OH.MY.GOD. You did not!!!!! A love expressed so purely, divinity itself in its delivery, and then turns inside out and destroys... this has the makings of a great Jordan Peele film. I want to read The Sernox from the beginning again, all in one sitting, and feel the entire, soaring and then crashing arc.
Pulling out all the stops here, Nathan. "In the weeks before my demise..." hold on a minute, what a clever way to begin the ending. Bleak, dark, relentless. As it must be. In a word: Fascinating.
“the journey of my unkempt soul nourished on nothing but the rotten fruit of hurt. I bled inside.”
Sometimes a sentence can conjure up such darkness, you wonder if you should read on, and, sure enough, like earlier in the story when we felt we were imposing on two lovers most private moments, here, to our horror, we are left in the company of a monster, only to discover he’s been in plain sight all along
Magnificently written, Nathan. As I’ve mentioned before, this is my favourite story of yours and, believe me, that takes some doing!
I’ll look forward to your retrospective and hope you can appreciate, as I’m sure all your readers do, what a unique and challenging tale this has been 👍🏼
I saved this as long as I could as a) I knew it was ending and b) I knew the ending was going to be tough. I was frustrated after I happened to see something that could be described as spoiler on Notes (am still considering taking legal action against Ms. Warner) but luckily I was still left AGHAST at this ending.
I need to go back and read this from the beginning, from my now permanently upside down view of the world. What a trip this has been. A wonderful, confusing, beautiful and dreamlike trip. "...false memories that swim toxic along hillock and synapse, along distensions that know nothing but a gradient of ions, a flux of charge, a labyrinthine array that, in the totality of miracle, give rise to the tortures of love and lust and loss." I mean...you spoil us. I hope you've got some more stories in you once this, once she, has settled.
I've just binge-read the whole story. I'm still not sure I understand it all, but what I've really enjoyed is allowing your words to wash over me. I don't know if this a criterion of success, but each time I read one of your stories I want to write about a girl called Spikey who I knew many years ago -- except that it wouldn't be fiction. I can't write like you, and nor would I wish to, but I very much enjoy reading your work.
Have you considered collating these chapters into an ebook, an Amazon short read perhaps?
Ah, too many thoughts to write them all!! But I will try for one - I do love the way the perspective we are given has morphed across the story, slowly and then faster, so that by the end our Emmi (once so strange and powerful) is all too small and human and breakable. You've done such a fun job of exploring this unsettling interest-obsession-idolisation-possession-destruction pipeline, Nathan - loved every word!
Well, you did it, my friend. You managed to thread the needle and create a perfect ending to this dreamy, mysterious, and near-hallucinogenic tale you began on an intuitive whim. Every chapter of this packs a dense amount of sensory information that renders the world so perfectly in the reader's mind. Congratulations! Now go and write another one. Please.
You did it! You completed the loop. I went back to the beginning again to consider the impact of the “monster” at the end. It certainly works. It amplifies the start, and then I’m turn the start amplified the ending.
Metafiction, memory, dreams, metaphysics…it’s all there and they add paradoxically layers of meaning and ambiguity (a la Borges). I like the way this becomes more of an exploration of the mind than the narrative of love and death (although they are collapsed into that mind). Lovely work, Nathan. You give us lots to think about!
Totally unexpected and jarring in a very good sense of those words! I know that you started this without having an ending in mind and maybe that is the secret of your success with the Sernox. The prose is stunning and the ending will stay with me for some time. Bravo, Nathan!
“These words—inscribed and jumbled in time and meaning—are apt to wander to my most default of states: that of lies, of signals misread, of entire conversations whose vestiges remain nothing but the broken wings of memory.”
Ok, I thought I saw what was coming. I didn’t see that coming….
Bravo .
A standing O from Vermont!
Um, I have to look away from the eye, I’m going to have bad dreams.
OH.MY.GOD. You did not!!!!! A love expressed so purely, divinity itself in its delivery, and then turns inside out and destroys... this has the makings of a great Jordan Peele film. I want to read The Sernox from the beginning again, all in one sitting, and feel the entire, soaring and then crashing arc.
Pulling out all the stops here, Nathan. "In the weeks before my demise..." hold on a minute, what a clever way to begin the ending. Bleak, dark, relentless. As it must be. In a word: Fascinating.
No!!! I had the same reaction as Kimberly. No you didn’t, but you did. And you did it well. What an arc.
“the journey of my unkempt soul nourished on nothing but the rotten fruit of hurt. I bled inside.”
Sometimes a sentence can conjure up such darkness, you wonder if you should read on, and, sure enough, like earlier in the story when we felt we were imposing on two lovers most private moments, here, to our horror, we are left in the company of a monster, only to discover he’s been in plain sight all along
Magnificently written, Nathan. As I’ve mentioned before, this is my favourite story of yours and, believe me, that takes some doing!
I’ll look forward to your retrospective and hope you can appreciate, as I’m sure all your readers do, what a unique and challenging tale this has been 👍🏼
I never saw it coming, Nathan. Masterfully done. I’m going to sleep with the lights on tonight.
Congrats on getting through the first draft! Hope you one day get it into a place ready to publish
…purely selfish on my part of course, being that you have to do all the work so I can relax and read.
I saved this as long as I could as a) I knew it was ending and b) I knew the ending was going to be tough. I was frustrated after I happened to see something that could be described as spoiler on Notes (am still considering taking legal action against Ms. Warner) but luckily I was still left AGHAST at this ending.
I need to go back and read this from the beginning, from my now permanently upside down view of the world. What a trip this has been. A wonderful, confusing, beautiful and dreamlike trip. "...false memories that swim toxic along hillock and synapse, along distensions that know nothing but a gradient of ions, a flux of charge, a labyrinthine array that, in the totality of miracle, give rise to the tortures of love and lust and loss." I mean...you spoil us. I hope you've got some more stories in you once this, once she, has settled.
Totally unexpected. Shudder. Well done. I’ll definitely have to reread the lot when I get a chance. Thanks so much. 🤗🤗
I've just binge-read the whole story. I'm still not sure I understand it all, but what I've really enjoyed is allowing your words to wash over me. I don't know if this a criterion of success, but each time I read one of your stories I want to write about a girl called Spikey who I knew many years ago -- except that it wouldn't be fiction. I can't write like you, and nor would I wish to, but I very much enjoy reading your work.
Have you considered collating these chapters into an ebook, an Amazon short read perhaps?
Ah, too many thoughts to write them all!! But I will try for one - I do love the way the perspective we are given has morphed across the story, slowly and then faster, so that by the end our Emmi (once so strange and powerful) is all too small and human and breakable. You've done such a fun job of exploring this unsettling interest-obsession-idolisation-possession-destruction pipeline, Nathan - loved every word!
Well, you did it, my friend. You managed to thread the needle and create a perfect ending to this dreamy, mysterious, and near-hallucinogenic tale you began on an intuitive whim. Every chapter of this packs a dense amount of sensory information that renders the world so perfectly in the reader's mind. Congratulations! Now go and write another one. Please.
You did it! You completed the loop. I went back to the beginning again to consider the impact of the “monster” at the end. It certainly works. It amplifies the start, and then I’m turn the start amplified the ending.
Metafiction, memory, dreams, metaphysics…it’s all there and they add paradoxically layers of meaning and ambiguity (a la Borges). I like the way this becomes more of an exploration of the mind than the narrative of love and death (although they are collapsed into that mind). Lovely work, Nathan. You give us lots to think about!
🤯 Whoa! Did not see that coming... Freaky deaky! 😃
‘grats on finishing! May it be the first of many finishes!
Totally unexpected and jarring in a very good sense of those words! I know that you started this without having an ending in mind and maybe that is the secret of your success with the Sernox. The prose is stunning and the ending will stay with me for some time. Bravo, Nathan!
“These words—inscribed and jumbled in time and meaning—are apt to wander to my most default of states: that of lies, of signals misread, of entire conversations whose vestiges remain nothing but the broken wings of memory.”
Ok, I thought I saw what was coming. I didn’t see that coming….
Bravo .
A standing O from Vermont!
Um, I have to look away from the eye, I’m going to have bad dreams.