Breathless, some nice fantasy and description of the different classes within the short universe you created. Enjoyed the way in which you created the elitist/ bourgeois ‘laureates’ “The laureates laugh with a silent ***ophony. Knowing all the small ones think that it's false. The fraud is in the truth of the con.” Contrasting with the ‘wooden men’ going to call it craftsmen class, “Eleven hundred wooden men stormed in, twelve oppressive lines, swords steady.” Representation of class struggle is one of the strongest themes to use in a fantasy fiction, look at things like Lord of the Rings and Dune, but here you gave only a small portion, you had a good idea but perhaps didn’t expand fully enough on the themes you set up for full effectiveness.
Certain, you are very deliberate with language choice, every word is precise and that is why in the very first line “The town was off limits. That much was certain.” I am going to have a wild guess here. The word ‘certain’ indicates this was an elaborate stylized version of fiction based on your own life, also perhaps your first name begins with the letter B. I read a lot into it, and was trying to figure out throughout what the stylized parts were actually representing, the parts like “slipped on dungarees and even left a running furnace “ - “and had overheard one of his dad's friends discuss the urban.” - “beyond this crusted curtain” - “and played it slick, laying in his toasty bed while cracking, scared.” made me think it was a representation of early childhood and confrontation with something taboo, with the ‘village elders’ being parents and the ‘coal’ being something of value but inaccessible to the child. The only thing that took away from it for me was the specific words “At 16”. Just very interesting overall, even if I’m 100% off in this interpretation the fact that it can allow for a different interpretation is still great. Voted for Certain.
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