Thanks, Andrei. I think there's a fair raft of things swirling around in my head at the moment, literary-wise. A constant cocktail that still needs to be distilled through these experiments. Appreciate you reading, buddy.
I hear the Twilight Zone theme playing in the background. Very appropriate for this scene. X - FILES ? 🔮<--- NOT MANY emojis depicting mystery mysterious or eerie.....
Have you seen the original TZ episode based on an Ambrose Bierce story ( which was not written as a TZ episode BTW ) ? This reminds me of that adaptation, KIND OF.
actually, it's time travel. He died of complications from lung cancer, emphysema, or both. He said he'd stop smoking if I STOPPED DRINKING, SHROOMING & USING THC. GAH !!
Loved this Nathan. Now, I’m maybe not as well read as some of the other commentators on here, but this brought to mind the finest type of horror fiction. It’s not gory or actually horrific in any way, yet it has that sense of unreality, of a step through the veil into something or somewhere that we are not meant to see in our daily lives. Another world that perhaps exists alongside ours and carries the weight of past horrors. See, there’s that word again 🤔😁
Think that vision of the hangman continually repeating his unrelenting mantra and begging the night for forgiveness will stay with me for a while. Brilliantly done my friend 👏
Oh wow, thank you, Dan. To elicit such a feeling is more than I could have hoped for. It is my favourite type of horror, too. And don't worry, I have much respect for how well read you are. :)
"I wrote this semi-consciously, its meaning buried and blurred. Extract from it whatever means the most to you. Leave the rest for the hangman." Thanks for this "confession", Nathan. You have some fascinating bits here. They seem to be parts of two or three different stories in one. I want to hear them all! By the way, I personally, would like to see the photo at the head of the story rather than presented as an afterthought. I think it would be a hook that adds focus?
Thanks Sharron. I think I used to do that, but then started shifting to the end. But you're right, it can really help to set the tone and focus. I will definitely consider doing so moving forward.
And yes, there's a lot going on here, perhaps too much crammed into too short a space, but at least it gives me something to perhaps come back to one day.
My dear departed mum, a great reader of Edgar Allen Poe who loved the macabre, the inexplicable of a mystery, saw ghosts everywhere. She had difficulty persuading my very down-to-earth, no grey father but to us, her three girls she would recount her sightings in glorious gory detail while we sat, our hearts pounding, almost out of our chests or so it seemed, shrieking and clinging to her side. To this day I don't know which were true and which were a fabric of her rich imagination!
Nathan, this story could have fallen from her mouth, I love the addition of the ants' mandibular jaws - 'mandibular' always a word that conjures a certain dread and this line, "Dawn had almost arrived, the sun still a coward behind the rise but probing the sky with its infinite rays." as if the sun too were fearful....
I think that's a nice mystery to remain within. I have no doubt your mother was a wondrous wordsmith and weaver of tales, but based on what you've said before then I have no doubt she was also highly attuned to things -- more so than most.
Perhaps, in some way, our discussions of her in a previous post has somehow imparted her wisdom into me and that is what led me to this story.
I've often wondered how it must have felt to be the subject scheduled to be hanged, knowing your own fate, walking in the footsteps of so many that had come and gone before. Your story spoke to that morbid and haunting curiosity. Nice work Slake. I really enjoyed your reading as well.
Wowza. This entire story is wildly layered and complex, I want to go back and read both parts now in one sitting….and yet despite the tangled timelines, it’s very much tethered to this wonderful immediacy of the hill, the ants, “life marching on” —the past and the present. I love how the gallows offers a place a reckoning, where your protagonist wrestles with his own sentencing, whether it’s his youth, his ability to connect, or even his sense of self.
(if you do, perhaps it's all broken and doesn't flow together, haha.)
Thanks so much, Kimberly. Love your thoughts as always.
I just mentioned to Silvio that I feel this could, in some way (perhaps with tweaks) be a backstory segment of The Sernox, part of the protagonist's earlier years, before things descend further.
Maybe your semiconscious writing is actually more deeply conscious! I know what you mean though - like the words and thoughts come from some other place. Love the way you kept repeating this line: “Many have I hanged. Heavy is the heart that has hanged.” It is a brave thing to do, to say it over and over. It works here — building the weight of the man’s deeds and ominously calling out to the narrator. Always enjoy searching for versions of reality in your work, Nathan!
Thanks, Kate. Love your thoughts. Did you see Nick's comment on that quote vs trimming it so it doesn't have the "that has hanged". I really like that he offered that critique up. I think, though, that this version is still the one that works in my head, but I can see how someone may read the flow differently.
The repetition for me served as a means of showing obsession by the hangman and a total solitude that he was within.
There are some fragments of truth within this piece. The name of the hill on my undergrad campus, for one.
Oh nice, I meant even like “what is reality?” And the consciousness of the reader. But even better when there are layers of your experience/life. As long as you weren’t at the gallows!! :)
It’s great when comments help you push your writing forward. In this case, I agree with your original version. Your version personifies the heart. Also, instead of going for the most concise, it adds a clunky aspect that mirrors the mind of the hangman.
What a marvellous sequel, Nathan. I won't call it a finale, as you and I both know that no such thing exists. I savored every word. This, I just restacked, but I want to highlight it in here too: "For some days I tried to piece together what I had seen, trying to link the feelings spoken by the girl whose surname was a medieval tune, of the hangman whose voice repeated over and over, and of my heart, locked and incapable of beating its own blood, the organ in my chest I had extracted and offered on my palm to find it containing nothing but sunken valves. I couldn't piece it together. I still can't." -- words fail me.
Thanks as always for your open and lovely words, Silvio. Yes, I appreciate that we both know that something isn't necessarily a finale. I'm still wondering whether this is part of The Sernox, a flashback to years earlier in the protagonist's life. If that's so then a few tweaks would need to be made, but I'm open to the idea if/when I come back to that story.
I wrote some of this one in a disjointed order and then moved the pieces around. This part that you quote was one that helped me sit within the piece and allow the semi-conscious writing to continue.
“The Hat and the girl whose name was an old English folksong” love that, also would make a great title! This a marvelous conclusion to the first part. Heavy is the heart that now it is concluded.
He may not have occupied the same space in time, but he momentarily, or perchance it was an eternity, accidentally slipped through the veil when he climbed the hill that day, and visited a place called Hell. Where all good hangmen are put out to pasture.
“Extract from it whatever means the most to you. Leave the rest for the hangman.”
And so I did.
One more gory part of a hanging, petechial hemorrhages of the conjunctiva. ( I thought you would appreciate the medical terminology 😊).
"petechial hemorrhages of the conjunctiva" -- I had to Google this to check. Very good usage. Full marks. I approve. ;)
Thank you for extracting what was necessary here. I know this probably didn't end up where most people thought (or wanted) it might go, but, well... it ended up where the story wanted to go.
Firstly, brilliant. Always. Of course. And loved the sign off, for the hangman.
Secondly, I was interrupted part way through by [family life]. On my return, picking up part way through, it seemed as though a full beam was being described to me, the deepest of beams and the corresponding flow of sweat.
This one went a different way than I expected but then you are so good at that. It reminded me of this short story that made a huge impression on me in 5th grade. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridgehttps://g.co/kgs/kw1hNi1
Thanks, Ben! Whilst the title rings a bell, I must admit I'm not familiar with the actual work. I'm just reading the wiki page now and it has me definitely intrigued. "and is known for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is an early example of the stream of consciousness narrative mode." 👍👍
Frankly, the wikipedia explanation strikes me as a load of self-aggrandizing hogwash. Just read the original, Nathan. It's a masterful story, masterfully told: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/375/375-h/375-h.htm
This has real Poe vibes, and I love that from you, man!
Thanks, Andrei. I think there's a fair raft of things swirling around in my head at the moment, literary-wise. A constant cocktail that still needs to be distilled through these experiments. Appreciate you reading, buddy.
I agree. Especially in the repetition of the hangman's lament...
Fascinating, and scary. I assumrd the face of the hangman would be yours.
Thanks, Terry! Appreciate you reading.
I wasn't sure how ambiguous to make that...
Ambiguity is your friend. It leaves the door ooen to further bifurcations in the story, should you want them
I hear the Twilight Zone theme playing in the background. Very appropriate for this scene. X - FILES ? 🔮<--- NOT MANY emojis depicting mystery mysterious or eerie.....
Appropriate emoji. ;)
The X-Files theme is such a key part of my childhood. It still sends shivers down my spine.
True.
Have you seen the original TZ episode based on an Ambrose Bierce story ( which was not written as a TZ episode BTW ) ? This reminds me of that adaptation, KIND OF.
(If Lor makes it here, I'm sure she has...)
I belive so. You mean incident on a bridge?
Aye, that's it. I believe that it was done in the 50s, but don't quote me.....
I won't. But I don't recall it as a TZ episode. I saw this in a literature class:
https://youtu.be/Mj8AlanAfUw?si=3Ewvnjq3jxPMwKEO
You've woven an interesting tapestry here. C. G. Jung would probably say that it has dreamlike imagery. I've had similar dream imagery.
Forget JUNG ! A shaman would love this. FROM ANY CULTURE.
Hehe, thanks Daniel! Weaving an interesting tapestry is always my goal.
Rod Serling told me to give you a TON of UPVOTES if possible !
How kind of Rod. If you're able to somehow speak to him beyond the veil then send him my thanks.
actually, it's time travel. He died of complications from lung cancer, emphysema, or both. He said he'd stop smoking if I STOPPED DRINKING, SHROOMING & USING THC. GAH !!
Loved this Nathan. Now, I’m maybe not as well read as some of the other commentators on here, but this brought to mind the finest type of horror fiction. It’s not gory or actually horrific in any way, yet it has that sense of unreality, of a step through the veil into something or somewhere that we are not meant to see in our daily lives. Another world that perhaps exists alongside ours and carries the weight of past horrors. See, there’s that word again 🤔😁
Think that vision of the hangman continually repeating his unrelenting mantra and begging the night for forgiveness will stay with me for a while. Brilliantly done my friend 👏
Oh wow, thank you, Dan. To elicit such a feeling is more than I could have hoped for. It is my favourite type of horror, too. And don't worry, I have much respect for how well read you are. :)
"I wrote this semi-consciously, its meaning buried and blurred. Extract from it whatever means the most to you. Leave the rest for the hangman." Thanks for this "confession", Nathan. You have some fascinating bits here. They seem to be parts of two or three different stories in one. I want to hear them all! By the way, I personally, would like to see the photo at the head of the story rather than presented as an afterthought. I think it would be a hook that adds focus?
Thanks Sharron. I think I used to do that, but then started shifting to the end. But you're right, it can really help to set the tone and focus. I will definitely consider doing so moving forward.
And yes, there's a lot going on here, perhaps too much crammed into too short a space, but at least it gives me something to perhaps come back to one day.
I agree.
My dear departed mum, a great reader of Edgar Allen Poe who loved the macabre, the inexplicable of a mystery, saw ghosts everywhere. She had difficulty persuading my very down-to-earth, no grey father but to us, her three girls she would recount her sightings in glorious gory detail while we sat, our hearts pounding, almost out of our chests or so it seemed, shrieking and clinging to her side. To this day I don't know which were true and which were a fabric of her rich imagination!
Nathan, this story could have fallen from her mouth, I love the addition of the ants' mandibular jaws - 'mandibular' always a word that conjures a certain dread and this line, "Dawn had almost arrived, the sun still a coward behind the rise but probing the sky with its infinite rays." as if the sun too were fearful....
I think that's a nice mystery to remain within. I have no doubt your mother was a wondrous wordsmith and weaver of tales, but based on what you've said before then I have no doubt she was also highly attuned to things -- more so than most.
Perhaps, in some way, our discussions of her in a previous post has somehow imparted her wisdom into me and that is what led me to this story.
I love that thought Nathan, perhaps she read our conversation!
I've often wondered how it must have felt to be the subject scheduled to be hanged, knowing your own fate, walking in the footsteps of so many that had come and gone before. Your story spoke to that morbid and haunting curiosity. Nice work Slake. I really enjoyed your reading as well.
Ive often wondered how it must have felt to be the hangman
Me too. A horrible position to be in.
Thanks so much, Tarik!
Wowza. This entire story is wildly layered and complex, I want to go back and read both parts now in one sitting….and yet despite the tangled timelines, it’s very much tethered to this wonderful immediacy of the hill, the ants, “life marching on” —the past and the present. I love how the gallows offers a place a reckoning, where your protagonist wrestles with his own sentencing, whether it’s his youth, his ability to connect, or even his sense of self.
(if you do, perhaps it's all broken and doesn't flow together, haha.)
Thanks so much, Kimberly. Love your thoughts as always.
I just mentioned to Silvio that I feel this could, in some way (perhaps with tweaks) be a backstory segment of The Sernox, part of the protagonist's earlier years, before things descend further.
Omygod, YES!
Maybe your semiconscious writing is actually more deeply conscious! I know what you mean though - like the words and thoughts come from some other place. Love the way you kept repeating this line: “Many have I hanged. Heavy is the heart that has hanged.” It is a brave thing to do, to say it over and over. It works here — building the weight of the man’s deeds and ominously calling out to the narrator. Always enjoy searching for versions of reality in your work, Nathan!
Thanks, Kate. Love your thoughts. Did you see Nick's comment on that quote vs trimming it so it doesn't have the "that has hanged". I really like that he offered that critique up. I think, though, that this version is still the one that works in my head, but I can see how someone may read the flow differently.
The repetition for me served as a means of showing obsession by the hangman and a total solitude that he was within.
There are some fragments of truth within this piece. The name of the hill on my undergrad campus, for one.
Oh nice, I meant even like “what is reality?” And the consciousness of the reader. But even better when there are layers of your experience/life. As long as you weren’t at the gallows!! :)
It’s great when comments help you push your writing forward. In this case, I agree with your original version. Your version personifies the heart. Also, instead of going for the most concise, it adds a clunky aspect that mirrors the mind of the hangman.
Spoken like a true scholar, Kate. Thank you. 😁🙏
(And no gallows, thankfully.)
What a marvellous sequel, Nathan. I won't call it a finale, as you and I both know that no such thing exists. I savored every word. This, I just restacked, but I want to highlight it in here too: "For some days I tried to piece together what I had seen, trying to link the feelings spoken by the girl whose surname was a medieval tune, of the hangman whose voice repeated over and over, and of my heart, locked and incapable of beating its own blood, the organ in my chest I had extracted and offered on my palm to find it containing nothing but sunken valves. I couldn't piece it together. I still can't." -- words fail me.
Thanks as always for your open and lovely words, Silvio. Yes, I appreciate that we both know that something isn't necessarily a finale. I'm still wondering whether this is part of The Sernox, a flashback to years earlier in the protagonist's life. If that's so then a few tweaks would need to be made, but I'm open to the idea if/when I come back to that story.
I wrote some of this one in a disjointed order and then moved the pieces around. This part that you quote was one that helped me sit within the piece and allow the semi-conscious writing to continue.
I really liked that one. And your possible connection to The Sernox is interesting. I look forward to seeing you trying it out. :)
This is like walking around in a Surrealist painting . . . so weird and dreamy. I like how you foreshadowed the hungry ants (Yikes!)
I get a very agreeably SPOOKY VIBE. Jung approves. As does Rod Serling.
Hehe, glad to hear it Daniel!
I love this. A walk through a Surrealist painting via words. Thanks, Ann!
“The Hat and the girl whose name was an old English folksong” love that, also would make a great title! This a marvelous conclusion to the first part. Heavy is the heart that now it is concluded.
Thanks mate! Thanks for reading. 🤗
Utterly chilling, Nathan - I'm reaching for a blanket to hide under... 👻
Hehe, hope the blanket was a sufficient covering.
There’ll be something more wholesome from me this week, I think/hope!
He may not have occupied the same space in time, but he momentarily, or perchance it was an eternity, accidentally slipped through the veil when he climbed the hill that day, and visited a place called Hell. Where all good hangmen are put out to pasture.
“Extract from it whatever means the most to you. Leave the rest for the hangman.”
And so I did.
One more gory part of a hanging, petechial hemorrhages of the conjunctiva. ( I thought you would appreciate the medical terminology 😊).
"petechial hemorrhages of the conjunctiva" -- I had to Google this to check. Very good usage. Full marks. I approve. ;)
Thank you for extracting what was necessary here. I know this probably didn't end up where most people thought (or wanted) it might go, but, well... it ended up where the story wanted to go.
Then it’s a good thing I never let comments influence my enjoyment of the story.
(From movies that I have watched, I knew the capillaries in the eyes popped, of course I had to look it up too).
Firstly, brilliant. Always. Of course. And loved the sign off, for the hangman.
Secondly, I was interrupted part way through by [family life]. On my return, picking up part way through, it seemed as though a full beam was being described to me, the deepest of beams and the corresponding flow of sweat.
Hahaha, ah maybe someday to rewrite this section as a beam description.
Thanks so much mate.
This one went a different way than I expected but then you are so good at that. It reminded me of this short story that made a huge impression on me in 5th grade. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridgehttps://g.co/kgs/kw1hNi1
Thanks, Ben! Whilst the title rings a bell, I must admit I'm not familiar with the actual work. I'm just reading the wiki page now and it has me definitely intrigued. "and is known for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is an early example of the stream of consciousness narrative mode." 👍👍
Frankly, the wikipedia explanation strikes me as a load of self-aggrandizing hogwash. Just read the original, Nathan. It's a masterful story, masterfully told: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/375/375-h/375-h.htm
Thanks!
PS having just been catching up on comments here, I note Terry and Daniel's exchange, which is all about this same story!
https://slake.substack.com/p/the-watcher/comment/95053544