We Are the Jungle

[Gil Alexander]

I think the war in Africa’s not going too well, because the nurses (men and women) sometimes huddle around the radio or the min-ee-tee-vee during Rec Time (I’ve seen them!) and after they look like they’re going to be sick and vomit. My guess is that it’s spreading, like not only in Africa anymore. I think that’s why they’re that scared. All right, that’s all today. Nothing else happened. But everybody seems so tense.

[Gil Alexander]

About five patients were checked out today and yesterday. They just left. Al even left. Bill keeps looking out the window at the wide front lawn; I think he was waiting for a relative or something. Now that I see everybody having somebody to go to, I wish Betty would come back. I wonder if she remembers me.

[Gil Alexander]

Okay, so I was lying awake in the middle of night. I got up to go pee but while I was in the stall, there was a really really bright flash of light, so bright . . . I don’t even know where it came from. And then there was a really deep rumbling sound and then lots of loud crashes, all around me, and even a few high-pitched screams from the women’s ward probably, or maybe from the night nurses, I think. By that time I had zipped up my pants but I was too scared to leave the stall because I was afraid to see what was out there. I yelled for the guard who had accompanied me to the bathroom door but my voice was drowned out by the bass rumblings and the crashes. At one point I heard the bathroom door crash open, like someone who was really angry or full, and then there was this blast, this incredibly hot boil of air, and I felt it on my face and on my bare feet and through my shirt. I think I cried out, because it hurt and I’ll bet you a couple million I was burned a whole lot. It was just so, so hot, I swear, I could even feel my hair being fried to a shallow black crisp. I just sat on the toilet seat and waited for a long time. I must have fallen asleep or blacked out then because the next thing I remember the air was looser and cooler. I picked you up, because I’m so smart I brought you to the bathroom with me just in case Dr. Zipratzi was thinking of snooping around my bed for you, my journal. Just when I was going to open the stall door, I saw Allie peer through the crack between the door and the wall. I screamed at her, screamed at her to shut up and go away; she’d just make things worse. I was just so scared. And she did run away, and I could hear her footsteps as they glided over the broken tile. Then there was another crash and a sound of splintering glass.

So I got out of the bathroom, but that wasn’t hard because you wouldn’t believe it!—the walls looked like they had been torn up by some giant. In fact, even after I got out of the stall I could see a little bit of the outside. The first thing I thought to do was to look for Dr. Zipratzi or Bill or someone. But all I could find, really, were people that wouldn’t move, and looking all strange and red. A couple of the people I heard groaning sounds from, but there was a lot of smoke and I couldn’t tell who they were. So right then I remembered about Shelly, you know, the iguana I hid from Dr. Zipratzi. I looked for her for a while but then I gave up, and sat down on a pile of pinkish stuff that looked like cotton, and I started writing. Just before I started writing I was calling out names, to see if anybody could hear me, like Betty or Al, or Uncle Tim, or Bill. But I gave up. I wonder why I am the only one who’s moving around. Oh well, I’ll write soon after I figure out what’s happening. Bye.

[Gil Alexander]

Well, most of the smoke has cleared, and mostly there’s only a faint gray to the air. So because I could see better, I went and found Shelly. She was hidden in a pile of wood, and she was pretty skinny because I simply couldn’t feed her without Dr. Zipratzi noticing. And she didn’t move much, really. Not much at all. But I carry her around anyway: hey, she might wake up sometime, who knows? If you had eyes you could see her sitting on the rocky thing right next to you. Oh, that would be strange, eyes coming straight out of a journal—a snail!

Anyway, there’s starting to grow these weird looking blisters all over my arms and I can feel them on my face, too. It hurts a little to write, a bit.

After I found Shelly, we went and I looked around for other people. I got out of the building and I was outside, standing on the stairs leading down the lawn and to the street. I guess you could say the lawn was bearable, but the street was different; simply horrible. There were no moving things, except for the wanering smoke, a distant car alarm and the fires. The fires, they looked like they had taken the place of humans. The building across the street was in similar condition to the building from which I had come, it looked just like a giant had gone on a mad frenzy. Boy, I’d tell you: you’ve just got to keep those, those giants under control.

By the time we started down the street it was still pretty dark, in fact, I bet it was still in the middle of the night. But the fires lit stuff up. It gave everything a strange color, a pallor, you know? An orangeish, against the black. It reminds me of Halloween, with those orange jack-o-lanterns glowing bright and evil in the dark.

Well, my arm is starting to hurt so I guess I’ll sort of wrap things up. We walked down the street for a while, knocking on some of the still-upright doors but got no answer. Finally, we got a little bench with a rock next to it, and that’s it. I, we will keep you informed. I don’t think Portland is too far away.

[Gil Alexander]

I feel . . . what is happening? My guess that Hell’s all Hell’s broken loose. I don’t understand. I feel . . . so tired, and as if I’ve been won over. All of the bricks, the man jogging down the street with his eyeballs in his hands, they looked at me, those eyes . . . I wonder how his feet can go without knowing if they are going to fall off a bridge, but at least Shelly can see, but even though she sees she can’t move, I’ll bet you a million she’s just paralyzed, but how could she not see—she is Shelly. I see her, I see faces everywhere. I feel . . . so tired. Guess what Bill was today? Even though my eyes can’t see him I know today he is a dead man, today, tricking the nurses and causing a whole hell of ruckus by playing dead under a pile of rock or something, and that’s not funny, Allie, I swear that’s not funny, but he hasn’t fooled me; he just acts like he can’t move. There are more of him, just like him, all him of the crashes that light up the night to show my wicked face and the buildings’ face, and cars’ and houses’ face, all of them, all of their faces are black and while, the orange and black, jack-o-lanterns, all, all of them, all, but they aren’t just jack-o-lanterns, because all of their faces are molded into Allie’s, all of them, she runs around, screeching like an evil, evil hyena, throwing fire with her hands and between her teeth, her face . . . they are our faces, we are, one, the faces, her face and our face. I’ll tell, I’ll tell you what. She’s everywhere. I see letters, her face is in the letters, I see a NAFCP, the letters are inside her eyes. It’s in her eyes, really. I bet everyone’s got her, everyone knows about Allie, but, but, but they don’t tell anybody, but now they let her go, they all let her go, and look at all she’s done, since they let her go! All of them, how, I don’t, I don’t understand, Allie’s everywhere . . . but because she’s everywhere, her face, the smoke, Shelly, the sky, all her face, I see their faces also . . . I see Shelly, lighted up big bright orange in the mirror sky curves, I see Betty’s face, sticking out like upside-down icicles, I see Dr. Zipratzi’s, I see my dad’s, Uncle Tim’s, all, all of them. Their faces are all orange. I don’t understand, what happened . . . but I know, I know it know, it’s the jungle . . . I finally understand what’s going on in the jungle. We are in the jungle, we are the jungle, the fire, Allie, the world, the faces . . . we are the jungle . . . I see Mom, and Aunt Ruth, they wave without their fingers because Allie washed by them with her hatchet, they all, melt into one face, all of them one face, one sky, an orange-black sky, a starless sky, all orange-black, a giant jack-o-lantern, peering down at me, I see it, in the sky; and it laughs at me . . . why does it laugh? It speaks but I cannot hear what it says. Why does it laugh at me? I feel like the jack-o-lantern is not very deep, though, I feel; the whiteness and the blue, the yellow, they are there, and the peace is all there, I feel, it’s just Allie . . . but I feel . . . I don’t understand . . .I feel the pen losing my fingers, I feel so tired

[Gil Alexander]

And that's the end of it. Give me the harshest review you can think of, please, I really want to get this ready to send in to be published.

[Chris]

I'm a little too spent to review this today. I promise to do so in the very near future.

INSERT: I've read it all again today, and I'd like some more time to mull it over. There are some symbols and metaphors there that I want to make sure that I'm interpreting properly. Just know that I say this because I think it is very good, of real value, and I just want to find the means to do it justice, especially taking into consideration that you want it published. Give me a week.

[Gil Alexander]

Thanks so much for your time, Pestilence.

[Chris]

Sorry I've taken so long to get to this. Here goes my best shot.

The following review is based upon the facts and assumptions that (a) this story about a mentally ill man and his perspective of the events surrounding his life through his journal, (b) this story is meant to entertain through drama and tragedy and (c) this story's audience is your fellow guild members.

Meet Louis Ratford. And by that, I mean learn his innermost thoughts and feelings through his own written account.

While it is always pretty clear that Louis is not all there, the parts of him that are there are winning and surprisingly astute. Louis is almost heart-breakingly endearing as he tells his grim little story, his every word affecting a sense of childlike innocence and wonder, too-true insights and a pinch of sadness, and this crazy concoction yields a result so intoxicating you can't help but swallow it all readily.

Louis is mentally ill, and imagines that he sees this guy Allie, who is practically a mental manifestation of the dark side of Louis in that he only appears when there is trouble afoot. When Bill annoys

EDIT: Got to go. More later.

[jollymcjollyson]

ywg2.proboards80.com/index.cgi?board=snippets&action=display&thread=1164601528&page=1#1164943833

That post sums up the problems I have with this. Writing from the perspective of an insane person does not give one license to lean towards the dark side of first-person story-telling narration. The example I provided was more a backwoods, country-town tale, but the gist of it sums up the elements of this story that need to be changed.

[Chris]

I disagree. I don't think it falls within that scope at all. Louis never degenerates into a caricature, and his colloquial-ness gives the reader a greater sense of closeness and involvement and character. The ends justify the means.

[jollymcjollyson]

pestilence said:

I disagree. I don't think it falls within that scope at all. Louis never degenerates into a caricature, and his colloquial-ness gives the reader a greater sense of closeness and involvement and character. The ends justify the means.

Sorry to disagree so strongly, but no publisher is going to let things like this go:

"Listen. I thought about it a really long time, I swear; if you’d seen me lying awake all those nights, you’d really know what I’m talking about. I talked to Betty, even to Dr. Zipratzi about it, and I figured I could use their opinions—heck, why not? So, I decided I’d tell you about Allie. It can’t hurt."

As early as the first passage we have things like "heck, why not?" "So," and "I swear." In fact, it's often best to avoid "you," though it's not nearly as amateurish as those three examples. Please understand that I don't mean to sound harsh, but there are a great many stylistic shortcomings like these that would prevent this story from being published outside of a middle/high-school paper. If a story/novella arrives at a literary magazine with these kinds of problems, it won't go in. Colloquialism's are great for high-school homework assignments and lit. pamphlets, but to get it published it'll need a lot more polish than that. Things like "Heck, why not?" are considered clumsy writing.

[Chris]

Well, I don't get that at all. Louis is writing in his own personal journal. He is telling the story to his journal, and ... well, he isn't worrying about publishers or critics or whatnot, even if the author of the story should be. He's just getting all this stuff out. Why shouldn't he be as loose as he wants to? Why shouldn't he be clumsy and unpolished?

[jollymcjollyson]

pestilence said:

Well, I don't get that at all. Louis is writing in his own personal journal. He is telling the story to his journal, and ... well, he isn't worrying about publishers or critics or whatnot, even if the author of the story should be. He's just getting all this stuff out. Why shouldn't he be as loose as he wants to? Why shouldn't he be clumsy and unpolished?

The author's writing shouldn't be clumsy and unpolished because he can show looseness without being so.

[Chris]

We are never going to see eye to eye on this. Let's just agree to disagree.