Enthusiasm,
I hope you made the coffee black and strong today, because this could get long-winded. There're a lot of observations and comments I'll make about this story, but let me start off by identifying the overall cathartic feeling the reader is left with after reading this. As part of what appears to be a series of half-autobiographical and half-allegoric stories of dealing with loss, guilt, and the search for redemption, this feels like a culmination and completion.
BASIC PRO'S (in case you want to skip all the other mumbo-jumbo) ▶︎
—This story brings closure to the series of your stories I choose to think as the Lands of Guilt collection. As noted previously, I am left with a sense of closure—not necessarily closing all the way, but of the beginning of closure, the beginning of healing.
—The imagery is much more limited in this piece. Rather than an expanse of metaphorically physical environment, this takes place in a focused, localized area. That helps the reader to focus, also. A painting is beautiful, but it takes quite some time really absorb each wonderful brushstroke; a drawing, however, has limited space on the paper, making it easier to focus on fewer things with greater specificity. The same is true here.
BASIC CON'S (ditto the other mumbo-jumbo) ▶︎
—This was the most grating to me: switching tense and person. You start out in third-person/past tense. The you switch to second-person/present tense. It just felt jarring as hell. It left me wondering what the point was for doing that. It didn't make sense to me. (Also—and this is just me, just one reader's personal taste—I hate present tense, and I loathe second-person. Dickens uses present and past tense together in Bleak House. I'm a huge Dickens fan, but for that reason, Bleak House was like biting on tin foil for me.)
—I didn't understand the dialog being in italics rather than quotation marks. It felt strange. I caught myself wondering at this unconventional mechanical aspect rather than the story at a few points. Speaking of dialog, those first few sentences in the first paragraph had very little context, before or after them. I've interpreted them best I can, but...
—Last negative note, I promise. The transitions from one setting or action to the next felt very jerky. In one way, one can see elements of poetic habits—fewer words is better; use one word to say 2 or 3 things at a time; "tell" less and let the reader interpret more. I didn't feel like it served this piece though. A little more meat wouldn't have hurt my feelings 
A Whole New World...Kind Of ▶︎
Along that line, I'd like to rescind an earlier observation. I previously noted that naming towns as emotions or coping mechanisms seemed a bit formulaic. I have come to understand, through this cycle of stories, how each definition of grief and guilt, how each perspective of examining and coping with it is its own environment. Yet, to be sure, there are common elements between all these cities of struggle, and together they form an entire world of coping with the same serious emotional turmoil. Viewed in that light, your naming scheme is actually quite inspired!
The Times, They Are a Changin' ▶︎
Every world, whether physical, metaphysical, or metaphorical, exists in some kind of timeline. The environment represented here does, too, but with counter-intuitive features that are fascinating.
—Dawn represents death, exposure, disquiet. "The town of Last Word drowned at dawn." There is a strange combination of intent in this story that is conspicuously different than how "the revelation of daylight" is used in other stories—that is, where some malicious work or misdeed is exposed for resolution. In this case, the grief and guilt have bubbled to the surface for close examination. The destruction of their long festering is seen and acknowledged. Yet, all of this is in the context of admission—a concept touched on later specifically, but nicely demonstrated here in the abstract—so that healing can begin.
—Night is used as an opportunity to avoid avoidance. Night usually covers wounds, crimes, grief. In this case, the writer repudiates the cloaking action of night by taking actions that continue to reveal and expose.
—Midnight finally holds sway and covers all that the writer seems to have wanted to uncover and admit to. Instead of allowing himself to be covered, as well, he leaves the night, enduring a difficult transition away from hiding and repression into admission and presence. "You leave at midnight. The road out of town cracks like a spine."
—And the future— ah, the unknown future... "Years later, you work at a gas station." At first glance, a casual reader might see this as the writer settling for something less than ideal; the intricate subtleties in this parting paragraph are wonderfully positive, however. The person in the story has moved from museum curator—someone who works with things from the past, things that cannot be changed, things that are "static"—to gas station assistant: someone dealing with travel, forward motion, helping others, changing circumstances. His very state of being—previously one of motionless "static"—has been made a "relic," and his new state is that of someone either moving forward or ready to move forward. This metaphor of contrast is at once hidden and displayed in very simple language. Brilliant!
A Whiff of Promise; the Scent of Doom ▶︎
Once again, some ongoing motifs are presented here. This symbology has been established over previous pieces, and the reader has some experience and familiarity with how they are used. Just as religious and cultural histories rely on symbols as a shorthand for complex situations or concepts, so do we all. Interesting in this story, however, is the change in frequency of how you use them, as well as some new and possibly revealing symbols.
Symbols are always fascinating, I think, and they not only allow the reader to connect through a common conduit but also offer the reader puzzles to solve within in the text. They strike me as specific set of tarot cards by which we can read the persona behind the story.
Flowers play a very psychological role in your writing, painting an emotional backdrop from the most sensitive and nostalgic of our senses: smell. Lilacs, lavender, roses, orchids—the different flowers you use seem to represent both popular connotations and some private connections. However, all of the different representation have a feminine tone to them. One is led to connect them to a mother figure, or even an older sister or spouse, especially based on this story.
— Roses seem to evoke a maternal mood, but there is a painful aspect to that mood, in the way you use it.
The widow's "I killed the roses..." seems to strongly hint that Mother, as opposed to being widowed, was the cause of her own familial relationships being metaphorically widowed.
Love letters that sprout thorns suggest Mother's love was conditional at best and toxic at worst. The toxicity of Mother is alluded to in several places throughout this short piece, which echoes the same sentiments from other stories in your "Land of Guilt" cycle. While other stories speak to direct conflict between mother and the writer, this seems to reveal some of the underlying reasons for that conflict. I get the sense there was an infidelity connected with mother—something that fueled rage and antagonism in Father, feelings of disappointment, confusion, and betrayal in the writer, and feelings of guilt in mother herself that they were passed on as generational trauma.
— Lilacs are a flower we've not yet smelled in these rooms of ruin before, but they seem related to lavender—a scent that is gentle. Perhaps the lilacs are a lingering scent of young mother, and roses an odor that recalls an older version of mother, a sadder unwiser woman.
"...The shards sprout lilacs. This viscous and cloying "resin" can be overcome, but there is pain and admission involved. Shards are sharp, they make us bleed, they shock us—could this whiff of a younger version of mother remind the writer that times were not always guilty...? Interesting, to be sure. And this may be a stretch, but I wonder at the tenuous similarity of orchids and lilacs. As the shards of the resin draw blood and sprout lilacs, could the flowers hint at blood relations, as in Noctuary? It's a reach, but mind couldn't let go of that—you're sneaky enough to layer that in real deep.
A couple of flowers are missing from your previous bouquets, though.
— Lavender, that symbol of salvation, is not to be found in this difficult night. I think it's because the writer no longer needs outside agency to save himself; the writer has come to the realization he needs to win this fight and craft his own salvation.
—Oh, and those terrible orchids that creep deception and malice in the underground unconsciousness of the character in Noctuary is also distinctly absent. The character in this story is not feeding a guilt he feels he owns but shedding the guilt in which others tried to cage him...if he can find the key in all this resin.
'Tis the scent of extraordinarily deep writing to make so much scents with so few words.
This Is Your Subconscious Calling ▶︎
The Telephone is one of my favorite devices. It can be one-way out, one-way in, collaborative; it can even be an unheeded threat or passed opportunity. It is not unlikely at all that there will phones popping up in some of my stuff quite soon. (Can't help it; it's a fantastic idea!)
—At the edge of town, a phone booth glows. Inside, a rotary phone rings. The evolution of the symbol of the telephone in this story is very interesting. Rather than referring to communications with external parties, her we a have a cozy phone booth. It does not seem to made for calling out, but calling back—back to the past, which is cleverly symbolized by a rotary-type interface rather than buttons or a smartphone face. Furthermore, the writer not only calls back into his past (calling memories), but receives calls from the past...an incredible bit I'll get to later.
—But hang on, that tape recorder seems an awful lot like the phone. A one-way call into the past from the present? Ah...perhaps an answering machine, or a recording: "We're 'sorry,' your party can't be reached. Please enjoy the echo of a painful memory while find the problem. BEEP!"
Old Friends, New Relatives ▶︎
The Wedding Ring is something we haven't seen yet.
—Appearing for the first time, this "silver O around a ketchup stain" brings more specifics into the light. Infidelity, marital discontent, addiction. These things are usually caused or allowed (maybe not so much with addiction, although spouses often perceive that they are the cause), and the guilt from them blooms a thousand "sorry's" like bloody lilacs—a beautiful apology that doesn't decorate the relationship, only cuts everyone involved.
Water finds itself confined to the first paragraph here. This strong metaphor of fear and change seems to be replaced by resin—a far more viscous substance, but one which can change and be changed. the person in the story can interact with it and has a chance of "winning," unlike trying to battle the inexorable force of water.
RX Bottles being mentioned are like finding a key. Now which door does it open?
—Hints of resin in the lungs make me wonder if Mother damaged herself through alcohol, smoke, or drugs to a condition of COPD.
—But the more straightforward interpretation of addiction is supported by the bottles themselves (made out of resin, of course), the repeated apologies.
—But does it really matter, in the end? Whatever we choose to call these crimes committed by and against us—why, those are just "labels." This compound symbol of excuses being printed directly on that which defies being excused is another of those subtly layered images that rests in the mind until you're done reading, tingling like a good bourbon or spicy sauce.
Resin Is the Reason for the Season ▶︎
Guilt is an absolute morass. It's Brer Rabbit's tar baby, it's Afghanistan, it's love: once you're in, there's no clean way out no matter how much you want or need to be free of it. The use of resin to demonstrate the grappling with guilt—no longer just surviving and coping, but actually dealing with it—is an image readers can really understand in concrete terms. Resin is mentioned specifically eight times in this story, making it so important it might have been considered for part of title in first drafts.
—The darkness of the resin represents its negative nature and harmfulness to people: they pooled in the streets, hardening into black resin . "You smash the glass." You don't just get free of the thing that is holding you back and trying to immobilize you— you smash it, actively and aggressively. Deliberately, not passively. And you can let it go by opening your hands, even though letting this old monkey of your back hurts, too. "When you pocket the receiver, your fingertips blister, then crack open like resinous fruit." Those notes of hope are also a new and welcome tone in this piece.
—Resin and guilt can both become permanent, even though they don't begin that way. Resin captures things in stasis (there's that "static" again). But it is viscous before The resin hardens into a mirror. Hope finally shines through in this piece as we are reminded that the guilt we feel can be reflections of others' guilt, reminded that even stasis can be broken.
— The concept of the sticky, viscous membrane of guilt as a cancer against our minds and emotions is another inspired metaphor. "Don’t touch the resin. It’s carcinogenic to hope." I mean, what more can be said? I saw a video of two guys watching the video Pearl Jam's 'Jeremy.' At the, one said to the other something like, "You're gonna have to talk about this one first, I can't wrap my head around it yet." The second looked at the first (bear on mind the two are close friends) and said: "What else is there to say, man Jesus Christ!"
—The image goes further when the speaker states he's been handling this guilt without any protection for years. "you’ve worn no gloves since your mother died with I’m sorry still in her mouth..." He has let the guilt and grief consume him, and it has poisoned him in so many ways; we see it very clearly in your other stories. There is a subtle connotation of childhood here, with Mother being mentioned. These life-shaping incidents seem to have occurred when the writer was in his youth, so should he have been handling his own health with "kid gloves?"
—Guilt is not just for the aggrieved. "A child licks resin off the diner booth. By dusk, she’s mute." We can infer that guilt has the power to repress a child, to drive them inward on themselves. It robs the child of dealing with the grief. The grief eats away at the child from the inside out. But here, we see how this terrible hollowing-out can be inflicted on others. Often, it is not the bearer of the guilt that is impacted, but those around him, those closely connected to him. A father who feels guilt might be abusive, or aloof, or absent. In this way one transfers the pain of the guilt onto someone else, and now a different child driven down and in on themselves in a terrible cycle.
— "Admission is a verb..." As "almost" was a verb in different story, this scene reminds us that we have to admit the problem before we can solve the problem. This rather feels like it reaches out beyond guilt—or at least to other layers of it. One admits addiction in AA/NA, and there are all those pill bottles. And the alcohol. Is the speaker admitting there were generationally communicated substance abuse problems with drugs or alcohol? It feels like that to me.
—Resin in the lungs is an interesting symbol, in that it forks a few different ways.
For one, it could represent that although one can tear loose from the swamp of guilt, one never "gets over it." One just learns to live with it, like scars or warts. "You laugh. The resin in your chest doesn’t."
Then again, it could be a physical allusion. Did mother die of COPD or suffer from the results of an addiction (or simply not caring for herself)? Has the writer carried a spurious guilt for causing his mother to lean?
—...But you never really get over it. You learn to live with it. "...your sink clogs with resin. The pipes hum I’m sorry. You laugh. The resin in your chest doesn’t." One can interpret from this: "You feel the old emotions well up inside you, closing your throat to choke back all the apologies and reasons and accusations and excuses that you are working so hard to stay at even terms with. You rise above it consciously, using humorous perspectives as the vehicle. But the guilt that never goes away, never can go away, still remains; and your unconscious knows this. Don't worry—it'll remind you soon enough."
It's About Time ▶︎
I get a feeling of a timeline from this story. It's loose, but it helps put things in order for me, including the other stories in this cycle. I'll posit it here; perhaps you can tell me if I'm right...or left-of-center  .
-Dad drinks
-Mom leaves and/or cheats and/or uses
-Mom gets sick
-Mom feels guilt
-Mom passes on guilt to son
-Mom dies
-Son struggles with memories, guilt, and coping mechanisms
-Son begins to heal
The Hauntings ▶︎
There are always spectacularly written images and emotions in your writing. Here are a few from this story that smacked me around a bit:
—"Don’t touch the resin. It’s carcinogenic to hope." What a spectacular way to describe the impact of guilt (and many other negative emotions). It eats at us. Anger and guilt are my own personal cancers. God, what a way to put it!
—This is your liver calling, says a voice. I’ve filtered your father’s rage for 30 years. I’d like to retire This is the hardest-hitting line for me, being a recovering alcoholic myself. This line speaks at once of coping with one's own emotions while dealing with the effects of someone else's emotional turmoil. Oh, but that last part - "I'd like to retire." At some point, us drunks and addicts have to want to heal. Alcohol is never even mentioned, but the readers knows implicitly that the speaker has spent a long time trying to drink the guilt and anger and not-enough-ness away. But he wants to stop the delf-destruction! His unconscious mind, through that wonderful mental telephonic device tells his conscious mind: Enough; it's time to stop hurting yourself and time to heal yourself. Again, this one line is a story all by itself.
—Step on a crack, break your mother's back! "The road out of town cracks like a spine." Not only is the self-destructiveness of guilt being left behind, but the hold Mother has wielded all these years is broken as well. You pack a lot of punch into just a few words, brother.
—"Admission is a verb..." Telling the truth lets people heal. In fact, it's the fourth of twelve steps in AA (which is a nice tie-back to quitting drinking). It's a nicely economic way of playing the word two different ways...mostly.
—The phrases of internalization have stuck with me strongly. See, writing impacts the reader on the reader's terms, not the writer's (as if you didn't know that). Personally, I internalize everything. My 26-year-old daughter once asked how she should react to a fight with her mother. I told her she didn't want to know how I would do it, but she insisted. "I would relax my face so no emotion was able to be read, I would mention nothing about the conversation, and I would suppress the anger until it eats me alive from the inside." I wasn't terribly surprised when she asked someone for a second opinion on that.
...Breathe... You swallow it.
a man drowning in his own apology
the weight of swallowed sentences
The Head-Scratchers ▶︎
There are parts of this story I found distracting. The problem in most of these examples is that they just seem out of context.
—In the schoolhouse, third-row desk, you find the scream of a girl who outscored her brother. The chalkboard reads I’m Sorry in perfect cursive. You chip a fragment into a pillbox. It dissolves on your tongue like sugar. Your hand writes I’m sorry in the margins of your notes for hours. While we see recurrences of "sorry" and a cameo of the feminine cursive writing , there is no reference to a schoolhouse or a toxic sibling rivalry. It felt like it belonged somewhere, but didn't have enough of an anchor (for the reader) for it to belong here.
—Reference to the bleached scalp is not accessible for me. I'm not sure what that symbology points to. Your writing is so fluid and smooth, any hiccup like that kind of trips me. (However, that could just be me, and not anything to do with the writing.)
This final(?) piece in the Lands of Guilt series is as enjoyable as the rest. In fact, when read in sequence (with this as the last), the coherent theme and progress of emotions and psychological is astounding. A painter creates with subtle brushstrokes; you paint with equally stunning keystrokes, my friend. Bravo!
I look forward to finding more goodies in your portfolio.
Very sincerely,
--Jeffrey
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