Random Act of Violence

Hmm, is it normal to be confused after reading this? Difficult to "place" for me really. It is hmm very american no doubt, it made me think of Batman and Sin City. This kind of places must exist, or they wouldn't use them in movies wouldn't they? And another thing: is this a moral story or not? Maybe the moral is that one must not search a sophisticated moral behind everything. No, it's suggestive, full of atmosphere, very well written and a nice piece of reading. Thanks for this moment of amazement, Th.

Honestly, I would love to sit here and tell you about all of the symbolism and everything I worked into the piece, but it is what it is. For my creative writing class I had to put a character in a setting they did not belong and this is sort of what I came up with after a round of edits. This place does exist; it is the back alley behind my workplace on a dark night. At first it had a moral and meaning, but it seemed artificial so on the second run through I focused more on atmosphere to create that sort of creepy place that someone would rather not be. Thanks for the response, and honestly you read into the piece perfectly.

True story, or not?
1st hand or not?

Yes, it's a good story. But Theaetetus, didn't it appear before in this section (as the "Down Town Labyrinth")? Is there any difference that I didn't notice? Hope I'm not being unpleasant by mentioning that here.

I forgot that I had posted it here. Thanks for the heads up! I just merged the two threads together.

---------- Post added at 09:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:05 AM ----------



Not a true story. The piece is 100% fiction. The only real things that it draws from are dark alleys in inner cities, and indifferent police officers in these cities desensitized by witnessing so much random violence.

My guess is that you have never been mugged.

Otherwise, not bad at all. I enjoyed the dissonance of the character's thought on the walk:
"I walked cautiously down the street trying to display a strong sense of confidence and belonging"

He walks cautiously, but somehow imagines he can do this and appear confident.

No, never have been mugged, but I have heard plenty of stories about being mugged since I have written this. I am working this piece into the novel I am writing, and then I will make it a little more realistic in the mugging department. This piece was for a creative writing class, and I had to focus on setting up an environment by trying to show what the character was experiencing, rather than telling it. I never got around to making the mugging incident feel more natural and real. I am having this event be a major turning point for the main character. I think this is where despair totally hits the character and he is taken over my a very dark cynical view of the world.

Yeah, I just see no reason for the mugger to stab the character.

As for how the mugging would influence the character, it's hard to say without having the preceding events. Though, if the stabbing can be smoothed out, that direction seems plausible.

In my own writing, the underbelly of society is top interest, so this sort of story is attractive. The narrator, the character who is stabbed, seems to have a sort of distant, WASP kinda view of the whole thing. Which I guess would make sense with the planned turn of mentality into dark and cynical after such a visceral encounter with a slice of that reality. I dig the direction.

I would say that you are usually a lot safer in the alley than in a respected area.If your there they think you belong and your prepared, thats my experience of street reasoning.

You've never been to Memphis, I gather.

I am assuming you have never been to Milwaukee either. I was taking trash out at one of my jobs when I witnessed a drug deal going down in the alley by some thugs. Needless to say, in the inner city, you try to stay in the light at night, and on well traveled streets to make yourself less of a target. Walking down a dark alley alone is often asking for trouble.

Or Atlanta, or Little Rock, or any other American city with a metro population greater than 200,000. It gets rough on this side of the pond.