"E" by Matt Galvin
"E"
As he looked down the barrel of that gun, he began to live three lifetimes all in a split instant.
His mother, a very pious drinker. Pious in the religion that condones beating her child, cheating on her husband(s), and taking dumps onto people's lawn when theyre not looking. Whatever religion you can find that meets these parameters, be sure to fucking tell me. Because I bet you if youre passionate enough, if youre ignorant enough, you can twist a pure ideal and belief into something thatll meet your own morals and your own conscience.
Perceptions change. But the fine line between what is human and what humans do that they shouldnt...will never.
His father, ... , I wish I could insert some kind of general definition of the man. For our poor victims sake. To make you feel sorry for him enough to where you actually care for a total stranger. Because sympathy and pity will only ever be any reason to care for a total stranger.
Humans take the human out of humane. So then we are just left with an "E".
Ill let you consider all the possibilities for what "E" stands for. But me? I have someone to kill.
Every memory of his fucked life conjured forward just so he could justify what was happening to him. He deserved it after all. He kept walking and walking and walking away from his problems. No not running.
Walking.
Walking just enough to where he could the silhouettes of his forever festering past eat at the feet of his own shadow. Consuming and consuming. Past his torso. Past his neck. Until..
"E".
Most of you run. so youre at least able to escape being consumed by silhouettes. But no matter how fast you are, how much time you spend on the track practicing breathing excercises, or how many people you have to beat to say that youre the fastest. Youll always be outran.... Always. Youll always be out done by...
"E".
Sweat trickled down his brow and stung his eyes. Such an easily earned sweat. Unlike some of you. Who work theyre bodies and work and work. Just to get what the sweat this young man is feeling right now. Wouldnt it be easier just to look down the chamber of a 9mm swan song? He looked around for other options but the minute he did, that minute he took to look, was a minute that turned into a second, and then he lost focus and lost even more of a minute of his life. He was living more in the minute than any of us do until we reach the end our own...
"E".
The minute was all I needed to pull the trigger without hesitation. And as the gun gave birth to the bullet that would exchange its birth for mine. He lived even more lifetimes. And even more.
If you stick with that, youll forever be immortalized.
He was safe inside his sh"E"ll, safe from the world. From the ever speeding bullet just crying for his father. He was living forever, in exchange for living at all.
I asked him why.
I answered with a because.
I asked why wont you die?
I answered with a because.
I asked where will I go now.
I answered with "E"
I took myself into my arms, and forever stayed there. Sticking with the moment. We were immortalized. We were safe.
Forever trapped.
Forever safe.
We...were forever trapp"E"d and for"E"v"E"r safe.
I wrote this about 2 years ago when I was 16. What do you think?
Thanks! You really thought it was?
I might actually try to elaborate alittle more with the perspective. I like writing in a metafiction sort of sense. Its really fun to mess with peoples heads by just using written words.
Matt,
If you don't respect the reader then the reader won't respect you. One typo is okay and nobody likes or respects spelling nazis because it's an anal pursuit BUT you've got missing words and well, just sloppy work everywhere in this piece.
Now you've said you wrote it when you were 16 and yet you must feel chuffed about it to have pasted it here. So, you can't back out now and say 'I wrote it when I was 16...that's why it's sloppy.' Heck, I've got work I wrote when I was 16 but I don't paste it on public forums unless I feel chuffed about it.
Here's some of your mess to consider:
"Walking just enough to where he could the silhouettes of his forever festering past"
"Who work theyre bodies and work and work. Just to get what the sweat this young man is feeling right now."
Writing is editing. You've got to focus on being a good writer rather than focusing on being appreciated at this point.
So Matt, you can feel resentment towards me for saying what I've said or you can say to yourself 'from now on I'm going to edit and edit and recheck again and again until my text is perfect.'
Thank you for the constructive advice, but if anyone is to take you seriously without considering you a pompous prick I would highly recommend that you turn the condescending tone down a notch.
Now you can feel resentment towards me for what I've said or you can say to yourself "Maybe I can look past two dimensional technicalities and try to give an aspiring writer some actual advice."
By the by you may wish to look into putting commas before conjuntions...
Dude, PM me. I need to know what this "E" means. Fascinating stuff.
Sigh...
You're not really seeking advice here. You're seeking for praise regardless of what you offer up.
I'm not your mom, your primary school teacher or Norman Vincent Peale. Somebody else in this thread has given you praise but it obviously isn't enough for you. My question to you is why do you need my praise?
when the hell do you put a comma in front of a conjunction?
From the four sentences that I did read, I'd say what you need is MORE condescension from people, not less.
thanks for sharing.blackhawk tactical pants.
— Spambot
"I could have done worse!" exultantly cried the murderer Lebret, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life. — Félix Fénéon
This is very good. You do a great job of capturing the suspense and immediacy of the moment. I especially like the ending when we come to find that there is only one man, with the gun pointed at himself. Though I think you could perhaps make things more interesting if you played around with the point of view; Maybe show things from the mother's or father's perspective or even from the perspective of the gun.
My only other advice would be to continue the story and further elaborate on the idea of "E"