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Mystery Sad

When Charles was a wee boy, in the midst of his youthful glory, he swore that naught would waylay him from achieving his paramount goal: being a fluent, recondite, whimsical, and comedical writer. “NO,” exclaimed John, after having his mind, body, soul, and - acutest of all - wrist ossified upon the weaving woes of wavering for hours. “No, Charles is such a common, hackneyed name. My protagonist must be elegant, suave though not pompous, and relatable.” In a trice, a miracle twinkled upon his derelict page where inked those insipid words, “Argos!” said John, contradicting his own wish to not have the character be replete with pomposity. 

Once more, John began: 

When Argos ripened to that decisive point where adolescents peak in their handsome beauty, he knew that his vocation was to be a writer. He toiled dusks, where the lunar gloaming glimmered through his glum study, upon dawns, where the dragonesque sun soared across the skies, so as to perfect his ideal of being the greatest writer to have consummated a novel. What most enamoured Argos were the days of yore, where metaphors, imagery, sibilance, and other techniques besides, abounded - where phrases billowed upon one’s palette with dexterous wit - and were not yet sodomised by truncation, simplification, or scriptural sloth. Argos loathed the art of…. “No, this is too pretentious!” bemoaned Argos. “Why would he adore the literature of old, and abhor its newer vogues, when I desire him to be relatable and suave.” John nettled at his bristly beard, unshorn from his drudgery and enslavement to his work, musing till a phantom thread fluttered upon his inhibitory ebb and tide: 

“He can’t be some literary romanticist or reverist. To stab at the heart of what I purpose, he ought to be ordinary, struggling, and pitiable.” That nettlesome urge, again, propounded John to now gnaw at his beard. “HE SHALL BE A JUVENILE SAILOR!” Thwacking his hand upon his birchen desk, scattering the detritus of former conceptions which had but led to dust, decrepitude, and dolour. 

“The name Argos must be abolished. Instead,” his eyes irradiated molten joy, “the protagonist shall be called Stoker - sprinkle some Gothicism in there whilst I am at it. I shall make it his first journey at sea, marred by a feverous tempest from the southernmost ire on Earth! What a horrid and sympathizable tale it would be.” John picked up the pen, and bedaubed its nib into his voluminous inkwell; though, before he came nigh to executing anything, he indulged in more gloating: 

“This is brilliant,” resting the sodden nib aside, “the narrative has tension, is devoid of bathos, and gives me bountiful opportunities to conjure up some startling imagery.” John slinked back in his chair, estranging yet farther from his duties, and lolled his tongue in veneration of himself. “It shall lend its rigour to the French Naturalists; it shall waft the psychological odour of Dostoevsky with philosophical finesse! I can envisage the critics now: Moby Dick has, after but of late having reaped due recognition, been expunged by a precious author.” The envy of John envenomed through a hostile glower as he fantasised,  “I’ll smear that White Whale of all its peculiar snow-white wrinkles, and outflank the enigma surrounding its pyramidical hump. They shall hail me as the heir apparent to Shakespeare!” The irony being that John had never read - nor dared to read - a Shakespearian play in the entirety of his specious life. Even when his school had enforced that all must be taught of how Shakespeare riddles, John had been truant with the onerous difficulty of decoding Shakespearian archaisms. Further, nor had John ever opened Moby Dick; let alone any of the persons cited above. John deceived he and his friends of his supreme intellect by sifting through interpretations spanning all authors, novelists, playwrights, and poets. It was John’s method of purporting to be grander and wiser than his peers. John rejoiced in worshipful vainglory of an irrelevant man, such as he himself pertained to. It is little wonder, then, why John foundered in such laughable fashion when attempting to be a writer. 

“No, that makes no sense whatsoever!” bellowed our actual, troubled writer. “How could John be speaking with the verve that he is, if he had always shirked from reading these geniuses.” Desponding, our innominate writer pondered over how to amend this discontinuity. “John could be less omnipresent - but that would be unbuilding all which I had thus far wrought for. Am I zealous enough to recommence from the start? With me swithering as I am, then it is probable that no, I cannot.” A belch of frustration, from our innominate writer, dogged his train of doubt: 

“Could the protagonist be prudent, and the issue lie more in his ineptitude to conceive of a plot? Would the average reader not be depressed, though, by being aweary from the cyclical nature of this?  Yes,” concluded our innominate writer, “they would soon tire of this repetition. Then what!?

“O’ why is writing so much harder than rumoured to be?” introspected he aloud, as he gawked outside at two nonchalant birds entwined in rapt ease. “Why can’t,” pointing to these birds, “life be as uncomplicated as theirs. Flying afloat the downy clouds, feasting off the tinier creatures, and beholding the world at its topmost altitude. No, that would be too merciful for us humans!” 

Our innominate writer veered from the window, and examined his plenitude of unfruitful endeavours. “Perhaps”, thought he, “I ought to stop wasting my time with these idle pursuits.” Rheum serpentined down his cheek, welling and cresting as it rippled across a sinuous furrow, or pustular elevation in his skin. In a sudden fury of lugubrious grudgement, our innominate writer,  fordoing the trials and tribulations, altogether renunciated his beast of burden:

“Besides, there are too many wishful artists nowadays! What importance would I bring or have to say,” he halted for histrionic effect, “ nothing!” Arising from his chair, where fossilised the relics of his curst turmoils, our innominate author declared: 

“I forfeit.” 

September 03, 2024 21:46

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15 comments

James Wheeler
09:58 Sep 09, 2024

Wow Im not good at reading but this might get me into it

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Charles Houston
21:44 Sep 13, 2024

I'll be a parrhesiastes: The problem with having a good vocabulary is that one tends to use it. I once did an experiment with ChatGP, which lets you ask for its report written in different levels. Its response at the academic level was pompous and painful to read. The response at a normal level was adequate. Its answer at the elementary school level sparkled. I'll not write at a see-Spot-run level, but will try for simplicity. Might toss in one unusual word, though, to establish my credentials.

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07:34 Sep 11, 2024

Interesting! Complex. A litttttlee bit heavy going if I'm honest to read it due to the vocabulary used, it did keep putting the handbrake on for me as I was reading as some of the words were very unwieldy. Obviously that was the intent , but maybe a small bit of toning down of it might improve the flow of the read. Just my humble opinion. For a first entry from someone who just joined and doesnt yet follow anyone and hasnt commented on anyone else's story or engaged with anyone you have managed to secure an impressive number of 'likes', mor...

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Max Wightwick
12:41 Sep 11, 2024

Hi Derrick, I very much appreciate your feedback, and thank you for reading the short. I am glad you saw the intent was to be heavy going, though I can completely see its excessive flow. Through this story, I was showing my own conflict really of, oftentimes, using this kind of - shall we say - verbiage. I have a love for olden literature, which I need not elaborate on their own profuse language. I am not actually an established author, though I am releasing my first collection of shorts, this Friday.

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Alexis Araneta
04:38 Sep 11, 2024

Hi, Max ! I saw this in the list of stories submitted for Contest 266 and had to read it. The references to literature were impeccably used. Rich, flowing vocabulary too. My only wish is to know more about Charles/Argos and how he feels about being constantly changed. I don't know. I feel like the prompt is such a good opportunity to poke fun at ourselves as writers and let us feel for the characters we create, and to have this mostly be in John's perspective made me think "But what about the character?" Oh, and 1 million percent, I prefe...

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Max Wightwick
12:46 Sep 11, 2024

Hi Alexis, Thank you so much for your feedback. You have a definite point about Argos and Charles, I suppose I wanted them to be so ill-wrought by their writer, that they had no purpose besides showing the conflict between his own lack of competence. P.S - I, too, prefer Charles to Argos.

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00:15 Sep 11, 2024

This purple prose epistle made me giggle. But with a character thinking like someone from Medieval times (?) this is perfect. You are either a genius or a thesaurus. I'm not sure which. (A secret - the average Medieval person never spoke this way. I laughed when you described someone as emulating Shakespeare without having read an entire Shakespearean play!) I had to look up one word. 'bathos' - perfect word. I thought it was a typo for pathos - LOL. I am a bit of a walking dictionary myself. But not when I write. Welcome to Reedsy. I ge...

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Max Wightwick
14:23 Sep 11, 2024

Hi Kaitlyn, Thank you for your feedback and for reading the short. I am not a new writer, though I have begun to find my way of late. For a year now, I have been writing on a regular, obsessive basis - as it very much becomes an obsession for me. I have noted the advice on spacing my paragraphs - I still have a lot to learn. My profile is blank as, to be honest, I have received so many rejections that I thought little of entering the competition, and sent it on a whim. As well as me liking a certain level of privacy, I am about twenty-one ...

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21:42 Sep 11, 2024

Thanks for opening up and sharing. Very interesting. Do take notice of comments made, even negative ones, as you will learn a lot. And read others' stories. (Mine, for example?) You can learn how to do things from others. Or get ideas that fit in with your desire to conform. I hate that word. I am not about winning. I am happy to be approved and read. And I have limited time so reach out to some and not others due to time constraints. I hate to say this but using lots of words that send readers to the dictionary is not the way to appeal to ...

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Max Wightwick
22:26 Sep 11, 2024

Definitely - criticism is needed if one wishes to improve their work. Receiving grovelling compliments all the time both inflates the ego, and stagnates actual furtherance. If anything, feel free to give me some feedback on the most recent short. I would love to hear your advice. I am often told to lessen my use of complex words - or be "wise and purposeful". I will do so, but then the second I begin feeling the flow come on, I fall back into that bad habit. I need! to change it when rereading. My intention, though, is not to appeal to othe...

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03:13 Sep 12, 2024

I will definitely read your other story. Old habits die hard!

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Trudy Jas
02:55 Sep 10, 2024

I'm sure you had loads of fun writing it, I'm just a little tired of running back and forth to the dictionary. So, I gave up after three paragraphs. Best of luck in the contest

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Max Wightwick
10:15 Sep 10, 2024

Thank you for the feedback, Trudy. Likewise to you.

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Emil Draghici
02:16 Sep 10, 2024

A beautiful mind!

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Robert Ryan
18:55 Sep 09, 2024

What a vocabulary!

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