All Comments on 'Dark Night of the Soul'

This was very different, intellectual in fact. Even though it was well written don't expect high marks. 5*

I am not Catholic, not bilingual, and I only took a year of community college. So 90% of your story passed me by that said I did like the basic plot for the ---- I don't know how many times. I gave this a 4. You were making a joke by posting this here? Right?

Very deep in a way, no justice was given, no wrong righted...just very melancholy.

4

A_Bierce, I think you made up for the page breaks and bad comments from A C&W Song in the Key of Life. You went light in C&W and now dark in this. My only complaint would be not knowing in the end what the wife did. She said she did it only to relieve an itch but when one of her friends called she jumped and ran. Will there be a second chapter to explain? If not you know how to get a hold of me to let me know.

Look forward to your next.

It is really nice strange approach. Well composed and integrated, swing between subjective and objective in story teller was nice. It will be nice to see offender side during same period, her objective and subjective view.

This story is far better than the usual bar room tales featured in LW and for that reason it probably isn't to everyone's taste. The interior dialogue is what makes it interesting and it gets at some truths usually not found in LW, such as the routine nature of much marital sex, or the way the mind can wander during Mass. Written by someone who knows their way around the inside of an OR, too. Not a good idea to reprint the poem in the original Spanish; seems pretentious. Hope to read more from this author. Five stars.

You live your life, find that you have cancer that has caused a lack of interest in sex, you find your wife has been cheating on you for years, she feels better since she confessed, then you silently go into the endless night, not fighting but with a wispier.

Not a whole lot good to say about that.

I liked the story 5*. It is a sobering aspect of reality, of life. What many do not understand is that the lack of communication (whoever starts), touch, adoration and understanding IS the marriage killer. Whether infidelity occurs or not. With out it, marriage just becomes a convenience. I am not Catholic, or any other religion....any more, for that matter.

I pose a question.

Should we even have marriages to pledge or vow to?

Stat: 2nd Marriage 32yrs. to present, first marriage 9yrs. Both died with in 9-10yrs. and I still don't understand.

His wife cheated with his friends and colleagues and she killed his heart. Quite literally,

The interweaving of the poem as an accompaniment to the story. Brilliant. Thank you.

He went to the operation table with his heart already dead...that's why it stopped during the operation and in the end even with aall the tries it refused to beat again...4*

Ambitious, well written

Take something very simple, then complicate it out of all proportion.

And create something fascinating.

A married couple, each with a secret, neither able to take the other into their confidence. Extreme in AB's story, but remarkably common in real life.

Lue

Sorry, but this was just so uninteresting that I couldn't finish. You seem to take on projects beyond your capacity. A man's got to know his limitations.

Well written, and different.

I, too, dislike the changes in the liturgy. I understand why Pope Benedict ordered them, to make them closer to the Latin, but the older forms had both more simplicity and better English prose.

That was different. Gave it 5.

getting the score this story deserves.

Some folks don't like any religion in their stories.

Some BTBers hate when what happened at the end happens and can't recognize the incredible guilt she will feel for the rest of her life.

Some folks (se moi) don't like poetry in the story...but the writing overcame that minor ding.

Better than prior works. You are improving.

Beyond the writer's capacity, Anonymous, or beyond your capacity as a reader?

I rarely bother to score a LW story, but this one I gave five stars.

Lue

You took on a project that was daring but with a narrow audience. Maybe if I was a Roman Catholic it would have meant more to me. But it became tedious and while the poetry sort of illuminated the story, it didn't have much of an impact on me.

Still, you showed courage attempting this story. The mechanics of the piece were pretty good. For those reasons you get 4 stars.

Dark, very sad, and beautiful overall. You, sir, have talent. Please keep writing.

You do have a unique gift in trying to write outside the box, for that I salute you. This story was a bit hard to get into and that took away from the enjoyment, but a 4**** for giving us something more than expected.

I admire the ambition of this tale. Reading as a Roman Catholic (admittedly lapsed), I enjoyed the references and the analogy in the story but the ending left me cold. I would have enjoyed reading his final moments in his own PoV.

Incidentaly I also agree that the older version of the Liturgy was more elegant and succinct. Sadly it's a sign of the times. Everything that can be dumbed down MUST be dumbed down. As a culture we cannot possibly condone the possibility that someone might have to look something up and grow in understanding.

A good effort. Thanks for the offering..

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?

Psychotic.

The catholic references are as meaningless as they were when I was a child. She was a bad person. Easy conclusion. She enjoyed getting away with it. Would have liked her reacfion to his death and hpw, she was doing a coup.e years on.

i,m so sorry father Bierce but i'm on her side i can't agree with the confession the night before surgery tho...stlcris

I'm almost ready to kill myself after this one....

She's Catholic, she'd feel that if she wasn't a lying skank. Not nearly depressing enough to commit sudoku but I did get a thumb cramp from scrolling through the pointless mass nonsense. You'll be billed for that.

Jesus, you would think Google didn't exist.

The comments are better than the story!

Thanks for the very hard laugh guys!!!

Been a dark day and your comments made me laugh my ass off!!

Fresh and Dark

Jumpy/jarring, yet brooding, and provocative, like an unsettling fixation

A morality play with the finest of principles examined yet the foulest in betrayal and the bitterest in disappointments displayed at the end.

You entertained the heck out of some of us. For the rest, textbook pearls before Swine. Nice ruminations on changes to Catholicism, and nice use of Pharisee smack!!

manifest as physical malady.

The prayer

the prey

.

Thanks for this erudite piece. Nice interplay of the characters, their breakdown in communication, and the guilt. The elements of the mass woven throughout just made this little filet mignon more delicious.

Ignore the swilling pigs who cry for more hamburger when they are looking at steak.

But I can't understand a man allowing his sex life to decline so drastically that both husband and wife did not seek more answers. But that would preclude one of the subtle points in your story: their marriage had ended many years ago. Highlighted by the assertion that her trysts were merely physical releases, implying that if her husband could just make her cum, their marriage would be as good as it had ever been. As good as it would ever be. That might be the most pathetic aspect of this story.

With her experience, and the insurance money, she'll be a busy little beaver. And remarried, whenever she finishes auditions.

Maybe in a sequel you can have her seduce a seminarian, or the pastor?

Why do people not pay attention to the vows.

For richer or poorer

In sickness and in health

Til death do us part

A cheater is humiliating the partner already. When it’s done with a person who knows them it a thousand times more humiliateing to the cheated on. I find it amazing as a society the the percentage of people who cheat are so high married or just dating even higher. I think if your not ready to commit than stay single for as long as you need to fuck a variety of people. If a woman has sexual problems of man has erection problems you need to stand by them not go and make them even lower than they are with there issues.

I agree, Anonymous. Best comment so far this year, and up against stiff competition. "Sir, you do realise this is a porn site" had swept all before it until now.

I would like to believe 'sudoku' was deliberate and not a misspelling as the other Anonymous assumed. But even if it was, it was worth one of the best laughs the comments have given for quite a while.

Lue

MINUS 5*!!!

We live in a post-Christian society. Nowadays every little psychopath is reflexively hostile to anything religious that implies there is something larger, holier, or more meaningful than their own self-esteem and next ejaculation. Instead of loving our neighbors, we raise professional school shooters. I liked your story, and urge you to blow off the haters. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!

HillCountryCowboy

PS I’m 1/4 lapsed Catholic so some of it got past me.

PPS Agree or not, the “depressing enough to commit soduko” comment is pretty damn funny.

PPPS I knew Browning was a genius who designed some of the most elegant, classic, beautiful firearms ever, I didn’t know he wrote poetry too!

Enjoyed the comments more than the story. Most seemed prescient.

" His heart was dead before he went onto the OR." That was good. The author was leading up to that all along wasn't he?

The wife's and the narrator's pedestrian explanations why they didn't confide early, placed in the old, inadequate if traditional participatory R.C. purgation scenario, confronting mere but definitive mortality, are invoked with extraordinary clarity. We don't live the depth or potential meanings of our own lives! I rarely find such high literacy in Literotica. And rarely find that some of my fellow readers are perhaps equally literate! Remarkable! Also, though I never did care for Pyncheon's lurching shifts of mind and voice, I find the challenge posed by yours to be justified. Just.

I thought the way you structured the story around the prayer was very original and innovative. I don't think she's a very good wife, but that's a separate matter. Very original.

Reading it through I became aware there is not going to be any plot beyond what has been declared early, that he has cancer and that his wife cheats. OK.

Now playing religious blab around totally dark non-plot could seem to some as original and creative but I do not see that since I was simply skipping through the blab which I believe is the reaction of most of the readers here. I can figure out that such a construct makes the writer feel sophisticated and creative so that could be the reason why he wrote it that way. But it just loses the power of the idea watering it down.

The idea is totally dark, just imagine yourself dying from cancer while your wife is cheating on you, this is definitely powerful darkness. What I feel here is that the writer actually weakened this and made it boring with this religious blabber. When you have a powerful idea and you make it boring (in my eyes) then you are not writing well.

1 star from me.

Fingers - tongue

- - -

And if my member fails me,

Then thee I thank, for fingers and tongue.

For all pleasure of cunnilingus be thine

(Except the pleasure she gets, of course)

And for manual digits, most ready

We give great thanks

For fingers (double pun) as a most prehensile phallus

Bring rapture beyond the Rapture.

And also, we pray,

Slow her from slutiness

Understandable,

Under the circumstance.

Yeh, they cut those lines out of a lot of the 'good' books. Which is why they're not as good as they could be.

is a reworking of "Drop Those Cum Stained Panties", or vice versa (didn't check the dates). In any event, I think both stories explore marriage at too deep a level for this audience. The commitment "for better or worse, in sickness, and in healthy, forsaking all others" is far more profound than moderns understand. In any event, you write well, maybe too well for Literotica.

There’s a very dark hit song in here somewhere

Very well done and thank you. In my own mind I am composing the wife's subsequent narrative.

Such lack of communication is common I think. Love causes us to avoid serious criticism of the other, and we live with a hole in our marriage.

Delightful storytelling

That was so depressing.

I suppose that means it's well-written.

Yeah, I sort of scrolled through the prayer stuff about 1/2 way through, but that only detracted slightly from the genius of the story. No more so than some others have used whole pages of song lyrics to pad their story (not meaning to reference the A_B’s C&W story here, I mean several other strong writers/stories here on Literotica).

5-stars

I feel no empathy for a man who knew he had a tumor for over a decade and refused to do anything about it

and just like I would not care should a man cheat on his wife is she consistently refused sex I dont care here either

A partner withholding sex is no different than cheating, the guy knew he had cancer for over a decade and refused to do anything about it knowing it was killing his libedo and knowing his wife wsnt happy getting sex once every six weeks

Calling the kettle black, that was my laugh for today.

It's too easy to blame everything on the lack of communication.

It is better to work the story than to highlight in bold extracts that nobody reads.

The story is very thorough in the treatment of the relationship, his mistakes and her behavior and betrayal, but in the bitter end when he dies on the table, we do not know of her reaction to his ultimate loss (although he alluded to it in a sarcastic way, but that was just foreshadowing) did she feel any pain or loss? Did she think she had willingly and willfully abused the sacrament of marriage and her wedding vows, and that God had just fixed things. Did she feel one iota of guilt? To many questions and damn few answers. A short epilogue would have been much appreciated by the readers, but in asking the questions I suppose we will have to answer them ourselves, It is what it is.

He had health problems and couldn't get it up so she decided to cheat and fuck a bunch of other guys. He had surgery and died on the table then you finish with a bunch of foreign crap and said it was a prayer. This is the first of the many of your stories that I didn't like. One*

Hard to have sympathy for the husband, pretty selfish lover. Yes the wife should have said something but what did he think would happen when you cut your wife off, she would take up knitting. Not excusing the cheating. She should have gotten a divorce, ah but they are devout Catholics. So that is out of the question.

It's metaphor! We don't get what we need, we get self-pitying, and then it crushes others. This is why we the readers live through her experience: an infinite guilt that will never end, and alienation from her actual faith that causes her to pretend, which always leads to becoming lost. Very sad, but very accurate.

I didn't read your story but I read the 1st line or so and let me say "if you or anyone you know is a member of the Roman catholic church ... RUN, AND I MEAN run from it"

Question = Are you Fear Factory fan?

Serious, listen to the the FEAR FACTORY song "TIMELESSNESS" and read the lyrics... oh man... Please don't listen if you are in a bad way,, please don't

Good for the wife… never seen as pathetic a lover as the husband!!

Why did he marry her if he didn't desire her? Part of the whole marriage package that you talked all around but never really jumped into with both feet.

Good story.

Not sure what anonymous just below me read.

It is obvious to me that you write organically. This is not necessarily a bad approach but it does increase the likelihood of inconsistency.

At the beginning of the story the husband comments that the wife admitted her affair regretfully and then the second time angrily "last night." That is not represented in your work. If one would describe the wife's admission, it would be both pleading and fearful. I wouldn't even qualify her indignation over not being told as anger. No, the wife wanted her husband to accept her reality. There was no anger nor was there really contrition. The lack of contrition made sense of course as it was obviously the purpose of your story. The use of Roman Catholic mass was an interesting one and made absolutely perfect sense (I agree with you regarding the order of the mass changes and the translation changes. I grumble every time I have to say "and with thine own spirit" it's so ugly)

Anyway, about the ending... if you were intending to lead the reader to believe the wife would experience grief, I am not so sure that is realistic. While I have no doubt she would be sad, someone who carries on an 11 year series of sexual affairs with her husband's friends, acquaintance and coworkers is a narcissistic personality. I would also argue that despite her profession of love, it is highly unlikely she respects her husband either as a man or spouse. It's more likely should would play the grieving widow for attention and to receive sympathy to alleviate the modicum of guilt she may feel. The woman clearly lacks empathy and hid her infidelity to protect her lifestyle and avoid (in her eyes) unnecessary emotional drama. It was about avoiding inconvenience which is also the main reason for her fear about his death.

Your score is due to the theme and ending. I think it's appropriate though due to your inconsistency

What a great story, clinically told but full of emotion. 5*****

Definitely an acutely observed journey into pain of the soul.

Bad grammmer on my part. (Assnomeous)

Oldbearswitch got it wright.

LOVE slap-hapy-papy #9

Sorry for the two stars, the story was well written but was a complete downer for me