I was just thinking, before I read this story, of how you can phrase things that come from somewhere unthought of, (my favorite; statue John's calligraphy of muscle under the skin and earlier in these stories, the sledgehammer of the sun on the back of John's neck,) but once they're in your head, they seem like the most obvious of images.
This story is a little different than those, the language plain and stark, like you are when you're handling an emergency, focusing on the now and the next step.
At the end, though, that "I've got you," has a whole conversation underneath, about fear and loss and belonging clear enough that Rodney's groggy brain can hear and respond to.
By the time I get there, I'm always choked up, and I can't pinpoint the place where my breath got thick enough to hitch in my chest. I'm unprepared for it to hit me that hard and it sort of came at me from a place I didn't expect, and you did it so subtly, and well, of course, 'cause that's the way you write.
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This story is a little different than those, the language plain and stark, like you are when you're handling an emergency, focusing on the now and the next step.
At the end, though, that "I've got you," has a whole conversation underneath, about fear and loss and belonging clear enough that Rodney's groggy brain can hear and respond to.
By the time I get there, I'm always choked up, and I can't pinpoint the place where my breath got thick enough to hitch in my chest. I'm unprepared for it to hit me that hard and it sort of came at me from a place I didn't expect, and you did it so subtly, and well, of course, 'cause that's the way you write.
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*points to beadattitude's comment*
Um. That.
Yeah, what she said.
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