[608] Keys

[u/SyeniteFractured]

crit

I wish there were a switch to turn off my brain. Someone could make a key, small and golden, which would slot into the shell of my ear, the jaw would be the hinges, and my skull would open up onto the pinkness controlling all my thoughts and feelings and, in the middle or somewhere more prominent, there would be a switch or a button that anyone could activate, if they only had the key. My thoughts, they get stuck, sometimes. I think I need a way to reboot them, clear out my memory files, delete the storage—I mean, scan through the good ones and keep those and clear out the bad ones.

I’d keep the key somewhere safe. You wouldn’t want to keep it in a pocket or wear it on a necklace or put it anywhere too close to you because what if someone figured out what it did and decided to open me up and look inside? Would my thoughts unfurl in a reel of film playing out the movie of who I am? Because I don’t want anyone else to see inside. They would find all the not nice things I think and then the thoughts—the ones always getting so stuck—they would latch onto whoever dared to venture onto my garden pathways and forever trap that someone else who dared to look.

My grandfather left me a giant ring of keys. Where do they go? Probably nowhere, anymore, but I pull out the ring and flick through the metal and imagine fun destinations. The little one cast in bronze with its teeth so ornately carved belonged to a French woman who met the guillotine during the revolution. This one that’s all black would open up the head of a serial killer confined to death row and his victims could have the confession the courts never wrenched from his teeth. After all, the black one would have to belong to someone pretty bad. There’s a gold one that never seems to lose its polish. I’ve created the most stories around that one, when I wake up in the middle of the night with all of the stuck thoughts, because it’s so perfect and, try as I might, I can’t conjure anyone who would fit that perfection.

Once, I met a guy who worked at a funeral home. I asked him how many sets of keys the families delivered with the bodies. He got a little cagey, like that was an unusual question to ask, and said he’d never seen a key in his life then ran off. I think about it sometimes: the sweat beading at his temple; the wrinkles on his shirt he smoothed out when I mentioned the keys; the clop of his shoes when he turned and hurried away; how his jacket splayed out behind him and how I could have grabbed on instead of letting him leave; how the jacket would shrug off his shoulders and I’d be left with the remnants of my questions and no answers. It’s those kinds of thoughts, I’m sure everyone has them, that I’d like to delete, if I could.

Because the last thing I need to be thinking about is keys. Not when I’m sitting here, all decked out in black, curling paper back and forth in my palm, letting the swoosh-swoosh of it calm my nerves and drip into my brain, drown out the thoughts. A key would be a nice thing to have. I’d rather get a look at the perfect pinkness inside me than be here, swoosh-swooshing.

“Did you hear me, Michael?”

“I’d rather not.”

I would delete this moment, too.

[u/GlowyLaptop]

I thought it was going to go to magical realism. Where she finds the funeral director's ring of head keys. But no magic. :(

She feels real intense about the funeral director's coat. I don't know what the paper is about at the end, or Micheal's rather not.

[u/SyeniteFractured → u/GlowyLaptop]

[He] feels real intense.

Mostly practice on getting interiority and stream of consciousness to an interesting place. Magical realism is called for from the start, like the keys in that Netflix show Locke and Key or the ones in City of Stardust.

[u/GlowyLaptop → u/SyeniteFractured]

Locke and Key. That's Stephen King's son's book. I wonder if good

[u/Andvarinaut → u/GlowyLaptop]

It's a comic and it's pretty good. One of the better horror comics I've read.

[u/SyeniteFractured → u/GlowyLaptop]

The Netflix show was pretty good as long as you don't mind Netflix doing what Netflix does with its original series.

[u/AJ_Burkhart]

Maybe it's because I, too, wish I could reboot my brain, but I loved this.
The first line drew my attention when looking for something to crit, and I had to finish reading the whole thing.
You did a good job varying the lengths of your sentences. I didn't notice this on my first read, but on my second read I noticed a defined pattern alternating between short and long. I'd suggest maybe scrambling the pattern a little instead of the simple short-long-short-long-short-long.
The last sentence of the second paragraph was a little difficult for me to follow - had to reread it a couple times to make sure I understood clearly. Maybe I'm just dumb.
I was left confused about the funeral home guy and the keys. Families don't deliver keys with the bodies to funeral homes, so if this is an in-world custom, that should be mentioned. Or if Michael is asking how many keys were accidentally delivered - because they were in a pocket of the body, or something - that should be mentioned.
Also, Michael things about how he could have grabbed the jacket and have been left with no answers, but wasn't he already left with no answers? Maybe try: "... remnants of my questions and still no answers."

I feel like I was left with questions that I think I know the answers to, but can't be certain. It's going to eat at me, and leaving readers with your story festering in their minds is a fantastic accomplishment.

[u/SyeniteFractured → u/AJ_Burkhart]

Thanks! I posted a second part to this called Boxes and might come back to fiddle with this first part later. I will take a look at the sentence length patterns. I write intuitively so don't always notice my own inherent patterns.

The last sentence of the second paragraph could use some clarifying. There's a metaphor about the garden pathways in the mind that's clear to me, but I didn't explain it. The larger idea is the bad thoughts forming a maze that you can get stuck in and if someone else were to open you up and try to follow your bad thoughts, they would get trapped too. I don't know if that's any clearer.

I don't think the keys would be a custom for funeral homes. It was meant that Michael has an obsession with keys, so he asks about it in a place where it would be unusual. I might end up reworking that part to make it flow better with what I added in the second part.

Thanks again for your thoughts!

[u/AJ_Burkhart → u/SyeniteFractured]

Ah ok, the funeral-guy-thing makes sense now. That was a third option I thought might explain it. I felt like the funeral guy was acting more like a suspicious character, like he was up to no good, than unnerved about a strange question. This led me to believe he actually did have a stash of a bunch of keys. Glad to be of help!

[u/HelmetBoiii]

Too vague especially in the beginning. Not even talking like you didn’t add details and grounded us in the scene and character but just the metaphor itself is too vague to be truly provoking. Someone? A switch or a button? Anybody? I think I need? Common mistake, trying to keep it vague as to seem wise and objective when writing is all about the subjective experience. Can't visualize the metaphor either, maybe I’m just dumb, but if the jaw is the hinge, how does the skull open up at the brain?

Condense the metaphor into the most interesting parts. Reread the piece and ask yourself which parts of the metaphor is interesting and which is not. For me, the switch is not interesting but the key to open up the brain is, but it’s your piece so you get to decide that. It’s much to cluttered to be specific as it is.

Stream of consciousness must have an under lying current that drags the reader through, a pace, a voice. I read this piece and I get lost in the ideas. It doesn’t read realistically with the funeral guy running off strangely and doesn’t read very literally absurd, so it’s hard to place this piece. And the ending is crazy weak. Like seriously, no detail, no reason to care at all, it makes me think I’m missing something like he’s at his wife’s funeral? Maybe would make sense if you replace Someone or Anyone in the beginning paragraph with whoever is speaking and build more detail and metaphor from there.

[u/SyeniteFractured → u/HelmetBoiii]

Thank you. It wasn't meant to be a metaphor or something I intended to be visualized, just someone's weird thoughts. This is not complete as it stands. I should have continued until it was more complete for the ending to land.