FreeWrights Peer Review™

[align=center]SHARD ONE[/align]


Won't someone tell me, please, the narrative
of their ordeals, and such beatific stuff
as how they’d lived and died; transformed; and came
around like living, dancing boomerangs
to find again their serried ranks and roles?
O tell me, brain, my antic attic Muse --
assist me as we share their story. Did
an unchecked vengeance make them suffer? Their
beseeching voices claim as much, and cry
for my attention. Me? I yearn for a song
that no one's sung before, and wish that it
would teach me; make me clever; let me try
to make it new. This pen, mundane, becomes
a votive taper – by its glow I will
a novel tale beverse, wrought without
a hero, filled with yet bereft of foes
and wrongs. Do not neglect, my muse, to speak
of love; although it may have seemed mislaid,
it was a presence – voyage and beyond.
Relate as well, as should a thorough song,
the guts of their travails, so that we may
commiserate, embrace, and taste the same
bitter, honeyed breeze that carries us
as well. Let subtle winds convey these words
like chuted milkweed seeds that seek new soils
in which to germinate, and bloom again.
The story ends as it started, slowed by death
yet never stopped. The Sharks always return,
as they had when cataracts of hunger poured
from their primal eyes, when first they
saw their fortunes change. In crystalline
arrangement came White and Blue and Bull,
the Tiger, Leopard, Lemon, Nurse and Horn;
eccentric Hammerhead, and cryptic Wobbegong.
So many others had, along the way,
discovered that they lacked the qualities
required to prevail; they were at last
unwilling to consume what wasn’t food,
to hunt and murder their compatriots.
And yet the sharks, prepared to re-adapt,
robust and unencumbered by the thoughts
that had infected others, led the charge
as generals their troops upon the battlefield.
Their ribs flexed and strained beneath skins
attenuated; jaws chewed an empty sea.
The Barracuda, Gar, Piranha, Pike,
and many more converged upon the bits
of shattered craft. Some bodies floated; others showed
evidence of life. The dark shapes that had
been Goats and Hawks, Pythons like ropes uncoiled,
Coatimundis, Wildebeests and shining Skinks,
Rheas, Orangutans, and Hummingbirds
among the splinters, cloth, and a million Beetles
silhouetted against a cloudless sky,
hung like planets bored with orbits. Cold
reached toward them, yet sparks inside retained
their perches; thus they bided, held by death
importunate and life reluctant to leave. Along
their degradation they'd enslaved themselves, and wished
for nothing more than the rest that follows defeat.
After rain and storm, voyage long and harsh,
they forgave the ship for breaking, the man his time
of great cruelty, and even those who’d brought
them low. Tired and soft in surrender, they
declined to defend themselves against the ones
advancing through the sun-filled water, and made
the almost-quiet ocean heave in chaos:
wood and fur, shreds of rope and scales,
scattered feathers and fabric yawed, beasts
bobbed or died, encased in anesthetic
fear, were easy marks for the coming onslaught.
Forgoing pomp, the once-swift marauders
began to rend bodies that refused to strive.
A Barracuda, sleek ravager, broke
many bodies in succession. First he took
a Teal in a curving charge, showing the pure
rapacity of his demeanor. Yet his touch
was love, his prey a partner. From a bow of need
his arrow-body sang in hunger -- upon
the impact teeth pierced the green and mottled
plumage, ripping chunks of flesh and changing water
to blood diluted. For a moment he lost his balance;
The slightest twitch of fins turned him toward
the pair of Gaur nearby, who'd stayed
beside each other through consuming death
sleek Buffalo, huge yet shrunken, from whom
various fish filled their bellies. Upon
a gaunt Raccoon that floundered just below
the surface, a Wahoo's teeth found lethal purchase.
A further jerk of the head sufficed to snap
the drowning body; vital fluids joined
the ocean, pouring from both halves of the cloven beast;
upon the troubled sea the dark blood danced
and then diffused. The Fish moved on, to feast
upon a Cassowary, still imposing
in near death. Though its eyes, claws, and casque
had lost their glints of fine rage, the great Bird,
drenched and almost drowned, still frightened those
that waited ‘til its feeble struggles ceased.
The Tautog lunged and caught the Desman full
across. The former's teeth cut the Mammal's
velvety pelt, and cracked his lonesome ribs,
which nevermore would feel his other's tickling.
The Desman felt no pain, having been killed
as the ship gave way to inertia and the sea.
The Swordfish, gaunt and bulging of eye, shot
across the sea; the Marlin and Cobia as well.
The Walleye darted past the larger fish.
This was not a battle, rather a run upon
the helpless – those who'd lasted through the lean
times hove like darts of silvered flesh, to rip
a chunk of flesh and retire to eat. But more
remained in the thickest parts. A shoal of Tench
and Triggerfish set to work exultantly, making
the water red. The Lampreys, fish like worms,
leopard-spotted, forever staring, fastened
to the drowning, as if these had grown new fins.
Yet even the sharp pain of fastened teeth
upon their bodies failed to stir the beasts,
who pondered what they’d lost already, and
the actions that had brought them to this death:
taken from their worlds, consigned to that
horrendous wooden pot. They continued raging,
or felt resigned, or desired rest. The needy Fish
sought to feed, to flee threatening death
by making a brutal ethnic cleansing there.
But then, in the midst of carnage, came the strange
allowance that galvanized the shipwrecked, near-
to-dying swimmers, who twitched, born again.
The changes took them randomly; though many changed
in familiar ways, others turned to beings new
and unexpected. But there was more than this.
Whatever altered their bodies also filled
their engines with strength; the dead and wasted hulks
from a doomed ship felt soothing fire inside,
and gasped for air in water, for life and vengeance.
They watched themselves survive, and the doom
around them appeared less certain. The former beasts
prepared for battle, the motley schools
of fighters matched, anger-to-hunger, each
engaged, and each become a weapon. Within
the thick medium of a balanced war scales
flashed in clouds of blood. Something struck
the Wahoo across broad scales that guarded gills.
It torqued to appease the blow, as water filled
the parts it shouldn't; the corpse drifted
momentarily. The former beasts, now fish
and able to fight, sensed a future; saw
and recognized each other; their eyes signalled
alliances forged -- the legacy of their ordeal.
Gorilla, now a Tuna, thirsted for fight
although his far more fragile shipmates filled
the water. He rammed his targets, charging as he'd done
in the jungle. Glad for the thick skull
and dense meat encasing his heart, he roared
with delight as he tore his foes apart. Opening wide
to express his delight, he engulfed Phlog, the Trout,
whose journeys through the world concluded.
The last fish, routed, soon fell before
the new beings; dazzled by their scales and that
which grasped air from the sea, they enjoyed the peace
and the strange bliss of fins. Yet though they taken
a vengeance, they remained haunted by what they'd endured.
Their minds replayed scenes of who they'd been.

Won't someone tell me, please, the narrative
of their ordeals, and such beatific stuff
as how they’d lived and died; transformed; and came
around like living, dancing boomerangs
to find again their serried ranks and roles?
O tell me, brain, my antic attic Muse --
assist me as we share their story. Did
an unchecked vengeance make them suffer? Their
beseeching voices claim as much, and cry
for my attention.

Me? I yearn for a song
that no one's sung before, and wish that it
would teach me; make me clever; let me try
to make it new. This pen, mundane, becomes
a votive taper – by its glow I will
a novel tale beverse, wrought without
a hero, filled with yet bereft of foes
and wrongs. Do not neglect, my muse, to speak
of love; although it may have seemed mislaid,
it was a presence – voyage and beyond.
Relate as well, as should a thorough song,
the guts of their travails, so that we may
commiserate, embrace, and taste the same
bitter, honeyed breeze that carries us
as well. Let subtle winds convey these words
like chuted milkweed seeds that seek new soils
in which to germinate, and bloom again.
The story ends as it started, slowed by death
yet never stopped.

The Sharks always return,
as they had when cataracts of hunger poured
from their primal eyes, when first they
saw their fortunes change. In crystalline
arrangement came White and Blue and Bull,
the Tiger, Leopard, Lemon, Nurse and Horn;
eccentric Hammerhead, and cryptic Wobbegong.
So many others had, along the way,
discovered that they lacked the qualities
required to prevail; they were at last
unwilling to consume what wasn’t food,
to hunt and murder their compatriots.
And yet the sharks, prepared to re-adapt,
robust and unencumbered by the thoughts
that had infected others, led the charge
as generals their troops upon the battlefield.
Their ribs flexed and strained beneath skins
attenuated; jaws chewed an empty sea.
The Barracuda, Gar, Piranha, Pike,
and many more converged upon the bits
of shattered craft. Some bodies floated; others showed
evidence of life. The dark shapes that had
been Goats and Hawks, Pythons like ropes uncoiled,
Coatimundis, Wildebeests and shining Skinks,
Rheas, Orangutans, and Hummingbirds
among the splinters, cloth, and a million Beetles
silhouetted against a cloudless sky,
hung like planets bored with orbits. Cold
reached toward them, yet sparks inside retained
their perches; thus they bided, held by death
importunate and life reluctant to leave. Along
their degradation they'd enslaved themselves, and wished
for nothing more than the rest that follows defeat.

After rain and storm, voyage long and harsh,
they forgave the ship for breaking, the man his time
of great cruelty, and even those who’d brought
them low. Tired and soft in surrender, they
declined to defend themselves against the ones
advancing through the sun-filled water, and made
the almost-quiet ocean heave in chaos:
wood and fur, shreds of rope and scales,
scattered feathers and fabric yawed, beasts
bobbed or died, encased in anesthetic
fear, were easy marks for the coming onslaught.
Forgoing pomp, the once-swift marauders
began to rend bodies that refused to strive.
A Barracuda, sleek ravager, broke
many bodies in succession. First he took
a Teal in a curving charge, showing the pure
rapacity of his demeanor. Yet his touch
was love, his prey a partner. From a bow of need
his arrow-body sang in hunger -- upon
the impact teeth pierced the green and mottled
plumage, ripping chunks of flesh and changing water
to blood diluted. For a moment he lost his balance;
The slightest twitch of fins turned him toward
the pair of Gaur nearby, who'd stayed
beside each other through consuming death
sleek Buffalo, huge yet shrunken, from whom
various fish filled their bellies. Upon
a gaunt Raccoon that floundered just below
the surface, a Wahoo's teeth found lethal purchase.
A further jerk of the head sufficed to snap
the drowning body; vital fluids joined
the ocean, pouring from both halves of the cloven beast;
upon the troubled sea the dark blood danced
and then diffused. The Fish moved on, to feast
upon a Cassowary, still imposing
in near death. Though its eyes, claws, and casque
had lost their glints of fine rage, the great Bird,
drenched and almost drowned, still frightened those
that waited ‘til its feeble struggles ceased.
The Tautog lunged and caught the Desman full
across. The former's teeth cut the Mammal's
velvety pelt, and cracked his lonesome ribs,
which nevermore would feel his other's tickling.
The Desman felt no pain, having been killed
as the ship gave way to inertia and the sea.
The Swordfish, gaunt and bulging of eye, shot
across the sea; the Marlin and Cobia as well.
The Walleye darted past the larger fish.
This was not a battle, rather a run upon
the helpless – those who'd lasted through the lean
times hove like darts of silvered flesh, to rip
a chunk of flesh and retire to eat. But more
remained in the thickest parts. A shoal of Tench
and Triggerfish set to work exultantly, making
the water red. The Lampreys, fish like worms,
leopard-spotted, forever staring, fastened
to the drowning, as if these had grown new fins.
Yet even the sharp pain of fastened teeth
upon their bodies failed to stir the beasts,
who pondered what they’d lost already, and
the actions that had brought them to this death:
taken from their worlds, consigned to that
horrendous wooden pot. They continued raging,
or felt resigned, or desired rest. The needy Fish
sought to feed, to flee threatening death
by making a brutal ethnic cleansing there.
But then, in the midst of carnage, came the strange
allowance that galvanized the shipwrecked, near-
to-dying swimmers, who twitched, born again.


The changes took them randomly; though many changed
in familiar ways, others turned to beings new
and unexpected. But there was more than this.
Whatever altered their bodies also filled
their engines with strength; the dead and wasted hulks
from a doomed ship felt soothing fire inside,
and gasped for air in water, for life and vengeance.
They watched themselves survive, and the doom
around them appeared less certain. The former beasts
prepared for battle, the motley schools
of fighters matched, anger-to-hunger, each
engaged, and each become a weapon. Within
the thick medium of a balanced war scales
flashed in clouds of blood. Something struck
the Wahoo across broad scales that guarded gills.
It torqued to appease the blow, as water filled
the parts it shouldn't; the corpse drifted
momentarily. The former beasts, now fish
and able to fight, sensed a future; saw
and recognized each other; their eyes signalled
alliances forged -- the legacy of their ordeal.
Gorilla, now a Tuna, thirsted for fight
although his far more fragile shipmates filled
the water. He rammed his targets, charging as he'd done
in the jungle. Glad for the thick skull
and dense meat encasing his heart, he roared
with delight as he tore his foes apart. Opening wide
to express his delight, he engulfed Phlog, the Trout,
whose journeys through the world concluded.
The last fish, routed, soon fell before
the new beings; dazzled by their scales and that
which grasped air from the sea, they enjoyed the peace
and the strange bliss of fins. Yet though they taken
a vengeance, they remained haunted by what they'd endured.
Their minds replayed scenes of who they'd been.


Most of the allusions escape me.
A mythology of evolution?
I really think you need some paragraphs.
S2 in italics is excellent, a poem in itself.
The remainder is enjoyable if somewhat overwhelming.

regards
k

Thanks for your feedback, K. I'm going to have to consider paragraphing. Maybe even some further edits.

Welcome D, and thanks for the post. More an essay or short story IMO, but a goodly piece of work. Personally, I think you have a series of poems here, rather than an epic effort, i.e.

Won't someone tell me, please, the narrative
of their ordeals, and such beatific stuff
as how they’d lived and died; transformed; and came
around like living, dancing boomerangs
to find again their serried ranks and roles?
O tell me, brain, my antic attic Muse --
assist me as we share their story. Did
an unchecked vengeance make them suffer? Their
beseeching voices claim as much, and cry
for my attention. Me? I yearn for a song
that no one's sung before, and wish that it
would teach me; make me clever; let me try
to make it new. This pen, mundane, becomes
a votive taper

could be worked into a stand alone piece. I feel it needs some trimming and tweaking, but the base is there. I think you could drop the fanciness like beatific and beseeching and "O", just make it normal, more plainspeak. You are onto something good in several pieces. I find it throughout the work. Chop it down, clean it up a bit and you have something very good.

Thanks Bluejay. I think maybe this is just the kind of thing I need to hear.

I couldn't get through this. It's too much of a stream of consciousness, a thought process. Needs to be going somewhere, other than bordering on the metaphysical.
It just is too much of everything.

Dagra wrote:[align=center]SHARD ONE[/align]


Won't someone tell me, please, the narrative
of their ordeals, and such beatific stuff
as how they’d lived and died; transformed; and came
around like living, dancing boomerangs
to find again their serried ranks and roles?
O tell me, brain, my antic attic Muse -- --> this works well all on its own
assist me as we share their story. Did
an unchecked vengeance make them suffer? Their
beseeching voices claim as much, and cry
for my attention. Me? I yearn for a song
that no one's sung before, and wish that it
would teach me; make me clever; let me try
to make it new. This pen, mundane, becomes --> this feels write
a votive taper – by its glow I will
a novel tale beverse, wrought without
a hero, filled with yet bereft of foes
and wrongs. Do not neglect, my muse, to speak
of love; although it may have seemed mislaid,
it was a presence – voyage and beyond.
Relate as well, as should a thorough song,
the guts of their travails, so that we may
commiserate, embrace, and taste the same
bitter, honeyed breeze that carries us
as well. Let subtle winds convey these words
like chuted milkweed seeds that seek new soils
in which to germinate, and bloom again.
The story ends as it started, slowed by death
yet never stopped. The Sharks always return, --> where'd they come from? waddya call that? mixed meataphors
as they had when cataracts of hunger poured
from their primal eyes, when first they
saw their fortunes change. In crystalline
arrangement came White and Blue and Bull,
the Tiger, Leopard, Lemon, Nurse and Horn;
eccentric Hammerhead, and cryptic Wobbegong.
So many others had, along the way,
discovered that they lacked the qualities
required to prevail; they were at last
unwilling to consume what wasn’t food,
to hunt and murder their compatriots.
And yet the sharks, prepared to re-adapt,
robust and unencumbered by the thoughts
that had infected others, led the charge
as generals their troops upon the battlefield. --> ahh I'm playing the Total War strategy games
Their ribs flexed and strained beneath skins
attenuated; jaws chewed an empty sea.
The Barracuda, Gar, Piranha, Pike,
and many more converged upon the bits
of shattered craft. Some bodies floated; others showed
evidence of life. The dark shapes that had
been Goats and Hawks, Pythons like ropes uncoiled,
Coatimundis, Wildebeests and shining Skinks,
Rheas, Orangutans, and Hummingbirds
among the splinters, cloth, and a million Beetles
silhouetted against a cloudless sky,
hung like planets bored with orbits. Cold --> nice similie
reached toward them, yet sparks inside retained
their perches; thus they bided, held by death
importunate and life reluctant to leave. Along
their degradation they'd enslaved themselves, and wished
for nothing more than the rest that follows defeat.
After rain and storm, voyage long and harsh,
they forgave the ship for breaking, the man his time
of great cruelty, and even those who’d brought
them low. Tired and soft in surrender, they
declined to defend themselves against the ones
advancing through the sun-filled water, and made
the almost-quiet ocean heave in chaos:
wood and fur, shreds of rope and scales,
scattered feathers and fabric yawed, beasts
bobbed or died, encased in anesthetic
fear, were easy marks for the coming onslaught.
Forgoing pomp, the once-swift marauders
began to rend bodies that refused to strive.
A Barracuda, sleek ravager, broke
many bodies in succession. First he took
a Teal in a curving charge, showing the pure
rapacity of his demeanor. Yet his touch
was love, his prey a partner. From a bow of need
his arrow-body sang in hunger -- upon
the impact teeth pierced the green and mottled
plumage, ripping chunks of flesh and changing water
to blood diluted. For a moment he lost his balance;
The slightest twitch of fins turned him toward
the pair of Gaur nearby, who'd stayed
beside each other through consuming death
sleek Buffalo, huge yet shrunken, from whom --> I come from Head smashed in buffaloe jump 'n I did not get the allusion
various fish filled their bellies. Upon
a gaunt Raccoon that floundered just below
the surface, a Wahoo's teeth found lethal purchase.
A further jerk of the head sufficed to snap
the drowning body; vital fluids joined
the ocean, pouring from both halves of the cloven beast;
upon the troubled sea the dark blood danced
and then diffused. The Fish moved on, to feast
upon a Cassowary, still imposing
in near death. Though its eyes, claws, and casque
had lost their glints of fine rage, the great Bird,
drenched and almost drowned, still frightened those
that waited ‘til its feeble struggles ceased.
The Tautog lunged and caught the Desman full
across. The former's teeth cut the Mammal's
velvety pelt, and cracked his lonesome ribs,
which nevermore would feel his other's tickling.
The Desman felt no pain, having been killed
as the ship gave way to inertia and the sea.
The Swordfish, gaunt and bulging of eye, shot
across the sea; the Marlin and Cobia as well.
The Walleye darted past the larger fish.
This was not a battle, rather a run upon
the helpless – those who'd lasted through the lean
times hove like darts of silvered flesh, to rip
a chunk of flesh and retire to eat. But more
remained in the thickest parts. A shoal of Tench
and Triggerfish set to work exultantly, making --> love it
the water red. The Lampreys, fish like worms,
leopard-spotted, forever staring, fastened
to the drowning, as if these had grown new fins.
Yet even the sharp pain of fastened teeth
upon their bodies failed to stir the beasts,
who pondered what they’d lost already, and
the actions that had brought them to this death:
taken from their worlds, consigned to that
horrendous wooden pot. They continued raging,
or felt resigned, or desired rest. The needy Fish
sought to feed, to flee threatening death
by making a brutal ethnic cleansing there.
But then, in the midst of carnage, came the strange
allowance that galvanized the shipwrecked, near-
to-dying swimmers, who twitched, born again.
The changes took them randomly; though many changed
in familiar ways, others turned to beings new
and unexpected. But there was more than this.
Whatever altered their bodies also filled
their engines with strength; the dead and wasted hulks
from a doomed ship felt soothing fire inside,
and gasped for air in water, for life and vengeance.
They watched themselves survive, and the doom
around them appeared less certain. The former beasts
prepared for battle, the motley schools
of fighters matched, anger-to-hunger, each
engaged, and each become a weapon. Within
the thick medium of a balanced war scales
flashed in clouds of blood. Something struck
the Wahoo across broad scales that guarded gills.
It torqued to appease the blow, as water filled
the parts it shouldn't; the corpse drifted
momentarily. The former beasts, now fish
and able to fight, sensed a future; saw
and recognized each other; their eyes signalled
alliances forged -- the legacy of their ordeal.
Gorilla, now a Tuna, thirsted for fight
although his far more fragile shipmates filled
the water. He rammed his targets, charging as he'd done
in the jungle. Glad for the thick skull
and dense meat encasing his heart, he roared
with delight as he tore his foes apart. Opening wide
to express his delight, he engulfed Phlog, the Trout,
whose journeys through the world concluded.
The last fish, routed, soon fell before
the new beings; dazzled by their scales and that
which grasped air from the sea, they enjoyed the peace
and the strange bliss of fins. Yet though they taken
a vengeance, they remained haunted by what they'd endured.
Their minds replayed scenes of who they'd been.

--> a heroic battle of fishes 'n wahoos ?

A writer writes and never stops writing
and rewrites and writes again and again ...
and he never stops writing except to Dream,
perhaps to reach for that Star in that Star crowded Sky
and bring that Star to the end of his Pen
and write like plasma all over again ...

often these set backs are assisting devices designed to shake us from our wretched contentment and move onto the next phase in our evolution as writers -- writing is never about praise its about discovery and wonder -- like watching a simple stream bubbling and meandering, glimmering many Suns is more of a synergy of connectivity while the dead forms and rituals like 'praise' of our werks cannot keep pace with Truth as its revelations are always roiling and writhing Beauties for eyes that see and change for Hearts with wings of why that fly in rhythms rising on thermals of wonder to that farther sky -- that is why the Poet is ever creating, destroying, sleeping and dreaming himHERself anew -- a neverending process with reality as a placeholder 'til sHe can engender a new universe out of the bits and pieces of the old one -- in hisHER image

I like your insights and you've a lyrical pen that babbles like a brook of words that meander down the page while unfettered fish jump from line to line seeking the source of their urgent drive home -- nevertheless when Nature has need of some expression sHe urges in surges throughout mankind for a heart made ready from beating wings dipped in tears and laughter and when sHe finds a ready vessel malleable and made pure for this new expression, sHe urges by the creativity of wonder and realized raptures the longing song Poem -- the Poet is often reflected in that urge as the creator is always part creation and as all things go all things become the Poem and so too is the Poet an urge of Nature express'd in surges -- the authentic Poet writes with tears and laughter in such a way that you, the reader, are become the Poet and are, therefore, become an expressed urge of Nature surged in rhythms of Music only the heart can hear --

the heart forever voyages, longing its compass, always going hOMe

Correspondances

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
— Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,

Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,
Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,
Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.

— Charles Baudelaire

Correspondences

Nature is a temple in which living pillars
Sometimes give voice to confused words;
Man passes there through forests of symbols
Which look at him with understanding eyes.

Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance
In a deep and tenebrous unity,
Vast as the dark of night and as the light of day,
Perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond.

There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children,
Sweet as oboes, green as meadows
— And others are corrupt, and rich, triumphant,

With power to expand into infinity,
Like amber and incense, musk, benzoin,
That sing the ecstasy of the soul and senses.

Thanks JW for your response. I will digest it -- shouldn't give me indigestion, and may well nourish.

I hadn't really mentioned previously:
The title is "Returning Waves" and it seeks to meld evolution, cosmology, and ecology in order to depict redemption through transformation. The work is approaching 10k lines, and prints at well over 400 single-spaced pages. I started it in March 1997.

I include this to give context for those who found the first episode slow or confusing or etc, etc.