“Charlton Heston” begins with an elementary school student’s
first experience with a firearm after viewing a safety video in class featuring
an animated character named Eddie the Eagle.
The spacing after this scene designates a shift to Charlie’s sophomore
year in high school, though later breaks seem to only mark movement from one
room to another. Since the opening scene
is so brief, it could even be condensed further and incorporated as a momentary
flash back when Charlie sees Eddie the Eagle emerge from the Shooter’s Lounge. This would be consistent with the story’s
tone, since everything reads as though it is in Charlie’s head, anyway.
The substantial use of magical realism creates a sense of
ambiguity throughout. I was unsure if
everything after Charlie retrieves his coke was merely a psychotic daydream as
he drank the beverage or a sequence of hallucinations that he experience while
actually in the Shooter’s lounge.
Regardless, the reader cannot help but wonder if the protagonist is
mental. It may help to explore
Charlie’s sudden psychosis, whether it developed out of a series of traumas
between elementary school and the present or if he watched too much TV and
couldn’t distinguish reality from television.
Besides a few confusing instances, the story is well written. I thought it was interesting that it was
inspired by your own experience being stuck behind a train next to a shooter’s
lounge.
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