Dawn by Vera Mont

I liked the story. Well written, emotional and touching.

I admit stories based on melancholia and memories are one of my favorites and this story fits with my literary tastes. The title of this short story is 'dawn', which means the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is obvious that the author used this term in a metaphorical way. I was deeply thinking if the author actually referred to her childhood memories or how life is fading away... We will know this when the author answers us.

The main character of this story (I miss there are not name, but this is a personal taste, not cirticism) is not having a good present time: She is full of pain, and when someone suffers an illness she suffers from melancholia for the past times as well. The third paragraph is very well written. It contains a lot of characteristics which can lead the reader to imagine the orchard where she and her brother used to play. I considered this as another positive point, because I like when authors express the environment of the plot with precise detail.

I must admit that the last paragraph surprised me a bit because I was imagining a sick woman, but it turned out she was convicted of the death penalty. So, the author of this story should be American... This is a clue we all should keep in mind!

Congrats to the author!

Dawn

A beautiful, intelligent and fascinating story with phrases that I want to pick out and savour. Perhaps pickle for later.

The moment between sleep and wakefulness: the moment when we can linger in imagination, when we might have the illusion of choice, when not quite awake to the dawning present.

Rosy-fingers play to the past: 'to tickle the bellies of small rainless clouds sailing far overhead'. Senses engaged in the half-dream. I can see the 'window' and 'feel' its lightening. Even the chickens are searching for yesterday's sustenance.

Quoting Noble Dust

It is my youngest brother’s turn to feed them; I have a little time yet to lie here, only dimly aware of my body, as if it were a vessel far away, my mind immersed in happy memory, breathing in the scent of late summer, childhood and family in the village that was my home.

The past and the present combine. There is little time to lie 'in the moment'; the mind is a vessel sailing like the light clouds above. I'm right there with the author. Waiting to see what is to come.

And it's all there. Not one word wasted in this immersive, intriguing experience with questions arising.
It dawns on the reader the grim setting and atmosphere...the end of the dark night...

Quoting Noble Dust

What does his pale, broken god know of my spirit? The spirit behind these closed eyelids still burns bright and hot, fuelled by hate.

My moment is ending; at daybreak, I’ll be free.

This. My first read of the day. Excellent. 5.
I could say more but enough for now. Thank you and Congratulations :smile:

I like. :fire:

It's like a picture with words. Craftsmanship is undeniable but I would've liked more of a story.

This entry is an excellent first chapter of something more. It develops our main character, the narrator, as a pensive, sentimental woman, remembering days gone by. By the end, we do have a feeling for who she is. Much time is also spent developing the setting, painting images of pastures, chickens running about, and goats being milked. We then catch a small glimpse perhaps of a conflict that the story will center around with the mention of the charred remains of the home and the priest whose presence is unwelcome.

But then it stops, without a true development of plot, full understanding of the conflict, and no final resolution of whatever the woman seeks to understand.

So, excellent work on the beginning of the story, but it's not an entirely contained story. It's a picture on the wall where you can imagine what it might be.

Quoting Noble Dust

only dimly aware of my body, as if it were a vessel far away

Quoting Noble Dust

The boys are more hindrance than help, but eager, always wanting to be like Father.

Yes, yes! These lines are the most transcendental of the tale. Such metaphors and social comparisons to that which we are either familiar with, or distant from, all to so.

Quoting Hanover

This entry is an excellent first chapter of something more.

Yet also this.

--

My scrupulous mind, such as it is, cannot help but fathom whether or not the narrator of the story was the one who perhaps caused the village to be burned down. Otherwise, why would she be imprisoned? There was no indication of any crime or even interest in anything potentially nefarious other than the affinity for one particular element of nature.

It has some vivid imagery and hints at character moments, parts that would define the life of the character, but I would have wanted to read more about the acts leading up to the end. Doesn't have to be word for word, but the charred ground and iron bars hints at her probably burning everything down and seemingly intentional too. Without her contemplating on the why of this act I think the story loses it's most important part; the drama and clash between the life before and the life after. It would have needed a paragraph for that to flow into the ending paragraph.

I'd also recommend another pass for the poetry of the text. Some sections reads like a first pass that could be improved with a rewrite. They're not bad, but the choice of words and how they paint a situation becomes more vivid with different choices of words and how sentences flow. Especially in first person there's a lot of room to incorporating the psychology of the character within the poetry of the text, since it's the character telling it all.

Overall I think it is decent, but would have needed a bit more context for the characters situation and another rewrite pass for some sentences.

As a modern mediocre man, with a short attention span, I enjoy the short shortness of a very short story but agree with others amazing commentary, we are left a little wanting for clues toward an explanation why the house has been burnt down. I though maybe the entire orchard has been razed but am not sure if that is plausible by fire, even during a dry season. Though Australia might prove the example, with trees that have flammable resins and contribute to dry forest litter. It's possible but a terrible act that might have other types of collateral damage. Maybe other houses, lives were at stake.

We know of new burden of the tithing but how could this possibly warrant her act of self-destruction, taking away other's means of survival. If something really unforgivable happened to her and her family, there ought to be more conflict/tension revealed around this reminisce. Otherwise, maybe there could be sociopathic element in play but I doubt this was intended.

Her pastoral reminisce is a too pristine a canvas to have survived the outer and inner conflagration and turmoil of her likely emotions. It should be marred in someway, burnt around the edges, evocative of a terrible wound.

Maybe I was lead away by others projections. She didn't do it, but was accused of doing it for some other reason.

Congrats, I liked it because it made me ruminate/fantasize. I had a vision. :party: :flower: :death:

There is something to the trick of withholding important details to entice us to participate.

Quoting Christoffer

It has some vivid imagery and hints at character moments, parts that would define the life of the character, but I would have wanted to read more about the acts leading up to the end. Doesn't have to be word for word, but the charred ground and iron bars hints at her probably burning everything down and seemingly intentional too.

Details are indeed scant, my interpretation was that this was a European pagan village, or maybe Native American, or otherwise aboriginal, and that her home was burned down as retribution for an attack by a family member, or maybe as a purely arbitrary revenge for something unrelated. Her hatred of her captors, along with the overall picture presented, makes me feel it was unlikely she was the one that burned the house.

I liked it quite a bit for what it was, a sad and sweet nostalgia for a time that was viciously murdered.

Quoting Noble Dust

For a moment, there is no pain, no loss, no grief, no fear of things to come.

Yes, the hallmark of a good nights sleep is those blissful few moments as you're waking where the weight of the world is momentarily lifted from your shoulders before it settles back down again.

As I'm re-reading it, my sense is that maybe that's kind of the whole of it; mostly those childhood memories wafting up for a moment before the reality of her imprisonment sets back in as she wakes up. I don't think we have any way to know what her crime was, but it must be related to these memories, or at least from a storytelling standpoint I would think so. It's a bit vague for me, though, but maybe I'm missing it. I'm also unsure how she'll be free at daybreak; there's nothing I can find suggesting this to be the case.

That said, the writing is consummate and evocative. Reading this I do feel that brief moment of calm in between sleeping and waking.

I can't improve on or substantially add to the comments above except to confess I wish I had written it. Epiphanous! ((5))

A woman in prison, recollecting her sweet childhood, to then wake up to a brutal reality.
I can't say I don't relate in a certain sense, but I agree with others that it lacks details about what is going on in real life, and perhaps a connection between real life and dream would be instigating — her crime being connected to the harvest.
4/5

STD: 44

It ties with The Moon is Broken.

I find it to be a superb piece of writing. I particularly like the twilight state of consciousness as an atmosphere of story description, giving it a mysterious quality.

This is how I understand the story:
The narrator committed a crime or murder grave enough to be sentenced to death. Then they burned down her family's house. (I don't believe she burned down something that she once knew fondly)

Quoting Noble Dust

The spirit behind these closed eyelids still burns bright and hot, fuelled by hate.

Here is another clue as to why they burned down her house:
Quoting Noble Dust

The old priest will come to exhort me yet again to repent of my violent acts, to beg God's forgiveness, so that he may administer last rites and save my soul.

They are forcing her to confess and repent.

Why did she do it? Revenge.
For the hardships her own family and people in the village suffered because they lost the grove and more to the greedy entity? 50% tithe is below poverty level. Who knows what else the village suffered through.

There needs to be more about what she had done.

I gave it a 4.

Score to date: 53

I make out a condemned woman looking back on her life as the hour of her execution by the state draws near. Mainly, she remembers the short, sweet days of early girlhood, a precious time of innocence and freedom of the spirit.

At some point she turned the curve and entered into active resistance to an oppressive state bent on the persecution of her people. I have in mind the pogroms of Russia, or maybe the IRA and its battles with the British.

This story features the voice of a person who had to enter adulthood in her adolescence, if not before then. She’s mostly resolved on the terms of her life and death as they’ve been dealt to her. Of course, she doesn’t want to die by execution, but she know’s she’d still join the resistance if she had it to do all over again.

This story reads like the swan song of a revolutionary.

It’s a somber and mature meditation in the moment. Life, death and belief are weighed with a clear-eyed realism. It is a succinct portrait of courage and heroism.

Quoting Amity

This. My first read of the day. Excellent. 5.
I could say more but enough for now.

This was the first story I read at the start of the year and the competition. It's now the 15th January 2024 and I'm back for more. Having warmed up a little...

Quoting Noble Dust

There is a moment between sleep and wakefulness when the mind wanders freely over memories of what has been and fantasies of what might be. There is a moment when we can choose between reality and dream, when both seem equally possible. For a moment, there is no pain, no loss, no grief, no fear of things to come.

Reading this aloud, I can feel the rhythm and the poetry. The repetition of 'a moment' and the flow of the words and sentences. This meditation is absolutely beautiful. The mind of the author and the narrator meld as one. And we have a glimpse of what has been, the present and what is to come. Right then, in that first moment of dawn.

The narrator seems at peace in reverie and recollection. The author's artistry elicits a - *cough* -
'positive aesthetic response' - in other words, I love it! The setting of a farmyard - the sights, sounds and smells of sky, light, grain and animals. The barn - a large storage space to keep and protect resources and produce. The family's vital income.

The next paragraph is so wonderful in its entirety, I'm going to play it again. To savour the being, the playing and the doing - surrounded by nature, humming hot in some Middle Age. Then, far from a Golden Eden, we hear about Tithing:

Quoting Noble Dust

I am a young girl once again, playing in the forest orchard with my brothers, throwing sticks at the trees to detach some fruit. Wasps circle our heads and move on in quest of the warm juice. The sun is hot, as it always is at the end of dry season; the air is sweet and heavy with the scent of ripe fruit. After the goats are milked and sent out to pasture, our father will come with his long pole to strike all the branches and shake the fruit loose. Then it is our task to gather them up on canvas sheets and drag them to the counting place, for the Tithe Man to collect his half. The boys are more hindrance than help, but eager, always wanting to be like Father. They are too young to understand the truth. I know… But they have so little time left to play at being men.

The Tithe Man collects half. This is greed on a large scale. A tithe was usually a tenth of produce or earnings. So, this man is a cruel tax collector. Where does the money go? Traditionally to the Church or the aristocracy. They didn't work, as such, and didn't pay tithes - their income support came from the hard working peasants.

The fruit is dragged to the counting place - it can't be far away, is it the barn? Or purpose-built?
The boys can't wait to be grown up like their Dad. Their play is fun and the truth is hidden. Their hindrance forgiven. Soon enough they will understand the hardships of being the provider in an unfair world. The narrator knows.

In a past time, this was a community project. Work and income shared. Managed by elders. The harvest celebrated in a temporary camp of colourful tents where other villages joined together. Like her brothers, the girl too wanted to be 'big' - marry and make a home.
Quoting Noble Dust

Children were allowed to stay up as long as we liked, some falling asleep where they sat around the communal fire. I was one of those children, head in my mother’s lap, dozing off with the firelight flickering on my eyelids.

For children, a time of freedom and for warm dreams. Before the dawn when the girl must waken as woman. Eyes closed but knowing that soon, soon - will come the painful consciousness of harsh reality.

Quoting Noble Dust

Soon, the pain will return,along with the image of charred ground where our house once stood, the reality of these stone walls and these iron bars. The old priest will come to exhort me yet again to repent of my violent acts, to beg God's forgiveness, so that he may administer last rites and save my soul. What does his pale, broken god know of my spirit? The spirit behind these closed eyelids still burns bright and hot, fuelled by hate.

Her house has been burned to the ground and she is in prison. She is about to die. An old priest is pressuring her to repent of sins so that he can save her soul.
The narrator, a woman, has committed a crime against who?
The Tithe Man. And Religion.

We are not told of the country. But here is something about the Tithe Wars in Ireland:

Quoting Wiki - Tithe War

The Tithe War (Irish: Cogadh na nDeachúna) was a campaign of mainly nonviolent civil disobedience, punctuated by sporadic violent episodes, in Ireland between 1830 and 1836 in reaction to the enforcement of tithes on the Roman Catholic majority for the upkeep of the established state church, the Church of Ireland. Tithes were payable in cash or kind and payment was compulsory, irrespective of an individual's religious adherence.

Can't pay. Won't pay.

Perhaps the hate burning behind her closed eyes is of a more personal nature.
We can imagine a situation where the Tithe Man comes to collect payment. The father can't pay, so what or who will Tithe Man take instead? Payment in kind. One scenario:

The house is burned down, leaving only the woman.
Attempted rape. Terrified but brave fight. Knife. Murder.

Quoting Noble Dust

My moment is ending; at daybreak, I’ll be free.

No last rites. She doesn't need or want them. The last words are hers alone...at Dawn.

***

The author has told and shown the most beautiful bitter-sweet story. With such detailed description when it matters - to add colour and depth. But withholding enough so that the reader can imagine...we don't need to know more. The readers are given the freedom to think for themselves. Thank you again. :fire:

Reply to Amity Thanks @Amity, great take and info about the Tithe Wars. My appreciation deepened for this fine story.

Quoting hypericin

My appreciation deepened for this fine story.

This story is the best. As is its most perceptive and talented author. There is so much depth to this. Each time I read it, I see more. This is a gem to treasure. It's a peaceful meditation and a powerful proclamation of what is wrong in such a hierarchical society. The images of light and fire flicker insight into the emotions. The contrasts between dark night and light dawn. The real and symbolic.

Quoting Noble Dust

I lie very still in the dark, listening for the first tentative birdsong outside, waiting for dawn’s pink fingers to tickle the bellies of small rainless clouds sailing far overhead. My window lightens very slowly at first

Quoting Noble Dust

The sun is hot, as it always is at the end of dry season;

Quoting Noble Dust

We would all go, to celebrate the harvest with other villages in an encampment so vast I could not see to the edge of it nor count the colourful tents. There was dancing and feasting late into the night.

Quoting Noble Dust

Children were allowed to stay up as long as we liked, some falling asleep where they sat around the communal fire. I was one of those children, head in my mother’s lap, dozing off with the firelight flickering on my eyelids.

Quoting Noble Dust

Inside my closed eyes, in my slowly awakening mind, it is also the end of a night.

Quoting Noble Dust

the pain will return, along with the image of charred ground where our house once stood, the reality of these stone walls and these iron bars.

Quoting Noble Dust

What does his pale, broken god know of my spirit? The spirit behind these closed eyelids still burns bright and hot, fuelled by hate.

Quoting Noble Dust

My moment is ending; at daybreak, I’ll be free.

***
Unfortunately, when I first read this I felt under pressure. 16 stories to read closely, reflect and comment on and discuss, never mind the stupid voting - all in 10dys. I'm grateful for the extension and only wish that voting didn't happen until due consideration is given to all the stories.

The previous criticisms of vagueness, lack of detail - wanting more information about what this woman had done - meant that some chose 4 - when really it deserves more. If the 4's were converted to 5's...
Never mind.

Quoting Nils Loc

There is something to the trick of withholding important details to entice us to participate.

The fine descriptive details portray the setting and sensations very well. Also, the inner dialogue of the character - the expressions of her observant mind and sensitive spirit, the strength.
But, yes, silence speaks volumes too. Gaps are important to engage the readers brain.
Ask questions but don't just leave it at that.
The pieces of the puzzle are all there to complete the picture. Or the one you imagine.

Dig deep. The rewards are sweet. Use all senses and harvest the fruit.

The author shines a light on the dark themes of socially structured inequalities. So bright and talented. Well-balanced and a rare burning spirit. Thank you :sparkle:

@Vera Mont

There's nothing I can say to improve on what @Amity and others have said already, Vera, except congratulations and thank you for my favorite story so far of the New Year! :flower:

Great work, @Vera Mont. It's interesting, because professional writers do have a deft hand that's instantly recognizable. My brother is one (working an anonymous, unglamorous day job and a published short story writer/agented but unpublished novelist by night), and I see the same deftness in your writing. No unnecessary words, but no word wasted. :cheer:

@Vera Mont
Somehow I connected this with you due to a previous comment about your experience with the Prague Spring. Just luck, or might that have informed this piece?

Quoting Noble Dust

No unnecessary words, but no word wasted.

Irony!

Quoting 180 Proof

There's nothing I can say to improve on what Amity and others have said already, Vera, except congratulations and thank you for my favorite story so far of the New Year! :flower:

Yes. I don't usually pick favourites but this one stays with me. There is something immensely satisfying that my words can't express. Thank you @Vera Mont !
If I had one story to choose for a Desert Island, this would be it. It satisfies and sustains.
The meditation, the imagery, the history. The emotions. The spaces to be filled in with imagination...

Wow!
I've just come home after a few days' reluctant absence, and could not have wished for a better welcome. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I did think about some of the early comments, and I realize that my economy with words sometimes amounts to parsimony. I put in a couple of small patches to clarify things.

Dawn

There is a moment between sleep and wakefulness when the mind wanders freely over memories of what has been and fantasies of what might be. There is a moment when we can choose between reality and dream, when both seem equally possible. For a moment, there is no pain, no loss, no grief, no fear of things to come.

I lie very still in the dark, listening for the first tentative birdsong outside, waiting for dawn’s pink fingers to tickle the bellies of small rainless clouds sailing far overhead. My window lightens very slowly at first. The chickens in the yard scratch at the ground, vainly searching for missed grains from yesterday. The old rooster trumpets from his high perch on the barn roof. It is my brother’s turn to feed them; I have a little time yet to lie here, only dimly aware of my body, as if it were a vessel far away, my mind immersed in happy memory, breathing in the scent of late summer, childhood and family in the village that was my home.

I am a young girl once again, playing in the forest orchard with my brothers, throwing sticks at the trees to detach some fruit. Wasps circle our heads and move on in quest of the warm juice. The sun is hot, as it always is at the end of dry season; the air is sweet and heavy with the scent of ripe fruit. After the goats are milked and sent out to pasture, our father will come with his long pole to strike all the branches and shake the fruit loose. Then it is our task to gather them up on canvas sheets and drag them to the counting place, for the white Overseer to collect his half. The boys are more hindrance than help, but eager, always wanting to be like Father. They are too young to understand the truth. I know… But they have so little time left to play at being men.

Once, that grove belonged to our village. The elders used to allocate the work of harvesting and share out the income from the regional market. We would all go, to celebrate the harvest with other villages in an encampment so vast I could not see to the edge of it nor count the colourful tents. There was dancing and feasting late into the night. The young people would pair up – oh, how I envied them! How impatient I was to be big and make a home of my own. Children were allowed to stay up as long as we liked, some falling asleep where they sat around the communal fire. I was one of those children, head in my mother’s lap, dozing off with the firelight flickering on my eyelids.

Inside my closed eyes, in my slowly awakening mind, it is also the end of a night. Soon, I must become fully conscious. Soon, the pain will return, along with the image of charred ground where our house once stood, the reality of these stone walls and these iron bars. The old priest will come from the mission and exhort me one final time to repent of my violent acts, to beg God's forgiveness, so that he may administer last rites and save my soul. What does his pale, broken god know of my spirit? The spirit behind these closed eyelids still burns bright and hot, fuelled by hate.

My moment is ending; at daybreak, I’ll be free.

Quoting Vera Mont

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I did think about some of the early comments, and I realize that my economy with words sometimes amounts to parsimony. I put in a couple of small patches to clarify things.

A pleasure to give you the feedback you deserve.

Re the changes: I prefer 'The Tithe Man' - he sounds more ominous and could be the title of a Stephen King novel. The taking of half rather then a tenth shows the extent of the rapacious greed.

Quoting Vera Mont

The old priest will come from the mission and exhort me one final time to repent of my violent acts, to beg God's forgiveness, so that he may administer last rites and save my soul.

There's no need for these additions. The sentence becomes too long and unwieldy.
In my opinion :wink:

Reply to Amity
I thought so, too, but some people - coming from a law-abiding modern perspective - don't recognize the colonial setting. Originally thinking French Senegal, where she would have been guillotined, I realized that seizing the livestock and burning whole villages was a common response to rebellion by British, Dutch, Belgian, Spanish and Portuguese regimes. So I hoped to convey a generic imperialism, whether in the Americas, Africa, Asia or Oceania, rather than any specific colony - and the universal drive to resist it. Succinctly....
The next story, assuming there is a next one, will be wordy and western. (There's a germ of an idea in my recent experience.) I'll even comment on it; nobody will guess.