Maegan! Nothing makes me happier than a new Fresh Meat post surprisingly arriving in my inbox. Such a joy, that feeling.
I've read this story twice now, and I have to be honest with you: I'm feeling really really stupid. Because my brain doesn't function on this level. I just can't get it. And my inadaquacy makes me sad. Because I know that everything you write (at least everything I've read of yours right up until now) is always some next level brilliance. I just can't decipher all the shape stuff.
I'm getting a metaphor for compatible people. The disillusionment with life. Things not being how we imagined them to be. Lovers becoming strangers. Strangers becoming lovers. And I'm really hoping that if I give it a day, then come back and read it a third time my brain will allow me to unlock the code.
I have that same feeling now that I have from never ever not even once in my life being able to look at one of those magic eye pictures and being able to see the hidden 3D pic that everyone else can see. :(
I feel like Nathan finds the tracking devices too easily, and that maybe you could a few details to hint at whether Nathan is having an affair, or just working too much (right now it feels like working too much but I haven’t much to base than on).
Really great, I’m glad you figured out a loophole for sharing.
I love the shape idea, it reminds me of those neck devices in Rant by Chuck or those things they wear in Liberation Day by Saunders. I want to know more about the mechanics of them. I was confused at first because I assumed everyone had them in the same place on their body, and I didn’t know what they looked like (scarring, birthmarks, sunken skin, raised skin, etc)
Maybe you could use the advertisements to do some of that work, and build up some of the societal stuff around it. (“Are you a square looking for triangles in your area?”)
The passage of time was also a little bumpy during some of the transitions, maybe you can start the story where you end it so it’s kind of enveloped as this sort of suicide note if that makes sense?
Thanks for sharing, always love reading your work!
I love the shapes, but I thought they were a metaphor for love, sex, and compatibility until Bill came into the picture and there was real world sex as well.
A suggestion: clearly establish how the shapes work in the beginning for all 3 of those things. Love, sex, and compatibility, and scratch the real world sex being a thing on top of the shapes.
I think I got the gist of the story. I was thinking of how that whole metaphor for personality uses shapes. Y know like “don’t be a square/what a square” and “round peg in a square hole” thing.
And when I thought about “stars” in this I eventually thought about the davinci Vitruvian man diagram. How that could be Star-like.
And then the pictures at the end the witch-crafty triangle symbols and pentagrams and all:
Another brilliant bit of writing, Maegan! I've just made a few notes on bits that I particularly liked:
I love the concept of the shapes (but at first, I was unsure if it was a metaphor or if they're real/visible or some sort of synesthesia?).
It reminds me (in a werid way) of something I always tell my little boy: that he gives the best hugs because he fits in all the right places. Like something that makes you whole. Only this is (obviously) taken much, much further.
At points in the story (mostly the newborn stage), it's so relatable, probably because there's the feeling of so much guilt. The line "I tell myself it doesn't matter" is particularly heartbreaking as it feels so sad: the longing, the loneliness, the affirmation of sex.
I like the use of food imagery. The honey in both the dream sequence and then in the tea, and the use of orange in the drinking to destruction sequence is just lovely, and again, I like the repetition of the orange juice imagery.
So yeah, as always, I come away from reading your stuff completely envious. Excellent stuff.
I like this ending, it really conveys that sense of being adrift, that moment before the train moves. I wonder if you could incorporate that theme into the affair? Bill initiates and she allows. Like, she’s so into pressing their shapes together and holding his coffee and sharing photos of her kid she almost doesn’t notice he’s removing her clothes… a subtle illustration of how this world is moving around her and she’s struggling to fit… anyhow, you capture it in the passive way you describe the affair. She’s not fucking Bill, Bill is fucking her…
The paragraph about babies and “no one tells you…” is great. Poor mom. Work in Eric abandoning her to parent, a little foreshadowing.
A memory about how her dad used to comfort her by pressing his shape into hers might make the mechanism of your metaphor more apparent? Or even better, when she meets Eric and it doesn’t fit, she remembers how her parents fit their shapes together to press into hers? Don’t know what shapes that would be, ha! Maybe diamond and triangle and add an older sister with another triangle? Maybe that’s too much Twister imagery, unless they all had on their wrists, too, like the girls at work. Ooh, then the girls at work could be her “little work family!” which could be another tragedy when she loses them to stay home with her daughter…
Akin to Kris Mole, I'm either feeling stupid, or for me, maybe bored. I was waiting for something interesting to happen. This doesn't sing for me in the usual way of your work.
I still don't know if the shapes are meant to be literal or a metaphor. If literal, why, for what purpose if they're not a useful aid for living and choices? They sound more like astrology, no actual meaning, only something people like to believe in order to give themselves characteristics or a generic description.
The long paragraph on new motherhood is stylistically different to the rest of the story. The 'no one tells you ' preface is the basis of 10 thousand books and a million mummy blogs. So yeah, everyone tells us. They won't shut up about it.
What was found in the banking and phone records? How was the tracking device suspected and so easily found, and what happened to the second device?
The train, as referenced in the title, and scenes in the story, as a metaphor and a literal train, doesn't feel fresh, it's fairly plodding as a device.
Other than those specific comments, for me, this was a pedestrian story compared with the zest and sting and originality of your other works.
People commute on trains, couple meet, couple have baby, both partners cheat for reasons not revealed, couple break up, the end.
It’s nice to meat you, Meagan! I encountered your work through a recommendation from Amran Gowani. I gotta say, I have the exact same problem you mention in the opening paragraph. Looking forward to reading more of your work soon!
The loophole takes you to your homepage, not a secret doc!
Maegan! Nothing makes me happier than a new Fresh Meat post surprisingly arriving in my inbox. Such a joy, that feeling.
I've read this story twice now, and I have to be honest with you: I'm feeling really really stupid. Because my brain doesn't function on this level. I just can't get it. And my inadaquacy makes me sad. Because I know that everything you write (at least everything I've read of yours right up until now) is always some next level brilliance. I just can't decipher all the shape stuff.
I'm getting a metaphor for compatible people. The disillusionment with life. Things not being how we imagined them to be. Lovers becoming strangers. Strangers becoming lovers. And I'm really hoping that if I give it a day, then come back and read it a third time my brain will allow me to unlock the code.
I have that same feeling now that I have from never ever not even once in my life being able to look at one of those magic eye pictures and being able to see the hidden 3D pic that everyone else can see. :(
Heil Meagan! That was so good!
Really loved this! Did you live in Chicago for some time? I could visualize so much.
Well I know what I’ll be doing instead of watching the Super Bowl!
Maegan this was great.
I feel like Nathan finds the tracking devices too easily, and that maybe you could a few details to hint at whether Nathan is having an affair, or just working too much (right now it feels like working too much but I haven’t much to base than on).
Really great, I’m glad you figured out a loophole for sharing.
I love the shape idea, it reminds me of those neck devices in Rant by Chuck or those things they wear in Liberation Day by Saunders. I want to know more about the mechanics of them. I was confused at first because I assumed everyone had them in the same place on their body, and I didn’t know what they looked like (scarring, birthmarks, sunken skin, raised skin, etc)
Maybe you could use the advertisements to do some of that work, and build up some of the societal stuff around it. (“Are you a square looking for triangles in your area?”)
The passage of time was also a little bumpy during some of the transitions, maybe you can start the story where you end it so it’s kind of enveloped as this sort of suicide note if that makes sense?
Thanks for sharing, always love reading your work!
I love the shapes, but I thought they were a metaphor for love, sex, and compatibility until Bill came into the picture and there was real world sex as well.
A suggestion: clearly establish how the shapes work in the beginning for all 3 of those things. Love, sex, and compatibility, and scratch the real world sex being a thing on top of the shapes.
I think I got the gist of the story. I was thinking of how that whole metaphor for personality uses shapes. Y know like “don’t be a square/what a square” and “round peg in a square hole” thing.
And when I thought about “stars” in this I eventually thought about the davinci Vitruvian man diagram. How that could be Star-like.
And then the pictures at the end the witch-crafty triangle symbols and pentagrams and all:
Am I in the right track :)
Hey Maegan -- hope you're well! Sorry to say I won't have time to dig into your story -- home with sick kids -- but good luck with the submission!
Another brilliant bit of writing, Maegan! I've just made a few notes on bits that I particularly liked:
I love the concept of the shapes (but at first, I was unsure if it was a metaphor or if they're real/visible or some sort of synesthesia?).
It reminds me (in a werid way) of something I always tell my little boy: that he gives the best hugs because he fits in all the right places. Like something that makes you whole. Only this is (obviously) taken much, much further.
At points in the story (mostly the newborn stage), it's so relatable, probably because there's the feeling of so much guilt. The line "I tell myself it doesn't matter" is particularly heartbreaking as it feels so sad: the longing, the loneliness, the affirmation of sex.
I like the use of food imagery. The honey in both the dream sequence and then in the tea, and the use of orange in the drinking to destruction sequence is just lovely, and again, I like the repetition of the orange juice imagery.
So yeah, as always, I come away from reading your stuff completely envious. Excellent stuff.
I like this ending, it really conveys that sense of being adrift, that moment before the train moves. I wonder if you could incorporate that theme into the affair? Bill initiates and she allows. Like, she’s so into pressing their shapes together and holding his coffee and sharing photos of her kid she almost doesn’t notice he’s removing her clothes… a subtle illustration of how this world is moving around her and she’s struggling to fit… anyhow, you capture it in the passive way you describe the affair. She’s not fucking Bill, Bill is fucking her…
The paragraph about babies and “no one tells you…” is great. Poor mom. Work in Eric abandoning her to parent, a little foreshadowing.
A memory about how her dad used to comfort her by pressing his shape into hers might make the mechanism of your metaphor more apparent? Or even better, when she meets Eric and it doesn’t fit, she remembers how her parents fit their shapes together to press into hers? Don’t know what shapes that would be, ha! Maybe diamond and triangle and add an older sister with another triangle? Maybe that’s too much Twister imagery, unless they all had on their wrists, too, like the girls at work. Ooh, then the girls at work could be her “little work family!” which could be another tragedy when she loses them to stay home with her daughter…
Akin to Kris Mole, I'm either feeling stupid, or for me, maybe bored. I was waiting for something interesting to happen. This doesn't sing for me in the usual way of your work.
I still don't know if the shapes are meant to be literal or a metaphor. If literal, why, for what purpose if they're not a useful aid for living and choices? They sound more like astrology, no actual meaning, only something people like to believe in order to give themselves characteristics or a generic description.
The long paragraph on new motherhood is stylistically different to the rest of the story. The 'no one tells you ' preface is the basis of 10 thousand books and a million mummy blogs. So yeah, everyone tells us. They won't shut up about it.
What was found in the banking and phone records? How was the tracking device suspected and so easily found, and what happened to the second device?
The train, as referenced in the title, and scenes in the story, as a metaphor and a literal train, doesn't feel fresh, it's fairly plodding as a device.
Other than those specific comments, for me, this was a pedestrian story compared with the zest and sting and originality of your other works.
People commute on trains, couple meet, couple have baby, both partners cheat for reasons not revealed, couple break up, the end.
Trying to love it, but can't get there.
The third last line ... Some stories do not have happy endings ... Is clunky. It could be deleted entirely for better effect.
The ending is problematic.
It’s nice to meat you, Meagan! I encountered your work through a recommendation from Amran Gowani. I gotta say, I have the exact same problem you mention in the opening paragraph. Looking forward to reading more of your work soon!