ToW #6 - Short Story by David Malone: "George II"

        "George II" is a second-person command narrative (much like "What Really Happened") in which the reader takes the perspective of George, a professor who has recently come back from the dead after six months of afterlife. The entire story manifests itself in a conversation between George and his already moved-on widow, Anita. It's writer, David Malone, is a postgraduate who works as a researcher for BBC World Service. His works have been published by five relatively small-time but high quality literary magazines.
        Carve Magazine published Malone's "George II" as one of the five short stories in their Summer 2013 issue. The core demographic of Carve, which has the slogan "Honest Fiction", must by nature be people interested in reading provoking literature. They don't even have to have formal training in literature; "George II" can be read at face value or analyzed deeply to be enjoyed. That said, as perception of honesty often comes with age and experience, Carve is probably best suited for an all-around mature audience. And Malone's subject is most certainly mature: in an interview with Carve, Malone gives some indication of the muse for his work, speaking about the "rational fear ... that there may be nothing beyond this life". He then poses the question "what if you suddenly knew the answer to the ultimate what’s next and didn’t like it?" The inclusion of these lines leads me to believe that his motive in writing was to explore this question with philosophical intent.
        Obviously, it is easy to get lost when following a philosophical path. Realizing this, Malone employed a few strategies in order to help his reader through the journey. From start to finish, he begins most sentences with command words, writing sentences along the lines of "Eat the spaghetti. Look at your glistening fork." These commands immediately immerse the reader into the narrative, forcing them into the perspective of George and thus helping them take ownership of the story. Also throughout the story, Malone helps his readers understand the story's implications by referencing familiarities from Christianity. Examples include Anita's Christ-on-a-cross necklace and her new boyfriend, "Peter the rock" (Peter the Apostle was named for the Greek petros, meaning "rock").
        All in all, Malone had a pretty simple purpose: to write a short story about knowing what the afterlife is. I have to say that he did fulfill that purpose; heck, George even divulges what the afterlife is like at one point. But of course, most authors have a higher purpose than their primary one. They want to make their writing good. Simply from the sheer sophistication of the previously mentioned strategies, I hope that it's clear that Malone's "George II" is better than good.

Read "George II" here.

George rises in much the same way, 

though Anita isn't sat there crying any more.