It isn’t the hum-drum hours of work that we crave. Minutes in a routine job pass slowly - sometimes agonizingly so.
It isn’t the pleasant but forgetful hours of sleep that we
think back on, though they are everything to a tired man.
Nor is it the moments we are forced to wait, and to be alone,
forced into boredom.
It’s the moments we spend with the people that mean something to us, these people cause an
hour to take on the heaviness of eternity.
In the hours when words are said that we’ll never forget – it’s those
hours that we long for and hope for. It’s with an
excess of these moments a soul grows fat and thankless. It’s
without these moments that some grow restless with longing, starving for
affection and fulfillment.
I like the setup: 'it's not the this, it's not the that.' Works fine.
ReplyDeleteBut from my point of view there are two mistakes in the last graf: 'heaviness of eternity' and 'It’s with an excess of these moments a soul grows fat and thankless.'
No one wants eternity to be heavy! That's not a plus. And the last sentence undercuts everything. You don't have to continue in a sentimental mode; you're entitled to switch gears and smoosh a pie into the reader's face. But the way has to be prepared somehow, and it isn't here. All I'm left with after that last sentence is 'Thank god I don't have to see anyone at Thanksgiving except my wife.'
How do you prepare the way?--you'd do what this assignment really doesn't allow you to do, which is offer first person anecdotes so we can see the tissue of sentiment begin to shred and tear as the stories continue.
What if I switched the second-to-last sentence with the last one? Does that help the ending?
ReplyDeleteThat might help.
ReplyDeleteI do like that better.
ReplyDelete