Originally Posted by: acapellaI assume this story isn't finished yet? Or are you going to write another story after this one? Because I've got to say, after all this build up, to leave the conclusion up to the reader would be pretty dissapointing.
One question: is this a typical ride home for Thomas? At first I had been playing with the idea that this was standard fare for him, but towards the end I pretty much gave up the idea. The thing that turned me from it the most was the vomiting. Obviously a person can't vomit until they bleed on a daily basis, and if they did I'm sure that people would start to talk about it. So I assume that is pretty much the worst state that Thomas has ever been in.
I wonder about the second to last paragraph. The story seems to be told in...I don't the technical term for it, but a sort of third person projected stream of conciousness. The sort of style that Stephen King uses a lot, where the story is told by a third party but told in the way that the subject was thinking at the time? For example "Humhowling still, the swarm carried him—Thomas—towards the gaping, deepinhaling mouth of the train. Swallowed. To be swallowed alive! Oh, Jesus. And then if it digests me? And then. No! People. Just people." Anyway, at first that second to last paragraph at first seemed like it was told from a totally detached perspective, almost as if it were being told by an entirely different narrator. But further in the paragraph, the writing returns to the the perspective of someone inside of Thomas' head. What this implied to me is that Thomas himself is unsure of whether he ever actually came into contact with the beggar, and concludes that it does not matter anyway. However this doesn't make sense when I think of the narrator saying that the dialogue is unimporant because the result is the same regardless of what may have been said. This makes it seem more like it's still just a narrator who, for what I believe is the first time, is showing that he/she/it has thoughts and opinions of his/her/it's own. Perhaps you can give me some insight into this, is it one of those two possibilities or something entirely different?
All in all I'm really liking the story. You're doing a lot of good work at giving us insight into the character and his thoughts. I'm very interested to see where this story goes, and as it is I don't think I would change anything.

The story is still unfinished, yes. I'd say it's about halfway done plus editing.

This IS a typical ride home for Thomas. Until he sees the beggar. Going from seeing one sickening extreme to its opposite forced him to regurgitate
anything he was digesting. It's a parallel to a flawed approach to the writing process, but I'll flesh it out later.

The story is stream of consciousness, but there are two minds at work here, and I may throw in one more. The narrator telling the story is the one who says "Perhaps" about Thomas and the beggar. I usually have the narrative in the third person for things that absolutely require more traditionally formatted descriptions, like entering a subway car and sitting down.

Thomas knows whether or not he actually spoke with the beggar, but we don't, nor will we. The important thing is that he saw the beggar.