I had to read this one three or four times for it all to sink in, to figure out what was going on. Not a bad thing. The first couple passes, I just enjoyed the writing. I so appreciate showing-versus-telling, and the “salmon and squid and cold wine” line was just so visceral. What a mood setter.

This is so eloquently worded, it’s hard not to keep rereading. I really love the verbiage and flow you’ve used here.

I note that you ask for criticism in your profile – my sticking point would be that the medium here doesn’t do you any favors. This would be an excellent passage as part of a longer format, but given the very short format, it seems to me that it’s just slightly too vague for a confident interpretation without a couple rereads (which, to be sure, were a pleasure for me). I think this is the challenge (and fun) of the Ficly format – balancing the limited plot/character development possible with as much wordsmithing and sentence-crafting as possible, and ultimately having to choose between the two.

Looking forward to reading more of your material, and I hope this was helpful.

I keep thinking I understand what’s going on, but then I read something and it doesn’t make sense again. There were some really beautiful lines, though.