Flipside

[Cain-rag]

Which of the two versions do you prefer (if, that is, you come to like any one of the two at all), and why?  

[Cain-rag]

Flipside (1)

GarneacThis city will not die.
GarneacIt feeds on misery: fragile dreams of the young and old alike are ground down, made white, and snorted gleefully. Murder goes unanswered in these dusty streets. Blood spilt is left to wander aimlessly, trickling through cracked pavement and down into the sewers—
Garneac(d o w n)
Garneac—where underneath the city, surrounded by the stench of poisonous waste and thick dark, there are creatures that refuse to die.
GarneacRise above the filth, back into the weak light of a tired day: skyscrapers stoop and buildings break. The ashes of time have turned them black. They cluster together, hulking monoliths that defy gravity.
GarneacThis city is a tumour.
GarneacIt is a malignancy, living in the diseased hearts of its citizens; all these men and women, with their guarded eyes and thin lips, are hollow. Children are vessels for black rage; stunted, wild-eyed, they roam the streets in furious packs.
GarneacThere are no real people here. Bodies, yes, but no one who is truly alive.
GarneacThis is a place of transition: in the shadow of looming buildings, authority slides into anarchy. Savagery replaces reason, promising dark wonders.
GarneacTaste the forbidden fruit of this grisly garden, but speak carefully in such a predatory silence.
GarneacIt breathes.  

[Cain-rag]

Flipside (2)

GarneacI bet you already know that Bus 18 or 14 can lead you to some interesting places.
Garneac(Yes, you could ride straight into my dark city, where I would crush you. break you. BREAK—)
GarneacTake the transit one winter morning; take a spin around Brampton and see the sights—see the cold beauty! Have you ever, while on a bus, witnessed the snow falling soundlessly outside your window? All is calm under the endless white blanket. Icicles explode with passing light; they become diamonds; long, translucent—
Garneac(—fangs that tear flesh. come, come to OUR Brampton you sons of maggots, you daughters of deceit, you will—)
Garneac—see the icy sidewalks and fields! Frozen lakes glitter, and underneath that thin veil of ice—
Garneac(—the water is black. black and foul and filled with rotten things that used to be fish. used to be bodies. all is mush underneath the surface. light has no hold here—THERE IS NO LIGHT IN OUR DARK CITY. not in this black liquid, bitter—like our hearts, but We eat hearts, and they are bitter. they are good. and when spring comes, you will rise. oh, you will float to the surface, child, our dear citizen of lost brampton, forsaken brampton. fall. fall into our many arms, and look, look—)
Garneac—at the trees dressed in angel white! Ride around this lovely place.
GarneacWatch as the sun
Garneac(a glaring, blood-shot eye)
Garneacsits in a bed of eternal blue.
GarneacCan you imagine that?
Garneac(Oh, can you IMAGINE that…?)

** ** **

GarneacAnd you w i l l imagine it.
GarneacIn this city, reached only by naïve men and sleeping women, the streets are unpaved. Diseased roses burst upwards into sluggish air. They are then trampled—trampled by the Many, the Faceless, the millions of creatures that shuffle and snort and draw crimson lips on their featureless faces with claws, with switchblades, with cruel thoughts.
GarneacBuildings sag. They are tired, having housed terrors since time forgotten. Crumbling bricks lean on each other for support.
GarneacAvian bodies soar through rank air. Their sable feathers create dead winds; the Faceless look up, sigh inwardly at the silent wind that caresses.
GarneacThe sun is crimson. Its rays are weak; it struggles, dragged into the horizon by chains of darkness. It will not rise tomorrow, or the next day. This wasteland will writhe in shadows for a thousand years.
GarneacTime submits to the cruel gods that rule this forbidden realm.
GarneacVoices clamour: sinful shrieks, wicked whispers. A blasted car wheels down a dirt road.
GarneacA can of soup buckles and bulges; worms writhe in that tight, wet space, multiplying endlessly.
GarneacThey hunger.
GarneacThis is Brampton’s flipside, the end of reason.
GarneacAnd when you pull back the surface of this sad reality, the grinning face of madness is revealed.  

[India Farman]

These are two different stories...... they are not the same in any way.... so how can they be versions?

I like the intro to the first better, and the bulk of the second.......

There are a lot of good turns of phrases, but no point of view in either of these stories...

A lot of this that never was, tired broken people, broken people, broken promises... but it seems like you never ask the question: how can love survive here? where's the voice of hope in this darkness? HOW DO WE GET OUT???

how does it make you feel to be there... obviously it's depressing, but there si no counterpoint, no balance, no Ying for your dark Yang...

in essence, your wax is poetic... but it lacks poetry...