Eternal

[tectak]

Jess was working later than all the others
down the dockside bar on the Upper Tweed, I suppose there must be a reason for working late and for why "down the dockside bar" rather than "at the..." or "in the". You could name the bar, as you named the Tweed. Are we talking Scotland here, because there is a real shortage of docks in the Upper Tweed valley?
serving drunks and wiping up beer and vomit,
dreaming of Christmas.
 
Mike saw Jess and knew that he had to have her;
struck by love, he told her one balmy eve. ...but not as rare as "balmy eve?'s in Scotland. I read eve as eye. Wrong but less of a cliche.
Nothing could convince him they shouldn’t marry --
destiny waited.
 
Mike and Jess forever, the perfect couple:
brains and beauty admired by all the rest.
Everyone who thought that he couldn’t keep her
said that she’d leave him. The precipitous hint that a rhyme is coming then it doesn't is at first cute then annoying...to me, that is. Deliberate?
 
Jess caught joy in sponges and wrung it into
buckets filled with remnants of laugh-filled hours,
grey now, mixed with sordid regret and silence:
memory’s cocktail. I am liking this. It is how I would "feel" the cameo but sponges/ wringing/ buckets implies metaphorical liquid....remnants not so much.
 
Mike was waiting patiently just like always,
soon to walk her home through the darkened streets --
pretty girls like Jess need a strong protector,
safe from temptation. What's not to crit
 
Jess hummed bits of songs that she half remembered,
scores from operas played by the drinking crowd;
fractured carols echoed beneath the orders --
four pints of cheer, love.[b] The dissasociation of observer (writer) from the story is confusing. I am not sure who is saying what to whom....but worse, I think it matters to the style AND the continuity. Without quotation marks anywhere I must assume that there is no narrator yet I cannot but deny that someone said " four pints of cheer, love"
 
[/b]Grandma had the girls when she worked the late shift --
double time meant Santa would come this year.
Aching feet were nothing when gifts were opened --
smiles make you pretty. [b]OK...you are stuck with the format....but I don't have to like it. I do not like it.
 
[/b]Every night she fended off stale suggestions --
men and alcohol make a potent team.
She would star in hundreds of drunken stupors:
hangover goddess.[b] Liking this for its easy clarity but the potent word as a descriptor of a team is stretching it a little. I think another word for team would help
 
[/b]Light to dark adjustment is never easy -- [b]This is overly philosophical in context not to mention its singular lack of veracity...why is it given prominence here? It is an  unlikely scenario that after a booze'n'brawl night shift the temporary effect of darkness would warrant the protectionism described. Am I missing a girlie one here?
[/b]stars, though dazzling, shine from too far away.
Jess stepped out and Mike put his arm around her:
noble protector.
 
When the knock came, somehow she knew the reason.
Two small girls in nightdresses slumbered on;
all their mother wore was her bloody wedding[b]Oh dear, hit me for thinking  bugger not bleed...but which is it? This is, again,  open to misinterptetation...and that makes for an inconclusive ending. It is as though you know something which I do not and I don't want it to end like this
[/b]ring and her silence.

Hi Leanne,
I am going to pick at this tomorrow as Merlot mellows me. First couple of reads makes me think the intuhlektual eye glass keeps falling off. ..the observational sing-song is inconsistent ...not a lot, but enough to notice. S1 L3 jars with "Light to dark adjustment is never easy" It is a though you wrote the piece in a number of chronologically separated parts. Am I wrong?
I may be better in 24 hours.
Best,
tectak
Next day in text. Sorry about the format symbolism. I cannot get rid of them Something has gone wonky.