Some forum members here got a bit rattled by my arrogance and self-assurance, so I invite anyone to try and knock me dow
I’m about to post two excerpts below, around 1,000 words total. I think that's more than enough to get a rough idea of the author's level. The first excerpt is a stylized poetic-epic piece, and the second leans into a modern urban-mystic rhythm. So, let’s try it this way: I invite anyone willing to tear the author's literary efforts to shred. Roast it into the ground if you want.
Only two requests:
- If you're going to tear it apart, at least back it up with some basic reasoning.
- Please don't make it personal—focus strictly on the excerpts.
I'll say it again: go hard, don't hold back. Maybe I really do need a reality check. And while I have a pretty good idea of what kind of feedback to expect—and will probably disagree with a lot of it—there might just be a few points I'll be forced to take into account. Also, if by some chance anyone finds these excerpts decent, I'd love to hear your advice on which specific magazines or outlets I should submit to.
[Epic-poetic excerpt]
The Willow
If we are to steer a course for the Shores of Truth—for let us honest be, few have a taste for idle tales and toothless fables—the gathering-in of this ancient lay must begin with the Khukhas. The high-browed wiseacres, to be sure, might well take offense and carp: why start with the Khukhas, and not with the even older Khokhas, freshly sucked from some over-refined thumb? Or why must we open with the Khukhas instead of finishing with them, or bringing them up somewhere in the middle? Why is the wind windy, and why does the elderberry grow in the garden? These restless minds could surely spin endless webs of such tangled cleverness… But a countless flock of crayfish will whistle from the mountaintops, flies will bring forth elephants, and the boundless fields of fern will ignite their bizarre blossoms upon the Moon long before any soul needs to clutter their mind with such nonsense. For it is not the custom of worthies to blacken the white or to whitewash the black. Thus it has been since the days of old, and that is an end to it. To the Khukhas belongs the Khukhas' glory, and no more words upon it!
So, let us draw a deep breath and guide this flowing tale along—not to fashion it for any man’s whim, but as they used to do in the truly glorious past: by the bidding of the heart! And we shall begin not with empty breath, but with that very parable of how these fluffy little Khukhas once dwelt in the wide world, by no means unknown to fame. Today, of course, the very headwaters of time are beyond our reach. Yet they say that when the borders between Nava, the Unseen World, and Yava, the Waking World, lay so sheer that folk rarely even noticed them, there was in those times no messenger between lovers more faithful and selfless than these comely little creatures And though nowadays, search as you might with a lantern at high noon, you could scarce find a soul who has not sipped the bitter brew steeped on the sprouts of Betrayal, the blossoms of Desolation, and the roots of Despair, the Khukhas themselves bypass lovers by the most distant paths—it was not so once. Not so at all.
Even just around a not-so-distant corner of existence—in the morning, or at high noon, let alone in the evening dusk—whose hands did not try to catch them? They caught them in those brief moments when a careless Khukha, spun around in endless games, forgot to make herself invisible. And they caught them not merely for mischief—no! To send word of the restless beating of their hearts, entrusting their very fate to a speck of down—that was the hope of those who reached out.
“Fly, fly, little Khukha, to my lover’s ear,
Speak of his maiden, soothe her heavy heart…”
So chirped the girls to their weightless accomplice. And, brimming with hope, they gently blew her from their palms.
“Come, oh come, my lady-love,
I shall build a footbridge for thee…”
With no less longing did the lads who had lost their sleep call upon their desired maidens, baring their chests to the spring wind.
Yet it was not only girls and lads—anyone with strength left would quite often chant their spells to the Khukhas, lagging only a step or two behind the youth in this merry chase. And in springtime, the life of the Khukhas turned into something of a downright curse, so often did folk turn to them for help. True, it never happened that a Khukha refused anyone the first, second, or even the third time, for to aid lovers stood above all else for them. But when the exact same restless hands caught them without end, the thread of patience would snap even for the most long-suffering of Khukhas!
Then, waiting for the dead of night, the fluffy conspirators would quietly creep out of their soft little nests and flock to the homesteads of the biggest nuisances, bringing to their unbridled passion a grim but only possible reckoning. Settling on a chest or right by the ear, they would whisper their witchcraft charms in shifting voices over Those Who Had Lost All Measure. And it was a blessing if the spell of indifference they cast lost its power within a few months.
Furthermore, in a fleeting hope for peace, flocks of the Khukhas tried to change the places of their revels. Yet it was like drawing water with a sieve. For when some Khukhas, weary of the clinging, smoky world of mortals, fled the hearths for the Unseen Realm—others always returned from it to take their place, driven to their wits' end by the Navia, thus closing the enchanted circle.
And all because the Khukhas could not imagine their own selves outside of existence. A mere day or two of quiet, carefree rest was enough for them to grow thoroughly bored, turn their vexation into mercy, and, forgetting all grievances, return to the wide world. And most of all in that wide world, the little hearts of the Khukhas leaned toward the slender-legged nyavkas of the woods and the fair-tressed rusalkas of the waters. Why, they say that it was none other than the sleepless protection of the Khukhas that kept the forest, meadow, and water beauties beyond the reach of any signs of sorrow, despair, or hopelessness in those days. And no force existed that could make the restless, weightless things change their ways. Thus, unconditionally, did their tiny yet no less devoted hearts belong to the doe-eyed beauties. And no matter what trials that undeclared covenant had to endure—for a long time, so it went!
So it went, but only for a time! For is it within anyone's power, let alone that of tiny, fluffy creatures, to endlessly stave off the inevitable?
[Modern urban mystic-thriller excerpt]
Punishment
Murky yellow beams of light swept erratically over the nocturnal assembly. Yet even such an uncertain glow was enough to make out that the small group, pressed up against the edge of the cliff, posed no danger at all. And still, the frenzied crowd drove them forward with sticks like wild beasts—drunkenly hiccuping, and at the same time instantly flinching back from their slightest unexpected movement. Youths, everyday people of middle and advanced age. Even children. Despite the late hour, the mob swallowed up people of all ages.
“Punish! Punish! Punish! Punish!” The savage chant suddenly erupted from within the crowd, growing stronger with each repetition.
What do they want, these lost souls? If not for the glints in empty eyes, if not for the shoves toward the precipice, if not for that ominous cry, the whole scene might almost have resembled a festive pageant. What was even happening here? Other than them being driven into the abyss? As far as Eg could tell in the wavering light, the cliff did not seem very deep; if one tried to slide down while clinging to the wall, one could hope not to break one's neck.
A slender dark-haired woman from their group, yielding beneath the hail of shoves, stumbled into his shoulder and sent him staggering to the very edge. Only a step remained to the drop. It was now or never. Eg bared his teeth at the crowd… and, unexpectedly even to himself, froze mid-turn, extending his hand to the stranger. But she didn’t even move toward him, and the last thing he made out before the ground gave way was her terror-stricken eyes, lit by the twin glare of the spotlights—and then a sharp clap, like a dry crack of thunder, catching up with him already in total darkness.
He slammed into ledges on the wall several times, scraped against some roots, flew feet-first into a mound, and painfully smashed his back and head, so that for certain moments he distinguished nothing but sparks before his eyes—until at last, he felt the sand collapsing onto him. If only to keep a little room beneath himself... To rake the sand away—at least from his chest and head … Yet the loose sand immediately poured back into every hollow he managed to carve out, only making things worse. He needed help. If no one helped him, this was the end. One more shift and he would suffocate. Yet who would help him? Not those glass-eyed ones. So who could?…
A shallow inhale—exhale. Shallow inhale—exhale. Shallow inhale—exhale… Suddenly it dawned on Eg that he was occupied only with counting these inhale-exhales. One, two, three, four. And again—one, two, three, four. No understanding why, it had appeared to him that exactly four inhale-exhales remained until the end. Not some vague number, but for some reason, precisely four. And it seemed completely simple—to count to four, and just like that, be done with everything. Both with what had been. And with what would never be again.
Instead, after every fourth inhale-exhale, from somewhere deep inside, he received a renewed understanding—he still had those same four beats of existence. It seemed an obvious destruction of the escape schematics, yet the count reset with wondrous ease, and once more he counted—one, two, three, four. And no other aspiration. Only the counting of inhales and exhales. One, two, three, four. At some point, he was even struck by a revelation—he was not so much helplessly doomed as he was happy. Happy to count just like this. To dissolve into a perfect sequence of four beats, beyond which nothing existed, and nothing more was given to exist…
And here, already at the brink of no return, everything around trembled, and both he and the layer of sand beneath him were carried somewhere downward, and indifferently spat out into the open.
Heavy drops of thick rain on his face…
The suffocating four-beat pattern vanished without a trace at once in the saving freshness, yet the mere ability to breathe did not return even half his strength to Eg. It barely sufficed for him to dig himself out and clumsily crawl somewhere—not knowing where.
After that, there was only the roar of the downpour and some bushes.
Visions of the artless existence of the sand-dwellers, intermingled with scenes of the destruction of the mission’s retreating column, forced their way into Eg’s dreams all too often. Usually, though, that vision would regurgitate him, soaked in sweat, into the night. Or, at least, into the morning gray. At any rate, certainly not like now—at midday. Waking up always early, he never slept during the day even when ill. Only now did it dawn on him why. He no longer remembered the last time he had slept in daylight—precisely because of his unwillingness to let additional horrors pass through him. And though the assembly-cliff dream stood out from his usual nightmares, such an expansion of the repertoire was hardly comforting—for in this new delirium, too, he had been on the brink of death.
The nocturnal delusion had almost flown from his head, leaving behind little more than a meaningless heaviness, when suddenly sand ground against his teeth. Brushing away, like a fly, the wild thought of the glassy-eyed assembly, Eg deliberately, unhurriedly threw off the bedcover—and… could not believe his own eyes: beneath it, he lay in torn, filthy, and damp trousers and shirt.
Perhaps he needed to close his eyelids and try opening them again?
Yet even after several blinks, his eyes kept relentlessly testifying—he lay under the blanket in the ragged, dirty remnants of what only yesterday had been called his clothes.