Confessions From The Chair

[icaruslived]

Hidden deep within Norway's Jotunheimen mountain range, surrounded by brilliant, glittering ice as far as the eye can see, there lies a house where no one lives.

In eras past, it has been a longhouse, or a manor, or a tent, or a cathedral, but right now, it is just a house. It has big, thick, clear glass windows, through which the bright sunlight

Comments

[gratefuladdict]

I'm a fan.

[icaruslived]

Thank you!

[anyonesghost]

iamamiwhoami?

[icaruslived]

Google tells me they're a Swedish band, or some such? Is there a connection?

[anyonesghost]

Not directly. That band / media artist collective started posting these surrealist videos online a couple of years ago ... anonymously. At the time, nobody knew where the videos came from, what they meant, what the source was, if there were hidden messages embedded ... just that the videos were mesmerizing, and strange, and personal, and terrifying, and vaguely Scandinavian. So it's the first thing of which I thought when I read your entry.

That's not a bad thing. :-) Your story provokes a lot of great imagery and raises a lot more questions than it answers. It's gotten my attention. I want to know more.

[elledanger]

This was really interesting - I liked this!

[icaruslived]

Thank you very much!

[rayaso]

Wonderful! This was very well written.

[icaruslived]

Thank you! There are definitely pieces where you find yourself deliberating a lot longer on things like word choice, aren't there? :D

[eska818]

How... odd. This has a very Doctor Who feel to it!

...and they, sometimes, smile.

This is awkward to me, the oddness feels too forced and purposeful - I think it would be more powerful written something like:

... and sometimes, they smile.

[whipchick]

I'm gonna put in a vote for the original - I like the stuttering of the end. It makes me feel like it's less pat, and reminds me of the physical staggering they'd probably be doing at this point.

Nice allegory!

[icaruslived]

Thank you! And yeah, this piece was basically born out of, well, "what really are the crucial parts of a confession?" Once I stripped everything else out, this piece just jumped forth!

[icaruslived]

Ooh, Doctor Who was actually a connection that hadn't even crossed my mind - but now that you mention it, the sense of "somewhere in this vast universe there is every thing that your philosophy dreams of and every thing it doesn't" is straight out of so many of its cold opens, isn't it?

I'm not really sure what to do with the smile line. I really think the "sometimes" needs some delineation - I'd prefer

and, sometimes, they smile

over

and sometimes, they smile

But I get the sense that that would feel just as forced to you.

And I really like the specific separation of "smile" from "they" - I dunno, maybe I'm picking too much into words, but "they smile" feels so much more immediate, you know? I want that distance there :p