"Who profits? Who learns?" Those words were met with laughter. That familiar voice boomed through the hallway, and it seemed that I was not the only guest to the home-seated at the grand table was a crowd of recognizable faces from my past. It seemed that this event was just one big bad memory from the past. And sitting at the head of the table was him-dressed in some sort of Italian suit, not evening trying to hide his family’s wealth.
“Mr. Davis! It’s nice to see that you’ve finally arrived!” Alex’s voice boomed from the other side of the room. I did a quick check to make sure that this wasn’t some dream. It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and everyone around me were Pod People. I was just happy no one looked like Donald Sutherland.
“Please Jim, have a seat.” He seemed to motion to the one remaining empty seat at the table. Alex was making me hate him more and more, just like old times. Always being the one in power.
“So, now that everyone is here, it’s time to be honest. I’m not here to reconnect with old friends.” The tone of his voice already gave way to something worse. It felt like it was just the two of us in the room. Sure, there were others here, but this was a personal affair between the two of us. “-heard about financial troub-“ I was already missing out on the conversation here, imagining beating his face in. I believe my curled smile caused others to look at me strange as he finished his schpeel. “Well Jim, at least you see the humor in this!” Snapping back, I was shocked to see how much he’d changed.
I went ahead and re-edited my post to better fit the guidelines for this next blog. Setting up the scene took too much space and took away from the narrative. Still the scene was taking place in two planes-at the dinner, of course. And then it takes place inside our narrator's head.
ReplyDeleteAnnnd another quick comment, I was a little confused on the criteria for the blog post. Now everything is edited and fixed and wonderful! Happy Friday.
ReplyDeleteIt's a compelling scene, Drew, both realistic and dream-like. Interesting how the narrator suggests that it's like the latter, dismisses that, and then, seemingly by design, there is one chair left for him. This ambiguity is interesting, and there may be other ways to suggest this underlying design to keep us a little off balance. The situation, too, a hated rival holding court and delivering some serious news, is compelling. It's a little bit of a bumpy ride narratively, to be honest, in part because of the inconsistent punctuation and variations in diction. Also wonder a bit about what we're supposed to take from Alex's half-heard speech. Is he in trouble? Are we supposed to understand this? I think it could go either way in a revision. That is, we could discern that something's gone wrong in his life, but this should be more clearly evident, if not stated. Meanwhile, the narrator's loathing could be more clearly defined. What is it that he hates about Alex? How are they rivals?
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