The Prophet

A Beginning to something?
FOR jeff (writing.com)

Review follows -

This is a character I've played with for a while, looking for the right take on the END OF THE WORLD. I appreciate any comments. Thanks

Comment: I am only reviewing this as a work of art. It is not intended to sharpen your skills in playing Prophet “looking for the right take on the END OF THE WORLD.”

“The World is changed.

“I am changed with it.

“The people follow the Powers of the World blindly across the landscapes of their souls, into the nothingness that is prepared for them. Overnight, minds were lost in dream mists, settling deep into stagnant pools of desire, hate, and despair.

Comment: Maintain your tense: “minds were lost” should be “minds are lost.”

“Puppets and playthings to the Court of Fools. We are no longer any more than this. Entertainment. A diversion from the boredom of godhood.

Comment: “this” should be these, referring to “Puppets and playthings.”

“The World is changed, I am changed with it.

“I will change the World.

Comment: There is a sudden shift from passive to active voice and the reader is not quite prepared, more especially where in both statements, “I” is a subject and the direction of thought in each is contrary to each other. Better insert a statement as in – “Then, without batting an eyelash, he goes on –“

Comment: Introduce caesura at your most critical statements. Observe the effect:

“The World is changed, and I am changed with it.”

Then, without batting an eyelash, he goes on –

“I … will change the World.”

Comment: Punctuate the last word with closed quotation marks, so - world.”

His voice was a powerful force of passion. No one listening remained unmoved by the tale.

Comment: This is too short an intersperse. Add at least one more statement so that the shift is not too quick.

“Before I became who I am, I found the Eye Looking west. Climbing alone on the sheer face of the cliff, I lost my hold and fell to a small ledge. My head struck hard, my face was smashed and swollen. Blood and concussion blurred my sight. Splintered bones ground together in my left arm. How long I lay there, mind lost and bared to the heavens, I will never know.

Comment: Take away “was,” parallel with “struck.” Hence, “My head struck hard, my face smashed and swelled [in time].” Again, remember your closed quotation mark at the end of the sentence just before you shift to describe the character talking, so – know.”

The man called Prophet paused in his recitation. He closed his eyes to the crowd, breathing deep the magical atmosphere of a captive audience. No one uttered a word, hanging on the silence of anticipation. The bald man opened his eyes again, looking through the people like pale glass.

“I woke as the blood of a sunset colored the horizon. Distant city towers were the black teeth of a powerful demon, biting the sky. The gash in my forehead fevered, and oozed putrid fluids. Convulsions and tremors shook me.

Comment: I awoke

“The hell of the western horizon sickened me more, and I turned to cool granite for comfort. I saw the Eye before me, a cavern dark, deep, and inviting. It was shelter from a life turned cold, a place of rest for my broken body.

“When finally I awoke, and my eyes were opened, I saw as a blind man. No light was allowed there, in the realm of darkness. A panic took me, carrying me deeper into the earth, swallowing me in inky passages thick with age, and disregard for the light. Lost, and insane in my own cavern of pain, I searched. Always downward, ever dark.

“The Eye became a throat as I descended. It was saliva thick and choked tight as if a garrote strangled the earth itself.

“I dropped finally into the womb of the earth, and found salvation.

Comment: Use closed quotation mark on last word every time you shift to describe your speaker.

He paused again in his narrative, standing, stretching long like a heron hunting. His good right arm dipped down to a table quickly, snatching up a glass of water, bringing it briefly to his lips, then pouring it slowly over his hairless scalp.

“Water dripping was my World for a time, the constant fall of earth blood. It flowed near me, around me, and I drank of the precious nectar. Sweet, cold as ice, it succored me as mother’s milk fresh from a swollen breast.

“Pools of healing waters they were to me, swallowing my pain in their frosted liquid embrace.

Comment: Use closed quotation mark on last word.

The eyes of the Prophet glazed, black pools flooding the pale grasslands of his iris.

“Fever and madness became one, and I became the one that was madness and fever. I was the Eye looking inward, into and beyond the darkness the world is. My clothing and possessions were lost behind me in the downward spiral of passages, until I lay unveiled to the ebony universe that was mine. The cold of the upper passages gave way to enfolding warmth.

“I was mad, and may still be. None of us know our true selves, balanced as we are on the knife-edge of sanity. I remember little of my time in that space, except for the madness.

Comment: Madness, not knowing oneself? Not remembering?

“My dreams became the reality of my soul, undeniable truths written in diamonds on the impenetrable ceiling of a demented mind…

Comment: Oh, “demented” again?

“In the end, I made my way back up from the depths, and came to look west once again. Blind no more, I could see clearly through the bloodied sunsets and polluted days to the once Emerald City. When I emerged into the world again the city was sinking into night, its towers tarnished; teeth decayed, yet sharp still, all the more loathsome in their terrible splendor.

“Winter winds screamed, and I felt the warmth of the Mother about me. She had cared for me for uncounted days, and the promise of life was mine. In a trance of healing, I sat through the dark months, the snow-white story of the shortened days played out before my dreaming self. The warmth of the Mother’s breath embraced me in my west looking window; the heat from the heart of the world that had kept me in the dark depths of my fever.

Comment: “My dreaming self” somehow conveys an image of non-thinking entity.

“Snow piled all about me, yet I sat alone in the dry shelter of the mountain.

"Finally spring came again to my place in the world, and I heard somehow the painful cries of the city calling me back.

“Naked I climbed the face, my old clothes and self lost and forgotten in some black passage, entombed in the granite below me. It did not matter; I was no longer the man I had been.

General comment: The item is more about a physical transport to other environs and coming out a different person. However, no change was shown in one’s thinking or existential level which is normally expected of one who would want to change the world – except self-derogation as in calling oneself “mad,” “demented,” “dreaming.” Shades of Saint Paul at Damascus?

Perhaps the write-up should change title just so the reader will not expect much from the original one. While the title is “Prophet,” there are problems about not having presented the true language of a prophet. A [true] prophet, for example, would never directly say he is going to change the world. He would never tell - but show - by talking about what he is being prophet for - a higher being whose will he talks about. So okay, you need not advance that far. But -

“I will change the world” should manifest at least in the language or behavior of the character. Suppose you highlight more on seeing himself as nothing more than vapor… Remember that verse?

Overall, the writer uses beautiful poetic language only excellent writers can muster.