November 28th, 2022 - The Hollow Children
Dear TNY,
On this Monday, after having burned across The West in Chuck, my stalwart hetero life mate, I have just finished up “The Hollow Children”.
And I’ll tell you something, I liked it. Now, I wasn’t moved. I’ll drop that note right out of the gate. This wasn’t, I think, designed to well us up. But by my page two, I knew what was at risk in this story. And there was tension. And I appreciated the speed that the author moved this along at. The characters were scant, but they moved the story forward. It was all there but the welling, to me. I even liked the sentence construction. And I was able to look past the complete lunacy that one could just keep driving as the land was so flat that one wouldn’t know when they had left the road. Oh, and I was really hoping that somehow the girl that burrowed into the hay bail would get flattened by the bus, bringing the pistol seen in the first act into use in the third act. But this did not occur.
I’m not sure I “get” the underwater stuff. I feel like that’s the part where I’m supposed to begin the transcendence, but I didn’t. Which made the end seem a little “meh”. But, whatever. I read this with wonder and I didn’t get mad.
Oh, don’t put the words to the song in. I’ve done this. You’ve done this. We all fucking do it. NO ONE FUCKING READS THAT SHIT. My youngest ranted for quite some time about The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings because of Tolkien’s insistence on all the goddamn lyrics to every song. It just doesn’t fucking work.
Anyway, as I was saying about Chuck, I blasted across The West. Idaho was cold. I have a leak in the PS pump which is increased by the cold. I have a spare but for now I’m just going to watch it. It’s leaked for a decade; sometimes bad, sometimes not bad. So I don’t think it’s an emergency. A tire is out of balance. And I think the engine mounts have gone tits up. But that’s it. He just fucking performed. And today I went disc golfing with my boys and we ate green chile cheeseburgers and then drove and hiked around Black Canyon National Park (for free, bitches, because I’m a fucking war hero (just kidding, I did serve but it was a job like anything else)). Then my oldest drove us home for over an hour in the dark, his first night drive. And he killed it. My life is more interesting than your magazine!
Anyway, so much in store for you over the holiday. You don’t even know it yet. It’s gonna be major. Maybe my pancreas won’t give out and me and these boys will glow like goddamn angels.
But likely not, as today I squat blasted hot, wet dogfood shit into a vault toilet and then peed on the back of my pants, which were around my ankles. So I’m a fucking shitshow.
Huzzah!
Later.
Nick
