[Matt Q]

One of us

“Are you one of us?” they asked as I crawled into their camp, barely conscious, weakened by my wounds and by my hunger, my body and clothing shredded by the thorn trees in the scrubland I had stumbled through for what may have been days or may have been weeks, my maps lost long ago in the mountains, my radio smashed – and useless even before that, in this vast wilderness.

When I came to in the cave, they washed my wounds and dripped water into my mouth from a rag. They gave me small pieces of dried meat and berries to chew. “Are you one of us?” they asked again, and I could only grunt in reply. A small sound, as easily taken as assent as denial.

In the weeks of my recovery, all who I met asked me the same question. And again the next day, and the next. At first I thought it a form of greeting, but I came to see that it was never a question they asked each other. It did not seem to matter how I answered. Each response was met with the same silence, the same flicker of something that might have been suspicion or might have been puzzlement, or even amusement.

Perhaps because I wanted to prove something to myself, or to them, or perhaps because I did not want to die alone wandering the trackless wilderness, I stayed with them. Huddled together with them in the dark of the long winters, mingling the warmth of my body with theirs, and basked with them in the weak sun of summer. I mastered the strange inflections of their vowels, became expert at trapping the large rodents that were their main source of meat. I wore the same clothing they did, made of rodent skins and coarse cloth woven from the bark of the thorn trees. I took myself a mate.

But still each day they asked me, “Are you one us?” And still there was no answer I could give that seemed to satisfy them. In time, I ceased to wonder if they would stop.

Then one spring day, as dusk was leaching the last traces of warmth from the air, I saw the figure of a stranger staggering through the thorn trees towards the camp. I ran to him, catching him as he fell. His limbs were torn and bleeding, his clothing in tatters. His body was gaunt and he was shivering. He looked up at me, his eyes barely able to focus on my face. As I held him, I asked him, “Are you one of us?” Then threading my arm under his shoulders, I helped him to the cave.

--------------------------------------------

P1 "asked me" -> "asked"

P2, cut "that served as their shelter" after "cave"

P2, "just as" ->"as"

P3 "or just because I did not want ..." -> "or because I did not want"

P$ & 5 removed full stop after ending quotation mark.

P4 "woven the bark" -> "woven from the bark"

P5, "they would ever stop" -> "they would stop" ; "I could give them" -> "I could give"

P6, "last few traces" -> "last traces"

[mignon ledgard]

Matt,

I knew it would be a treat.

After the second reading, I will say that it is shifting, which is so a propos.

I will be back. This one requires silence in my abode. You've done wonders with a question.

Smiling,
~mignon

[RCL]

Matt,

This, to me, is the perfect immigrant’s/refugee’s story arc. Wow!

[John Riley]

Matt, this is good. Seriously good. It has a Shirley Jackson vibe, or Borges. There are so many things there or could be there between his arrival and the new man's arrival. Is it so much different than growing up, for example, to be confused but receive no helpful guidance? There are many ways to go with it. That's just one. That's what makes a story great IMO.

There are a few places where my line-editing gene was pushing me. I don't know if there are places that need any touching up or if my cutting addiction took over.

One example

When I came to in the cave that served as their shelter

I don't think you need "that served as their shelter." It is implicit that they are cave dwellers and I don't know that the reader has to be told so point blank.

**

Are you one of us?” they asked me as I crawled into their camp.

I don't think you need "me." Who else would they be asking?


I'll stop. (Soon someone will come in and say Don't touch it!) Who knows? Maybe writing so many 100-word pieces twisted me but I've always worked to make prose as smooth as possible.

Perhaps because I wanted to prove something to myself, or to them, or perhaps just because I did not want to die alone

cut "just."

It's a brilliant story, Matt. Maybe do another line reading/edit? That's all I can suggest.

[Matt Q]

Mignon, Ralph and John,

Many thanks for reading and commenting. I don't write much (prose) fiction. I'm very pleased you all enjoyed it.

Mignon,

I look forward to your return.

Ralph,

Immigration is a take I wasn't thinking of when I wrote this. But now you mention it, yes. That works too, which is a bonus.

John,

I've taken your advice and tightened it a little more. No doubt it'd still benefit another go-through at some point. I've taken two of your suggestions and found a couple more spots where I could lose a word. I've kept "that served as their shelter" for now, since it seems to me that the cave could serve another function. Maybe a more ritual one, for example. But I'll keep the suggestion, and may well at some point decide it's better to cut that part.

I've wondered a little if I need the first sentence of the 4th para. Maybe it's better just to state, "I stayed with them" and leave the reader to speculate as to reasons? Keeping it for now, but I'm not sure.

Thanks again all,

Matt

[mignon ledgard]

Matt,

This one, too, has images and tone that evoke the Bible, including the man in tatters, wounded, fallen and taken into the cave, where he was fed and his wounds were washed and water dripped into his mouth. There is also the thorn tree, and other instances.

However, personally, it reminded me of an old hotel turned into a Christian school and College, where most of the people I met were teachers and students who lived in the dorms. They seemed like a huge, loving family, but I felt compelled to say “I am not what you call saved,” as if they had asked me if I was one of them.

For the most part, the poem retains a peaceful, yet deafening, silence, from where the actual story emanates. Oops, I called it a poem—the saying without saying did it—ha. By deafening, I mean that, to me, it even has a sound of its own, like being high up in the hills has a sound of its own. Obviously, it is far from the sound of a city; this would take a trance to explain, unless others, too, experience a ‘sound’ of some sort.

The story begins and ends the same way, so you wrapped it up quite neatly and with the strongest effect. Also, it gives the sensation that the, now, resident of the camp meets himself and, seemingly, accepts his new life, for which he worked long to attain. Not without a fair psychological load, the renouncement to old ways and comfort, to embrace a complicated simplicity. (Likened unto a profession of faith.) Though I am also reminded of a time when I felt the need to prove to myself that I was still capable of being more than a little uncomfortable: I got rid of most of my belongings and moved into a room that was only one linear foot larger than my closet, in someone else’s house..)

Here’s a Google find that surprised me:
From Josh 5:14:
‘Whose side are you on? Are you one of us,
or from the enemy’s camp?’

I found the story quite remounting and somewhat deja vu.

Happy, happy,
~mignon

**I don't know how to go about praising your writing and the result of it always showing how much thought you put into it and how you are able to transfer the wordless to the reader. Yet, it is smooth, not forced, and in good measure. The 'space' of this one suits its prose quite well.

I,ll read the revision now. Sorry about my turtleness.
~m

[John Riley]

Matt, in the interest of being as argumentative as possible, I'm back. If you remove "that served as their shelter" the reality that the cave is the people's shelter is quickly obvious. There isn't time for the reader to ponder "Is this cave their shelter? Or perhaps it's their whatever?" The understanding it's their home flows into the narrative. We know instinctively he's entered their home and by calling it "shelter" it diminishes its importance. It turns it from a home to a house.

All IMO. It isn't a big deal. I do think it's worth thinking about though.

It reads much better after the edit. It's smoother and easier to see and feel.

Best

[mignon ledgard]

Hello again, Matt,

I’m not up-to-date with how relaxed rules are for prose, as compared to how it is for poetry. I’d like an expert’s opinion on this. In the meantime, I hang on to how it’s been, for me, with far fewer liberties than I take when writing poems.

For instance, the second paragraph might look like this:

‘When I came to, in the cave that served as their shelter, they washed my wounds and dripped water from a rag into my mouth. They gave me small pieces of dried meat, to chew, and berries. Again, they asked, “Are you one of us?” and I could only grunt in reply. A small sound, as easily taken as assent as denial.’

. . . as easily taken as assent as denial seems uncomfortably run-on. I feel bumped aside to solve a riddle, while adding commas would clarify.

I have not stopped to imagine where the narrator is, or was, while recalling this adventure. There is nothing negative about what he shares, yet he is not sure why he stayed. Is he writing a journal entry, or talking to a psychoanalyst or an editor? Did he abandon or abduct his camp ’mate’?
I hope my personal thoughts are not imprudent, since I don’t know if they are justified or I’m way off ‘threading-in’ the familiarity.
In this instance, a friend’s father’s airplane had fallen in the Amazon jungle (Peru), far more dense then, with more tribes that had not had any contact with outsiders.. He was not found.. After eight years of wife and five daughters mourning, wearing only black, it turned out he had chosen to stay. He had a ‘harem’ and was being treated like a god fallen from the sky.
(I thank your fiction for my recollection of a long lost memory—albeit a cliché, it fits in a story I have been trying to expand.)

There is still room for edits in the penultimate passage, but I may have already gone too far.. Except for ‘from’ to it’s last line:

“. . . I wore the same clothing they did, made of rodent skins and coarse cloth woven [from] the bark of the thorn trees. I took myself a mate.”

Only punctuation:

“Then[,] one spring day, as dusk was leaching the last traces of warmth from the air, I saw the figure of a stranger staggering through the thorn trees towards the camp. I ran to him, catching him as he fell. His limbs were torn and bleeding, his clothing in tatters. His body was gaunt and he was shivering. He looked up at me, his eyes barely able to focus on my face. As I held him, I asked him, “Are you one of us?”(.) Then[,] threading my arm under his shoulders, I helped him to the cave[.]”

I like “threading my arm under his shoulders . . .”

In the closing paragraph, I like the mirror of himself, as presented at the start of the story. Could it be taken as being himself, not merely coming to face himself? If it’s a dream, there you go again!

**This observation traveled south as I typed:

(“All who I met asked me the same thing.”)
All who I met should be All whom I met.

I am going by the fact that the action verb that defines pertains to the first person, while the ‘All’ is defined (passive) by the first person . . .
I’m sure there are better explanations - where’s Julie? She’s an Ace at these.
(Maybe, it’s one of my very own oops, this running into little language riddles.)

Thank you for the fun and the learning!
~mignon

[mignon ledgard]

A quick comment this time, Matt,

I was thinking of the dim sun, when the story did a somersault and turned eerie, still told by what is not said. I suspect it will do yet another somersault when I think I got it right this time around.

Wowser, Wow, Sir!
Ha,
~mignon

A quick addendum: I'm tempted to insert the contrasts intercalating them with my previous comment. (Again, your wonderful image for 'threading.')

[Jim Moonan]

.
I've just now discovered this; I don't know how I missed it. I haven't read the responses; sometimes I can't take the time to find out if others saw what I did. It may be that I end up having nothing to say that hasn't already been said.

It is without a doubt post apocalyptic. Wasteland-like. Strangely, it could also be metaphorically reflecting the entirely of our existence. Could it be that the creation of life as we know it is actually a post apocalyptic event? When I think of it in that way, it makes the most sense. There is a misery being described throughout the story that saddens me. I think it's well-written, though I haven't gone through it with a fine-toothed comb. It reads clearly without any glitches, etc..

Although I've never read any Stephen King novels (only seen a couple of the movie adaptations) this gives me the feeling of one of his more sinister stories but souped up on steroids. It also has a sci-fi bent to it. An extreme episode of The Twilight Zone that was deemed too dark for primetime TV. It might also be the place Didi and Gogo sensed was nearby. I'm reading too much into it, I know : )

I think the story wraps up perfectly, answering the question that reoccurs throughout

As I think I've said before, much of your work that I've read falls into a genre all its own, imo.

I'll read this a couple more times and come back if I need to.

.