January 3rd & 10th, 2022 - What the Forest Remembers

Dear TNY,

For the first story of 2022 you chose “What the Forest Remembers”.  And I have to say, I fucking loved it. 

Did I fucking love it, love it?  I don’t know.  That was the first thing that came to mind.  I almost cried.  Not that crying is required.  But it is something.  And I don’t even know why I feel this way.  Maybe I do?  I don’t know.

This story builds, man.  It fucking builds.  It builds toward this moment that Lou is looking for, that moment, for all of us.  Goddamn, TNY.  Maybe I’m just Lou.  Some broken-ass shit that has everything but is still looking for more. 

Man, I don’t even know.

Okay, one negative:  I don’t think the stupid consciousness machine is necessary.  This is fiction.  We can have an omniscient narrator and that’s fine.  The consciousness piece is very “here’s how this works and here’s why and blah blah blah” but it doesn’t really add anything to the piece that wasn’t already there through the POV choices.  It gives the narrator a reason to know this and not know that, but what the narrator doesn’t know doesn’t really matter.  And it’s the only moment, really, that is big outside the forest moment (which is the moment that matters).

Like, I can’t even put my finger on why I liked this so much. 

This. This is what did it for me:

But when he surfaces, howling, what has died is his sorrow—he’s left it on the river bottom. Freedom! Joy! Tim Breezely will soon divorce—they’ll all divorce—everyone will divorce. An entire generation will throw off the fetters of rote commitment in favor of invention, hope—and we, their children, will try to locate the moment we lost them and worry that it was our fault.

That broke my fucking heart.  This story builds that fucking hope up, like a goddamn miracle is about to happen, and then right when it does, it snatches the fucking joy out of it by bringing up the fact that that miracle isn’t free; the kids are going to fucking pay for it. 

My kids are paying for it.

Fuck.

Fuck my fucking face.

I think maybe I shouldn’t have ventured out away from home, guys.  That promise of the miracle…it likely ruined my life.

Anyway, I don’t know if I loved it, this story.  But I did like it.  It was built well.  I felt an almost arrogant sense of nobility and wonder in this.  Honed texture.  Looming dread & glory. 

The story was literature is what I’m trying to say.  A rarity on your pages. So thanks.

Anyway, here’s to a new year. 

Nick