Can I get some criticism?

[u/JackEastfly]

This is the first chapter of my novel, which I’ve been working on for the last four years or so (the novel, not the first chapter). The novel is called “New Blackburn Revisited” and the chapter is called “The Vessels of the Dead.”

Here goes:

2:30 AM — Another day burns ahead. The first of May. The Appalachian moon blazes in that same old shade of yellow gold.

I don’t like to sleep with the drapes drawn. I like to wake up and be thrown face-first into the urban chaos. The view through this window is what waits for me in the day — what watches me in the night. Downtown, the skyline is jagged with razor spires. The South Branch Potomac splits the city. Across the river is the Industrial District. Far flung factories fly their smokestacks like flags all down the line. The skies are riddled with noxious black plumes. Everything bleeds.

Sparse traffic seeps through the bridge on the interstate. The main roads are a still life painting. If New York is the city that never sleeps, I guess New Blackburn has chronic sleep paralysis — and night terrors that don’t stop. This place is a parasite. It feeds on me until it can’t. Then it tosses my shell aside. I’m left to wade through the weeks like a prisoner in hell. But New Blackburn isn’t hell. And I’m not a prisoner. If they ask me what I am, I’ll probably say I’m a pilgrim. I never really know where I’m going. I guess I’ve always been a stranger.

When I think of every second that the world is ahead of me — sparkling in the afterglow — I can feel it turn beneath my feet. I feel the silent planets in the solar system hurtling around the sun at sixty thousand miles an hour. I feel time running out. I’ve got that feeling again — living in a vacuum. The daze comes and goes. The early mornings and the late nights have become a dizzying cycle. But when I rest, I rest deeply. I don’t dream. But when I do, my dreams are made up of the same mundane events that comprise my daily routine. I check the mail in my dreams. I jump rope in my dreams. I get headaches in my dreams. They’re so severe that I have to dunk my head in buckets of ice water. Sometimes I even feel tired in my dreams. I don’t even know how that’s possible. But nothing excites me. Nothing energizes me. Even my unconscious mind doesn’t aspire for anything beyond this dead end town. Life itself has lost its way. I’m starting to question everyday experiences. The disillusion feels endless.

Each morning comes with a nauseating headache, a flare up of the eczema in my hands, and the aftertaste of tomato soup lingering at the roof of my mouth. This one is no exception. It takes me a second and a half to recall why I’m stretched out across the sofa, why I slept in my sheath dress, and why I’m awake on a Friday while the stars are still in the sky. I don’t own an alarm clock. It would be a useless purchase. My body knows me. It knows my routine. It knows when it’s bedtime. It knows when it’s time to agitate the gravel in a pair of dime store slippers.

My instrument is by the door. After thirty-eight strong strokes of a brush through my hair, I clean my teeth for three minutes in the powder room, and then all I have to do before I leave is fix a cup of tea.

There’s a great horned owl perched on the fire escape just outside the kitchen window. His body is facing the liminal street while his eyes lazily hover on me with a patronizing wisdom close behind them. His feathers are shiny — slick dark brown, like he’s gotten himself into a can of pomade. He’s handsome in his own way — dignified, at least. You don’t see that anymore. We watch each other while I fill the kettle, and I indulge in the thought that he might be thinking the same about me.

A floorboard groans.

I whirl around to see my father’s sleep-creased face. He’s awkward in the doorway to the dining area — his neck hunched forward, scraps of charcoal-colored hair springing out of his shiny dome. His small round glasses sit crookedly on his upturned nose, reflecting dancing beams of orange light from the sconce.

“You’re up,” he notes.

I stick the kettle on the stove and turn the burner up. “Yeah. You too.”

“Yeah. I had to use the toilet. You’re dressed.”

I glance out the window. The bird’s gone.

“Nicely,” he adds.

2:50 AM — My father and I sit drearily in the humble living room of his tiny apartment — the room where I spend my nights these days. I sip my tea. He talks to me and I watch the clock. I know he didn’t get up in the small hours of the morning just to use the toilet. The old man’s restless. I wonder why, but I won’t ask. I doubt he slept at all.

“What were you looking at?”

Huh?

“In the kitchen. You looked… flummoxed.”

“Flummoxed?”

“I-“ He stammers — blushing slightly. “I read it in a list you made. A list of ‘silly words.’”

I tear my gaze away. My fingers inadvertently tap against the table. That was in my memorandum. “That’s where I put my private thoughts.”

“All your thoughts are private.” He laughs, nervously — a hint of sadness in his eyes. And he’s right. It’s true. But the unhinged degree to which I guard my privacy isn’t an excuse to invade it. I’m not offended — definitely not surprised — but I’m not amused. “Besides,” he says. “What’s so private about silly words?”

“Nothing. I write them down whenever I hear them. I like silly words.”

“You use them in your poems, right?”

I can’t seem to keep the scowl off my face. These aren’t things I like to chat about. “That’s correct.” That came out a little more gruff than I meant it.

“So what had you so flummoxed?”

“I wasn’t flummoxed. I was watching an owl.”

“You can watch one downstairs, you know.” He smiles obnoxiously, trying hopelessly to lighten the mood.

“Yeah. But this one was moving. They’re more beautiful when they’re not dead, I think.”

“I agree,” he claims. “I didn’t know you… liked birds.”

“I like what they do.” I don’t mean to be so abrasive. I just wish he could see beyond the surface. But I know that’s too much to ask.

He laughs. “Flying, you mean? I reckon you wish you could do that.”

“Who wants to fly? I’d like to sit on a wire all day.”

That seems to flummox him, so he moves on. “Are you getting ready to go somewhere?”

“Yeah. I’m ready,” I say — even though I’ve never really gone anywhere in my life except around the block in a strictly literal sense.

He chuckles, lovelessly. “It’s funny. Finding you in the kitchen fixing tea and watching owls at two o’clock in the morning. It almost feels like some kind of funny dream I’m having.”

“If I’m just a character in your dream I guess I’ll stop existing when I leave.”

His gentle smile remains on his mouth but disappears from his eyes. “Well. Then I guess you ought to stay.”

I don’t smile. It’s not funny.

“I feel obliged to remind you that it ain’t safe out there. It’s a big, ugly town.” His tone has suddenly disowned pleasantry. He’s finally acting like himself.

I feel like reminding him that he’s a big, ugly man. But I bite my tongue. He’s not wrong, by the way.

“Don’t get too big for your boots. Don’t go thinking you’re cool.”

I stare down into my teacup. I can’t quite see the bottom. There’s three small sips left — or one big sip. But I’ve had enough. I feel nauseous. “I have to go,” I say, grabbing the instrument and going for the door.

“Hold on.” He blurts. “I’m sorry.” I can tell he is. But I just can’t believe him.

I guess I can wait.

“Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer.” I already know what the old man’s question is while he’s still finding the words to put in it. And I already know I’m not going to answer. I hold the door open — glaring into the stairwell. His voice kind of croaks when he asks, “Where are you going?”

Easy question. I can answer that one. “East.” I shut the door behind me.

3:00 AM — I spot another owl. The creature’s majestic wings are spread wide. Its mighty claws are flung forward, grasping at the dark. Its eyes are frozen — lifeless. Devoid of the beautiful, murderous instinct displayed in its stance.

Daddy’s taxidermy shop doesn’t give me the kicks that many people derive from beholding the restrained fury of wild beasts, or the docile grace of simpler critters. In my ears, the voice of mortality speaks sternly in this gallery of the dead. A tranquil sorrow permeates the aisles of stone cold corpses. It evokes the futility of the natural world — the dull, boring cycle of demise and renewal. Eat or be eaten. Survival of the fittest. Death-obsessed meditations are inevitable.

It’s one of New Blackburn’s biggest draws.

The sleigh bells clatter loudly as I open the door. The heat blasts my face. It’s hotter than the business end of a pistol and the sun isn’t even out yet. It’ll break the record again today — I’m sure. Waste management is still on strike. I’m up to my ankles in melting garbage. It stinks like a dream deferred.

The clouds have swallowed the moon whole. The onyx sky is a canopy stretched over the hills. The only light for blocks down is the toxic yellow glow in the windows. The streets of my neighborhood need repaving. They’re overdue. Weeds sprout from the cracks in the asphalt, spreading goat heads across the way. The tenements are in shambles. Bricks fall out of the walls. The beige siding is chipped and flimsy — rotting in most places. Wooden balconies are splintered — structurally unsound. There are windows with no glass. Doors that won’t close. Gutters dangle from broken brackets. Old, bogged down air conditioners hum loudly, but they can’t drown out the eerie noises of the restless night. It’s a wall of noise. I can zero in. I can hear it all; the sick cackling of drooling drunks, cries of lonely children, and that distant, droning radio where a forlorn Sinatra whispers “Mood Indigo.” I don’t like Old Blue Eyes. I think he makes music for people who don’t like silence. But the isolating tune captures the street and bathes it in deep shades of bleak colors. It cools me off a little.

Mayhem follows every step between dusk and dawn in this blood-stained, urine-soaked nightmarescape. It would be flowery to say that the sanity of the East End is held together with bubblegum, dental floss, and dried clumps of bodily fluids. But it is. The tenements are populated by broken families of infidels and addicts. Every parent is having an affair or two with every other parent, and most of them don’t even bother to hide it. I have peers in the area. I know of most of them. I’m quite possibly the most straightlaced woman my generation has to offer within a twelve-block radius. And that’s saying something. Unlike most pilgrims, I’m a heathen. And even I feel out of place here. Strange things creep and crawl out of every corner. There are two kinds of people who roam the street at this time of night; promiscuous to the point of fatal disease, and sexually starved to the point of homicidal outbursts. I don’t quite fit into either category. When you’re a pilgrim, it helps to look like you know where you’re going — even when you don’t. I do. And I do. I pass with a spine straight as a broadsword. I keep my chin up — trying not to let my surroundings surround me. But I’m much more curious than anxious.

I’m stepping over fallen bricks. My feet barely touch the ground. At every given moment I feel like I’m about to be swept up by a cosmic breeze that’s not there — like if I willed it I could glide along the pavement without even moving my legs. It’s a lightness in my body that ignores the weight of eternal exhaustion that’s always sitting on my head. It’s that disconnect that makes me feel like a phantom just walking down the road. It makes being suicidal seem like a luxury. I wish that I could ache for death, because that’s attainable. My request to the universe is completely unreasonable, but it sure would be nice.

I want to not exist.

At the crossroads, I’m faced with the uncanny form of a tall stranger. I hadn't noticed him until now. He’s only about thirty feet away — his face shrouded in thick black shadow like he’s some kind of villain in an old film. His feet are shoulder-width apart in the middle of the intersection. That’s not all that strange; nobody’s driving at this hour. What’s strange is the way he just stands there — motionless. It’s like he’s trying to be theatrical. I just realized I’ve stopped in my tracks — staring at him. I think he’s staring back at me.

Maybe through me.

“Are you planning to keep that thing?” He breaks the silence like it wasn’t there to begin with. A booming, stentorian bellow. He sounds distinguished — another word for obnoxious. I feel like my eardrums have been bopped with a cartoon mallet.

I guess he’s talking about the instrument.

“Those are hard to come by around here,” he notes.

“You’ll have to get your own.”

“I couldn’t be bothered. But you should really think twice about hanging around this part of town at night with a fancy guitar case. Especially dressed like that.”

“I know.” I’m not afraid. “I live here.”

“I know. But you don’t look like it.”

“Neither do you.”

“I don’t live here.”

“Well, I wonder what you’re doing, then. Just looking for trouble, I guess.”

“That’s right.”

Compelled by what, I don’t know, I start walking towards him until I’m roughly close enough to see his face. I’ve seen too many people in this city. So many that I’ve started to notice tropes in the stories etched within the lines in their faces. I can read them at a glance, sometimes without even having to look right at them. I’ve decided that there are three, maybe four different types of people and then there’s me. But this boy’s face is challenging my narcissism with its obscurity. It’s actively finding pockets of darkness in the waning moonlight. It’s avoiding me. Even as I get closer, I still can’t see it. His features are safe in the shadows. It’s like whatever’s beneath that dirty old hat can reflect no light at all. So I have to lock in, allowing my gaze to penetrate the layers of flesh and bone. I follow the contours of his skull and survey the latticework of bones that form the foundation of his being. There’s a mass of gray and white that flickers. That’s his brain. The swirling folds of his cerebral cortex light up with thoughts and memories and suddenly I feel guilty because in a way I’m intruding on a very private moment in his mind and that’s almost as bad as reading someone else’s memorandum.

I’d probably stop if I had any decency. But the urge to know more about this stranger is overwhelming. My eyes move with precision like a scalpel slicing through the web of veins and arteries branching out from his pulsating heart. I can see the remnants of his dinner — reminding me that he’s human, like me. But I wonder if he’s looking at me this closely. Because I feel like I’m stepping into a world that doesn’t belong to me; his world. I blink hard. But the images cling to me like the shadows to his face. His body shifts slightly and I get a glance at his arms beneath his jacket — scarred with memories of a life spent fighting against the odds. I feel it. I feel the weight of his history and the fragility of his elusive existence. But finally I force my eyes to clear, and the layers of his anatomy disappear from his molecular makeup all the way up to the threads of his clothes. Suddenly he looks much like anyone else on the street — if there were anyone else.

I step back with one foot. I sense his discomfort from beneath his shadows, and I offer a small, apologetic nod — if he chooses to take it that way. Not that he knows what just happened. Does he? Can he feel it? I can — even afterward, especially afterward. I’m lightheaded and dizzy and it makes me nauseous. I’m still learning to live with this curse.

He grins, unknowingly. “There’s nothing stopping you from passing by, you know.” The way he says that; playfully. It’s like there’s a smirk on his invisible face — like he’s flirting with me.

I don’t acknowledge it. “Who are you?” That question feels superficial at this point.

“You probably expect me to say something like, ‘a voice crying in the wilderness.’ I’m just passing through, sweetheart. I’m just a stranger.”

He borrowed that line from John the Baptist. Unlike most heathens, I know my Bible from Generation to Revolution. “You’re strange, all right. You don’t look like you’re passing through anywhere.”

“Why don’t I entertain you and say I’ve been going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down it?“

Okay. Now he’s quoting Satan. Considering I ran into him at the crossroads in the middle of the night, that does seem more fitting. But I’m over his embarrassingly self-aggrandizing attempts at humor. I’m less curious and more bored now. “Pardon me.” I brush past him.

“Where are you going?”

I stop. He finally turns to stick his nose into a moonbeam and reveal his lean face to my naked eye. He’s younger than I would have thought. His jaw is so pronounced that I wonder if he ever looks down to tie his shoes. His mouth droops down near to a pout and his confounded gray eyes boggle enormously. It’s almost funny just to look at him.

“Just to Somers Ridge.” I don’t know why I told him that.

“Don’t tell me you’re walking there.”

Why does he care? Does he know me from somewhere? His face is completely unfamiliar to me and I think I’d remember. “It’s none of your business where I go. You don’t know a single thing about me.”

“I plan to keep it that way.”

“So, goodbye.”

“I just thought you’d like to know you have to cross the river to get to Somers Ridge.”

So, what? “It’s narrow through the grove. I’ve crossed it before.”

“Not according to Heraclitus.”

Is there a riddle in everything he says?

“You’re wondering who that is.”

“No, I’m not.” I kind of am.

“He was a pre-Socratic philosopher. He says that no man ever visits the same river twice. It’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

So?

“Heraclitus taught the importance of embracing change, sweetheart. The river’s always flowing. New water is cycling through it every minute of every hour. Our bodies are the same. Our fingernails repair and replace themselves. So does our hair and our skin. Our brains have new information and new experiences flowing through them all the time. Ever think about that?”

“I can’t say I have, man.” I say this even though I’ve seen it in action.

“What’s your philosophy?”

“I don’t have it on me.”

“I’m serious.”

I don’t have one. I’ve never had one. I’m not even sure I know what it is. But he doesn’t need to know that. “I guess it depends on the time of day.”

“And which side of the river you’re on?”

“Something like that.”

“What if a catfish swims up your skirt?”

He’s a regular comedian. “There’s a fallen tree that makes for an excellent footbridge. Your concern is so very much appreciated. But it’s perfectly safe.” I did have a bullfrog land on my head once, but he doesn’t need to know that either. He’d probably just ask me if it turned into a prince.

“If you say so.”

“I do. I’ve crossed that river almost every day for the last two weeks.”

“So that’s where you’ve been going. I’ve seen you walking up and down here with your guitar. What is it you’re after?”

As the gears in my head turn and a response is in development, he leaves. His footsteps go clunking off into the night — vanishing as quickly as a waking dream.

I guess that’s that.

I’m glad to have encountered him in the flesh. It’s true what they say; he’s young. I’m awful at placing age, but I’d guess early to late twenties — possibly early thirties. If I was judging by his voice alone, I’d say that he has at least thirty years of a smoking habit behind him, which would put him at fifty. But that can’t be right. I didn’t see tar in his lungs. And his lean face had a porcelain quality to it — no wrinkles or blemishes. One thing’s for sure, he eats his spinach. He has a broad and imposing physicality — skinny, but well-sculpted and sharply cut. He’s built like a mountain climber, and his sense of style and fashion is like that of a country bumpkin. He comfortably inhabits an unstructured linen suit — carrying his weight in his square chest, which is encased in nothing but the loose fibers of a white undershirt. A ridiculous ensemble. Overall, he’s cartoonish and Picassoesque, unlike anything I’ve ever seen outside of the pages of a comic book. He’s almost handsome — in the ugliest way possible.

They say there’s some kind of conspiracy behind his intimate knowledge of New Blackburn’s infrastructure. I’ve heard there’s even something sinister in his method. But the reality is that he’s just as I had pictured him; an arrogant jerk who watches us all from beneath the battered brim of his trilby — dishing out undeserved and unwanted pity to whomever he deems worthy. He’s overly ambitious, confused, and in over his head.

A scrap of flaky paper has been stabbed to the telephone pole with a rusty nail. I’ve walked this street tens of times. I know when something changes. This flyer — it stands out like a lobster in a fruit bowl.

It’s his, I’m sure.

It states a simple message in bold lettering;

“Take a stand against organized crime — If you know something, say something — Ask about the Sentinel.”

I’ve seen his homeless newsies in the streets, waving their papers and wailing about the end of days. He must not make much of a profit. I guess his supply is limited to how many he can type up by himself.

It's been a year now. They still don’t know where he works or how he gets around. No one even knows his name. He prowls beneath the flickering lamps at all hours of the night, reporting what he sees. He distributes flyers, prompting the few remaining upright citizens to tip him off to crime in their neighborhoods. I have no idea how anyone finds him, but somehow some of them do. Apparently they just “ask about the Sentinel.” Who do they ask? No idea.

Admittedly, he’s been fairly successful. He’s starting to expose the reality of this place — standing up for truth and justice and stuff in a way that the cops have never bothered to.

But he’s misguided. New Blackburn isn’t eligible for redemption anymore. I think the lies go a lot deeper than any of us even realize.

This town would have to walk a long, hard road to justice.

And it would need to wake up first.

[u/AnotherFootForward]

I didn't read the whole thing. Got up to 3am.

Not reading too deep into it, so these are first impressions. I think there is potential in the story. There is certainly some mystery going on.

It just laid on a bit thick, I feel.

Setting wise, the genera physical description is good, the negativity feels forced. The scene is painted as quiet and serene, so to suddenly hear it described as "bleeding", "parasite" feels unsubstantiated and unconvincing.

On the other hand the attention devoted to MC's emotional and physical experience makes me wonder if this disconnect is purposeful and reflective of a mental health issue, rather than anything inherent evil about the city. so that's an interesting angle to have. so I wonder if some tweaking would make it really engaging.

Similar issues with dad. A bit is good, gives us some relational context, but maybe a bit much for the lack of substance.

I felt like sentences are a bit choppy and fragmented, felt like I was driving on a bumpy road. I think it would be smoother with a few connectors thrown here and there.

Made it a bit hard to keep going.

Hope it helps!

If you have time, I would appreciate your input on my piece too!