# Ivan's Life and the Death of Beauty -- 789w, language warning



## Pluralized (Jul 26, 2013)

Ivan couldn’t remember the night before, but his hands were covered in blood.


After the train went past the platform a deep rumbling was replaced by silence. His eyes half-open, and thick, dry saliva crusted on his mouth, wondering where this stained concrete belonged, he coughed and spat onto the gravel below the platform. A weak breeze pushed a fat, hazy stink through the place, and at this hour the only sounds were the rasping breaths he took and the occasional squeal of a morning bird. 


Awareness bore the unmistakable taint of fear with no specific source; somehow the smell of guilt seemed stuck in his beard; he could almost breathe in the wrongdoing. 


Images came and went, flitting about his periphery like nuisance insects; sludge meandered lazily in his veins, a pulsating ache plowed furrows in his skull. For a moment, deep nausea took hold of him, but he washed it away with a long pull from the vodka.  The bottle glugged, and the liquid warmed his esophagus, the corners of his frown relaxed to indifference. Youthful vigor remained into his twenty-third year, though his back and knees had begun to ache. 


The stream of dull images flashed like the flipping of a deck of cards, slowing until each card became clear and memorable; the night before, meeting her at Yelly’s apartment in the city, bouncers at the bar pulling him by the arm, through a sweating crowd and out into the steamy night air. Smoking a blunt behind a dumpster then off in a small car, perhaps a Toyota, toward the north on Peachtree, the smell of vomit and thick perfume; at last parting her lips with his tongue, the sheen off her limp body a sorrow in the moonlight; blood pooling on a tile floor. At last stumbling onto the train at Northside Drive, no particular direction prescribed, no idea who he was with. Then a stabbing of morning through his eyelids, the rumbling of a commuter train, and familiar disgust. Rifling through his backpack, a pint bottle of Smirnoff somehow had survived the night, a far superior and unusual outcome. 


He drained the pint and forced his tongue into the spout, seeking outcast droplets. He tossed it away and felt the grimace of liquor on his brain. 


Home meant nothing for Ivan and hadn’t for some years; staying with friends and acquaintances at first, then living on the street for the past two months. Running his tongue absently over a blackened stump of bicuspid, he attempted to right his internal compass. Signs indicated trains on fifteen-minute intervals. He’d no idea which direction to travel; odds were fifty percent, not terrible given the circumstances. In his pocket he felt a large clump of paper. Currency. He pulled it out, flipping through the fifties and hundreds. 


He ducked behind a column and pissed. Someone else’s blood on his hands, no sign of a murder weapon in his bag, and an unknown quantity of evidence somewhere in the city. And then there was the cash. 


He struggled with clenched eyelids to see her features. Flashes of an elegant, almond-shaped face beneath a dark crown of shoulder-length hair; the bright eyes; a wide, white smile, fuzzy, as if through frosted glass. Frustrated, he concentrated hard, but the liquor smeared the details against the urine-soaked concrete. She hadn’t known he lived on the street, thanks in no small part to his youthful appearance and, thanks to meeting up with Yelly, a shower and fresh clothes.


Northbound toward Atlanta meant the possibility for interrogation, but the anonymity of the homeless population. Southbound, toward Macon, and he’d stick out like a bald patch in a beard. He scratched at his throat, straightened his shirt, and climbed on the northbound train toward the Big Peach. 


The traffic was light that morning; a few business travelers busied themselves with newspapers; a mother comforting her newborn and cautiously eyeing the two or three other dirty-looking bums on the train; and a strange man seated directly across from him, who kept looking up at the ceiling and exhaling forcefully, almost with a grunt. Ivan climbed off the train at Five Points. As the door closed and the train began to move, the man’s face appeared at the window, twitching so fast as to blur his features; his eyes sunken dark places in the caucasian mask. Ivan jumped back and nearly cried out. With the haze of liquor, images melted together and he soon remembered the blood on his hands. The flash of a street sign came to him. Luckie Street. Fifteen blocks away.


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## J Anfinson (Jul 28, 2013)

I can picture everything very well. This was very well written, imo.

This might just be a personal preference, but I would get rid of a few semicolons and create separate sentences in their place. Sometimes too many sticks out like a sore thumb in my eyes. But other than that, I don't see anything that I could improve if it were me writing the story. Good read.


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## Tiamat (Jul 28, 2013)

Some of the imagery you've got in this is pretty amazing.  It really came to life for me.  Not just the pictures, but the smells and the sounds, too.  I felt like I was right there watching events unfold.  The imagery makes sense, though, given the condition of the MC.  If I think back on some of the times  I've been drunk, I remember it in images, like a slideshow of pictures,  complete with smells and sounds.  Pretty cool that you kinda duplicated that, though I don't know if that's what you were shooting for or what.

One little nit though: The technical words pulled me out of the story a little bit though--bicuspid, esophagus.  They seem like awful precise words for an intoxicated person.


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## Kehawin (Jul 28, 2013)

Pluralized said:


> Ivan couldn’t remember the night before, but his hands were covered in blood.
> 
> 
> After the train went past the platform a deep rumbling was replaced by a thick silence. His eyes half-open, and thick, dry saliva crusted on his mouth, wondering where this stained concrete belonged, he coughed and spat onto the gravel below the platform. A weak breeze pushed a fat, hazy stink through the place, and at this hour the only sounds were the rasping breaths he took and the occasional squeal of a morning bird.
> ...



Very good details, really pulled me in.  With the mention of Ivan, Yelly, and Smirnoff, I was a little lost when you mentioned Atlanta and Macon, but I think that's just me and my assumptions    The only thing not highlighted above that I can nitpick on is the drinking of "the" vodka then flashing back to memories and then mentioning finding the vodka in the last sentence of the next paragraph.  On first read, I thought he had vodka, finished it off, then found more vodka.  Took me a second read to understand he drank, then had the flashback, in which he remembered finding the vodka seconds before drinking it.

Thanks for sharing!


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## Timb5 (Jan 25, 2014)

Great opening line here, Pluralised. Really drew me in. I love the imagery (particularly the deck of cards metaphor. Cool idea).

Only bit that confused me was ‘_His eyes half-open, and thick, dry saliva crusted on his mouth, wondering where this stained concrete belonged, he coughed and spat onto the gravel below the platform._’Did you mean ‘_His eye were half open, and thick, dry saliva crusted on his mouth. He wondered were this stained concrete belonged…_’. (or maybe I just read this wrong?).

I’d agree with reviewing semi-colon usage. Maybe play around with other punctuation to see what effect it has (thinking colons, em dashes, brackets). I love semi’s myself so keep a few in 

I didn’t know who/what Yelly was, (but I’m non-US so maybe it’s a local thing). 

Other than that good job. If you haven’t shopped this one already, I think you’d find a home for it at Shotgun Honey.


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## Pluralized (Jan 26, 2014)

Hi Timb - 

Thanks for digging this one up; I'd kind of forgotten about Ivan and his horrible night. 

You're spot-on with your assessment of that confusing line - I think it's just a syntax glitch. I'll give the semi-colons a look once more.

Yelly will probably get changed to some other, more normal-type name, as it's thrown almost everyone who's read this. Really, it was just a stupid name that came out of my head when I was writing. Nothing more. 

I really appreciate the kind words, too. I'll go check out Shotgun Honey (although anything posted out here in the public fiction boards is considered pre-published, so this piece is probably dead as written; check out the Prose Workshop for the non-public stuff that people intend to publish later or just want the work private from the general interwebs). Really appreciate that tip though - SH looks like a place where I could maybe get a toehold with one of my weird little shorts. 

Thank you!


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## stephpend (Jan 28, 2014)

Wow!  I just joined, but based on this quality of writing, I am very happy to be here.  I have to agree with the above regarding semicolons.  There was one line that jumped out at me because it seems awkward:  "Northbound toward Atlanta meant the possibility for interrogation, but the anonymity of the homeless population."  Maybe it was just me, but the sentence seems unfinished.  I like how you used all five senses, including smell.  I'm a fan of using smell to describe settings, people, memories, mostly because the sense of smell triggers a lot of common memories and feelings they bring (for example, cinnamon for Christmas or Grandma's cookies; urine for the seedier parts of town).  Overall, this was excellent.  You really drew me in, and now I'd like to know more!


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## Timb5 (Jan 29, 2014)

Pluralized said:


> I really appreciate the kind words, too. I'll go check out Shotgun Honey (although anything posted out here in the public fiction boards is considered pre-published, so this piece is probably dead as written; check out the Prose Workshop for the non-public stuff that people intend to publish later or just want the work private from the general interwebs). Really appreciate that tip though - SH looks like a place where I could maybe get a toehold with one of my weird little shorts.
> 
> Thank you!



All good man, happy to help and glad you dug SH it's one of my favourite literary haunts on the web :smile:


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## thepancreas11 (Jan 30, 2014)

The beginning is incredibly strong. It really drew me in. I wasn't sure where it was going until the blood showed up on his hands, and then still, I had a bit of trouble following it. That's not a bad thing: he's drunk, so I'd expect a lot of confusion, and it's not like I was completely lost. You do a very good job of setting a scene.

That last paragraph about the man showing up at the window is unclear. I'm not sure what happened. Did the man recognize him? Does this give Ivan some kind of flashback? Elucidate. Also, is his purpose to go see this girl's body on Luckie Street now? I assume so, but I might make it a little clearer.

Not the biggest fan of "Awareness bore the unmistakable..." line either. I've never been a fan of abstract nouns doing verbs.

Other than that, I think this is a pretty taut story with just enough description and action to get me to read it, and in writing, half the battle is getting people to read it. The other half is making sure your piece stands out, and you've done that magnificently well. A murder mystery about a homeless man? It's like Memento for the city streets.


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## Pluralized (Feb 4, 2014)

Hey guys, thanks so much for the feedback on this story. I'm actually re-writing parts of this and I think it's going to be pretty decent. Many thanks for the help and encouragement.

~Plur


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## Timb5 (Feb 5, 2014)

Pluralized said:


> Hey guys, thanks so much for the feedback on this story. I'm actually re-writing parts of this and I think it's going to be pretty decent. Many thanks for the help and encouragement.
> 
> ~Plur



I'd be up for a read if you want to send it my way :wink:


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