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By Hoby (Hoby) on Wednesday, January 30, 2002 - 07:29 pm
"Aaw DUUDE!" were the only words from him for the first ten minutes. Eyes glazed and fixed somewhere well beyond the grizzly plain of the cabin floor. At times he would exhale with his lower lip curled into his mouth, producing a faint 'Hhhaww..' noise. The rest of his actions were comprized of intermittent struggles to breathe. At a seemingly random instant, his droopy arm reaches out and connects with a beverage can. There his hand assumes a C shaped kung fu grip around the can and it's sent at forceful speed to meet his still-gaping mouth. The impact appears to knock his head back just before a boisterous gulp gulp gulping ensues for the remaining life span of the beverage. The can and his head are thrown back into their previous positions simultaneously. He stares, motionless. Most likely from some higher dimension, an epic belch erupts from his maw, "EEEErrrrrrraaaww!" ..thus proving some actions are root instinct. He's going to twitch, but doesn't. "I woz right fockin thaer maaan.. I saw it aall go DAWWN..." he finally succeeds in a twitch. "It woz like..yanoe...i' woz juss..DUDE! Aw mean...fockin-cru....ffffffockk.." His companion doesn't quite grasp the severity of his diction and commences in lighting up a bowl. This quickly perturbs the recently talkative youth to the point of vocal outrage. "DUuUde! Dude!" he scowls oblong and canted in the direction of the flame, "Down't you fockin getit maaan? It's like....like...hh-Fff...like it's REEAL duude.. Don't you givea rats aass?" Squinting through smoke, attempting to talk without allowing his lungs to part with anything of their contents, his reposed companion laboriously formulates a reply. "..w-I jst thot it mite...yano...help...yr problm...rrm...whtever.." the exhale is slow and controlled, a stream like that of an automobile exhaust. All is relaxed, excepting an outreaching arm with the pipe on the end of it. Eyes closed, head fallen back in shadow. He grabs the pipe without looking at it, stands and begins packing his own supply while shuffling around in this dark, cramped, filthy little room. His ritual nearly complete, he regains a seated position, pushing the single hanging lamp into swinging motion. The cone of yellow light seems for a time to be creating the whorls of smoke it makes visible. His moral lament is not over. His bleary eyes still pierce the ground in wide contention. His hand places the pipe beside his empty can. He must make his friend understand the depth of his predicament. "o'Kay..Dude. It's like thiss, 'kay?" his arms rise in parallel gesticulation, "I woz right thaer, right innet, right nexto tha.. Hay!" He then realizes his reposed companion is now his unconscious companion. "DUDE, fock'n...duhuuude...." he can take no more and stomps away. |
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By Anonymous on Thursday, January 31,
2002 - 11:57 am
The voices are solid here, very real. I guess the only thing I'm missing is a story to carry me through the voices. I got very early that there wasn't any effective communication happening. So I wanted a surprise, somehow. Either an inadvertant communication, or possibly something happening, beyond somebody falling asleep. The voices, though, were quite clear, I believed in them fully. |
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By Anonymous on Saturday, February 02, 2002 - 11:59 pm
The voice of the narrator comes across as though it was translated from a foreign language, like someone observing from elsewhere. It adds to the surrealism of whatever the drama was that we just missed. I.E. scowls oblong and canted...I like this, especially as the observations are of characters embroiled in a drama we know very little about, except that some event has occured, someone has a problem and there is a moral dilemma, which is no wonder as the one with the moral dilemma ends up abandoning his unconscious buddy. The last long paragraph, though, beginning, "He grabs the pipe..." is not in the "translated" voice, and has a more orthodox kind of coherence. The stoner dialect is very amusing. I'm not that curious about "what happened" because the point seems more to be about the portrait and voice of the characters themselves. The pleasantly odd desrcriptions from elsewhere and the truncated dialect compliment each other because everything we don't know is described in surprising and somewhat puzzling manners. It's strange, but it works and I like it. |
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By Anonymous on Monday, February 04, 2002 - 10:45 am
I like the comedy in this paragraph: At a seemingly random instant, his droopy arm reaches out and connects with a beverage can. There his hand assumes a C shaped kung fu grip around the can and it's sent at forceful speed to meet his still-gaping mouth. The impact appears to knock his head back just before a boisterous gulp gulp gulping ensues for the remaining life span of the beverage. The description of the dude talking while trying not to let out smoke is quite good, too. At times the voice of the narrator contrasted greatly from the voices of the dudes and I got pulled away from the soupy haze. I enjoyed the piece, but somehow I get the sense that something is being held back. |
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