The Tourist by Hypericin
I've always been a homebody, so I was surprised by a sudden urge to take a road trip. No mere whim, the impulse had bite. Apartment, job, friends, all acquired an abstracted air. What was important was that I get out of here.
With unaccustomed decisiveness I wrote a half-assed email pleading illness to my work, threw a few toiletries into my travel bag, and took off in my '03 Honda.
I got on the highway heading east, passing out of the city and into the misty mountains to its east. I had no eye for the shadowy, pine-covered behemoths though, and entered the numb reverie of long drives.
Thoughts about childhood floated into awareness. When I was a kid we went to the empire state building. The long elevator ride was interesting, watching people and cars smoothly downgrade to anthood. But upon entering the rooftop, everything changed. I was fascinated. I was on a precipice, literal and figurative. One little leap, an insignificant motion, and I would go over. It was as if a door, of a kind I had never before seen, opened before me. Just one little step, through the door, over the edge, down to join the ants. I would never enter this door, oh no. But it was there, waiting for me, yearning, howling and wild.
A cop was on the roof. I recognized another door in that hulking gray haired figure, in the gun strapped to his waist. Just grab the gun, reach out and yank it out of its holster, leap across the door's threshold into a life that would be irrevocably changed. I would stare at the gun, horrified at the coiled black viper in my shaking hands. Nothing would ever be the same. And from there, new doors would present themselves, strange and terrifying, one after another. Would I shoot the cop? Shoot the ants? Myself? Where would the doors take me?
The mountains ended, opening up into a sun blanched expanse of gray-brown plains. I gained a dim awareness of what I was doing, of the door that had summoned me here.
A green sign appeared announcing a town, Fallsborough, and for no particular reason I got in the exit lane. It was a gas station town, fronted by Wendy's, Sonic, and an abandoned Walmart. Beyond these, there was a crumbling warehouse, then an auto shop, "Earl's", concrete covered in peeling white paint. I entered a small residential area, of prefab houses with cheap plastic playgrounds and parts of cars on the front lawn. Fallsborough was one of those places that always make me wonder: how does someone end up *here*? Out of all places, everywhere on earth, how does one wind up spending their life in Fallsborough? It was perfect.
A small man, looking harried and disheveled in rumpled khakis, was walking on the side of the road, clutching a grease stained Sonic bag. He seemed lost, and not just because he didn't know where he was going. He was totally out of place in this milieu.
The man, Asian, gestured me to come to him. "Excuse me please? Sir?", with a very thick accent. I approached, and he showed me his phone, pointing a stubby finger at the map. Presumably Fallsborough, but the place names were Chinese characters.
I took a cursory look, but I had no interest in helping him. I looked up from the phone, and met his eyes. We both knew. Relief flooded his expression. We had found each other, and could drop all pretense.
With a fixed expression he looked over his shoulder, though nothing was there, and slowly turned his back to me. I reached in my jacket, withdrew the corded metal wire I brought with me, wrapped it around his neck, and tightened with all my strength. He gurgled and thrashed, but his struggle felt somehow perfunctory, self-consciously meeting the expectation of how a strangled man ought to behave. He eventually let go of his life, relaxing into my arms.
I looked down at the corpse in my arms. Disbelieving, I dropped it, and it fell to the pavement with a thud like a bag of manure. My heart lurched in my chest, and I scrambled into my car and sped off, racing back to the freeway.
What had I just done? On some insane whim, I just ended two lives, the foreigner's and my own! I got off on the next exit, slammed the breaks, and screamed, pounding on the horn. A man walking a Pitbull stopped and gaped. The dog started barking angrily. My god, this was a witness! What the hell was I doing? Aiming for a nonchalant exit, my tires screeched as I hurtled back onto the freeway.
I held the wheel in a death grip, my eyes fixed forward. I thought that if I could just maintain 65 miles an hour I could get through this. Did someone find the body yet? Did anyone see me, remember me? Would anyone make the connection? How many miles back were the police? The miles crawled by.
Finally home, I ran into the shower. I stood there, numb, seeing that pained face in mildew and caulk, hearing his raspy gurgling in the spray. I increased the temperature until it burned, and waited until the pain washed over me before screaming and jumping away. Hopeless, still soaked, I collapsed in bed and clutched my blankets, waiting for a dawn that seemed would never come.
I drove to work. The dull, over-familiar office was radically transformed. It was all sharp edges, hostile gazes, and cold empty spaces. I feared my interface with the world had changed forever, that this was my new life. My head down, I endured the gauntlet of sly, sneering, knowing faces I knew were all around me, and made my way to my desk.
I logged on and immediately Googled Fallsborough. "Fallsborough business owner dead", my heart lurched, "in likely suicide". Suicide?? The article was from two years ago. There was nothing, yet. How could that be? I left the body in the middle of the road!
"...and then there's the quarterly summary... Hello? Knock knock! Are you awake in there?". Peter, one of the product managers, thrust his huge freckled red face into my cube.
"Yeah, I'll get that to you tomorrow, first thing." I replied, having no idea what that might be, or what if anything he asked for. He shook his great head and left.
Are the cops suppressing the news, to lure me to complacency? I kept refreshing my search. Even if I was identified already, knowing was better than this terrible uncertainty. To pass the time I read Reddit posts about how to survive in prison. Horror! I couldn't do this, they would smell my weakness a mile away! I was doomed. I searched for Fallsborough again.
Suddenly it was 5:00. Hunched, speaking to no one, I shuffled out of the office. On the way home a police car, white and minatory, trailed me closely. The lights and siren blared, and I pulled to the side of the road, my heart pounding so violently it must surely seize up or burst. The police car zoomed past. I cried out, tears streaming down my face. This just was too much! I had to get out of here.
Once home, I wrote an email to my manager, truthful albeit incomplete, that I was having a mental health crisis, and that I wasn't sure when I would be back. I felt certain I never would.
Economizing even in extremity, I picked the cheapest transcontinental flight I could find that left the next morning, to Bucharest, Romania. I threw some clothes, toothbrush and shampoo into my suitcase, found my passport, and waited in my bed, not bothering to bathe. Sleep was a distant dream, and I spent another night in endless, feverish rumination.
Mercifully the flight left at 7 in the morning. The woman at the check-in counter furrowed her brow when she saw my passport and tapped quizzically at her keyboard. My God, I've been flagged! She glanced up, and I smiled weakly. A glimpse of peroxide-whitened teeth, an "Enjoy your flight!", and I was through. I boarded the plane, self-consciously reeking of unwashed anxiety. There was no way they would let me escape, and I spent the flight imagining the two US marshals waiting on the other side with extradition papers.
Finally I arrived, and I approached the dreaded border control. "What is the reason for your stay?" The border guard, a large dark haired balding man in late middle age, stared deep into my soul. "T-t-tourism" I managed. He held my gaze as he stamped my passport, and gave me a dismissive nod. I was in.
Having no idea where I was going, I took a cab to the train station. A train arrived with a placard for "Iassi" I went to the counter and pointed at it, saying Iassi. The woman looked confused, asked "Yash?", and I nodded dumbly.
Aboard, the passengers stared at me, without particular friendliness. I could see in their dark eyes their awareness that I was a stranger, an outsider, I did not belong to their milieu.
Leaving the city behind, we reached a region of misty, forested mountains. Their shadowy forms were only half visible in the shadowed gloom. With every mile I felt my world was receding, slowly replaced by this alien land. I finally started to relax, it was unthinkable that someone would look for me here.
The mountains ended, and we entered a dusty gray hinterland, spotted with industrial installations. A white European road sign announced we were entering Faljbora. It was a grim little town, dominated by a factory billowing yellow smoke. Out of all the choices one has in life, how does anyone end up living here? It was perfect, and I got off the train. A bedraggled woman was selling greasy meat pies from a stand on the platform, I was starving and spent a few lei on one.
Beyond the station and factory was a residential district. There was an aching loneliness in those gray concrete apartments, lit by cracked yellow Soviet-era streetlights. A sense that home was gone forever. I needed somewhere to sleep. Did a town like this even have hotels? I finished my meat pie, and was hungry again, and scared.
A man approached from the other direction, and I waved him over to me. "Excuse me. Sir? Hotel? Where..." I trailed off, and looked into his black eyes. They said everything, and relief flooded through me. I was home after all, exactly where I needed to be.
With a fixed expression, I looked over my shoulder, though nothing was there, and slowly turned my back to the man.
With unaccustomed decisiveness I wrote a half-assed email pleading illness to my work, threw a few toiletries into my travel bag, and took off in my '03 Honda.
I got on the highway heading east, passing out of the city and into the misty mountains to its east. I had no eye for the shadowy, pine-covered behemoths though, and entered the numb reverie of long drives.
Thoughts about childhood floated into awareness. When I was a kid we went to the empire state building. The long elevator ride was interesting, watching people and cars smoothly downgrade to anthood. But upon entering the rooftop, everything changed. I was fascinated. I was on a precipice, literal and figurative. One little leap, an insignificant motion, and I would go over. It was as if a door, of a kind I had never before seen, opened before me. Just one little step, through the door, over the edge, down to join the ants. I would never enter this door, oh no. But it was there, waiting for me, yearning, howling and wild.
A cop was on the roof. I recognized another door in that hulking gray haired figure, in the gun strapped to his waist. Just grab the gun, reach out and yank it out of its holster, leap across the door's threshold into a life that would be irrevocably changed. I would stare at the gun, horrified at the coiled black viper in my shaking hands. Nothing would ever be the same. And from there, new doors would present themselves, strange and terrifying, one after another. Would I shoot the cop? Shoot the ants? Myself? Where would the doors take me?
The mountains ended, opening up into a sun blanched expanse of gray-brown plains. I gained a dim awareness of what I was doing, of the door that had summoned me here.
A green sign appeared announcing a town, Fallsborough, and for no particular reason I got in the exit lane. It was a gas station town, fronted by Wendy's, Sonic, and an abandoned Walmart. Beyond these, there was a crumbling warehouse, then an auto shop, "Earl's", concrete covered in peeling white paint. I entered a small residential area, of prefab houses with cheap plastic playgrounds and parts of cars on the front lawn. Fallsborough was one of those places that always make me wonder: how does someone end up *here*? Out of all places, everywhere on earth, how does one wind up spending their life in Fallsborough? It was perfect.
A small man, looking harried and disheveled in rumpled khakis, was walking on the side of the road, clutching a grease stained Sonic bag. He seemed lost, and not just because he didn't know where he was going. He was totally out of place in this milieu.
The man, Asian, gestured me to come to him. "Excuse me please? Sir?", with a very thick accent. I approached, and he showed me his phone, pointing a stubby finger at the map. Presumably Fallsborough, but the place names were Chinese characters.
I took a cursory look, but I had no interest in helping him. I looked up from the phone, and met his eyes. We both knew. Relief flooded his expression. We had found each other, and could drop all pretense.
With a fixed expression he looked over his shoulder, though nothing was there, and slowly turned his back to me. I reached in my jacket, withdrew the corded metal wire I brought with me, wrapped it around his neck, and tightened with all my strength. He gurgled and thrashed, but his struggle felt somehow perfunctory, self-consciously meeting the expectation of how a strangled man ought to behave. He eventually let go of his life, relaxing into my arms.
I looked down at the corpse in my arms. Disbelieving, I dropped it, and it fell to the pavement with a thud like a bag of manure. My heart lurched in my chest, and I scrambled into my car and sped off, racing back to the freeway.
What had I just done? On some insane whim, I just ended two lives, the foreigner's and my own! I got off on the next exit, slammed the breaks, and screamed, pounding on the horn. A man walking a Pitbull stopped and gaped. The dog started barking angrily. My god, this was a witness! What the hell was I doing? Aiming for a nonchalant exit, my tires screeched as I hurtled back onto the freeway.
I held the wheel in a death grip, my eyes fixed forward. I thought that if I could just maintain 65 miles an hour I could get through this. Did someone find the body yet? Did anyone see me, remember me? Would anyone make the connection? How many miles back were the police? The miles crawled by.
Finally home, I ran into the shower. I stood there, numb, seeing that pained face in mildew and caulk, hearing his raspy gurgling in the spray. I increased the temperature until it burned, and waited until the pain washed over me before screaming and jumping away. Hopeless, still soaked, I collapsed in bed and clutched my blankets, waiting for a dawn that seemed would never come.
I drove to work. The dull, over-familiar office was radically transformed. It was all sharp edges, hostile gazes, and cold empty spaces. I feared my interface with the world had changed forever, that this was my new life. My head down, I endured the gauntlet of sly, sneering, knowing faces I knew were all around me, and made my way to my desk.
I logged on and immediately Googled Fallsborough. "Fallsborough business owner dead", my heart lurched, "in likely suicide". Suicide?? The article was from two years ago. There was nothing, yet. How could that be? I left the body in the middle of the road!
"...and then there's the quarterly summary... Hello? Knock knock! Are you awake in there?". Peter, one of the product managers, thrust his huge freckled red face into my cube.
"Yeah, I'll get that to you tomorrow, first thing." I replied, having no idea what that might be, or what if anything he asked for. He shook his great head and left.
Are the cops suppressing the news, to lure me to complacency? I kept refreshing my search. Even if I was identified already, knowing was better than this terrible uncertainty. To pass the time I read Reddit posts about how to survive in prison. Horror! I couldn't do this, they would smell my weakness a mile away! I was doomed. I searched for Fallsborough again.
Suddenly it was 5:00. Hunched, speaking to no one, I shuffled out of the office. On the way home a police car, white and minatory, trailed me closely. The lights and siren blared, and I pulled to the side of the road, my heart pounding so violently it must surely seize up or burst. The police car zoomed past. I cried out, tears streaming down my face. This just was too much! I had to get out of here.
Once home, I wrote an email to my manager, truthful albeit incomplete, that I was having a mental health crisis, and that I wasn't sure when I would be back. I felt certain I never would.
Economizing even in extremity, I picked the cheapest transcontinental flight I could find that left the next morning, to Bucharest, Romania. I threw some clothes, toothbrush and shampoo into my suitcase, found my passport, and waited in my bed, not bothering to bathe. Sleep was a distant dream, and I spent another night in endless, feverish rumination.
Mercifully the flight left at 7 in the morning. The woman at the check-in counter furrowed her brow when she saw my passport and tapped quizzically at her keyboard. My God, I've been flagged! She glanced up, and I smiled weakly. A glimpse of peroxide-whitened teeth, an "Enjoy your flight!", and I was through. I boarded the plane, self-consciously reeking of unwashed anxiety. There was no way they would let me escape, and I spent the flight imagining the two US marshals waiting on the other side with extradition papers.
Finally I arrived, and I approached the dreaded border control. "What is the reason for your stay?" The border guard, a large dark haired balding man in late middle age, stared deep into my soul. "T-t-tourism" I managed. He held my gaze as he stamped my passport, and gave me a dismissive nod. I was in.
Having no idea where I was going, I took a cab to the train station. A train arrived with a placard for "Iassi" I went to the counter and pointed at it, saying Iassi. The woman looked confused, asked "Yash?", and I nodded dumbly.
Aboard, the passengers stared at me, without particular friendliness. I could see in their dark eyes their awareness that I was a stranger, an outsider, I did not belong to their milieu.
Leaving the city behind, we reached a region of misty, forested mountains. Their shadowy forms were only half visible in the shadowed gloom. With every mile I felt my world was receding, slowly replaced by this alien land. I finally started to relax, it was unthinkable that someone would look for me here.
The mountains ended, and we entered a dusty gray hinterland, spotted with industrial installations. A white European road sign announced we were entering Faljbora. It was a grim little town, dominated by a factory billowing yellow smoke. Out of all the choices one has in life, how does anyone end up living here? It was perfect, and I got off the train. A bedraggled woman was selling greasy meat pies from a stand on the platform, I was starving and spent a few lei on one.
Beyond the station and factory was a residential district. There was an aching loneliness in those gray concrete apartments, lit by cracked yellow Soviet-era streetlights. A sense that home was gone forever. I needed somewhere to sleep. Did a town like this even have hotels? I finished my meat pie, and was hungry again, and scared.
A man approached from the other direction, and I waved him over to me. "Excuse me. Sir? Hotel? Where..." I trailed off, and looked into his black eyes. They said everything, and relief flooded through me. I was home after all, exactly where I needed to be.
With a fixed expression, I looked over my shoulder, though nothing was there, and slowly turned my back to the man.
Comments (45)
Since "neat" is not especially complimentary, let me elaborate. I think the whole idea was great. I just felt it wasn't given enough space, or that it was too rushed.
And when I said I'd have preferred more realism, I think what I actually meant was that I wanted it to be more developed, extended and given more detail, especially once the narrator gets to Romania. I didn't mean that the magic realist or dreamlike quality should have been replaced with gritty realism.
In the middle of my third Murakami book in a row, I agree it is Murakamish, although his stories aren't circular, or should I say symmetrical? as this one is.
Now, I thought I'd try an @Amity style breakdown...
Quoting Noble Dust
Assured economy of language and quick pacing draw the reader in. The author is an accomplished writer; we're in good hands. Great start.
Quoting Noble Dust
Good time for a flashback. It establishes the death drive--or a self-destructive yearning for something radically different in life--which is at the heart of his actions.
Quoting Noble Dust
Nice. A familiar metaphor but applied wittily.
Quoting Noble Dust
This is where it turns weird. It's jarring but it works.
Quoting Noble Dust
Perfectly done. This sort of event in a story is more difficult to describe than it looks.
Quoting Noble Dust
Great stuff. What he did really changed things and we feel it.
Quoting Noble Dust
This passage is suspenseful and compelling.
Quoting Noble Dust
Effective reinforcement of the narrator's feelings and of the story's feverish tension.
Quoting Noble Dust
Here we begin to see what's happening, if we haven't seen it before.
Quoting Noble Dust
Everything since the murder is unpleasant, threatening, or squalid, or is perceived to be by the narrator.
Quoting Noble Dust
And there we have it. A "pay it forward" of death.
I stick by my earlier comments. I think it would've been nice to see the narrator settle in to some kind of life in Romania, get involved with people, have adventures or whatever, rather than rushing to the--in retrospect--inevitable end. But maybe that's just me. Well done to the author.
So, I won't have to :cool:
Thanks. You did it SO much better than an Amity.
This story is The Best!
No question of where my vote is going.
If only there were a third option, like:
[ ] Fuckin' Yay. Yes, YES, MEGA +++
Too much?
OK...taking it down a notch.
I still have a few stories to read...
So perhaps not The Best.
However, so much strength in this narration! Especially setting the stage, the realization of these 'doors' is very recognizable. "War, Children, is just a shot away" ... Then the beauty of the repetition, 'just perfect' and 'milieu'. The one out of place is erased. It gives me the image of the straight and narrow, deviate from it and there is doom. Also that is a familiar feeling, the feeling of just continuing as fast as possible, one moment wrong move and it may be all over.
Nice description of the atmosphere of the two twilight places as well. Indeed an accomplished writer. When I was a child at 7 o clock Sunday morning they have 'scary stories' on the radio. They were genuinely scary and when reading I was taken back to that show that I listened to with curiosity and suspense, but also fright. This has exactly that atmosphere very well done.
For me this has 180 Proof all over it, but may also be Jamal or maybe Hypericin. Very well crafted story.
Well, I thought this was yours, well I liked the story if it is any consolation. I have you down for Shaun and Quigley too, probably also not yours then... I love Murakami, do read him, but do not feel like this is Murakami at all. He is more ... silent in his writing, this has more agitation.
My guess is he was guided by something (his unconscious?) to bring it, without being aware of it until the crucial moment.
Quoting Tobias
Probably just one of those things that the author need not explicitly relate, like going for a piss.
Well, I am not sure. He seems to do everything in quite a trance like state. Obtaining the local currency seems a bit too well prepared for me. Normally I would not have blinked, but now I do, given the mental state of the protagonist. I also get the Camus vibe, like 180 proof, but then some eternal recurrence mixed in ;)
Yes, this is a good story telling. I enjoyed it.
Hilarious. I have to stifle my giggle reflex. The narrator thinks he is offering a mercy to rationalize his blood lust. Or the miracle of an answered prayer is true.
[quote=The Tourist]I trailed off, and looked into his black eyes. They said everything, and relief flooded through me. I was home after all, exactly where I needed to be.[/quote]
I don't think it really needs the recurrence but I understand it as a choice.
Quoting Amity
I disagree with my evaluation. Not the:
Quoting Amity That much was/is obvious.
At the time of writing, it's the clear winner. But... there are 3 days to go...
I didn't read your comments.
Other than the basic use of quotes, this is not how I would have engaged/interpreted the text.
Too clever, concise and precise.
I should have paid more attention. I guess at that point I really needed a rest
I also suspected that Jamal ( for some reason) was the writer; so I didn't feel the need to break it down...
***
This by Vera. It should be framed:
Quoting Vera Mont
Definitely a third option is necessary, not only for stories but comments!
This is superlative.
The structure is nice too. I like the foreshadowing talk at the beginning and how the idea of stepping over the edge into disaster, of both wanting and trying to avoid disaster is interwoven throughout the plot. It reflects I think how destructive influences control us at levels we don't understand. Feels kind of Jungian, the shadow and all that. Maybe the use of deathly violence is hyperbolic metaphor and the message is a more general "You don't know what you want, it might even be what you (think you) most fear". In any case, it sticks with me and I appreciate that being pulled off with a very bare and sparse writing style, which is certainly not how I do things. :razz:
Having said all that, it might be that it could be fleshed out in interesting ways. There is a sense that it feels a bit too rushed and a bit too bare in places, despite still being effective (OK, so there's a (lopsided) praise sandwich). I'd be interested to hear who the author is and the thought process about style etc.
Thanks for that. I feel guilty now!
Unfortunately, I only read this once and thought it fantastic. Instant winner. End of.
However, I wish I had read it again paying more attention.
I was and still am too tired to get into the detail for a deeper appreciation.
Tomorrow is another day.
Edit: I blame @Jamal. He threw me off and I let go. Glad to be released!
What have I done now?
Oh, you being you. Is that not enough?!
You played Amity, that's whot. And I got lazy. So, all your fault...
You're forgiven.
What? Lacks of plausibility? It is by far one of the best stories of this activity.
A tourist is someone who takes time away from home, for relaxation and pleasure. Unlike explorers, they generally keep to the beaten path of comfort and safety; insulated from danger.
The narrator doesnt even consider himself a tourist, never mind The Tourist.
Always a homebody, Mr. Unadventurous Stay-at-home. We can imagine a brooding isolated figure suddenly struck by a need to get the hell out of Dodge.
What just happened? A spiritual awakening? A mental invasion?
Now a changed man. Decisive and spontaneous. He writes a half-assed email to his employer. Feigning illness. Such a sorry-ass! Takes toiletries special focus on personal hygiene and takes off in a Honda! Japanese not American.
He heads off East, taking no account of the scenery but lets his mind wander.
The author gives us a fantastic sense of the scene, mood and state of mind:
I had no eye for the shadowy, pine-covered behemoths though, and entered the numb reverie of long drives.
As readers, we follow him on his long drive, but it is never numbing. Far from it.
Flashback to childhood and a visit to the empire state building. No capitals.
No biggie? Yes, biggie. It moved him from a detached perspective, people and cars smoothly downgrade to anthood, to a mental space where everything changed. One little step would be all it would take to oblivion.To join the living dead.
What was it that beckoned him through a door he thinks he would never enter?
A malignant spirit waiting for me, yearning, howling and wild. Wow.
More imaginings; doors opening to dark challenges.
The author helps us share the hallucinatory horror of the coiled black viper in my shaking hands.
Who would he shoot? Everybody, taking himself out last. Where have we seen that before? The lone, alienated and depressed shooter; an outsider with violent dreams.
Back to reality with 2 satisfying sentences showing the tourist travelling from dark to light.
Quoting Noble Dust
Moving on to a rundown gas station town bypassed by the motorway. Fallsborough. A falling down place where he wonders how anybody can end up there. He had taken the Exit lane there, for no particular reason? A place for a life exit. It was perfect.
Here it seems two tourists collide as lost souls. Have we been returned to the dream state? An Asian man clutches a grease-stained bag and map showing place names in Chinese characters. Requesting help. The narrator not interested but looks at the phone anyway. And then that first step where everything changes. Eyes meet in recognition; the shared need to go somewhere. Not as tourists but seeking an end
This, for me, represents a psychotic state of homicidal/suicidal ideation.
Taking place in the labyrinthine mind. Delusional and scary as fuck.
Quoting Noble Dust
Role-playing or sharing in a ghastly game of an alternate reality.
He has ended 2 lives. His own as well as his victims.
Now what?
Comic relief for the reader:
Aiming for a nonchalant exit, my tires screeched as I hurtled back onto the freeway.
Then, he scalds himself from numb to pain. Washing the sin away.
Back to work, now radically transformed by a new perception.
Brilliant description of sharp, hostile edges and gazes. The fear arising that he has travelled too far. But still searching world wide for Fallsborough. His distraction noted by a sarcastic manager with great head. Prick!
His fear intensifies he wants not to be there. The emotions are shown in his hunched and shuffling body. This time the email is truthful, kind of.
It describes co-existing uncertainty and certainty.
His usual need for cleanliness, noting the greasiness of others, is gone.
He boards the plane self-consciously reeking of unwashed anxiety.
So he follows the Death Drive using all means of transport.
To Faljbora. A foreign name for a familiar place, Fallsborough.
The tables are turned in perfect symmetry.
The Tourist meets his end. He comes home. A homebody.To die just as he killed before.
The eerily beautiful final line, a repetition:
With a fixed expression, I looked over my shoulder, though nothing was there, and slowly turned my back to the man.
***
The Tourist. From West to East.
No matter where you go, there you are - Jon Kabat-Zinn
And here we are. With this winning story. Many Congratulations to the author!
It might indeed turn out to be. But just so as there is no confusion, polls are open until tomorrow at 6.00pm UTC.
Yes. You are right. Sorry for any confusion.
My 'Congrats' were not for any quantitative success.
I do agree it is very well written, the story itself, the way it ends doesn't work for me; it's too pat, while being at the same time so grossly implausible as to be grotesque.
The basic idea came from the experience which I described on the Empire State building. Which I really had there, as a kid. The eerie feeling that the only thing standing between me and a radical and disastrous possibility is an insignificant movement, a few steps forward, or reach out and grab the gun... I thought it was just me, but a friend pointed out (in the middle of my writing this) that it is very common, and has a name, and even studies:
https://www.livescience.com/what-is-call-of-the-void
(I considered 'Call of the Void' as a title, but it felt too ?)
I connected this to a related thought I've had: what if I travelled to a random town and killed someone? Would I get away with it? From there I came up with the idea of the symmetrical journey, both ending in an inexplicable murder. No deep message, I just liked the idea of the structure. What I was going for was that the "doors", representing a malignant or trans-moral force responsible for "the call of the void", were driving the actions of the protagonist, the Chinese man (presumably fleeing his own murderous crime), the Romanian, and so on down the chain, for reasons beyond human comprehension. That idea was pretty underdetermined by what was written, and further muddled by the ambiguity I inserted that it might be all in his head.
Quoting Jamal
For some previous stories I was oversubtle, and no one got some of the ideas I was going for. For this one, I wanted to make sure that at least the symmetry was clear. Probably I overcompensated.
Quoting Jamal
I think this is fair. I wanted two symmetrical journeys, but the second journey might have started in Romania instead. This might have led to a fuller, richer story. But honestly I was kind of burned out of writing this by the end, what you see is about what I had left in the gas tank for.
Quoting Noble Dust
Thanks for the very nice review. I'm curious what style you think this is? I need to try this Murakami fellow...
Quoting Jamal
This is exactly what I was going for. And I was worried it would be jarring or seem like an error.
Quoting Jamal
This too. I decided to try to omit any description that I found perfunctory and boring to write. But for this one, I probably should have mentioned something.
Quoting Nils Loc
Interesting take. Not what I was going for, but plausible and valid.
Quoting Tobias
Thanks for calling those out! I really enjoyed those as well, especially the image of the bleak Romanian town.
Quoting Benkei
You intuited the plot by the time he was driving home from Fallsborough? How?
Quoting Vera Mont
Thanks for the review. Amity's right, I should probably frame it! The idea that it took place in the narrator's mind was rather clumsily inserted with this by me, simply for the sake of creating additional ambiguity and uncertainty in the reader's mind. Is this cheap? I say clumsily because I went too far, as you point out 'in the narrator's mind' becomes the only plausible interpretation. Especially given this fact no one seemed to notice: if the narrator died, how is he narrating??
Quoting Baden
Thanks for the highly insightful comments. Regarding the style, for some stories (i.e. Hungthor, Three Shittyass Ghosts) a style immediately suggests itself to me, and I go with that. That makes things easy. For this one, no such style suggested itself. Was this my authentic "voice"? I don't know. I felt this actually added a lot of friction to the writing process. At every sentence, the question "how do I write this" had no clear answer. I was also worried that the story was too threadbare. This was not really deliberate, it is more a reflection of the difficulty I had in writing this. Sometimes I would sit down and barely get 2 sentences out.
Thats it for now, more to follow (sidenote: I really think there should be a way for writers to respond in real time. I still like my suggestion of temporary accounts. As it stands it is unnecessarily difficult to respond to everything you would like to).
It seems concise and polished to me. It was in my top three favourites, exactly because it's so well crafted.
It's not really a conscious thing but my wife hates me when I predict the plot of movies and series since I get it right too often (she loved it when I called John and Daenerys were siblings). I think it's a mix of watching every crappy show since I was a kid, lots of anime and a copious amount of sci-fi and fantasy that I can draw on.
Also everybody should watch Death Note (until episode 18) which is one of the few shows that had plot twists that consistently surprised me without it being illogical.
This is interesting because it doesn't read that way. It's easily the tightest and most succinct story this time around.
Quoting Amity
Hmm, who does this sound like... :yikes:
I guess that is why I chose the first person. Not the me of now, but certainly a past iteration.
Quoting Amity
:yikes:
Quoting Amity
I remember spending too much time deciding what car, I should have just written "car". The 03 Honda was supposed to connote a cautious, conservative, parsimonious personality. It wasn't an overnight trip, so he didn't actually need toiletries...
Quoting Amity
Oops!
Quoting Amity
I actually wanted to avoid this impression of the protagonist, but I may have slipped into it here, an inaccuracy on my part. He is not a violent person, nor I think (especially) alienated or depressed. He doesn't dream of violence per se, yet the always latent possibility of violence suggests itself to him. Later, he does not actively fulfill a violent fantasy, but rather stumbles into it, like a somnambulist.
The experience of writing all these stories has made me reflect on the role inaccuracy plays in writing. The master writer might play the reader like a fiddle, hitting every note exactly, but the rest of us, try as we might to communicate our exact intent, spew out words, for better or worse. The writer and reader never quite meet, the writer's inaccuracy stands between direct communication. Which does not make the result "bad" by any means...
Quoting Amity
This is one of three interpretations I had in the back of my mind writing this (I didn't necessarily have more clarity than the reader.) The protagonist is a delusional murderer; the whole experience is a delusion; the protagonist, his victim, and his killers, are all somehow psychically ensnared by the "doors". While the last was the one I considered the most, seeing this reaction, I think I like this interpretation best.
Quoting Amity
Nice connection that I didn't consciously make. A home body.
Quoting Amity
Thanks, especially for another spot-on 'Amity'!
Quoting Vera Mont
Maybe this is wrong:
Quoting hypericin
Maybe struggle is beneficial in a sense, because it makes the author acutely aware of what they are writing, and insecure about its quality. Therefore, can it lead to more care, and ultimately a more polished work?
Struggle is inevitable. For every time we sit down and feel a flow state come, we tend to sit down five times over and not feel the flow state.
But perhaps he should have taken his meds, or not. It seems he has a chronic mental health problem.
Perhaps depression with related psychosis. The sick lines he sends to his employer.
Quoting hypericin
You can't avoid how the reader reacts. I didn't see the protagonist as violent, but how he suffers from the violence of his hallucinations. The full quote:
Quoting Amity
You also can't help the mental associations of the reader.
Lone killers don't fall from the sky.
It started with a kiss. It started with a fist. It ended in divorce. It ended in the force.
As you say, there is always the latent possibility of violence. What is the tinder, the fuel, the spark?
Quoting Baden
***
Quoting hypericin
I want to say that I don't like being played like a fiddle. With my warped wood and screechy strings? There is an art in so-called 'inaccuracy' from both sides. If I wanted accuracy, I'd read non-fiction. Even then...questions arise as to the 'truth'.
The writer and reader meet well enough to make life interesting. A story of exploration.
Think just enough...not too much, not too little.
Quoting hypericin
I agree. The wait for feedback is interminable. Not sure how 'temporary accounts' would work.
Good workmanship is not 'a struggle'. The struggle goes before, in the shaping of ideas and making oneself face that most formidable of adversaries: the blank page. Once the story exists, polishing it only takes a critical eye, attention and patience. For some people, that's very difficult; it takes a lot of practice.