Raye Johnsen wrote:

I'm experimenting with a new style here, so please
don't think there's anything wrong with your mailer. There really *aren't* any quotation marks.

    Right. Well, experimentation is good.

Start: 7:23 p.m., 30/12/2001
*****

In Silence

by Raye Johnsen
raye_j@yahoo.com

*****
    GateKeepers is copyright a lot of people, none of
whom I know, none of whom are myself.  *****

    Pioneer in the US, I think. Not sure, I'll admit. Just search google for 'gatekeepers creator'.

    I do hate him, now.  I hate him - but only because
there was a time when I thought I loved him.  But now,
I think I loved the image of him that I built inside
my head.  He simply saw it and slipped inside my
dreams.  Ironic - after I was sure I had thrown all my
dreams away, he slid so neatly into the one I had
clung to so tightly I didn't even realize I still had
it.

    Hmmm.

    I am about as individual to them as a noodle in one
of the bowls of chow mein they cook in their
restaurant, I replied.  I am their daughter Megumi,
not Megumi their daughter.

    Interesting.

    And how important is that? I asked, bitterly.  How
many missions depended on the Gate of Protection,
rather than Ukiya's Gate of Wind, or Ruriko's Gate of
Life?  Even the Gate of *Illusion* is more important
to AEGIS.

    Methinks she's being hard on herself, given how rarely the Gate of Illusion ever actually worked out.

    He had no answers for me.  Only platitudes.  I
listened in silence, and left as soon as politeness
permitted.

    He made me feel important.  That was what was so
insidious, really.  All his beliefs tallied in with my
own.  Only the important were worthy of his regard,
therefore as I had his regard, I was important.  It
was what I wanted to hear.

    Firstly, you switch subjects between paragraphs here, both of them addressing a 'he'.

    Secondly, that works so well the way that it is, that I don't think you should change it. :)

    What wakes me up at night, though, is that even now
his actions seem so *reasonable*.  People *are*
stupid.  Litterbugs *are* idiots.  Rude people *are*
selfish.  And it is so tempting to try to teach those
cruel jocks who taunt the quiet ones (like myself)
until they crack a lesson that they will *never*
forget....

    His Gate was black.  Mine is not - it's still green. Which proves to me that this darkness at the bottom of
my heart is not imposed, as it was on Ruriko, nor is
it a madness, as it was with him, but a part of me. Which means that it will never go away.

    Nice contrast.

    All I want is to be important. 
    It was a lie, but he made me feel important.

    I miss him.

*****
Finish: 8:14 p.m., 30/12/2001

    Well, I'm afraid I can't offer any constructive criticism on this one, other than that one comment. It's probably a little deeper than Megumi was ever meant to go, but I think on its own, this work is just about perfect.

    Kudos on a job well done.

=====
raye_j@yahoo.com
http://www.thejohnsens.com/index.html

"'I run, therefore I am'; more accurately, 'I run, therefore with any luck I'll still *be*'."
   - Rincewind's philosophy, as explained in "Interesting Times"