Thursday Morning At the Mini-Mart
A man finds that he has purchased a tub of margarine that has already been opened. He returns to the store to make the switch. Why doesn’t he just return it by going through the usual channels, i.e., by taking it up to the clerk for an exchange? Because, like all of us, he is in a hurry. And for that he must pay. Oh yes; for that he must pay, and pay he will, very dearly indeed.
posted by Quin Finnegan at 12:02 PM
3 Comments:
I don't know. I still like it. A lot. But I think I like the earlier version better. You went in the direction of increased abstraction whereas what I thought the editor was nudging you towards was increasing the concrete dimension by bringing more dialog in. Now there's less distance between the reader and the narrator but strangely it lessens the magic of the scene. Whereas if one or two other voices engaged him in dialog (like the mechanic maybe) it would bring us more deeply into the real situation. I don't know. What did the editor lady say?
Haven't heard back yet. And I've already changed the last line, and am considering taking it out altogether. As for the editor, I think she just wanted to see the parenthetical remarks turned into a kind of inner dialogue, which I was able to do only at the beginning. But I'll revisit her comments before starting in again, especially in light of yours.
You bring up some good points. I think there isn't enough distance, actually - if there is (or was) any magic, it probably consists of the reader being able to identify the narrator as a obsessive compulsive loon. If that's lost, then there would be a tendency to sympathize with him too much, which isn't my intention. As for the other voices, I wanted to show the guy as such a control freak that he really can't allow any other voices to help him form a communal sense of reality. Hence the addition of the withering stare at the beginning, as well as the inflated sense of his own control of the situation.
One of the driving ideas for the piece was that the narrator is dead set on preempting any adverse judgment against him - hence the business at the beginning about the primacy of his version. Which does push towards increasing abstraction, it's true. I have some more ideas, though. This could turn into a longer piece, actually. Maybe it's worth more.
I feel like a dog with peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Anyway, many thanks for reading and commenting
One direction I could see you taking it, if you turn it into a longer piece would be something along the lines of a Flannery O. approach to the material. I'm thinking of "The Enduring Chill" maybe, and maybe "Everything That Rises." Anyway the protagonist seems ripe for an O'Connoresque Gothic-violent influx of humiliation and grace.
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