Four paragraphs that bring me to query was this man, this Jefferson Carpenter, a man whose body and mind had both reached the end of their tenuous tethering of a lost soul wandered to his long sought place of suicide or was this a man long marked out for murder who had been patiently tracked to just the right place and just the right time to effect his demise? A query just as unanswerable as the questions as to whether Jefferson Carpenter's perception of himself as 'irredeemable" is to be relied upon.
So, in your writer's mind'eye; there was The Witness; a witness who might have seen but not realised what it was that he, perhaps she, was seeing; a witness who is not the deceased Jefferson Carpenter nor, the possible tracker and killer of Jefferson Carpenter. Yet you now add-in the salient evidence that there are "things the witness will never known which only heightens his dread." Which seems to be saying that, schtum as he'd like to be and remain, the witness exists and knows that what he's seen could cost him.
"Indeed, no one would ever know how poorly he thought of himself, and how vehemently he toiled to convince all who knew him, just how irredeemable he was." The narrator says this as if he knows something we and the witnesses (the fishermen) don't...so we can assume he was one of those people that the dead protagonist refused help or friendship from.
So it is not only a witness but a multiplicity of witnesses that we have to bring into our frame of reference. And now we know that these witnesses and The Witness have in common the occupation of being the - local? - fishermen. What, we are now lead to wonder, can it have been in the refusal of help and / or friendship from that may have led to the last exit from life of Jefferson Carpenter?
Mmm... the previously still, unperturbed boundaries of this dead at the foot of a cliff mystery are certainly being stretched Camilla.
The Ghost in addition to The Cadaver, Carpenter; The - Possible - Perp; The - Particular - Witness; The - Fishermen -Witnesses... Have you budgeted for casting all of these characters? On the back of just four fine paragraphs? You have Camilla! Wow. Not just amazing but cool, real cool.
Mmm... I've got this, not so much nagging as nudging, sense that you're going to play your next card to reveal that Jefferson Carpenter, definitely and irrevocably dead as his mortal remains may lie on the mortuary gurney, is going to be one of those guys who never was?
Here lies Jefferson Carpenter - an enigma wrapped in a phantom shroud. Gorgeously ghouly - just right for this time of year. Love the artwork as well - very evocative. Brava!
Unsettling,
Four paragraphs that bring me to query was this man, this Jefferson Carpenter, a man whose body and mind had both reached the end of their tenuous tethering of a lost soul wandered to his long sought place of suicide or was this a man long marked out for murder who had been patiently tracked to just the right place and just the right time to effect his demise? A query just as unanswerable as the questions as to whether Jefferson Carpenter's perception of himself as 'irredeemable" is to be relied upon.
Enigmatic.
Yes...things the witnesses will never know, which only heightens his dread.
Ah!
So, in your writer's mind'eye; there was The Witness; a witness who might have seen but not realised what it was that he, perhaps she, was seeing; a witness who is not the deceased Jefferson Carpenter nor, the possible tracker and killer of Jefferson Carpenter. Yet you now add-in the salient evidence that there are "things the witness will never known which only heightens his dread." Which seems to be saying that, schtum as he'd like to be and remain, the witness exists and knows that what he's seen could cost him.
Mmm...
"Indeed, no one would ever know how poorly he thought of himself, and how vehemently he toiled to convince all who knew him, just how irredeemable he was." The narrator says this as if he knows something we and the witnesses (the fishermen) don't...so we can assume he was one of those people that the dead protagonist refused help or friendship from.
Ah!
So it is not only a witness but a multiplicity of witnesses that we have to bring into our frame of reference. And now we know that these witnesses and The Witness have in common the occupation of being the - local? - fishermen. What, we are now lead to wonder, can it have been in the refusal of help and / or friendship from that may have led to the last exit from life of Jefferson Carpenter?
Mmm... the previously still, unperturbed boundaries of this dead at the foot of a cliff mystery are certainly being stretched Camilla.
and you also have the ghost!!
Yikes!
The Ghost in addition to The Cadaver, Carpenter; The - Possible - Perp; The - Particular - Witness; The - Fishermen -Witnesses... Have you budgeted for casting all of these characters? On the back of just four fine paragraphs? You have Camilla! Wow. Not just amazing but cool, real cool.
Mmm... I've got this, not so much nagging as nudging, sense that you're going to play your next card to reveal that Jefferson Carpenter, definitely and irrevocably dead as his mortal remains may lie on the mortuary gurney, is going to be one of those guys who never was?
Here lies Jefferson Carpenter - an enigma wrapped in a phantom shroud. Gorgeously ghouly - just right for this time of year. Love the artwork as well - very evocative. Brava!
Thank you, Jude. I have subscribes to your newsletter! Happy you're here, too. :)
Wonderful, Camila. Evocative and luscious prose. The opening lines do so much to set the scene.
Love the artwork, too.
Thank you, Nathan. I'm enjoying your stuff too. :)