A Solitary Kiss: Take The Risk by Johnathan Colourfield

[Graeme]

A Solitary Kiss: Take The Risk by Johnathan Colourfield

 

A troubled mind often finds the strangest of sanctuaries and when the mystery unfolds we see where human strength lies.

 

 

:nuke: :nuke: Spoilers Below!!! :nuke: :nuke:

[Graeme]

A painful story, with a depth that leads the reader to wonder. I suppose some of the answers are in the stories that Johnathan Colourfield mentioned at the start of the story, but I'm too lazy to check them out (I do remember the previous anthology story, though).

 

Was the teenage male real or a figment of Lucian's imagination? Does it really matter, since Lucian didn't follow the advice give?

 

While my first reaction was to say that Lucian was finding a permanent solution to a temporary problem, I'm not completely sure. Would Lucian ever be away from those 'voices'? Is what he did a reasonable way to address his issues?

 

I really don't know the answer. Being generally an optimist (with a realist's bias), I think Lucian did the wrong thing, but I'm not absolutely sure. Sometimes, it's possible that Lucian's solution is the best one, though I believe that those circumstances would be very rare.

 

Thanks, Johnathan! A story to give me something to think about....

Edited March 14, 2010 by Graeme

[Nephylim]

That was really powerful. It sucked me in completely. Awesome work Jon... awesome.

[David McLeod]

Was the teenage male real or a figment of Lucian's imagination? Does it really matter, since Lucian didn't follow the advice give?

Thanks, Johnathan! A story to give me something to think about....

 

Powerful, painful, purposeful. It was so easy to fall into Lucian's mind, to see through his eyes, and to remember my own experiences, sitting at a bar, wondering, hoping.

 

Were any of the others real? I assumed the two bartenders were real until the teen disappeared and the situation shattered. (I mean that in a good way.) Was the ending real, or was it merely another image in Lucian's mind? This is the sort of story that high school English teachers drool over. (I mean that in a good way, too.)

 

That was really powerful. It sucked me in completely. Awesome work Jon... awesome.

 

Yeah, that's what I mean to say.

[Dolores Esteban]

Great story. Very real, yet with a surreal touch. This could work as a short film, the kind you don't grasp at once and that leaves you with a strange feeling. But you can't shake it off as it makes you think. Well done!

 

[paya]

Well... I'm not a regular reader of John's stories, so I don't know the characters besides this story. I tend to look at the stories through the dichotomy good-bad (and that doesn't mean I'm always on the side of the heroes and against the villains). But with this story I can't really tell if it was good or bad what happened and it's troubling me a bit. Generally speaking when someone ends their life, that's a sad (if not bad) thing. But this one scene, one picture gives us no other clue on Lucian's background, if he's a hero or a villain, why he suffers with those voices, if the plot is taking place in real conditions or if it's more a fantasy story - where he might survive, might resurrect, he has an "angel guarder" or any other result. In fact, we even don't know how bad the crash was, he might have survived even in real conditions. So all-in-all, this story is a great way to make me aware of the beforehand mentioned story so that I get more information and can deduce the consequences of Lucian's action. I will read more of it, even though I don't know when.

[David McLeod]

...this one scene, one picture gives us no other clue on Lucian's background, if he's a hero or a villain, why he suffers with those voices, if the plot is taking place in real conditions or if it's more a fantasy story

 

A well-spoken observation. And, one of the reasons I liked this story: it allowed me to fill in the blanks with my own imagination. That, I think, enriched the experience.

[Toast]

I liked this very much. I though about tragic, but it was also strongly romantic. Desperate. Fate. Doom. Sacrifice. Delusion. Very complex. And again I liked it very much.