Rage - By Benkei
He sits at the table, sipping coffee from a mug. The spoon upright. Hes pallid, with bags under his eyes and sunken cheeks, covered with a patchy beard. Hes talking but its not registering. Im shaking: How. Dare. You. Another addict is holding my daughter. Paranoia dances behind her eyes.
I look at the intruder. I put the mug aside. I dont want to break it. He puts the mug back. Asshole.
With that, I jank him up. His eyes are big, froth in the corner of his mouth. He skittishly looks around. I pull him away and yell at my wife: OUT! NOW! She grabs our daughter and runs.
With a tai-otoshi I throw him to the ground. He tries to catch himself but its too late. I put my foot on his jugular and push down hard.
With two large steps Im in front of the other.
A moment later, Im standing with hands against the wall above her. Kicking. Again. And again. And again . I pull down two shelves with a wild swing. Papers and books fall to the ground. The mug breaks on the ground and the silver spoon chimes brightly: Dont break the mug.
I look at the intruder. I put the mug aside. I dont want to break it. He puts the mug back. Asshole.
With that, I jank him up. His eyes are big, froth in the corner of his mouth. He skittishly looks around. I pull him away and yell at my wife: OUT! NOW! She grabs our daughter and runs.
With a tai-otoshi I throw him to the ground. He tries to catch himself but its too late. I put my foot on his jugular and push down hard.
With two large steps Im in front of the other.
A moment later, Im standing with hands against the wall above her. Kicking. Again. And again. And again . I pull down two shelves with a wild swing. Papers and books fall to the ground. The mug breaks on the ground and the silver spoon chimes brightly: Dont break the mug.
Comments (24)
Short and sweet title; seems straightforward.
What kind of rage - who is raging and why?
Quoting Caldwell
An addict has intruded into someone's house. Why? Is his mind deranged from drugs or lack of them; there is a raging need for a fix. The unbearable pain of life.
Why would he be sitting down having a coffee - do these people know each other? What does the intruder hope to find - a stash of drugs, money or what. Why is the daughter being held - for ransom?
Give me what I need...or else.
'Paranoia dances behind her eyes'. Lovely description of eyes full of fear and anxiety.
But who is being described - the daughter or the other addict?
The father is shaking with anger; so heavy that he is deaf to what the addict is saying.
So far, so understandable - or is it?
Quoting Caldwell
The father seems more interested in the mug. How special must this mug be?
There is a to-and-fro movement; a deliberate taking and careful placing of the mug - almost like a game of chess - who is the asshole here?
The father's anger increases, as does his physical presence and power. The addict is now nervous and scared. Wasn't quite what he was expecting; hopes dashed.
The father is in command of the situation, if not himself. Heroic...almost.
Quoting Caldwell
Tai-otoshi. A judo defence or attack movement. Taught in a class; the father expert enough to fell the addict. But how much would it have taken, anyway? The addict sickly and frail from all accounts.
And now, the rage and the killer appear. The monstrous steps.
Quoting Caldwell
Total rage.
From someone who might usually be mild-mannered. Papers and books suggest learning. But now, how far has he fallen? Crashing and breaking like the mug.
Is it the same special one, or is there a collection on the shelves? Like trophies, the father identifies with.
His identity now shattered.
But the silver spoon remains upstanding... as what? A symbol of privilege and honour?
The message is to take care. Not to fall apart and let yourself crash and burn...hold your head high.
'Chimes brightly'. And lightly. So incongruous and laughing in the face of darkness. Of Rage.
Look at you. You didn't listen. Asshole.
***
This story is better on a second read. And reading @javi2541997's thought-provoking comment:
Quoting javi2541997
Thanks, author!
I'm trying to picture the opening scene. How did the male intruder come to be having coffee in what I presume is the father's house? Where is the wife? Where is "the other" with the girl? What were they doing before the action started?
I'm guessing this: an addicted and desperate young couple broke into the narrator's house while the (adolescent?) daughter was alone. They intimidated the girl and made themselves at home, the guy going so far as to help himself to coffee in the narrator's favourite mug (I would like it to have a specified sentimental value - Father's Day present?). They are in the living room or study and perhaps trying to force the girl to show them where valuables are kept.
Parents come home from an evening out; they have just walked in the door.
Action!
The father is immediately enraged, but might have acted sensibly, until the addict's taking back the coffee mug and calling him an asshole set him off. I can accept that, both intellectually and viscerally. That the mug he tried to save breaks, after all, because of his own action, is a fine piece of irony. I took it as symbolic of the breakage of the family he tried to save. Because of his extreme over-reaction, his wife and child will never be able to look at him again without fear of what he might do.
With a few changes to the introduction, this would be a really good story.
And that's a problem with any of these pieces. They are miniature versions of the tales the New Yorker started publishing many years ago: captivating vignettes rather than fully blown short stories.
There are differences though; something like the cat and mice text has a more conventional short story structure, for example. You could run it through a linguistic analysis and probably come out with the same macro stages as a New Yorker story. Our brain is wired to pick up on those stages and those are really what's important rather than the overall length. Of course, longer stories give the author more room to satisfy the reader, that's for sure.
I think there is a very good story there. It centers on the character and attitude of the protagonist. Why did the father take karate lessons? Who is the real paranoiac? What is valued, and at what price? In a longer story, even a 1000-word short short, it could be developed. In this admitted challenging format, that needs a lot of honing. The author has good instinctive choice of words; they just need to be more efficient in the placement of words.
If we were to read more into it than the author explicitly gave us, we could see the unfolding of an American tragedy, the same way Lane and his Way represent a kind of dark American joke.
I like the build up of emotional drama. It is probably a tricky thing to do in micro-fiction unlike longer pieces but as a descriptive scene it works well, allowing some imaginative scope and possibilities for interpreting it in a wider context.
Quoting Caldwell
Quoting Caldwell
Quoting Caldwell
There seems to be some role reversal going on here. A change from first person to third person and back again. A disconnect of personality. He's talking, I'm shaking. I put the mug aside. He puts it back. He has my daughter, a moment later I'm standing above her.
Quoting Caldwell
Don't break the mug said after it already happened.
This sounds like a Psychosis. Disorientated for time and space and also self identity (multiple personality disorder)
Quoting Caldwell
Notions of grandiosity or heightened ability (mania?)
I think either the man is the only person in the room and is hallucinating or he is in the room with one other person - a female, that he projects his paranoia onto and has aggressive attacked in a rage, convinced of an Intruder (paranoid schizophrenia).
It seems to be an interplay between an amalgamation of different mental disorders. I could be totally off track and it may be more literal than that but that's what I shall add to the comments.
It's not articulated as clearly as it could be, but I believe there are five characters: three homeowners, a man (the first person narrator) his wife and their daughter, and two home invaders, a young man and woman, presumably a couple. The adult homeowners - who have presumably been out - find the male home invader (addict) drinking coffee in their house, while the female one (the other) holds the homeowners' child hostage. The father is very controlled in the first moments (he knows he intends to beat the home invader, and wants to do it neatly). But then, in response to being called asshole by the young punk, goes ballistic on both home invaders, first the young man, then the young woman.
Could be wrong, but that's my take.
Yes. That's it. If you're wrong, then I'm wrong. And that can't be right. Even though 2 wrongs...
Yes.
But 73% say it's only OK...
that's the limited voting system's way of telling an author he had a good story but didn't transmit it clearly enough. I shouldn't have to read it four times to know how good it is.
True but you said it was 'intriguing'. Isn't that what a good story does?
It pulls you in to puzzle it out.
As so many good ones have done. My brain has never been so challenged.
'The Double Helix' is the worst/best one so far, by far in that respect.
Yes, even a not fully realized one. It was good; it should have been excellent. I felt the same way about a couple of others. Some participants admitted to posting their literary effort prematurely. I join their ranks - mine could and should have been better.
For me In the Wake of the Moriscos is like Brahms' Lullaby - a tiny, perfect jewel of composition. (Geez, I wish I'd written that one!)
It's called enthusiasm. All you damned perfectionists. Chill. So many could have and should have's.
You came, you wrote, you submitted. And it was good.
Probably great by most people's standards!
'Moriscos' stands out, doesn't it?
The 2 authors I have in mind for that: Jamal and now Tobias....
We will soon find out...
Sorry, can't help it. The ones that were most fully realized, most polished, most communicative and evocative are higher in my estimation. Of course they're all good - just, some are better.
We are who we are. Perfectionism is not a bad thing. It depends on where it leads.
I would become even more anxious than I am now.
Of course, it makes sense in a contest to be as good as you can be...
And you are!
***
Perhaps that's why the Rage person has a silver spoon to remind him:
"Don't break the mug".
But he does and will regret it. Perfection is out of his reach. In bits.
Anger management classes >>> a big fail :sad:
He failed to protect his home and family by allowing the intruder's violation.
He has taken judo classes as a coping and defensive measure, I think, rather than to attack. Maybe both.
Yet, he was a success at saving them. At what cost to him and his relationships?
The Rage dream was particularly memorable because of the fact that I had trouble returning to myself. I was stuck in the rage and stuck in the gorilla body. It actually only ended when I stumbled outside and my wife and daughter soothed me. It was actually a fearful dream to me at the time as I don't like violence, at the same time I do think I could lose it if something happened to my family. Probably not as extreme as the dream but still.
Anyway, I think I suffer from psychological lycanthrophy.
Ah yes! Psychological lycanthropy. I had to look it up. Take care, Benk.