He didn’t hear the thud. He was focusing on his hands. These hands. His naked body was still. His window was open. The floor was still just dirt and ash. But his hands were changed.
They were glowing. He put them together heard the releasing sound. He touched his face. He held them as far away as he could. He brought them close until they were just a smudge of pink, a blur of possibility. He slowly fell forward and caught himself, with his hands. He sprung back up. He touched his back, eyes, hair, chest, dick, toes. He touched his desk. He closed his eyes and held his breathe.
Pawing at the paraphernalia of his life on his desk he felt the scissors and the plates, the pens, the stuff and things. He felt around on the bed and felt the book and the magazines. He turned and thrust his hands into the mound of clothes. He felt the roughs and the smooths. He felt the clean and the dirty. He shoved his clothes away and splashed in the gathered water, juice soda, tea, beer cocktail. He found paper.
If he felt the numbers he didn’t know. He felt his hair again. He toyed with it. He rubbed it on the back of each hand. The grease, the grating sensation of rubbing it together. It meant something. He felt his head again. He opened his palms and laid them flat on the floor.
He pressed as hard as he could with his left. Keeping his fingers stretched he slowly lifted it up and held it flat an inch off the floor. He put his right down, pressing lightly. He felt the fingernail. He felt the ash and the dust. He felt.
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I finally read your blog, Dustin! The story is great. I like the way you made the questioning of one's identity physical, not just psychological, and turned your focus to the "paraphernalia of his life." A tale like this could easily turn into a self-obsessed muddle, but your quick pace (it never lagged--always advanced the reader) and earnestness make it readable and compelling.
ReplyDeleteI hope you enter this in a contest; there are tons, as I'm sure you know. You really deserve a wider audience than this.
You asked for suggestions. One thing I noticed is that the transition from logical self-hater to disassociated self-seeker seems a bit abrupt. I wondered about this after my first read and went back and found the spot, but you might need to delineate it more clearly. This would also benefit--as every piece of writing would--from a 5-10% culling. It's quite tight for a first draft, so this might just be a matter of catching little cliches ("impotent fist") and extracting/replacing them.
Anyway, this is a successful story that really makes the reader feel something. I felt each wave of nausea, imagined the pants of razors, nearly even pawed at my dick. You connected with your reader, Dustin. Well done!
and that's the plainness buried in the chaos. you are, what u feel. finally the new perspective to everything.
ReplyDeletereally good and deep story dustin, totally enjoyed joining the different levels of his agitating journey. nice pictures, like here he is finding himself by taking himself by the hand: the old him greets the new one, is lead to the releasing truth and bows out at the same time in favor of the new affective emotional consciousness.
great end, i'm glad that the story is called 'these hands' and not 'this heart' or sth, that would have killed all the tension.
thumbs up, looking forward to the next one...