[612] Mother Cabrini's Butterflies

Just a short critique.

I've been very critical of some of your past works, but I really liked this one!

While the prose is dense, I found that it sped by. The short, choppy sentence structure was well executed, in my opinion, and the imagery evocative. I think a slight improvement would be to replace the second em dash with a comma to better fit the speed of the rest, but YMMV.

There's an important distinction here between the references being necessary to understand the full depth of the story versus to understand the story's sequence. I believe this is why I could enjoy this piece, but have been left dazed and confused by some of your other works.

I am flying on my back to the realm of Merciful Sisters, Mary and Martha, who promise all shall be reborn like their brother. Mother Cabrini might join us for green tea now that her towers have become a New City.

I didn't really get this paragraph when I first read it, but with the benefit of hindsight w.r.t. to ending, I really like it. I still have no idea who any of these characters are, canonically, but within the story, I Mother Cabrini is referenced such that I don't actually need to understand who she is to follow along. This is exactly what I'm getting at in my previous paragraph.

ONE. Its eyes fix on my beating heart. TWO. Its eyes burst into Anubis and Thoth dancing with Pythagorus—all that can be, must be, measured and weighed. My heart is lacking. THREE. Its eyes taste the filth and want revenge. My sacrifice will not build a Bull Market. My blood will not placate divine justice for the sin of being born a monster.

The Minotaur has its way tonight.

The suspense is great here. I think the increasing space between numbers was a smart decision, and the closing sentence effectively conveyed the sense of ease with which the minotaur attacked. Just another day at the office, right?

The clips and buttons sing. They call me linda. Say I am sweet. They turn and bite my fingers. Over five hundred is their refrain. They whisper of cultures and veins. I no longer fly, but coast.

New voices erupt. I must have slept. No Butterflies. Ghosts sweep between sea foam minty greens and pale blues. They all drop ugly words not fit for gentle ears. The ghosts congeal into starched white wings scented with stale bleach and earthy notes of yesterday’s unwashed perfume. Chimes and bells collapse into a single squeal. The hordes harmonize a choral repeat: cataracts, diabetes, gangrene autoamputation, complex spiral fracture tibia. I beg the mints and seafoams to let me go, but the Minotaur has taken my voice with my teeth.

The oceans of blues leave as the vampires flood in with their teeth in their hands. They call me ‘hard stick’ and say I am greedy. No butterflies. The vampires echo no butterflies and shake their fists.

I sort of lost the plot here. The transition from minotaur attack to butterflies and beach doesn't feel particularly smooth, and I would have appreciated something more concrete to help me follow the progress being made. Thus far I understand it to be the transition to the other realm. I think focusing more on the character's experiences, rather than just telling what the character is seeing and hearing, would be beneficial for me.

But I see the butterflies now. Their wings kaleidoscope through clouds bursting with sunlight. I feel the warmth of my mother’s kisses on my temples. Wings flutter all around and show me the spirals dashing through the dark, the exit from the labyrinth.

We are together at the beach looking through the coin-operated binoculars, through the glass darkly, and we watch the monarch butterflies migrate by the lake.

I am coming home Mama.

I am home.

A strong finish. Notice the sense of progression, particularly in the first paragraph. There's enough sensory detail from the character's PoV to keep me engaged, and the detail isn't just what the character's seeing. I'm shown what they're seeing, feeling, experiencing. There's progression occurring (exiting the labyrinth), and intra-textual referencing (i.e., mother, wings). The paragraph does much of the heavy lifting needed to set up the final image in the next paragraph, while also preparing the closing lines in conjunction with the earlier foreshadowing paragraph.

Beyond very minor gripes (e.g., repetition of "slice" here: "Ambers and Reds slice the night and scream the silence dead. Scissors slice my armor, but a jagged piece of me impedes them."), I think room for improvement falls primarily within that 50–80% chunk that I was critical of earlier. Beyond that, I think changes aren't going to make things any better, really, just different. The imagery is great. The prose, sentence structure, and tense all make sense for the story being told. There is a coherent narrative that can be followed (if only superficially) by readers unfamiliar with many of the references therein. Overall, it's great.

Popping in to say I love the title and holding place for a full crit later this week

A complicated journey to a violent death. You really have a gift for wielding language. It's a sophisticated gift, which means that I, a person lacking sophistication, sometimes can hardly understand what you're saying. Yet since this is just a vignette, we have no context or backstory, but I was still able to enjoy it and follow along, even if I didn't always understand what was happening precisely.

I love the imagery. I love that there's a Minotaur. Is it a real Minotaur, or a metaphorical Minotaur? I'm not sure. I lean toward literal Minotaur. What a strange world we're in, where there's magic and mythical beasts but also flaming UPS hats and plastic bags. The piece left me extremely curious about how the narrator got to that point - who are they? What did they do? Are the antagonists a marauding or invading force? Are they law enforcement? Why are they after the narrator? Why is it so cold? I wish this were a whole story. It's so interesting. But maybe it's best right here, the way it is, because it's so compelling as just a snapshot, or a window.

You've got a whole world built in your head just to write this brief piece. There may be mythological / historical / literary references here that I didn't get. If you wrote a whole book, you'd be dangerous.

In short, I really enjoyed it. I found it delightful and sad and harrowing. Regarding the ending, it's so easy to muck up a death scene, but this one was really cool. I understood that the narrator was dying, even before the "mother, I am home" bits. The technical details of where they were and what was happening to them physically were a little foggy to me, but that seems intentional.

Overall, well done.

Helllllooo! I came as soon as I heard! Please excuse any delay.

You’ve gotten lots of thoughts, but my standard for flash is line by line, which I hope will be novel. I grabbed the text from your festival submission, so I hope that doesn’t confound.

Under the maw of the Five Forks Crossing, beasts release flames to keep the rails clear of ice.

/ released feels like an odd word choice to me. Everything else is very descriptive, but release sort of makes the sentence less specific as opposed to something like uncage or emit or exhale. You do you. Also a pov note? Does the narrator see the flames as “to keep the rails free from ice?” Only bothered on the second read.

Here I stay warm.

/ nice absolute sentence. No complaints

Here another flame approaches.

/ the parallelism works here for me at least. I’d consider subbing out “another” for something to emphasize the difference of the two flames, or at least I’m reading one as more literal and the other as metaphorical.

Icicles plunge free from the bridge and marching feet of gasoline and rage storm forward.

/ feet of gasoline and rage - evocative but I’m not sure what I should be getting out of it specifically. I think the intent is for them to be separate, like the two flames, but I read them as united.

Not the city’s blue guard, but hired neighborhood watch.

/ very straight forward, which I think helps me as a reader. This sentence feels like one of the anchors of the piece.

They advance with fingers stretched taut into truncheons.

/ I took this to mean they carried truncheons or some such.

Conceals are most definitely carried, but the clubs are the ones that yearn to split skin, to crush meat.

/conceals are most definitely carried works excellently to me. It was clever but very accessible which is a nice trick to pull off. Is “ are the ones “ needed? I think it just makes the sentence a little harder to parse. I also think you could get away with either a split skin or crush meat. Both is fine too.

They burn my home and strike.

/again an a hot sentence that really helps me as a reader.

My legs are wrapped in long johns, sweat pants, garbage bags, another layer of sweat pants, and then surplus fatigues.

/here we have unhoused/house less bingo. I say that because it felt over signaled to me, but I’m one voice of many.

My armor deadens their strikes even as my sloth defense fails.

/ pov: does the narrator think of this as sloth defense? Also here I think vulnerability is just vulnerability. The marginalized nature and dress of the narrator implies to me more at risk of being victimized not less.

The cracked plastic and leather shoes splinter.

/This of all lines confused me. I’m not sure whose shoes we are referring to. I’m not sure how plastic and leather work together here? Like sole and overlay?

Layers of socks and plastic bags save me from the cold, but not the way the wind blows tonight, not the way of the world.

/ socks are the duct tape of the unhoused. Don’t know who said that but it stick with me.

“Get out!” “Move!” “Leave!” The same warcry on repeat.

/ this is again fairly direct. Nothing wrong there it keeps me anchored as a reader. I thing you could condense the fragment at the end if you want. “Their repeated warcry/cries”

All except the angry minotaur.

/ consider changing all except the” to “not the” I think being more direct their would emphasize the dichotomy.

It just clubs and gores.

/ I plead the fifth. No comment. NED.

Where is my magic armor hiding today?

/ does the magic armor refer to the intangible sloth defenses? That’s my thought here but this line wobbles a bit for me.

ONE. Its eyes fix on my beating heart. TWO. Its eyes burst into Anubis and Thoth dancing with Pythagorus—all that can be, must be, measured and weighed. My heart is lacking. THREE. Its eyes taste the filth and want revenge.

I think this whole section works really well. Love the eyes taste section. Love Anubis Thoth Pythagorus, although Thoth will always read as a parade not a god, because local quibbles.

My sacrifice will not build a Bull Market.

/ I wonder if this line is the authorial heart of the piece? It seems to perfectly capture what is going on and the problematic nature of mangling humans to make others feel safe. Or keep property values high.

My blood will not placate divine justice for the sin of being born a monster.

/ there’s a lot of metaphor in this line. Divine justice, sin, being born a monster, and the relation of the Minotaur to divine justice. I’m not sure I can parse this at all correctly. I think monster here is coding for Deviance, divine justice I’m not sure exactly what to do with.

The Minotaur has its way tonight.

/Nice!

I crawl toward the dancing lights.

/I think dancing light is a little less concrete here. We’re just going through a couple heavy metaphor lines, and I as a reader would appreciate an anchor.

A brown UPS truck hat is on fire but does not burn.

/ I can’t tell if I’m supposed to read this as psychosis…

Years of grease and sebum keep it lit.

/ or literally?

It delivers no secrets—only unwanted burnt offerings.

/ we are still talking about a hat here? I get the ups link, but otherwise I don’t get burnt offerings

Uniforms with clanking buttons and clips lift me high.

/sounds good to me. I didn’t parse this as ambulance right away but did once we got farther down

A boot stomps the hat.

/ pov? Also I read this as pseudo profound, but maybe if I wasn’t such a big dumb horse I would understand.

I am flying on my back to the realm of Merciful Sisters, Mary and Martha, who promise all shall be reborn like their brother.

/Gotcha. I think the semi filter of promise is used her to imply that they might not be telling the truth, but you could amp that up a bit.

Mother Cabrini might join us for green tea now that her towers have become a New City.

/I had no idea who Cabrini was.

Ambers and Reds sluice through the night and scream the silence dead.

/I waffles on if I thought this was a touch too purple. I landed no, but it was close.

Scissors slice my armor, but a jagged piece of me impedes them.

/ I think we have to clarify what the narrator think of as armor here. I notes earlier about sloth defense vs armor vs magic armor, but I wonder if the narrative I sees this as cutting clothes, armor, or wealth? What is the narrators prized possession?

My bones have already ripped the skin and cut the cloth.

/Ouch

The minotaur's gift reveals my corrupted cement and rebar.

/ I can’t tell if I’m reading bones or orif? Gift again feels authorial over narrator voice. That can be fine, just fyi.

The clips and buttons sing. They call me linda.

/ I had no idea what was up with the italics here.

Say I am sweet.

/ I’m assuming this is a diabetes ref.

They turn and bite my fingers.

/ mostly based on these two lines

Over five hundred is their refrain.

/ blood Glucose okay.

Stupid 10000 character limit making me break up the post.