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Shilpa Gopal's avatar

opened this assuming survivors were being interviewed. realizing i was wrong was such a reality throw. i was so anxious for him to reach the door that the shift in the story when it didn't open made my stomach drop!

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Khudeeja's avatar

Loved this

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zay ☆'s avatar

loved it so much that i finally downloaded substack

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Josh Czuba's avatar

let's gooo

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zay ☆'s avatar

on the second page where the characters' final dialogues are written, it says "you are not alone", but the actual line on the last page says 'we' instead of 'you'

is this just a compromise so that they each flow better in context, or is there a deeper purpose I can't get at 💔

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sire's avatar

This was amazing, I kid you not, the slow revelation of it being Darren was done so well. The first line from Darren, being in monospace also just fit so well. I loved reading this.

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Josh Czuba's avatar

thank you!!

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Den's avatar

This was an actual experience, I loved it. It took me a bit to notice the different fonts and when I finished reading it I took note of the fact that I probably missed which character was some of the texts (I'll probably reread it at least once).

To me it resonated as a critique to the world as it is, in different ways depending on the character that was speaking.

It was also really fascinating to see how Stacy reproaches the fact that her boyfriend isn't present, that he doesn't care, etc but she's the one to not even notice what's happening while, on the other hand, he is the one in this situation to act firstly.

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Josh Czuba's avatar

appreciate you reading Den!! means a lot that you spent some time with it

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Shrelp's avatar

This is real nice Josh. That line about Stacy and the phrase "undiagnosed pyro" made me chuckle. There's a piece of flash-fiction by David Foster Wallace, called "Incarnations of Burned Children" which I think you might like.

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Karolina's avatar

Things I liked:

- how annoying Stacy was and the irony of her words

- the listing of names, including “this fucking guy”

- the shifts in point of view - very satisfying when it clicked

- It didn’t hook me right from the start, but then it was page 9, and the next time I looked, I was on page 20.

- the subtle exposition via the father methodical explanation

- this: little moment:

Sixty would be really pushing it. /

There’s about seventy of us here in total

- overall it played like a film in my head - with voiceover and cutting between the drama of the fire and the coldness of the interview with the father

It somehow reminded me of your love letter to bad habits — except this one feels like a love letter to dissociation.

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Darya Slepts's avatar

My writing skills are not quite good enough to describe how I felt reading this. Brilliant work. I would really like to know how the writing process looks like for you and how you approach it.

Here for all your experiments,

Darya

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