Annotated 27-3
In some ways, this scene is more disquieting to me than Ferris’ death and dismemberment itself. We see death rendered in media all the time. One can’t help but get a little desensitized to images of corpses after playing a first-person shooter, and reading DC Comics in the 2000s was sufficient to get me bored with scenes of hacking off arms. But thinking about the subject from a fresh angle–what would happen to your house if you vanished at work? How long would the light that you absentmindedly left on that morning keep burning, how long would they deliver your periodicals?–it forces me to contemplate the reality of being gone, and the existential terror that implies. It’s the sort of shudder we could only produce by following the grounded approach we’ve taken in Shanna’s arc.
Some of her dry humor helps keep the moment from getting too dark. Her last line is typical cynicism, but it’s also fun to see her plan out a little role-playing of her own (in the name of journalism, of course). She’s even worked out a sort of catchphrase for Felinda (“That’d be greaaat” a la Office Space, but with a more cheerleader-y tone), which, sadly, she won’t get to use again.
Ferris more or less lived for his work. Lots of hours, probably a long commute. No romantic prospects. Maybe some living relatives, but nobody he called all that often. So it’s depressingly believable that he could vanish for a week or longer without his few acquaintances or family noticing or the law getting involved. It took at least that long for my wife and me to realize that her father had passed; he was prone to “hibernation” in the winter.
The Five weren’t all quite so easy to disappear, as we will see. But combined with Hurricane’s restrictive NDA, that kind of disconnected, low-footprint lifestyle is one reason I find it believable that Shanna, rather than a police detective, is the one who has to put these jigsaw pieces together. And with the state of local journalism in America today, she can forget about getting any backup.
I’m sorry to hear how your father in law died. Its It’s unfortunate and hard when that happens. I has a similar experience with my ex’s father.
The added image is a trifecta of internet poop: stock image, false quote and a misspelling to boot.
Fair enough, though I won’t generally apologize for using stock photos when they seem like the most appropriate thing (got another one coming up in a couple days). See changes.
(The attribution to Hemingway, now that I look into it, is controversial and neither firmly proven nor disproven, but if he did write it, he wasn’t the first to try a similar idea.)
(And sorry if this sounds a little put-upon, I’m just rushing to respond while we get ready for a trip to the e-waste disposal fair. Fun, fun…)
Aw, it was meant as a criticism of the image, not of your decision to use it. While I felt the need to point out its flaws, I never questioned its inclusion. It was my understanding that you had noticed how cheesy it was and still decided to go with it.
Aw, no worries. Lots of times I am quite consciously cheesy, but that didn’t feel appropriate for this little meditation on mortality. My original choice was just kinda rushed.
To think, I’ve had at least three creative writing classes (that I can remember) where this was not only attributed to him, but used as an example in a writing prompt to “create a story in six words…
If you really want to go down the rabbit hole on this one: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/28/baby-shoes/
Reading between the lines, QI seems pretty dubious that Hemingway wrote anything of the kind. I think it’s entirely possible that he did, but far from certain, and if he did, he was probably riffing on the earlier version he dimly remembered.
*What* misspelling?
Already corrected!
Forgot about this page. The two thoughts that come to mind are 1.) Ferris has/had a nice place and 2.) Shannon comes across a little creepy, like a stalker. You don’t ‘Facebook’ a address, which means she singled out Farris and paid to data mine personal info. Not out of character for a some journalist but still a little creepy to me.
TBH, that detail’s probably a bit autobiographical; I put my own address in a few FB updates back in the day (I’ve moved, and married, since). But I can’t honestly say Shanna wouldn’t have Ferris data-mined, so…
This is one of my death-related nightmares… (The other one is FINDING a corpse.)
Yeah, if I were murdered and my 4 coworkers were told I’d quit, it might be months before anyone else noticed.
Ya know, shockingly, it wouldn’t bother me too much if nobody ever discovered I died. I mean there’s my SO, but everyone else I’ve ever met, who might care, either would’ve written me off as dead (to them, since we parted on bad terms), or simply wouldn’t take offense if I stopped speaking to them for years.
There’s probably people who would have a problem with it, if they ever found out, but the problem would either be “aw man, we’ve gotta clean this up, who was this chump anyway” or “aw, my neighbor’s dead, at least I don’t owe him $300 anymore though”.
Not really anyone I’m on mutual or one-sided “concern for life” status with.
Before anyone tries to psychoanalyze that, lemme add that this probably has more to do with the fact I don’t believe in the concept of shared identity as a foundation for relationships with other people, than with anything to do with my average state of mental health.