EVERYONE: - Complete Black Dog (Everyone)

[Beth Pavell]

Spoiler: Rated EVERYONE for:

• No sensitive subjects depicted

Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold …

I can feel their green dreams opening like flowers. The forest floor is mottled with sunlight filtering down through their outstretched boughs. Bluebells are in season, delicate ultramarine blooms springing up in thickets on either side of the path. You could almost hear them ringing. On occasion the zephyr in the treetops picks up and the leaves rattle and sigh like waves on the seashore.

I pause for a moment, and think to look back on the path. Reflect on where I've been.

Black Dog is watching me.

Black Dog sits grinning in gloaming. Gloaming turns the forest grey and there is no sunlight. Freezing sleet hammers down through the leafless trees. Black Dog sits on grey asphalt, grinning.

I see you.

“I See You,” she says.

I don't want to turn away. Black Dog's eyes shine like green fire. The bitch is attractive. She is sleekness, she is elegance. Her coat shines like silk. I want to, I want to walk back to her, to stroke her fine coat. It would be the easiest thing in the world. Her predatory grin, the green fire in her eyes, add a delicious frisson of danger to the idea.

Black Dog sits grinning in gloaming.

I am so tired. Slowly I turn away. Belatedly I realise that I now stand in gloaming. The sunlight forest with the dreaming trees are a furlong away now. Maybe more. I try to remember what it was like to feel the mottled sun on my shoulders with the bluebells ringing at my feet. Glorious, I think. For a brief, bright time, it was glorious.

It is so far away. Are those other people I can see, standing in the light? There's no-one with me in the gloaming. None but Black Dog.

I see you.

“Come Lie With Me,” she says.

… No.

So very slowly, I turn around. The path is flat, but every step feels like I am trying to walk up a mountain. I'm not sure if the sunlight forest is getting any closer. It has to be. I have to trust that it has to be. I can feel Black Dog following. Her eyes like green fire bore into my back.

“I Am You,” she says.

“You Will Never Escape Me,” she says.

“I know,” I say. I step into the light.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

This probably would have been a poem, if I was any good at poetry. It's deliberately unpolished, since I wanted to get the raw imagery down. Whether it really works, well, I'll be honest; I'm not sure

 

[Jimmy 3 People 0]

This works wonderfully as a metaphor for death and its inevitability. It's probably because your prose is so damn fantastic. I think "vivid" would be the best word to describe it. I did get a quite unsettling feeling from the Black Dog, which is a good thing. You really should look into doing more of these.

 

[Flaze]

Well even after sititng on this for a week or so I can't really come up with a way to properly interpret exactly what it could be. The meaning behind the piece can range from many things like death (like what Jersey Jimmy pointed out) or some kind of dysfunctional relationship that the character is trying to escape. It can also symbolize a person's regrets or "dark side" if you will and how it always tries to make you feel less of yourself.

Of course this isn't a problem at all, in fact I think that's better for these types of pieces, as long as they don't get too pretentious with what they're trying to say.

 

[Juliko]

Wow. I really liked this poem. Don't really know how to describe or interpret it, though. But I don't really recognize some of the words you're using, such as mottled, gloaming, and furlong. What do those mean?

 

[Beth Pavell]

Wow. I really liked this poem. Don't really know how to describe or interpret it, though. But I don't really recognize some of the words you're using, such as mottled, gloaming, and furlong. What do those mean?

Real quick reply before I'm too tired to think straight:

Mottled: Spotted or blotchy
Gloaming: A delightfully archaic word for twilight or gloom
Furlong: In Imperial measurements, 660 feet, or about 200 metres

 

[AetherX]

Awards review here. I judged this one as a poem, for what it's worth. The usual criteria didn't seem to fit.

The flow was excellent. The pacing of description to symbolism to progression was well done. I liked the use of old fashioned words. It set the “setting” and the overall feel of the piece. The reason I suggested this be looked at like poetry is because similar to poetry it’s written in such a way that every word matters. Sure, you could have just said “dusk” but the word “gloaming” feels so much different. The way line breaks were used to control the flow was well done. The structure wasn’t super noticeable, which I suppose is a good thing.

I got the impression that this was more of a “let me try my hand at this” sort of thing rather than an actual original idea. The use of a black dog as an allegory for death or darkness lingering close by is not at all original. I mean, it was a poem written as not a poem, which is original I guess?

Anyway, I enjoyed it overall, even though I didn't find it to be anything particularly special.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I have to say, I'm not entirely sure why this made it to Judging - privately I rather thought it had no business being there, being unpolished, and if I'm honest, not all that clever. It seems to have been pretty well- received anyway, which is nice.

I suppose I might as well say now, the piece was supposed to be an allegory for depression rather than death, which speaks to the unpolished nature of it. So yes, it was really me playing around with something more dreamlike, trying to see what happens when I don't think very much about it and just go with what words seem right at the time

 

[AceTrainer14]

I think Aether and I have pretty similar feelings, so can't really add anything on to it. It was a nice little piece, well written, very nicely laid out, and it did flow very nicely which for some reason stood out to me. It just seemed appropriate to the theme. I similarly thought the dog referred to death instead of depression: I think Harry Potter/Professor Trelawney has imbued in society an automatic connection between the two that will probably be hard to shake

I did have two criticisms that might be of use to you:
- the use of quotation marks added to the mystery of the piece in that we weren't sure for a few days whether to judge it by poetry or prose rules, and since we did it under poetry, the use did stand out/distract a bit. Not a big thing but figured I would point it out
- unlike Aether, the old-fashioned words distracted me rather than drew me into the piece. I liked the use of gloaming, but some of the stuff like zephyr, frisson, furlong, they felt rather out of place. I think as it is a poem that you can kind of get away with it, but for a small piece the multiple instances did just throw me as there didn't really feel like a requirement for them nor did they really fit in.

Ultimately, it's pleasant and well written, and as a writing exercise/attempt at playing around, it works for the most part. Just probably needed something stronger to it.