The Conveyer Belt (Revised)

[spencer_broughton]

I never noticed it before but sitting on a train is a little like being stuck on a conveyer belt. The train chundles past the scenery without caring to slow down for you to see it clearly. One big green and grey blur; cities, fields, trees. They all merge together like the painting of a two year old spoiled by a misplaced glass of water.

A young woman opposite reading the same page of the newspaper for over an hour looks up and makes some brief eye-contact with tired brown eyes. She broaches a smile, and I note the faint shade of sympathy in her features. I must look how I feel.

The old lady next to me begins to offer her pearls of wisdom on the annoyance of trains and other topics with little meaning. It's as English as watching television programmes you despise just to shout at the screen and then ring up ‘Points of View’ to complain. Typical English conversations with strangers are like small polite pieces of nothing wrapped in indifference. We make up for our insecure feelings of discomfort with the random ramblings of inanity.

My fag-stained fingers drum the Formica table and I wonder when I should get off the train. She chatters about her son; like the lonely do. They have no one and yet this demanding, dissident feeling of needing to speak. You can’t disappoint someone who doesn’t know you; it doesn’t matter if they judge you. People listen with morbid curiosity whilst you exhale with catharsis. Intimacy is much easier with a stranger, it's fearless and meaningless.

“What’s your name love?” asked the old lady in kind Yorkshire vernacular.

“Lucy”

“Lovely!” she leaned a little closer and patted my arm, “If I’d had daughter I was gonna name ‘er Lucy.” She smiled at her memories “Wouldn’t change my Jim for the world duck. But I think a daughter would’ve been nice.”

“Did you ever try for another child? For a daughter?”

“No, Percy, me husband died a few years after Jim was born.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault, love, not your fault.” She sighed and clutched her tan leather handbag with tenacity. “Those cancer sticks that did ‘im in. But, aye, you couldn’t get ‘im to give ‘em up. Ooooohhh no, he never would.”

“Men can be so stubborn.” I muttered, glancing at the lingering yellow stains on my own finger tips. Life on a conveyer belt, I thought. I was about to ask more about her husband but she was lost now, in memories, painful and long-lasting. I examined her old face with affection. Age had creased her flesh but intelligence and wit remained in her eyes. The shape of her face revealed a lost beauty in the folds of time. It forced my consciousness to look into the future with a harsh realism that hadn’t really struck me before. Life on a conveyer belt, yellowing fingers, the traces of time around the eyes.

The old-lady with her amiable Yorkshire voice left the train at the next stop, not forgetting to leave me with a comforting smile and soft “Take care pet". I watched her move her frail body down the aisle tentatively and apologetically. It’s a disturbing wake up call to finally notice the elderly. We can only avoid it for so long but the reality is as inevitable as rain in Sheffield. I averted my eyes back to the woman in the suit and sympathetic smile, eager to return to an internal sense of equilibrium.

[thoke]

I think this is really good and well-written.

The only problem I have with it is that the old lady's accent/dialect seems a little bit forced. Especially the 'duck' in: “Wouldn’t change my Jim for the world duck.” At the very least, you should put a comma between 'world' and 'duck'. But maybe you should get rid of the duck altogether... I think people usually say it as part of a greating, like: "y'alright, duck?" - they don't just stick it at the end of any old sentence. Also, I think "pet" is more of a geordie thing.

But those are really minor things. Overall, I like this a lot.

[spencer_broughton]

Cheers love. Darn it there I go again! Yeh I wrote it about a year ago whilst still at uni and I don't think I'd had the full on yorkshire accent experience at this point. I did get my native Sheffield boyfriend to read it over and he said it was fine. I see your point though, I might take it out.

Pet is a personal thing, my Nan and Grandad were from near Newcastle. I think I slipped it in without thinking.

Thanks for the advice Thoke.

[barrie]

Just insert a comma before duck, like Thoke suggested - I don't see any reason to remove it - this how old people (up North anyroad) talk. It has a disarming effect, puts people at ease - a dying form of communication thanks to political correctness. A lot of councils are beginning to ban the use of pet, love, duck etc when dealing with members of the public. At the same time, school children happily tell their teachers and parents to fuck off without fear of reprimand. Crazy!

long live ducks

Barrie

[thoke]

...school children happily tell their teachers and parents to fuck off without fear of reprimand.

Which tabloid newspaper did you read that in? I only left school three years ago and that definitely wasn't the impression I got. My little sister's friend told my English teacher to fuck off, so she shouted at him and suspended him.

[barrie]

I have about a dozen friends and relations who teach in inner city schools -

I don't read tabloid newspapers - I tend to be quite cynical when it comes to any newspaper.

Does that answer your question?

[thoke]

I don't read tabloid newspapers - I tend to be quite cynical when it comes to any newspaper. Does that answer your question?

Yes.

Do your teacher-friends tell you that their students can happily swear at them without reprimand? Maybe it's true then. I always thought the view that "there's no discipline in schools anymore" was as exaggurated and silly as the view that "prisons are like hotels now". But maybe I have nothing to base that attitude on.

[barrie]

It's not too difficult to impose disciplne when there are only one or two rule breakers - When the rule breakers are in the majority, discipline breaks down.

School disciplne wasn't my point though - I was just using it to highlight the bureaucratic stupidity in trying to impose 'politically correct' rules.

There's nowt wrong in calling someone duck or love - Maybe they should try it in Westminster instead of behaving like spoilt brats.

Anyway, let's not hijack the post - I'd like to see it expanded upon. There would seem to be a lot of thought and reflection that never came out, leaving the piece a little too brief. There's a lot of interesting stuff still waiting to be revealed, methinks.

[thoke]

There's nowt wrong in calling someone duck or love

Yeah, I completely agree with that.

[spencer_broughton]

Anyway, let's not hijack the post - I'd like to see it expanded upon. There would seem to be a lot of thought and reflection that never came out, leaving the piece a little too brief. There's a lot of interesting stuff still waiting to be revealed, methinks.

Well I did post the longer version a while back but only a few people read it.

It's on my blogspot http://herminehaller.blogspot.com/ (last one I think).

[David]

Spencer, I hate to be the spectre at the feast but there's no point in not saying this: I think it's really hard to write good prose, and this is not good prose. That may just be subjective, but I think it's over-written. There's too much of you in it, commenting, moralising, pontificating.

If you could rewrite this, with a lot more of the old lady in it - the old lady herself, unmediated by your authorial commentary - and a lot less of you, it might be very good.

What does good prose look like? There's very little of it about. Have you read many short stories? A good one will show you how to get into something quickly, before the reader loses patience (as I did with this one). I recommend, whilst knowing that these are heights almost impossible to aspire to, Chekhov (of course), Turgenev, Flannery O'Connor (shocking Catholic zealot, funny but horrifying) and (again, of course) Joyce's Dubliners.

And that's what good prose looks like. Most modern writers can't do it. If you can get anywhere near it, you'll be doing bloody well.

Good luck, and bon voyage. Remember to travel hopefuly.

Cheers

David

[k-j]

I agree with David, to a point. The piece is full of authorial judgements - the third and fourth paragraphs epecially - which make it sound more like diary entry than story.

But for what it is, I think it's quite well put-together. It's not groaning with adjectives and the dialogue is convincing and to-the-point. I like the image at the end of the third paragraph, although I think you could remove either the two-year old or the glass of water.

"Brief eye-contact with tired brown eyes" - using "eye" twice here feels superfluous. How about just "contact"?

I would delete "in kind Yorkshire vernacular". Let the woman's lingo speak for itself. If it sounds kind, the reader will cotton on.

"Her old face" can be just "her face" - we know she's old. Or find an adjective which adds something to our perception of her face, something concrete. I like "the folds of time", and "the traces of time around the eyes"; her face wears these descriptions really well.

Don't think you need to mention how kind her voice is again in the last para. Definitely delete the sentence starting "We can only", which reads like Jerry's final thought. Your eye movement in the last sentence conveys your thoughts well enough. I don't like "internal sense of equilibrium" either. Better to leave us with the picture than your rationale for it.

I think David may have higher standards than most of us when it comes to prose, although I agree it's hard to top Chekhov and Dubliners for short stories, great examples of which definitely are in short supply. Also try Katherine Mansfield and Peter Carey, a couple of Antipodean geniuses.

[spencer_broughton]

Spencer, I hate to be the spectre at the feast but there's no point in not saying this: I think it's really hard to write good prose, and this is not good prose. That may just be subjective, but I think it's over-written. There's too much of you in it, commenting, moralising, pontificating.

If you could rewrite this, with a lot more of the old lady in it - the old lady herself, unmediated by your authorial commentary - and a lot less of you, it might be very good.

What does good prose look like? There's very little of it about. Have you read many short stories? A good one will show you how to get into something quickly, before the reader loses patience (as I did with this one). I recommend, whilst knowing that these are heights almost impossible to aspire to, Chekhov (of course), Turgenev, Flannery O'Connor (shocking Catholic zealot, funny but horrifying) and (again, of course) Joyce's Dubliners.

And that's what good prose looks like. Most modern writers can't do it. If you can get anywhere near it, you'll be doing bloody well.

Good luck, and bon voyage. Remember to travel hopefuly.

Cheers

David

Thankyou but I have read Dubliners plus a number of short stories written by Kafka, Graham Greene and DH Lawrence among others. The piece is a very personal and unstructured spontaneous ramble that I penned at least a year ago. It's not aspiring to be 'good prose' so I think your comment was un-needed. But I did post it on a forum wanting opinions on the style, which you have given and I take on board.

[David]

Spencer, I've reread what I wrote and I do think it errs on the side of pomposity. Sorry about that.

I don't retract it, but I could have expressed myself better. I admire what you're doing with your ezine, so good luck with that.

I won't comment on what you post in future unless you say it's okay.

David

[spencer_broughton]

Yes David, ironically enough for someone criticising prose you did a good job of expressing yourself badly.

Don't worry, I agreed with what you were saying I just felt a bit patronised. You're welcome to comment on my posts it's useful even when the person dislikes your work. Sorry if I got a bit ratty, but it's quite hard not to get touchy about such personal things.

[David]

Good enough. Remember, I am a White European Male. Not actually being Dead as well is the only concession I make to the modern world. (Although you should see me on the first week of my summer holiday. I am still dead white then.)

I shall choose my words more carefully in future. We should tread softly, for we tread on each other's ego.

Cheers

David

[barrie]

We should tread softly, for we tread on each other's ego.

Do I detect a hint of Yeats?