Novel Treatments / "The Song of Lazarus" Chapter 1: Hagar
Prologue:
Chicago, this city with its broad shoulders, seethes within me. I am dipped in the ink of it, but instead of leaching into me from the outside, it radiates out from deep within. Inside me, like a fetus, it is the return “ping” on my cosmic sonar which locks me into place and defines me.
With its poor western and south-side neighborhoods, it is both the rhythm and melody to this the most American of tunes. It, with its pushy pot-bellied old men who in an instant of bad temper rail against friends in neighborhood bars standing defiantly against each other mouthing beer-slurred words and, who, just as quickly, make peace and stand sheepishly…vastly apologetic for every hurtful word…these men are a celebration of this life.
Their ancient wives, also, with their innocent, almost oddly girlish faces wearing their wildly colored scarves drawn tight over rollers and pin-curls, smelling of kraut, and wearing Revlon lipstick from the Five and Dime. It’s red—always red. And they nod cheerfully and say, Dzień dobry when they see you in the morning and Dobranoc when they wish you good night. Their lives are the forging oven of what it is to be from this, the most American of cities.
The only new thing in this city of constants is the where that the new we comes from. With their hard tortoise shell exteriors covering innocent soft centers, this latest we, is just a tawny, brown-skinned version of the Poles, the Irish, and the Italians who came here before them. Fresh off the boat, these wondrous people are so familiar with graft and corruption from being raised with Francois Duvalier, or the Federales, or the taxmen and sheriffs that it makes them feel more comfortable and oddly more at home to live in such a place. Chicago…an American city of precinct captains, aldermen, and conmen on the prowl with their palms dreaming, literally itching to be greased…a city of sights and smells and unlimited corruption—a city of boundless hope, but limited conviction—a city tainted to its core by its deadliest of sins—its indifference.
Chapter 1: The Song of Hagar
“Take what you can, but don’t get caught. For God’s sake, don’t get caught.” Those were the watchwords; those were its by-laws. And here I was, like some poor pathetic fool caught right in the act, inescapably on the hook for it. It seemed as if I’d never learned a goddamned thing. Run. Just run, I thought. Since I didn’t need telling twice, I turned and flew down the steps.
The street was just a few feet away when someone behind me shouted, “Stop.” But I didn’t stop. I didn’t even slow down. With a smoking gun in my hand, I ran down the courthouse steps scarcely touching every third one.
I felt it first—like someone had hit me in the arm with a sledgehammer. Then the noise bouncing off of the walls on the other side of street caught up with me. The force of the shot spun me around, and I lost both my footing and my grip on the pistol. The gun clattered down the steps and came to rest in the middle of the street while I thudded to a stop with my head banging hard against the concrete steps.
As we crashed through the double-doors at St. Anthony’s and into the comparative stillness of the Emergency Room, we were greeted by the signature hospital smell of disinfectants mixed with scented cleansers and the rubbery smell of latex. The smell almost made me gag. I cringed when I realized that it was the smell of me, of this North Lawn neighborhood, and of this entire city. It was something decent on the surface that didn’t quite mask the faint, acrid reek of vomit, shit, and urine which hung faintly in the air and tainted everything it touched.
The charge nurse shouted instructions to the paramedics as they wheeled me in.
“Put him in seven…no…sorry…put him in four…put him in four.”
The bandage on my arm leaked, and I could feel the blood drip down my arm to my hand, off my finger, and onto the floor where I imagined it traced my bloody Hansel and Gretel progress into the treatment unit. Remarkably, I didn’t feel much pain. Odder still, for the first time, in about as long as I could remember, I felt peace, and, maybe even happiness.
“Come on people,” The charge nurse called to the nurses who were standing around the nurses’ station. “Let’s move. Someone put direct pressure on that bandage.”
“You there,” she roared, pointing to a nurse’s aid that apparently hadn’t moved near quick enough, “Clean that blood up off the floor before someone slips and falls.”
“On three,” one of the nurses said as she and the rest of the staff surrounded my gurney.
“One, two, three.” and, with everyone’s help, I was transferred just as smooth as a gentle summer breeze from the narrow collapsible ambulance gurney and onto the waiting hospital bed.
The only other patients in the Emergency Room were the small boy with the broken arm in station two, whom they’djust put a cast on, and the jaundice-yellow, loud-mouthed drunk in station seven. I had no problem getting a look at either of them because whenever someone walks into a room and shouts “Gunshot” no matter how shy or immersed you are in your own suffering—everyone turns around and sneaks a nervous peek.
Once the resident Emergency Room doctor finished delegating tasks to the nurses for the treatment of the two other patients, he pulled back the light blue privacy curtain that separated mine from the adjoining bays and introduced himself.
“Hi. I’m Doctor Morris.” he said.
Looking at the larger of my two paramedics he asked, “What we got here, Stanley?”
“Gunshot”, Stanley said in a voice loud enough for anyone in the other treatment bays and, I suspected, in the adjacent waiting room, to hear.
“Stan, my man, he’s lost fluids. Why didn’t you start an IV?”
Dr. Morris looked at the charge nurse and said, “Screen and type him for blood. Have a couple units of O-negative standing by, and get an IV into him.”
“Sorry, Doctor Morris,” Stanley said. “We brought him in from just a few blocks down the street. There was no time. I tried twice on the way, but I couldn’t do it. He’s a tough stick.”
“What’s your name?” the doctor asked me.
“Dave. Dave Massinger.”
“So how do you feel, Mr. Massinger?”
“You do know I’ve been shot, don’t you, doc?”
“Yes” he smiled and a couple of the nurses laughed, “Thank you for that…but, if you don’t mind…I’ll do the jokes around here. How are you holding up? How’s the pain?”
“Not bad. I hardly feel a thing.” I said.
“That’s the shock. I guarantee you, when it wears off, it’s gonna hurt like hell.”
As Doctor Morris asked me, “How did you get shot?” my escort from the Chicago Police Department stepped forward from where he had been standing just off to the left of the semi-drawn privacy curtain and out of everyone’s way.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you there officer. What’s the story here?”
“This guy shot and killed a guy in the Criminal Courthouse about a half an hour ago. One of the bailiffs shot him when he tried to make a run for it, an he’s here in my custody.”
The room went quiet, and though nobody said a word, I could feel the tide of their opinion turn against me. It changed the instant he said I was a shooter from the empathy that they felt toward me as a victim to the distance they naturally placed between themselves and a gun-wielding hoodlum. I started to think about how I could make this work to my advantage, and realized that this little charade was going to be much easy that I’d thought.
“He’s definitely a bad one, Doc. Shot that guy and didn’t even blink.” Seeing the look of mild concern on Doctor Morris’s face, he added, “Don’t worry. I’ve got him handcuffed to the bed. If he gives you any trouble,” he smiled, “just whack him in the arm.”
“Thank you, officer, but there won’t be any whacking.”
“One of my buddies from the precinct said he’ll call later and fill me in on what happened. When he does, I’ll let you all know.”
“You don’t have to wait.” I said, looking first at the cop and then at the doctor, “I’ll tell you exactly what happened. I shot and killed that son-of-a-bitch, and he deserved it, too.”
“I’m no lawyer,” Dr. Morris said, “but I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be saying that kind of thing. I, for one, don’t want to testify at your trial.
“Sorry about that, Doc. I guess both you and a few of your nurses will have to.”
“He’s right,” the patrolman said as he pulled out his notepad and wrote down everything I said plus the names of everyone who was present when I said it.
A young, nurse, who couldn’t help but throw in her two cents, stepped up to the head of my bed, gave me the evil eye, and said. “Nothing gives you the right take another life. You should be ashamed.”
The charge nurse gave her a particularly withering look, but the younger nurse wouldn’t shut-up or back away from me.
“You don’t have that right.” she continued.
“You stupid bitch,” I snarled. “You don’t know shit.” I said, glaring at her with the angriest most hostile look I could muster. I think it scared her, because she shut the hell up, and backed away behind the blue-shirted safety of my patrolman.
The room went silent once again, and I could almost hear the mental gears turning.
“Was anyone else injured?” Dr, Morris asked the officer.
“Naw, it was just those two, and the guy he shot aint coming here, he’s headed to the morgue.”
Doctor Morris examined me for other wounds. Once he finished, he unwrapped the bandage on my arm, looked at the wound and asked, “You weren’t wearing a long-sleeved jacket or anything else over your arm when you were shot, were you?”
“No sir.”
“Good, there won’t be any fabric to worry about contaminating the wound. “
With a practiced bedside manner, he knitted his brow and looked me in the eye.
“There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a flesh wound. Even so, we’ll x-ray your arm just to be sure. We’ll disinfect it, sew you up, prescribe some antibiotics as a precaution, and send you on your way.”
“Aside from being shot, how do you feel, Mr. Massinger?”
“I have pain in my chest.” I said as I turned to get an even clearer view of the doctor. “I must have hit a step when I fell. I think I may have broken a rib, or my breast bone, or something.”
He examined my chest and said, “Sternum seems fine, but it may be a rib.”
“Nurse,” he said, as he looked back over his shoulder, “Have X-ray take an anterior and lateral view of his arm. While they’re at it, have them get a post anterior and lateral shot of his chest.”
“Yes doctor.” The nurse said as she headed back to the Nurses Station to place the order.
After the x-ray technician wheeled in his mobile unit, he helped raise me forward and placed an ice-cold x-ray plate behind me. At its touch, I was washed with waves and waves of crushing pain.
I clasped my chest with my one free hand and squeaked, “Oh shit that hurts.”
I rolled away from the technician, curled up into a fetal position with my handcuffed hand trailing behind me. As I gasped for air, I tried with my free hand to rub the pain away.
“What’s the matter?” The x-ray technician implored.
“My chest really hurts.” I gasped.
The commotion brought Doctor Morris back to my station.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“It’s my chest.” I said. “Do you have any antacids?”
“What kind of pain do you feel? Is it a sharp pain or a dull pain?”
“It’s a dull, achy pain. I feel like an elephant sat on me.”
“On a scale of one to ten with one being no pain and 10 being the worst pain you’ve ever experienced?”
“It’s at least a five.”
“Nurse, get an electrocardiogram on this guy. That should have been done when he first came in.” He scowled, as he moved aside to let a nurse attend to it. “Follow the rules people. Let’s get this handled.”
When the last lead was attached, my heart rate and rhythm was displayed on the monitor.
“He’s presenting with an arrhythmia.” He said to the charge nurse, and to me, he asked “Mr. Massinger, do you feel light-headed?”
“I need an antacid.”
“Mr. Massinger, I need you to focus. I think you’ve had an infarction, and it’s affected your heart’s ability to maintain a proper heartbeat. Your heartbeat is erratic.
Interrupting him, I mumbled, “Why is this happening?”
“I have no idea.” Dr. Morris said. “You’re at least thirty years too young for this. You must have some sort of heart defect, but I’m no cardiologist. What I do know is that you have a dangerous irregular heartbeat.”
“I’m here for a gunshot.” I protested.
“I know you are, but your gunshot wound isn’t a problem, anymore, this is much more serious. Can you see on the heart monitor how your heart is skipping beats? Instead of going one, two, three, four it’s going one, two… four, or one………four. That’s not good. Your heart could stop at any moment. Are you following me Mr. Massinger?”
“Uh huh.” I groaned.
“We’ll have to pass an electrical current through your heart to make it beat normally again. Do you understand what I said, Mr. Massinger?”
I was dumbfounded by this news, and for several seconds I sat staring blankly into space before my patrolman snapped me out of it.
“Why do you even bother, doc?” my patrolman asked. “This guy’s going away for so long it won’t make any difference, anyway.”
“It’s what we do. Once we fix him back up, you guys will get a chance to do what you do.”
“No difference to me, doc. It all pays the same.”
With my heart only beating half the time, I was starved for oxygen and I floated on that sense of euphoria people feel just before they pass out. In that disoriented state, and with all the talk about shocking my heart, I imagined myself a few months or years hence—a convicted murderer awaiting his turn in the electric chair.
As I was coming back around and felt a bit more lucid, I could hear my cop escort having a conversation with a woman in the hallway behind me.
“How are you related to him?” I heard the policeman say.
“I’m his sister.” She said, but even through the haze, I knew it was a lie. My sister’s voice didn’t sound a thing like that so it had to be somebody else.
“Mr. Massinger.” the charge nurse said as she touched me gently on the shoulder, “There’s someone here to see you.”
As I came around, I saw a beautiful and familiar face. I hadn’t seen her in years.
“Becky,” I beamed, feeling happy to see her, “I’ve missed you so much. What are you doing here?”
Becky walked to the head of my bed, leaned over, and whispered in my ear. “I was at the courthouse when it happened. Erik told me what you did. God, I love you for that. I just had to bring you this.” She leaned over the bed and said “This is from Claire.” and she gave me the most passionate, un-sister like kiss that I’d ever received. As she disengaged and stood upright, she gently held my hand, and in a more normal voice she said, “You just couldn’t save them both.”
“Miss, you’ll have to wait outside.” The charge nurse said. “You can see him later when they put him on a ward.”
Becky gave my hand a gentle squeeze, and admonished me, “Get better, David.”
As Becky, with her sultry face and stunning body sashayed out the door, I heard the patrolman mutter to himself “Sister, my ass.”
“Mr. Massinger?” the doctor said. “A cardiologist is on his way to treat you.”
While I waited for the cardiologist to come to the ER, I appreciated how the condemned must feel as they wait inside the death chamber for the signal from the warden that will light up Old Sparky. How fitting, I thought, for me, who had always wanted to be the one to throw that switch, to be in the same boat as all the ones that I wanted to fry.
I met death twice in my life. This second time, he wasn’t riding a pale horse like I half expected him to, but I knew who he was. He was the fourth horseman, and over the years, he and I have spent a great deal of time together. He was here waiting for me—leaning against the wall just behind the doctor.
The first time I met Death, it was a quick and casual thing like brushing up against a stranger on the El. Still, it was the darkest of dreams made flesh. The memory was the first time I recalled ever being scared to death and I was thinking about it as drifted off into unconsciousness.
. . .
With every intention that we would streak across the backyards for home base, while my smug and superior idjit sister cast her attention elsewhere, Peanut and I ran from our hiding place only to be stopped dead in our tracks by the most frightening, most unnatural thing that we’d ever experienced. Half of our bodies were sweating in the warm, syrupy-sweet, embrace of a humid summer evening while the other half felt like it was freezing—a full twenty-five degrees colder. When I felt that wicked chill on my back, the tiny little hairs there all stood on end, my heart raced, and there was no place I longed for more than the safety of my Nana’s warm, soft lap.
It scared me stupid, freezing me in place like I’d been dipped in liquid nitrogen. Peanut, who was a year older than me, froze too, and together, almost as if on cue, we both started bawling.
Mr. Johnson saw us standing frozen in his front yard looking like rusted tin-men waiting for Dorothy and the scarecrow.
“What on earth has gotten into you boys? Did you see a ghost or something?”
Mr. Johnson couldn’t have imagined how helpful that comment was since it mirrored exactly what Peanut and I were both already thinking. When he walked over to us, though, he could feel what we felt, and he smiled.
“Oh, a cold spot. That’s what’s got you boys. You come away from there now. And, don’t you worry,” Mr. Johnson said. “It’s just a cold front meeting up with a warm one. Sometimes, there’s variations in temperature, but there aint no cause for alarm.”
Though Mr. Johnson explained it to us, and we understood it well enough, I was still scared to death. Like God, these cold spots were something that I just couldn’t help but be afraid of.
When the older kids found out what happened, they teased me.
“Look at the big ol bawl baby—he’s afraid of a “cold spot.”
“Haint neither.”
“Well you should be, you little twerp. Those things are dangerous. They’s the spirits of dead people and they hate us. They hate us cause we’re livin and they aint no more. You walk through one and they’ll complain to the devil.”
“Mmmmmm” I whined with eyes the size of silver dollars.
“Shut up you big ol bawl baby. You hear me good. If you walk through one of them spirits, you best make the sign of the cross, say a prayer or spit in your palm, cause if they complain—the devil will snatch you straight down to hell.”
“Mmmmmm” I croaked as I ran home fearing the devil, hungry to snatch me straight down to hell, was already hot on my trail.
“Nana…” I whined just exactly like the big ol bawl baby the older kids accused me of being. “those kids are…are…scaring me…with all their talk about spooks and dead people. I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Honey,” she said. “Don’t you worry about all that foolishness. Those kids don’t know beans about nothing. I know you’re scared so whenever you’re frightened, you just say the “Prayer of Protection” and no matter what, God will watch over you, an he’ll protect you.”
“Really, Nana?”
“Absolutely, Pumpkin, I wouldn’t lie to my favorite little man now would I?”
Since I knew she loved me enough to bake me cookies every time I came to visit, I believed her with every ounce of my little-boy heart. That night, she taught me the entire prayer, and once I could remember every single line, I wasn’t near as frightened anymore.
It seemed, from my experience with cold spots, though, that to ward off ghosts, spooks, and the assorted spirits and goblins, I only needed the last few lines. And, it was just as well because whenever I got knee-knocking, oh-my-God what-am-I-gonna-do scared, those were the only few lines I could ever remember.
“The power of God protects me…The presence of God watches over me…Wherever I am, God is…And, all is well.”
When I met death for the first time, it was exactly like that. I was the kind of scared you get when you cough up blood or when the doctor mentions cancer, and I needed him. I even said the prayer of protection, but he simply wasn’t listening, and if he could turn his back on me when I needed him most, well he could just go screw himself.
. . .
“Mr. Massinger…Mr. Massinger, wake up.” Dr. Morris said, “This is Doctor Bhanami. He’s one of our cardiologists.”
“Mr. Masseenger” Dr. Bhanami said, “I am here to treat you, sir. I will give you an injection of valleyum to relax you, and, then, I will treat you. I assure you, sir, everything is going to be alright. You won’t feel or remember ah ting.”
I didn’t feel too self-assured, so I reached for my talisman. Since I already surrendered it to one of my nurses along with my clothes, I called, “Someone, please, I need my wallet.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Massinger, your valuables are safe.” one of the nurse’s replied.
“It’s not that. Please, someone hand me my wallet. I need something from inside of it.”
A white-haired nurse with a kind, loving immigrant face retrieved my wallet from my “valuables” bag and handed it to me. I thought to myself, Dzień dobry, and I smiled at her.
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
I removed the lock of hair that I had taken from Claire the night before her funeral and clasped it in my hand. To the doctor, I said. “Okay, I’m ready.” and to the nurse, I said, “This is important. Wherever I go, it goes. Please, promise me.”
“There’s no…”
“Promise me. Please.” I pleaded.
She could see that I was holding a lock of curly blond hair tied with a powder-blue ribbon. I think it touched her, and she took my hand and smiled.
“Okay. I promise. I’ll make sure.”
“If I drop it?”
“Especially, if you drop it. Don’t worry, Mr. Massinger. If that happens, I’ll tie it to your finger or I’ll put it in a baggie and pin it to your gown. I promise. You won’t be without it.”
“What is wrong with his hand?” Dr. Bhanami asked.
“He’s handcuffed to the bed Doctor. There was a problem.”
“No. No. Theese weel not do. Please take those off heem at once. It cree-ates a preferential pathway. Please, at once.”
My patrolman escort walked over to the side of the hospital bed and removed the cuffs.
At 12:03 in the afternoon, the IV was flushed with saline solution and Dr. Bhanami administered a heavy dose of valium through the IV. I was far beyond scared, I was terrified. With every heartbeat, fear and adrenalin shot through me, and there was a bitter taste in my mouth.
I could feel the valium begin its assault. At first, all I could feel was the localized sensation of warmth at the IV site just a few inches above the wrist. I knew that warmth was my enemy so I tried to use my mind like a styptic to staunch its flow, but it was no use. With unbridled fear, I tracked its steady progress as it spread from my forearm to my elbow, from my elbow to my shoulder, and, finally, from my shoulder to my body core. While sleep tried its best to claim me, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and, sweat rolled down my face. I felt like I had just main-lined an eight-ball fix, and, more than anything else, all I wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep.
As the injection started to exert its powerful grip, my body slipped me a massive Mickey-Finn of cortisols, endorphins, and adrenaline. I knew all about these natural drugs from my last few years of drug use. I was living life in “bullet-time”, and everything around me slowed to a pace much slower than a crawl. In real time, everything must have happened fairly quickly, but in that rarified, profoundly crystalline moment, time seemed to have gone on a long and extended holiday.
During those exquisitely terrifying moments, I felt more alive than I think I ever had. Sounds and sights weren’t just sounds and sights. I could feel their texture. I could smell them. Hell, I could even taste them. With my super attuned senses, I could have told you the date and time when the bottle of rubbing alcohol that I smelled had first been opened. And, just as easily, discerned a limp in the six-legged gait of a cockroach as it skittered across the linoleum.
The thump, thump, thump of my heart rang in my ears, and I could feel it pound all the way down to my toes. As I lay there, I could appreciate the terrible disconnect between what should have happened and what in fact was. I knew I was perched on the razor’s edge—that thin line that separates the living from the dead, and since I knew that Death was already waiting for me in the hallway, I desperately wanted to live. My heart should have been racing like a hummingbird’s, or pounding like a sprinter’s at the end of a 100-meter dash, but it wasn’t.
It had already begun to slow, and, as the time between each beat grew longer, I felt light-headed, had chest pain and I struggled to catch my breath. The monitor I was connected to showed that my heart had already slowed to 80 beats per minute, and I started to panic. I wanted to get off the hospital bed and run, but since I could no longer even blink my eyes in a simple sign of acknowledgement, I knew it would simply be not use.
I could no longer focus my eyes…not on my body…not on the monitor…not even on the faces of the doctors and nurses who were there in the room with me. If that lack of control wasn’t enough to spook me already, then realizing that I was bound for a destination which I could neither avoid, nor likely to return from, was enough to send me completely over the top. I was beside myself, and, as I helplessly watched the scene unfold from my vantage in the hospital bed, I felt like an errant child waiting fearfully for his dad to come home like his mother had threatened.
When the valium finally overcame me, my eyelids fluttered and my eyes rolled up into the back of my head. My tunnel-vision closed to darkness, and I felt like I was falling.
It turned out that Dr. Bhanami had lied to me. I felt everything, and I knew that, even if I lived to be a thousand years old, that I’d never forget the experience. As I lay on the hospital bed, I felt an incredibly strong convulsion. It racked my body. It was extremely violent and it took place all of a sudden out of the blue. It was like being struck by a car. No, it was worse than that. It was like being struck by lightning. It was the kind of thing that, if you weren’t prepared for it you would’ve bitten off your tongue. I wasn’t prepared at all, but I was lucky, and my tongue somehow remained intact. Every muscle in my body contracted; my arms, my legs, my fingers, my face, everything. The force of that contraction lifted me completely up off the bed. I felt like I was kicked in the chest by a horse, and it hurt like hell…and then my heart stopped.
My life didn’t end when it did. Death isn’t neat and clean like cancelling dinner reservations. No, it’s a dirty despicable thing, and my brain had to witness and finally accept how badly my heart had betrayed it. It takes a long time being oxygen deprived and sitting in its own waste before the brain finally cedes defeat and lets its spirit host depart the confines of the body. Life fights for every breath, and even though you’re scared, somehow…somewhere along the way…you lose that terror, and the experience becomes strangely warm, comforting and awe inspiringly beautiful.
The time you spend within that wondrous interlude—that place of peace with its beautiful warm white light—contains the most remarkable of revelations. I felt like I had finally, after spending so much of my life being afraid of cold spots, come home to the comfort and safety or my Nana’s warm, soft lap, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had wasted my life running away from my fears.
Although I refused to renew my allegiance to Him, with my last consciousness, I was overwhelmed by the desire to confess my sins and ask forgiveness—to Him, to them, to anyone who might listen. Even though it might be late in life, I hoped it wasn’t too late. Without a word, I confessed my lost battle with darkness. I couldn’t confess individual sins. There were far too many for that. The best I could manage was to confess a squandered life—more focused on death than it ever had been on love and light. I could only hope that this would be sufficient.
As I lay dying, I revisited all the events that led up to her murder and everything that followed. As I saw each scene, I was gripped by the sense that some things just happen in pairs like pride before a fall and forgiveness after redemption. But, at the same time, I also came to realize that forgiveness was by far the hardest lesson for me to learn because I simply couldn’t forget my past.
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You do an amazing job with the setting. I imagine the dark streets of crowded Chicago the way it is at night. I’ve been there, and was taken right back. I love the line about the hansel and gretel path. I still have a bit of a hard time getting into why he shot the other guy, but since this is the beginning of something larger, it shouldn’t be an issue. Oh, now I get it. I love that you turn him into the hero. Please keep working on this. Oh, and Valium is spelled like that. But I like it, since it seems more like he’s hearing and transcribing for us from his point of view. Sorry… And your description of the Valium making its way through his body is really amazing. Although I wouldn’t think we’d perscribe Valium in this instance. I can get back to you with a list of drugs, because Valium has a cardiovascular risk attached to it in severe cases. Even Dilaudid would work. But I’m not the author. Again, I’m interested to see where you take this.
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This is an amazing piece of literature.
It’s been a while since I’ve read decent writing not already bound and put into print. I love the scene where he’s gripping tightly to the lock of hair with the ribbon around it. It really makes you think. I love this work, and I hope to read more of it.
well Written although you do need to watch your grammatical sense. I like how he fears death and is willing to risk everything to avenge his love’s murder but it is sad that he comes to where he is, please write the next part suspense is only fun for a while, so great job it flows and has great potential.
All right a few technical editing things super fast-
”..and realized that this little charade was going to be much easy that I’d thought.”
- Either add more in front of easy, or change easy to easier.
“I knew it would simply be not use.”
- Either make it ”...simply be of no use.” or ”...simply not be of any use.”
”...come home to the comfort and safety or my Nana’s warm…”
- “or” should be “of”
Whew! Now that being done this piece is a lovely sad story, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it! I would love to see more! Cheers, and best of luck on the rest of it!
I don’t know what novel treatments is for but I can say that overall it was a good start. I’m not much into the whole doctor story but I might pick it up if I saw it in a store.
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