his voice.
His voice.
What perfection it could produce!
Notes and sounds like apple tree blossoms. Twirling helicopter petals that could even kiss the feet of God or whisper pictures of flawlessness into even Samuel's ears. Richard wished that he could put words to those sounds, too. He wished that he had the time to string notes together to form wonderful monologues that spoke of revolution and human goodness. To string them together like pearls.
Music, he knew, was a Rosetta stone.
It translated the heart.
He tried to make his expression as blank as possible.
Samuel studied him for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. “But even now I can see in your eyes that you haven't repented. That you still believe that you are right and we are wrong. You think that something as insubstantial as music – as an instrument – is more important than peace of mind and food and shelter. Something went wrong along the way. You're rotting. Your insides are like oatmeal. Your brain is like oatmeal. Somebody corrupted you. They stole the virginity of your thought.”
He nodded to one of the men standing by Richard's side. The man – moving with glassy, department store mannequin grace – drew a remote from his pocket and pressed it. Deep, sonorous cello notes sludged their way through the room, dripping from unseen speakers like tired, worldly sighs. They echoed and twisted and bowed and pirouetted and danced like shadow stained men in sorrow-black overcoats who had the weight of the planet crushing their ribcages. Richard's heart felt swollen and carved-out. The music was sad. It sounded like a choir of whales. It sounded like the prayers of men and women alone, but surrounded cities of people.
He blinked.
Tears wedged their way out and slipped down his face.
All the music inside of him was leaking from his eyes.
Samuel was smiling. “Pretty isn't it? Do you like it? You know what it is? It's the old world speaking to us. It's kind of like a time capsule, except they wrote their message-in-a-bottle in a language not many people can understand. But you know what they're saying, don't you? You can understand. What are they saying to us, Richard? What are they telling you?”
Richard couldn't think straight anymore. His thoughts had evaporated and were stumbling around his brain like mustard gas. His throat felt sandpapery, as if someone had been busy scraping it with a paintbrush.
Richard closed his eyes.
Swearing, Samuel pounded the table and screamed, “What are they telling you, you bastard? You want to know? Are you too deaf? They're warning us! Warning us to stay away! To avoid the mistakes they made! You know what this music is? It's a nuclear bomb and it's a hungry child and it's a negro slave and it's a knife in someone's back. It's you, Richard! You've become one of them!”
Samuel's voice hung in the air along with the final cello notes like a body strung up on a tree limb. His chest was heaving. He was clutching the hose in his hand like the neck of a murder victim.
“Play it again!”
His voice was a spool of barbed wire and he yanked the hose up and over Richard's face.
The cello started weeping again.
And then water gushed into his nostrils and mouth and into his eyes – forcing them open, pushing on them, trying to worm them out of his skull. Richard tried to hold his breath as so many gallons of chilled-wine water forced their way into his lungs and punctured his face like a trillion thumbtacks. Suffocating him as if someone had taken a bible and was pressing against his nose with all of their weight. Richard tried to scream, he tried to move, to struggle, but the water from Samuel's hose continued to beat against his face like a baseball bat, like the butt of a gun crunching into his nose again and again and again.
And as he was drowning, all he could hear was a bow whittling at the strings of a cello.
Samuel laughed along with it.
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139,558 Literary Works • 672,608 Reviews
i dont know what what happend.. i assume it was good and tasted like cake.. but i just dont know what it is.. you know what i mean?
Hey, Kylan!
XD I have to say, I loved the "partaken of a bitter cup" line, just because it's very KJV. If you're going to write a story about sin, then you may as well go all-out with the Biblical language. I absolutely loved this piece--it was stark and disturbing and at the same time lushly poetic. You have a knack for making what should be "ugly", breathtakingly beautiful. And Samuel's just crazy evil genius--his character, in contrast with Richard, made for a great pairing.
The only thing that's going to be crucial to this story is explanation. If you're writing a story about crime and punishment, it's important that you tell us about the crime and not just the punishment. "If...then" statements are your friend when you're planning these things out in a world that's not your own. Sins are different from crimes, unless they're one and the same--
And that's just what I'm wondering about music. It seems to be a mix between the two--it's a crime, but it's also taboo enough to be a sin, as well. And why? What would happen if you submitted to temptation? In republics, crimes are bad because of Montesquieu--they're designed so that "one man need not be afraid of another". What's so fearsome about music? You can go wild and crazy with it, but you still need to have that explanation. If you think about it, crime and sin in general are based upon moral constructs that don't exist in monkeys. The reason for not doing something is completely made up, but we live by it, anyway.
__
Thanks for the read, Kylan! I apologize for being such a slowpoke. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. ^_^
Nope, still confused. But this was beautiful. Still a bit purple prose-y, but amazing.
So... There aren't any black women in this new world? I know what you are trying to say and it is beautiful imagery, but for some reason, this image just bothered me. I liked the previous one much more, what with bleach and the Pope's hem (the Pope's hem added a whole 'nother dimension to the awesomeness of the piece - bleach isn't white enough, so we gotta put purity in there too... wicked awesomeness)
Well, I guess that sort of answers my above question about the white women's thighs.
I was a bit confused as to what was going on in this piece. What exactly was the point of Samuel's playing the music? Was it to make Richard confess? What was he torturing him for? *scratches head*
Nonetheless for my poor understanding, this was an extremely emotional piece. I loved how you described the music and Richard's reaction to it. Very powerful.
You are a great writer. I loved this.
*thumbs up* I bestow a star upon you. Keep up this magnificent work!
~GryphonFledgling
I appreciate everyone's critiques! I'm glad you all are enjoying this.
It was/is my plan for this to be one part in a three part story, composed of short vignettes set in a dystopian future where the arts have been outlawed/banished because they promote free thought and as a result of that, rebellion. Think Orwell. So there will be more information on the government, but Richard will not be mentioned again.
TL G-Wooster and Clograbby >> Well, with Samuel's sudden change in demeanor I was trying to show that he's unstable and somewhat sociopathic; and I think anyone in that position - with the power to torture people - usually do have a touch (if not more than) of insanity. I dunno. If you think that still doesn't work and/or the average reader wouldn't pick up on that let me know.
Angel >> Unfortunately, the only reason I chose that particular shakespeare quote was because it was pretty and had to do with music. There's no other connection... But thanks anyway!
Expect part two soon!
-Kylan
Hey Kylan!
.You've had some excellent, thorough reviews already. Let's see how I can help...
Firstly, I commend the title. It's what drew me in. I love it.
I agree with whomever that "partaken" is the wrong word here. Something needs to be changed here, whether it's the word in question, or you could change "or" to "with".
I don't quite get this. In the prior paragraph you're describing God as a taxidermist/doctor, performing surgery, which makes sense and is lovely, and then this kind of was out of place after all that. It's like a simile/metaphor overload. And I'm kind of puzzled by the image as well.
Augh god! That makes some wonderful, disturbing imagery.
Yikes! More lead in to this. Before this, Samuel seemed the epitome of calm. I never thought of him as containing that sort of volatile anger. And, what do you mean by "Are you too deaf?" If he's not deaf, then that doesn't make much sense implying that. And if he is, then WHOA, what have I missed? I doubt it though.
Wow! Gorgeous, my dear. What an interesting concept, considering music a threat. I've never thought of or seen such a thing. Your descriptions are so rich. This could be published easily with just minor tweaks.
PM me if you have questions! Thank you for the read. C:
~ Clo
Oi Gyr is such a good critiquer!!
Well anyways, as always I loved this piece. It was beautiful and your poetic lines never cease to amaze me. What caught my attention was the title, and when I was reading I was like...wow this wasn't what I was expecting at all. You've built suspense from the beginning to the end which is good. I like that you used a quote from Shakespeare, one of the greatest poets that has ever lived.
I think you can elaborate on the whole music being a sin thing though. Well hold on, let me see if I can figure it out. Orpheus, if I remember correctly, was a guy who played this harp-like instrument and then he fell in love with this girl who was killed by a snake. The only way he could rescue her was if he went to the underworld and got her himself. But the trick was, that he couldn't look back until they were out of the tunnel. Getting to the point, Orpheus looked back and because he lost his wife he played horrible music until everyone decided to kill him by ripping him apart and throwing him in the sea. Maybe I'm reading too in to this and maybe I'm not but it would be nice if you explained that part farther.
Here are a few of my favorite lines:
All in all, this was brilliant and if you make any changes or add something else please please please let me know. You are a magnificent writer, never let anyone tell you otherwise.
Good Job and Keep writing,
Angel
Well...
From what I've seen of your writing, you always manage to make prose poetic and add in these little details and images and metaphors that make the whole piece beautiful. It's the same here.
The only thing that really leaped out and bit my nose was this:
I read that, and did a mental blinkblinkblink. In the dialog before this, Samuel was all quiet and thoughtful:
... Then he's suddenly screaming, thumping and swearing. That really threw the mood and tension out the window, which was a pity because you built it up really nicely.
-
I'm really curious as to why the whole thing's happening, why music is now a sin. I think I kind of get it - emphasis on the kind of - but I'm intrigued. Will you be continuing with this?
Brilliant line.
One of the first things I noticed about this piece was the good description. I didn't spot any grammatical or spelling mistakes, so the only thing I can comment on is the scene and the story.
I don't really understand this, but maybe it's just me. I understand the clause before it, and after it, but I don't know what this piece means.The first time I read the story, I didn't completely understand it, but as I read it again, I gleaned more. I suppose the premise is interesting, from what I've read. I haven't read a dystopia book in a while.
I really didn't see mistakes, though. You seem really experienced.
*feels inferior after gyr's magnificent crit*
Um...yeah, what she said.
Personally, quoting Shakespeare is always the best way to hook me. But I wonder: 1. why only the first line is italicized, and 2. why it’s spaced as it is—seems a tighter spacing would work better.
Interspersing long sentences with short ones shows a natural gift for rhythm, good training, or both. Either way, this is a bit too much of a long sentence, even if the imagery is absolutely delightful—please either trim this one sentence or snap it in two somehow.
Gorgeous. In the first few paragraphs you’ve established not only your setting and character to satisfaction, but also your voice—these two sentences in particular tell the reader that this is the kind of story they’re going to be reading.
Nix the bit in red—tis redundant after your loverly taxidermist remark.
Can you say August Rush?
*stands in awe of the most poetic sentence this side of the poetry forum*
This threw me. What wilted-looking citizens? (and, yes, I think you need the dash) What empty hallways or skeletal tree groves? Before you were dealing in broad (and beautiful) generalities; if you’re going to be specific, then please be specific.
Eh. This dialogue just breaks the exquisite tension you’ve built up for us, and not even dramatically. It’s not worth the expectation you’ve carefully nurtured—Samuel is not well-spoken enough to deserve your beautiful description, nor is he coarse enough to fully and/or dramatically snap us out of our reverie. It’s like an itch rather than a smack, you see? And you need either a full-handed smack or none at all at this point.
:p Nix it! All we need to know is “something”—anything more is just so much itching.
OH! “Faces that belonged staring up at the lit of a coffin” is amazing, which is why I suggest nixing the next sentence—let that one description stand alone, it needs no more qualifiers and to try to take the description any farther only robs that coffin sentence of some of its punch.
I wouldn’t say this unless we’re actually seeing their movements, i.e. “Even the way in which they moved forward/shook their heads at me/did the hokey-pokey was mechanical.”
This is yet another magnificent sentence, yet again I feel it would be better suited to a time/scene when the coffin-men (as I am now going to be calling them
*is totally freaked/grossed out* I hate latex.
Hmmm. Richard’s been so calm up to this point, almost detached, to suddenly use the word “bastard” seems slightly out of place, but this might be only me.
Twere me, I’d nix the first one.
What is this guy, a zombie?
I’m not too fond of the repeated “oatmeal.” Again, Samuel’s dialogue needs to be taken either up a step or down a step for it to fit (or to properly not-fit).
See, this is where you might have used the mechanical comment and others, but you cover it well with the mannequin thing (though “department store” really through me), so, beautiful as it is, I’d advise perhaps nixing some of your earlier descripts of the coffin-men, in order to avoid redundancy.
You could seriously make so many of your sentences into poems. *jealousy* Oh, by the way, I’m pretty sure “shadow stained” should have a dash between them.
I had to read this twice to understand it. Perhaps something like “men and women who were alone, even surrounded by cities”. Either way, you need the “by.”
Samuel-wise, this is better, but please do something about the repeated “it”s—really grates against the nerves.
Nix, tis redundant. (And what need have you of such drab sentences anyway?
0.0 This is a rather sudden change in tact.
The red sentence really threw me—made me think that Richard didn’t actually know. And if he didn’t, you really need to make that clearer.
I’m with Sunny, you could really stand to make this clearer.
I have absolutely no idea what that means as an adjective. Are you trying to say it’s cold?
Interesting choice of murder weapon, and as such I should like to take this opportunity to ask for a minor clarification. Is this a Catholic church? It sure looks like it, but the whole ‘music=nuke’ thing is obviously not part of the normal catechism, and the fact that we’re in the sci-fi forum does give us some hints here. But, to all intents and purposes, this looks an awful lot like the world we know. Is there any way you think you could indicate that it’s not, besides the whole aforementioned ‘music=nuke’ thing?
Overall
Quite delightful, darling. I agree with Sunny about further developing why it’s considered a sin, though—even a few more hints would be nice. Do let me know when the next bit’s up!
I couldn't find anything to critique in this except "He had partaken of a bitter cup." I'm not quite sure "partaken" is the right word. You might want to check that.
Other than that, this was a beautiful piece. I'm completely jealous of your descriptions and ideas. Very nicely done. I loved how he could hear music in everything, and for some reason that was a sin. The only suggestion I have is to maybe explain a little better WHY it's a sin. "A knife in someone's back" - okay, that sounds pretty, I just don't know what it means. Make sense?
Again, very well done.