Widower's Lament and Dark Consolation

The man leans forward, intrigued. “Can you remember anything?”

He remembers everything. The struggle without a fight. Why couldn’t he fight? He remembers knowing the darkness could do anything with him and his lover that it wanted. She is dead. But he is alive. It wanted him to live. It wanted him to be tormented.

“Not much of a talker, huh?” Silence. Deep, expansive, silence. “Okay, then. That’s quite alright. Maybe let’s be more specific. Can you tell me what happened to your partner?”

Whatever had been stifled by the darkness had gotten to her. He had looked down to behold a personless face laid limply in his arms. Whose blood was that? Everyone’s. It had been some sort of hellish baptism; a bloodbath.

Now he feels as if he is crying, but his body has no response. What could be that throe inside himself? Is it the very horror within him clawing its way through his skin? No. It’s only his throat, sore from holding back the welp of sobs.

Even if he wants to cry, how can he? He met his quota of tears that night when the darkness had fled in and fled out just as quickly. And then he was alone; forlorn. Her body was still there, but she had gone. Well, he hadn’t known so as fact. He had been too shaken to check her vitals. He had been fearful he’d find that her heart had failed and he knew he was too feeble to save her. But there was so much blood. All he could do was wail into the loneliness of the woods for a savior and weep because nobody was around to answer him. They had all known better. They had all known to fear the darkness.

“This is all normal” The man leans back into his seat again. A deep breath. “This is all expected. You’re in shock and that’s perfectly fine and healthy. It’s a difficult path, but I’m confident you’ll find your own special way through. Things will get better. Really.”

Special. She was so incredibly special. She was the only person he had ever truly been in love with. She was the only person who had ever truly been in love with him. He had loved others, of course he had, but they were different. He wasn’t in love. And they had been deranged, usually. Or outright liars. Just manipulative.

“Look, look” The man’s eyebrows are concerned caterpillars. “Let’s get you back to your room. You really should take a rest. I’ll give you a call when we find out more about her. You give me a call whenever you’re more comfortable with talking. That’s all we want here. For you to feel comfortable again.”

Comfort. The word rings in his mind. He raises from his chair, eager to leave this God forsaken place. Together they walk the lengthy, deserted halls of the psych ward. It’s always so bright in those halls, despite the lingering darkness of depression and mania floating amongst the patients. They arrive at his room and the man offers his condolences once more before wishing him a good evening. The door closes and the light is switched off for the night.

And the in the darkness: a smirk, a scream, comfort.

Reviews

[JPDonelan]

Overall, I have to say this was a fairly interesting little piece. Had some nice imagery, and phrasings I rather liked (one particular line I really liked, now eludes my memory). That said, there are some spots that might benefit from another look at.

First thing I want to note is that there is potential for confusion with the use of "The man" and "He" in this piece. I say this, having actually gotten confused at one point. Part of it is how I was working on other things while reading, and the other has to do with the early references. Going from "The man" and his dialogue, to saying "He" threw me off.
My other remarks I'll break up by paragraph and, where needed, sentence.

Paragraph 4, last sentence: Little poking around has me confused with the use of "welp." Contextually, I get what you were going for, but the word (or slang) does not seem to have anything to do with noise. Want to say wails or weeps would serve the sentence better.

Paragraph 5: First sentence is mite confusing. No response to what? The feeling of crying? Second sentence might benefit from changing one instance of the word "fled" (I want to say the first one, since the second works much better contextually). Eighth sentence confuses me some, as I am not certain about the choice of "but" in that sentence. More importantly, I'm not entirely sure what the sentence adds to the paragraph (at least with how I read the paragraph, the sentence seemed to come out of no where and slip away just as fast).

Paragraph 9, second sentence: "Raises" should be "Rises".

A good piece, thank you for the opportunity to read it.

[TheUnrulyWriter]

Thank you for the in-depth review. Some of these oddball world choices were purposeful, but others are things I hadn't caught (or my editors and online paper graders, for that matter).

"The man" and "he" is a bit confusing at first, but that's sort of the magic of the story; it starts of confusing, get clearer around the middle, only to leave you confused again at the end.

You also caught the word welp, which is an unusual onomatopoeia to use for crying noises. That’s exactly what I was going for. I would go more in depth with that word, but it holds a lot of meaning, and I don’t want to reveal too much in fear of biasing your interpretation. Not to mention, this reply is already super long….

And yeah, that sentence is just plain weird. It was meant to mean that his body was having “no response” to his inner feeling of crying. So in other words, he felt like he was crying, but came to realize that his body was not reacting to his emotions. I wanted to convey that he was in shock and slipping away from reality, but it got lost while trying to translate my thoughts to words. :/

As for the unclear reasoning behind the usage of “but”, The Man was debating whether it was even worth it to attempt to save his partner’s life. He’s thinking “I’m so weak, so I shouldn’t even bother, but there’s so much blood, so I should act out before it’s too late”. I suppose that was just another badly-executed thought process.

Lastly, raises vs. rises. I totally didn’t even know about the whole transitive or intransitive thing going on there. Not to mention, I’ve had this proofread by multiple people and websites. Yet you’re the only one who caught it! Kudos to you, man. You can honestly say you’re more observant than four people and computer put together.

Again, thank you for the review! This is by far the most helpful and clear review I’ve gotten so far :)

P.S. Sorry for how messy this reply is; I’m typing this at 2 in the morning.

[JPDonelan]

Your reply was fine and I am glad to hear that some of the things I picked up on were intentional, such as the "The man" and "He" thing you had going, as well as the "welp" onomatopoeia (which, I must confess, I had a feeling you were going for and have seen in effect before; decided to err on the side of caution and touch on it.)
I am glad I could help. Keep up the good work.

[Kasey Nichole]

Loved this, write more! I can't wait to continue reading.

[TheUnrulyWriter]

Thank you! This was just a flash fiction, so there won't be a continuation, but I have more of my works posted and I'll be posting more soon :)