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Elegy for Left Hand Alone
Nicky Fincher was somewhere between buzzed and resolutely shit-faced when he climbed over the brick wall—not too high—of Rockside Cemetery. It was night, so deeply nocturnal that only the crickets and corpses could hear the bumbling steps of the forty-year-old drunkard, and neither of these parties voiced any objections to the disturbance.
Still in his grey suit, as if he'd just come out of the office, his tie loosened around his neck, like a schmuck, Nicky made his way through the tombstones, half-blind. Tombstones. An army of tombstones.
He was looking for his wife.
Soon enough he stumbled upon the marker of his wife's final resting place; rays of moonlight informed him of a set of letters and numbers. Albertine Fincher, loving wife, amazing woman, born in 1961, died in 1997. Never mind that she thought Jim Carrey was a superb comedic actor, that she aspired to be an editor for The New Yorker, that her favorite song was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles, and so on and so forth into oblivion.
Nicky got on his knees, dirtying his pant legs, reading these letters and numbers that represented—to an outside observer at least—a very basic outline of Albertine's life. Resting his hands on his thighs, his face beaded with sweat, Nicky said, "Been six months, huh?" He almost laughed. "Doesn't feel like six months. Does it? Heh?" He leaned forward, as if expecting a answer, and not getting one. "God, I'm sorry." He then said "sorry" again, almost like a robot, but laced with too much shame.
He dug his nails into his pants, and had his legs not been clothed he would've surely broken the skin.
The shame of it.
The shame of it would outlive him.
"I'm sorry," Nicky mumbled. It was truly a shameful act to be thinking about what Albertine looked like; it wasn't, of course, shameful that he missed her physical presence, but rather it was the fact that he now thought about her attractiveness.
When she was alive, it was easy to put aside how she carried herself, how she was the most gorgeous brunette Nicky had ever met in his life, how her bare breasts were as if written about in the Song of Solomon, how her buttocks fit perfectly in the palms of his hands, how she would work him like he was a dog or a dolphin, begging for a treat, only to relieve him of his suffering at the right moment, at the apex of something trying and yet wonderful.
Degrading to contemplate.
This was not to say Nicky, even in his grief, didn't attempt in earnest to find a physical replacement for Albertine. For a man who had recently hit forty he was by no means unattractive, with the asterisk that his hairline was no longer the upstanding citizen it had been in its youth. He could find a replacement, certainly—be it a whore or a friend of a co-worker. For instance, as Nicky gazed at Albertine's tombstone with empty eyes, like Jack Nicholson's at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, his mind rewound the film and showed him the unfortunate encounter with Clarice, who was a fairly cultured whore. There were a lot of whores in New York, but not many of them were into Don DeLillo novels. With Clarice, Nicky at least figured he was in good hands. Still, it was not enough. And not for lack of trying. In the midst of making love—or fucking, to put it more accurately—Nicky kept seeing flashes of Albertine, his dead wife, and at some point he gave up. So did Clarice. Nicky cried into Clarice's chest, and Clarice petted his head like he was a wounded dog.
No, he decided that, at least for the foreseeable future, he must have Albertine; he wanted to feel her again.
With no one to interrupt him, with no one to tell him he shouldn't do it, he started thinking about Albertine, considering her face, her curves, how she looked when she got out of the shower, and his mind sank into the image.
His left hand moved, unconsciously, along his pant leg, toward his belt, undoing it. His zipper went down, down, down—
By the time Nicky realized what he'd done he had made a mess on his fingers, on his groin, on the earth beneath him.
He could not stop thinking of Albertine.
"God," he said tiredly, wanting to pass out and not wake up.
Still in his grey suit, as if he'd just come out of the office, his tie loosened around his neck, like a schmuck, Nicky made his way through the tombstones, half-blind. Tombstones. An army of tombstones.
He was looking for his wife.
Soon enough he stumbled upon the marker of his wife's final resting place; rays of moonlight informed him of a set of letters and numbers. Albertine Fincher, loving wife, amazing woman, born in 1961, died in 1997. Never mind that she thought Jim Carrey was a superb comedic actor, that she aspired to be an editor for The New Yorker, that her favorite song was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles, and so on and so forth into oblivion.
Nicky got on his knees, dirtying his pant legs, reading these letters and numbers that represented—to an outside observer at least—a very basic outline of Albertine's life. Resting his hands on his thighs, his face beaded with sweat, Nicky said, "Been six months, huh?" He almost laughed. "Doesn't feel like six months. Does it? Heh?" He leaned forward, as if expecting a answer, and not getting one. "God, I'm sorry." He then said "sorry" again, almost like a robot, but laced with too much shame.
He dug his nails into his pants, and had his legs not been clothed he would've surely broken the skin.
The shame of it.
The shame of it would outlive him.
"I'm sorry," Nicky mumbled. It was truly a shameful act to be thinking about what Albertine looked like; it wasn't, of course, shameful that he missed her physical presence, but rather it was the fact that he now thought about her attractiveness.
When she was alive, it was easy to put aside how she carried herself, how she was the most gorgeous brunette Nicky had ever met in his life, how her bare breasts were as if written about in the Song of Solomon, how her buttocks fit perfectly in the palms of his hands, how she would work him like he was a dog or a dolphin, begging for a treat, only to relieve him of his suffering at the right moment, at the apex of something trying and yet wonderful.
Degrading to contemplate.
This was not to say Nicky, even in his grief, didn't attempt in earnest to find a physical replacement for Albertine. For a man who had recently hit forty he was by no means unattractive, with the asterisk that his hairline was no longer the upstanding citizen it had been in its youth. He could find a replacement, certainly—be it a whore or a friend of a co-worker. For instance, as Nicky gazed at Albertine's tombstone with empty eyes, like Jack Nicholson's at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, his mind rewound the film and showed him the unfortunate encounter with Clarice, who was a fairly cultured whore. There were a lot of whores in New York, but not many of them were into Don DeLillo novels. With Clarice, Nicky at least figured he was in good hands. Still, it was not enough. And not for lack of trying. In the midst of making love—or fucking, to put it more accurately—Nicky kept seeing flashes of Albertine, his dead wife, and at some point he gave up. So did Clarice. Nicky cried into Clarice's chest, and Clarice petted his head like he was a wounded dog.
No, he decided that, at least for the foreseeable future, he must have Albertine; he wanted to feel her again.
With no one to interrupt him, with no one to tell him he shouldn't do it, he started thinking about Albertine, considering her face, her curves, how she looked when she got out of the shower, and his mind sank into the image.
His left hand moved, unconsciously, along his pant leg, toward his belt, undoing it. His zipper went down, down, down—
By the time Nicky realized what he'd done he had made a mess on his fingers, on his groin, on the earth beneath him.
He could not stop thinking of Albertine.
"God," he said tiredly, wanting to pass out and not wake up.
Nicky Fincher was somewhere between buzzed and resolutely shit-faced when he climbed over the brick wall—not too high—of Rockside Cemetery.
And we're off to a great start! :D
Still in his grey suit, as if he'd just come out of the office, his tie loosened around his neck, like a schmuck, Nicky made his way through the tombstones, half-blind. Tombstones. An army of tombstones.
He was looking for his wife.
Very strong hook.
No, he decided that, at least for the foreseeable future, he must have Albertine; he wanted to feel her again.
...well, this went in a disturbing direction. This story is going to make the top of my slate, because the prose is good, the hook is strong, and it's well crafted, but damn that's weird.
Hot take before I even start reading: a composer (I think it was Maurice Ravel, but I may be remembering wrong) had a friend who was an accomplished pianist, but who lost an arm, so Ravel wrote a piece specifically for him that could be played with only the left hand. The title evokes that to me, and I'm wondering if it'll have anything to do with that. And... no, it had the meaning I was afraid it would.
There's a piece of writing advice I picked up long ago that you can either load up the subject or predicate of a sentence, but it's a bad idea to do both, or the sentence will start to ramble and lose focus. This isn't a problem you have throughout the story, but I did want to point our this one. It's not that bad, but you load up the front of the sentence with four descriptive elements and the back with one. So it's not that unbalanced. But look at the kind of descriptive elements you're stringing together up front. If it feels more like a list, where it's grouped, it feels like there are less of them than there are. You start out saying what he's wearing, go to his general behavior, go back to his attire, back to his behavior. This might feel like it only has two elements up front instead of four if you grouped the like ones together.
I agree with Nickey about Jim Carrey, though I do rather like that Buggles song.
Fewer careless editing mistakes in this one, but there are still a couple.
As a piece of prose, this is very good. The sentence crafting and word choice are all great. As a story, I don't feel I knew enough about the characters. He's so attached to this woman that he can't let her go, even after she's died, but I can't believe that's due to physical attractiveness alone. They were married, so I doubt that was the entire basis for their relationship. If it was, then I'm not going to be drawn into his pain over it. He knows a lot of details about things she liked and didn't. What did they share? What interests did they have in common? If I don't understand the relationship, then I don't know what it means for him to lose it. I only know the strength of his attachment because the narration assures me it was great, but that's not going to make me have an emotional attachment of my own to it. That's all I think this needs: enough context about their relationship to bring it alive, as it were.
Still in his grey suit, as if he'd just come out of the office, his tie loosened around his neck, like a schmuck, Nicky made his way through the tombstones, half-blind.
There's a piece of writing advice I picked up long ago that you can either load up the subject or predicate of a sentence, but it's a bad idea to do both, or the sentence will start to ramble and lose focus. This isn't a problem you have throughout the story, but I did want to point our this one. It's not that bad, but you load up the front of the sentence with four descriptive elements and the back with one. So it's not that unbalanced. But look at the kind of descriptive elements you're stringing together up front. If it feels more like a list, where it's grouped, it feels like there are less of them than there are. You start out saying what he's wearing, go to his general behavior, go back to his attire, back to his behavior. This might feel like it only has two elements up front instead of four if you grouped the like ones together.
I agree with Nickey about Jim Carrey, though I do rather like that Buggles song.
Fewer careless editing mistakes in this one, but there are still a couple.
As a piece of prose, this is very good. The sentence crafting and word choice are all great. As a story, I don't feel I knew enough about the characters. He's so attached to this woman that he can't let her go, even after she's died, but I can't believe that's due to physical attractiveness alone. They were married, so I doubt that was the entire basis for their relationship. If it was, then I'm not going to be drawn into his pain over it. He knows a lot of details about things she liked and didn't. What did they share? What interests did they have in common? If I don't understand the relationship, then I don't know what it means for him to lose it. I only know the strength of his attachment because the narration assures me it was great, but that's not going to make me have an emotional attachment of my own to it. That's all I think this needs: enough context about their relationship to bring it alive, as it were.
I will always award points in my book when an author goes for something daring. This was an ABSOLUTE FULL SEND of a story.
The narrative vibe you achieve fells very detached, making the protagonist's connection with his wife seem equally distant. I don't think that's a bad thing, though. It comes off to me like the shame of his act, and the addict-like lengths with which he goes to maintain a connection with her even after death, has overshadowed his love for her. Again--not sure that's what you were going for, but that's what I got. And I like it! It's freaky, shameless, and punchy. Thank you for sharing!
The narrative vibe you achieve fells very detached, making the protagonist's connection with his wife seem equally distant. I don't think that's a bad thing, though. It comes off to me like the shame of his act, and the addict-like lengths with which he goes to maintain a connection with her even after death, has overshadowed his love for her. Again--not sure that's what you were going for, but that's what I got. And I like it! It's freaky, shameless, and punchy. Thank you for sharing!
He's not dead, and what's the tell? All these culture references? Then he pees or jacks off on his dead wife. Meh.
Honorable Mention:
A lot of roaming sentences like this one. Sort of unruly. With minifics it's expected that there will be either mostly dialogue or none, and this entry leans more towards the latter. I would even say there's too much of the little dialogue we get, because the meat of the story is Nicky's thoughts and actions, not what he's saying. But putting so much emphasis on thoughts and actions gives the prose some major breathing room to flex its muscles, which this entry certainly does. It houses what has to be easily the chunkiest paragraph out of the whole roster, and it's a lot to take in.
Then of course there's... the thing you should never do in public.
Nicky is a sick man. Not necessarily a bad man, but a sick man. We know very little about his relationship with Albertine, although I'd hesitate to say they might not have loved each other. There had to be something there, or else this wouldn't be happening. It's not normal, though, for widows and widowers (at least as far as we know) to do what Nicky does, or maybe to even contemplate it. The psyche captured here is a particularly disturbed one, driven mad from grief, and there's something shameless and filthy about it. It's an explicit portrait (maybe too explicit) of the grotesque, in the way that social outcasts are sometimes considered grotesque.
It works more as a prelude than a self-contained narrative. There's a great deal about Nicky and Albertine's marriage that we ought to know about. I'd say it's still an effectively grotesque portrait, though.
With no one to interrupt him, with no one to tell him he shouldn't do it, he started thinking about Albertine, considering her face, her curves, how she looked when she got out of the shower, and his mind sank into the image.
A lot of roaming sentences like this one. Sort of unruly. With minifics it's expected that there will be either mostly dialogue or none, and this entry leans more towards the latter. I would even say there's too much of the little dialogue we get, because the meat of the story is Nicky's thoughts and actions, not what he's saying. But putting so much emphasis on thoughts and actions gives the prose some major breathing room to flex its muscles, which this entry certainly does. It houses what has to be easily the chunkiest paragraph out of the whole roster, and it's a lot to take in.
Then of course there's... the thing you should never do in public.
Nicky is a sick man. Not necessarily a bad man, but a sick man. We know very little about his relationship with Albertine, although I'd hesitate to say they might not have loved each other. There had to be something there, or else this wouldn't be happening. It's not normal, though, for widows and widowers (at least as far as we know) to do what Nicky does, or maybe to even contemplate it. The psyche captured here is a particularly disturbed one, driven mad from grief, and there's something shameless and filthy about it. It's an explicit portrait (maybe too explicit) of the grotesque, in the way that social outcasts are sometimes considered grotesque.
It works more as a prelude than a self-contained narrative. There's a great deal about Nicky and Albertine's marriage that we ought to know about. I'd say it's still an effectively grotesque portrait, though.
>>GaPJaxie
>>Pascoite
>>thebandbrony
>>Griseus
Thanks for the feedback. Been a hot minute since I really participated in one of these rounds.
Was hoping I would get a medal or the Most Controversial badge with this one. Didn't expect to get both. Also didn't expect to be completely surrounded by GaPJaxie entries. I saw how you triple-dipped, ya filthy animal!
Now, the only thing I feel the need to explain with this entry is how it happened. Because it's not often that you get a premise like this. The inspiration was two-headed. First I was struggling to come up with a premise, period. Scrambling for ideas is always a struggle with these mini rounds, but that's part of the fun. Anyway, I tend to have a few books on the side, always reading something, and on that day I was a decent way into Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth, which I was loving. The protagonist is a complete lech who, sometime after the death of his mistress of more than a decade, commits a certain obscene act near her grave in the dead of night. I thought, "What a distasteful and perverted act, and yet in his own demented way he must be deeply in love with her." Sure, you could call it love. You could also call it obsession, but there are few other words that I think might fit.
As for the title, it's sort of a reference to "Concerto for Left Hand Alone," but more directly it's a reference to a section from Underworld by Don DeLillo, which is presumably a reference to the composition. I also happened to be reading Underworld while brainstorming, and used the grimy New York setting from certain parts of that massive novel for inspiration. I figured, ultimately, that I wanted to write something grotesque and somewhat transgressive, but also heartbroken.
I think I did my job well enough.
>>Pascoite
>>thebandbrony
>>Griseus
Thanks for the feedback. Been a hot minute since I really participated in one of these rounds.
Was hoping I would get a medal or the Most Controversial badge with this one. Didn't expect to get both. Also didn't expect to be completely surrounded by GaPJaxie entries. I saw how you triple-dipped, ya filthy animal!
Now, the only thing I feel the need to explain with this entry is how it happened. Because it's not often that you get a premise like this. The inspiration was two-headed. First I was struggling to come up with a premise, period. Scrambling for ideas is always a struggle with these mini rounds, but that's part of the fun. Anyway, I tend to have a few books on the side, always reading something, and on that day I was a decent way into Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth, which I was loving. The protagonist is a complete lech who, sometime after the death of his mistress of more than a decade, commits a certain obscene act near her grave in the dead of night. I thought, "What a distasteful and perverted act, and yet in his own demented way he must be deeply in love with her." Sure, you could call it love. You could also call it obsession, but there are few other words that I think might fit.
As for the title, it's sort of a reference to "Concerto for Left Hand Alone," but more directly it's a reference to a section from Underworld by Don DeLillo, which is presumably a reference to the composition. I also happened to be reading Underworld while brainstorming, and used the grimy New York setting from certain parts of that massive novel for inspiration. I figured, ultimately, that I wanted to write something grotesque and somewhat transgressive, but also heartbroken.
I think I did my job well enough.