I wrote this story, a.k.a. anti-parable.

[ThoseWhoStayUofM]

As the title says, I wrote this parable and I really want some feedback.  I call it an anti-parable because it tells a story and is TOTALLY EXPLICIT about everything you can possibly imagine regarding what was happening in each character.  It's supposed to make the reading think more empathically.  I wanted your guys' feedback on whether you like the style at all.  I think it's quite cool and I genuinely want to know what you all think.Here it is, I hope you like it.

Mother: Well I'm going to need to tell your father about this, and it WILL be settled when he gets home!Child (female): fine, I don't care! *storms off to her room, willingly, door slamming loudly

Mother (thinking): Oh, he's going to have a field day when he hears this one...Father comes home, sound of the door opening being the trigger.Mother runs to the door to meet him.Mother: How was your day, honey?! *she smiles brightly in a feigned hope for a long and detailed story about his monotonous and uneventful job.

The father brushes off his eager wife, no longer finding her faithful interest intriguing in any way at all. To him, she is nothing but a dog showing faithful joy at his return, only to undoubtedly lose every ounce of interest in just a short while.Father: “It was fine!”, he pronounces snippetly towards what he views as nothing more than his house companion. “Lay off...”, he moans, which precedes her subsequent retreat, subconsciously building a wall to mask her painful neglect, as her eager clamoring was not reciprocated... and in fact was downright refused altogether.To her, this must have been some sort of game, for which she is testing the partner's “devotion” and “loyalty”, which seems to be a made-up word in order to invoke a sense of guilt in such a way that the other person gives-up in any given dispute. For example, if I agree to be a life partner with you, and you agree to be a life partner with me, then we agree to tread the same road together. We will no longer be looking out for ourselves, individually. Instead, we agree to look out for ourselves, collectively. We no longer exist as two separate individuals. In our way of thinking, we become one. What is good for me, IS good for us. This is saying EXACTLY the same thing. By playing this game, she is doubting that I am truly thinking in this way. Forever, the woman will doubt this of the husband. She lives in a perpetual state of doubt. It is the perpetual toil husbands will face in marriage... a simple task when you truly think about it. You will never succeed, but is it not still worth it? She will perpetually doubt you, but it is your duty to love her nonetheless. Consistently show her that “you” is the same as “us”. She will forget often. Simply saying to her, in the times when she seems to appeal to “loyalty” or “devotion”, it is important to simply remind her that “you” is the same as “us”... Don't say it in the same way every time. Subconsciously show her. You must HONESTLY be in this point of view to fully achieve what I am talking about. So, this is not a manipulation tactic. This is a “WAY OF THINKING” that will enable you to live wonderfully.In continuation, the wife says, in a fake way, “Well I'm so very happy for you, deary, because, have I got a story for you about the way YOUR CHILD has been treating me.”Father: “What has she done! “ Now, catching on to the game that is being played.

 

Mother: “She told me that she doesn't respect me or anything I say!”Father: “She did?! OUR daughter has some serious explaining to do, because no DAUGHTER of mine disrespects her mother!”Father enters the room. The mother peaks out from behind him, with a stern scowl on her face. The disappointment on her face is as clear as the moon in a vast nigh sky. It is so apparent, it goes beyond mere disappointment. It is a face aimed to make the child ashamed of herself. The goal is to make her feel like she is a “BAD PERSON!” The look creates in her a mental image that she is, at her core, a very bad person and she ought to be ashamed of her very self. That is what it means to be “ashamed of yourself”. Think about this. Truly, think about what it means to be shameful. It means for you to think of the self... the thing that you are... at the core of you... as bad, or wicked... immoral, unjust... despicable... This is what shameful is.What shameful is not, is the idea that 15 years ago, you were NOT AT ALL IN ANY WAY the same person you are today. In fact, 10 years ago you are not the same as you are today. Come to think of it, a few months ago you were a different person than you are now. In fact, I am willing to put forth to you, right now, that you are a different person, a different self, right now than you were 5 minutes ago... no... 5 seconds ago, than you are right now. Think, before you started reading this, you were a different person, totally, after reading it. Now think about the idea of shame. What is there to be shameful of. If you are different, at your core even, right now from how you were 10 minutes ago, what is there to be shameful of? Anything you are is not necessarily what you will become, so what is there to be ashamed of now? Your self (I hate the word “yourself” because it de-emphasizes the concept that there is a “self” that is distinctly “your own”) is merely in a state prescribed to the time of NOW that has changed drastically from the BACK THEN and will undoubtedly change, equally drastically, in the AFTER NOW.So the mother invokes this sense of shame, different from guilt which is the effect of harming another person for the sake of your own self, i.e. selfishness. I suspect that guilt is what you will experience should you ever attempt to manipulate your child in this way ever again after reading this... that is guilt. It is important to distinguish the difference because shame comes from the negative moralistic judgments of other people whereas guilt comes from the regret of some past action. It is important to never think of one's own self as being “bad” for things that we have done in the past. Just think of your self as being “incomplete”. Your way of thinking is not fully established and lead to incorrect outcomes. Just as an operating system is in a constant state of revamping, updates, and even complete over-hall, the self is constantly rethinking, remapping, and readjusting... until it reaches completion.... until it fully understands itself.Now feeling that its very self is something to be shameful of, now that she has judged herself of its quality and found it to be very little, if anything at all. Tears begin to form in the child's eyes.Child: “I'm sorry!!! I'm so, so sorry!”, she yelps as she burrows her face into the palms of her hands. She sobs loudly and her hands and face turn pink and sticky with a combination of tears and mucus which is beginning to collect at the end of her nose. She is utterly pitiful. She is helpless in the dark of her own despair.The father glances at his wife's cold stare and quickly looks back at his daughter.Mother: “...and you know what happens when little girls are disrespectful to their mothers, don't you?” She expresses this as though the question mark was actually a period. There was no question at all, really.The child wheezes as she takes a breath in, followed by the loudest sob yet. The father turns back to his wife, observing the calm demeanor of his wife without any judgment at all.He walks up to his daughter, bends her over his knee. The mother walks out of the room and down the hall. He says calmly, “You... do... not... disrespect... your... mother...”, each word accompanied by a subsequent sting across the bottom.The father releases his daughter, and she immediately scurries off to her bedroom, whaling aloud. While still crying profusely, she closes the door softly, runs and leaps onto her bed, and thrusting her face into her pillow. Her skin no longer stings, and no physical markings will remain. She is utterly destroyed.

[Nerburg]

I'd call it a good first draft. The concept is good, but editing work needs doing. Some parts were hard to read.

 

Constructive criticism below, take it or leave it:

The verbiage seems to get a little tangled when switching from the narration of the story to the essayish bits (for lack of a better term), and I think the distinction between those two parts needs to be made more clear (italics?). There's also a couple instances of narration in the third person getting jumbled with the first-person perspective, and the first-person bits need some rewording as the sentences are jumbled, too abstracted.

 

If I get the time later when I'm on a desktop instead of mobile, I'd like to rework (some of?) it and show you what I mean directly, with concrete examples. Writing is a hobby and I feel like I've always had a knack for editing, so's maybe I can be of some help to you.