Too late at night – listening to DMB and Furries in a Blender.

Sorry for this, Ficly and THX….

I love the internal stuff, that litany of every day things that can build up. I didn’t quite follow the ending though. Did he blindly swing and deck the guy with brain damage? Then why does he fall down? Obviously, I’m missing something.

All the same, I appreciate the sequel. You really nailed the tone in the first 3/4ths of it.

Sorry – guess I didn’t lay the framework well enough. What I was driving at was that our narrator plays on his companion’s forgetfulness and responds as if some terrible catastrophe has taken place. He reacts to the inquiry as if some horrible event has taken place, knowing that the other fellow wont be able to compare the outburst with any short term memory. All the droopy-eyed fellow will have to go on is 1) I forgot things. 2) I’m in the dark. 3) There is a terrified man with me. 4) “They” are coming.

The narrator’s reflection in the begin reveals the man’s reaction…. “And the man laying beside me on the floor of the elevator, clutching his chest and gasping.”

That’s so mean! Ouch. Well written, though!

It’s ‘lying’ here, not ‘laying’.
/grammarnazi

That said, I laughed out loud at the end. :)

Corrected – thanks Jim!

I followed it the first way through pretty well; I got the intent. Even scattered the internal dialogue is wonderful; very natural and it hints at some darker aspects of his character that show a deeper person. I like.

Ummmmm you lost me at the end but otherwise an intriguing sequel. :)

A thought – would it help if I put the “flashback” in italics instead of having his reflective thoughts formatted in that way?

I didn’t get to read this before you put the introspective narration in italics, but the current edition gave me no trouble at all. I followed it clearly all the way through and I laughed out loud when I finished. Then I read it again. ;)