"Surgery" Response

            After being awakened in the middle of the night, Tim is forced to struggle with deal physically and ideologically with the self-injury of his friend Cal. Tim must confront his own immaturity in order to remain focused on his friend’s distress, and try to be understanding and supportive to help alleviate that distress. 

Several things struck me about this story: for one, the syntax does well in reflecting the tone, with the long, run-on sentences joined by several conjunctions emphasizing the frantic mindset of the narrator. Also, the setting was made clear and distinct through the repetition of certain key details, especially at the beginning and end. In both of these places, certain images that stand out and give a circular sense to the story are: the blood comparison with wine, the descriptions of light on the linoleum floor, the rippling atmosphere of the waiting room, and the use of “running.” In addition, the first person narration and stream-of-consciousness style helped reveal key characteristics of the narrator without seeming out of place or overly expositional. For example, Tim shows his immaturity in the fact that he is constantly distracted from his friend’s pain by the attractive nurse Claire, and that instead of asking how is friend is feeling, inquires whether the doctors saw him naked. 

One thing in this story that confused me was the unstated age of the characters. Until page four, when Tim says he can smell the beer on Cal’s breath, I assumed Cal to be much younger, at least a young teenager or even a child. I assumed Tim was Cal’s older brother, from the fact that they were both in the same house in the middle of the night, and the fact that Cal called him “Timmy,” which seems more childish. I would like to see worked into the story some explanation of their relationship, to give more clarity. There are also several instances when sentences of description conclude with a more broad, abstract statement, like at the top of page 4, which ends the paragraph with “…then I realized how little I knew him, and I refused to feel it was my fault.” I think better knowledge of their relationship, as mentioned previously, would help this, but also maybe a little more relation of the concrete detail to the abstract realization to back these statements up. On a purely visual note, I would rework the very beginning few lines and the stretch of dialogue on page six. As it is, upon first glance I assumed there must be a grammatical error, even though both passages are grammatically correct. Perhaps adding some longer sentences of setting or character description, especially to the page six passage, would help add variety and make the page look more cohesive and appealing.