RE: My ending to The Enchanted Café - Finish the Story contest @bananafish
(Oj mój Bóg, the first person to get it on their first try. Baby-blue Jesus, bonus ducks for this entry. It’s raining men, hallejuhah - amen! Now unto to the story...)
La filosofía del texto (The philosophy of the text): Now I was never a fan of “Good guy, bad guy” scenarios, or at least when that’s the vehicle of the plot. For I do very much see the attempt to capitalize on the USA-Russian relations where the reciprocation of daily life has been net stale for both country’s inhabitants, and only the USA politicians making any fuss where the whole of the Kremlin probably had popcorn night seeing us melt to our chairs. (And I say this as I do remember asking people at the height of media coverage if they even thought it real and most just saying its probably another ploy by politicians to rally up political fervor. Relatively big town here, very political every single person as well.)
But truly this vehicle finds itself manifesting in different areas as real vehicles would do on the journey. The starting one is the proclaimed saviour philosophy where the protagonist is fated to do an action which will save humanity, in one way. This easily wraps itself up with the Angel-Dæmon dichtomy which trigger (like pulling a trigger from the gun to shoot a bullet and eject a bullet casing out) this comment to exist. As with the implication of the Angels siding with a country and not stoping either of their shenanigans, it implicates the USA as Holy (funny connection to American Exceptionalism) and Rus to the sides that have earned the scorn of God, the Almighty, Allah, whomever we wish to signify the Absolute. As I said, a bit much on the nose to capitalize on this issue which much more sides with Rus doing nothing but having to be guinea pigged because the USA cannot live without a punching men; look how we forget about the election issue as we were in Syria, then the two Koreas, China, ..., so on and so on. Funny the attention span of politicians to seek new things when the USA is failing to make grounds.
And probably hilariously true to current USA efforts, it is very persistent and will constantly try to get their results when all else fails. Also good job on capitalizing twenty, God’s number (look up number of moves to solve Rubrik’s Cube for an example, people of the internet),for the number of chances. Because the USA really does a lot to really get the saying they were right, never forget the 600+ assassination attempts on Fidel Castro and then Death doing one of the natural death sweeps - imagine how pissed off the CIA was when Death got another victory against the CIA. Getting back on rail, the USA really does believe when they don’t win that the World will collapse... which I dunno if I am in a special Hell, but seems like the USA fails and the World is still here.
So whether on purpose or not, this very much felt like a comedic tale of criticizing how the USA perceives their role but fucking it up almost always with incompetant agents. And if you wonder, “War is a racket” to quote MajGen. Smedley Buttler - double Medal of Honor earner, deceased ex-USMC.
La forma (The form): I guess the above covers it, lol. My Dialectics got to powerful today and I just made interpenetrate and unite together today. Passion is one hella drug.
One of the great things about the Bananafish community and contests (and some other writing groups on the platform) is that others, like you and @calluna leave these detailed in-depth comments about the author's stories. As I am usually on the curation side of these stories, it is great to see the writers getting lots of great feedback. So, first, thanks for that.
Now then, I think while I did try to play on the tried and true battle of USA - Russia, I tried to put a bit of a different spin on it with the insertion of Canada. I don't think I did it effectively though, since after having my wife read it before posting she said it didn't make any difference to her, and that it could have been any country. But my point of that insertion was to try and make it so Russia wasn't necessarily the "bad guy." Instead they were simply trying to get the U.S. to leave the world alone and worry about their own neighborhood, even if their means of getting to that point was at it's core evil.
Another comment my wife made was that it was very much a Twilight Zone episode. Which I suppose will almost always on some level be true about anything I write. I am a huge life-long fan of the TV series. Of course it wasn't until she said that, that I began breaking it down in a TZ way. After thinking about it many of their episodes do leave a lot open for interpretation as to who is the good and who is the evil. It is one of the reasons I love the show, which again is why I suppose my writing somewhat reflects the same sort of angle.
I'm sorry I could read it only now, I would have preferred to taste your story taking my due time, as a complex aged rhum with a block of dark chocolate. Your ending startled me in a positive way for its originality. I felt I was transported from a Ken Follet book almost to a T. Pratchett one. It's true, the story trespassed the 500 words threshold but who cares when it flows so well. In the end, the true core of this contest resides in the inspiration that it can generate in the writers, no matter the rules - @f3nix.
As I was saying in another reply here - I was actually curating gaby-crb's post when I read the beginning story, and by the time I was finished the spy story angle popped in my head. So it is definitely inspiring people to write. Thank you for the kind words, and I am very glad you enjoyed the story. Glad I remembered to link it to the post, even if it was WAY late.
It's been a great addition to the variety displayed on this edition! Hope to see you again with us 🙂