"Tim" (rev 2) by Cole Parker

[Rutabaga]

Seems appropriate to start a new thread (rather than perpetuating an old thread) for the revised "Tim" that started posting today.  If nothing else, the revised posting has modern CSS formatting rather than the hideous Microsoft mangling of the past, making it easier to read.  

When I read the "Coming Soon" post saying that this story was to be re-serialized, I was pretty sure I remembered it immediately.  I had to confirm by email that I was correct in my recollection (since the old version has been removed from AD).  I have always liked the story, including (in the original version) the somewhat-unconventional extended flashback section in the middle.  

Cole's preface suggests that he was unhappy with his execution of the original story.  If this re-serialization helps him feel better about the product, then I'm glad it's happening.  But honestly, other than the clunky formatting, I thought the original was pretty darned good.  And I particularly liked the resolution where, much like Randy in the shorter "Exothermic Reaction" by Gee Whillickers, Tim finally sheds some core emotional baggage that has been wrecking his life.  I remain confident that, in contrast to George Lucas's ham-fisted effort at "improving" the original Star Wars movie, Cole will preserve everything that made this story great.

R

[Altimexis]

Here's the link to Tim, one of Cole's all-time greatest stories. In fact, I'd say that second to his excellent story When He was Five, Tim really is Cole's next best story, ever. It's a long one, though, but well worth the read. There isn't much I'd want to see changed at all except for the transition between the first and second parts, which was a bit jarring. It wasn't clear at first that part two was a flashback, and a long one at that, but then I read the original on Nifty and there wasn't really a good way to separate the different parts. I expect that the transition will be quite a bit clearer now, and I really look forward to reading this great story again.

[Rutabaga]

Just a quick bump to encourage people to take a look at this story reboot.

As for which of Cole's stories is best, my vote continues to be for "On the High Plains of Wyoming."  In the longer forms, I like "Ren" and "First Year" an awful lot.  Honestly, though, I like just about all of them.

R

[Oliver]

The funny thing is, I've read it then, but can't completely remember how it ended.
I rember it was a great story (it's one of Cole's, duh....  😉 ), but it is very nice to walk the experience again. Without completely knowing what will happen.

Like it.

Again. 😀

[Cole Parker]

 Thanks so much for the kind words, guys. I'm blushing.

  At my age, I'm not sure that's safe.

C

 

[Rutabaga]

Never a dull moment.  There's already been a knife fight, police, and not one but two ambulances.  

R

[Rutabaga]

When we stopped, he asked me, “Where did you move here from?” I told him Ohio, and he said he’d never been there, he’d lived here in the South all his life and they didn’t travel much.

 

As far as I can tell, "here in the South" is as close as we ever get to learning exactly where Tim and his father moved to when they left Ohio.  A plausible place to relocate from there would be somewhere in Tennessee, which would arguably qualify as "the South," but that's just my speculation.  Somehow the story does not seem to be set in somewhere like Arkansas or Mississippi or  Georgia.  If there is anything more specific I missed it.

R

[Rutabaga]

It might seem strange that just a comment like that could upset me so much, but upset me it did, and in reality, I now felt a panic attack rushing toward me.

Oh lordy, Tim is having another meltdown.

R

[Oliver]

"So I did."

End of part 1.

I am going to complain about something I get accused for a lot with my own stories: 
Stop with those nasty cliffhangers!

🙂

Well done Cole. I like it, a lot. 

[Merkin]

I so admire how Cole has built toward this moment, chapter by chapter, one painful revelation after another, like digging away at a scabbed-over wound.

[Rutabaga]

[Cole Parker]

Thanks, guys.  It's been fun getting to this point.

And I love cliffhangers!

C

[Rutabaga]

Shawn’s timing is impeccable . . . 
 

R

[Altimexis]

Okay, I remembered Missy’s plot to get even from the first time I read Tim, but that was nearly two decades ago, when digital cameras were new and not many people had them. At the time, having to wait for film to be developed and printed still made sense, but not anymore. Indeed, every kid has a smartphone with a decent digital camera.

We know from chapter 6 that Terry had a cellphone, and the event with Missy was only a year before that, so even if this was a period story from before smartphones, it was still likely that Missy had a cellphone with a digital camera built in. Perhaps when Tim was first posted, it still made sense to use a film camera, so she could have prints to pass around, but not if the story is supposed to be taking place within the last decade or so. Not to be critical, but I was curious to see how Cole might have updated the story, but he didn’t.

So my point is, how might this scenario have unfolded now, when every teenager has a smartphone and can upload a video to social media on the fly. I just can’t conceive of Missy not uploading video of what Tim and Jed were doing, and quietly without the need for a flash at all. Tim and Jed might not even have been aware she was there until she was on top of them, if even then. Things would have certainly unfolded differently today.

On the other hand, I think kids today are much more aware of and accepting of casual sex and what is sometimes referred to as heteroflexibility, even perhaps in small town Ohio. Not that it wouldn’t still lead to turmoil! I’m just curious how things might have happened if Tim were updated to reflect the technology of today.

[Rutabaga]

I got my first cell phone in 1984 -- the brick-like Motorola DynaTac that looked like a military walkie-talkie.  It cost about $1,000, and air time cost roughly $1.00 per minute.  Then the Motorola Micro-Tac came out, which was much smaller and had a flip front.  Cell phones continued to get better and smaller after that.

(Aside:  Last night I was watching the film "The Matrix" -- the original one from 1999 -- and took note of the compact cell phone that Neo had delivered to him in his cubicle early in the movie.  This is the one that he dropped while out on the window ledge.  It had a sliding panel that revealed the keyboard.  And no camera. )

Cell phones with built-in cameras did not really start to appear in Japan until 1999 or 2000, and it took a couple more years for them to arrive in the US.  See this article for more information.  Video (as opposed to still pictures) took even longer to arrive.  So presumably the time of Cole's story falls into the lacuna between cell phones becoming more common and built-in cell cameras becoming more common. 

I can understand why Cole did not re-fashion this episode as part of the revision, because the concept he uses only works if there is a time delay between taking the pictures and having them available . . . as is the case with film that needs processing.  Moreover, the only copies of the pictures and their negatives are all in the package that Missy has in hand, so that destroying that package ends the existence of the pictures.  By contrast, once a picture is captured in digital form, it can instantly be duplicated and shared to an unlimited extent.  There is no comparable mechanism that would allow Cole's story scenario to work -- it would have to be completely reinvented. 

So it seems like we have to experience the story from the perspective of its time period, which probably would have fallen in the 1990s or early 2000s.

R  

 

[Rutabaga]

The revelations to Tim about Shawn's activities are just as shocking now as when I first read the story.  

R

[Rutabaga]

My mother didn’t seem entirely sane to me.

Now there's an understatement for the ages.

R 

FOOTNOTE:  Did anyone notice that this chapter ended with the prototype, or paradigm, of Tim running away when something bad is happening?  

[Rutabaga]

Just want to say that I am enjoying reading the spruced-up version of this story for reasons that are probably similar to why I enjoy re-watching the Harry Potter movies.  

And I note that we still have no idea where Tim and his dad moved to from Ohio, other that it is in "the South."  

R

[Rutabaga]

Chapter 26 (just posted) is a breakthrough chapter for Tim, and while I don't have the previous version in front of me for comparison it seemed like this chapter has received pretty thorough tweaking and polishing.  John's analysis and framing of Tim's situation seems more cogent and forceful than before.  And of course readers were whooping and cheering at the end. 

In other words, this story well-deserved its "recycling."

R

[Rutabaga]

These were the best several hours of my entire life.

Sure sounded that way.

R

[Rutabaga]

And this reboot has reached its marvelous conclusion. 

Anyone who was waiting for the last chapter to post is now free to begin reading. You won’t be sorry. 
 

R
 

[Oliver]

I didn't wait and read it every week.

I wasn't sorry, and loved it, again. 🙂 

[Cole Parker]

Thanks, Oliver.

I have another coming.  Not too long, I hope.

[Oliver]

We'll wait, we'll wait.

Not too long, I hope. 🙂