Swirling formless overhead, Tecumseh tugs at my locks with his tomahawk and attempts to free them from my well-taught and well-groomed head. Next, his hands wrench apart my death-locked jaw in order to severe my tongue and wipe out the lies of the white man. And as the glistening red river runs across my lips and down my front, my vision can only grasp that bronze countenance that burns like the mistrust of hundreds of years.
I could dream a million ways for this ghost to kill me but it only ever ended with my awakening, alone and sweat-drenched. His words had conquered my thoughts like the armies that William Henry Harrison led against the chief. There was a certainty with which I knew that Tecumseh, of the Shawnee, would bring his curse down upon my head. History was on his side and no Warren Harding is going to stop him.
Tecumseh placed the curse on William Henry Harrison after suffering defeat at the battle of Tippecanoe. The curse offers each United States President elected in an even year and divisible by twenty as a sacrifice to appease the chief’s dead nation. Now, this may seem a bit absurd for a world leader to put much faith in an old wives’ tale but it is more than simply fascinating, it is absolutely true! It began with Harrison, followed by Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. All have died in office and I am next.
From my oval office windows, I gaze out across the rose gardens and notice the bustle on Pennsylvania Avenue. All the people, coming and going, without the burden of a nation on their shoulders. But it is not this country, or the welfare of my family, or even my own image of presidential prestige that concerns me.
The real horror of this curse lies not in the simple fact of death –that is no cause to be fearful as it is utterly unavoidable. But the mystery within this curse, that which makes an unhappy individual into an assassin or turns a man’s health from fair to poor, torments my mind incessantly. The constant evaluation of every situation, in an attempt to preserve my own ass, has greatly worn my nerves.
Without fail, I see the face of Tecumseh in every mirror and behind every corner. Even as my wife and I make love, the only visage I can catch is that of the fallen chief. In every cabinet meeting, I spend more time looking over my shoulders than at the papers in front of me. I can barely raise my voice above a whisper in public because of the fears that consume me.
My wife frets and does her best to remind me of my duties to both the country and to her. I suppose I haven’t quite been fulfilling either of them but who could with such weighty things on the brain? She complains constantly and badgers me for attention but I simply remind her that all of us have more important things to be concerned with. And now, just meager months into my presidency, I am completely ineffectual. The fear which consumes me has already killed me. It may have been my wife who put the arsenic in my tea but it was Tecumseh who put me in my grave.
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Dear Ted,
Please see my comments in brackets below.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Tecumseh's Revenge
Swirling formless overhead, Tecumseh tugs at my locks with his tomahawk and attempts to free them from my well-taught and well-groomed head. Next, his hands wrench apart my death-locked jaw in order to severe [should be spelled “sever”] my tongue and wipe out the lies of the white man. And as the glistening red river runs across my lips and down my front, my vision can only grasp that bronze countenance that burns like the mistrust of hundreds of years. [I’m not sure about the self-characterization of “well-taught... head” and the commentary of “lies of the white men” and “the mistrust of hundreds of years,” but I will reserve my judgment until I see what you do with it]
I could dream a million ways for this ghost to kill me but it only ever ended with my awakening, alone and sweat-drenched. [slightly clumsy sentence. Would help if you changed to “but the dream only ever ended...”] His words had conquered my thoughts like the armies that William Henry Harrison led against the chief. [again, slightly uncomfortable with the way you are using simile in the story, but it is interesting enough that I want you to try and get away with it. Right now, it feels rather artificial, but wouldn’t it be great if it turned out to be essential to the story and the voice?] There was a certainty with which I knew that Tecumseh, of the Shawnee, would bring his curse down upon my head. History was on his side and no Warren Harding is going to stop him.
Tecumseh placed the curse on William Henry Harrison after suffering defeat at the battle of Tippecanoe. The curse offers each United States President elected in an even year and divisible by twenty as a sacrifice to appease the chief’s dead nation. Now, this [“this” should be “it”] may seem a bit absurd for a world leader to put much faith in an old wives’ tale but it is more than simply fascinating, it is absolutely true! [be careful of using exclamation marks. They have a tendency to shout] It began with Harrison, followed by Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. All have died in office and I am next. [OK, I am getting who the character is now in terms of office, but I really don’t get who the character is as a person, or why he is so sympathetic with the Native American ghost who is scalping him at night and cursing him]
From my oval office windows, I gaze out across the rose gardens and notice the bustle on Pennsylvania Avenue. All the people, coming and going, without the burden of a nation on their shoulders. [sentence fragment] But it is not this country, or the welfare of my family, or even my own image of presidential prestige that concerns me.
The real horror of this curse lies not in the simple fact of death –that is no cause to be fearful as it is utterly unavoidable. But the mystery within this curse, that which makes an unhappy individual into an assassin or turns a man’s health from fair to poor, torments my mind incessantly. The constant evaluation of every situation, in an attempt to preserve my own ass, has greatly worn my nerves. [there is a real problem with diction here, as “preserve my own ass” doesn’t seem to come from the same speaker who says “has greatly worn my nerves”]
Without fail, I see the face of Tecumseh in every mirror and behind every corner. Even as my wife and I make love, the only visage I can catch is that of the fallen chief. In every cabinet meeting, I spend more time looking over my shoulders than at the papers in front of me. I can barely raise my voice above a whisper in public because of the fears that consume me.
My wife frets and does her best to remind me of my duties to both the country and to her. I suppose I haven’t quite been fulfilling either of them but who could with such weighty things on the brain? [“weighty things on the brain” doesn’t quite work with the diction. Maybe “weighty matters on the brain”] She complains constantly and badgers me for attention but I simply remind her that all of us have more important things to be concerned with. And now, just meager months into my presidency, I am completely ineffectual. The fear which consumes me has already killed me. It may have been my wife who put the arsenic in my tea but it was Tecumseh who put me in my grave. [The problem here is that the last sentence of the story strives to create a twist, but the twist doesn’t really resolve the story in terms of character, and it moves the plot from the moment of speaking (before death) to a moment after death, as if the speaker has somehow shifted from living cursed person to dead ghost speaking, and we don’t know how as readers. Also, the story progresses through plot summary and doesn’t dramatize, use dialogue, show what’s happening except in the very beginning with the dream, and so it feels removed and, frankly, not dramatic. If you could somehow tell us less and show us more the story would be much more powerful. Perhaps a shift into the third person limited omniscient point of view is called for here? All best, Tony]
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