#Lay Me Gently In The Cold Dark Earth

[blakbonnet]

the fact that Stede just completely as himself no pretensions changed so many lives - Jim talking about him to Archie, Fang giggling to storytime, Izzy getting taken in by the crew and being made to feel wanted - and Ed apologising for the things he did, feeling warmth and love, and yet Stede doesn't know about any of it, about the fact that he doesn't need to become a CJ to be taken seriously 🫠 doesn't even see Ed shaking his head when Ned is goading him, doesn't hear about how Jim made Fang feel better. The one thing he did hear was Archie mentioning she imagined him bigger and badder and I'm just so heartbroken for him.

[lostflamingo]

Our lord and savior Andrew Hozier Byrne

-A

[reachingfortheday]

i just think seeing hozier sing work song live would fix me

[glass-cannon05]

I blame Hozier for my standards for men being so high

[spacewreck51]

I'm at a party for my twin cousins baptism but in the church all I could think of was Hozier and how foggy it was (is) outside

[dark-giver]

Petition"Work song" by Hozier to be the official theme for Baeseult!!!!

[urgentkettle]

The children yearn for the caves

caving as an extreme sport is sooo unfathomable to me why are u as a creature of the daylight doing that. were u born without the dread in ur bones or something

[artie5o5]

Lay Me Gently In The Cold Dark Earth | Short Story Update #1

Logline: A 24 year old guy is brough face to face with his childhood trauma of neglect abuse and violence that he would rather not confront when he goes to live in a small religious village town with his beloved.

Story's Vibes: Work Song by Hozier. My Own Private Idaho. Take Me to Church. I wanted it to have soft, rural vibes, domestic bliss.

POV: 1st person retrorespective.

Word Count: Around 5000

Inspiration: Work Song by HozerTM // Hold Me Under Till I See The Light by Shaelin Bishop.

Characters:

Protagonist

24

Soft boy vibes. River Pheonix Timothee Chalamet vibes

Loves his beloved. That is his entire personality, he eats, breahtes, lives his love. He lives for his love. He loves, loves, loves.

Racked with religious guilt, doesn't know what to do with his feelings.

Reckoning with the sins of his past as he "lives his sin" with his girlfrend in a deeply religious village

There is an interesting conflict in his internal beliegs that I don't really know how to explore.

His Beloved

23

Autamn day, fallen leaves, milky white hands colored with mud, soft sunlight bouncing off of brown frizzy hair

She's the gossip of the town, the shame on the family name. Yet so enchantingly charming no one can smite her to her face

Whispers follow her where she goes. Yet she chooses to go everywhere regardless of the whispers.

"A hush fell into the room when she entered, then whispers followed."

She loves, loves, loves, she loves everyone and everything.

What's it about?

CW: SA, Prostitution, Drug abuse, implied child abuse, implied self harm.

Our Unnamed protagonist goes on a three day binge by mixing a shit ton of alcohol with a shit ton of drugs and sedatives and starts dreamwalking. Dreamwalking? He basically keeps walking until he is out of the big city and ends up in a small town he's never been in before. He falls apart infront of a typists apartment, ready to embrace death...

... only to be woken up in a small succint apartment couch, he sees the soft sunlight coming through the curtain, he sees an empty crib in another room, he falls in an out of conciousness, and he's saved by the heavenly touch of someone he deems godsend.

They move in together in her small farming village after her father's death. Her father leaves her behind an apple orchard. He works as a farm boy in a neighbours land. They have quite the beautiful life. He works all day, comes home to her baking cookies in the kitchen. Falls asleep to the earthly scent of her hair.

Except for the fact that the deeply religious community deems their quaint life as "living in sin". The targetted preachings in sunday masses, the whispers, the name callings stirrs deep seeted memories in him, that he has spent a lifetime trying to drown in booze and pills. His own complicated belifes in divinity is in direct contrast with the life he has led, and is leading. He seeks for answers, he seeks for salvation, he seeks to be free

I started writing this story in either 2020, or 2022. It's been so long that I've forgotten. The first half of the story follows Hozier's Work Song beat by beat. The more I wrote, the more I edited what I wrote the story took on it's own form. It starts with our protagonist ploughig the field with his.. cowerkers? One of the boys Simon asks him about his beliefs in death and afterlife given the fact that they've heard everyone from towns and cities are athiests and heathens.

“But what do you believe?”  Simon asked. “You want to hear some blasphemy.” Old Joe barked at Simon. “That's what you want.” He turned to the boys. “We go in our graves, six feet under - and then we rot and feed the worms.” There was a collective unease. Simon ignored Old Joe completely. He asked me again, “Do you also believe that? Or do you believe there is no Heaven and Hell?” I thought of my beloved, working in her garden. The earth and the dirt smeared in her pale white hands, at the hems of her skirts. “What Joe said. We go back to the earth, I suppose.” I shrugged. “But no grave will hold my body down.”  I’ll crawl home to my beloved.

Copied straight out of the Work Song, I know. Bear with me for a second there. i was going through a terrible writing slump at the time, and the beats of the songs helped me find a general structure for the story. A lot of things did change the more I drafted. It's been so long and so many drafts that I've forgotten most of the drafting process.

In the Fall of 2020 Shaelin Bishop's "Hold Me Under Till I See the light" was published, so I think that probably tells us I at least started writing this in 2020. The line level work was heavily influenced by Hold me Under. Every time I felt stuck, I went back and re-read Shaelin's short story to get **inspiration**

In the final draft, not much of the story follows the beats in "Work Song". The structure a bit of a back and forth between the present day events in the village and the backstory of our protagonist. I've tried to keep the pacing as smooth as possible. There was a lot of pacing problems in the earlier drafts that I've since tried to polish out.

I've submitted to and got rejected by multiple magazines. I recently got a feedback on my story that was mostly positive apart from a few clarity issues, so I don't know what to do with it. I'm going to actively go threw it again. I'm also actively looking for anyone to provide critque or suggest possible literary magazines that publishes similar work. This story is really personal to me for some reason, I don't really know why. I'm neither catholic nor have been subject to any of the tortures our protagonist was subjected to, yet I somehow feel a certain kinship with him that I can't really explain.

Here are some excerpts from the finished draft

This is my original work, please treat it gently. Do not plagiarise

I had walked off for miles. Miles and miles and miles of highway and busy streets before I started wandering around in a place I had never stepped foot in before. It was well into the night, in an unknown town, in front of a stranger's door - when I passed out.

The line level work is probably where Shaelin Bishop's influence comes in the most. I've tried really hard to replicate her writing style as much as possible. I know I haven't succeeded. XD But trying to replicate her style has certainly improved the quality of my work compared to what it *used* to be.

image description: the outline of an ornate window reflected on a wall by the soft sunlight. Over it is the text "I woke up with her walls around me. The curtains were drawn – sunlight poured through the white fabric in a soft golden haze. I was lying face up on a sofa, cushion under my head, a blanket over me. My neck hurt as I tried to turn. I rested my head back on the cushion. The muscles ached all over my body. The headache was blinding. From the living room sofa, I saw a bedroom door slightly ajar, through the gap I saw an empty room with a high ceiling, nothing inside but an empty crib."

I tried to be very specific about the details, because our lord and saviour Shaelin keeps talking about **specificity**.

Here comes one of my favourite lines -------

I swear I thought I dreamed her. I could see in microscopic detail - Sunlight bounced off the frizz of her brown hair. She was sitting beside me on the sofa. She dipped a piece of cloth in a bowl on the glass table next to us and squeezed the water out. The wet cloth wiped out my sins as she rubbed it across my face, baptizing me for the first time in my life; when her fingers touched my skin, I knew I was reborn.

image description: a window from a dark room over looking a small a part of the sky and a streetlamp, the sun in the middle bright and glaring. Over it the text reads "“This is my home.” She said, “I grew up here.” There was the kind of ache in her voice that only comes with the yearning for a childhood you can no longer go back to. The house was engulfed in memories. She stood in the same spaces she had occupied in happier times, yet happiness felt like a feeling she could no longer replicate. Everything she touched had a story, and she recounted it all to me with a fondness tinted with guilt."

I tried to be as specific with my imegery as possible. There are some strong points, there are a lot of weak parts. I'm obviously only sharing parts that I thought was strong XD

The biggest part of the story is the relationship between the protagonist and his beloved, and I've tried to make it as heavenly and etheral as possible.

��Wait..” She walked up to me and opened the fridge, “I saved some for you.” She pulled out a plate with slices of pudding. “Desert before dinner.” She said.

“My hands are dirty.” I held them up.

She picked up a slice and fed me with her hands, clean and unbloodied.

The part that needs the most work is when his mysterious "sinful" part is fully revealed. The critique I got here is that a massive tone shift happens here. That this part of the story is more matter-of-fact than the rest of the story and as a whole takes the reader out of it a bit.

The backstory is very important and laying it out in a way that doesn't read like a "recitaion" is the main goal for my next round of edits. I haven't really had the time to delve into it just yet.

I will probably go read "Hold Me Under Till I see the light" again XD. For inspo. And rewrite the whole part scratch. I'll send the story out for another round of critiques.

If you're interested to swap short stories feel free to dm me.

[gods-favorite-autistic]

Figayda and/or Cankarna edit to Work Song by Hozier PLEASE PLEASE-

[buggiebite]

the chorus of Hozier’s Work Song is just so Everlark

[favourite-imposter]

all i can think about after seeing this is work song 😭 THE COLD DARK EARTH

posters included with the limited edition unreal unearth vinyl

[bamfwizard]

HOZIER IS COMING TO MY CITY SOMEONE SEDATE ME

[dance-magic-dance]

i like reading major character death fics even though they hurt but sometimes they hurt a little too much

[ircnwrought]

how are you color coded ?

RED CODED

red, a study in being in love with the thrill, the ticking of a broken clock, and hearing your heartbeat in your ears. you've become addicted to the thrill of danger and living life recklessly. you've managed to make people believe that you're untouchable, that you live life so dangerously and yet so precisely that the world revolves around you and only you. but it doesn't. it moves without you, it will continue to move when you stop, and it will always move on when you never move again. the world is uncaring. and you have to match that energy. you can't stop moving, or you'll end up dead.

tagged by : @leighiche / @frser (i am high key honored to be tagged by both halves of the outlander saga here) tagging : @nightstriumph, @heygutlcss, @homebehind, @denydefeat, and you

[tonguetyd]

Submerge myself together with you

And if I let this place become my tomb?!? What then? What are you gonna do about it??

[romaritimeharbor]

work song by hoizer is actually the most religious experience i, an atheist, will ever have i think