Seeing Eye to Eye

[Ursa major]

Reporting for torture, M'Lud....

Yes, this is my 12,000th post. And it continues recent practice by recounting more** of the ordeal being suffered by the ill-fated (though not necessarily hapless) Melanie.


** - Previous episodes can be found here (Dragooned I) and here (Dragooned II).

Dragooned III​

— in which her situation weighs on Melanie’s mind —​

One might imagine that emitting a loud noise would prove less than useless when confronted by an eye a good four metres across and two high. Even a creature made mostly of head, and that mostly eye, would be huge and probably formidable. A creature whose eye was that large, but in proportion to its body, must be enormous. And yet screaming does have its advantages, such as preventing one’s senses from taking full account of the environment, such as stopping one from thinking about one’s situation. So when the screaming stops....



With her lungs unable to maintain the effort required to drown out the world around her, Mel collapsed onto her bed. For the first time, she noticed – was assailed by – a peculiar smell, rich and hot, and meaty. And now the sound of her own panting was joined, at regular intervals, by a brief slithering. She closed her eyes, not wanting to know what horror was heading her way. But when the sound failed to draw closer, she risked a peek...

...and broke into hysterical laughter. The creature from hell was blinking. Every few moments, eyelids, each of which must weigh hundreds of kilos, snapped closed, and opened just as fast. Mel’s frantic laughing continued, prolonged by the thought that if she were to try and poke the monster in the eye, her arm might be crushed, or worse, by those scaly folds of skin.

“I’m glad to see you are in better spirits,” said the voice.

The simple stupidity of this statement shocked Mel into silence. But then Mel realised that this close to her, the leviathan was probably having trouble focusing properly. And Mel’s voice, whether screaming, shrieking with laughter, or sobbing, must be at the monster’s limit of hearing. What am I thinking? Why Am I trying to analyse this madness? Nothing here could be real. She was interned in a psych ward. And If I’m not, I ought to be.

“However, I realise that this must all have come as something of a shock to you,” the voice continued. “I suggest you rest for awhile before we proceed any further. I shall return later, when I shall answer the many questions you must have. If I can, that is.”

It struck Mel that the creature’s voice was not in scale with its great bulk: though far from quiet, the words did not boom. And given the huge space that lay beyond her room’s wall, where were the reverberations? Their absence was just more evidence that she wasn’t experiencing reality. For while she’d convinced herself that this was no ordinary dream, that did not preclude a world – detailed, colourful, noisy and smelly though it was – that might exist entirely within her possibly battered skull. That the lengthy flow of sensory input had been interrupted only once and that the illusion was logically consistent – at least in its own terms – was troubling, but only if she was simply asleep. Who knew how the brain might react when in a coma?

“Can you answer one question now?” said Mel, desperate to break the malign spell cast by... by what? By her subconscious?

“If you want.”

“Just one of your eyes must weigh as much as a fair-sized whale. How can you even hold your head up, let alone fly?”

Silence. If this were all real, the creature would know. If she heard no reply, that would confirm that none of this was real.

“There is no simple answer beyond, ‘I just can.’ My body – or, rather, my body chemistry – is not the same as yours. I am lighter than I look, though still far heavier than any other land creature, and my smallest muscles each possess more strength than all of yours put together. And they react much quicker than yours. You were watching me blink; I do so as fast as you, but my eyelids move two hundred times faster in terms of the distance they have to cover. And uncover.”

I could have thought of that – even the joke – and I probably just have. The monster’s reply was just the sort of barely plausible, but not instantly irrefutable, answer that Mel’s brain might have come up with in a hurry, if it had to: one that would not long survive further probing.

“That’s all very well,” said Mel, “but the devil’s in the details. How is your chemistry different? And on a larger scale, why is it different? Why are you unlike every other animal on the planet?”

“I think you already know the answer to your last question.”

Well I would do – if I’m making all this up.

 

[JoanDrake]

I really like this sort of 19thc style but it's sort of unclear throughout.

Is the sound of the slithering being made by the creature's blinking? And why should she find this humorous?

Why, or even how, would this huge eyed thing know the proportions by which her and Mel's world differed? I, or you, would have no idea how we must look to an ant, would we? Would such a creature even know what a whale was?

Finally, why and how would Mel figure the enormous apparition facing her WAS an eye in the first place? Think of exactly what she would see at first, would an eye immediately suggest itself, or something else? (No, I have no idea what, and am not making any suggestions)

Though there the blinking might be a dead giveaway, but you don't use it as such.

I also wonder a little at the end. Is this thing really so big or is Mel maybe somehow very small?

To repeat, however, I really like the sort of Clayton/Bullwer style it's done in. It's wordy, but not irritating, exceptionally clear as to what is happening, ( a real problem in many modern styles) and often very funny while not appearing at all to be trying to be so.

 

[The Judge]

Hoo, hoo, another Mel-tale! Congratulations on the 12,000!!

Though it was as well-written as ever, I didn't find this quite as gripping as the other two pieces, perhaps inevitably as nothing much happens. It reads as real, in that someone would think she was going batty and/or dreaming, but I wonder if it could be speeded up a bit, and some of the thinking reduced, so as to make it read faster. I'd also think of cutting that opening paragraph down, perhaps -- I can't recall that kind of strong authorial voice before (though I'm too lazy to go and check) and for me it went on a tad too long.

I have to say that if i were confronted by a gigantic flying creature, dragon or no, my first questions wouldn't be of the "How can you fly when you are so large?" variety but the "What the hell are you/where the hell am I/what the hell is going on?" type. That's my non-scientific brain working, and Mel may be a good bit more intelligent than I am (and thinking about it, did we have some of those questions before?), but it did come across to me as a little like you want to forestall any readers' incredulity by giving a subtle info-dump. So again, i'd be tempted to leave that out, or at least defer it until she is thinking more coherently and knows the situation is real.

Re the slithering, wouldn't the dragon's eyeball be lubricated like ours are? That being the case, would it make a slithering noise? To me that's more of a dry sound like a snake eg you wouldn't talk of a seal slithering into the water, but sliding.

Only a couple of nit-picks:

a peculiar smell, rich and hot, and meaty -- the comma after "hot" made me stop and wonder, as it gives the "and meaty" extra prominence, and I couldn't work out if that was deliberate or not. If the three adjectives are meant to have equal weight, I'd either remove that comma, or insert another one after "rich".

The simple stupidity of this statement shocked Mel into silence-- alliteration has its place, but I wonder if this is a bit too much.


And I didn't get the joke.

Anyway, well written and interesting, Mel is coming along fine, the dragon is even better (I love the tone of great intelligence and very slight condescension) and I'm sorry I've got to wait another 1,000 posts for the next instalment!

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

I was having difficulty figuring out why she is seeing the huge eye, apparently at a distance measured in feet, rather than the whole creature. But looking at part II, apparently it is peering into one side of her room.
And I can't help thinking that the faint sound of it blinking might be drowned out by other sounds (breathing, scraping etc) even if it is standing on the ground (rather than making an aerodynamic racket in its efforts to stay airborne).
Perhaps we are supposed to realize that the dragon's explanation of itself is highly implausible, suggesting that it doesn't in fact exist. However that doesn't seem to mesh with it carrying her car in its claws.
Mel's thoughts seem a bit intellectual for someone who has just been screaming, or indulging in hysterical laughter.
These quibbles aside, it's very clever and well written.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Just to say, I'm not ignoring this thread, but echo The Judge's praise and criticisms.

Funnily enough, I did once see a giant eyeball, floating in a dark alleyway in front of me. It was certainly a fright - until I realised it was just the reflection in my new glasses.

 

[Ursa major]

Hoo, hoo, another Mel-tale! Congratulations on the 12,000!!

Thanks.

Though it was as well-written as ever, I didn't find this quite as gripping as the other two pieces, perhaps inevitably as nothing much happens. It reads as real, in that someone would think she was going batty and/or dreaming, but I wonder if it could be speeded up a bit, and some of the thinking reduced, so as to make it read faster. I'd also think of cutting that opening paragraph down, perhaps -- I can't recall that kind of strong authorial voice before (though I'm too lazy to go and check) and for me it went on a tad too long.

My characters - and this has nothing to do with me, honest - do seem to be prone to (long-winded) introspection. The problem I had was that Dragooned II had left Melanie in a state where taking any sort of action was unlikely. I could have skipped straight to a later time, and thus some action, but felt uncomfortable leaving the image of that huge eye just hanging. (In a narrative not contained in posts separated by many months, I would probably have gone to that action and referred to her doubts and thoughts in flashbacks. Almost inevitably, this would have introduced a different problem: Mel's analysis of her situation might not so easily match the reality she'd subsequently experienced (or not).)

I have to say that if i were confronted by a gigantic flying creature, dragon or no, my first questions wouldn't be of the "How can you fly when you are so large?" variety but the "What the hell are you/where the hell am I/what the hell is going on?" type. That's my non-scientific brain working, and Mel may be a good bit more intelligent than I am (and thinking about it, did we have some of those questions before?), but it did come across to me as a little like you want to forestall any readers' incredulity by giving a subtle info-dump. So again, i'd be tempted to leave that out, or at least defer it until she is thinking more coherently and knows the situation is real.

I'm thinking of Mel as a person who tries to rationalise herself out of fear. This is why she keeps wanting it to be a dream, and why, when she accepts that she's never had a dream of this type - in colour, with sound and smells, with a continuous narrative thread and no continual jumping between (imaginary) locations - she wants to believe she's in some sort of coma; not a natural desire, I would have thought.

Re the slithering, wouldn't the dragon's eyeball be lubricated like ours are? That being the case, would it make a slithering noise? To me that's more of a dry sound like a snake eg you wouldn't talk of a seal slithering into the water, but sliding.

It would, but the volumes of lubrication would be significant (at least compared to our eyes), and an awful lot of flesh is in motion (as each lid is four metres wide and moves two metres (up/down or down/up, depending on which eyelid it is).

Only a couple of nit-picks:

a peculiar smell, rich and hot, and meaty -- the comma after "hot" made me stop and wonder, as it gives the "and meaty" extra prominence, and I couldn't work out if that was deliberate or not. If the three adjectives are meant to have equal weight, I'd either remove that comma, or insert another one after "rich".

The comma is there for the reason you gave: prominence. Whether the smell comes from the creature, its last meal, or something else entirely, only time will tell.

The simple stupidity of this statement shocked Mel into silence-- alliteration has its place, but I wonder if this is a bit too much.

It's far too much. (Being its unwitting author, I hadn't noticed it .)

And I didn't get the joke.

It's a play on two meanings of the verb, to cover, firstly as in 'the moon was full, so he managed to cover a lot of ground during the night', and secondly as in covering something (the eyelids cover the eye, and then, when they open, they uncover the eye). Note that I never claimed it was a good joke/pun. (Perhaps I should have said 'pun' instead of 'joke'.)[/QUOTE]

 

[ctg]

One might imagine that emitting a loud noise would prove less than useless when confronted by an eye a good (god?) four metres across and two high. Even a creature made mostly of head, and that mostly eye, would be huge and probably formidable. A creature whose eye was that large, but in proportion to its body, must be enormous. And yet screaming does have its advantages, such as preventing one’s senses from taking full account of the environment, such as stopping one from thinking about one’s situation. So when the screaming stops....
​

Ursa as you can see there's a bit of confusion at the beginning chapter. Thing is that even though I have highlighted just one bit, you are going a bit all over the place, but if a reader just passes through this, they might accept fragmentation easily.

With her lungs unable to maintain the effort required to drown out the world around her, Mel collapsed onto her bed.
​

Bed? Surely dragon claws can be called a bed, but I wouldn't be putting it so. Melanie could had just collapsed from the situation (exhaustion) without you mentioning bed at all.

For the first time, she noticed – was assailed by – a peculiar smell, rich and hot, and meaty. And now the sound of her own panting was joined, at regular intervals, by a brief slithering. She closed her eyes, not wanting to know what horror was heading her way. But when the sound failed to draw closer, she risked a peek...

...and broke into hysterical laughter. The creature from hell was blinking. Every few moments, eyelids, each of which must weigh hundreds of kilos, snapped closed, and opened just as fast. Mel’s frantic laughing continued, prolonged by the thought that if she were to try and poke the monster in the eye, her arm might be crushed, or worse, by those scaly folds of skin.
​

I would like to see her losing bit more of her mind and realising it in her thoughts. So you could add a bit of narrative here if you can.

“I’m glad to see you are in better spirits,” said the voice.
​

The simple stupidity of this statement shocked Mel into silence.
​

I'm stunned as well.

But then Mel realised that this close to her, the leviathan was probably having trouble focusing properly. And Mel’s voice, whether screaming, shrieking with laughter, or sobbing, must be at the monster’s limit of hearing. What am I thinking? Why Am I trying to analyse this madness? Nothing here could be real. She was interned in a psych ward. And If I’m not, I ought to be.

​

All right, this is nice. Very nice. Ignore my previous comment on adding insanity as this will do nicely.

“However, I realise that this must all have come as something of a shock to you,” the voice continued. “I suggest you rest for awhile before we proceed any further. I shall return later, when I shall answer the many questions you must have. If I can, that is.”
​

This doesn't make sense. "I shall return?" Are we flying or in a dragon cave or still resting in tight grip?

It struck Mel that the creature’s voice was not in scale with its great bulk: though far from quiet, the words did not boom. And given the huge space that lay beyond her room’s wall, where were the reverberations? Their absence was just more evidence that she wasn’t experiencing reality. For while she’d convinced herself that this was no ordinary dream, that did not preclude a world – detailed, colourful, noisy and smelly though it was – that might exist entirely within her possibly battered skull. That the lengthy flow of sensory input had been interrupted only once and that the illusion was logically consistent – at least in its own terms – was troubling, but only if she was simply asleep. Who knew how the brain might react when in a coma?

“Can you answer one question now?” said Mel, desperate to break the malign spell cast by... by what? By her subconscious?

“If you want.”

“Just one of your eyes must weigh as much as a fair-sized whale. How can you even hold your head up, let alone fly?”

Silence. If this were all real, the creature would know. If she heard no reply, that would confirm that none of this was real.

“There is no simple answer beyond, ‘I just can.’ My body – or, rather, my body chemistry – is not the same as yours. I am lighter than I look, though still far heavier than any other land creature, and my smallest muscles each possess more strength than all of yours put together. And they react much quicker than yours. You were watching me blink; I do so as fast as you, but my eyelids move two hundred times faster in terms of the distance they have to cover. And uncover.”

I could have thought of that – even the joke – and I probably just have. The monster’s reply was just the sort of barely plausible, but not instantly irrefutable, answer that Mel’s brain might have come up with in a hurry, if it had to: one that would not long survive further probing.

“That’s all very well,” said Mel, “but the devil’s in the details. How is your chemistry different? And on a larger scale, why is it different? Why are you unlike every other animal on the planet?”

“I think you already know the answer to your last question.”

Well I would do – if I’m making all this up.

​

The rest flows really nicely and the question in my mind is: did the dragon come from outer space or from another dimension?

 

[J Riff]

I too feature giant hovering eyes in a story, almost done... but they are maybe not so large as yours... but they do change color. And they are imaginary, created by the mind of the viewer, under the influence of evil alien crystals... so I'd better not say anything more except corngrats on 12 zillion postages. *

 

[Boneman]

Hi Ursa, 12,000 posts, holy schamoley - you deserve some recompense, and I'll add my admiration for the continuance of this story. I hear Stephen Fry's voice as the narrator - laconic, vaguely amused, and able to get away with saying bizarre things as though they were completely normal...

Here's my sixpennyworth:

Dragooned III​

— in which her situation weighs on Melanie’s mind —​

One might imagine that emitting a loud noise would prove less than useless when confronted by an eye a good four metres across and two high. Even a creature made mostly of head, and that mostly eye, would be huge and probably formidable. I think it's the two 'mostlys' that confuse - I had to read the sentence a couple of times, to get its meaning. A creature whose eye was that large, but in proportion to its body, must* be enormous. *I'd probably stick another 'would' in here, to go with the previous one, although what you write makes perfect sense. It's just the whimsy is carried further by 'would' , as we haven't seen the whole of the beastie yet. And yet screaming does have its advantages, such as preventing one’s senses from taking full account of the environment, such as stopping one from thinking about one’s situation. Oh the commas... it looks as thouhg stopping one's senses from thinking is an example of preventing's one's senses. Would semi-colons help, or have I got the wrong end of the stick? And yet screaming does have its advantages; such as preventing one’s senses from taking full account of the environment; such as stopping one from thinking about one’s situation. So when the screaming stops....



With her lungs unable to maintain the effort required to drown out the world around her, Mel collapsed onto her bed. For the first time, she noticed – was assailed by – a peculiar smell, rich and hot, and meaty. And now the sound of her own panting was joined, at regular intervals, by a brief slithering. She closed her eyes, not wanting to know what horror was heading her way. But when the sound failed to draw closer, she risked a peek...

...and broke into hysterical laughter. The creature from hell was blinking. Every few moments, eyelids, see, I thought she only saw one eye, but if she can see both, she'd see a ridged nose as well, surely? 'An eyelid' would fit better with the picture. each of which must weigh hundreds of kilos, snapped closed, and opened just as fast. Mel’s frantic laughing continued, prolonged by the thought that if she were to try and poke the monster in the eye, her arm might be crushed, or worse, by those scaly folds of skin.

“I’m glad to see you are in better spirits,” said the voice.

The simple stupidity of this statement shocked Mel into silence. But then Mel realised that this close to her, the leviathan was probably having trouble focusing properly. And Mel’s voice, whether screaming, shrieking with laughter, or sobbing, must be at the monster’s limit of hearing. What am I thinking? Why Am I trying to analyse this madness? Nothing here could be real. She was interned in a psych ward. And If I’m not, I ought to be.

“However, I realise that this must all have come as something of a shock to you,” the voice continued. “I suggest you rest for awhile before we proceed any further. I shall return later, when I shall answer the many questions you must have. If I can, that is.”

It struck Mel that the creature’s voice was not in scale with its great bulk: though far from quiet, the words did not boom. And given the huge space that lay beyond her room’s wall, where were the reverberations? Their absence was just more evidence that she wasn’t experiencing reality. For while she’d convinced herself that this was no ordinary dream, that did not preclude a world – detailed, colourful, noisy and smelly though it was – that might exist entirely within her possibly battered skull. That the lengthy flow of sensory input had been interrupted only once and that the illusion was logically consistent – at least in its own terms – was troubling, but only if she was simply asleep. Who knew how the brain might react when in a coma?

“Can you answer one question now?” said Mel, desperate to break the malign spell cast by... by what? By her subconscious?

“If you want.”

“Just one of I'd delete 'Just one of'your eyes must weigh as much as a fair-sized whale. How can you even hold your head up, let alone fly?”

Silence. If this were all real, the creature would know. If she heard no reply, that would confirm that none of this was real.

“There is no simple answer beyond, ‘I just can.’ My body – or, rather, my body chemistry – is not the same as yours. I am lighter than I look, though still far heavier than any other land creature, and my smallest muscles each possess more strength than all of yours put together. And they react much quicker than yours. You were watching me blink; I do so as fast as you, but my eyelids move two hundred times faster in terms of the distance they have to cover. And uncover.”

I could have thought of that – even the joke – and I probably just have. The monster’s reply was just the sort of barely plausible, but not instantly irrefutable, answer that Mel’s brain might have come up with in a hurry, if it had to: one that would not long survive further probing.

“That’s all very well,” said Mel, “but the devil’s in the details. How is your chemistry different? And on a larger scale, why is it different? Why are you unlike every other animal on the planet?”

“I think you already know the answer to your last question.”

Well I would do – if I’m making all this up.

Like I said before - abandon the opus and continue with this one!! Great stuff, and keep posting, so the next 1,000 flies by. I'm with The Judge - I want more.