LJ Idol Week 42: Flies

[crisp_sobriety]

What follows is the best account I can give of the last three times I saw my brother.

The third-to-last time, it was mid-August, and he rang my doorbell. I can still remember what he looked like when I answered. A mirage with the heat-lines from the road all around him.

I said, “Jesus,” and he smiled.

Back then -there are years and years in

Comments

[i_17bingo]

He sat very like you -leaned forward, hands clasped between the knees. Oh, don’t move…I don’t mean to make you self-conscious..

This is a little freaky, because it's exactly the way I was sitting when I got to this sentence. But then again, the whole piece is freaky... but not creepy. That seems like a weird things to say about the story of immorality via absorbing insects that features a dead woman sitting up in bed, but it's true.

Maybe it's because I was really drawn in by the first part, which is too much like getting a visit from a bipolar friend who disappeared when depressed and reemerged manic and delusional. You nailed that feeling perfectly.

And the question I asked as I finished was, when she saw her brother I wonder if the bug creature she saw was, like the flies, invisible to the rest of us; i.e. everyone else on the street saw a regular human being.

[crisp_sobriety]

I love this comment for a few reasons.

First, I was cackling when I wrote that line, because I knew someone would be sitting like that as they read. Hee!

Second, you hit the nail on the head --that feeling of encountering a bipolar family member in their manic phase is exactly what I was drawing on. So I'm really glad it worked for you!

And good question. :3 I'll say...whatever appearance he takes for the rest of us, he is apparently pretty hard to find.

Thanks!

[bleodswean]

YIKES!!! Well paced and captivating!

[crisp_sobriety]

Hee, 'yikes' is a flattering reaction, considering!

Thanks so much! :3

[tsuki_no_bara]

this is weird and creepy and vaguely disturbing and really, really interesting. i like the conversational tone and the absolute lack of details that might place it in a time and location, and i really like the way the narrator and her brother kind of physically mirror each other, even after she gets cancer, and at the end it's more that he's an outward expression of what she's turned into, or she's an inward expression of what he's become.

altho with all stories about immortality, i have to wonder - if she hasn't physically aged, hasn't anyone noticed?

[crisp_sobriety]

There's a subtle hint at the beginning as to the time-frame...she says she's smoking a Camel cigarette because Doctors smoke them. That happened in a very specific period of time. Also the 'married?/no, working' exchange backs that up.

I like to think she's just kept moving, and doesn't make many attachments. There's obviously more to it, but it wasn't the focus of this particular story. :)

Thanks so much for reading and commenting!

[murielle]

I got the Camel reference, but then I probably saw the commercials on T.V. as a child.

There's more? More, please?

(Edited twice for stupidity--mine.)

[crisp_sobriety]

Awesome!

As for 'more,' well, we'll see what happens. :3

[comedychick]

I really enjoyed reading this piece, and felt engaged throughout. Definitely an intriguing story, and I liked the way it was told.

[crisp_sobriety]

Hey there! I'm really glad you liked it. :3

[murielle]

Creepy! I fell into your story with the same ease and anticipation I used to fall into Stephen King's short stories back in the day. Eerily suspenseful, it left me longing for a little bit more...maybe just a little bit more than a little bit, if you know what I mean.

[crisp_sobriety]

Stephen King has written some of the most engaging and readable short stories (and novellas, for that matter) in recent memory, so that's quite a compliment! Thank you so much! :3